Mark Hasiuk

NPA ballroom bits

Election night ballroom bash underlines NPA defeat (Vancouver Courier, Nov. 19, 2008)

 

Last Saturday, as 30 per cent of eligible voters trickled into polling stations around the city, approximately 300 loyalists of Vancouver's oldest political party, the NPA, gathered on the patterned carpet of the swanky Renaissance Hotel ballroom to await the results of the 2008 civic election.

The crowd was typical NPA. Lots of white hair. Blue blazers. Black evening wear. "Fresh from vacation" tans. The ballroom's dim lighting revealed Vancouver's cultural balkanization, as small groups of South Asian and Chinese-Canadians claimed their own carpeted territory.

The mood was brooding. The NPA, led by mayoral candidate Coun. Peter Ladner, had run a bland campaign, which was rocked two weeks ago by the $100 million Olympic Village bailout "scandal." Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson seemed poised to seize power, along with a Vision majority at city hall.

Shaw TV's election coverage flickered on two large projection screens. After the polls closed at 8 p.m., and the returns came rolling in, the mood grew more bitter as a Vision landslide materialized in full colour. Business picked up at the three bars placed strategically around the ballroom. In between sips of Hiram Walker and Beefeater gin, NPA diehards blamed the $100 million bailout, as if that issue alone sunk the NPA campaign.

But their outrage seemed forced.

The two parties are substantially similar. Vision and the NPA made similar promises on taxes and environmental issues. The NPA campaign failed to galvanize supporters with a consistent message. Ladner's top priority morphed from week to week. First crime, then homelessness, then "affordable" living.

The ballroom walls were plastered with posters of NPA candidates, each with their own catchphrase. But there was no banner proclaiming the NPA message--a perfect symbol for a rudderless campaign.

So what does the NPA stand for?

"Fiscal conservatism," opined Dr. Frank Nevin, who chatted quietly with 1970s city councillor Dr. Setty Pendakur. "You have to ask yourself who can run the city best during these difficult times," Pendakur said.

But "difficult times" are relative. This election loss means little to the lives of many gathered in the Renaissance ballroom. A Vision-dominated council won't obstruct their West Side worldview.

Take Michael Geller, for instance, whose failed council bid garnered a respectable 44,353 votes. Geller, a wealthy real estate planner and developer, rented the Renaissance "club lounge" on the 19th floor, complete with chic red couches, low ceilings and a patio view of Vancouver's business district. Groovy jazz fusion emanated from a hidden sound system as Champagne and Perrier chilled in stainless steel coolers next to white porcelain bowls filled with "Geller is sweller" campaign buttons. While friends and family stirred, Geller camped out in his private suite across the hall, watching the NPA massacre.

But he'll be all right. In fact, Geller was later seen hobnobbing at Vision's raucous victory party five blocks away at the Hotel Vancouver.

Back downstairs, Shaw TV proclaimed a Robertson victory and a Vision/COPE landslide. Coun. Suzanne Anton was the only NPAer to retain her seat at city hall.

Ladner entered the ballroom to the sound of mandatory applause and a strange techno/samba music mix. From a shallow stage, festooned with clumps of red and blue balloons--and a dreary gaggle of defeated school board, parks board and council candidates--Ladner squinted into the spotlight. He looked tired and pale, but his relief was palpable. He ran an honest, uninspiring campaign highlighted only by his springtime coup d'état of incumbent NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan. In the end, Ladner was vanquished by a lightweight candidate, whose GQ good looks disguised a limited knowledge of city issues.

After Ladner's brief "thanks for everything" speech, the ballroom quickly emptied except for a few groups of hangers-on who hugged and smiled through teary eyes.

On a cluster of plush leather couches, a group of hip-looking young Asians laughed and chatted and typed on their cellphones. Kelly, a pretty 22-year-old, sat comfortably with legs crossed. In between sips of white wine, she pointed across the room to her father, a longtime NPA supporter. When asked what the NPA stands for, she flashed a patronizing smile, and with an upward inflection, said "The Non-Partisan Association."

Absolutely, Kelly. No doubt about it.

Juno beats abortion!

Pro-choice radicals oppose 'unborn victims' crime bill (Vancouver, March 5, 2008)

There's a great scene in the Oscar-nominated film Juno when the title character strolls into an abortion clinic to terminate her teen pregnancy. Confronted by a gum-chewing receptionist and gloomy waiting room full of thumb-twiddling pregnant women, Juno experiences an epiphany and strides back out the door into a scary and uncertain future. That decisive moment touches the audience and steals our heart.

Today, Parliament will vote on Bill C-484, also known as the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. Aimed at abusive husbands and boyfriends, the proposed legislation will criminalize "causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence."

If passed, the new law will carry a minimum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. The bill, which excludes "harmful acts" perpetrated by the mother, does not address abortion. Yet for some, that's all it's about.

The Internet is alive with pro-choice groups denouncing the bill, including Vancouver pro-choice activist Joyce Arthur, who believes C-484 is the first step on a slippery slope. "This bill is a foot in the door to recriminalize abortion," says Arthur, coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. "There is no other reason to create a law that gives personhood to fetuses."

Arthur knows fetuses. She talks about them all them time. An entry in her online blog entitled Let no fetus defeat us! asserts that "fetuses are not that important" and that they are "a mostly unformed entity about the size and shape of a cashew, maybe a Brazil nut." Furthermore, Arthur's orthodox views on abortion are as rigid as they are creepy. "Why should we favour birth over abortion," she writes, "when we live in an overpopulated world?"

Run, Juno, run! 

In Canada, there are no laws governing abortion. The last vestiges of regulation were struck down by the Supreme Court's "Morgentaler decision" in 1988. The practice is regulated by the conscience of doctors, who typically refuse to perform abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because the fetus is pretty well formed and the risk to the mother is heightened.

According to British Columbia's Ministry of Health, 15,267 abortions were performed in B.C. between April 2005 and March 2006--the earliest available statistical year. That's an average of 41 abortions a day. An unknown number of privately funded abortions take place outside of the province's medical services plan.

The Canadian abortion industry owes its wild popularity to an utter absence of government regulation. Ottawa's official acquiescence has affected our culture and helped convince a generation of Canadian women that unborn children are expendable.

Radical feminists like Joyce Arthur contribute to this malaise by howling like banshees at any attempt to recognize humanity in the womb.

Domestic violence statistics are hard to pin down. What goes on behind closed doors often remains secret. However, a 2004 Health Canada report found that women abused during pregnancy were four times more likely to experience violent physical abuse than non-pregnant abused women.

The author of Bill C-484--Ken Epp, a pro-life Conservative MP from Edmonton-Sherwood Park--says pregnant women need more protection under the law. He points to 14 murders involving pregnant women in Canada since 2004, including the 2006 murder of Surrey schoolteacher Manjit Panghali.

"If a women has chosen to not have an abortion, to give birth to a child and love and care for it," says Epp, "and it's unilaterally taken away from her against her will with violence, there's no offence for that currently in Canada and that's what this bill is going to correct."

Epp expects at least 75 per cent support from his own party, and several Liberals say they'll vote in favour of the bill.

In Juno, the film's climatic scene depicts the final moments of a nine-month ordeal. Following a teeth-clenching delivery, a newborn baby is united with its adoptive mother while Juno and her boyfriend lay quietly together on a hospital bed.

Sadly, for a relatively small number of pregnant women, life's final scene ends with a violent act usually perpetrated by their closest male ally. Bill C-484 will recognize the sanctity of human life in its most innocent and vulnerable form, and further punish some of society's most despicable offenders.

In their opposition to the bill, pro-choice activists seek to deny justice for abused women who weighed their options and chose life.

Online Orwellians

Internet vigilantes wage wrongheaded cyber war (Vancouver Courier, Sept.24, 2008)

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."--Noam Chomsky

Last month, in a story that received little to no media attention, a website called realjewnews.com was dropped by a Canadian Internet service provider (also known as an ISP) based in southern Ontario. The website, operated by "street evangelist" Brother Nathanael Kapner, features headlines such as "Big Brother Jew is Watching You" and the "Anti-Christ Will Be a Jew." Kapner appears in a photograph dressed like an Eastern Orthodox priest wielding a crucifix and an American flag. He spews venom at Jews, Zionists, Israel, corporate America, homosexuals and basically everyone outside his narrow kindred. The site is short on evidence, yet long on rage. It's unpleasant, distasteful and unworthy of debate. But it's not illegal.

