The late Alfred Scow is remembered as a trailblazer at the University of British Columbia. Photo: Chris Wheeler/UBC Alumni Association

Former lieutenant-governor Steven Point isn’t sure most British Columbians will remember his pal Alfred Scow. He doubts if many people even realize that Scow was the province’s first — and, for a long time, only — aboriginal judge.

Scow died in February at 86. He represented a beacon for many indigenous people hoping to enter the legal field. However, challenges still impede the progress of aboriginal people, both within the profession and the justice system in general.

Amid the tumultuous years of the 1960s, Scow became the first indigenous student to graduate from law school in British Columbia. Soon after, he would achieve another first: the first indigenous lawyer to be called to the bar.

“He was the only one, and the big thing that sticks out is: Why is that? Why is there only one native judge?” asked Point, a himself an ex-lawyer and, in the generation that came after Scow, also one of only a few aboriginal judges.

Restoring ‘faith in the system’

Point: Alfred Scow “was the reason I wanted to be a judge.”

Nearly 50 years ago, indigenous students faced renouncing their Indian status in order to receive any kind of university degree or professional training.

If they did, they could no longer live on reserve, vote for chief or inherit property from indigenous lands.

The legal profession, in particular, was off-limits for aboriginal people. Forget becoming a lawyer — First Nations could not even hire a lawyer until 1951, after sections of the Indian Act were repealed.

Scow timed his graduation perfectly. By 1961, the law had changed so he could retain his Indian status while still receiving his diploma.

By becoming the first indigenous lawyer and rising through the legal ranks, Scow made giant strides in a profession where representation is key.

Aboriginal people were—and continue to be—over-represented before the court as defendants. Even in 2007, 20 per cent of British Columbia’s prisoners were aboriginal.

However, as a role model and mentor, Scow helped usher indigenous people into the courtroom as lawyers and judges.

Point said Scow’s mere presence also marked a shift towards a legal system less biased against indigenous peoples.

“We’re growing up with institutions that deal with native people but don’t have native people. So is it important for them to have a native lawyer? Yeah,” said Point.

Listen: Steven Point talks about a courtroom experience he’ll never forget  

As a lawyer, Point remembers seeing aboriginal defendants with “no faith that the system was going to be fair.” But when he ascended to the judge’s bench eventually and became a colleague of Scow’s, he noticed some of the defendants acting strangely in his presence.

“Natives who came to court would wave at me. You don’t see anybody waving at judges, right? But I was their judge.”

This attention gave Point a great sense of responsibility. “I was an interpreter almost, a guide, more than a lawyer.”

Booming business

But indigenous lawyers and judges play an even more crucial role today. They aren’t just advocates or interpreters for the over-represented First Nations in the courts, as Scow was. The generation that has followed him brings their personal insight to the new, hot-button resource issues concerning First Nations’ communities.

In the 1990s, a series of Supreme Court decisions affirmed the land and resource rights of First Nations people, also known as aboriginal title.

Suddenly, aboriginal law grew into a multi-million dollar business. Negotiations over issues like fishing rights and development in First Nations’ traditional territory provided openings for lawyers to work on indigenous issues.

“Each band and Metis council and tribal council—they deal with legal issues every day. It’s probably one of the biggest growing areas of law in Canada,” said Darwin Hanna, a partner at the aboriginal law firm Callison & Hanna.

Hanna opened his own practice in 1996. Since then, he has noticed dramatic changes in the legal needs of his clientele.

Hanna admired Judge Alfred Scow’s commitment to helping other indigenous lawyers.

“When we first started practicing, our clients did not have access to timber, the land or even sharing of the profits from mining and hydro projects,” said Hanna. “Now it’s a matter of daily business where our clients are involved with deals with the Crown with respect to forestry.”

For Hanna, having “effective representation” in these cases involves aboriginal judges and lawyers like Scow, who understand the First Nations’ shared history and culture.

“I think it’s basically a human-rights issue in that you have a right to be represented by your own people,” said Hanna.

Meeting the need

However, even in the decades since Scow shattered the profession’s glass ceiling, the legal system system still doesn’t have indigenous lawyers in anything like the proportions of First Nations in the general population.

In 2012, the Law Society of British Columbia released a report saying aboriginal people represented only 1.5 per cent of lawyers in British Columbia.  That statistic fell short when compared to the 4.6 per cent of the overall population in British Columbia who are indigenous—not to mention the 23 per cent of federal prisoners who are aboriginal.

What’s worse, according to the law society, was that the percentage of aboriginal lawyers remained stagnant over a 10-year period, from 1996 to 2006. Not enough indigenous people were entering and staying in the profession.

For Rosalie Wilson, an aboriginal lawyer from the Okanagan Valley, those statistics actually motivated her to go to law school.

“I was determined all the more because of those statistics,” she said.

Wilson felt herself “walking in the footsteps of giants” as she started to pursue a law degree at Scow’s alma mater, the University of British Columbia, in 2000.

Nevertheless, during her first year, Wilson was struck with a sense of “culture shock.”

“The limited support that First Nations students experience while being away at university is tough. A lot of nations have heavy family values,” said Wilson.

“It does become challenging, because you’re isolated from the normal support systems that you usually rely on to get you through more challenging times.”

Blending Western and indigenous mindsets

Aboriginal students also grapple with incorporating their own cultural viewpoint with that of the Canadian legal system, which is based upon British common law.

For instance, while the Western legal system prioritizes “hard,” phsyical evidence, indigenous groups have argued for oral histories as evidence.

“What law school tended to teach me was not necessarily compatible with what I believe as an indigenous person,” said Wilson. “But as an indigenous lawyer, I have to have respect for that system and be knowledgeable of that system.”

