Groups call for answers on closed-circuit TV

WestEnder
August 20, 2009

Crops of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras subtly pepper the city’s landscape, monitoring street activity while theoretically helping to deter crime and, by extension, keeping Vancouver safe. But despite their increasing prominence, relatively little is known about who monitors the cameras or what happens to the footage.

In an attempt to increase awareness of CCTV installations in public spaces, members of the Vancouver Public Space Network (VPSN) and students of Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication will embark on a one-day CCTV mapping session of the Downtown Eastside and downtown business district this Sunday (August 23).

Other than previous mapping efforts on the part of the volunteer-run VPSN, no similar initiatives are known to have taken place. A lack of public discussion or easily accessible information on CCTV in Vancouver is troubling, says VPSN surveillance and security coordinator Josh Paterson, especially given the heightened security measures that will play out in the city in the lead-up to the 2010 Olympics. He says the VPSN plans to use the information gathered on Sunday to create a publicly available map of CCTV use in the city.

“Whenever the police or the City has been proposing surveillance, there has never been a particularly informed discussion about it,” Paterson says. Earlier this year, public advocacy groups, including the VPSN and the BC Civil Liberties Association, unsuccessfully attempted to call for a more inclusive decision-making process surrounding Olympic security, when the approval of provincial government funding for Games-related CCTV appeared as a late-distribution item on a March 26 city council meeting agenda. All councillors except Ellen Woodsworth voted to approve funding, which consists of a $435,161 provincial government grant, which is said to cover the cost of mobile, temporary CCTV to help ensure public safety and Olympic event management. An additional $2.16 million came from the Vancouver Integrated Security Unit for the procurement, installation, and monitoring of cameras during the Olympic period.

At that time, Kevin Wallinger, director of the City of Vancouver’s Office of Emergency Management, the department in charge of CCTV deployment, said the cameras would be temporary installations. But a March 2009 report funded by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada “to encourage the advancement of privacy rights” suggests otherwise. The report, titled “Privacy Games: the Vancouver Olympics, Privacy and Surveillance,” authored by University of Alberta sociology professors Philip Boyle and Kevin Haggerty, suggests that new security measures introduced prior to and during mega-events like the Olympics can end up as the event’s most lasting, untold legacy. “Beyond the role that the Olympics play in this overall process of legitimating the introduction and use of surveillance measures, they also play an important but difficult-to-quantify role in transforming public attitudes towards surveillance,” Boyle and Haggerty write. “The integration of various surveillance technologies is perhaps one of the most remarkable and, from a privacy perspective, disconcerting facets of Olympic security efforts.”

Heather Forbes, an undergraduate student at SFU’s School of Communication, shares Boyle and Haggerty’s concerns about the public buy-in for CCTV that could happen over the course of the Games — to the extent that citizens, in the interest of a safer city, don’t think about the possible ramifications surrounding CCTV surveillance. “People can see it’s justified for the Olympics... [CCTV] becomes normalized in the minds of citizens,” she says. “Once they’re in, it’s pretty hard to get them out, especially if people have already gotten comfortable with the idea.”

Without comprehensive, publicly available information on CCTV, Paterson is concerned that citizens will not be adequately informed on its effectiveness or consequences. “Right now, we don’t think that people have the right kind of information about all of the costs — both financial costs and costs in terms of privacy — to weigh against any benefits,” he says. “[There’s] a question that’s always thrown out: ‘If I have nothing to hide, why should I care?’

“We throw it back on the authorities. If you cannot demonstrate that these are effective or useful, then why on earth should we have the surveillance to begin with? Why should anyone be watched, no matter what they’re doing, if we cannot demonstrate these have any real impact on crime or on people’s feeling of safety?”

In addition to the map itself, information gathered from the mapping session will be presented at the Surveillance Games conference, held by SFU’s Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology, to take place November 20-22. This Sunday’s mapping session will begin at 10 a.m. at Victory Square Park (Cambie and Pender). Interested participants are encouraged to register at VancouverPublicSpace.ca.

PHOTO: A new closed-circuit television (CCTV) installation looms over Alexander Street in Railtown. By Doug Shanks.

Mole Hill calls off rent increases-- for now

WestEnder
August 20, 2009

The Mole Hill Community Housing Society has halted its plan to enforce substantial rent increases upon tenants currently paying market rates at Mole Hill, an historic West End housing complex that is home to a mix of subsidized and market renters.

An application to the B.C. Residential Tenancy Office requesting rent increases above the annual allowable rate of 3.7 per cent was proposed to tenants this spring, as part of an effort to resolve a deficit in the operating agreement between Mole Hill and BC Housing. The move sparked controversy among Mole Hill tenants, some of whom retained legal representation and attempted to dispute the increases at the Residential Tenancy Office. Others, burdened by the stress of an unaffordable rent increase, moved out of the complex.

Now, even though the increases will no longer take effect as planned, seven-year tenant Michel Morin says the situation has irrevocably changed Mole Hill — which is a shame, he says, since the complex has long been upheld as an exemplar of affordable urban housing.

“The atmosphere, the people, are not the same,” says Morin, who lives in a one-bedroom market unit which, under the previously planned rent increases, would have been subject to a $300 hike. Morin says the initial delivery of increase notices resulted in the disclosure of which Mole Hill tenants are subsidized and which live in market housing — a formerly private matter. The situation, he says, has resulted in new tensions in the complex. “We can see there’s discontent among some of the tenants... It’s not something I like. It’s kind of an unfriendly atmosphere.”

