Mark Hasiuk

Vancouver city hall coddles, protects poisonous pro-dope lobby

(Vancouver Courier, May 9, 2012)

Vancouver is the inversion capital of Canada. What Nietzsche called transvaluation blooms in full colour, where the absurd is reasonable, the perverse now sacred.

For example. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, better known as VANDU, headquartered at 380 East Hasting in the Downtown Eastside.

To identify the majority of neighbourhood residents with VANDU is ignorant. To confuse VANDU with other activists is to diminish all activism. To call VANDU radical is to libel radicals worldwide. According to VANDU’s “manifesto for a Drug User Liberation Movement” available online, people have the “right to obtain, prepare, and ingest drugs… to deal with psychological trauma or physical pain, or for pleasure or fun.”

This philosophy, enablement on steroids, undermines the basic tenets of drug rehabilitation in a neighbourhood steeped in crack, heroin and crystal meth. 

Despite claims of bloated membership, VANDU is mainly Ann Livingston, longtime leader, whose handful of acolytes elbow and intimidate around the Downtown Eastside. Last month at city hall, a VANDU-led mob stormed council chambers to protest an East Hastings condo development called Sequel 138. According to a VANDU statement, the development will cause “disruption and displacement of drug markets” in the neighbourhood. 

A rogue group, you say. Unaffiliated, without backing from any reputable source. Think again.

Since 1999, VANDU has fed from the public trough. 

Last year, Vancouver Coastal Health, your public health authority, gave VANDU $250,000 and another $250,000 in 2012, not including $40,913 for VANDU’s participation in VCH’s crack pipe giveaway program. Why VANDU needs $40,913 to hand out crack pipes remains a mystery.

Funding from city hall ($20,000 last year, $20,000 this year) pales in comparison. But here’s the kicker. Since 2006, VANDU headquarters on East Hastings has operated without permits, a prerequisite for any business, non-profit or hotdog stand in the city.

According to documents obtained by the Courier through Freedom of Information legislation, in February 2007 “after receiving complaints from area residents,” city staff ordered VANDU to apply for a development permit. VANDU sought and received a 60-day reprieve, which expired on June 13, 2007. Since then, nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

Email transcripts from early 2012 (also obtained through FOI) include conversations between Livingston and Vision Coun. Andrea Reimer. Livingston complains about “vending” bylaw enforcement in the Downtown Eastside, Reimer says it’s “frustrating to hear it’s still happening.” Nothing about VANDU’s outstanding permit situation.

Incidentally, according to the Province newspaper, during last month’s VANDU-led protest at city hall, Reimer brokered a “30-minute informal information session” for protesters to speak even though Sequel 138 wasn’t on the agenda. Next election, Reimer should run a pro-VANDU campaign so voters understand where her sympathies lie.

Seventeen additional pages of VANDU-related email transcripts—four involving Mayor Gregor Robertson—are redacted, deemed off limits to public eyes.

Back on East Hastings, Manzoor Hussain, an immigrant from Pakistan, stands behind the counter at S.Amen Foods, a small convenience store next door to VANDU. Tall and burly with a black tuft of hair, Hussain points to the business licence hanging on his wall. He renews it yearly—$327 in 2012. Mention VANDU to Hussain, then stand back. “I complain so many times to the [VANDU] management,” he says, all hands and gestures. “It’s one thing after another.”

To swell its ranks, VANDU offers $3 stipends to supporters who line up outside Hussain’s store, creating a human barrier for his customers. During one incident, Hussain’s front window was smashed. It cost him $600 to replace it. “I have to follow the rules, but they get away with anything they want. Why?”

Why, indeed. City hall won’t say.

But consider this. According to a spokesperson from the city’s development services department, during any permit application process, city staff must consider the applicant’s “impact on potential neighbours.” Most probably, any honest analysis of VANDU’s impact on the 300 block of East Hastings would result in a permit denial, probable court case and eventual eviction.

Apparently, that just won’t do. When it comes to city permits, your friendly neighbourhood pro-dope lobbyists need not apply.

Twitter: @MarkHasiuk

 

 

 

 

Multi-million dollar Vancouver park with 'family ties' escapes criticism

(Vancouver Courier, May 3, 2012)

Sometime between the years 180 and 192AD, Commodus, Roman Emperor and beard-loving dude, built the Temple of Marcus Aurelius, an homage to his late father and predecessor, on a patch of Roman real estate now home to the Piazza Colonna.

It was standard fare for the times. A giant project constructed by slaves, paid for by taxpayers.

Last Saturday afternoon in Vancouver, Constance Barnes, chair of the park board, announced completion of Emery Barnes Park near Seymour and Davie, ending a three-phase construction process that began in 2003.

The mayor was there, perma-smile on stun. So was Rolly Lumbala, B.C. Lions fullback and admirer of Emery Barnes, who played for the Lions in the 1960s before winning election to B.C.’s provincial legislature, eventually becoming that body’s first black speaker. He died in 1998.

