Seeking Office

Many Vancouverites are joining a North American movement to defund the police. But in what ways will defunding the police make life safer for Black, Indigenous and other marginalized folks in Vancouver? And can in be done? In this episode of Seeking Office, we get perspective from Lama Mugabo of the Hogan's Alley Society, Meenakshi Mannoe of PIVOT Legal Society, Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry and University of Winnipeg professor Kevin Walby. If you want to donate to Black Lives Matter Vancouver, go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/blmvan If you want to donate to The Hogan's Alley Society, go to https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/donations/696/

Many Vancouverites are joining a North American movement to defund the police. But in what ways will defunding the police make life safer for Black, Indigenous and other marginalized folks in Vancouver? And can in be done? In this episode of Seeking Office, we get perspective from Lama Mugabo of the Hogan's Alley Society, Meenakshi Mannoe of PIVOT Legal Society, Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry and University of Winnipeg professor Kevin Walby. If you want to donate to Black Lives Matter Vancouver, go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/blmvan If you want to donate to The Hogan's Alley Society, go to https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/donations/696/

This is a spotlight episode via CiTR's newest podcast, the "Vancouver COVID-19 Update." If you like it, please subscribe and rate. ***** This Tuesday, the Parks Board closed down roads in Stanley Park, home to the largest urban Pacific Great Blue Heron colony in North America. As Vancouverites adapt to this ongoing public health crisis, Dr. Rudy Reimer/Yumks thinks there's something we can learn from these incredible birds. In this episode of the Vancouver COVID-19 Update, Rudy, a member of the Squamish Nation and a professor of Indigenous Studies and Archeology at Simon Fraser University, shares the Squamish creation story of heron and what it can teach people about behaving with good heart and mind.

Canada's Department of Health (Health Canada) was created in 1919, in response to the Spanish Flu and WWI. Now, a century later, will Canada's new influenza pandemic again be a catalyst for stronger, more equitable health care and human rights?

On January 24th, The Globe & Mail published a story highlighting a study done by Evan Mast of the Upjohn Institute. This study found that the addition of market-rate housing in low-income neighborhoods caused rent to go down in those neighborhoods. Local data analyst Jens Von Bergmann did a simplified version of this study and found that the results hold true in Vancouver. But UBC professor, Patrick Condon, disagrees with the premise of both studies. In this episode, Condon explains why he takes issue with these studies and Von Bergmann unpacks his findings and what they mean for Vancouver. **Correction: Condon argues development taxes, not property taxes should be raised.**

Sitting Councillor Rebecca Bligh recently resigned from the Non-Partisan Association (NPA). This came after several social conservatives were elected to the NPA's board of directors. In this interview, Charlie Smith, editor and civic affairs reporter for the Georgia Straight, unpacks what this rightward shift means for Vancouver and the NPA caucus.

Westbank Corp. recently commissioned a 4.8 million dollar public art project known as the "Spinning Chandelier." Whether you love it or hate it, the piece brings up important questions about the value of public art and whether it matters who's paying for it. In this episode Eric Fredericksen, the City of Vancouver's Public Art Program Manager, breaks down how developer-commissioned public art is given the green light.

If you get renovicted or demovicted, what are your rights? According to the updated Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy or TRPP, developers must provide tenants with three housing options that best meet their priorities. They are also required to assist low income tenants in securing affordable housing. But are developers doing that? And what are the consequences if they don't?

