It’s nearly show time at the Cobalt and Valynne Vile is “bloody nervous.”

This will be her first time performing in drag, ever.

Performing is a scary thought. There’s a saying in Vancouver that when a drag queen screws up, you don’t hear an awkward silence – you hear gunshots being fired.

Not only is Valynne performing on stage for the first time, she is also competing against 13 other drag kings and queens in the second annual Mr. or Miss Cobalt Drag Competition in this preliminary round.

Valynne smooths down the ends of her long silver hair over and over.

“I’m really excited just to show everybody my character and who I really am.”

In everyday life, Valynne’s real name is Ryan Stewart, and he works as a quality-assurance lead in the video-game industry. After a lengthy break from drag, he showed up at the Cobalt dressed as Valynne last month and was invited to take part in the competition. He promptly said yes.

But as much as Valynne is focused on her own performance, she is actually carrying out a more important role by showing up at the Cobalt at this mid-March first round of competition.

Drag queens have been central to the identity of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgered-queer community: as visible, flamboyant characters, as social convenors, as leaders who test the limits of acceptance.

In the past few years, spaces for queens to perform have become increasingly scarce in Vancouver as clubs have closed.

But the Cobalt, on Vancouver’s east side, has recently turned into a new mainstay of the city’s drag scene, and shows like “Apocalypstick” are creating opportunities for newcomers like Valynne.

Tonight’s competition kicks off three rounds that end Easter Sunday with the crowning of a new king or queen.

To start it, one of the hosts, Peach Cobblah (the drag persona of Dave Deveau, the event’s creator), sashays on stage.

Her attitude is even sassier than her red sequinned dress and over-the-top hair.

“Hello, darlings, we’re gonna’ start the competition very soon, so let’s make this place hot and juicy together, all right?”

The crowd roars back. Valynne Vile’s heart pounds.

It’s show time.

The Queens of Vancouver 

Drag isn’t just about pageant hair and outrageous makeup.

The Junction on Davie Street hosts two weekly shows. On this Saturday night, Daniel McGraw is waiting in an hour-long line to get in the night club.

“I think the historical role is often completely under-emphasized and often times completely ignored. Low-income, trans, people of colour and drag queens were the people who created Stonewall,” says McGraw, referring to the legendary New York bar that is seen as Ground Zero of the gay liberation movement.

McGraw’s friend Bard Suen chimes in.

“I think that drag queens represent a symbol for pushing the boundaries in the community so although I’m not brave enough to challenge those sort of norms – I feel really glad that there’s someone out there doing something like that.”

While McGraw and Suen are waiting outside, inside The Junction, Carlotta Gurl, one of the most well-known drag queens in Vancouver, is getting ready for her weekly show.

She headlines “Dragulous” on Saturday nights and has been performing for 20 years.

“I remember a time when I was doing drag for a living. I had four or five shows a week at different bars.”

Back then, the money was good and gigs were constant.

Today, a guest queen will take home between $100 to $150 to perform two numbers. Hosts like Carlotta Gurl make more, though not enough any more to support herself only with those gigs.

When fewer people started showing up and the bars began to close, things changed. “I realized I had to get myself a regular job in order to survive. I’m a manager at IGA.”

An Odyssey ends but the journey continues

The declining audiences had been a slow trend. But then Vancouver’s drag scene was hit hard by the closure of The Odyssey nightclub in 2010.

“The scene went through a bit of a hump after The Odyssey closed. They had drag almost every night of the week and were employing a lot of the community,” says Deveau.

“For a period of time, we were the only weekly drag show, which is crazy, but now there are three weeklies happening on Davie Street, so that’s promising as far as people getting work and people being able to enjoy drag,” said Deveau.

In keeping with the creation of inclusive, communal queer gathering spaces, the Cobalt also acts as a venue for the city’s only regular drag king show, “Man Up” which celebrated its fifth anniversary recently.

May the best king or queen win

Tonight’s drag competition is heating up.

The queens and kings compete for a $500 cash prize, three booked performances and the title of being crowned Mr. or Ms. Cobalt 2013. 

“We used to have a segment [of Apocalypstick] called Mean Keen Queen where we had a new performer trying out a number every week because we know our audiences are great,” said Deveau.

The hosts actually warn the audience not to insult performers or they risk being escorted out.

But the judge’s themselves don’t hold back. One queen is chastised because her tuck, the method performers use to conceal their genitalia, is visible through her black leather leotard. A king is docked points for not having enough facial hair.

