Category Archives: Vancouver Votes 2018

Arts Friday | Illicit | Revealing The Lives of Illicit Drug Users

A & E, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblings

Illicit: Stories from Vancouver’s harm reduction movement is a community-engaged arts-based project developed and led by residents of our region brought together by the harm reduction movement, and the ongoing opioid crisis impacting on our region’s most vulnerable citizens.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

Please listen to the audio above of the interview conducted last evening by VanRamblings with Illicit Artistic Director Kelty McKerracher, for full background on the development of the Illicit community-developed performance piece, what it’s all about, who developed and is involved in the project, the rationale behind Illicit, upcoming performances, and more.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

Created in response to the 2016 closing by Vancouver Coastal Health of the Downtown Eastside harm reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre), Illicit explores the lived realities of the opioid overdose crisis, the effects of Canada’s drug policy, the stigma faced by those who use illicit drugs, and the courage of community to act in the face of continuing loss.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

On July 3rd and 4th, the creators of Illicit invite you to witness the next step in the evolution of their work-in-progress — by entering an immersive world of shadow, music and story that celebrates the heart of a movement. The July 3rd and 4th performances of Illicit will take place at the Orpheum Annex, at 823 Seymour Street, in the artistic heart of Vancouver.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

At 1pm on July 3rd, there’ll be a ‘pay what you can’ matinée performance of Illicit, for community members and anyone who wishes to attend, with ticketed performances in the evening, at 7pm, on both July 3rd and 4th.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

Towards the end of the month, or very early in July, VanRamblings will re-publish today’s post. Tickets for the upcoming performances of Illicit will be available here, at some point in the next 24 hours, for the July 3rd and 4th performances of Illicit with information, as well, on how you might contribute to the Illicit project, as well as where and when performances of Illicit will take place in Victoria and Kamloops.

“In both places,” says Ms. McKerracher, “we’re working with wonderful teams of people, to set up not only a theatrical venue but an environment where we can have a productive dialogue. Illicit isn’t just about a performance, it’s about opening a space for a conversation that needs to be happening across the board in our society.

Harm reduction and the opioid crisis is not just a Downtown Eastside issue, this is affecting people across the province and across the country. We’re hoping that by taking it outside of Vancouver we’re going to reach audiences who don’t have access to this kind of conversation, and this kind of cultural shift.”

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)

Illicit, a site-specific installation and performance uses theatre, monologues, shadow puppetry and marionettes to tell personal stories that nurture dignity and hope. The artistic team behind the project: current Artistic Director and producer Kelty McKerracher, director Renae Morriseau, musical director and Juno award-winning artist, Devon Martin, and shadow marionette and puppeteer David Mendes, who collaborate with an active and intimately involved group of co-researcher performers — including Alanna Abrosimoff, Tyler Bigchild, Steve Cardinal, Nicolas Leech-Crier, Shawn Giroux, Jim McLeod, and Tina Shaw — to create Illicit.

Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement, a site-specific installation and performance created in response to the 2016 closing, by Vancouver Coastal Health, of the harm-reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre)Tina Shaw, who works in overdose response in the Downtown Eastside, is involved in the upcoming production about Vancouver’s opioid crisis.

Presented in partnership with PHS Community Services Society, Hives for Humanity, and SFU ‘s Office of Community Engagement. And with support from Canada Council for the Arts, Community Action Initiative, and Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. As Ms. McKerracher related to VanRamblings last evening …

“The show will be educational and anecdotal, about what’s going on in our community and how people feel, the performance of Illicit hopefully ending with a discussion. It’s about truth and understanding and about acknowledging the uncertainty, the loss, and the tragic unfairness of the current opioid crisis.”

For more information on the Illicit project, please visit the Illicit blog.

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Compassion Will Be Wedded to Power

BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018

Judy Chicago 'Merger Poem', a Jewish Ritual That Should Serve as Instruction in Vancouver's 2018 civic election

As the grounds on which the 2018 Vancouver municipal election will be fought come into clearer focus, as the five municipal parties in Vancouver set about to nominate their candidates — with COPE having chosen its candidates this past Sunday, and OneCity Vancouver set to nominate its candidates this upcoming Sunday, the Green Party of Vancouver planning to hold their nominating meeting on June 27th, and Vision Vancouver doing the same thing on July 8th, with the nominally right-of-centre Vancouver Non-Partisan Association set to announce their Council, School Board and Park Board candidates at an as yet undetermined date, but no later than early July for sure — Vancouver’s 2018 civic election is about to get underway in full force, beguiling the public with promises, and change.