While Wilson was a student, law schools could choose how much, or how little, aboriginal law to teach. Now, Canadian law schools are required to adopt indigenous legal studies in order to receive accreditation.

In 2012, for instance, the University of British Columbia instituted a mandatory, semester-long course to teach first-year students about aboriginal law.

Former chief Leah George-Wilson graduated from law school at the University of British Columbia in December 2012.

Listen: Former law student Leah George-Wilson on changing the school curriculum UBC’s law school anticipates that next year’s graduating class will have the largest indigenous group yet. More than 20 students are expected to graduate out of a class of approximately 180.

Entering the field

Law school is only the first hurdle in an indigenous lawyer’s career.

Once out in the field, law graduates often must find a position “articling,” or training with a firm, before they can be called to the bar.

Whereas, in judge Scow’s early years, a more blatant racism impeded lawyers from seizing opportunities, nowadays a less obvious, systemic racism runs through the legal field, according to Hanna.

“I think it’s just so subtle,” said Hanna. “No one said ‘We’re not going to hire you because you’re aboriginal.’”

To make it in the legal world requires referrals and contacts, said Hanna.

In the end, Hanna said, if anything is going to change, it’s not simply about educating indigenous students in law—it’s equally about educating the legal leadership.

“It’s just trying to provide that education to the leadership about aboriginal lawyers that can do the same work if not better,” said Hanna. “In the law profession, it’s all about connections, about who you know, and at the same time it’s about reputation and doing the work.”

Building a reputation means fighting myths about indigenous lawyers, according to Point. During his time working for the UBC law school, he heard a number of rumours devaluing indigenous students’ accomplishments.

One rumour claimed aboriginal students received special admissions criteria to enter law school. Another perpetuated the idea that these lawyers had received a less rigorous “Indian law degree.”

Contrary to the myths, indigenous students tackle the same classes, exams and criteria as other students.

“I think some of the kids were finding a hard time getting articles, because some of the law firms felt that they didn’t have the same law degree as other students did,” said Point. “A lot of kids just went back home and started to work in other areas.”

Point believes that the integration of more indigenous voices will ultimately change the profession for the better. The simple addition of a single fresh perspective—like Scow’s—helped transform the Western mentality of the courtroom.

“If you’ve got beef stew, and you put ginger in it, it changes the stew. When Alf Scow got into the legal profession, it changed because of his presence,” said Point. “He would bring to that his value system, which is entirely different from the Western system.”

Yet, one presence is not enough. For the legal “stew” to truly change—and for proper representation to be achieved– more indigenous voices are needed, according to Point.

“In my view, that enriches the system. It improves it and makes it more meaningful.”

Glen Morrow doesn’t plan on retiring and says it’s never been about the money.

Glen Morrow is 70 and happy to be single-handedly running his own auto shop in the Fleetwood neighbourhood of Surrey. He has been working for 57 years but still has no plans to retire.

“I’ve got some place to play,” he says as he talks at length about the various projects he’s working on. “It’s all fun stuff to me.”

Not too many kilometres away, 72-year-old Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam Shad is also still working at an age when many other Canadians are retired. He’s not as happy about it. For him, it’s a matter of survival as his pension just doesn’t cut it.

Morrow and Shad represent two sides of a growing trend of British Columbians who are working well beyond the usual age of retirement.  Over the past 10 years, the proportion of British Columbians over the age of 70 who are still employed has nearly doubled, from 3.5 per cent 2002 to 6.4 per cent in 2012. That’s an increase from 13,000 to 30,000 people in B.C.’s workforce who are over 70.

Source: Statistics Canada and BC Stats

The percentage is likely to continue increasing for decades, according to projections from B.C.’s Ministry of Labour.

Couple this with the region’s population of seniors, which is expected to double within 20 years, and we can expect to see a lot more seniors working around the province.

There’s a wide range of reasons to delay retirement, according to research by Grant Schellenberg, director of the social-analysis division of Statistics Canada, and his colleagues. Many older workers are, like Morrow, just happier working. For many others, their financial constraints leave them with no choice.

A Statistics Canada paper from 2005 reported that 38 per cent of seniors returning to the workforce did so for financial reasons, while 22 per cent didn’t like retirement and another 19 per cent came back because they liked their jobs. More recent data is limited, so it’s not clear how the recession might have impacted those numbers.

Making ends meet

For Shad, the recession had nothing to do with his efforts to keep working. The problem is that his pension just isn’t enough. He came to Canada from Pakistan in 1996 and was only working in Canada for a few years before he had to stop for health reasons. That meant he only had a few years’ worth of pension contributions, so he doesn’t get much more from government pensions than the basic old-age-security payments.

He now has a part-time job marketing registered educational savings plans, which he balances with volunteering at his mosque. He is still looking to advance his career. He currently works on commission, but is hoping to gain experience in computerized accounting in order to get a job with more financial security.

Shad’s income supports not only him, but also his wife, who has never worked in Canada, and his two children who are attending university. While the children both have part-time jobs to pay for school, Shad still helps them out as best he can.

Immigrants like Shad are particularly likely to continue working in their old age, according to Schellenberg’s research. Recent immigrants are 50 per cent more likely to be uncertain about retirement plans than Canadian-born people nearing retirement age. Those with poor health or who live alone are in the same boat, and tend to be more concerned that their retirement income won’t be enough. This concern often translates into putting off the decision to retire.

At 70, Glen Morrow likes to keep himself busy by working hard.

Anne Martin-Matthews, a University of B.C. professor and former director of the national Institute of Aging, says that fewer and fewer workers can expect to earn enough money after they retire.

