Caricatures of Susan Anton and Gregor Robertson by campaigners for finance reform.

Vancouver voters often take it for granted that big campaign cheque-writers pull the strings in council meetings.

“You can’t get into office [in this city] unless you have big money behind you,” said Eric Hamilton-Smith, an Occupy Vancouver activist who studied politics at Simon Fraser University.

In an effort to change that, there have been repeated demands for fundamental election reforms over the years.

This year, concerns over campaign spending led the Occupy Vancouver movement to issue a challenge to candidates to reveal their donors on the eve of the election. And several independent candidates adopted voluntary election spending limits, making the issue a key plank in their campaigns.

The big donors

More than $5 million was spent by candidates for Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) alone in the November 2008 election. The biggest donors were real estate developers, corporations, and unions, according to an analysis of public records published by the Vancouver Sun in late April 2009.

The city charter places no limits on the total amount a party can spend on a campaign, and an individual can write as big a cheque as they wish.

All donations to political parties and individuals must be submitted to the city clerk within 120 days after voting ends. The reports, submitted on paper, become public records retained for seven years. Thus, critics base their objections on data from the 2008 election.

The perception that donors with business before the city receive favourable treatment moved Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver, and their mayoral candidate Randy Helten, to refuse corporate donations.

“Those in power have to reverse-engineer their decisions to satisfy their financial supporters,” he said. “What we would like to see is a separation of the regulated and the regulators, so that council can really work in the public interest.”

Despite their belief that these donations drive political decision-making in Vancouver, none of the campaign finance critics interviewed for this story were able to offer up evidence of a single vote that was swayed by a particular donation.

Notably, however, the city charter doesn’t require abstaining when conflicts of interest due to campaign donations arise.

Current Vision councillor and candidate Geoff Meggs reflected on the issue in a recent interview with the Mainlander website.

“I think [developers] want access, and a relationship with councillors, absolutely,” he was quoted as saying. “They want to make sure that they get a fair hearing, although there’s not an expectation, in my experience, that they will necessarily get what they want in a particular project.”

Limiting on campaign money

This may be the last municipal election without restrictions on financing. The province has drawn up plans to standardize the rules governing elections in all of the B.C. municipalities and to set caps on spending.

The public strongly supports rewriting the municipal election financing rules.

Last year, Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Vision-majority council wrote to the provincial task force on local government elections reform asking for similar restrictions.

Tasked with crafting province-wide changes to municipal elections laws, the group weighed the Vancouver council’s opinion along with nearly 1,000 other submissions from cities, organizations, and individuals. Campaign finance was one of the top concerns in the flood of feedback.

The task force issued a set of 31 recommendations for a proposed Local Government Elections Act in 2010. But the measure foundered in Victoria, and the changes have been postponed until 2014.

“The intent was to get this done before these [2011] elections,” said Clayton Whitman, a Canadian election law expert who writes on the topic at democracylawblog.ca. “Then the HST hit and basically blew a year-long hole in BC politics. Elections BC couldn’t have done anything if you had wanted them [to], really.”

The task force debated putting pre-election reporting into the bill, but in the end only recommended moving the deadline to 90 days post-election, standardizing the reports, and posting them online in a single database managed by Elections BC.

Many people and organizations had backed pre-election disclosure in their letters to the task force, but the issue didn’t raise enough concern to justify placing big bookkeeping burdens on smaller campaigns or to risk making too many changes at once, according to the report.

“There’s definitely people saying we should know who’s financing our political parties before we make our decision,” said Whitman. “But I think that is more of a long shot in terms of what you’ll see in any municipal government election reform.”

‘Disclosure now!’

Graffiti on the windows of NPA campaign headquarters. One Occupy Vancouver marcher was arrested after the incident.

Not content to wait for the new act, the general assembly of the Occupy Vancouver movement recently challenged all Vancouver council and mayoral candidates to disclose their 2011 donations by November 18, or “face the music on Election Day.”

The challenge also expressed support for limiting overall spending, placing caps on what a single donor can give, and banning donations from outside of B.C. and from corporations and unions.

Occupy Vancouver organizer Eric Hamilton-Smith said all independent candidates, the Green Party of Vancouver, and NSV responded. COPE Councilor and candidate Ellen Woodsworth attempted to assemble a disclosure, but missed the deadline.

“The only two parties completely defiant were NPA and Vision,” said Hamilton-Smith. “We’ve got a direct action planned today to call them out on the fact that they’ve been bought by corporations.”

“Until you can find a way to legislate the removal of money from politics,” said Hamilton-Smith, “we’ll never know whether a city can be run with the interests of its people in mind as opposed to the big business that’s financing their campaigns.”

Fact file: Municipal election changes set for 2014

Premier Gordon Campbell in 2009 announced a new effort to modernize and harmonize the municipal elections laws across British Columbia. The province formed a task force composed of the president and two delegates of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, two MLAs, and the Minister of Community and Rural Development, Bill Bennett.

The group collected data and opinions over several months. Their final report, issued late May 2010, made 31 recommendations drawn from the thousands of opinions submitted by B.C. municipalities, organizations, academics and citizens. Although finished on time, more than a year before the 2011 campaign season, the recommendations never made it into a legislative bill.

Whistler-based election law expert Clayton Whitman predicts that a bill incorporating the reforms will be introduced early in 2012, in time to pass a law covering the 2014 municipal elections.