The park, replete with water fountain and bubbling streams, boasts an off-leash dog park, playground and chessboard tables. According to the park board, Emery Barnes Park cost $5.5 million not including future maintenance. Most of the heavy lifting, including a $3.8 million expansion in 2010, took place after daughter Constance was elected to the park board in 2008 as a member of Vision Vancouver.

Constance can’t take credit for the millions allocated to Emery Barnes Park. That was a joint effort by the park board—the same park board that in 2010 threatened to close public washrooms due to budget woes. But she lobbied for this for years. A touchy subject, to say the least.

“She was not involved in any budget decisions for the project,” said Jason Watson, park board spokesperson, during an interview with the Courier. “Commissioners don’t approve any individual line items for budget.”

So park board commissioners don’t have input on park board budget details?

“They do approve the overall budget plan… but again, most of this money was allocated before she became elected.”

Every news report about Saturday’s event joined in the celebration, where the acting chief of one of Vancouver’s three branches of municipal government christened a multi-million dollar public park in her father’s name.

The Vancouver Sun’s slobbering dispatch bordered on satire: “A plaque noting Emery Barnes’ contributions to society was also unveiled Saturday, the first of its kind to be installed in Vancouver parks to educate people about park namesakes. Barnes beamed with pride. ‘Hi dad,’ she said, admiring the plaque, then added: ‘It’s like he is smiling at us.’”

Strange. Yet stranger still was the silence from critics in the media and opposing political parties. Perhaps everyone loves the park. Perhaps they just don’t care. Or perhaps because the Barnes family is black they ignore the park’s family ties, lest they be called racist. Imagine, for a moment, school board chair Patti Bacchus helping name a school in similar familial fashion. Or the mayor cutting a ribbon on The Robertson Family Bike Lane. Many would cry foul, and rightly so.

During his three-decade tenure in Victoria, Emery Barnes advocated for the poor, drawing on the poverty and bigotry of his New Orleans childhood. He brought a valuable perspective to a predominantly white institution and spoke eloquently about the responsibilities of government. “We must govern more realistically,” he said, during a 1987 interview with the Parliamentary Review, “in relation to the poverty line.”

Flash forward two decades. The park board, chaired by his daughter, spends $5.5 million on bubbling water and outdoor chessboards while public pools and rinks close forever. Wonder what Mr. Barnes would think about that.

Back in Rome, the Temple of Marcus Aurelius stood for centuries before it collapsed. We understand why Commodus built it. He loved his dad. But with all due respect to Emery Barnes, may he rest in peace, elected officials dedicating public monuments to dead relatives seems a little too old school for 2012.

Mayor Gregor Robertson declares war on parkers in Vancouver

(Vancouver Courier, April 25, 2012)

To paraphrase Fidel Castro, revolution is a death match between the future and the past.

These days, old Fidel, king of the green fatigues and unblinking eyes, rarely surfaces, retired to his Punto Cero estate. But his sentiment remains sound.

Revolutions, by nature, eliminate one way to make way for another. The victorious, always virtuous, set the course. And collateral damage, often in human form, gets swept away.

A revolution landed at 12th and Cambie in 2008 with the election of Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver majority, and gained momentum in 2011 when Robertson trounced NPA mayoral challenger Suzanne Anton by more than 18,000 votes.

Robertson—suit-wearing cyclist, climate change alarmist, former Tides Canada director—is Vancouver’s first eco-mayor. Alongside Vision Coun. Andrea Reimer, an enviro-star in her own right, Robertson aims to “green” Vancouver in his image.

Last July, council approved the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, the blueprint for his administration, which among other things, targets cars, mankind’s carbon-spewing nemesis. According to the 162-page plan, parking is passé and policy must “affect people’s finances in positive and negative ways.” Only then will we develop an environmental conscience.

So last week, when council transferred $1 million from the “parking sites reserve,” which funds parking lot construction, into the new “greenest city fund,” few gasped. What, exactly, the “greenest city fund” will fund remains to be seen. But it’s another victory for the revolution. “I’m quite pleased,” said Reimer, from her seat in council chambers, “to see that money re-purposed for a future that will serve the needs of Vancouverites a little better than it might as parking spots.”

Well, not all Vancouverites. “Green” parking policies favour the fit—the very young, lame or elderly notwithstanding.

Ann den Hertog arrived in Vancouver in 1973. A Dutch immigrant, she marvelled at Canada’s “wide open spaces” and fell in love with Stanley Park. “It’s so beautiful especially when the sun shines,” she said, while scanning English Bay last Friday from a concrete perch above Third Beach. “We used to come here and walk the park all the time.”

Now 84, Ann, although short and spry, doesn’t walk the park like she used to. Husband Bill stays close to home and the two-bus trip from their Kitsilano address takes almost an hour. Parking rate hikes (a total of $1 per hour over the past three years) discourage many seniors. And last week, the Vision-dominated park board, a puppet division of the Vision council, eliminated off-season rates in Stanley Park, increasing per-hour parking fees to $3 year round. “I think a lot of seniors will be prevented from coming here,” said Ann, “if they can’t afford to drive.”