For his part, Morin plans to stay at Mole Hill and continue advocating for fellow tenants. But Arwen Brenneman, frustrated with the circumstances, moved out this month, with her husband and two young sons, to a rental unit in Marpole. “Mole Hill was my most painful experience with housing. I was used to having a fairly amiable relationship with landlords or managers; I treated someone’s asset with respect and care, and paid rent on time, and, in turn, was treated as a good customer,” she says. “I am now more aware of how vulnerable those in ‘affordable’ housing are, how easy it is to be treated without respect if you’re seen as getting a free ride, and how easy it is for political winds to blow against you.”

Brenneman says she knows of other former Mole Hill tenants who have moved out because of similar frustrations. “We’re not the only ones,” she says. “This experience also has made clear how a secure home underpins security in other aspects of life.”

Margot Beauchamp, executive director of the Mole Hill Community Housing Society, says Mole Hill will likely work with BC Housing and an appraiser next spring to determine rent increases in accordance with different suite sizes. “I don’t know what the outcome of that will be. It could be that there will be variances in increases, depending on the suite,” she says.

Beauchamp said she would like to extend an apology to tenants for the difficulties of the past few months. “We really regret the discomfort and concern it’s caused tenants,” she says. “We regret that some people chose to leave, and we really look forward to finding a solution that works for people in the next year.”

PHOTO: Proposed rent increases at the Mole Hill housing complex caused some tenants to take the preemptive strike of moving out. By Doug Shanks.

Olympic human-rights complaints taken to Switzerland

WestEnder
August 13, 2009

Civil liberties violations and a lack of legislative protection for renters are the focus of two human-rights complaints filed recently against the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and its government partners. Am Johal, chair of independent Olympic watchdog group Impact on Communities Coalition (IOCC), met with a representative of the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 31 to deliver the complaints.

While the complaints won’t be heard by the UN until April 2010, two months after the Games end, Johal says the IOCC will be providing monthly updates from Vancouver to the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. “In our view, both in terms of civil liberties and tenancy, Canada’s not living up to the right to adequate housing and basic democratic civil liberties standards that we’d expect,” he says. “We would like to see a reform on the [Olympic] bidding process, because this has happened in city after city after city. It’s completely preventable.”

The complaints follow a long history of work on the part of the IOCC to mitigate the potentially negative social impacts of the Olympic Games. The group launched in 2002 while Vancouver was in the midst of its Olympic bid process. Since then, Johal has been responsible for bringing the UN Special Rapporteur for Housing, Miloon Kothari, to Vancouver in fall 2007 to look at housing issues and at how the 2010 Games would impact the city. Kothari, who at the time said he was “taken aback” by the housing conditions in the Downtown Eastside, tabled a report in April 2008 which included a push for Canada to meet obligations under voluntary human-rights protocols that it had signed, and to adopt a national system of tenancy standards — something Johal and local tenant advocates have been working to put in place in time for Vancouver 2010, with little success.

In June of this year, B.C. housing minister Rich Coleman wrote a letter to Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson to say that he would not, as per the City’s requests, amend Residential Tenancy legislation during the Olympic period. Even so, West End Residents Association (WERA) director Christine Ackermann says it isn’t too late for the Province to make changes to protect renters. “Implement the right of first refusal, as they have in Ontario. It’s not that hard to do; it would be easily done in September when the legislation meets again,” she says.

As part of the UN human-rights complaint, WERA and tenant advocacy group Renters at Risk produced a housing compendium listing 17 known instances of what they deem unfair mass evictions for renovation (known as ‘renovictions’) that have occurred in Vancouver since 2001. The compendium, while comprehensive, does not list all evictions that have occurred in the city, as Renters at Risk acknowledges that many go unreported. Johal expects the situation to worsen as the Games draw nearer.

In an attempt to strengthen municipal dialogue on housing rights as they pertain to the Olympics, Johal asked the former city council in May 2008 to adopt the recommendations laid out by international housing expert Claire Mahon — but with no success. Mahon is the principal author of a 2007 report on guidelines for hosting mega-events while protecting housing rights, published by the internationally acclaimed Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). Mahon visited Vancouver in November 2008, during the last week of the municipal election campaign. “VANOC and the city council, the provincial government and Canadian government have nothing to lose by working closely with the community organizations and helping make this Olympics not one that divides communities about how to approach it, but one that unites communities in making Vancouver a truly better place to live,” she told WE at the time.

But strong divisions between civil-liberties advocates and Olympic officials are already in place, according to David Eby, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA). “Unfortunately, in the lead-up to 2010, we now have bylaws being passed that restrict the ability of people to hold signs in an area of more than 40 city blocks, and the small areas within these perimeters will be set up as protest pens, just as they were in Beijing,” he says. “I think [city councillors] are working to protect civil liberties, but, unfortunately, they’re working to protect civil liberties of the Olympic sponsors and the International Olympic Committee. What we’d like to see them do is protect the civil liberties of Vancouverites.”

As part of the IOCC’s August 9 press conference detailing the human-rights complaints, Johal posted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the Olympic countdown clock in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. “I want to emphasize the Olympics are not above the law, which is why we posted the [declaration] on the clock,” he said. “And renters are not second-class citizens.”

PHOTO: IOCC members Stefanie Ratjen, David Eby, Am Johal, and Mike Powar. By Jackie Wong.

New groups seek to restore cyclists' tarnished image

WestEnder
August 13, 2009

In response to the public’s often negative perception of cycling advocacy as a result of the monthly Critical Mass event, tomorrow (August 14) will see the inaugural Critical Manners bike ride take to the streets. The event, which aims to promote cycling etiquette and improved relationships between cyclists and drivers, is the brainchild of Jennifer Watkiss, who regularly cycles to work at a tech firm in Richmond from her Kitsilano home. “If people have a really terrible impression of cyclists, hopefully we can change that by having a group of cyclists who are a positive addition to the road,” she says.