“I think there’s a broad consensus that something should, and is going to, be done,” he said. “They spent a lot of money and time on that report and there’s broad agreement on most of the parts of the report, but it’s a long and drawn out process.”

Most of the following recommendations received widespread support and will raise few objections in the legislature:

1. Registration of third-party advertisers and disclosure of their spending.
   All ads will state who paid for it to be published.
2. A separate act to set rules for campaign finance in local elections.
3. A new Elections B.C.-run database of campaign finance disclosures,
   to be published online 90 days after the election.
4. A ban on anonymous contributions, and caps on overall spending by
   candidates, elector organizations, and third-party advertisers.
5. Granting Elections BC the power to manage and enforce campaign finance rules in local elections.

Several proposed reforms were considered and rejected by the task force:

1. Limits on the size of individual or corporate campaign contributions.
2. Public financing of local elections.
3. Pre-election disclosure of campaign donors
4. Reinstating any form of corporate or business votes in local elections.

Ryan Clayton: When it comes to LGBTQs, bullying has a stigma attached.

Ryan Clayton and Kaitlin Burnett traveled to Victoria, B.C., late last month to meet with Minister of Education George Abbott.

During their meeting, they handed him 250 letters written on purple paper, each one asking that a sexual orientation and gender identity policy aimed at stopping homophobia, transphobia and heterosexism in schools be implemented province-wide.

The Vancouver School Board (VSB) adopted the sexual orientation and gender identity policy aimed at creating a safer environment for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and questioning students (LGTBQ) seven years ago.

But to date, the VSB has failed to come up with a way to measure the policy’s effectiveness in achieving that goal.

Moreover, according to Glen Hansman, vice president of the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF), the majority of the 5,100 teachers and staff in the Vancouver school district haven’t even been trained on how to implement the policy.

Voters in Vancouver will be electing nine School Trustees for the board in local general elections on Nov. 19.

High rate of bullying

The policy was developed between 2000-2003 and adopted by the VSB in 2004 as a response to a homophobic and transphobic environment of discrimination and harassment in schools that had led, in some cases, to students committing suicide, said Jane Bouey, the school board’s vice chair. It was put together with input from community organizations, queer groups, students, teachers and parents.

Students identifying as LGBTQ across Canada cite an alarmingly high rate of bullying. The most recent study conducted to assess the rate of bullying prompted by sexual orientation and gender identity took place between 2007 and 2009 by Egale Canada Human Rights Trust.

Of the more than 3,700 students surveyed, Egale found that 55 per cent of students who identified as a sexual minority and 74 per cent of transgendered students had been victims of verbal harassment.

The same study found that 21 per cent of (LGBTQ) reported being physically harassed or assaulted due to their sexual orientation.

Listen: Ray Clayton explains the genesis of the Purple Letter campaign

Clayton believes that homophobic bullying needs to be treated differently than forms of harassment not rooted in sexual orientation or gender identity.

“When it comes to LGBTQs, bullying has a stigma attached,” he said. “It is deep-seated in society; it is discriminatory.”

Contentious issue

The Vancouver School Board adopted the anti-homophia policy in 2004.

But Ted Hewlett, president of the Parents and Teachers for Life organization in Vancouver, believes evidence of bullying in schools is being used as an excuse by members of the LGBTQ community to promote its interests, and as such is deeply critical of the sexual orientation and gender identity policy aimed at addressing it.

“[It] is legitimizing homosexual marriage, giving a favourable view of same-sex marriage and placing it at the same level as traditional marriage that has been the norm for 1,000 years,” he said.

“Education should not be propaganda for a harmful lifestyle,” said Hewlett.

Other voices objecting the policy are stronger. At the start of November, five months after Burnaby became the 14th of B.C.’s 58 schools districts to adopt it, one of its teachers received a related death threat.

New hopes

With resistance like that, the Purple Letter campaign founders may have a long road ahead of them in trying to get such a policy implemented across the province.

If B.C. adopts this policy it will become the second province in Canada to have done so, joining Quebec.

Adopting a policy is one thing. Implementing it is another. In any case, at this point it’s unclear to what degree schools in Vancouver have managed to do.

“Students are dying over [homophobic bullying],” said Maria Foster, the VSB anti-homophobia and diversity mentor, whose job is to support, guide and educate staff, teachers and students regarding LGTBQ issues.

“This needs to stop.”

The NPA are pushing for new schools and different funding methods.

“We have been promoting [the ‘no-cost’ model] and it’s no different from what we’ve done in the past. It’s just that we need to get it out there,” said the NPA’s Ken Denike.

The Vancouver School Board (VSB) has struggled to balance its budget over the past decade. With almost $900 million in upgrades on the books, securing funding for new schools is a challenge.

Currently, city council and the school board work together to determine where new schools are needed and what old buildings require upgrades.

The VSB then submits capital plan requests to the provincial Ministry of Education. The school board lays out its proposed projects in order of priority. The ministry then reviews education priorities from across the province and decides who gets the funds for which projects.

Related: Ten-year wait for new school ends

Denike is running for re-election as an NPA candidate on the Vancouver School Board. He wants to see schools built in the Olympic Village area and downtown at Coal Harbour sooner rather than later.

His plan is at odds with the view of Patti Bacchus, school board chairperson and Vision candidate. She disagrees with the NPA’s push for new schools on existing VSB land holdings like the one near Olympic Village.