So why, amid the scores of foul websites emanating from the Internet, was Brother Nathanael forced to flee Canadian cyberspace?

Because Leo Adler wanted it that way.

Adler, director of national affairs for the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, pressured Brother Nathanael's Canadian ISP, which according to Adler, determined that the site violated its content standards. (Adler refused to identify the ISP by name, and Brother Nathanael did not respond to repeated email interview requests.)

However, like other websites shunned by Canadian ISPs (the number of sites closed down in Canada, realjewnews.com quickly hooked up with an American ISP and resurfaced online. "It's a success that we got him out of Canada," said Adler, during a phone interview from his law office in Toronto. "But it's not a success because obviously he could be anywhere in the world and people would still be able to access [the site]." 

Unlike the European Union, where laws govern Internet content, Canada and the U.S. remain committed to an unregulated world wide web. However, the chilling effects of censorship do not require government sanction. Private lobbying groups, such as the Wiesenthal Centre and the Anti-Defamation League, scramble to police certain kinds of North American-based Internet content. And Canadian ISPs are more vulnerable to pressure tactics than their American counterparts due to the "freedom of speech" provision embedded in the American Bill of Rights. Adler's organization employs full-time researchers who conduct daily web searches for "offensive" content. 

The Wiesenthal Center's political clout and legal acumen was largely responsible for the high-profile expulsion of two websites--a site dedicated to Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and a site run by Ontario "white nationalist" Paul Fromm--from Canadian cyberspace.

But Adler is just getting started. In his worldwide quest to muzzle "hate sites," he dismisses any notion of online autonomy and ignores cultural differences of taste and perception. 

"The larger idea is to have an international standard of what is hate and what is terrorism," he says. "And to say this not ought to be put on any website, on any server, anywhere in the world."

Ironically, Adler's crusade reinforces the worldview held by creeps like Brother Nathanael, who expound mythologies of Jewish global hegemony. Adler also elevates these sites from obscurity, and grants them the attention they crave.

According to the United Nations, one billion people worldwide use the Internet. Perhaps its greatest virtue is that people--no matter their political affiliation, culture or economic status--can participate in global discussion. If, however, web content is subject to the biases of organized and sophisticated campaigns, the Internet will lose its embattled and vital status as a neutral conduit of ideas.

Brother Nathanael's bigoted rantings deserve no sympathy. But, like a canary in a coalmine, his online presence represents freedom of speech.

American civil rights organizations famously defended the rights of KKK members to stage public rallies. That principle of equality must be extended online, where Adler and others are on the attack.

Activists milk H&M

Lactating activists milked H&M (

Vancouver Courier (Aug. 15, 2008)

On Aug. 7, more than 50 lactating women descended on the Granville Street H&M clothing store to protest the treatment of Manuela Valle, who two days earlier was banished by store staff to a change room to breastfeed her two-month-old daughter.

The protest was dubbed a "nurse-in," a spastic eruption of X-chromosomes in a clothing store known for two-for-one T-shirts and Madonna-inspired design. Lactating protestors, many with suckling baby in hand, held placards that read "Babies for Breastfeeding" and "Get a room? Human rights mockery." The controversy made national headlines and served as a rallying cry for breastfeeders everywhere, who feel slighted by society's paternal squeamishness.

In an effort to stop the bleeding, H&M released a statement. The company congratulated breastfeeders for their selfless perpetuation of the human race and opened its doors to lactating women worldwide.

"We apologize. And it seems to be a miscommunication and a misunderstanding. Our policy is to allow breastfeeding nursing mothers to breastfeed or express milk freely in our stores," said H&M's embattled corporate spokesperson Laura Shankland.

Following her statement, Shankland spray-painted a pink, inverted female sign on her office wall, burned her bra and launched into an impromptu rendition of Ani DiFranco's "Not a Pretty Girl."

Well, not really. But she released the statement.

H&M staff will be retrained to reasonably accommodate the company's consumer base. The storm has subsided, and it's back to business as usual. But only because the company caved quicker than an IKEA baby crib.

Despite its humourous overtones, the controversy raised serious questions about the rights of private businesses versus the whims of retail consumers.

Of course, when H&M staff asked Manuela Valle to take her baby (and her breast) to the change room, they did nothing wrong. As a private business, H&M reserves the right to handle its customers within the confines of Canadian law. That's Capitalism 101.

According to Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, a person must not be denied any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public because of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex or sexual orientation. Nothing in there about breastfeeding. Valle apparently knows this, which is probably why she threatened to contact the B.C. Human Rights Commission, a quasi-judicial organization that specializes in groundless cases based on political ideology.

H&M's error lay not in the realm of legality, but rather in the court of public opinion. Valle tapped a populist sentiment amongst her lactating sisters that threatened H&M's bottom line. Capitulating made good business sense.

But what about H&M's duty to its other customers? The staunchly religious, whose particular sect forbids public nudity. The squeamish or breastophobic, who prefer a definitive line between off-the-rack retailer and nursery. What about their expectations of comfort?

H&M also set a dangerous precedent and exposed itself to future aggrieved groups of all stripes and persuasions that may choose H&M outlets to practice their own brand of necessity. Imagine a group of Salafi Muslims kneeling before Allah in H&M's men's clothing section. Or a woebegone narcoleptic who seeks shelter at H&M for his afternoon nap.

No matter what future controversies await H&M, nothing will match the brute force exerted by legions of lactating women. 

Valle and her band of breastfeeders demonstrated the awesome power of maternal instinct while exhibiting a zeal rarely seen during public protests. The women--powered by hormonal intuition as old as life itself--seemed uninhibited by intellect or social mores, and unswayed by cultural inventions such as business sovereignty and consumer choice. Their impulse to protest wasn't medieval, it was prehistoric.

Indeed, the Great H&M "Nurse-in" of 2008 reestablished two age-old axioms:

1) The desire of a private business to remain autonomous may sometimes clash with its viability in the marketplace.

2) Don't mess with lactating women. (Although most guys already knew that.)

Canada's Third World future

Canadian Euro-centric culture on the skids (Vancouver Courier, June 18, 2008)

"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."—T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

Earlier this month the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal launched a jihad against Maclean's magazine.

Naiyer Habib, B.C. director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, and his lawyers allege that Maclean's--which published a 2006 article by Mark Steyn entitled "Why the Future Belongs to Islam"--discriminated against Muslims on religious and racial grounds contrary to Section 7 (1) of the B.C. Human Rights Code.

During closing arguments after a weeklong tribunal hearing, Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the complainants, damned Maclean's to Gehenna. "There will never be any more demonstrable evidence of hatred than has been perpetrated by this article."

Strong words. Perhaps Steyn should be beheaded live on YouTube and his remains scattered around the Downtown Eastside.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission dismissed a similar complaint against Maclean's, yet denounced Steyn's article as "destructive" and "xenophobic."

Rubbish. It's hard to criticize kangaroo courts without legitimizing their existence, so I'll defer to John Martin, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley, who recently denounced the B.C. tribunal in an op-ed piece for the Province newspaper. "I'd like my chances in a Mexican courtroom over a Canadian human-rights interrogation any day," wrote Martin. "In Mexico, the accused has some rights and is occasionally acquitted."

A decision in the Maclean's case is pending. Despite the tribunal nonsense, Steyn's article tapped a taboo subject that, while garnering little attention in Canada, weighs heavy on the minds of millions of Europeans.

Mass immigration, mainly from the Third World, threatens to irrevocably alter the culture of western nations. In his article, Steyn compares shrinking western populations with exploding birthrates in Muslim countries. "Islam has youth and will," he writes, "Europe has age and welfare."