Increasing numbers of people do not have any retirement plan from their employer, and the government pension isn’t always enough.

As well, Martin-Matthews says that parents can end up supporting children well beyond their college years. She cites the growing trend of “boomerang children” who live with their parents well into adulthood, which sometimes means that their parents cannot retire when they want to.

While some might think seniors are comfortably resting on their laurels after years of accumulating wealth, some recently released statistics paint a vastly different picture.

A typical senior in greater Vancouver who is not part of a family, as defined by the census, earns less than $25,000 a year, according to a report by the United Way in partnership with the Social Planning and Research Council of BC.

Just keeping busy

But not all working seniors need the income boost. Some just like their jobs. Or at least they don’t like the sound of retirement.

Forty years later, he’s still working in the shop just about every day of the week.

“Holidays don’t mean anything to me,” he says, adding that he usually goes the entire day without sitting down or taking a break.

He doesn’t know what he would do if he retired. “If you don’t keep busy, you’re just going to fall apart.”

“I have more projects than life left,” says Morrow. But as long as he’s working hard, he feels like he’s still in his 40s.

Age is just a number

Martin-Matthews thinks that calling 65, or even 67 for that matter, the retirement age doesn’t make sense in this day and age. The threshold of 65 was established over a century ago, when most people didn’t even live to celebrate 65 years. Now that many people live into their 80s or beyond, she sees no reason why seniors should stop working as long as they’re still healthy and happy with their work.

For her part, Martin-Matthews has no desire to retire when she hits 65 and could see herself working for many years beyond that age. She might eventually do what many older adults do these days, which is a transition through a gradual retirement process that includes working part-time for a while.

She’s glad that B.C. no longer imposes mandatory retirement on older workers, as she can name multiple colleagues who were forced to retire when they turned 65 before the rules were changed five years ago. Those colleagues are now in their 70s and are still producing some of the best work in the field of gerontology, she says.

The question is how to deal with the new reality of a workforce that includes many people in their 70s.  Martin-Matthews strongly believes that seniors can be just as good as anyone else at their jobs, but grants that mandatory retirement makes sense for some more physical jobs. She suggests performance reviews as a way of ensuring that older workers are keeping up to par.

But for a lot of workers, age really is just a number.

But a recent study found that university-educated people with children in dual-earning homes are significantly less likely to be satisfied with their work-family balance than those without.

On Wednesday, March 27, at 10 a.m. PST, Karen Duncan, who co-authored the study, will join us for a live chat and answer your questions.

Related story: Work-life balance eludes highly educated

Duncan is an associate professor in the department of family social sciences at the University of Manitoba. She has her bachelor’s in professional home economics and specializes in family-resources management, family economics, balancing work and family, home-based work, family business, and valuation of time.

Michelle Robindell gave birth the same way she does business. She didn’t waste time. Her last day of work was a Friday, her water broke on Saturday, and her son Oscar arrived on Sunday.

Robindell, 36, has her BA in psychology, works full-time as a manager at BC Hydro and is in the process of becoming a life coach. With two kids, she is one of many university-educated Vancouverites trying to balance a busy job with a family.

“Even on the Sunday when I’m at the park with my kids, I’ll open my email and see there’s something going on,” she said. “So I feel the need to respond to it. Even if I don’t respond, it’s in the back of my mind. So it’s taking away from my focus on my family.”

It’s not common to hear that an expensive university education and a well-paying job have downsides.

But a recent study found that university-educated people with children in dual-earning homes are significantly less likely to be satisfied with their work-family balance than those without the post-secondary credential. The study used Statistics Canada data from 1998 and 2005, which surveyed how happy people were with their work-life balance based on how much time they spent at work and at home.

It’s clear that the topic is a hot one in the professional world. The decision by Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer banning employees from working at home, after she had a nursery built next to her office, generated a torrent of headlines and public debate.

Karen Duncan, a University of Manitoba professor of family social sciences and co-author of the Canadian study, says many people pursue a university degree for stability and a higher paycheque. But many jobs that require post-secondary education also come with added pressures, like more responsibility and extra hours in the office.

“With higher education comes higher expectation,” Duncan said.

Live chat: Prof Karen Duncan answers your questions on Wednesday 27 March, 10.00 PST.

According to her, these jobs also often rely heavily on communications technology. Portable computers and cell phones allow work to follow people home.

That’s something that happens a lot less for people doing jobs that don’t require a university degree.

But he is content with his work-family balance because he doesn’t think about work when he’s home.

“We [plumbers] don’t have to take it home,” he says. “So when I’m home, I can do what I have to for the family.”

He gets home at 5 a.m. and sleeps until 2 p.m. every day. Though he says this isn’t an ideal schedule for everyone, it allows him to spend more time with his wife, six-year-old daughter and newborn son.

Working moms juggle kids and career

Robindell, on the other hand, brings work home with her every Friday. She has the morning off and then works on her laptop in the afternoon while her kids nap for two or three hours. This allows her some flexibility, but sometimes they wake up earlier than usual, which throws her off-balance.

“When I’m at home and the kids are asking me questions and I feel like I’m focused on my laptop, it’s hard,” Robindell said. “I feel like I’m pulled in two opposite directions.”

Jill Earthy feels the same way. As an entrepreneur and mom of two, balancing work and family is part of her daily life.

Between business meetings and conference calls, she has to squeeze in parent-teacher interviews and story-time with her girls.

Earthy always knew she wanted to have a family but, as a business owner, leaving her job wasn’t an option.

“I was travelling all the time. There was no way. And if I stopped working, revenue stopped coming in. So I felt a lot of burden.”

Earthy knows she’s not alone and has worked to connect other women feeling the pressure of being a parent and a professional.