“We haven’t identified a need for that currently. We don’t have the population there that would warrant a school,” she said.

School budget crunch

Last year, the VSB faced an $18.12 million deficit for the 2010-2011 school year. The board argued this was a result of rising costs coupled with inadequate provincial funding. The provincial government held firm that the problem stemmed from the board’s way of managing finances.

The NPA points to the VSB Education Centre as a success story.

“In order to balance our budget, which we have to do by law, we’ve had to make cuts that now we’re up to about $80 million in the last decade [in] accumulated cuts,” said Bacchus. So far, most cuts have been to teacher and staff jobs.

Right now, the board faces an estimated $858 million bill to replace or upgrade 48 seismically unsafe schools.

“We’re always having to make a case and get in line for the kind of funding that we need,” said Bacchus. “These are large chunks of money in a province that, like everywhere else, is experiencing some financial pressures.”

Under the current system, the Ministry of Education would not approve new schools in areas with few students.

“The government is not going to build those schools while we have a lot of schools that are half empty,” said Denike. But the NPA thinks their plan could offer an alternative.

“We actually make money on [the Education Centre] because we get revenue back on that property from parking, from the cafeteria,” said Fraser Ballantyne, NPA school board candidate. The so-called “no-cost” model could give schools new buildings and extra funds.

If we build it, they will come

Denike and his NPA colleagues believe using the “no-cost” model would allow Vancouver to easily establish new schools on land already owned by the VSB.

A private investor would pay to build the new school building at the same time as creating space for tenants. The VSB Education Centre is an example of this. The school board owns a full city block at Fir and Broadway.

The Bentall group leased the land from the board for 99 years. In exchange, Bentall redeveloped the entire block. The centre now houses school board offices, retail outlets, other offices and parking space.

NPA want to see a school next to Olympic Village.

Bacchus is not opposed to this kind of arrangement, but she sees some major challenges in applying it to the Olympic Village and Coal Harbour sites.

Lot size and location are two areas of concern.

“Pieces of land that we have for those new schools are not, I don’t believe, nearly as large as some of the older sites in more established neighbourhoods,” said Bacchus. Smaller lots leave less room for additional development.

Private sector investment in Olympic Village might also be hard to find with existing commercial space sitting empty.

“I’m not sure what they think they would be building,” said Bacchus. More condos?”

But the NPA reasons that all neighbourhoods deserve schools regardless of student volume.

“We need to have quality education right across the city,” said Denike, “community builds around a school.”

Working together

The VSB facilities department is in charge of running future projections and identifying school needs. They look at enrollment figures and make recommendations about which areas need schools.

It is the job of Jim Meschino, director of the facilities department, to help figure out where schools are needed. He said determining what goes where is a fine balance.

“You’ve got to sort of strike it just right so that you know ‘okay, we can fill up that school, let’s get it built,’” said Meschino.

NPA candidates argue that schools are needed in every neighbourhood for community building and for public school retention. Denike feels that a partnership plan is worth a try.

“If we do not put those schools in, the kids that are in those areas are likely to go to private schools, not public schools,” said Denike.

It comes down to time and money. Vision candidates question whether the NPA plan would actually speed up the process. “If we go into a lease agreement with an outside user for ten years or more, [we] require ministry approval and that’s approved case by case,” said Bacchus.

Community consultation would also be required. “I think you could spend several years in consultation about that as well,” she said.

The city council candidate meetings in Dunbar have been well attended

The council approved a bylaw in July 2009 rezoning 94 per cent of the city, in the process allowing homeowners to build small homes located in their backyards (PDF).

Six of the first 100 so-called laneway houses (PDF) – which can be up to 1.5 storeys high, can be rented but not sold and must include at least one onsite parking spot – were built in Dunbar.

According to Peter Selnar of the Dunbar Resident’s Association (DRA), by September of 2011, that number had risen to 34. As of October 2011, 185 laneway house permits had been issued in Vancouver according to a report from the chief building official of the city of Vancouver.

Of stories and storeys

The issue for he and his fellow DRA members is not the houses themselves, but the lack of say they have over their construction.

“The DRA’s position on laneway housing is that it believes that the city should take a step back and halt further building and engage in discussion with the DRA and neighbourhoods across the city,” he said in an email.

They want input as to “whether the concept is acceptable at all in specific neighbourhoods and if so, what changes need to be made to the regulations (e.g. single storey, off-street parking, etc.).”

The association has told city council how, for one Dunbar resident, her vegetable garden no longer gets any sunlight because it’s blocked by the laneway house next door, and that its residents can see directly into her bedroom. For another, the construction of a neighbouring laneway house meant an 80-year-old Douglas fir on her property had to be cut down.

Dunbar is not the only neighbourhood whose residents are unhappy with laneway housing.

Wally Kerchum, who lives in Point Grey, runs a blog devoted to the issue that attracts supportive comments from across the city.

He has all but given up on the sitting council members, saying that when he and others have presented their concerns at meetings, “the councillors would be playing with their Blackberrys; they would get up and leave. It was obvious they weren’t going to make any changes.”

City Councillor Ellen Woodsworth of COPE had called for a four-month moratorium on the issuance of permits for laneway houses back in November 2010, citing the numerous concerns that had been raised by city residents. The motion was denied.

A laneway full of dreams

Bob Ransford, an urban land use consultant, disagrees with the notion that laneway housing has negatively impacted neighbourhoods. In his view, it is “one of the most creative and long-overdue examples of how we can diversify the housing supply in Vancouver and contribute to more affordable housing.”