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. This week, a motion tabled by NPA Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung requested council adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Antisemitism. The motion didn't pass and was referred to a committee, but in it, stats on hate crimes directed at the Jewish community left us wondering how hate crimes are defined in Canada and Vancouver and which communities feel safe reporting them.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On June 25th, council voted down a townhouse re-development application at 4575 Granville Street. In the wake of council's decision, the applicant has indicated that they plan to build a large house on the lot instead of the 21 units of rent housing they had initially applied to build. In this episode, Councillor Jean Swanson discusses why she voted against the application and whether she would do it again.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Tuesday June 11th, Vancouver City Council unanimously passed several measures designed to improve renter protections. In a tweet that same day, Mayor Kennedy Stewart described the measures as, “Canada's broadest and most comprehensive series of protections for renters.” But is that statement accurate? Star Vancouver City Hall reporter Jen St. Denis unpacks the details of this newly approved report and explains crucial differences in how renters who are "demovicted" versus renters who are "renovicted," are protected.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. The Bloedel Conservatory turns 50 this year. Perched at the highest point in Vancouver, this triodetic dome is home to hundreds of tropical birds and plants. In this special episode of Seeking Office, a woman named Lina and a cockatoo named Charlie find refuge both in Bloedel's little paradise, and one another.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Monday, April 29th, Vancouver City Council narrowly voted to shift 2% of the tax burden from businesses to residential property owners. Green Councillor Pete Fry was vocal about his uncertainty over whether or not to support the tax shift. In the end, he chose to support it for largely symbolic reasons.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. After an SFU housing panel on Tuesday, April 23rd, B.C.'s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Selina Robinson, speaks with CiTR reporter Alex de Boer about how her government is attempting to de-commodify housing.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. In Kitsilano, residents are fiercely protective of neighborhood character. Many say a five-storey apartment set to be built at 1805 Larch Street threatens that character. The project is being proposed under the City's MIRHPP rental incentive program, which ensures 20% of suites are rented at below-market rates to people with an annual income of $30,000 - $80,000. CiTR's News Collective speaks with people for and against this project outside a town hall at the Kitsilano Neighborhood House on April 10th.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. Do city councillors or city staff run Vancouver? This episode examines recent tensions between councillors and the City Manager, and looks into how much, if any bias guides staff when advising council.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On February 26th, City Council passed a Rental 100 development at 1906-1918 West 4th Avenue. Initially, an amendment to add vacancy control to this development was added and passed in a 6-5 vote, but then a re-vote was called and the amendment was undone. Councillor Adriane Carr both supported the amendment to impose vacancy control and later voted against it. In this episode, Councillor Carr offers perspective on why she changed her vote so drastically.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. Following a two-day public hearing, Vancouver City Council unanimously approved a rezoning application that will allow the construction of a detox centre and mixed-rate rental housing on a on a block of land between Clark and McLean drives along East First Avenue. Activists from the CCPA and VANDU disrupted the first day of the hearing to draw attention to those who are homeless and living in tents in Oppenheimer Park.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. Since the 1960s, the development of rental housing in Vancouver has been in decline. Vancouver's Rental 100 policy is a response to that decline. Since its implementation in 2012 there has been a notable increase in purpose-build rental housing in the City. But renter advocates are divided on its effectiveness at making Vancouver more livable for tenants. Sara Sagii of the Vancouver Tenants Union and Karen Sawatzky, former Chair of the City's Renter Advisory Committee, both give perspective on the policy. *** Correction: City Council has referred discussion and decision on Councillor Carr's motion to change Vancouver’s housing by-laws to February 26. It has not yet passed***

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Monday, February 4th, New Westminster City Council unanimously passed an innovative new renter-protection bylaw. City Councillor Jaimie McEvoy explains why this bylaw is the next best thing to end vacancy control and how he hopes it will inspire other Lower Mainland municipalities to adopt similar measures.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office—At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On January 30th, Vancouver City Council voted to extend the Broadway corridor subway line all the way to UBC. Veteran city hall reporter Frances Bula explains the significance of all three Green Councillors voting in favour of this massive transit project and how it makes sense that only the most right-wing and the most left-wing councillors opposed the project.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office — At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On January 15th, Vancouver City Council passed two new developments at 2230 Harrison Drive and 3532 East Hastings. The project at 3532, was passed under a housing policy known as "Rental 100." Rental 100 incentivizes the creation of rental housing — as opposed to condos — but does not specify how much rent should be considered "affordable." In this episode, both Sara Sagaii of the Vancouver Tenants Union and City Councilor Adriane Carr give their perspective on whether the new Council should continue assessing rental developments under the Rental 100 policy.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is season two of Seeking Office — At-Large. Bringing you innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. Vancouver City Council approved the $1.5 billion 2019 budget on Tuesday, December 18th, as well as a capital project budget of $371 million. The City's 2019 draft budget included a proposed 4.9% property tax rate, but council was able to reduce that rate to 4.5% in the final budget. This episode features perspectives from those who attended City Council's budget debate both in favour of, and opposed to, the 2019 property tax hike.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is At-Large — innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Wednesday, December 12th, Vancouver City Council passed a motion to request that the provincial government withdraw a tax on properties valued at over three million dollars — currently referred to as the "School Tax." In this episode, City Councillor Pete Fry explains why the Greens voted alongside the NPA in favour of this motion and how his vote was a intended as a signal to the provincial NDP, rather than a defense of Vancouver's wealthy homeowners.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is At-Large — innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Tuesday, December 4th, Vancouver City Council voted on a motion put forward by COPE City Councillor Jean Swanson. The motion — which aimed to enhance renter rights — passed unanimously, but with significant amendments. The passed motion was interpreted as both a victory and a compromise by Swanson and Vancouver Tenants Union activists.

From CiTR's News Collective, this is At-Large — innovative storytelling from Metro Vancouver. On Wednesday, November 14th, the News Collective went to Vancouver City Hall to cover a rally in support of Councillor Jean Swanson's first two motions before council. The motions propose to end renovictions and support the construction of 100% social housing at 58 West Hastings.

Vancouver's 2018 municipal election results are in. Besides mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart, not a single independent candidate was elected to Council, Park Board or School Board. Additionally, eight seats of our ten seat city council have been filled by women, but only one of our ten councillors identifies as a visible minority. So what happened to the so-called "year of the independent"? And how did our council turn out to be mostly white in a city where more than half the population isn't? Seeking Office gets answers from Globe and Mail reporter, Frances Bula.

Many UBC students live in Vancouver and will be eligible to vote on October 20th. So what are the issues that matter most to them? In this episode students at UBC's Point Grey campus share their perspectives on Vancouver's 2018 municipal election. And two of those students — Taq Bhandal and Abubakar Khan — are doing more than voting. Find out why both are running for city council as independent candidates.