In 2007, she founded momcafé, a networking group for business savvy mothers. It is now in eight cities across the country. She is also co-chair of the WEB alliance—a collaboration of women’s business networks in the city.

But there are times when she finds  tough to live in both worlds.

“It depends on the day to be honest. Some days I feel good, but I think the other part is that sometimes I do feel guilty… you don’t feel like you’re giving your all to everything and there’s no solution for that.”

“I’m trying to just embrace that guilt and know that I am going to do the best that I can.”

Self-employment not the answer

So it might seem like people who can be their own bosses, with the option to set flexible hours, have the best chance at finding balance. But no, Duncan’s study revealed that, while self-employment might lead to more independence, it also often means more stress and family conflict.

Mohamed Helal, who owns Marché Pastry & Bakery on Kingsway near Clark, struggles to balance his time at home and time spent at work. Originally from Germany, he has his masters in baking art and hospitality.

He opened Marché four months ago in Vancouver, and he says money is tight.

On a Wednesday afternoon, the tables sit empty at the Marché.

But Helal says he’s invested too much time and money to give up now. However, since he cannot afford to pay many employees, he ends up working 12- to 15-hour days.

And long hours means that Helal rarely sees his daughter, two sons and his grandson.

“I start to lose my family life,” he says, “which is my wife, my kids. I don’t enjoy them because I’m working very hard…I’m even over-stressed when I go home because I’m thinking still about the business. Worrying still about my worker, my customer, everything.”

]]> http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/23/work-life-balance-eludes-highly-educated/feed/ 0 http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/20/circus-flying-high-in-vancouver/ http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/20/circus-flying-high-in-vancouver/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:25:30 +0000 Katelyn Verstraten http://thethunderbird.ca/?p=28034

Professional circus performer Meregon Kiddo performs aerial silks.

Meregon Kiddo was suspended 12 feet in the air and rapidly dropping headfirst towards the ground when she realized something had gone wrong.

“I didn’t wrap my binding correctly,” she said. “And normally when you do something correctly after a drop there’s something to catch you…but I didn’t do it properly. So I just locked my arms to protect my neck, and then I snapped both of my arms.”

Risk, including those two broken arms, is part of the job for 26-year-old Kiddo. She performs aerial silks as a professional member of the Inner Ring Circus at the Vancouver Circus School.

The school is an example of growth in Canada’s circus industry, a growth that started with Quebec’s rule-breaking Cirque du Soleil and that has now spread beyond its borders. Vancouver’s school already employs eight professionals and teaches dozens aspiring circus performers.  The plan is to expand to another location next year.

A growing art

“It is definitely growing. It is one of the disciplines that has the most audience in Canada,” said Laurence Cardin, the communications assistant at the National Circus School of Canada. Each year, 150 students train in the national program, and 95 per cent of graduated students find employment within a year.

Professional performers take time to goof around at Vancouver’s Circus School.

The school is in Montreal, three blocks from Canada’s biggest circus, Cirque du Soleil. Cirque employs 5,000 people. In January, the company laid off 400 staffers - almost eight per cent of the company’s workforce — but the operation is still massive.

Between 2003 and 2005, the total number of circus and magic shows increased by almost 65 per cent in Quebec. The total number of performances for all other performing arts decreased. This trend has continued over the last several years, according to a report released in 2007 by En Piste, Canada’s national association for circus arts.

Cardin is not surprised by the numbers, because there is something unique about the circus.

“It reaches a larger audience than some other art forms. It’s more accessible because it challenges the audience with a certain fear. It’s very close to art and sports at the same time, so people really relate to it. It brings out the fear inside of us,” she said.

The adrenaline is a big draw for the young people flocking to work in it, like Kiddo.

“You can’t get that kind of high anywhere else – at least not naturally anyway,” she said. “I can’t imagine that I would feel quite literally physically and mentally on top of the world walking away from you know, a Starbucks shift, for example. It’s incredibly gratifying.”

Inside the Inner Ring

Travis Johnson knows what it’s like to be on top. He was 24 years old when he opened the Vancouver Circus School eight years ago with his father Aaron Johnson, a former Canadian Olympic trampoline team coach and head acrobatic coach for Cirque du Soleil’s show Mystere.

Johnson’s Inner Ring is the professional arm of the school, comprised of circus performers who work in Canada and internationally using material Johnson has custom designed to meet the growing demands of customers. The shows include acts such as acrobatics, juggling, aerial silks, trapeze, unicyclists, and yo-yo are increasingly popular at corporate events.

Not all of the Inner Ring performers originally planned to work  in the circus.

Kiddo studied criminology at Simon Fraser University and had decided on a career in law. She had been taking classes at the Vancouver Circus School when Johnson asked her if she would be interested in performing professionally.

“I hadn’t thought about it until then,” she said. “And I said yes right on the spot. That conversation took place the better part of a decade ago.”

The expiration date

Johnson is particular about the performers he selects. Only unique and gifted performers make the cut.

Kiddo has been a professional performer for eight years – and has only fractured both her arms once.

“You better be damned good at it. You better impress me because I’m not going to put you out there if you’re not impressive. And it’s really, really hard to be that good.”

Dedication and a passion for the circus are critical as performers sometimes  practice up to 30 hours in a single weekend.

“Mastery [of skills] is 10, 000 hours,” said Nigel Wakita, a 28-year-old juggler, unicyclist, and walk-in balloonist. “I think I’m over two times that in some discipline. Some weeks I’ll do nothing but practice.”

At the age of 38, Vancouver Circus School instructor Michael Maan is too old to perform professionally, so he teaches younger artists instead.