Five term Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie announces his retirement | June 13 2018Five-term City Councillor Raymond Louie announces his retirement from political life

VanRamblings was saddened to learn yesterday that five-term Vancouver City Councillor, Raymond Louie, has chosen not to seek another term in office. During his celebrated career of service on behalf of the citizens of Vancouver, Councillor Louie’s contributions have been innumerable, and the positions he has held on local and national governmental bodies of significant importance to the best interests of our democracy, including …

  • Current Vice-Chair of the Metro Vancouver Board, a position he has held since December 2011;

  • Metro Vancouver Board Chairman of the Intergovernmental Relations and Finance Committee, since December 2011;
  • Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pacific National Exhibition Board, since July 2009;
  • President of the Canadian Federation of Canadian Municipalities, June 2015 – June 2016, and …
  • Chairman of the City Finance and Services Committee, November 2008 to December 2014.

Councillor Raymond Louie’s presence in the governmental structure of our city, our region and our nation will be greatly missed. We trust that there is much good in store for this titan of governance in our city, and as will all the citizens of conscience in Vancouver who give a good galldarn about how we are governed, we wish him well in his future endeavours, and thank him from the bottom of our heart, and the depth of our soul, for his unrivaled contribution to improving life in Vancouver for all of its grateful citizens.

Metro Vancouver Alliance, faith groups and union members organizing for a better, fairer and more just Vancouver Metro region, and province

The story of the non-partisan community action group, the Metro Vancouver Alliance

VanRamblings is a delegate to the Metro Vancouver Alliance, a broad-based alliance of community groups, labour, faith and educational institutions working together and organizing for the common good.
Founded in 2009, at present more than 50 organizations hold membership in the alliance, as this critically important social justice institution continues to grow its membership each and every week.

Metro Vancouver Alliance organized to reduce fares for transit riders, as a social justice initiative

Recently, the good folks involved in the Metro Vancouver Alliance brought forward a proposal to the British Columbia government, recommending the elimination of transit fares for children 12 years of age and under, reducing the current cost of the $45 monthly student bus pass to $22.50 for students aged 12 to 18, and reducing fares and the cost of monthly bus passes, to as little as half, for persons who earn less than $35,000 annually.
Not surprisingly and much to the satisfaction of MVA delegates, British Columbia Minister Responsible for Poverty Reduction, Shane Simpson — at a May meeting of the Alliance that he attended — looked favourably on the MVA proposal, telling delegates he would recommend implementation of the MVA plan to his governmental colleagues, and Cabinet.
At this past Tuesday evening’s Annual General Meeting of the Metro Vancouver Alliance, one of the delegates read out a poem by Judy Chicago, an artist, author, feminist and educator whose career spans five decades, and who in 1989 wrote the Merger Poem, a Jewish Ritual, that has particular resonance in our current Vancouver municipal election.
VanRamblings would like to dedicate Ms. Chicago’s moving Merger Poem to all the candidates seeking office in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, and to those affiliated and working on the various civic election campaigns, most particularly OneCity Vancouver City Council candidate Christine Boyle, who we believe embodies the soul and purpose of Ms. Chicago’s poem and lives it daily, and to Peter Armstrong, the veteran Vancouver Non-Partisan Association organizer and past President who we believe, as well, will work with his party’s candidates for office to realize the goals set out in Ms. Chicago’s stirring instruction to all the good and kind citizens of Vancouver.

Judy Chicago's 'Merger Poem', a Jewish Ritual That Should Serve as Instruction in Vancouver's 2018 civic election

Vancouver Votes 2018 | Vancouver Civic Politics and Class War

BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018

Team Jean Campaign Launch photos, taken at The Crescent, in Vancouver's wealthy Shaughnessy neighbourhood, on Saturday afternoon, June 9th, 2018Derrick O’Keefe standing with his partner (and son’s mom), Andrea Pinochet-Escudero

Derrick O’Keefe’s emergence as a COPE candidate for Vancouver City Council redefines the 2018 race for civic office, and outlines in the starkest terms possible the core issue on which he, and most other of the progressive candidates seeking office will run: working people, immigrants, refugees, seniors living on fixed incomes, the homeless and persons living on the Downtown Eastside, and everyday folks like you and me vs the heartless, monied elites intent only on gathering more wealth for themselves, and who could give a good goddamn about the one in five children who live in poverty in our city, or as one person of my acquaintance who lives in a Shaughnessy mansion told me yesterday …