Unlike the road-clogging Critical Mass, which has been criticized for bringing urban traffic to a standstill, Critical Manners participants will ride in a single-file, law-abiding fashion that Watkiss hopes will not obstruct car traffic as its counterpart has in the past. “I’m not trying to say Critical Mass is a bad thing, because I think over the years... it’s done some really great things for driving awareness for cyclists,” she says. “I just think it’s time to move on.”

Watkiss counts herself among a growing group of cyclists that is interested in a more conciliatory approach to its relationship with cars and pedestrians. In addition to Friday’s Critical Manners ride, those who identify as polite cyclists may also gather for Courteous Mass on Friday, September 11, at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“I’ve just really felt a sense of tension on the streets between cyclists and drivers, and it comes from both,” says Ryan McKee, a commuter cyclist who started Pedal Etiquette (PedalEtiquette.com), a polite-cycling advocacy group, on July 31, the day of Vancouver’s last Critical Mass. “I think cyclists are quick to say that drivers don’t respect them and cut them off and all this sort of thing. But, at the same time, I drive sometimes, and my friends do [too], and they say it’s cyclists that are cutting them off and inventing their own rules of the road.”

Pedal Etiquette is still in its formative stages, but McKee plans to draw up a code of ethics for the group that all riders can take to the streets. “Five, 10 years ago, the only cyclists on the road, it seemed, were a little more of the hardcore variety,” he says. “I think cycling to work has now become such a mainstream mode of transportation, and it’s just a form of commuting for so many people, that it’s sort of reached the masses.” And the mass appeal of cycling, he says, might not fit as neatly into events like Critical Mass as it once did.

Robert Alstead, the Vancouver-based filmmaker behind the 2007 Critical Mass documentary You Never Bike Alone, counters that the grand scale of Critical Mass isn’t a new phenomenon, contrary to what recent media reports might lead one to believe. “There’s always been big Critical Mass rides, at least in the last six years or so,” he says. “I can see the argument that it’s gotten too big, but, at the same time, that’s quite a good thing, isn’t it? There’s lots of people cycling... If you have two or three cyclists using the road occasionally, then motorists are less aware of them, and when you have more cyclists on the road, they get seen, and cyclists feel safer.”

McKee contends that safer cycling emerges from greater knowledge of safety rules and how to collaborate with drivers — something he hopes groups like Pedal Etiquette can improve upon in the future. “In my experience, just riding in the streets, it feel a little bit like nobody quite knows what to do or what’s appropriate conduct,” he says, “and even I’ve caught myself running through red lights and stuff if there’s nobody there. It’s funny because, as a driver, you just wouldn’t do that.”

The August 14 Critical Manners ride starts at 6 p.m. The route is posted on the event’s website, CriticalManners.wordpress.com.

PHOTO: Ryan McKee is the founder of Pedal Etiquette, a group promoting “polite” cycling that respects drivers and pedestrians — and hopes for equal respect in return. By Doug Shanks.

Out on Screen: my picks for the 21st annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival

FOR MY WIFE
Sunday, Aug. 16, 7 pm (Tinseltown)
Tuesday, Aug. 18, 7pm (Tinseltown)
In December of 2006, Charlene Strong lost the love of her life. Her partner, Kate Fleming, died after she became trapped in her flooded Seattle basement. At the hospital, in the last moments of Kate’s life, a social worker denied Charlene access to her because the two were not legally married. The pain Charlene experienced in the wake of her partner’s death led her to testify before the Washington State Legislature, where she played an instrumental role in passing the state’s 2007 Domestic Partnership Bill (currently threatened by a new ballot initiative). An excruciating exploration of tragedy and social change, For My Wife raises questions of whether the perception of homophobia is rooted in discrimination or in ignorance — and how it’s often impossible to know which is worse.

KANAKO: CHALLENGING THE SYSTEM
Saturday, Aug. 22, 5 pm (Tinseltown)
“Everyone is important, everyone should be treated importantly,” Kanako Otsuji yells through a megaphone, standing in the middle of a busy street. As Japan’s first openly gay politician in a country where some regions still have no word for ‘lesbian,’ Otsuji is a revelation. Often referred to as that country’s Harvey Milk, she shines as an outspoken advocate for equality in a documentary that follows her during the last 17 days of her unsuccessful 2007 campaign for a spot in Japan’s upper house of parliament. Uplifting thanks to Otsuji’s courage and her mother’s acceptance, the film is plagued with amateurish production values and ultimately suffers the same fate as its subject.

TRAINING RULES
Friday, Aug. 14, 5 pm (Tinseltown)
Thanks to the hyper-masculine dudery of male sporting life, women’s sports are often mistakenly perceived as part of a softer world, wherein girl power reigns and all women are celebrated. But coach Rene Portland’s Pennsylvania State University women’s basketball team had a strict “no lesbians” policy. Portland, who had stripped generations of queer women of both their scholarships and their futures over her 27-year career, is finally undone by star player Jen Harris, whom Portland “suspects” is a lesbian. Harris subsequently fights her dismissal from the team in a ground-breaking legal battle that leads to radical changes at Penn State, but Training Ground also sheds crucial light on the untold tale of queer women in sport and the systemic homophobia that continues to shut them out of the game.

Education: the art of preparation

WestEnder
August 13, 2009

The recession and its attendant “How will you feed yourself?” cries from Mom and Dad can blanket even the most dedicated young artist in self-doubt. But for those determined to attend an art school, the current state of the economy can, out of necessity, helpfully force prospective students to rethink and sharpen their educational choices so they’re getting the most bang for their buck.