Polling done by Research Co. finds that Kennedy Stewart is winning in the race to be Vancouver's next mayor. In second place is the NPA's Ken Sim and in third is independent candidate Shauna Sylvester. With Stewart and Sylvester both positioned centre-left, there is concern that progressive Vancouverites are feeling pressure to vote for Stewart, just to keep Ken Sim out of office. In this episode, UBC political science professor Richard Johnston discusses whether polling done in Vancouver's 2018 election is shaping our political landscape, or passively reflecting voter preference.

On October 20th, Vancouverites from every neighborhood head to the polls to elect ten at-large councillors and one mayor — every neighborhood except one. West of Blanca street, there are 15,000 permanent residents and 12,000 students who can’t vote for park board, city council, or mayor. The CBC's Justin McElroy draws from his own reporting to explain why residents in and around UBC can only vote for school board and for one person on Metro Vancouver's regional board.

Vancouver municipal party OneCity, has endorsed independent candidate Kennedy Stewart for mayor. OneCity council candidate Christine Boyle explains some of the subtle differences between her party and Vancouver's other left-most party COPE, as well as why OneCity chose to endorse Kennedy Stewart, rather than run their own mayoral candidate.

The most recent poll published by Research Co. found that Vancouverites have more confidence in the Green Party and independent candidates than any other party or group. We discuss how these results relate to B.C.'s new campaign finance limits and the past decade of Vision Vancouver rule with Research Co. president, Mario Canseco.

Will increasing supply solve both Vancouver's housing crisis and its social woes? Yes, Vancouver's Hector Bremner thinks so. With reporting from Yes, Vancouver's July 28th Candidate Selection Meeting, we put Hector's fiscally conservative, socially liberal strategy to UBC economics professor Kevin Milligan for comment.

There's been a lot of buzz about the new billboards promoting Hector Bremner. And mysteriously, the group who paid for them, hasn't been answering phone calls or emails. What level of transparency are third party advertisers required to provide to the public? And what defines a "third party"? In this episode we discuss the significance B.C.'s new legislation, which bans union and corporate donations, is place on third party advertisers in Vancouver's 2018 civic election.

Average-citizen-turned-election-expert Ian Bushfield has been graphing and tallying Vancouver's municipal parties and candidates through open-source information sharing and public survey. In this episode, Ian talks about his participatory research methods and provides an overview of Vancouver's increasingly complex, 2018 civic election.

Vancouver's Civic Government Vancouver isn’t like other major Canadian cities. Unlike the majority of Canada, Vancouver has political parties at the local level and elects councillors to the city at-large, as opposed to specific wards, or geographic areas. And both of these unusual civic features relate and perpetuate one another. So why is Vancouver so weird and has it always been this way? Not only that, why does this all matter in the context of our 2018 municipal election?

Jean Swanson recently served four days in prison for breaking a court injunction on Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby tank farm facility. Jean speaks with CiTR's News Collective about her run for city council with Vancouver’s Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), as well as how she plans to follow in Harry Rankin’s footsteps as an “activist-councillor.”

Wondering what Wai Young's Coalition Vancouver wants to do besides remove bike lanes? The News Collective gets a preview of this new civic group's housing plan and learns about its self-described centrist values from Coalition Vancouver president and former NPA board member, Peter Labrie. This episode also contains a five minute bonus interview with Peter, focused on a provocative retweet he posted on August 15th.

This interview was originally broadcast as part of Democracy Watch on CiTR 101.9 FM. It has been edited for clarity. This April, ProVancouver joined an already crowded race for office in Vancouver's 2018 civic election. ProVancouver, lead by mayoral candidate David Chen, aspires to build strong communities, increase rental housing and improve transparency and efficiency at city hall. ProVancouver also claims to be neither a right wing nor left wing party. And they actually aren't even a party. This episode features a live radio interview with mayoral candidate David Chen who breaks down what his party is all about.

A History of Vision Vancouver It’s 2018—election year. For the past decade, centre-left party Vision Vancouver has held a majority on council and the mayor’s seat. This term, Vision is running a new slate of young and diverse candidates, with few incumbents. It’s clear that Vision is changing. But aside from becoming more diverse, what are they changing from? Where did Vision begin and how did it come to rule Vancouver for the past ten years?

In advance of Vancouver's municipal election, a motion passed in council to randomize the order of candidates listed on voting ballots. This episode features political scientist and University of Calgary professor Jack Lucas who argues that rather than making voting fairer, Vancouver's newly randomized ballot actually creates a new set of advantages. This episode was originally broadcast as part of CiTR's Democracy Watch on June 28th, 2018.

This is an original report from Vancouver's Green Party election nomination meeting on June 27th. It includes an interview with incumbent Green city councillor, and potential de-facto mayor, Adriane Carr. This segment was originally broadcast on June 28th as part of CiTR's Democracy Watch.

Kennedy Stewart is Burnaby-South's NDP Member of Parliament. He's also running to be Vancouver's next mayor. Although Stewart is leading in the polls, he has received repeated criticism for his failure to speak out against mass demovictions happening in his own federal riding. CiTR's Alex de Boer speaks with Burnaby affordable housing activist Murray Martin and Kennedy Stewart himself, about these demovictions.