“I can’t compete with people 10 or 15 years younger than me,” he said. “With endurance, with the ability to stay clean and in shape and looking amazing with hardly any clothes on …. there’s an expiration date for acrobats.”

Johnson does not perform trampoline anymore either.

“I broke every bone in my body. I leave that nonsense to the professionals.”

Kiddo has a way to go before reaching her best-before date. She is always thinking about the risks involved. Injured circus performers without a contract have limited means of earning an income.

“Number one is staying safe,” she said. “I’m not actually afraid of falling, but you’d have to almost be inhuman to not be affected by being that high up. When you’re performing there are no safety mats – silk artists do not use safety mats. It’s just you and the fabric.”

Earning your keep

Johnson will not discuss his payroll. Neither will Canada’s largest circus, Cirque du Soleil, although the organization states on its website that “a competitive salary and performance bonuses” are offered to the contract workers.

“It can vary quite heavily,” Johnson said. “Sometimes you can get paid really, really well, sometimes it’s not so popular. You can make a living if you’re in a company. But the people that do this do it for the love of doing it, they don’t do it to become rich.”

Inner Ring Circus performer Brandon Miyazaki spins on the aerial hoop.

The Acts of the Inner Ring 

What exactly do the performers of the Vancouver Circus School’s Inner Ring do? Here are a few of the more abstract and interesting acts explained. Click on the link to view the video.

Aerial Hoop

Using a circular hoop suspended from the ceiling at varying heights, artists perform aerial acrobatics. They can include one or more people and typically consist of swinging and spins.

Aerial Silks

Artists perform on long pieces of silk suspended from the ceiling, typically eight to 40 feet above the ground. Without safety lines or nets, performers ascend the silk, using the fabric to spin, dive, drop, swirl and form shapes with their bodies.

Contact Juggling

Performers use the manipulation of various objects, often balls, to suggest the illusion of levitation. This act has almost nothing in common with the typical juggling – objects are rolled along the body instead of tossed in the air.

Hand to Hand

Two or more acrobats perform on the ground, using their hands and balance to form a human sculpture. One acrobat is typically the “carrier,” the other the “flyer,” using the hands of the carrier as a beam.

(Documents provided by the Inner Ring Circus)

After blocking traffic this fall, these signs came down on Dec. 1. (Photo: Chris Lane)

West End seniors are praising Vancouver city council’s decision to reopen a key part of Robson Street to cars and buses after three months of consultations this fall about whether to turn it into a permanent public plaza.

“This proves you can fight city hall,” said Peggy Casey of the West End Seniors’ Network, adding that she and her peers are “very, very pleased” that the city opted to reopen as of Dec. 1 the one-block pedestrian zone created between the Vancouver Art Gallery and courthouse complex, which had been closed for five months.

They are also hoping that the city will listen more carefully in coming months, as it continues to look at ways to create a permanent public plaza.

Councillors approved staff recommendations to prepare for closing the street again next summer, while city officials investigate solutions for transit, weather protection, and programmed activities for a future plaza.

Casey and many other West End residents have been angry that the main bus that serves the West End, the No. 5 that runs down Robson, was rerouted to bypass the block of Robson next to art gallery. The bus used to go along Robson as far as Granville. During the closure, it was re-routed to Burrard, three blocks away.

Casey, who is 84, vision-impaired and dependent on a cane, said that walking an extra three blocks to reach Granville has been “extremely difficult.”

The seniors’ network recently collected 143 signatures in one afternoon to petition the city to make the bus accessible for them once again. Casey said the staff report, which cites the No. 5 bus and its use by seniors as an important consideration, proves their campaign was successful.

Pedestrian-friendly city centre

The No. 5 bus, running on Denman and Robson, connects West End residents to downtown. (Photo: Chris Lane)

The city had closed Robson Street for the past two summers in an effort to bring people together in a more pedestrian-friendly city centre. This August, instead of opening it up to traffic again for the fall, the city announced that it would keep the street closed until the end of the year. It held public events to discuss the future of the block.

That prompted many to talk about the importance of having a car-free space for people to gather and play downtown.

Lawrence Frank, a professor of urban planning and public health at UBC, said the street closure provided an area where pedestrians don’t have to worry about cars. He said it makes so much sense to unite the pedestrian spaces of the art gallery and Robson Square that he used to wonder “Why is this open? Why can’t we get the cars out?”

“The benefits of doing this far outweigh the cost,” he said. His research has found that encouraging foot traffic has many benefits such as improved public health.

The collective effect on society

Frank said for urban planning to be effective, “it’s important to look at the collective effect on as many segments of society as possible.”

“When you try to make spaces work for everyone, there are some people who are not going to get it exactly as they want because it’s all about compromise. If you look at the overall number of streets downtown, almost every other street is completely for cars.”

Frank said he is wary of any options other than a dedicated pedestrian zone on Robson, so he wonders if the best way to accommodate the seniors would be to find a new route for the No. 5 bus that connects them to Seymour and Granville streets without passing through the pedestrian mall. TransLink will be looking into an improved reroute for the bus next year.

Street closure done “without much forethought”

Whatever happens with bus routes in the future, residents hope there is more planning and discussion beforehand.

They were not only concerned about the bus rerouting during the closure; they also complained about the lack of due process before the city closed the street. Casey said she thought the street closure seemed to be “done on a whim, without much forethought.”

The new report seems to acknowledge such concerns, saying that further review is needed before making any lasting changes. City staff have recommended a more incremental approach to creating a public square on that block.

Coun. Andrea Reimer said the August decision to keep the street pedestrian-only was partly due to provincial government plans to redevelop the north side of the art gallery, which has been a traditional gathering place for protests, festivals, and rallies. Construction plans would have left the area temporarily without enough public space.