Banking on a longstanding desire to share the untapped wisdom of Vancouver art-school alumni with would-be applicants, Michael Ngo, a 23-year-old Vancouver Film School (VFS) grad and SFU School of Interactive Arts + Technology student, has created a website that he hopes will serve as a centralizing hub for aspiring art students seeking guidance.

“I attended VFS without much research, as information on other schools was difficult to come by,” Ngo recalls. “I wish I’d known the strengths and weaknesses of each program and the success rates of these programs before attending. I wish I’d known the percentage of alumni that were able to find work in a related field after graduation. Many schools exaggerate these numbers to attract more students.”

Ngo rounded up two friends — Frannie Wu, a 23-year-old SFU business administration grad; and Jonathan Manzo, a 24-year-old UBC computer science student — to help run the site. Six months after its launch, ArtSchoolReviews.ca has now received almost 100 school reviews from contributors across the city. “There are three main reasons for the site, the first of which is to give students and alumni a venue to voice their opinions — good or bad,” says Wu. “The second is to provide first-hand information about these schools to aspiring students. And lastly, we wish to hold the schools accountable to their students by providing them with honest student feedback that can be used to improve the programs.”

One of the major lessons Ngo learned — and learned the hard way — is the necessity of taking a proactive approach to education. “When I graduated, I realized VFS was just a means — it was a way to become a designer, animator, or director — but it was in no way a guarantee,” he says. “I just hope [the website] can help aspiring students realize this even before stepping onto campus. Your education shouldn’t be passive. You need to make things happen for yourself.”

Despite skeptics who may argue that art school is too risky a path to take in this economy, Wu contends that school is likely the best choice for someone looking to eventually make a living in a creative field. “Given the state of the economy, one could argue that art-school education is more important than ever,” she says. “This is the time for artists to really develop their capabilities and to acquire skills that will set them apart from the competition.”

At this point, neither Ngo nor his friends have worked out concrete career plans, as they’re all currently finalizing their degrees, but they hope their website will help prospective students think twice about their plan of action. “I’m already blown away by how large ArtSchoolReviews.ca has become,” says Wu. “There are still many unheard stories to be told, discussions to be had, and artists to be made.”

PHOTO: Michael Ngo (left), along with friends Jonathan Manzo and Frannie Wu, launched the website ArtSchoolReviews.ca to help prospective students determine which of the many schools and programs in the city are best for them. By Doug Shanks.

COVER: Are we there yet? Vancouver's pedestrians are still waiting to be taken seriously.

WestEnder
August 6, 2009

As Vancouver’s monthly Critical Mass bike ride wound its way through the city last Friday (July 31), the hundreds of cyclists taking part in the controversial cycling-advocacy event elicited mixed reactions from motorists — even though the ride was, according to police, more peaceful than it has been in the past. Carfuls of young people honked their horns and leaned out of windows to cheer on the passing spectacle, and firefighters waved at the crowd of cyclists as it stopped to let their truck pass. On the other hand, a group of men voiced their opposition by yelling a long “Fuck you!” to the cyclists from their Yaletown balcony, which overlooked Critical Mass as it crossed the Granville Bridge. Later, on the Burrard Bridge, one man held out a stiff middle finger for the length of his drive into Kitsilano.

Meanwhile, on street corners and at bus stops, another battle brewed quietly: Pedestrians, some throwing their hands up in frustration, were caught in a sea of bikes and cars, the braver ones among them wildly darting into the bike traffic in a dicey attempt to cross the street.

The hundreds of cyclists who turned out for Critical Mass, coupled with recently announced efforts on the part of the mayor and the police to work with organizers to improve the safety of the event, demonstrated the strength of Vancouver’s bike culture. Pedestrians, however, seem to continually fly under the sustainable-transportation radar, despite their number-one spot on the hierarchy of the City of Vancouver’s Downtown Transportation Plan, which prioritizes pedestrians first, cyclists second, transit third, and motorists last. In the midst of a Burrard Bridge lane trial that has relegated pedestrians to one sidewalk on the west side of the bridge, and the City of Vancouver’s efforts to ‘green up’ the city with its Greenest City Action Team, pedestrians seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle. So says Anthony Perl, director of Simon Fraser University’s Urban Studies program, whose suggestion that Vancouver hire a pedestrian advocate has garnered widespread media attention of late.

“[The City of Vancouver] has a Bicycle Advisory Committee, so why not somebody for pedestrians, especially since pedestrians are supposed to come first under the Downtown Transportation Plan?” says West End Residents Association (WERA) spokesperson Terry Lavender. “People who are walking are still traffic; they’re still trying to get to their destination. But if you treat them as an obstacle and not part of the traffic flow, they tend to be ignored.”

Other cities, though, have ably demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be that way. In nearby Portland, Oregon, the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition (WPC) has been operating for 18 years. The group — largely volunteer-run until recently, when it received a grant through Oregon’s Northwest Health Foundation — has a board of directors that consists of people who work with the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, on Mayor Sam Adams’s transportation cabinet, and for TriMet, Portland’s public-transit agency. “We kind of have a really profound knowledge pool,” Stephanie Routh modestly tells WE when reached on her cellphone as she walks through the Portland streets. Routh is the new 33-year-old director of the WPC, her most recent community role to follow years of involvement with SHIFT (a Portland bike advocacy group) and Carfree Portland. “What we’ve been doing is to make sure that pedestrians’ needs are expressed and prioritized in policy and in projects that come up that affect people’s mobility,” she says.

One of the main objectives of the WPC is to demonstrate that all transportation modes are choices, particularly as cities densify and walking becomes more of a valid transportation choice, rather than just a form of recreation. “Pedestrian and cycling advocates are not trying to get people out of their cars and get them to set them on fire,” Routh explains. “They’re just trying to get them out of [their cars] a little more often, and make it less an imperative.”