Former Nixon advisor and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan blames western countries for their own inevitable demise. In his politically incorrect book The Death of the West, Buchanan points to a decline in marriage, advances in birth control and rampant abortion as major contributing factors in declining white populations worldwide. "First World nations are dying," writes Buchanan. "They face a mortal crisis. Not because of something happening in the Third World, but because of what is not happening at home and in the homes of the First World."

The death of the family unit, warns Buchanan, is a prelude to the death of nations--from ancient Rome to modern-day Europe and America.

But what about Canada?

According to a 2006 Statistics Canada report, immigrants fuel two-thirds of our population growth. Between 2001 and 2006, Canada's native-born population increased by a mere 400,000. However, during that same five-year period, 1.2 million immigrants--mainly from Asia, Africa, Central and South America and the Middle East--arrived on Canadian soil.

Laurent Martel, a Statistics Canada analyst, said by 2030 our refusal to reproduce will seal our nation's fate. "You're going to see an increase in the number of deaths [of baby-boomers] in Canada and the number of deaths will exceed the number of births—so natural increase will become negative," she said. "The only factor of growth will then be immigration."

So, if changing demographics sweep Canada's dominant Euro-centric culture into history's dustpan, why should we care?

Here's why. European culture spawned the now-universal tenets of democratic rule, personal freedom and Christian-based virtue—not to mention many of civilization's greatest scientific and technological achievements. Immigrants flock to Canada not because it resembles the land from which they flee, but because of our liberating Euro-centric society.

Quebecers understand. Last year's "reasonable accommodation hearings" officially acknowledged widespread anxiety in la belle province. Quebecers lined up to voice their concern about foreign influence on Quebec culture, thus demonstrating that the altering affects of immigration should be discussed openly—for the benefit of immigrants and residents alike.

Those who denounce critics like Steyn and Buchanan—who warn of changes in the wind—either don't know history or don't care about North America's Euro-style society.

Is Canada destined for a Third World facelift, while dissenting voices are prosecuted by "human rights" tribunals and seared with a "racist" brand? Or perhaps more importantly, does anyone care?

Rainbow banner brouhaha

Rainbow banners behind the times (Vancouver Courier, Aug. 1, 2008)

Gay Pride week wraps up this Sunday with the annual Pride Parade through Vancouver's West End. Thousands will line the parade route, unaware of a growing controversy in nearby Davie Village--a West End neighbourhood known for its high concentration of gay residents.

The controversy stems from a West End Business Improvement Association decision to redesign the village's signature rainbow banners, which hang from neighbourhood posts and streetlights. Rainbow colours symbolize pride, safety and solidarity in the gay community.

Since news broke of the redesign, Lyn Hellyar, executive director of the WEBIA, has been threatened by members of the gay community and asked to resign. Although she has not revealed specifics about the banner redesign, Hellyar denies a hidden agenda. "I gave a statement at our AGM and said we would always preserve the identity of the gay village," said an embattled Hellyar, during a recent interview with the Courier.

Those words fell on deaf ears and Hellyar's critics continue to call for her head. Why? Because this isn't about banners. Not really. It's about planting a flag and defending territory. Neighbourhood pride runs deep in Davie Village, particularly among gay activists, and the banner controversy is another battle in their culture war.

Hellyar's troubles began last April when the now-defunct Davie Village BIA expanded west--to include the Denman and Robson Street areas--and changed its name to the aforementioned WEBIA. Davie Village's activist base opposed the move and condemned the perceived erosion of their neighbourhood's gay identity.

But loss of neighbourhood identity is a common lament in Vancouver. Mass emigration--from across Canada and around the world--constantly alters our city landscape. Throughout Vancouver's history, a long list of ethnic groups, from Italians on Commercial Drive to Ukrainians in Mount Pleasant, have accepted the homogenizing realities of life in a cosmopolitan city. Even Chinatown, the starkest example of ethnic concentration, has evolved into a multicultural community.

Why then, in this constant state of flux, must Davie Village remain dominated by gay people? I must have missed that city decree. Seems a tad too "20th century."

Imagine groups of white Vancouverites branding their neighbourhoods with symbols of common heritage--perhaps a Scottish lion or a German eagle--and thwarting any attempt to modify those symbols as the neighbourhood grew more diverse.

If Davie Village residents want to preserve their culture, they should get with the program and move to Maple Ridge. The suburbs provide room for micro-societies to flourish, unfettered by the creeping vines of big city multiculturalism.

In a recent article in Xtra! West, Vancouver's largest gay magazine, Vancouver Pride Society president John Boychuk commented on the rainbow banner controversy and epitomized the antiquated thinking of Davie Village isolationists.

"I'm mortified," he said. "This is the icon [rainbow colours] created 30 years ago because of shit like this. Because of oppression."

Oppression? Boychuk might want to check the dictionary--or a history book. A discussion involving banners, which hang from public property in one of the most idyllic urban centres in Canada, hardly qualifies as an exercise in oppression.

But I feel his pain. We all share, deep within our hearts, a tribal instinct to live amongst kindred spirits. It's part of our nature as fallen beings.

Ironically, Boychuk and other Davie Village Henny Pennies have done more damage to the image of their beloved rainbow banners than a WEBIA redesign ever could. The banners now represent fear of change--the very sentiment they once rose to combat.

So here's the solution: tear down the rainbow banners, along with those gaudy orange and green flags on Commercial Drive and the multi-coloured "fish pond" banners in Chinatown, and replace them with hundreds of Canadian flags. Old-fashioned patriotism will mend the ties that bind.

But hands off the American flags that flap proudly outside most Vancouver hotels.

Some tribes shouldn't be messed with.

Diversity schmersity

Diversity program shouldn't promote propaganda (Vancouver Courier, April 23, 2008)

 Last week at a Vancouver School Board meeting, the Pride Advisory Committee—a lobbying organization comprising school officials and gay activists—asked the board to increase funding for the district's Anti-homophobia and Diversity consultant, one of five consultants that makeup the district's Social Responsibility and Diversity Team.

While the board mulls the request, Diversity Team members toil in virtual anonymity and exert extraordinary influence on Vancouver schools.

The Diversity Team, the first of its kind in the Lower Mainland, was created three years ago to teach teachers "inclusive" teaching practices. Anti-homophobia consultant Stephen Mulligan conducts workshops and one-on-one consultations with teachers, so they're "more welcoming in the way they teach, the language they use, the books they have in their classrooms."

Mulligan's views on classroom content may rankle curriculum devisers at the Ministry of Education. "Curriculum is somewhat fluid," he says. "Teachers have to have a certain amount of autonomy to make decisions about how to teach what their teaching."

Indeed. But individual Vancouver schools maintain the right to invite—or ignore—Diversity Team instruction in the areas of social responsibility, abuse prevention, social/emotional learning, anti-racism and anti-homophobia.

On the surface, the Diversity Team's work seems virtuous. Who could be against public school "diversity" in our multicultural, multi-ethnic society? The problem, however, is that diversity means different things to different people. The term has been used in the past to ban Christian-themed school events at Christmas and Easter. Large chunks of Euro-centric Canadian history have been purged from school textbooks, all in the name of diversity.

Besides instructing teachers on classroom etiquette, the Diversity Team helps organize student committees that spread "awareness" in school hallways. With the support of gay activist groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Educators of B.C. and PFLAG, the Team funds the Gay/Straight Alliance, whose members hang posters and conduct student workshops promoting gay lifestyle. Fair enough.

But imagine a conservative organization, such as the Vancouver branch of Focus on the Family, hanging posters inside public schools to promote its views on the institution of marriage or the virtues of motherhood and child-rearing. Not going to happen.

Or a Diversity Team consultant available specifically for religious students who feel their belief system is under attack by a hostile pop-culture embodied in Vancouver school hallways.

That idea hasn't got a prayer.

According to Diversity Team chief Lisa Pedrini, the Team purposely avoids addressing religion. It's too exclusive, she says--and she's right.

The Christian-themed education of the early 20th century rightly dissipated as the country became more diverse. A secular environment provides the most secure learning environment for all students. But while the Diversity Team resists religion, it embraces the influence of other outside groups bent on promoting an agenda. One orthodoxy has been replaced by another.