“Why should I care about people who can’t care for themselves and lift themselves out of poverty, who don’t help themselves? I pay enough in taxes as it is; I’m not going to pay one more red cent to the ungrateful, to those who can’t and won’t help themselves. Enough is enough!“

And wouldn’t you know that Derrick O’Keefe is running on a civic platform of Enough is enough!, where in a March 1st opinion piece that ran in The Georgia Straight, Mr. O’Keefe said exactly that, writing …

“Enough is enough. It’s time to treat Vancouver’s housing crisis as an emergency. The Straight reported on the fact that the City of Vancouver now defines a new three-bedroom unit renting at $3,702 per month as “affordable housing”. We’ve reached a level of absurdity in Vancouver where Orwellian political spin has given way to straight-up trolling.

The BC NDP’s renter’s rebate was lousy policy, when what we needed and what we still need is a rent freeze, as Jean Swanson campaigned for in last year’s by-election, and will campaign for again in 2018.

Cynical, complacent local politicians redefined “affordable housing,” draining the term of meaning, using it as a pretext to offer more tax breaks to their developer friends. Renters, who make up over half the population of our city, have been left almost entirely out of the discussion.

But, things are finally starting to change. You can only decouple local incomes from housing costs for so long before the pitchforks come out.

In 2018, renters’ issues will be front and centre in Vancouver, and it’s time to evict the politicians and parties responsible for the mess we’re in.”

Make no mistake, Derrick O’Keefe is a truth-teller, who will be loathe at any given point in his day to allow the elites to get away with their whiny, destructive and egregiously uncaring politics of privilege, who in the coming weeks and months will emerge as the single most important revolutionary political candidate in point of fact and intent, a voice speaking on behalf of not just the dispossessed in our city, but for each and every one of us who are not members of the monied elite of our city, the callous one percent.

Not possible that Derrick O’Keefe will get elected to Vancouver City Council late in the evening of Saturday, October 20th? Think again.
In 2013, Seattle economics professor Kshama Sawant — who ran on a platform advocating for LGBTQ+ issues, women’s issues, people of colour issues and reversal of the cuts to education and other social programmes, implementation of a “millionaire’s tax” that came to be known to wealthy Seattleites as the “Mansion Tax”, running on a platform of rent control, about which she said, “rent control is something everyone supports, except real estate developers …” ran as a socialist Council candidate, and won!
Ms. Sawant also advocated for an expansion of public transit and bikeways throughout the Metro Seattle region, ending corporate welfare, ending racial profiling, protecting public sector unions from layoffs, reducing taxes on small business and homeowners, living wage union jobs, and the expansion of social services. And, Kshama Sawant was the first political figure to advocate for a $15 an hour minimum wage — which we now see being implemented across Canadian jurisdictions, and in the United States.
By 2015, Seattle and Washington state politicians who thought her crazy and revolutionary when she ran for Council had implemented every single one of the platform items that Ms. Sawant had run on, and advocated for.
Why?
Because, unsurprisingly, when citizens see a political figure and hear a voice who speaks for them, as did Kshama Sawant, such a political figure almost inevitably emerges as a popular political figure, as did Ms. Sawant, who not only became Seattle’s most popular elected official, but the most popular elected representative across Washington state, as remains the case to this day. What other option was open to Ms. Sawant’s former detractors, now Council colleagues than to get on board with her, and pass the legislation the newly-engaged Seattle residents were clamouring for.
Kshama Sawant would not be refused. Derrick O’Keefe will not be refused.
And make no mistake, Mr. O’Keefe’s fellow COPE candidates for Council, Vancouver’s hope of our time, Jean Swanson, and her revolutionary companion and 2018 COPE Vancouver City Council candidate Anne Roberts — who’s already been in government as an elected COPE City Council member from 2002 to 2005, and knows how to get things done — will not be refused, will work on your behalf every single day of their elected lives.

Mr. O’Keefe’s COPE running mate, Jean Swanson, is the truth-telling McLuhanesque “cool” candidate in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election for City Council, espousing an awakening of political consciousness, and running on a social justice platform of principle, integrity, wry wit and an intellectualism that is easily understood by the vast majority of the public.
Derrick O’Keefe is most decidedly the “hot” candidate in the current Vancouver civic election, the fearless difference maker who tells it like it is in the starkest terms possible so there is no misunderstanding as to what he means, who is soulfully committed to doing the right thing, to addressing homelessness, wont, poverty & need, to addressing the issues that daily discriminate and limit the opportunity of our immigrant and refugee population, but also of the working people, persons of colour and the LGBTQ communities in our city struggling to provide for their families.