The war on parking, and by extension, parkers, is citywide. In 2010, council upped rates and expanded meter zones, increasing 2011 parking revenues by $4.8 million. Total on-street parking revenue (all those pesky meters) eclipsed $39 million, which doesn’t include more than $28 million generated from city-owned lots. Incidentally, city councillors receive exemption decals for free parking virtually anywhere in the city.

Don’t conflate Robertson with the rest of us who want clean air and fresh water. Who doesn’t want that? We should steward the environment, God’s gift to humanity, with great care.

But Robertson is an extremist. It’s Earth first, people second. His vision of parking-starved streets and bike lanes reeks of social Darwinism. At times, like his 2010 trip to China, he sounds downright dictatorial, questioning “how worthwhile democracy is” in combating “the biggest crisis in the history of our species.”

Last month, in only the second papal visit to Cuba, Pope Benedict met with Fidel Castro after mass in Havana’s Revolution Square where the pontiff called for an “open and renewed society” in that communist country.

Expect no revival at city hall. During “opening prayer” before an April 2011 council meeting, former COPE councillor David Cadman projected a planet Earth image onto a screen while New Age music filled a darkened council chambers. Perhaps a little old time religion, pondering nothing earthly minded, might soften the hard green hearts of the eco-elite.

Can I get an amen?

Chinese investors shutter Vancouver neighbourhood while apologists cry 'racism'

(Vancouver Courier, April 18, 2012)

Trafalgar, they used to call it. A patch of urban plain between West 16th Avenue and King Edward in Arbutus Ridge on Vancouver’s West Side. Prime real estate in a beautiful city. And ground zero of the investor invasion.

A stroll through Trafalgar begins innocently. Rows of parallel streets. White sidewalks. Green lawns. Blue sky, if you’re lucky. Far enough from downtown, the neighbourhood rests in quiet. Too quiet. You soon notice you’re alone among rows of big-box homes, all peaks and eaves, with ornamental hedges stirring in the wind. It’s like a giant film set for a Hollywood blockbuster about a deadly strain of bacteria. Only the goldfish survived.

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, last year the average price of a detached home on the West Side rose 20.7 per cent to $1.99 million, continuing a trend of yearly spikes.

Several factors contribute to the boom including foreign investment from China. Unlike other precincts around the world, British Columbia has no restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate. Anyone from anywhere can buy on your street and mothball their investment in perpetuity.

Look no further than the Trafalgar area, perhaps the most striking example of investor decay in the city. It’s no longer a community, it’s a commodity. A pocket of land bought and tilled by speculators. Down went the old stucco bungalows, once the neighbourhood’s signature home, up went dozens of “developer specials”—two and three-storey monstrosities that often sit empty, windows shuttered, for months. Sometimes years.

It didn’t used to be this way.

Colin grew up in the neighbourhood, at Trafalgar elementary and Prince of Wales secondary. He remembers streets bustling with life. Kids on bikes. Barbecues and burning leaves. Now a 38-year-old investment adviser, he lives in a rented bungalow not far from his childhood home. While the street names remain the same, the neighbourhood is unrecognizable. “It’s really unbelievable. It’s eerie, I just shake my head.”

Last Friday, Colin took me on a Trafalgar tour. Street after street with many vacant homes. He pointed as we walked. “That’s empty. That one. That one. The whole side of this street almost.”

Colin, not his real name, wishes to remain anonymous, fearing backlash and smears.

You see, as illustrated two weeks ago in the Courier, if you dare note the ethnicity intrinsic to foreign real estate investment in Vancouver, you court charges of bigotry from industry benefactors.

Of course, local realtors and developers have no problem racially profiling potential buyers. For example. Sutton West Coast Realty orchestrates Vancouver home auctions in Shanghai and West Side bus tours for Chinese investors.

Yet Larry Beasley, retired Vancouver city planner and former vice-president of Aquilini Developments, a major industry player, says it’s “racist” to suggest Chinese foreign buyers drive up prices. Politically correct moralizing from Beasley, who also served as “special planning adviser” for royal dictators in the United Arab Emirates, a country that jails homosexuals for being gay.

Back in Trafalgar, bilingual “For Sale” signs in English and Mandarin dot front lawns. During our afternoon stroll, we happened upon a grey, two-storey with white-trimmed peaks. The front door was wide open. A young Asian man appeared in the foyer.

“Yes?”

“Is this an open house?”

“No,” he said, in broken English. “We show to private buyers.”

“How much? What’s the price?”

“Three point eight nine million.”

That’s typical of Trafalgar and other sections of Arbutus Ridge, probably the most overpriced neighbourhood in the city. It’s a market within a market with baffling trends. According to Colin, several Trafalgar homes seem to exist solely for “sale” yet never get occupied. “These three places in a row,” he says, near West 21st and Yew. “No one’s ever lived there but [For Sale] signs go up for a few weeks then go away for few weeks. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

It’s a murky Monopoly game. Thanks to strict regulation in China, Chinese real estate investors look off-shore for capital gains. Our wild open market attracts investors from everywhere, warping the local supply and demand equation, helping push middle class residents out to the suburbs or into crushing debt.