Some parents, admits Pedrini, have expressed concern about possible hidden agendas propagated by the Diversity Team. Mulligan, the aforementioned anti-homophobia consultant, says his position helps gay and straight students deal with bigotry. But he also notes that other Lower Mainland school districts address discrimination and bullying issues without assistance from the Diversity Team. He adds that classroom instruction about these issues varies, depending on the municipality. "It's often based on the politics of the district," he says.

Politics. No kidding.

In a diverse and multicultural society, respect for people of all races, cultures, religions or sexual orientation should be a prerequisite for public school students.

But propaganda campaigns orchestrated by politically motivated movements—including religious organizations, political parities, gay activists, whatever--send the wrong message to students. These campaigns imply that some groups are more important than others.

 All Vancouverites should resist that type of propaganda in our public schools. In the name of diversity.

Pope Green Gregor IX

Green Gregor preaches environmental religion (Vancouver Courier, July 23, 2008)

Environmentalism is the fastest growing religion in the Western world. Green salvation, sought one recycled Campbell's Soup can at a time, occupies an exalted place in popular culture. Not since Beatlemania, or the mullet craze of '85, has a phenomenon enjoyed such blind obedience.
A growing list of environmental foundations, panels and international symposiums manufacture dire statistics, which are swallowed by the public and spewed out in office lunchrooms and online chatrooms across the country.
Any Doubting Thomas who dares question the benevolence of the environmental movement is damned to Devil's Island, along with Newfoundland seal hunters and Holocaust deniers.
This new normal has transformed Canadian politics. Most politicians--from Gordon Campbell to Stephen Harper--sing off a green songsheet. Perhaps the greatest testament to the perceived power of green politics lies in federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion, whose 18 months as party leader have coincided with 18 months of Conservative rule atop nationwide opinion polls. In a last ditch effort to save his job, Dion unveiled in June his "Green Shift" plan and made the environment the key issue of his pending election campaign.
And then there's Gregor Robertson: co-founder of Happy Planet organic juice company, former NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, and Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate. Robertson has touched on prerequisite campaign issues--taxes, infrastructure construction--but he's yet to reveal a policy platform. However, his website (coloured with green graphics) clearly demonstrates his environmental bona fides.
The first paragraph of the site's "About Gregor" section notes Robertson is a "climate change advocate" who promotes "the values of sustainability" and stresses that "business success can happen while acting responsibly toward people and the environment."
Three nods to the environment. In the first paragraph of his website bio. Get the picture?
NPA mayoral rival Peter Ladner's website seems measured by comparison. Although he opts for the obligatory green-coloured fonts, Ladner refrains from environmental chest-thumping.
As an MLA, Robertson (co-chair of the Caucus Climate Change Task Force, thank you very much) helped peddle Al Gore's enviro-horror show An Inconvenient Truth to schools across the province.
In an August 2007 interview with the Courier, Robertson made the incredible claim that rain--that's right, rain--in Vancouver is cause for alarm. "I think that at a gut level we all feel things are changing faster than normal," he said. "And these downpours we've had right through the summer should stir our suspicions."
That kind of the over-the-top hyperbole is typical of other enviro-pimps, who use fear as their chief motivational tool. See Al Gore, David Suzuki, Elizabeth May, Bono, etc.
Robertson's known-associates file includes Tzeporah Berman, a B.C. activist who in 2007 told the CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos that "catastrophic climate change is here." Berman is a past board member of the Ruckus Society, an infamous Oakland-based activist training camp, which played a key role in the chaotic 1999 WTO riot in Seattle. The Robertson campaign website proudly lists Berman as an official endorser, yet stopped short of endorsing ecotage. (Writer's note: Robertson's website does not include a step-by-step guide to tree-spiking.)
Despite environmentalism's wild popularity--and the media's unquenchable appetite for gloom and doom statistics--the Robertson campaign's obsession with the environment may backfire, even in these apocalyptic times. Astute voters may feel slighted by Robertson's obvious attempt to ride a green wave to the mayor's chair, considering city hall's limited capability to affect the environment.
Council initiatives involving city planning, public transit and waste disposal are a drop in the bucket compared to provincial/federal regulation and taxation measures aimed at big industry. In light of this reality, Robertson's green-heavy campaign seems disingenuous and alarmist. Irrelevant, even.
But don't expect Robertson to pull back the reigns. Like Stephane Dion, he's betting on a green campaign with easy-to-follow rules: Make dire predictions regarding water levels and carbon dioxide concentration. Use chic new words like sustainability and eco-friendly. End all policy statements with "for the sake of the environment." Imbue your website graphics with soft, green tones. Bow to your green God, lest he spite you from the earth.

No Vision on 58 West Hastings

Vision Vancouver vacillates on 58 West Hastings (Sept. 17, 2008)

Every now and then, political parties reveal their inner workings. The display is often unnecessary, sometimes embarrassing and always unseemly--particularly during an election campaign.
The latest intrigue at city hall involves an empty lot at 58 West Hastings across the street from Save-On-Meat in the heart of the Downtown Eastside. Concord Pacific, a real estate development company, wants to build a 160-unit market housing complex on the site. The development would represent much-needed change for a neighbourhood rife with social housing, and help inject dispensable income into an area largely dependent on government handouts.
The city expects to issue a development permit to Concord sometime in the next few weeks, and construction could begin shortly thereafter--perhaps before the Nov. 15 civic election.
The development permit board does not require council approval to give the green light, but the NPA majority--which includes mayoral candidate Peter Ladner--has endorsed the development to demonstrate their free-market bona fides.
"It's an area where some market activity would be very healthy for the neighbourhood," said NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton. Conversely, COPE Coun.
David Cadman decried the NPA's "rush to judgment" and claimed the city has not properly consulted with the Downtown Eastside community about the new development. Cadman wants the development permit board--and the NPA--to chill until they hear more from concerned residents and social hosing advocates.He may have a point, although any community consultation--involving new condos in a neighbourhood full of poor people--will garner predictable results.
Considering the NPA endorsement, and in light of Cadman's protests, what does Vision Vancouver--our city's official opposition--think of the proposed development at 58 West Hastings.
When contacted last Wednesday, Vision Coun. Tim Stevenson said he wasn't sure--he'd have an opinion after his party's caucus meeting the following day. Vision Coun. Raymond Louie--a top adviser to Vision mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson--also declined to comment, and Vision Coun. Heather Deal failed to return repeated phone messages.
Remember, this development represents one of the most audacious private housing investments in the Downtown Eastside in recent memory. According to online chatter, social housing activists plan to protest the site. The only Vision councillor willing to comment was Coun. George Chow, who reiterated his party's empathy for Downtown Eastsiders before stating that "whether certain developments should have no social housing at all, I'm open for discussion on that kind of stuff."
Right.
So Vision Vancouver's position on the proposed development at 58 West Hastings is that they don't have a position on the proposed development at 58 West Hastings.
But wait. Apparently Vision council nomination candidate David Eby--the fresh-faced onetime Pivot Legal Society spokesperson and uber advocate of social housing--didn't get the memo.
In a phone interview, Eby quickly denounced the proposed development and the NPA for supporting a strictly market housing complex in the Downtown Eastside. "I think it's crazy," he said, before echoing Cadman's concerns about a lack of neighbourhood consultation. When informed about his party's vacillation, Eby made a few phone calls--to Vision media relations man Kevin Quinlan and Coun. Heather Deal (she must screen her calls).
Eby's findings were revealing. According to Eby, despite Coun. Stevenson's earlier claim, there was no caucus meeting on the subject and the party has no official position. Nevertheless, he'll officially oppose the development--if he wins a council nod at the Vision nomination meeting this weekend. His nomination, he said, would represent a "significant signal from the membership about where their interests lie.
Indeed.
For the record, Eby's wrong about 58 West Hastings. The Downtown Eastside needs more market housing and the proposed development falls within the Downtown Eastside Housing Plan, which calls for a mix of market and social housing in the neighbourhood. However, Eby's principled stance seems out of step with the shameless side-stepping of Vision Vancouver's party appariti.
If the official opposition is unsure about market housing in the Downtown Eastside, what else confounds them?
Eby might be better off back at Pivot.