Akua Schatz in her new laneway house.

Listen: Schatz explains why they decided to build a laneway house in her in-law’s backyard

Akua Schatz wholeheartedly agrees. She and her partner spent three years living in her in-law’s Dunbar basement suite. Buying a single detached home in the area was simply not an option, given that the average listing price for 2010 was $1.7 million vs. $1 million for the city as a whole, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

They broke ground on a $300,000 laneway house on her in-law’s property in October 2010. “Being able to be at ground level, being able to be in a neighbourhood like Dunbar, having that inter-generational experience of having the support system nearby. You couldn’t buy that for the price we paid,” said Schatz.

Listen: Schatz on the process of building their laneway house

As for the opposition in the neighbourhood, she feels that the DRA has blown it out of proportion. “We’ve had an outpouring of support from our neighbours.”

A change of policy?

Whether or not citizens will get more say in the laneway houses built in their neighbourhoods will depend on who gets voted in to Vancouver City Council.

At a candidates meeting held in Dunbar on Nov. 14, council hopefuls from COPE, NSV and the Green party all said they were willing to change the rules in order to increase neighbourhood input.

A representative from Vision Vancouver, meanwhile, stressed the need for density and alternative housing in Vancouver and said they would look into it when the next city staff report comes out.

The most definitive promise came from NPA candidate Bill McCreery, who prior to the meeting had issued a press release calling for a moratorium on laneway housing. Ken Charko, also running for the NPA, is a former Dunbar resident. He said he would vote so there is no more laneway housing in the Dunbar area.

Suzanne Anton, mayoral candidate for the NPA, has been quoted as calling laneway housing her “baby” in the past, but Charko feels the NPA candidates can have differing opinions on the matter of densification in Vancouver.

As to Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV), its stance on laneway housing is to “place [the] current program on hold and assess approved projects and institute a neighbourhood-based process to deter demolition of existing houses and to set standards for scale, design, and locations on a neighbourhood basis.”

 

The city provides programming in a variety of languages for South Vancouver residents.

Hundal was the only South Asian candidate elected in the 2008 municipal election and is not running this year.

He said that under the current system, in theory, every councillor, Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation commissioner, and school board trustee could be living on the same street somewhere in the city’s West End.

“To me, that’s not democratic,” said Hundal, now the provincial NDP candidate for Surrey-Tynehead.

On Nov. 19, voters will elect multiple representatives for the entire city, choosing 27 people from a list of 94 candidates.

Caroline Andrew, a professor at the University of Ottawa specializing in municipal politics, argues that at-large voting disadvantages minorities and groups of lower socioeconomic standing.

Historically, these groups tend to vote less so their interests are less represented in council, said Andrew.

She added that more affluent people also have more financial resources for a city-wide campaign.  Furthermore, minorities often live in concentrated enclaves and have interests particular to their communities.

In her view, a ward system would limit the size of electoral districts and thus the amount of money needed to campaign, link a smaller group of voters directly to their representatives, and ensure local representation.

“If Canada had an at-large electoral system at the federal level, provinces like BC would reject it,” said Andrew, explaining that Ontario and Quebec would be the most represented and that the resulting government might neglect the interests of other provinces.

Even though at-large systems force all municipal officials to be accountable to the entire city, she questioned whether representatives are aware of the diverse interests in a community of which they are not residents.

Discouraged from participation

Naresh Shukla knows many of his customers by name.

Past municipal candidates from Fraserview in South Vancouver have called the system discouraging for minorities.

“In my neighbourhood, I do a lot of volunteer work.  People know me,” said Naresh Shukla, sliding his 2008 park board candidate’s business card across the sales counter of his shop in the Punjabi market.

“But when you’re elected from the whole of Vancouver, it’s very hard to get elected if you’re a minority.”

A business owner and local activist, he came last among the Non-Partisan Association candidates for the park board.

“If I run for park board, for councillor, I don’t have a chance. I’m wasting my time.”

Gabby Kalaw, NPA candidate for the park board and among the first Filipino candidates to run for local public office, said that city council fails to represent ethnic diversity because newcomers are often not familiar enough with the process to participate.

“It’s just a lack of knowledge and engagement.  You can’t blame the government or the election system.  [The lack of participation] happens not just with minorities but anyone who moves to a new place,” he said.

No perfect system

2008-2011 Vancouver municipal representatives' geographic distribution. Carol Gibson and George Chow not represented on map.

Supporters of the at-large system argue that wards cause competition and bickering between neighbourhoods within the city and might politicize certain groups, creating social cleavages where there were none before.

However, Andrews said that keeping what amounts to barriers to representation is not the solution.

Aaron Jasper, park board chairman standing for re-election, supports a mixed system and said that while a ward system would improve local representation, it would produce its own set of challenges.

According to Andrew, electoral systems reflect the representational priorities of voters and it is up to Vancouver residents to determine what those priorities are.

Hundal said that ultimately council must be responsive to broad interests.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about electing a Chinese candidate or a South Asian candidate, it’s about local democracy.  We need to ensure that we have local representation.”