Premier Christy “Families First” Clark, a committed globalist, won’t restrict foreign ownership in B.C. Mayor Gregor Robertson, who slobbered over Beijing during a 2010 “trade mission” to China, won’t reform the tax code to accommodate the new normal. Which means foreign real estate investors pay the same rate (4.2 per cent) as local homeowners, not the business rate (18 per cent) they should.

Two weeks ago, Eugen Klein, president of the Vancouver Real Estate Board, told the Courier that off-shore buyers account for only three per cent of house sales. Rubbish. Because foreigners often use local addresses (their lawyer’s office, for example) when registering with the provincial land title office, no one knows how many off-shore investors own homes in Vancouver. Yet Klein’s “three per cent” defence raises questions he’d likely rather avoid.

What percentage. Mr. Klein, of foreign investment is acceptable in Vancouver’s real estate market? Ten per cent? Twenty per cent? If 50 per cent of Vancouver was owned by foreigners, would that be OK with you? Where do the interests of your global industry and our city diverge? How deep doth thy zeal for globalization run?

No, they want this conversation to go away. Shut it up before folks get wise. If you’re troubled by dead neighbourhoods shuttered by foreign investment, you’re a racist dog stuck in 1923. Get back to your rented bungalow. You’ll be hearing from us soon.

Twitter: @MarkHasiuk

 

 

Proposed Vancouver aboriginal school prescribes segregation for dysfunction

(Vancouver Courier, April 11, 2013)

Segregation, for the children.

Despite tribal instincts, modern western sensibilities lean towards integration, to the point of homogenization. Whatever the medium, the message is clear. We’re one big happy family. But life is full of surprises.

The Vancouver School Board, home to the Diversity Team, fountain of many colours, where social engineers like board chair Patti Bacchus come to practice, wants to segregate aboriginal children in a “aboriginal choice” school. Odd, really, because in 2011 the board’s revised “Multicultural and Anti-racism Policy” crossed out race as a social construct, arbitrarily and with extreme prejudice. In the words of Diversity Team chief Lisa Pedrini, “Although science has proven the notion of races and racial differences to be false, the belief… is perpetuated despite evidence to the contrary.” Yet here we are, back to separate but equal.

The aboriginal experience occupies a curious place in the white liberal mind, which bears the weight of historical injustice. As aboriginal communities across Canada wallow in poverty and dysfunction, the white majority, colonists incarnate, remain guilty by association. And no remedy, no matter the cost, is unworthy of reflection.

So when Jo-Ann Archibald, associate dean for indigenous education at UBC, beat the segregationist drum in Vancouver public schools, Bacchus and friends fell in line.

In the United States, de facto segregation defines many inner-city schools, with dreary results.

For example, due to white flight and demographics, the Washington, D.C. school district is predominantly black. According to the U.S. Department of Education, D.C. spends $18,000 per student each school year, one of the highest averages in the country, yet ranks near the bottom of virtually every national achievement category.

Statistically, D.C. (123 public schools, 46,191 students) and Vancouver (110 for 55,994) share similar school traits. Like D.C., Vancouver boasts high per-pupil funding ($6,784) compared to nearby districts. The graduation rate for one D.C. school, Anacostia High, a one-time stop on Michelle Obama’s 2009 “motivational” tour, hovers around 37 per cent, close to the aboriginal graduation rate (32 per cent) in Vancouver.

More broadly, both communities—Canadian First Nations, black America—struggle with dysfunction. Rampant teen pregnancy, single-parent homes, widespread drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and high crime rates. To help, American charter schools, wildly popular in D.C., bus black kids out of brokenness to a better, safer education.

In Vancouver, all schools are safe and well-funded. And yet, with no evidence of future success, the school board wants to segregate aboriginal kids. Prince George launched an aboriginal school in 2010, too early to gauge success or failure. Like the Vancouver proposal, it’s open to students of all backgrounds—a caveat meant to deflect criticism.

According to the Vancouver School Board website, public meetings staged last year by Archibald demonstrated “clearly that stakeholders in aboriginal education believe a school is required which will honour aboriginal values, perspectives and philosophy.”

But wait. That’s already happening. The district employs aboriginal curriculum consultants and an aboriginal district administrator. Fully staffed aboriginal “resource rooms” operate in many schools alongside First Nations leadership training, culture and language programs. Two courses—B.C. First Nations Studies 12 and English 12 First Peoples—spotlight the aboriginal experience. Compared to all other groups, aboriginal students are richly served.

However, despite the best efforts of teachers and administrators, their impact remains limited compared to influences at home.

Finally, the school board last month completed a survey of Vancouver parents. Out of 304 survey respondents, 59 (37 aboriginal, 22 non-aboriginal) said they’d send their child to an aboriginal school while 146 (11 aboriginal, 135 non-aboriginal) said “no.” Ninety-six respondents (31 aboriginal, 65 non-aboriginal) said “maybe” with three undecided.

To recap, 19 per cent said “yes” to an aboriginal school in Vancouver. According to the survey summary, some “no” respondents decried this “form of segregation.”