SR-O-No!

SROs concentrate misery of Downtown Eastside (Vancouver Courier, Aug. 22, 2008)

 Last week the city purchased a two-storey building at 514 Alexander St. for $860,000 with money procured from the provincially funded coffers of B.C. Housing.The building, which will include 20 single-room occupancy units of fixed-rent social housing, is part of a city scheme to construct eight new social housing complexes in the Downtown Eastside by 2010. The projects include a 100-unit building near Victory Square, 125 units at the Woodward's site, 92 units at 65 East Hastings, 100 units at Abbott and Pender, 80 units at Main and Terminal, 100 units at Alexander and Princess, and another 100 units at Powell and Princess.
The buildings will be run by non-profits such as the Lookout Emergency Aid Society and the Portland Hotel Society, and are spitting distance from the open drug market at Main and Hastings. Because neighbourhood residents have first dibs on the new buildings, the tenant population will resemble that of the DTES's many single-room occupancy hotels, which are heavily populated by drug users and the mentally ill. And because B.C. is the Best Place on Earth, citizens living outside Vancouver are eligible for tenancy in the new buildings. In other words, the Downtown Eastside is courting more dependents. Anyone else think this is a bad idea?
Any successful Downtown Eastside revitalization plan requires two key elements. First, the majority of addicts and the mentally ill must be removed from the neighbourhood to receive treatment. Second, government must attract developers, small business and middle- and upper-income earners to the neighbourhood.
Unfortunately, a shiny new network of social housing--amidst the methadone clinics and street corner drug deals—will only add to the neighbourhood's image as a no-go zone for investment. Property values, even in Vancouver's hot real estate market, will continue to lag behind the rest of the city. Small businesses, once the lifeblood of East Hastings, will continue to ignore the area.
Sadly, these eight new buildings have guaranteed a bleak future for the neighbourhood. Residents will move from hotel rooms to government digs across the street. Drug dealers, pimps, johns and methadone distributors will retain their constituencies. The neighbourhood won't change a bit.
Despite the perceived evils of gentrification, private investment is a prerequisite to economic turnaround in a capitalist economy. The city should expand its Heritage Revitalization Program—which woos developers with 10-year property tax exemptions and relaxed density regulation—to include all depressed areas of the downtown core.
Mayor Sam Sullivan, chief architect of Project Civil City, asked Vancouverites during his inauguration speech in 2005 to consider the big picture when analyzing policies in the DTES. Fair enough.
Who will be living in these eight new buildings in 10 years? How does concentrating poverty and addiction in five square blocks enhance the potential of DTES residents?
While eight new buildings may placate middle-class concern, they send a clear message to DTES residents: you're there, and we want you to stay there. These eight new buildings represent the grandest case of NIMBY syndrome in Vancouver history.
They'll provide a more sanitized home for DTES residents to waste their lives, and a nicer-looking ghetto for the rest of us to drive through. How civilized.
The city also plans to build at least four social housing complexes outside the DTES, including 50 units at 16th and Dunbar. That's the right idea. Decentralized social housing, along with increased funding for rehab centres and mental health facilities, will help dilute the misery in the DTES and change the neighbourhood's culture.

ESL no AOK

ESL classes produce un-Canadians (Vancouver Courier, Aug. 29, 2008)

Next week, students across the province will head back to school--including approximately 13,000 students enrolled in the Vancouver school district's English-as-a-second-language program, which provides K-12 language instruction to students of varying levels of English proficiency. 
A damning report, released last May by an independent consultant hired by the school district, blasted the ESL program and its inability to accommodate the immigrant tide. The report said 91 per cent of Chinese immigrant students, who make up more than 30 per cent of program participants, viewed their ESL training and other "transition" programs in a negative light. According to the report, Chinese students feel "trapped" in classrooms packed with non-English speakers.
The report also candidly noted that white English speakers are now the minority in many Vancouver schools and that the district can no longer rely on a natural desire by immigrants to assimilate. The report called for increased "civics education" to better acclimatize immigrant students to Canadian society, and pointed to a prevailing sentiment among Chinese students who "rather than seeing themselves as Vancouverites... said that they were Chinese."That was a tough report, straight from the horse's mouth. The findings should have spurred public educators into action. 
So what's been done in the five months since Chinese immigrant students raised their hands and asked for help? Virtually nothing.
"I don't think there is a huge focus on the civics education," says William Wong, a district official responsible for placing students in ESL. "Teachers do teach Canadian history and geography, but there's not a curriculum specifically developed for civics."
Wong added that, despite past attempts at discouraging Mandarin in ESL classrooms, students continue to converse in their native tongue. Fair enough. It's tough to combat high concentrations of non-English speakers in ESL classrooms. There are only so many rooms for so many students.But increased civics education is a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, the concept of civic indoctrination of immigrants, especially from Asia, makes some folks downright squeamish. It taps irrational feelings of white guilt, stoked by the memory of 20th century Canadian callousness such as the Chinese Head Tax and internment for Japanese-Canadians in the Second World War.
Civics lessons are seen as authoritarian—an effort to dilute Asian culture in Vancouver schools. But that's exactly the point.All education is based on a foundation of principles, which feature their own intrinsic biases. Unless incoming ESL students are armed with a solid understanding of Canadian ethical, moral and political conventions, they become confused. They revert to familiarity. Chinese immigrants only hang with Chinese immigrants. Their English is terrible. And so on.
In many respects, Vancouver is a new experiment in the New World. Our city's role as a North American gateway to Asia, especially since the Hong Kong influx of the 1980s, has transformed the Lower Mainland. 
According to Statistics Canada, 17 per cent of Metro Vancouver's 2.5 million people are Chinese. Such numbers were unimaginable during most of the 20th century when European and Asian cultures remained largely detached.The main problem with the Vancouver school district's ESL program lies not in the program's many details, which are important and require immediate action, but in the failing notion of voluntary assimilation and the unwillingness of educators to Canadianize immigrant students. 
The consequences of continued inaction are grave. School hallways will remain segregated and the Lower Mainland will continue to balkanize along ethnic lines. An entire generation of Asian immigrants may grow up with little sense of civic responsibility. Their allegiances, tied mainly to personal economics and a distant native land, will contribute to globalization but add to their local community's foreign status.
Blank stares, once born from English misunderstanding, will grow more frequently from an unwillingness to care.

Bye bye street cop

Street smart cop gets the boot (Vancouver Courier, Aug. 8, 2008) 

Dave Dickson is leaving.

That name might mean nothing to you, but it's widely known in the Downtown Eastside.Dickson spent more than 20 years walking the DTES beat as a member of the Vancouver Police Department. 

Now retired, Dickson works as the sex trade liaison for the VPD.The liaison position was created two years ago—for Dickson—to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the street.

Almost every day, the 57-year-old Dickson travels from his Surrey home to the syringe-speckled streets and alleys of the DTES. 

He doesn't have an office or a budget.He relies on street smarts, honed during his days on the force. He's on a first-name basis with prostitutes, drug addicts, street people and government and non-government workers in the area.

His relationship with prostitutes is unprecedented. He's the only man allowed inside the WISH women's shelter. His contacts on the street, combined with his access to police computers, help him locate missing persons for organizations such as Strathcona Mental Health.While he's officially a VPD liaison, Dickson is much more. He's a protector, investigator and helping hand for a troubled population rife with addiction and disease. He's respected, even feared, by neighbourhood predators. He exudes common sense and compassion, and he's exactly what the neighbourhood needs.Dickson should be instructing rookie VPD officers on DTES procedure.

He should be cloned and stationed on every street corner. 

But instead, he's leaving. 

His contract ends Aug. 15 and the VPD, which pays his salary, told Dickson he's not wanted anymore. An active police officer will take his place. Dickson wasn't given a clear explanation for his dismissal. And he won't speculate. It's hard to figure, but theories abound.Aside from being a topflight street cop, Dickson is an outspoken critic of Vancouver's so-called "harm reduction" policies, which include the Insite safe injection site on East Hastings Street and the DTES's small village of methadone clinics.Dickson believes harm reduction is the most destructive government policy instituted in the DTES during his 28 years of service. 