Fact file: Electoral reform

• Vancouver had a ward system until 1936, when a public referendum with a turnout of 19% changed the city’s electoral system to an at-large system with 68% per cent approval.  Since then, Vancouver has elected candidates at-large.
• Over the ensuing decades, the City of Vancouver developed.  Businesses and the population grew and demographics changed.
• In 2004, city council appointed judge Thomas Berger as commissioner in a public inquiry to consider the merits of moving from the present at-large system to a ward system or some combination of the two.
• After holding public forums and collecting survey data on the issue, as well as conducting academic research in the field and drawing on the experience of other Canadian cities, Berger’s report recommended that Vancouver move to wards while continuing to elect the mayor and park board commissioners city-wide.
• In a plebiscite with 22.6 per cent turnout of registered voters, 54 per cent voted against replacing the at-large system with wards in October 2004.
• All large cities across Canada, with the exception of Vancouver, Surrey, and the neighbouring municipalities, now use the ward system in local elections.

Robertson and Anton promised to fight for all winter shelters at the mayoral debate.

BC Housing, citing the most recent homeless count and a focus on supporting more permanent housing solutions, announced on Oct. 11 that it would only finance three out of seven so-called “lower barrier winter shelters.”

The decision could mean leaving as many as 160 people seeking a place to sleep out in the cold.

In a debate held on Nov. 7, candidates for Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) said they were committed to lobbying the provincial government to fund the other four.

In other words, Vancouver’s homeless population as well as churches and other organizations that provide them with services are now counting on the politicians to convince the province to change its mind.

Shelters become political hot topic

The affected shelters were set up under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT) initiative, which was started in December 2008.

Most of the $1.5 million in funding came from the city, the province and the Streetohome Foundation.

The first four, in the downtown core and the Downtown Eastside, opened in December of that year and closed in the spring of 2009. Two of them, Stanley / New Fountain Hotel on West Cordova Street and the Aboriginal Central Street Shelter on Central Street, along with First United Church on East Hastings, were then turned into year-round shelters for 340 people.

First United Church has become a main refuge for Vancouver’s homeless people.

At the same time, the city expanded the program, opening up additional shelters in Kitsilano, Mount Pleasant, Northeast False Creek and the West End. Taken together, the seven shelters provided space for 500 people.

The city council aimed to re-open the additional four lower barrier shelters to meet this December, but the provincial government has thwarted those plans.

According to the Metro Vancouver Homeless Count as of March 2011, there was an 82 per cent decrease in street homelessness in Vancouver between 2008 and 2011, leaving just 145 people unsheltered, or sleeping on the streets.

That figure, combined with the erection of 309 new supportive apartments this year and an increase of 100 spaces in so-called “extreme weather response shelters” has prompted BC Housing to decide there is no need to fund the four lower barrier shelters. That’s despite the most recent weather forecasts predicting one of the coldest winters in the past 20 years.

Don Evans, co-chair of the initiative “End Homelessness Now”, which tries to educate people about this topic, raises money and constantly lobbies politicians, called BC Housing’s decision “a big mistake”.

With churches not able to pick up the slack and existing shelters maxed out, he said: “You’d end up with people out on the street and some of these people would probably die during the winter.”

The candidates respond

On Oct. 18, Councillor Kerry Jang put forward a motion asking the province to reverse its decision. It was approved unanimously, opening the way for lobbying BC Housing.

“I’ll use any method possible, from hard data to political pressure by the mayor and of course, myself,” Jang said. The city needs around $2 million from the province to cover operational costs used to keep all seven of the shelters open.

NPA’s mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton said during the homelessness debate at the beginning of November that “a shelter was not a home” and that the focus should be on building more permanent housing units.

Nevertheless, she agreed that the province needed to provide funds to re-open the lower barrier shelters this winter.

Comparison of shelters offered by the city and the province

Lower Barrier Winter Shelters

• Created by Mayor Gregor Robertson’s initiative “Homeless Emergency Action Team” (HEAT) in 2008
• Located in churches and/or empty office buildings
• Currently three permanent shelters: First United Church, Stanley/New Fountain Hotel and Aboriginal Central Street
• Capacity of 340 beds
• Opened every winter, regardless of temperature
• Generally open between Dec. 1 and March 31/April 30 (depending on funding)
• Available 24/7, beds can be reserved
• No rules regarding drugs/alcohol, pets, etc.; storage for personal belongings available

Extreme Weather Response Shelters

• Created by BC Housing as part of “Emergency Housing” initiative in 2005
• Mostly in places such as church basements, e.g. First Baptist Church
• Currently nine shelters in the city, though locations rotate
• Capacity of about 1,000 beds around Vancouver
• Only opened in winter when certain temperature is reached
• Generally open between Nov. 1 and March 31 (subject to change)
• Typically available from 6 p.m. until the next morning
• Rules include no intoxication, no pets or belongings allowed; no storage available

Nikpay: Children gain whatever their parents teach them

Sara Moghadamjoo is a young well-educated Iranian-Canadian, who recently graduated with two masters degree from Simon Fraser University and is only a year away from getting her PhD from the University of British Columbia.

She decided to stand in the upcoming municipal elections for the district of West Vancouver as she wanted to represent the thousands of Iranian immigrants who live in the area.

But after only three weeks of campaigning, she withdrew her candidacy, disillusion at the lack of support from the community.

“I wanted to be their voice,” she said. “But when I saw that they had very little interest in seeing what I was trying to do, I figured that I could use the time I was spending on my campaign to do my own work.”