Which explains why the survey, touted by Bacchus and friends before, was buried after. No website posting. No press release. Exposed only by a formal request from the Courier.

The aboriginal proposal will be discussed Wednesday at school board.

Twitter: @MarkHasiuk

 

 

 

 

Vancouver realtors court Chinese investors while middle class gets squeezed

(Vancouver Courier, April 4, 2012)

According to last week’s Real Estate Weekly survey, 46 per cent of Lower Mainlanders think now (spring 2012) is a good time to buy a home mainly due to low interest rates. On the supply side, 56 per cent think it’s a good time to sell, mainly due to high prices.

But what do they think in China?

With 1.3 billion people and counting, China’s housing market is stuck in overdrive. In Shanghai, for example, speculators bought bulk and upped prices, squeezing out the little guy. To cool things off, Beijing recently increased interest rates, set lending limits and imposed purchase restrictions, which limit the number of properties to—in most cases—two per family.

And yet, China’s booming manufacturing base, globalization’s gift to the politburo, distributes wealth from the Yalu River to the Gulf of Tonkin. According to last year’s BCG Global Wealth Survey, China has more than one million millionaires, third most in the world behind the United States and Japan.

With all that capital exiled from China’s domestic real estate market, now more than ever, Chinese eyes gaze east to places like British Columbia, which has no restrictions on foreign ownership. Anyone from anywhere can buy on your street and add to their portfolio. And real estate firms are salivating.

For example. In January, Bosa Properties, a Burnaby-based development company, threw a “Chinese New Year VIP Party” in Vancouver for Chinese investors. In March, Sutton West Coast Realty distributed glossy red and white flyers in West Point Grey urging homeowners to “Sell Your Property In China.” My friend Jim lives on West 11th Avenue. He received a flyer, and last week, called Steve, a Sutton realtor who just returned from a four-day real estate show in Shanghai where he showcased Vancouver properties to Chinese buyers.

Jim: Why should I sell my house in China?

Steve: “The main benefit is the extra exposure you receive… they have the cash, they have the resources, they’re looking for these investment properties but they probably will never move to Vancouver, so this type of exposure can only be obtained if you list your properties in China directly.”

Jim: What will happen to my house if I sell to someone in China?

Steve: “Some would be buying just as an investment, so it might be just a hold. Some may keep it as a hold-lease. Some might have intentions to develop. Others might actually eventually land and move to Canada and have this as their principle residence.”

Steve has scheduled two more trips to China and six “buyers’ tours” in the next two months where he’ll bus dozens of Chinese investors around Vancouver checking out homes.

Because foreigners often use local addresses (their lawyer’s office, for example) when registering with the provincial land title office, no one knows how many off-shore Chinese investors own homes in Vancouver. But anecdotal evidence abounds. Empty homes, bought and mothballed for future sale, decrease housing stock, increase demand and up prices. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, last year the average price of a detached home in Metro Vancouver rose 11.2 per cent to $887,000. On the West Side, the average home price rose 20.7 per cent to $1.99 million. If trends continue, only the wealthy will own in Vancouver. Rich, foreign investors will help push lower and middle income residents out of the city.

To combat similar trends, regulators in Florida and other U.S. states target foreign investment. In Australia, where they believed Chinese investment threatened to consume entire towns, the federal government limited purchase eligibility and outlawed overseas landlords. That’s how you operate in a global market. When China, the epicentre of globalization, changes the rules, you respond. 

In B.C., Premier Christy Clark and her “Families First” Liberals could restrict foreign ownership. At city hall, Mayor Gregor Robertson could tax foreign real estate investors at business rates (18 per cent) not residential rates (4.2 per cent). It may not dramatically limit foreign investing but at least they’d pay more into municipal coffers.

Unfortunately, Clark, Robertson and the rest of B.C.’s political elite, which relies on big real estate developers for fat campaign donations, stays silent.

Instead, they prattle on about “affordability,” whining about federal money for rental housing, while realtors auction off our neighbourhoods to the highest bidder in Shanghai.

 

 

 

 

 

Vancouver School Board plays race card with 'Chinese' victimization ideology

(Vancouver Courier, March 7, 2012)

Race and politics, starring the Vancouver School Board.

Despite the teachers’ strike, tonight at the school board building on Broadway, the board may vote on a motion inspired by Bill Chu, head of the Canadians for Reconciliation Society, and tabled by COPE trustee Allan Wong.

According to Wong’s motion, the province must “incorporate the history of British Columbians of Chinese descent and of the Indigenous People into the learning objectives of B.C. school curriculum” and recognize “the adverse effects of B.C.’s policies on their respective communities.” Only then, is “reconciliation” possible.

Reconciliation? The Chinese diaspora long ago reconciled across Vancouver, helping comprise our city’s middle and upper class. Asian kids jack-up the IQ of Vancouver’s student body. They thrive, some say dominate, at many colleges and universities and help fuel industry of all kinds.

Before continuing, a brief aside.