"The harm reduction thing is so out of control," he says. "That whole philosophy has been abused horribly."Treat addiction like a disease, he says. Don't feed the disease without supplying a mandatory avenue for treatment. Change the culture—don't perpetuate it.

Criticizing harm reduction can be dangerous. Prominent citizens with big-time titles next to their names have bet their reputations on this largely untested strategy.Acknowledging a failed policy is one thing. But a failed policy which promotes destructive behaviour in Canada's most troubled neighbourhood is another thing entirely. Nobody wants that blood on their hands.

And so public indictments of harm reduction must be delayed long enough for memories to fade, so policy architects can slip quietly out the back door. Dissenting voices must be silenced.

Like his predecessor Larry Campbell, NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan made harm reduction a key tenet of his policy platform. In June, VPD Chief Jim Chu muzzled VPD Insp. John McKay after McKay publicly criticized Insite.

Last year, harm reduction proponents in B.C.'s medical community—led by UBC's Dr. John Hepburn—wrote a scolding letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper after the Conservatives dared question Insite's effectiveness in combating addiction.

While Dickson's dismissal may be unrelated to his views on harm reduction, it's still a mistake, added to the growing list of offences which helped create the current quagmire in the DTES.

History will record today's harm reduction champions as some our city's greatest bunglers. Dave Dickson will be a footnote, recognized only by people he met on the street.

Swastika-gate

Swastika child snatching sign of troubled times (Vancouver Courier, July 16, 2008) 

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist." —Martin Niemoller.

Last March in Winnipeg, a seven-year-old girl drew a swastika on her arm before heading off to school. An alarmed teacher washed it off.The girl returned home, where her mother—a self-described white nationalist—retraced the swastika on her daughter's arm. 

The seven-year-old returned to school, branded with the symbol of Nazi Germany and the horror of the Second World War.The following day, when the mother arrived at school to pick up her daughter, police were waiting. They said her little girl wouldn't be coming home. The swastika was unacceptable.Frantic, the mother hurried home to her two-year-old son, who was soon pulled from her arms by police and handed over to Manitoba's child and family services agency. 

The children now live with extended family members. The woman, who can't be identified while the children are under "state" care, is allowed two visitation hours a week. A final decision on the children's fate is expected this week.

"It's been gut-wrenching," said the distraught mother, during a recent interview with CBC News. "I didn't get off the couch for the first eight days—I just cried."There have been no allegations of physical or mental abuse of the children. 

The woman's political views are her only offence.With one fell swoop, Manitoba's child and family services agency—also known as CFSA—created a litmus test for parents everywhere. According to the CFSA, extreme political views disqualify Canadians from child rearing.That sound you hear is a conservative Hindu father in Richmond dead-bolting his front door.

Perhaps a quick history lesson will enlighten CFSA officials and stop the madness before it's too late. History books offer a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms formed to stamp out individual freedom wherever it bloomed. 

The SS terrorized Nazi Germany before and during the war. Its members perfected the art of "home raiding" and dragged many men, women and children to re-education facilities or death camps. During the Cold War, the KGB's primary mission on the home front was to identify and destroy any ideology contrary to Soviet doctrine. Dissidents were arrested and sent to Siberia to contemplate the error of their ways. Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, SAVAK, Iran's national intelligence and security organization, protected the Shah's regime by persecuting dissidents. It's estimated at regime's end, one-third of all Iranian men were connected with SAVAK—either as agents or informants.

Manitoba's CFSA isn't quite as ubiquitous. Its amateurish tactics would draw taunting jeers from professional jackboots such as Heinrich Himmler or Marine night watchmen at Guantanamo Bay. But the Winnipeg child snatching deserves mention in the great encyclopedia of government thuggery, inserted somewhere between the armed "rescue" of Cuban exile Elian Gonzalez and the persecution of white farmers by Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.

According to published court documents, Manitoba's CFSA believes that "the children may be at risk due to the parents' behaviour and associates. The parents might endanger the emotional well-being of the children.That may be true, but "emotional well-being" is a tricky thing. It means different things to different people. Some may doubt the emotional well-being of a 10-year-old fundamentalist Christian or a practicing Salafi Muslim. The emotional well-being of children involved in the entertainment industry—with its lust for skin deep beauty and idol worship—is subject to justifiable scrutiny.

But parents have a right to instruct their children—and absent evidence of mental or physical abuse—that right must remain unassailable. If not, parents are subject to the biases of bureaucrats and an inevitable government list of "undesirables." 

And as Martin Niemoller—a Lutheran pastor imprisoned in the Nazi-run Dachau concentration camp—so eloquently noted, that list is bound to grow.The CFSA's assault, on a law-abiding mother and her two children, is obscene. The kids should be returned home immediately, along with a sizable compensation cheque and a "sorry to have interned you" sympathy card. 

Their mother's beliefs may be odious to many, but the protection of her right to believe helps protect us all.

The Manitoba government's evil disregard for basic civil rights begs the obvious question: Who's the real Nazi in Winnipeg?

Iraq/Vancouver

Iraq and Vancouver share similar signs of failure (Vancouver Courier,June 25, 2008)

What do former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen and American President George W. Bush have in common? Give up? They both initiated ill-conceived and wrong-headed adventures, which led to widespread misery and confusion. Bush, with his war in Iraq, and Owen, with his Four Pillars Drug Strategy to combat addiction and crime in the Downtown Eastside. 

Today, Iraq is a disaster and continued large-scale bloodshed seems inevitable. In Vancouver, since 2001--when Owen's ideas were adopted as policy—the Downtown Eastside has remained a festering pool of addiction buoyed by a sea of methadone repositories and a safe-injection site. A quick comparison of quagmires reveals a singular formula for defeat. 

THE PHILOSOPHIES 

Iraq: The Bush Administration launched a preemptive war to "nation build" a new Iraq and restructure the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Bush Doctrine ignored international law, killed untold numbers of civilians and radicalized untold numbers of Muslims. Vancouver: The Four Pillars strategy relies heavily on so-called harm reduction, which condones—and sometimes promotes—destructive behaviour. The Insite safe injection site provides a state-sponsored shooting gallery for intravenous drug users. Conclusion: Despite claims of victory (Iraqi elections, decline in drug-related overdoses in the Downtown Eastside) both philosophies are destined for history's dust pan, due to their inherent immorality. 

THE BIG BRAINS 

Iraq: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and the American Enterprise Institute. In the run up to war, the AEI launched a pro-invasion public relations blitz, which frequently cited dissident Iraqi "experts" and trumped-up claims of WMDs. Vancouver: Dr. Julio Montaner, Dr. John Hepburn and the University of British Columbia's Department of Medicine. The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, led by Montaner, acts as the "independent third party research and evaluation" organization charged with justifying Insite's existence. That's like asking Dick Cheney to investigate the oil industry. Hepburn and the other lab coats at UBC wrote a letter of admonishment to Prime Minister Stephen Harper after the Conservatives dared question Insite's effectiveness in curbing drug use. Conclusion: War-mongering neo-conservatives in America. Harm reduction cheerleaders in B.C's medical community. Fanatics with PhDs. 

THE FOOT SOLDIERS 

Iraq: The U.S. Army, the Marine Corps and Special Forces personnel. In his book Fiasco, a chronicle of the war's first three years, Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks describes how American military tactics--which included heavy-handed treatment of civilians and a misunderstanding of Iraqi culture—created an insurgency out of a largely docile population. "I think we need to pull back," said Special Forces Capt. Oscar Estrada. "Not pull out, but find a way to stop feeding the insurgency. Our presence there is feeding the fire." Vancouver: Relief organizations, law enforcement liaisons. Hilla Kerner-Soliman of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter also notes the need to "pull back." She counsels prostitutes and other women in the Downtown Eastside. "The harm-reduction concept numbs public consciousness," she says, "and makes decision-makers and the general public feel that poor people are being taken care of." Dave Dickson, a retired VPD officer and current sex trade liaison for the department, walked the Downtown Eastside beat for 28 years. "Harm reduction," he says, "focuses too much on maintaining people in that lifestyle." Mayoral candidates Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson could not be reached for comment, but both support Insite. Conclusion: The conventional wisdom of high-level commanders and politicians, who pander to an equally disconnected general public, often differs from the perspective of those who work among troubled populations. 