Despite considerable gains in the realm of bike advocacy (Portland was ranked one of the world’s top 10 bicycling cities in the July issue of Travel and Leisure magazine), pedestrians are still underdogs, Routh says. “Bicycling has the artifact to rally around; it has the accessory of the bicycle... It has an industry, it has a look and feel, it has a culture, and it has an experience that’s very singular and unique to it.”

But pedestrianism comes with a blessing and a curse, she continues. “Everyone is a pedestrian, and therefore, no one is a pedestrian. That’s one challenge: to get people to identify as pedestrians.”

Back in Vancouver, Bev Ballantyne has been working on improving the public profile of pedestrians for years. She co-founded Putting Pedestrians First in 1998 with former COPE councillor Anne Roberts and another colleague who has since moved out of the city. But despite her long-standing advocacy on the issue, she hasn’t seen much in the way of change. “It’s a lot cheaper to build communities around pedestrians than it is around cars, but the powers that be absolutely refuse to accept that. The Burrard Bridge is a primary example of that,” she says. “We can’t seem to convince people that ensuring infrastructure, safety, and convenience for pedestrians is an economically smart thing to do. And I’m constantly dumbstruck by this lack of recognition.”

Putting Pedestrians First, unlike Portland’s WPC, is small, and does not have a strong influence over how the City develops transportation policy — and that’s a missed opportunity, says Ballantyne, especially given the City’s mandate. “[The City of Vancouver]’s mandate is land use and regulation, and you can do an awful lot with [that]. You can make a livable space. You create livability through transportation design.”

Livability is the name of the game for the Vancouver Public Space Network (VPSN), an advocacy group that examines many aspects of public space including transportation, security, public art, and urban design. As for the suggestion that Vancouver should hire a pedestrian advocate, VPSN director Andrew Pask sees the ideal pedestrian-advocacy role as one that involves a group rather than an individual, functioning similarly to the City’s arm’s-length Bicycle Advisory Committee.

“Our ultimate preference would be to see the importance of pedestrian-focused planning entrenched within all elements of civic activity, including relevant [City] departments such as engineering, planning, social development, and entities such as the Planning Commission and Urban Design Panel,” Pask says. “Sidewalks are often too narrow, streets too wide, bike lanes too few and disconnected, and public transit often crowded and unavailable.”

“If Vancouver does want to become the greenest city in North America, it will need to take major strides to make this city more safe and friendly for pedestrians,” adds Karen Parusel, the VPSN’s transportation coordinator. “Walking is, after all, the most accessible mode of transportation. It’s free, it’s easy, and is good for you and your community, and it should be valued appropriately.”

For his part, WERA’s Terry Lavender says a vibrant pedestrian environment in Vancouver’s West End is one of the best features of his neighbourhood. “Pedestrian life makes a city more vital because when people are at a walking pace, you are in contact with your fellow human beings,” he says. “If everybody’s in their cars, or even if everybody’s on their bicycles, you’re going at high speeds. You’re not making eye contact with people, and there is no chance for those random encounters that add so much to the life of the city.”
PHOTO: Substantial support exists for motorists and cyclists in Vancouver, but comparatively little for pedestrians, say local advocates. Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, Stephanie Routh (left) directs a widely supported pedestrian organization that has operated for 18 years. By Doug Shanks

TRAC to handle Olympic-related tenant disputes

WestEnder
August 6, 2009

As part of its efforts to prevent unfair evictions during the lead-up to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the City of Vancouver has hired the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre (TRAC) to help renters deal with Olympic-related tenancy issues. The City had originally set aside $40,000 for a tenant-assistance worker to start work this past spring, with the position remaining active through Games time. The position will now be shared among TRAC staff, who will hire additional part-time workers to help run a drop-in office at an as-yet-undetermined location.

Games-related tenant-assistance work will focus on helping tenants understand and exercise their rights under the Residential Tenancy Act, help them prepare for dispute resolution hearings at the Residential Tenancy Branch, and assist them with landlord-tenant disputes. TRAC will also have a supervising lawyer on hand to act as a resource to tenants. TRAC has set up a special tenant-assistance phone line and e-mail address for dealing with Olympic-related tenancy issues (604-255-5102; help@tenants.bc.ca).

TRAC spokesperson Judy Johanson says she expects an increase in tenants contacting her as the Olympics draw nearer, and as one-year leases signed in December or January come to an end. “The whole idea is to foresee that this is happening,” she says. She also expressed confidence that the City and local advocacy groups have done a good job in spreading the word about increased tenant-advocacy services during Games time. The City has set up an online tenant registry (Vancouver.ca/OlympicsTempAcc_Net) for renters who are concerned about unfair displacement during the Games.

The West End, a neighbourhood in which 80 per cent of households rent, has been the site of a number of eviction cases that have been hotly disputed by tenants, some of whom have taken their cases as far as BC Supreme Court. West End Residents Association (WERA) director Christine Ackermann fought an eviction in advance of renovations — known as “renovictions” — at the Glenmore building (at Barclay and Nelson) last May. After disputing the eviction at the Residential Tenancy Office, she was able to keep her apartment. Since then, she has been heavily involved with tenant advocacy in her neighbourhood. Given what she has learned in the past year about dealing with B.C.’s tenancy laws, she’s not sure if TRAC is the right organization to be dealing with Olympic-related evictions.

“Based on my own eviction, and through my volunteer experience gathering feedback from Vancouver tenants, I am very skeptical that TRAC will be a true advocate for Vancouver renters during the Olympics,” Ackermann told WE. “Answering phones to simply answer questions from a rule book will not provide any lasting legacy for Vancouver renters who lose their homes because of Olympic greed. It certainly will not provide any increased support to Downtown Eastside residents who are dealing with a completely different renter’s ball game in the SROs.”