Did you catch it? Wong slipped “Indigenous People” into his motion about Chinese content in the curriculum. Why would he do that?

Because that’s the best way to propose anything at the Vancouver School Board. Make it, somehow, about First Nations and the vote will be unanimous. Aboriginal graduation rates wallow at 32 per cent compared to 82 per cent overall. The board’s “program for every problem” mentality, which ignores the crucial role parents and families play in student success, drives the district’s myriad aboriginal programs and an upcoming aboriginal-only school. From an early age, Vancouver students learn about aboriginal people and the misdeeds of European settlers. Two high school courses are dedicated to the aboriginal experience. So forget about the “Indigenous” element of Wong’s motion. That’s a canard.

Wong’s motion continues: “An understanding of the vast contributions and the injustices of the past… is vital to guide students’ action in the future. Yet, there currently is inadequate information in the B.C. curriculum” about Chinese folks in Canada.

Untrue. Students study the Chinese Head Tax, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Canadian Pacific Railway—the holy trinity of Chinese history on the West Coast. Mandarin bilingualism started last September and will eventually include all grades.

So what’s the deal? Who, besides Bill Chu and Allan Wong, wants more Chinese content in Vancouver classrooms? And why are they doing this now?

Well-known in Chinatown and left-leaning political circles, Chu’s got connections. As an activist, he helped kill the downtown casino expansion plan and always surfaces during civic election campaigns. He’s the type of guy politicians (see Allan Wong) want to know. Chu’s beat the Chinese “victim” drum for years.

But in 2010, in a Georgia Straight op/ed, David Wong, director of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of B.C., blasted Chu, calling his indictment of school curriculum “pure BS.” According to David Wong, “high school history books contained many references to the historic head tax and past racist injustices.”

Last week, as a steady rain fell on Granville Street, I talked with several Chinese-Canadians including Michelle Liang who spent five years in Vancouver public schools. Now a 27-year-old accountant, Liang furrowed her brow at the school board motion. “I don’t necessarily agree with that. Growing up, I never felt like the history of Chinese people, or immigrants or whatever, was ignored. I just didn’t.”

Outside a Starbucks, Kathy Xie, a middle-aged mother from Richmond, agreed with Liang, but… “I do think it’s important to know about things like the railroad because that was really bad.”

Really bad? Really?

In the 1880s, faced with a labour shortage, the Canadian Pacific Railway tapped Chinese contractors who shipped thousands of eager workers from China to complete a relatively small section of the 22,500-kilometre railway while white workers, mainly, laid the rest of the track. It was tough work. They lived in tents. Some died on the job. There was no WCB in the 1800s. And while Chinese railway workers made less money than their non-Chinese counterparts, most eventually quit the railway, opting for the higher pay and greater opportunity of B.C.’s goldfields where they prospered.

In 1885 the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, with its $50 “head tax” for Chinese immigrants only. Today, Canadians gasp at such measures. But between 1995 and 2005, immigrants from China and elsewhere paid $975 for entry into Canada. In 2006, the fee was reduced to $490.

Was there institutional “racism” in Canada in the 1800s? Of course. But by today’s standards, the world was racist. Chinese immigrants settled across Canada, and through hard work and determination, lived free from poverty, famine and dynastic rule. In successive generations, they’ve flourished. It’s an immigration success story spurred not by Bill Chu’s victimization ideology but by the virtues of a great people. 

Which makes Wong’s school board motion, and its architect, irrelevant. But if they’re searching for declarations, how about an official note of gratitude to the country they call home.

 

 

Vancouver School Board bureaucracy remains bloated and unnecessary

 

(Vancouver Courier, February 28, 2012)

It's 10 o'clock. Do you know what your trustee is doing?

As a teachers' strike looms, Vancouver parents brace for the worst in a school district bleeding students. Back in 2000, 58,145 students attended Vancouver public schools. In 2012, enrolment sits at 55,994. Yet during that same 12-year period, the Vancouver School Board budget, paid by taxpayers, has ballooned from $357.8 million to $488.2 million.

"Bureaucracy," wrote late American author Mary McCarthy, "has become the modern form of despotism." The school board is a bureaucratic colossus, headquartered in a glassy building at Broadway and Fir, expanding far beyond its walls.

According to board data, roughly 3,700 non-teachers work in a district of 110 schools. That's roughly 33 non-teachers for every school. Nine board trustees from Vancouver's three major civic parties funnel taxpayer millions to plethora of programs. Mandarin bilingualism. Several aboriginal projects (and an upcoming aboriginal-only school). Arts programs and "outdoor schools" with skiing, ocean kayaking and rock climbing. According to the board's website, something called the Circle of Care refugee program serves the "settlement needs of young refugee children_ and their primary care givers."

With a program for every problem, there's never enough money.

In 2010, provincial comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland blamed the board's budget deficit ($17 million then, an estimated $14 million now) on mismanagement by bureaucrats and politicking by school board trustees who choose "advocacy at the expense of stewardship."

Simply put, parents, who pay the taxes and supply the children for Vancouver schools, have lost control of their public education system. But they're not alone.