The triennial municipal elections will be held on Saturday the November 19th. This would not be the first time Vancouver has Iranian-Canadians candidates for council, but it could be, however, be the first time having someone elected within this community.

Listen: Moghadamjoo on why she decided not to run

A wariness of politics

An estimated 30,000 Iranians live in and around Vancouver according to the 2006 census. The figure today could be over 50,000, estimates Behshad Hastibakhsh, an award-winning political scientist who is senior director of public relations at   TIO Networks.

Many immigrated to Canada after the 1979 Islamic revolution and many brought with them a mistrust of politics.

“The first generation of Iranian immigrants are more likely to be skeptical towards politics and politicians,” said Hastibakhsh, “because they come from an environment where basic human rights are denied, corruption is common, democracy is non-existent, and elections are fixed.”

“People can’t break the old mold,” he said.

Hastibakhsh believes that the ethnic media can help change attitudes.

“I envision a positive role of Persian newspapers, radio, television stations, and online media in explaining the rights and privileges of active participation in the democratic process,” he said, “by creating clear distinctions between the theocracy in Iran and the democracy in Canada, the mass media can help newcomers overcome their fears, phobias and mistrusts towards politics.”

This wariness of politics appears to have been passed onto the children born or raised in Canada.

“Children gain whatever their parents teach them,” said Max Nikpay, a council candidate for the district of West Vancouver. “Most of those parents come from a place where people are unable to use their voice.”

Another is Araz Rismani, an Iranian candidate in Coquitlam, who is grateful for the support from the community.

“I have a team of 50 people helping me with my campaign and there are a lot of Iranians among them,” he said. “At a fundraiser held in Red Robinson Show Theatre, a lot of people showed up and I think 80% of the were Iranians.

Yet even he acknowledges that Iranians who were raised in Canada remain detached from politics.

“We should understand that the reason Canada has stayed a democratic country is because of these elections and we shouldn’t take that for granted.”

There are many Iranian-run businesses in Lonsdale.

Local politicians point to a more concrete reason why Iranians should care about civic politics.

“Lonsdale wouldn’t do this well if it wasn’t for successful Iranian businesses,” said Darell Mussatto, the mayor of city of North Vancouver. There is at least one Iranian-run business at every intersection in Lonsdale.

Reaching the young

Encouraging young people to vote is not just an issue in the Iranian community.

Advocacy groups like Get your Vote On say there is a gulf between the youth and politicians.

“The biggest problem is that young people feel that politicians don’t speak to them, and politicians, on the other hand, don’t see that youth as voters,” said Adrian Sinclair from Get Your Vote On. “It is really a cycle,” he added.

One young Iranian-Canadian who is considering whether to vote is Afra Jashanivand, a 24-year old artist attending Capilano University.

“I am interested in getting involved,” she said. “But sometimes I need to focus on my studies and my own work.”

She says that she tries to participate in different events and elections around the campus and believes that this involvement is a good practice for her.

Even though she is no longer standing the vote, Moghadamjoo maintains that the Iranian community needs to be political active.

Listen: Moghadamjoo on changing attitudes to politics

“I think for the sake of their own businesses and their own lives, Iranian people should participate in these elections.”

“People who care about their environment should take action in the process. We can’t just step back and wait for someone else to do the work,” said Moghadamjoo.

“This is a very important issue and I think we all have a certain responsibility to help create a new culture which would fit our new lifestyles,” she said, “and I think is really important to educate people about this issue.”

At the heart of the matter are $5.2 million in city-approved cuts to the parks and recreation operating budget since 2009, for which political adversaries blame a “lack of advocacy” on the part of current Park Board commissioners with ties to Vision and COPE.

The Park Board’s operating budget increased by nearly 10 per cent from 2006 to 2009. Beginning that year, the City of Vancouver initiated an effort to centralize services and departments – the Board included – under City Manager Penny Ballem.

Parks and recreation cutbacks have since required the shutdown of the Stanley Park Shuttle and Children’s Farmyard, and a reduction in services like the mowing of grass in some sections of parks and boulevards.

‘Just not acceptable’

For the Non-Partisan Association, the independence issue is a pillar in a campaign aimed at supplanting the current Park Board administration.

“Really, it’s about advocacy. It’s about the Park Board being able to deal with its own plans,” said NPA candidate Dave Pasin.

“The Vision plan of having everything run through, or report to, the city manager, is just not acceptable,” he added.

The Park Board All-Candidates Meeting, which took place Nov. 6 at Kerrisdale Community Centre, was never branded a debate. But Park Board Chair Aaron Jasper nonetheless found himself on the defensive.

“The independence of the board is not under threat,” he asserted. “People can argue with the choices that we’ve made, and that’s a fair debate to have. But the independence of the board is a bit of a red herring, as far as I’m concerned.”

Jasper emphasized that money is tight, a reality he blamed largely on the financial crisis of 2008. The cuts represent less than 2 per cent of the Park Board’s total operating budget (roughly $300 million combined) for the three years in question, he added.

Profits from yoga and pilates

Over 2011 the city removed $730,000 of funding from Park Board services – just over 1 per cent of the taxpayer-funded portion of the operating budget.

Jasper went on to account for a controversial attempt by the Park Board this year to recover some of those dollars from community centre associations.

He pointed out that the Board is responsible for paying the “lion’s share” of staffing and building maintenance costs, while community centre associations are permitted to keep the profit they generate from yoga, pilates, and other successful programs.