Derrick O'Keefe running as COPE's needed and necessary 2018 Vancouver civic election revolutionary

Young, charismatic, bright, articulate, passionate, and a populist in the finest tradition of Tommy Douglas, who speaks in words of one syllable in a compelling message not just of hope for our future, but change, and change now, in the coming days, weeks and months, Derrick O’Keefe will emerge as the candidate in the coming Vancouver civic election around whom other political figures running in the current Vancouver civic election will turn to and rally around, for Derrick O’Keefe’s, Jean Swanson’s and Anne Roberts’ demand for change, and change now, will become so undeniable, so popular with the voting public, so clarion and inspiring that come the evening of Saturday, October 20th, Anne, Jean and Derrick will have emerged as the top vote-getters at the polls in this 2018 Vancouver municipal election — after which celebration, they will get to work for you!

Vancouver Votes 2018 | COPE Selects Candidates for Civic Office

BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018

Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) candidates in the 2018 Vancouver civic electionCoalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) candidates for office in the 2018 Vancouver civic election. Clockwise, starting top left, activists & persons of conscience all: Jean Swanson, Anne Roberts, John Irwin, Gwen Giesbrecht, Barb Parrott, Diana Day, and Derrick O’Keefe

As part of the deal struck with the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC), the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) selected three candidates for Vancouver City Council at a nomination meeting held at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, at 12th and Hemlock, this past Sunday afternoon, as well as two candidates for School Board and two candidates for Park Board, all of whom will be supported by the VDLC, and can reasonably expect to secure the votes of the 50,000 union members in the city of Vancouver. The “deal” and the fine candidates above represent a breakthrough for COPE — celebrating its 50th birthday this year — who are looking to elect their first candidate to office since the 2008 civic election.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver City Council Candidates

COPE candidates for Council | The City We Need | Vancouver | Get Involved | Be the Change

Heading up COPE’s 2018 Council slate is Order of Canada recipient and veteran community and anti-poverty activist, Jean Swanson, who launched her campaign this past Saturday, as part of a raucous, enjoyable, fun and serious-minded reminder of what the core issues are that constitute “the city we need,” the banner under which Ms. Swanson is seeking office …

  • A four-year rent freeze, including the outlawing of renovictions;

  • Building the affordable and social housing we need across the city;

  • Working toward universal free transit, starting with students & low income workers, while also working to institute a city carbon tax to expand transit, and supporting car and bike share programmes;

  • Protecting the environment, including stopping Kinder Morgan, banning styrofoam and plastic bottles, and turning office lights off at night;

  • Universal child care, including making Vancouver a pilot city for universal $10/day child care, creating 7,500 new early child care spaces and 10,000 new after-school care spaces to meet need, and prioritizing provision of indigenous-centred child care.

Jean Swanson and COPE’s Council platform summary is available here.

Derrick O’Keefe, a prominent analytical voice on Vancouver’s left wing, as The Georgia Straight has described him, has officially entered politics, in the 2018 civic election.

COPE Council candidate, Anne Roberts, launching her campaign for civic office, Saturday

Of course, as we have written previously, Anne Roberts and Jean Swanson constitute two members of Vancouver’s holy trinity of progressive political figures and persons of conscience in our city, who mean to give us The City We Need (the other member: OneCity Vancouver’s Christine Boyle), and as such represent three must-votes in this autumn’s Vancouver municipal election. In respect of Mr. O’Keefe, we will publish a column soon on what his near-revolutionary candidacy represents for Vancouver civic politics.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver School Board candidates

COPE's 2018 Vancouver School Board candidates, Diana Day and Barb Parrott

2018 represents a 3rd time Diana Day has sought a seat on School Board.
The accomplished Diana Day, an Indigenous First Nations from the Oneida Nation, who graduated with an Honours B.A. in Psychology from the University of Windsor, and has worked as a leader in Aboriginal health, public education and community engagement over the past decade, and sat as Chair of the Vancouver Technical Secondary Schools’ Parent Advisory Council (PAC), when her daughter Angeline attended this east side school (and VanRamblings alma mater), graduating as an honours student.
Diana has broad support in the community, and in last autumn’s by-election came within only 900 votes of taking a seat on Vancouver School Board.
Diana also has friends who have great things to say about her …