In Alberta, as populations in Calgary and Edmonton climb, school boards grow exponentially with predictable results. "Finding out about the process, finding out where a parent has an impact on the process, all of those things are really kept close to the vest," says Larry Leach, speaking by phone from his home in northeast Calgary.

Last spring, when his child's school faced overcrowding due to a proposed nearby school closure, Leach, an advertising consultant, and a handful of other parents formed the Association for Responsive Trusteeship in Calgary Schools (ARTICS). The school was eventually saved, and thanks partly to ARTICS and a similar group in Edmonton, two weeks ago Alberta Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk promised a new era of transparency with "very detailed" school board expense reports posted online. Leach hopes provincial measures expose waste and trustee "secrecy" about board budgets. "That's the number one thing with parents and citizens in general-taxpayers, whether they are parents or not."

Speaking of taxpayer money. Back in Vancouver, this school year the Diversity Team, a five-person thought-squad established in 2005 to teach teachers "inclusive teaching" practices, will receive $862,884 from the school board. Of course, most parents don't know about the Diversity Team. It operates under the radar. In fact, following my 2008 column about the team, its web page disappeared from the board website.

Unlike Calgary's non-partisan school board, Vancouver's board is a partisan viper's nest ruled by two-term Vision chair Patti Bacchus who mixes partisanship with political activism. Last fall, Out in Schools, a program authored by gay advocates, included a website with graphic elements in its literature. Bacchus helped spin the situation, and in the end, censured two rival NPA trustees who dared note Out in Schools' lack of board oversight.

In July, despite protests from NPA trustees, Vision replaced fired school board communications manager David Weir with Kurt Heinrich, a former Vision operative whose past duties include attacking the NPA via Twitter.

Yes, it's all about control. But there's plenty of blame to go around. In Vancouver, the media rarely digs deep into school board business and parent apathy emboldens professional activists. The district includes a high percentage of Asian families who, in some schools, comprise the majority. Generally, Asian parents demand classroom excellence from their kids, and unless board mischief affects student grades, are unlikely to interfere. Reading, writing and arithmetic-that's what's important.

And therein lies the lesson. Get back to basics. Dismantle the bureaucracy, the kids don't need it. Fire this school board and begin anew.

 

Belugas languish at Vancouver Aquarium

(Vancouver Courier, February 21, 2012)

Save the whales, from the animal rights folk.

No other North American social movement has been more damaged, more pushed to the fringe, by extremists than the so-called animal rights movement. Regularly, intransigence from hardcode activists alienates the general public. Legitimate concerns about animal wellbeing, whether in pet stores, zoos or aquariums, get lost in the gong show.

For example. Last week, following a Jan. 31 highway collision in Manitoba involving a train, a tractor-trailer and 71 cows, animal rights group PETA called for a roadside memorial. "A memorial sign will serve as a tribute," said PETA spokesperson Emily Lavender, "to those dozens of cows who had been severely injured and killed on their way to slaughter."

The humanization of cows (the other red meat) demonstrates the fatal flaw of the animal rights movement. Rights, bestowed by culture and courts, remain the sole property of human beings who enact laws to, among other things, protect animals from mistreatment. An accident involving dozens of dead cows does not require a Charter challenge-it requires a bulldozer, and maybe some barbecue sauce.

Last Friday, while a light rain fell on the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, three beluga whales-smooth and white with deep black eyes, averaging more than 3,000 pounds-moved gracefully through blue water in an outdoor tank no bigger than a typical hotel swimming pool. In the wild, belugas cruise Arctic coastlines of the U.S., Canada and Russia, diving for char, squid and crab. In Stanley Park, they float next to a snack bar that sells hamburgers and fish and chips.

According to aquarium officials, seven cetaceans (three whales, three dolphins, one porpoise) live at the aquarium. Every year, one million visitors pay up to $17 to tap the glass at one of Vancouver's most popular attractions. Last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held its annual meeting in Vancouver. The four-day event included a symposium at the Vancouver Convention Centre where conservationists and ethicists argued against cetaceans in captivity. Oddly, two days earlier, the AAAS staged a media reception at (you guessed it) the Vancouver Aquarium.

When critics such as No Whales in Captivity, a Vancouver-based group, cried foul, the AAAS acknowledged the irony but pled no contest. "We had already paid our deposit fee at the aquarium at that point in time," said Ginger Pinholster, AAAS spokesperson, speaking by phone from Washington, D.C.

No Whales spokesperson Annelise Sorg fired back, telling the Courier: "Here they are promoting the declaration of cetacean rights while at the same time booking the local whale jail for a media reception party. It just doesn't make sense."

I'm with Annelise on that one, hyperbole about the "whale jail" notwithstanding. But what do Vancouverites think?

Back in 1993, a referendum sunk the Stanley Park zoo when 53 per cent of voters called for its closure. Yet the aquarium, a non-profit organization, remains open for business on public land thanks to an agreement with the park board.