EPILOGUE 

"The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free," announced President Bush in May 2003, before Iraq descended into chaos. "I'm confident [Vancouver's Four Pillars strategy] will lead to a national drug strategy and a national drug policy in Canada," said then-Mayor Owen, during a 1999 address at city hall. To paraphrase famed biologist Edward Wilson: political ideology can corrupt the mind. But who knows? Maybe Bush and Owen were right. These things take time. People will die, but progress can be messy. Like the man says, things could turn around if we stay the course.

Hockey night blues

Hockey Night in Canada controversy strikes sour note (Vancouver Courier, Wed., June 11, 2008) 

"I don't think anybody really watches hockey anymore."—Tiger Woods, June 2, 2008 

Last Wednesday night millions of Canadians tuned into CBC's Hockey Night in Canada to watch the Detroit Red Wings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins to win its fourth Stanley Cup in 11 years. As champagne flowed in the Red Wing dressing room, and HNIC's Elliotte Friedman procured clichéd responses from booze-soaked players, the telecast dragged mercilessly past the three-hour mark.

But I still watched--because it seemed like the right thing to do.In fact, over the past few years I've gotten used to boring broadcasts on Hockey Night in Canada. Not because of the production—Ron MacLean and company do the best they can with what they've got. 

But the game has changed, perhaps irrevocably, for the worse.So when news broke Monday that CBC lost a bidding war with CTV over the rights to the iconic HNIC theme song, I nodded in quiet resignation. Details of the deal have not been disclosed, but CBC says composer Dolores Claman was asking for $2.5 million.

Since 1968 the theme song has echoed around Canadian living rooms and imbued the broadcast with a sense of nostalgia and dignity. Even non-hockey fans recognize the familiar orchestral notes among the computer-generated sound effects of modern-day television.However, like a steadfast bugler who endures whilst his army falls, the theme song seems out of touch with the "new" NHL. 

Over the past two decades, the league morphed into something unholy and unclean. Orr, Sittler, Lafleur and Gretzky have been replaced by Jagr, Datsyuk and so-called "obstruction" penalties.New York lawyers like Gil Stein and Gary Bettman—who wouldn't know a puck from a poppy seed bagel—infiltrated the NHL and exorcised its soul. They sought to "sanitize" the game for an American mass market, and stuffed NHL coffers with franchise fees and endorsement deals while Winnipeg and Quebec City waved goodbye to their teams.

Stein instituted the "instigator rule" in an unnecessary effort to curb fighting. A steady influx of European players further altered on-ice culture and created a haven for cheapshot artists and Finnish "tough guys." The virtues of courage and honour--once exhibited by both fourth-line grinders and first-line stars, and emulated by young boys on ponds and lakes across the country—are no longer necessary in the world's greatest hockey league.But Canadians continue to watch—and they probably always will. Meanwhile, CBC executives milk the HNIC cash cow to fund Liberal-leaning newscasts and Toronto Maple Leaf broadcasts. 

The CBC is a complicit partner in hockey's demise.Accordingly, HNIC should dump all connections to the NHL's glorious past.Wrap Bob Cole in a Newfoundland flag and push him into Lake Ontario. Banish Don Cherry and Harry Neale into the wilderness, along with other CBC rejects like Jesse from The Beachcombers and the Friendly Giant. And destroy all hockey footage recorded before the 2004 NHL lockout. The children must never know.

Dumping the HNIC theme song was a good first step in this cleansing process, which will continue, even as CBC big shots publicly shrug their shoulders and accuse composer Dolores Claman of bad faith.

"The two sides were so far apart and there was so much bad blood that we knew a deal would be difficult," said Scott Moore, executive director of CBC Sports, during an interview with CBC News. "We offered arbitration, mediation—we offered to meet their price. On Friday, when it came right down to it, we never got a response from them on our latest offer and find out, in the meantime, they appeared to be negotiating with CTV."

Attaway, Dolores. They don't deserve your tune. But beware, CTV is no better than CBC—television stations are inherently evil. Your agent should contact real men who won't sell their soul to Wall Street's slickest shyster du jour. Try calling the Canada Tibet Committee or the British Columbia Libertarian Party. I'll even broker the deal. But I'll need a taste. Perhaps 25 per cent of all prime contract dollars. I'll call my New York lawyer. We'll make it happen.

Anti-Olympians raid Britannia

Britannia Rink meeting raided by anti-Olympians (Vancouver Courier, May 14, 2008)

In 2003, after Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics, anti-Olympic activists fanned out across the city to continue waging their lost war. Like raiding guerillas, they show up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and clock unveilings, shouting slogans and waving signs.

On Monday, May 5, they infiltrated a public meeting at the Britannia auditorium to attack the Britannia Centre board of directors, which is negotiating with the Olympic organizing committee—also known as VANOC--about a possible deal involving the Britannia Rink. 

Tonight, the board hopes to vote on the proposal which shakes down like this: the rink would be used exclusively as a practice facility for Olympic hockey teams from Jan. 28 to Feb. 28, 2010. In exchange for this hospitality, VANOC would fund much-needed renovations at Britannia totalling approximately $370,000. Possible renovations include a heated mezzanine and a female-only dressing room. Neighbourhood kids would be granted free admission to the practices.The Vancouver Minor Hockey Association supports the proposal. So does nearby Britannia Secondary school, whose students regularly use the facility. 

However, at the May 5 meeting attended by roughly 150 people, boisterous anti-Olympic activists—mainly white men and women in their 20s and 30s who occupied the upper half of the auditorium--overwhelmed supporters of the proposal and reached a level of fear-mongering not seen since Dick Cheney's infamous 2005 "War on Terror" speech at the American Enterprise Institute.During the "open mic" segment of the two-hour meeting, a conga line of anti-Olympians shrieked apocalyptic predictions of jack-booted security forces and street-sweeping racists, who—if the Olympics come to Britannia_will turn nearby Commercial Drive into a 2010 version of the Warsaw Ghetto.

A young woman, decorated with several facial piercings, stepped up to the mic and warned of mass arrests. Aboriginal youth will be rounded up, she said, and shipped to detention centres outside the city. 

A bespectacled young woman, clutching an armful of files and magazine clippings, railed against capitalism, America and global militarism before announcing her opposition to the Britannia/VANOC deal. Each speech was followed by a chorus of clapping hands and stomping feet from the mob of anti-Olympians.

"Who the hell were those people?" asked Bob Fitzpatrick, in a later interview with the Courier.Fitzpatrick, a Britannia Secondary teacher for the past 33 years and former Britannia Centre board member, supports the rink renovation proposal. 

In an impassioned plea to the auditorium audience, Fitzpatrick noted the need for funding—any funding, government or private—directed at East Side facilities. His address drew jeers from the anti-Olympic mob. In a telling moment, Fitzpatrick asked everyone with children in the community to raise their hand. Out of the anti-Olympic swarm, two hands rose sheepishly into the air. 

"I don't know who those people were," said Fitzpatrick, who also noted the mob's mono-culturalism. "Britannia Secondary has over 50 different languages, many different ethnic groups. When I stood up and looked out I didn't see much of that in the audience. Who do they represent?"

Another Britannia teacher, Jamie Overgaard, also addressed the audience. Over shouts of disapproval, he highlighted the intimidation tactics employed by the anti-Olympic movement. Dead pigeons, he said, had been placed around Britannia Rink doorways and nearby alleys have been desecrated with violent anti-Olympic graffiti.

Overgaard noted the rink is home to the Britannia Hockey Academy and the HEROS hockey program that allows students from low-income families to play hockey for free, with free equipment. "These are the kids the improvements will help," he said.

But for most anti-Olympians in the crowd, the benefits of the proposal were inconsequential. No benefit, including a renovated facility for East Side kids, is worth associating with the evil Olympics. Their far-left, anti-everything ideology does not allow for such compromise.