Instead of the current TRAC model for Olympic-related tenant-assistance work, Ackermann would like to see a more community-based model, in which volunteers who have personally experienced evictions hold education forums in neighbourhoods with high renter populations, such as Mount Pleasant, Kitsilano, and Fairview. “Educating tenants in a meaningful way now would provide benefits beyond the March 2010 end point of this [tenant advocacy position],” she says. “WERA will be watching and monitoring this new service from TRAC to measure its effectiveness for West End tenants.”
PHOTO: A tenants’ rights advocate says neighbourhoods with a high number of renters, such as Kitsilano (pictured), would benefit from forums led by people who have previously dealt with evictions. By Doug Shanks.

PRIDE 2009: Strength in numbers

WestEnder
July 30, 2009

In the early hours of September 27, 2008, 27-year-old Jordan Smith was walking down Davie Street while holding hands with another man when the couple was approached by four young men. The group allegedly shouted homophobic slurs at the two of them, and then 20-year-old Michael Kandola punched Smith in the face so hard that he was knocked to the ground. Smith’s jaw, dislodged and broken, was wired shut following surgery.

Smith’s ordeal was followed by another alleged November attack against a gay man in Yaletown. Then, on March 13 of this year, 62-year-old Richard Dowrey was playing pool at Davie Street’s Fountainhead Pub when 35-year-old Shawn Woodward punched him in the head, landing him in a coma. Woodward later justified his actions by claiming Dowrey — a “faggot” — “deserved it; he touched me.” Shortly before this event, on February 5 of this year, Ryan Cran was released from jail after serving two-thirds of a six-year sentence for taking part in the brutal 2001 murder of Aaron Webster, a gay man who was swarmed and beaten to death in Stanley Park.

With the 31st annual Vancouver Pride celebrations now underway, LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer) community safety — or a seeming lack thereof — is front of mind for many of those organizing and taking part in the festivities.

The idea of “taking back the streets” seems to have gained new prominence, but considering what he regularly sees in B.C. high schools, 22-year-old Ryan Clayton doesn’t seem fazed by the widely reported gay bashings of the past year.

“I’ve never deluded myself into believing it’s a safe place out there, so things like an attack on Davie Street... [don’t] surprise me,” Clayton says over coffee at an East Broadway café. “It makes me a little sick to my stomach, but it doesn’t surprise me, because I’m hearing constantly in schools about [queer] kids who get beaten up or harassed or kicked off the sports team, and that’s part of their day-to-day life.”

Clayton leads workshops on homophobia and discrimination in high schools in Metro Vancouver and across B.C. Yet despite the content of his workshops, which focus on non-discrimination and non-violence, he has been the subject of more than a few discriminatory practices just for doing his job. “I had a teacher walk out once. I’ve had students threaten to hunt me down after school. One day some kid from the back of the room was shouting ‘faggot’ and throwing stuff at us and turning to his friends and being like, ‘I’m going to kill them,’” he says, matter-of-factly, his face calm.

Despite such insults, Clayton remains optimistic about his role in advocating for greater acceptance of LGBTQ youth. He was recently appointed to the City of Vancouver’s first-ever LGBTQ advisory committee, which held its first meeting July 13.

“Progressive council is definitely sending messages to the community that were never there before,” Clayton says. “I know one of the big issues [for queer youth] is people’s self-esteem. People hear being gay is wrong, being gay is bad; signs everywhere saying God hates fags. Eventually, it starts to wear on you, and if you don’t have anyone to talk to, it’s hard to not take that personally. I, unfortunately, know people who have attempted and succeeded at suicide.”

The City’s LGBTQ advisory committee is not only the first of its kind in Vancouver, but in Canada. Comprised of 12 LGBTQ community representatives, it will serve an advisory role to council and City staff. Tim Stevenson and Ellen Woodsworth, both openly gay city councillors, are part of the committee; they passed a June 2 motion calling for a consolidated presence of City service groups in this year’s Pride parade. That means the police department, fire department, public library staff, City staff, and elected officials will be marching together this year under the same banner for the first time, promoting the theme of eliminating violence against the LGBTQ community.

“For me, it’s really a very, very strong statement by the City that not only are we marching together in the Pride parade, but we’re marching to say that we will not tolerate violence of any kind,” says Stevenson, who has been lobbying for an LGBTQ advisory committee since his last term in council. “I think there’s been a growing awareness over the years, and the time is right.”

Barb Snelgrove, a longtime community advocate and a member of the advisory committee, hopes the committee will push for an increased focus on issues of safety and safe spaces for queer youth. “It amazes me that hundreds of thousands of people come out in celebration on Pride day, but still people are subject to violence. This is unacceptable in any city, anywhere,” she says. “Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate. We need to teach people, at a very early age, tolerance and understanding that every individual is different and unique in their own way, and that is okay. All of us, working together, are responsible for creating safe spaces and streets.”

Amber Dawn, director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, says building a stronger relationship between the LGBTQ community and police can go a long way toward improving safety for queer citizens. So can increasing LGBTQ visibility in public, building relationships with city officials, and continuing to organize rallies and public forums. “Know who our allies are, like Vancouver-Burrard MLA Spencer Herbert, Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, Vancouver Police Department chief Jim Chu,” she says. “The Pride march means more to me this year than in past years. We’ve certainly earned our celebration in August.”

But despite considerable gains with LGBTQ issues being addressed on the municipal level, Tony Correia, who writes the “Queen’s Logic” column in Xtra West and is co-founder of Positive Peddlers BC, a bike club for people with HIV, argues that the community has become too complacent. “When Robert Cran got off with a three-year sentence, there was no protest whatsoever,” he says. “What kind of message does that send to the government and crown prosecutors? They don’t enforce hate-crime laws because they know we’ll just bend over and take it.”