The board has kicked around the cetacean issue for years. Former park board commissioner Stuart Mackinnon, who lost his reelection bid last November, wanted a plebiscite added to the 2011 civic election ballot. Whales and dolphins, said Mackinnon, should be phased out of Vancouver. However, Vision park commissioner Aaron Jasper nixed the plebiscite, claiming it put the "the park board at risk of a potential lawsuit" because of the board's legal arrangement with the aquarium.

Incidentally, that arrangement includes $90,000 in rent each year from the aquarium to the board. Not to mention an untold number of tourist dollars for the economy and the cachet all great cities, especially the "most livable city in the world," require. Whales are big business. And they aren't leaving Vancouver anytime soon.

To be fair, the aquarium says captive whales spawn valuable research, which aids conservation efforts in the wild. No doubt that's true. But last Friday I watched three belugas logroll in a virtual puddle while kids pointed and cameras flashed. Such scenes seem unworthy of scientific research. Moreover, despite requests from the Courier, aquarium officials refuse to disclose documentation about the origin and transportation of belugas and other cetaceans. What's the park board think about that?

Two weeks ago, a U.S. federal court dismissed a PETA lawsuit, which accused SeaWorld of violating the "constitutional rights" of killer whales because the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Whatever your views on captive whales, you likely don't equate them with black slaves.

If activists focused on reality when pushing aquariums and their political allies, more people would listen. The caging of magnificent animals seems out-of-step with humanity's forward march.

 

Vancouver pro-drug lobby doesn’t deserve taxpayer dollars

(Vancouver Courier, February 15, 2012)

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

That’s how much Vancouver Coastal Health, your public health authority, gave VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, last year. This year, according to VCH officials, VANDU will receive another $250,000 from taxpayers, continuing a provincial funding scheme established in 1999.

Most Vancouverites don’t know VANDU. Headquartered in a brick building at 380 East Hastings in the Downtown Eastside, it’s a non-profit hangout conforming to neighbourhood drug culture. Folks gather outside on the sidewalk and inside the lobby. Traffic seems to have increased since December when VANDU began distributing free crack pipes to addicts, part of a VCH crack pipe giveaway. But mainly, thanks to longtime leader Ann Livingston, VANDU exists for activism.

Wherever police move against drugs, VANDU is there. Whenever Insite stages a street-level show of support, VANDU, which according to the city’s website offers cash “stipends” for "VANDU work," shows up. Livingston and company crash city hall, chiding council for police sins like the ticketing of illegal street vendors. Last week, following a four-year legal battle, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal dismissed a complaint from VANDU and the Pivot Legal Society who claimed the Downtown Ambassadors, a private security firm, discriminated against the homeless. Not even the tribunal, which relies on frivolous cases and flimsy evidence, could justify VANDU’s complaints.

Under the radar, VANDU provides “public speakers” and “research and consultation” to anyone interested in the VANDU point of view. Before booking a VANDU expert, you must call for a “free consultation.” Any additional fees are unknown. Livingston did not return calls for this column. But in 2009, she told the Courier that VANDU employs three paid staff members who help organize group meetings and “counselling” sessions at 380 East Hastings.

Of course, counselling is subjective, depending largely on the goal. According to VANDU’s “manifesto for a Drug User Liberation Movement” available on its website, folks have the “right to obtain, prepare, and ingest drugs, and to be intoxicated on drugs.” It continues: “We might take drugs to deal with psychological trauma or physical pain, or for pleasure or fun… our drug use is a response to our experiences of poverty, inequality, colonization, forced migration, workplace injury and inadequate access to pain relief.”

This is the VANDU gospel. Enablement on steroids. Victimization, stamped and validated. Music to the ears of the addict who organizes life around shunned responsibility. Every school of addiction treatment recognizes past trauma and the desire to self-medicate. That’s what addiction is. While sober minds can debate drug policy and decriminalization, the realities of addiction remain constant. Addicts want more. In response, VANDU celebrates drug abuse. Its 1,089-word manifesto excludes the words “addiction” and “addict,” calling drug abusers “oppressed people.”

Here’s why. According to the VANDU website, only “a person who has formerly, or is presently using illicit drugs” can become a voting member of the organization. To be clear. Addicts are people. Our friends, our family, our brothers and sisters. They deserve love and respect among, what Christ called, the “weary and burdened.” But until they recover, addicts place their addictions first. Any edict born from a group of addicts, under the influence of radical ideologues, will promote more enablement, more denial. Yet in a neighbourhood steeped in addiction, where treatment and prevention remains an afterthought, our provincial government funds this madness.

Why? Where’s the benefit? VANDU’s message helps fuel drug culture in the Downtown Eastside and a never-ending bill of housing, welfare, medical, policing and court costs.

But that’s not all. In addition to cash from Victoria, VANDU received $20,000 from city hall last year and will receive another $20,000 in 2012. Moreover, since 2006, VANDU headquarters has operated without a development permit. Back in 2009, Livingston said she was “negotiating” with the city. Apparently, negotiations have stalled.

VANDU is a cancer in a neighbourhood struggling to breathe. Its public funding is obscene. No government, at any level, has received a mandate from voters to prop up a pro-dope lobby.