“TransLink needed an answer urgently,” she said, so the city decided to close the street and ask for the bus to be rerouted. By the time city staff learned from the province that construction would not actually happen, TransLink had already planned its fall schedule, so it was too late to put the bus back on Robson.

Residents hope they will continue to be heard

Casey hopes that the city will continue to listen to concerned residents and said the best thing the city can do is show residents their plan before going ahead with changes.

As for the prospect of Robson closing again next summer, she said that it could be fine as long as TransLink can make the transit route accessible and effective like it once was. But for now, she’s just happy that the bus will go down Robson to Granville again.

A sign at Spanish Bank Creek, one of the few rehabilitated streams in Vancouver, draws attention to the project. (Photo: Jimmy Thomson)

As he does almost every day of the fall and winter, Ron Gruber heads from his house near UBC down to Spanish Bank Creek yet again this cold sunny Friday. He grabs his binoculars and he makes sure to be there just before the morning’s high tide.

Once he is down at the beach, the 71-year-old walks from where the stream runs into the ocean uphill towards the park. He crosses Marine Drive and he makes his way through branches and muddy terrain. He stays as close to the creek as possible, looking, but specially listening for a peculiar splashing sound.

He’s waiting for the salmon to return. It looks like he won’t have much luck this morning. Chum salmon aren’t very good at finding their way home, so only a fraction come back. But this year has been particularly heart-breaking, without a single returning chum.

Gruber is the streamkeeper of Spanish Bank Creek, a small stream located on the western tip of the Vancouver peninsula. The streams starts near Chancellor Boulevard, runs through Pacific Spirit Park for about 1,000 metres, flows under Marine Drive, and empties into the ocean on Spanish Banks beach.

He’s been doing this for 13 years, all without pay, ever since the stream was rehabilitated through a combination of effort and money from federal Fisheries and Oceans, Vancouver Parks Board and the B.C. Ministry of Environment.

As he stands on the little wooden bridge overlooking the stream with a city landscape silently standing in the background, a man walking by asks him if any salmon have come back. Gruber answers: “No, lots of chum everywhere else, but not ours. Well, you never know, they could come at high tide.”

A valued community member

Ron Gruber explains how salmon swim up the creek to spawn. (Photo: Jimmy Thomson)

An artist by profession, Gruber makes a living by selling his carvings of ducks and other wild animals. This line of work gives him time to head down to the creek an average of 300 days a year.

It’s clear this morning that he is well-known to local park users. Four different groups of people stop, some walking, some jogging along the path next to the creek, to ask Gruber about the salmon.

As he stood on the small wooden bridge over the stream, a child also asked him what was happening with the fish. Gruber responded with his own question: “See any salmon?”

Even when it’s not spawning season, Gruber checks on the fry that live in the stream and he makes sure it is clean. “I get my rewards out of teaching people,” he said.

Sometimes elementary school teachers even organize class trips to take the kids down to Gruber’s stream just to hear him explain what he does. Before being fully restored in 1999, Spanish Bank Creek had not seen a salmon for 50 years.

People like Gruber are hard to come across. Not enough of these projects are situated in Vancouver and it’s hard to recruit volunteers in urban areas, says Jim Shinkewski, the Salmon Recovery Programs coordinator at Pacific Salmon Foundation.

Even if finding volunteers is hard, Gruber feels community involvement in a stream like Spanish Bank Creek is huge. People come up to him and say: “How are our fish?”

The case of the missing chum

The Spanish Bank Creek underpass at Marine Drive will need to be replaced, it is currently made of decomposing wood. (Photo: Jimmy Thomson)

Chum were expected to return around mid-October, though they can arrive as late as the first week of November. Other streams like Still Creek in Burnaby have gotten chum back, but not here at Spanish Banks. And he knows time is running out. The first week of November has ended and this has Gruber saying they probably won’t show up at all.

“People say ‘I’m disappointed’, but no one is more disappointed than I am. We had fish last year. What happened? I don’t know,” he said.

Chum and coho salmon call this creek home before heading into open water. Each year Fisheries and Oceans, as well as local schools, release about 30,000 chum fry in total into the creek.

Chum may have a harder time returning because, unlike coho, they spend less time in their creeks before leaving, making it harder for them to imprint where home is. When it’s finally time to spawn some four years later, they have more trouble making their way back.

The Spanish Bank Creek is unusually tricky, says Gruber, especially when the tide is low. “They have to come at exactly the right time. It’s like the perfect storm, it has to rain, it has to be high tide and it has to be in the middle of October,” he said.

All is not lost

Even though the chum are still MIA this last Friday, there are juvenile coho living in the stream and adult coho are expected to return sometime around late November. In fact, he spotted his first one a couple of days ago.

Gruber still remembers the first time he saw a salmon swim up the creek: “Each year you look for hours and days and finally you see one and it’s like Christmas and Easter all over again.”

Gruber has not given up and it takes more than a bad year to discourage him. He says they could have 40 chum back next year, the ones that stayed longer in the creek before making their way into the vast open water. What will it feel like once they return?

“Pretty exciting, it’s like watching your kids come home from college.”

Listen: Gruber describes watching chum swim up the creek:

Delta council has applied for a special grant to pay for a new service that would shuttle seniors from the Kennedy Seniors Recreation Centre to anywhere they need to go: grocery stores, doctors’ appointments, visits with local friends and family.

Seniors have particular challenges getting around in North Delta, which doesn’t have the kind of rich bus service that exists elsewhere in the region. That scarcity is even worse for anyone needing special service.