Conversely, backers of the Britannia/VANOC deal—mainly minor hockey volunteers, parents and public educators—base their support on pragmatic grounds. For them, the proposal is a golden opportunity to upgrade a kid-centric facility in a neighbourhood populated by many low-income families. 

Let's hope the Britannia Centre board listens to the voice of true community leaders, and not the bitter natterings of a confused and defeated political fringe.

Smoking ban, mien Fuehrer

New anti-smoking laws torch liberty of 'the reviled' (Vancouver Courier, April 2, 2008) 

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."—H.L. Mencken. 

It's been a bad week for smokers.On Monday, new provincial regulations went into effect which make it illegal to smoke in "smoking rooms" inside pubs and restaurants, in your home or vehicle (while either is used as a "workplace") and within three metres of doors and windows outside public buildings.

On Tuesday, Vancouver went three metres further and magically created a six-metre no-smoking "buffer zone" around public entrances. City hall also banned smoking on restaurant patios—an offence that carries a maximum fine of $2,000 per smoker for the restaurant owner.Council enacted these new laws unanimously, with only casual attention from local media and little citizen opposition.

COPE Coun. David Cadman, a driving force behind city hall's anti-smoking crusade, believes the sun has set on smoking and he's eager to stamp out smokers wherever they plume. "It's not socially acceptable anymore," says Cadman. "The non-smoking mass majority is asserting itself."While his language is Orwellian, Cadman's on safe political ground. Smoking is the leprosy of the new millennium. 

The proven health risks associated with cigarettes have turned the phrase "mind if I smoke" into the sheepish call of the pariah. In the 1990s, heightened fears about the dangers of second-hand smoke pushed smokers across Canada out into the street. 

Vancouver's new laws are part of the anti-smoking phenomenon sweeping the nation. Even in conservative Alberta, where regulation goes to die, legislators in January outlawed smoking in pubs and restaurants and created five-metre buffer zones similar to those now hovering around Vancouver.Apparently smokers are easy targets for politicians. They are reviled by Cadman's "non-smoking mass majority." They have no credible lobbying organization or "human rights" commission to defend them. The tobacco industry is on the run, and tobacco companies are uninterested in "civil rights" squabbles involving municipal bylaws.Consequently, Vancouver smokers must now creep around doorways and slink past windows to partake in a legal—albeit unhealthy—activity.

So why have smokers' rights gone up in a cloud of second-hand smoke? How in the world did we get this far?

In Ayn Rand's libertarian epic Atlas Shrugged, torture merchant Dr. Floyd Ferris offers the following observation: "There's no way to rule innocent men... when there aren't enough criminals one makes them... one declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

While Ferris was not talking about Vancouver in 2008, one wonders what future laws they're dreaming up at city hall.Anti-smoking advocates point to the millions of health care dollars spent on smoking-related afflictions as justification for stiffer anti-smoking regulation. Extend this logic into the personal lives of "food-eaters," and bans on fatty foods and anti-obesity laws don't seem so far-fetched. 

Bylaw infraction officers will enforce Vancouver's new anti-smoking laws, but in Coun. Cadman's smoke-free society, the non-smoking public must do its part. He urges citizens to fight "cigarette crime" by admonishing smokers who dare waft into the outdoor six-metre "buffer zones." Violators of the new bylaw can be fined up to $2,000—although a typical fine will carry a $250 penalty, the same amount levied against public defecators.

"What we're doing is trying to move the boundaries for people who don't smoke," says Cadman. "That allows [non-smokers] to be safer wherever they go."

Indeed.

Mao Tse-tung promised safety. So did Adolf Hitler. In fact the Fuehrer was the first western leader to impose a public smoking ban. And we all know how that turned out.

For the record, I don't smoke. It's a nasty habit that kills thousands of Canadians each year. But a far greater danger to public well-being is the insistence of elected officials to meddle in the lives of law-abiding citizens, including tobacco-stained hackers huddled outside our doors.

Vanamsterdam

Mayor Sam Sullivan may reign over new Amsterdam (Vancouver Courier, Febr. 13, 2008) 

Last week Mayor Sam Sullivan emailed a letter to the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen refuting a recent article that implied Vancouver is moving towards legalized brothels. 

Meanwhile in Ottawa, Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told reporters his government will not issue federal exemptions to allow legalized brothels in Canada. Nicholson told us what we already know. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not a brothel fan. However, Sullivan's "letter to the editor" was his latest attempt to backpedal from comments he made last November, when he stressed the "need to keep an open mind" about legalized brothels in the Downtown Eastside. In the letter, Sullivan wrote, "The laws regarding prostitution in Canada are the responsibility of the House of Commons and Minister of Justice. The City of Vancouver is committed to honouring the current legislative framework as it relates to this issue." Sullivan's pronouncement raises an obvious question. 

What will he do if that legislative framework changes? Harper's Conservatives sit comfortably atop most nationwide opinion polls. However, if Sullivan wins re-election this November he'll reign over Vancouver for another three years--a lifetime in Canadian politics. Although the federal Liberals currently flounder under the limp leadership of Stephane Dion, a Liberal government may be one Conservative scandal away. 

A new regime in Ottawa may look favourably on brothel legalization, and brothel exemptions may be up for grabs. If a private organization, like the B.C. Coalition of Experimental Communities (which has expressed interest in an exemption) gets a federal nod to open a brothel, requisite zoning permit and business licence requests would land at city hall. Those requests--the last obstacles to legalized brothels--will require a council vote. What will Sam do then? 

Unfortunately, it appears Vancouverites won't know until after the November civic election because Sullivan, through his spin doctor David Hurford, refuses to speculate on "wild hypotheticals" involving a change of leadership in Ottawa. Legalized brothels have been tried before in Europe, but the zeitgeist seems to be changing. 

Last September, after centuries of government encouragement, Amsterdam's city council forced the closure of 51 "prostitution windows" in the infamous De Wallen district due to concerns over human trafficking. In Sweden, where prostitution has been legal since the 1970s, legislation introduced in 1999 that criminalized the buying of sex has dramatically reduced that country's sex trade. Even Europe's most liberal governments have decided that prostitution is not a solution to the problem—prostitution is the problem. Of course, we hear constant cries from Vancouver's "harm reduction" crowd--the friendly folks who brought us prescription-heroin trials and supervised injection sites—who point to Vancouver's thriving "massage parlour" industry. They argue that legalized brothels for street prostitutes will provide similar "indoor" benefits. But anyone who trumps the virtue of massage parlours probably never worked in one. Two wrongs don't make a right. 

The idea of brothels in Vancouver became serious business in early 2007 when "Living in Community," a city-funded study of prostitution, released its 32-page "action plan," a radical document that espoused, among other things, "safe indoor workspaces" for prostitutes. Also known as brothels. The plan outraged women's groups, including Vancouver Rape Relief and the Aboriginal Women's Action Network, who said the idea would expand the sex trade. Despite these protests, not one Vancouver city councillor categorically denounced the "legalized brothels" concept. While Sullivan's chief political rival, Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie, himself a potential future mayoral candidate, is quick to criticize Sullivan's handling of the issue, he refuses to promise a no-brothel policy in the future. Even Kim Capri, the NPA's smiling public face of Project Civil City, would only say, "That's not where I'd be investing my energy." 

Ironically, the last councillor to speak forcefully against brothel legalization was Sam Sullivan, who during his successful 2005 mayoral campaign panned then-COPE councillor Tim Louis's call for a city-owned brothel. Back then, Sullivan said he wasn't interested in "being a pimp." Now, Sullivan says, he'll "keep an open mind." Dangerous words in political jargon. Jean Chrétien kept an "open mind" about the national gun registry. George W. Bush kept an "open mind" about Iraq. And a key decision, which may drag Vancouver one step closer to Amsterdam West, has been swept under the rug of political ambiguity. Council's true intentions about legalized brothels may not be known until it's too late—when addicted women, helpless and alone, are guided by government into the cold confines of a sterile whorehouse. 

Vancouverites should demand that Mayor Sullivan—and every other city council candidate, including incumbents who have artfully sidestepped the issue—give a thumbs up or a thumbs down on legalized brothels in Vancouver before the next election. So we may all vote accordingly.