As for queer-community safety, Correia says it’s high time to start looking at initiatives that reach outside of Vancouver. “I think Vancouver’s queer community is safe; it’s the suburbs that are fucked up,” he says. “What city council really needs to start doing is putting pressure on Burnaby, Surrey, Langley.”

Fatima Jaffer, founding member of TRIKONE Vancouver, a queer South Asian advocacy group, is also a member of the advisory committee. “It’s got to be [about] ongoing vigilance and ongoing education, because it’s very easy for people to slip back into hating minority groups,” she says. “In the climate of the Olympics, there’s been very little regard and very few messages of how to keep our community safe. I think it’s really important to come out even more, and be louder and prouder and stronger, and stand together rather than cower. Nothing has ever been achieved by hiding.”

PHOTO: Members of Vancouver’s inaugural LGBTQ advisory committee (clockwise from top): Barb Snelgrove, Tim Stevenson, Pat Hogan, Mette Bach, Ryan Clayton, Ellen Woodsworth, Jim Deva, Fatima Jaffer, and Karen McVeigh. By Doug Shanks.

MOVIES: Buddies with Benefits

WestEnder
July 23, 2009

For anyone tired of the gender stereotypes and easy vulgarity that often befall the films of the ever-growing ‘bromance’ genre, it might be time to let a little Humpday into your heart.

Writer-director Lynn Shelton shot the ultra-low-budget comedy (now in theatres) over a few days last summer in her hometown of Seattle, guiding her actors through a largely unscripted story in which they improvised the dialogue. The result is a brilliantly edited, achingly genuine comedy about the existential oddities of one’s early thirties. And about being in love. And about trying to get out of having sex with your best pal as part of an amateur-porn festival even though you said you would.

“I know that none of us went in wanting to make a farce; we were really working against that,” says Joshua Leonard, who plays Andrew, a jet-set layabout who surprises his old friend Ben (Mark Duplass) one night when he appears on his doorstep in search of a place to stay. Despite Ben’s comparatively staid life as a transportation planner and a devoted husband to Anna (Alycia Delmore), Andrew’s unexpected arrival causes the two men to instantly regress to their simpler, more belligerent former selves, culminating in getting stoned at a sex-positive house party. There, to the delight of new friends, a challenge emerges: that Andrew and Ben bone on camera and submit the ‘art project’ to Humpfest, a real-life amateur-porn festival put on by The Stranger, Seattle’s alt-weekly.

“The existential crisis that the two male characters are facing in this movie, I think, are astoundingly similar at their core; they’re just two guys hitting adulthood who get really afraid that they’re not becoming who they always dreamed they would become,” says Leonard. The authentic vulnerability he and Duplass inject into Andrew and Ben prevents predictably silly bromance dynamics (as seen in the entire Judd Apatow canon) from muddying the film’s simple beauty.

The same goes for Delmore, who holds her own as the lovable, fallible Anna. “Something that Lynn [Shelton] and I talked a lot about before we shot the film was that it was really important that Anna not be a pushover, or a bitch, or a stick-in-the-mud, or a martyr,” says Delmore. “I hope there’s just more of an appetite to see real, fleshed-out characters.”

So far, the appetite has been considerable. After receiving widespread acclaim when it debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Humpday won the second-ever Critical Consensus Award from influential movie website Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a New York Times Critics’ Pick designation. “The critical reception for this film has been mind-blowing, and over anybody’s expectations for what we thought would be possible for this tiny little movie,” says Delmore. “I mean, I feel like we’ve shot this thing in somebody’s backyard.”

So, even if Humpday’s bromance label sticks in spite — and perhaps because — of its success, bring it on, Leonard says. “Movies like I Love You, Man and The Hangover probably spent on catering, in half a day, what we spent on our entire film,” he says. “If people want to group us into articles where some studio has spent some multiples of tens of millions of dollars to market that movie —I think that’s fantastic, and I don’t care what they call us. It’s hard to get a little film seen.”

Anti-Olympic activists cry foul over council verdict

WestEnder
July 16, 2009

Olympic critics and officials will continue to trade barbs about free speech as it pertains to the 2010 Games, following a heated round of city council meetings last week where councillors voted against a controversial motion that would have supported protection for those who voice opposition to the Games.

The motion, introduced July 7 by COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth, asked that council endorse the Coventry Declaration, which was recently approved in the U.K. by delegates at Play the Game, a conference aimed at strengthening the ethical values of sport. The declaration proposed by Woodsworth made reference to 20 Vancouverites who were approached by members of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (VISU) in the first week of June. VISU representatives said the security officers approached Olympic critics in the interest of gathering intelligence and assessing potential safety risks. Disturbed by what some consider to have been intimidating police tactics, a dozen Olympic critics — some of whom claimed to have been approached by officers at their homes and workplaces, and in public spaces — subsequently retained the legal representation of Vancouver lawyer Jason Gratl, who wrote a letter asking the VISU to leave them alone.

The critics’ story gained considerable media attention (including a feature in WE), but some city councillors did not seem to believe that the Olympic critics had been confronted by VISU officers. “I have no knowledge of this; I’m not clear that this has happened or not,” said Vision Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie at a July 9 council meeting. His remarks were met with guffaws from Olympic critics in the gallery, who voiced their concerns about civil liberties and the Games in general.

“I’m in the same position,” added fellow Vision councillor Tim Stevenson. “I am quite surprised by the statements such as ‘20 individuals have been questioned about the Olympic Games or visited by police officers.’ I want to see a sworn affidavit for that kind of thing.” The comment elicited a loud “We have them!” from Alissa Westergard-Thorpe of the Olympic Resistance Network, a 2010 Games protest group. She and Chris Shaw, author of Five Ring Circus, a book that criticizes the social impact of the 2010 Games and other Olympic events, spoke at the Thursday meeting.