Related: Park Board ‘plays dead, says community representative

“We don’t think it’s unfair that, when times are tough, money gets ponied back into the central pot,” he explained.

According to the city’s consolidated financial report for 2010, Vancouver was $119.4 million in the black last year. NPA candidates Pasin, John Coupar and Gabby Kalaw argued that the surplus should have obviated any reductions to the Park Board budget.

However, Jasper maintained that the “cost of doing business” and debt have climbed and that both ought to be taken into account in a fair evaluation of the cuts.

The city’s net debt increased by nearly 8 per cent from 2009-10, when it reached $349 million.

Power of the purse

Independent Park Board candidate Jamie Lee Hamilton wants to overhaul the city-subsidized revenue model completely.

“[Under the current system], when council’s got shortfalls for their budget, they basically cut services to the Park Board,” she said.

“That’s why we really have to have an independent, autonomous [Park] Board that receives a portion of the tax base, and has some control over its own public assets.”

Hamilton made clear that the proposed Park Board tax would not be additional, but rather would represent a separated portion of the current city property tax.

“That way, it’s the taxpayer that determines what the Park Board budget will be, and not Council,” said Hamilton. She believes such a direct, power-of-the-purse system would make the Board’s general manager more accountable to the elected commissioners, instead of the unelected city manager.

“If [the Board commissioners] don’t manage the public’s money properly, the public will vote [them] out. It’s quite simple.”

For her part, Vision Park Board candidate Niki Sharma believes political opponents of the current Park Board administration are making more of the independence issue than they should.

She pointed to the $60 million in federal infrastructure funding the organization received in 2009. Although the 2010 Winter Olympics was also a key factor in the federal government’s decision to chip in, she credits the advocacy of Board commissioners at the federal level for securing those dollars.

“I feel like it’s really unfair,” she said of the allegations that the board has lost its independence. “I’ve heard that a lot, and I feel like it’s become the token campaign issue.”

“I made a decision to run but I wasn’t thinking I should run because I am Filipino,” said Aquino.

Aquino tackles politics in a spoken word performance.

This is Aquino’s first foray into politics. He is running under the COPE banner as a person who has never seriously considered politics until now.

On Nov. 19 Vancouverites will elect 10 city councillors and a mayor. Historically, Vancouver’s ethnic groups have had limited  representation on council, even though visible minorities in Vancouver make up 47 per cent of the population.

While Aquino is a visible minority, he does not want to be defined by his ethnicity.  In terms of election issues, he is particularly concerned about lack of affordable housing in the city.

“Why would anyone want to spend 60% or more of their pay cheque just to pay for the roof over their head?” Aquino asks.

“A lot of  [young] people want to gain independence and move out of their parents’ house and they can’t. For growing families, how can you have peace of mind when all you are doing is trying to maintain your mortgage and not have time to spend with your kids?” said Aquino.

The birth of his daughter earlier this year was a catalyst for Aquino. This event pushed him into action. He wants to be a role model for his daughter’s generation.

Michael Dharni, the city’s only South Asian council candidate, would have to look a long way back for a role model. The first and only other South Asian elected to council was Venkatachala Setty Pendakur in 1972.

Pendakur served for one term and since then the city’s second-largest ethnic minority has not seen representation on council.

Like Aquino, 23 year-old Dharni is not running because of his ethnic background.

“The people making decisions at the municipal level that affect us the most are old people,” said Dharni. “I want to bring a youth voice.”

Dharni is a UBC kinesiology student who grew up in South Vancouver. He says he can’t afford to park in his hometown and he wants to work to make the city more affordable.

“Parking [is] an example of how current council continues to gauge residents in daily expenses while we all are already dealing with increased taxes, housing and heating costs,” said Dharni.

Dharni is an independent candidate fighting for a more affordable city.

Representing diversity

“Diversity in public office is important because it brings more perspectives to decision-making. The more perspectives you bring to a decision, the better the decision, ” said Sandra Lopes, manager of policy and research at the Maytree Foundation.

In Vancouver, the Social Planning and Research Council (SPARC) took the Foundation’s DiverseCity initiative, to begin a similar initiative here.  The goal is to change the face of leadership in Canadian cities.

“We make the assumption that if you look and sound like the makeup of the city you must have the cultural competencies to reflect the city. There is a gap in that,” said Alden E. Habacon, a diversity and inclusion specialist at UBC.

Listen: Habacon on diversity as a metric, not a goal

Habacon argues that visual representation alone is not necessarily an accurate measure of success.

Connecting community

One of the three Chinese-Canadians on outgoing city council is Dr. Kerry Jang, a third generation Chinese-Canadian. He is  trying to keep his seat as a city councillor with the Vision team.

“If someone is truly engaged within their own community they will bring that perspective forward. But that isn’t to say that someone that is not Chinese or some other ethnicity can’t also represent somebody else’s ideas,” said Jang.

Jang’s ethnicity informs his role as a policy-maker, but he is skeptical about certain politicians approaching ethnic communities.

“Being Chinese myself, I know people come and suck up to the Chinese community because they want the Chinese vote. They don’t give two shits about the Chinese community,” said Jang.

He has been asked point blank on how to get the “Chinese vote.”

Aquino has had similar experiences related to the Filipino community.

“I have encountered people who have said you are now the token ethnic vote-getter. Which is unfortunate because that is not the case. I think we are past that now as a city,” said Aquino.