“Many [buses] can’t carry a scooter or wheelchair, and we can’t tell how often those that do will run,” said Franca Babuin, director of volunteers at Kennedy. “Many of our seniors have mobility problems.”

Other organizations had batted around the idea of a shuttle bus.

Kennedy’s board of directors discussed the idea, Babuin said it was not “financially feasible.”

Another group, the community-services organization Deltassist, also identified it as a need in its transportation committee.

Margaret Nielsen, director-at-large at Kennedy centre, sorts through Christmas supplies for the centre’s upcoming breakfast with Santa (Photo: Tiffany Kwong)

“There are more and more seniors in this area. I think the transportation committee was instrumental in putting the suggestion [of a seniors’ bus] ahead to council,” said Margaret Nielsen, who volunteers with Deltassist and sits on the Kennedy board.

The committee completed “a walkability study that identified areas in North Delta where it was difficult for people with a disability to get around,” she said.

Related: Life on the road hard for Delta seniors

Nielsen expects she and her 87-year-old husband will require a seniors’ bus in the near future.

“I mean, people are living longer, so their needs are becoming greater. So, I think that having a seniors’ bus would be a great assistance.”

The project so far

On Nov. 5, The Corporation of Delta approved a staff recommendation to apply for the 2013 Age-Friendly Community Planning & Project Grants through the Union of B.C. Municipalities’ seniors’ housing and support initiative. The grant could provide up to $20,000 to jumpstart the seniors’ bus project.

Steven Lan, Delta’s director of engineering, said seniors need accessible and reliable community transportation.

“We want to provide a service that will help get [seniors] to the Kennedy Seniors Recreation Centre and help get them to their other appointments,” said Lan. “The centre is located quite far away from bus service and TransLink isn’t really readily available for [senior] users. We were looking for an alternate option.”

The Kennedy centre is located on a quiet side street where the closest bus stops are on Nordel Way and Scott Road. The area can be dangerous for pedestrians. According to 2011 Delta police statistics, eight out of the top 10 collision locations in Delta happened at either Nordel Way or Scott Road.

Unlike regular transit service, the proposed seniors’ service will be on-demand.

“The route would be a call-reservation system,” explained Lan. “Someone at the centre would receive the call that they want to be picked up and schedule with the driver to pick them up. Over time, we would have regular customers that determine the routes that could help drivers pick up several seniors.”

Delta seniors usually travel by walking, taking regular buses, getting rides from friends and family or booking trips with TransLink’s HandyDART.

North Vancouver has a seniors’ shuttle bus

John McCann is the driver and scheduler of the North Shore Seniors Go Bus, which can carry 12 senior passengers and four wheelchairs (Photo: Courtesy of Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centre)

The vision for a seniors’ bus is based on the North Shore Seniors Go Bus Program, which is provided by the Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centre.

Annwen Loverin, the centre’s executive director, said that the Go Bus program began in 2006. It was originally designed as a bus-stop program, but now operates 45 trips per day door to door.

“One of the biggest benefits is that seniors can choose what services and locations they want to access,” said Loverin. “In the beginning, we were sticking more to the route…but now it is really based around the regular riders who are coming every week.”

Startup funding for the North Vancouver program came from the same UBCM fund as the one Delta is trying to access now.

The first step is finding funding

Delta estimates the operating costs for a seniors’ bus will be approximately $70,000 per year.

“We hope to work with community groups, business partners and non-profits. But first, we must get funding and then apply for approval from TransLink. There’s lots to explore, but we’re taking advantage of the grant,” said Diana Cousins, a senior policy analyst for Delta.

The UBCM will announce successful candidates for its age-friendly B.C. grant Dec. 21. The shuttle service could be operational by the end of 2013.

Running towards her was none other than a drenched chicken.

“I was quite shocked.”

Miazga found some crackers, crushed them up, fed the chicken, and got to work. But it kept clucking and tapping on the window for more.

Hazel Hollingdale, vice-president of the centre’s community association, arrived on the scene later that day and joined Miazga in wondering what to do with this mystery chicken.

Miazga’s feathered discovery highlights a question that has surfaced since the City of Vancouver passed a bylaw two years ago allowing Vancouverites to keep chickens in their backyards: not “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but “What do you do when you find a chicken that has flown the coop?”

“It was pouring rain and it was the end of the day on Saturday so there was nowhere that we could really call to ask about what to do with her,” said Hollingdale.

Worried that the local coyotes and raccoons would make a meal out of the bird, Hollingdale made a bold decision and took matters into her own hands. She brought the chicken home and made a nest for it.

In her bathroom.

The chicken in Hollingdale’s bathroom, nestled between the shower and sink.
(Photo: Hazel Hollingdale)

A hen in the bathroom

After buying some pine pellets and a cage from the pet store, the bathroom of her cozy one-bedroom basement suite, which Hollingdale shares with her husband and two cats, was swiftly converted into a makeshift chicken coop.

“She just kind of huddled down and she’d cover herself in pine. And then every time we walked in, she’d like ‘Cluck cluck cluck.’”

Soon after moving her in, Hollingdale gave the hen a name: Henrietta.

City chickens flying the coop

As more chickens move to the city, cases like Henrietta’s could become more common.

Since chickens are relatively new to Vancouver neighbourhoods, it’s likely that most city dwellers — like Hollingdale — are unaware of who to contact in cases of homeless chickens.

The city’s animal control department is the official body for dealing with stray urban chickens and the place to call for those with lost poultry on their hands or in their bathrooms. But that information is buried deep in the “growing food” section of the City’s website.

“Could be an Old English Game”

Hollingdale’s Craigslist ad.