“I have had the privilege of working alongside Diana Day in her capacity as executive on the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council and want to ask you to save a vote for her as a 2018 COPE Vancouver School Board candidate. Ms. Day is a skilled facilitator with a passion for equity and looking out for our most vulnerable students and families. She brings a warmth and humour to her position while being firm, clear and focused. Diana Day is an effective advocate and an empathetic listener and will make an excellent Trustee.”
— Claudia Ferris, Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) Media Coordinator

The single most frequent issue to come before the Vancouver School Board? Aboriginal education. Funding, resources, preservation or expansion of existing programmes for First Nations students enrolled in the Vancouver school system, liaison with the federal and provincial governments, First Nations student achievement (that while improving continues to be regrettably and woefully low), and protection of the interests of indigenous children enrolled in Vancouver’s school system, among a myriad of other concerns and interests. There is no more passionate and informed advocate of and voice for First Nations students than Diana Day — a vote for COPE Vancouver’s Diana Day on October 14th is an absolute imperative.
All of us need to hear Diana’s voice at the Vancouver School Board table.

COPE's Barb Parrott, a veteran BCTF activist and 2018 candidate for Vancouver School BoardBarb Parrott, a veteran BCTF activist & 2018 COPE candidate for Vancouver School Board

A former Vancouver Elementary School Teacher’s Association 1st Vice-President and BCTF Annual General Meeting Chairperson, Barb Parrott has worked her entire adult life in support of public education. In the coming days and weeks, VanRamblings will interview the accomplished Ms. Parrott, and publish the interview on this site. Clearly, as a staunch defender of public education, Ms. Parrot represents a must-vote for Vancouver School Board this upcoming autumn electoral season.
COPE’s 2018 Vancouver Park Board candidates

Former COPE Park Board Chairperson Anita Romaniuk introduces Park Board platform

Flat out, Gwen Giesbrecht — a veteran member and recent Chairperson of the Britannia Community Centre on Vancouver’s eastside — is one of our favourite people on the planet, and the person who during the 2017 Women’s March in Vancouver, when I marched even though I was seemingly at death’s door, helped to define for me all that had occurred with me in the months prior to the march during my arduous, seemingly terminal — and determinedly inoperable — cancer journey, saying to me …

“Raymond, both you and I are opinionated people, and when you’re as opinionated as we are sometimes you get to thinking, ‘People must really hate me.’ But what you’ve discovered these past months is what I discovered only a short while ago — as opinionated as we are, activists in our community respect and even love us. With the 400 persons of conscience, from across the political spectrum, who have come to your aid, clear-headed and strong-minded, and made a difference in your life, giving it a meaning that has sustained you during this very difficult, even tragic, time in your life, perhaps the outpouring of love you’ve felt will not only sustain you during your illness, but give you a new life, and a second chance at life.”

And so it was, as only two months later, my cancer not only went into remission, but disappeared entirely, a miracle (although, I still attend at the B.C. Cancer Agency for MRIs and CT scans, as I will do later this month, and next). Now, what do you think the chances are that I’ll be supporting Ms. Giesbrecht’s bid for a seat on Vancouver Park Board? Just could be that I’ll be talking about little else in the coming months! Vote Gwen Giesbrecht!

Gwen Giesbrecht, a must-vote for Vancouver Park Board in the 2018 municipal election

Dr. John Irwin, a respected professor of geography at Simon Fraser Univerisity, specializing in sustainable urban development, has sat as a member of COPE’s Parks & Recreation Committee for the past three years, and is one of the architects of the 2018 Park Board platform. Dr. Irwin is a director of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC), a Vancouver environmental organization that protects urban green space and promotes community gardens across the city, and a founding member of the South East False Creek Working Group that helped develop the sustainable community and foreshore park that is now rising along the south shores of False Creek. Dr. Irwin has also worked as a policy analyst for the Tenants Rights Action Coalition and the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
In the coming weeks and months, VanRamblings looks forward to interviewing Dr. Irwin on what he sees as the priorities for the Vancouver Board of Parks & Recreation in the coming term, where he stands on the contentious VanSplash proposal, and on the currently proposed and extremely contentious asphalt bike path the city seems wedded to implementing through Kitsilano Beach Park — both of which issues will come before Park Board next February for final determination.