“I really thought [the Coventry Declaration] was such [an important] issue that it wouldn’t even occur to [council not to endorse it],” a frustrated Shaw told reporters outside council chambers after the meeting. “The VISU said they supported it in principle... and council couldn’t [support] it. These are elected representatives, and they can’t even take the minimal effort to protect their own citizens and make sure that 2010 happens in a way we can all be proud of.”

All Vision Vancouver councillors and Mayor Gregor Robertson voted not to support the Coventry Declaration, and NPA councillor Suzanne Anton did not support it because she said it would show a lack of confidence in the police, which she didn’t agree with.

Despite voting down official support of the Coventry Declaration, council did vote to write a letter to senior levels of government, VANOC, and VISU, requesting that they publicly reaffirm their commitment to freedom of expression in light of recent civil-liberties concerns. Councillor Woodsworth also suggested that council convene another public meeting with Bud Mercer, VISU’s CEO, in the fall. Mercer appeared before council at the July 7 meeting to raise concerns about what he called potential “criminal” protests during the Games. To support his arguments, he showed council the fruits of his online research, which included a photo showing masked Olympic mascots holding Molotov cocktails, and a photo of a “Riot 2010” banner.

BC Civil Liberties Association spokesperson Cameron Funnell was on hand at the July 9 meeting to raise a number of outstanding civil-liberties questions unanswered by Mercer’s presentation to council, including VISU’s ‘use of force’ policy, whether VISU will permit people into venues wearing clothing or wielding signs contrary to the 2010 brand, and what proportion of the security budget is being allocated for reallocation of the homeless.

“The City has no accountability in terms of the role, the policies of [V]ISU,” city manager Penny Ballem told council. “We are only able to ask questions.”

Mayor Robertson called the VISU-intiated free-speech zones “Orwellian.” “Vancouver is a free-speech zone,” he said. “We will ensure, as elected representatives here at City Hall, that we will maintain that status, and work closely with the [VISU] to ensure that they are not overstepping bounds.”

In an interview with WE last month, VISU spokesperson Bert Paquet said the 2010 security unit “always” operates in accordance with Canadian laws and values.”We also respect the right that Canadians have, guaranteed by the Charter of Rights, to protest legally and lawfully,” he said. “What we have to keep in mind... is that major events such as the Olympics are very often used as a platform for groups or individuals with sometimes radical ideologies to express their views — violence and unlawful disruptions. I am not saying that the people we have spoken to plan to do that, but because of that we need to constantly monitor potential threats to any major event held in Canada.”

PHOTO: Critics of the 2010 Winter Games are disheartened that Vancouver City Council has voted not to endorse the Coventry Declaration, which would have worked to protect anti-Olympics activists against harassment by the Games’ security forces. By Doug Shanks.

Fighting for a 'free' internet

WestEnder
July 16, 2009

While ‘Information Superhighway’ may now seem like an antiquated term to describe the internet, online traffic congestion continues to be a problem — and media activists and technologists say it’s not because of the drivers in the cars, but the people paving the roads.

In its efforts to stop the internet from going the way of the TV network, where access is hierarchical and more money determines better access, media-democracy groups across the country have rallied behind a movement calling for net neutrality. In other words, they’re working to create a policy framework that stops Canada’s internet service providers (ISPs) from bandwidth throttling, slowing transmission speeds, and other tactics that clog up the user’s online experience.

Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), wrapped up six days of hearings yesterday (July 15) in which it explored possible regulatory steps in managing internet traffic. The long-anticipated hearings, held in Gatineau, Quebec, marked a landmark meeting of citizens’ groups, internet experts, telecommunications firms, and businesses coming together to try to determine how the future — and the content — of the internet will be handled in Canada.

Having the CRTC establish regulatory policies to protect net neutrality would theoretically keep the internet functioning in the interests of users over profits for big companies. According to 27-year-old Vancouver resident Steve Anderson, that might now be closer to reality, thanks to what he saw while giving his own presentation to the CRTC in the first days of the hearings.

“Overall, they received us really positively,” Anderson said when WE reached him by phone on July 9, while he was in the midst of post-hearing beers with representatives of Google, the internet communications giant, which has publicly called for a stop to throttling by ISPs. “They [CRTC commissioners] almost seemed resigned to the consensus that there’s kind of an inevitability that they need to put some ruling in place in order to keep the internet open.”

Anderson added that a new policy framework can be expected from the CRTC by early fall. “Now I’m just waiting to see if they actually take [us] seriously when they put their policy together,” he said.

Anderson is founder of the Campaign for Democratic Media and the Save Our Net Coalition, both Vancouver-based advocacy groups working to garner support for a neutral internet free of bandwidth throttling and traffic control by ISPs. His efforts have resulted in more than 11,000 people from across Canada submitting comments to the CRTC in support of net neutrality.

“I think there clearly is growing public sentiment about the need for legal and regulatory protections for net neutrality,” says Michael Geist, who participated in the CRTC hearings and holds the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. “We are at a key point in the development of the internet in Canada. We need to get the rules right or face the prospect of troubling limits on competition, innovation, and free speech.”

Geist, like Anderson, remains hopeful that the wide range of groups speaking in favour of net neutrality at the CRTC hearings bodes well for the future of Canadian internet policy. But, he says, if the CRTC sticks with the business-minded arguments of telecommunications firms, the pressure for a political solution will increase dramatically. So far, the federal Liberals and federal NDP have spoken out in favour of policies supporting net neutrality. The Conservatives have yet to express their views on the issue.