Hollingdale wasn’t sure how to find Henrietta’s owner, so again she took matters into her own hands. This time, she turned to North America’s most popular lost-and-found service, Craigslist. Amidst the more traditional posts for missing keys, wallets, cats and dogs, Hollingdale posted an

ad for a “found chicken.”

She also took to Twitter in search of the hen’s owner. “Did anyone lose a chicken near @RenfrewParkCC?,” tweeted Hollingdale, who then specified the suspected breed.  “Could be an Old English Game.” The tweet was accompanied by a photo of Henrietta.

Hollingdale asked that people call to identify the chicken. No one called.

Chicken run

While the urban chicken population has grown over the past couple of years – over 90 people have now registered their flocks – chickens on the run are not commonplace in Vancouver.

Animal control takes in two to 10 chickens a year.  And not all of these lost chickens have escaped from urban coops. Some of the birds are found after falling from poultry trucks.

“We usually get a pretty even split between backyard chickens and broiler chickens. A chicken here or there falls off the truck when they are on their way to the rendering plant,” explained Sarah Hicks, a manager at animal control.

Henrietta goes to the farm

The photo that accompanied Hollingdale’s tweet. (Photo: Hazel Hollingdale)

After five days, Hollingdale still hadn’t received any replies to her “found chicken” ad.

Knowing that her apartment was not a long-term solution for Henrietta, Hollingdale searched the Internet and called around to animal shelters and local farms to find a home for the chicken.

Farmer Jordan Maynard, at Southlands Farm, was happy to oblige.

At the farm, Maynard had another surprise for Hollingdale.

Henrietta may have been more aptly called “Henry.” Henrietta was, in fact, a rooster.

Still on the run

As urban chicken farming grows in popularity, the probability of finding a lost chicken will increase, creating a need for broader awareness about how residents should handle stray poultry.

In fact, another Vancouverite may have the chance to find Henry for a second time.

The day after Hollingdale dropped Henry off at the farm, a dog ran through a flock of the farm’s chickens, dispersing all the birds.

During the excitement, Henry ran off again and has not been seen since.

Main Street is one of the city’s many arterials that stand to be affected by Vancouver’s new rezoning laws

The dust is settling following city council’s decision in early October to open Vancouver up to denser forms of housing in streets on either side of the city’s arterials.

While people in west-side Vancouver were vociferously opposed, some residents in Mount Pleasant are expressing restrained approval of this broad-stroke policy to expand housing affordability in their community.

“For all the ambiguity around specifics, I think that the general thrust of this policy is a positive thing,” said Chris Brayshaw, who owns a popular book store in Mount Pleasant.

In order to address the affordability issue, the city’s experimental policy will make way for structures such as duplexes and stacked townhouses where currently only single-family homes exist, and buildings of up to six storeys along arterials, like Main Street, currently only zoned for four.

This is all part of a larger set of recommendations “to provide immediate and on-going opportunities for affordable housing” made by the mayor’s task force on housing affordability which council adopted three weeks ago.

Although Mount Pleasant residents and business operators weren’t necessarily opposed to the ideas, they said they were sometimes vague.

According to Brayshaw, “the goal posts for how the task force defines success seem… to be a little bit of an open question.”

Brayshaw has worked in Mount Pleasant since 2000, when he opened the first Pulpfiction Books, which has since become a fixture in the neighbourhood. But a lot has changed in the area since then, and Brayshaw’s not surprised at the direction the city seems to be taking with regard to development.

“It’s not so much a change for the neighbourhood,” Brayshaw reflects, “but just kind of a continuation of forces that are already at work.”

Protecting moderate earners

When it was formed in December 2011, the task force had a mandate to “focus on affordability solutions for those households with moderate incomes,” which council defines between $21,500 and $86,500.

This is the income range of Vancouverites who are most threatened by overdevelopment in the area, and whom Libby Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver East, has spent part of her career campaigning for.

Many of those who have lived in the area service the downtown core and have traditionally relied on neighbourhoods like Mount Pleasant for housing which is affordable yet close enough to the city’s commercial centre, said Davies, describing the problem as she sat in her office on Main and 8th, in the historic heart of the neighbourhood.

As this housing supply continues to shrink, Davies insists that, given the circumstances, “the city is being as creative as [it] can to find affordable housing solutions.” She believes that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson “has worked in good faith… to make it a priority.”

Is it enough?

For all the mayor’s good intentions, one Mount Pleasant resident maintains that the rezoning policy might actually have the opposite effect by increasing land prices.

Stephen Bohus of the Residents Association of Mount Pleasant advocates for greater community consultation around the city’s new rezoning policy.

Stephen Bohus, director of the Residents Association of Mount Pleasant, suggests all people need to do is look at what happened on the Cambie corridor nearby, where prices “skyrocketed once [council] even gave wind of the idea that Cambie… will accommodate higher densities and heights.”

Council adopted the Cambie Corridor plan in 2011, which allowed for far more density in what had always been a single-family neighbourhood. The community plan now allows four- and six-storey apartments along most stretches, with higher towers at high-volume traffic nodes.

However, the Cambie plan didn’t put any restrictions on developers for affordable housing, whereas the current policy will allow townhouses and similar projects only if they meet certain affordability criteria.

Nevertheless, Bohus suggests that council’s new offer for developers to rezone land off the city’s arterials could “signal to the market and the speculators that all the land in these zones will potentially be worth a lot more.”

According to him, that could lead to speculative buying.

“I think every single neighbourhood supported extra density, and they specified how they want that extra density,” Bohus said in referring to aspects of the Mount Pleasant Community Plan, which council passed in 2010 with broad community support

Bohus said the success of the policy depends on whether “the city plans and the neighourhood are respected.” Once this is done, “then we can accommodate growth in a way that has way more support.”