However, he believes his experience doing community work would help him as a councillor. He co-founded the organization Tulayan, which means ‘to bridge’ in the Filipino language Tagalog.  Tulayan helps Filipino-Canadians reconnect with contemporary Filipino culture.

“Working with a lot of immigrant communities, the recurring theme is that issues that affect Filipinos affect other communities, affect first generation to seventh generation Canadians,” Aquino said.

Beyond visual representation

Habacon would like to see more visible minorities on council and ensuring those representatives are the “best and brightest” is more important for him.

“People ask me all the time, am I going to vote for RJ Aquino because he is Filipino,” said Habacon.

Habacon says in Vancouver there has been a shift from ethnicity eclipsing identity to ethnicity informing identity.

Young voters such as Lilavati Levine want the council to reflect the city’s diversity.

The 18 year old is voting in a civic election for the first time and describes herself as “youth dedicated to social change.” She names eight distinct groups that make up her ethnic background.

“What I would like to see is Aboriginal representation on council and I want to see mixed race folks. We are so intercultural as well as multicultural and to have a representation of that is just as important,” she said.

For Levine, a complicated discussion about representation is important, but her key concern is less complicated.  She has one question for the people running: “What can you do in politics to help me?”

Four new contenders are challenging the incumbent director Maria Harris on the issue of governance of Electoral Area A – a scattered set of regions around Vancouver that are not part of any municipality.

They include the University Endowment Lands and the University of British Columbia, commonly called the “UniverCity”. Area A also includes the Barnston Island, Howe Sound and Indian Arm communities.

The regions of Electoral Area A are scattered around Vancouver

The candidates are hoping to win votes in the Nov. 19 election and become the only elected official representing the UniverCity.

Over 11,000 people live in the area. Candidate Scott Andrews thinks the term “city” should be taken more literally, especially considering the population is expected to reach 24,000 by 2020.

The problem, says Harris, is that it is not within the director’s power to change governance.

“Does the director have influence? Yes. Do they have authority? No. If  they tell you ‘I plan to change governance,’ I defy anybody in this role of doing anything other than exerting an influence,” he said.

The Director of Electoral Area A sits on the Board of Metro Vancouver, alongside 36 other mayors and councilors for the region. The vote of each member is weighted according to the population of their region, meaning that Area A’s vote is worth just 0.5% of the total.

“We need an open, active and inclusive conversation on governance.” said UBC political science student Spencer Rasmussen, who has been following the issue for several years.

”All voices need to be heard, and all voices need to hear each other,” he added. “The Area A candidates need to think about how they will ensure that conversation takes place.”

Getting a say on transit

The current structure of Area A affects many areas of life for students and residents. With no council or mayor, they are not represented on TransLink, despite UBC being the second-busiest transport hub in Metro Vancouver.

“Other municipalities are essentially allowed to make decisions for transit that’s relevant to UBC,” said Alexandria Mitchell, a candidate for director who is making transit her top priority.

Listen: Mitchell: 43,200 trips down the Broadway corridor every day (3:29)

If the UniverCity were to become a municipality, a vote on TransLink would be automatically granted. However, students not living on campus, and thus those using transit the most, would not be eligible to vote.

At the last election in 2008, less than a thousand of a possible 9000 votes were cast in the vote for the director, and only around 250 of them came from the student population.

Ruling over the land

The non-student residents of the UniverCity are represented by the University Neighbourhood Association (UNA), which advises UBC’s Board of Governors, but does not hold a seat.  The Board of Governors is made up of both elected representatives from the student, faculty and employee populations; and members appointed by the province.

In the summer of 2010, the province took the power of land use planning on campus away from Metro Vancouver and gave it to the provincial government’s Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. This increased UBC’s power to make decisions about development .

“Some say the UBC Board of Governors is like a 19th century monarchy; they own the land, they develop the land and that’s terrible,” said candidate Andrews, who is running with the intent of transforming the area into a municipality.

The decision to place a hospice near the South Campus residences caused many to question the value of the quasi-municipal UNA structure. The hospice was planned by UBC before consultation with residents, and the predominantly Asian community living next door opposed it on cultural grounds.

Writing in May 2011 in The Campus Resident, a newspaper for those living at UniverCity, Hawthorn Place resident Greg Feldman called for a review of the local governance system.

“The controversy emerged from the absence of a process for resolving local differences that we can proudly call democratic,” he said.

“This statement is no indictment against the UNA, but only a sign that its weak position relative to UBC should inspire us to strengthen it into a more robust body for local governance.”

Time for change

Incumbent Maria Harris (L) and candidate Scott Andrews (R) discuss resident's issues at the Nov 10 forum

At an all candidates meeting for director at Westbrook Village on Nov. 10, most contenders advocated for a change to the governance system of Electoral Area A and its knock-on effects for the relationship between UBC and UniverCity residents.

The incumbent Harris is instead focusing her work on transit and building relationships on the Metro Vancouver Board. She thinks less drastic solutions to the governance problem can be sought.

“Residents should have a determining say [in development planning]. There are a variety of routes we could use to reach this goal. [For example] UBC makes a plan, and then an independent locally-elected body approves it,” she said.

“I’m not ready at this time to endorse a particular route; I don’t think it’s wise.”

The obligation to conduct a governance review rests with the provincial Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, and would be expected to take two years.

Directors serve three-year terms, which  candidates agree is not long enough to completely overhaul the governance system.