No wonder Valynne, who is still waiting to perform, is nervous. She doesn’t know what to expect.

“I’m kind of sexy, kind of slutty, kind of weird and evil at the same time. I’m performing a Korean pop song but an English version of it. I wanted to grab something that nobody had done before.”

Valynne’s mom, Tracy Stewart, stands in the crowd. This is the first time she has seen Valynne perform. It’s also the first drag show she’s ever been to. (It won’t be the last performance. Valynne didn’t win the competition — TranApus Rex did — but she make it to the final round on Easter Sunday.)

The audience is also a mixed bunch: families, friends, gay, straight, lesbian, transgendered and everything in between.

“I love that people’s families come out, I think it’s encouraging and it feels nice that the space we’ve created feels like somewhere you would want your family to come and support you,” says Deveau.

Showtime

At 10.30 p.m., Valynne finally steps on stage.

As the heavy beats of her Korean pop song blare through the speakers, her nerves seem to disappear. She struts forward confidently, pumping her hands in the air and shimmying her shoulders provocatively.

Her mom and sister smile and cheer. Even the judges applaud.

“I got good feedback. It was very constructive.”

But most importantly she had fun.

“I was shocked because there’s this stigma with drag queens that they’re all bitches. And so far the Cobalt queens have been super nice.”

But maybe the niceness is not so surprising as both the old-timers and the newcomers recognize that they’re not in competition — they’re actually creating a community.
Correction: April 18, 2013.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Valynne Vile’s mother’s name. Her name is Tracy, not Sandy.
The authors regret the error.

Fletcher: We have a lovely view of the mountains from our home, we just can’t afford to go there.

Monika Qually misses Vancouver. The 30-year-old misses the lush North Shore mountains and the fresh West Coast air. But she does not miss the city’s sky-high housing prices and low-paying jobs.

“We couldn’t afford to start a family in Vancouver,” said Qually, so she and her husband decided to move to Toronto, where houses are cheaper and salaries are higher. Qually and her husband represent a growing number of people who feel that Vancouver is a tough city to raise a family.

While the numbers don’t represent a crisis yet, there is a growing concern that more families will leave the city. The most recent report from Statistics Canada on provincial population gains and losses seems to affirm this fear. B.C. lost 2,600 people through inter-provincial migration, mostly to Alberta.

That statistic doesn’t provide a breakdown on the numbers of families. But statistics show that the City of Vancouver, the expensive core of the region, had only 72,000 children under the age of 15 in the 2011 census. That’s a little less than 12 per cent of the population, far less than the 16 per cent that is the national average or even the 15 per cent for the Lower Mainland as a whole.

The evidence about families leaving is hard to assess because statistics about Vancouver, one municipality at the centre of a large region, are hard to compare to other Canadian cities, which encompass the suburbs in a way the City of Vancouver doesn’t.

Living in the city

But, in spite of the lack of statistical evidence, the declining number of children in City of Vancouver schools and census counts have definitely provoked anxiety at many levels. The Vancouver school board points to the lack of affordable housing for families to explain the declining rate of enrolment in Vancouver schools.

Similarly, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has identified affordable housing as a key priority for retaining families. The Vancouver Economic Commission echoes that with an economic action strategy  that highlights the need to improve housing affordability for families and to increase daycare spaces for children in order to keep families in the city.

Sources elsewhere confirm the perception that Vancouver is a difficult place for families. In a report released last month by the magazine Money Sense, Calgary was rated “the best place to raise kids” in Canada. The report analyzed factors like average household income, average house price and the number of daycare spaces available.

Vancouver was markedly absent from that list, for a couple of simple reasons.  The average household income in Vancouver is $81,066 and the average house price in the city is $882,00, whereas the average household income in Calgary is  $125,733 and the average house price is  $394 550.

“This is when some couples reach a breaking point”, says Heather Tremain, an urban sustainability consultant. ”There are a number of people, who, when they are thinking about having their first child, make the decision to move to a more affordable place.”

Vancouver’s middle-class is evaporating just as families are trying to claw their way into it. Source: UBC Department of Geography

Paul Kershaw, a University of B.C. professor, says that Vancouver families are at the epicentre of a “silent generational crisis.” Since the 1970s, wages in Vancouver have fallen from between 15 to 20 per cent, (when adjusted for inflation).

But the average cost of housing in Vancouver has skyrocketed by 149 per cent. Kershaw says that stagnant wages, high living costs and lingering student loan debts are  “crushing [families'] dreams of ever establishing a solid financial foundation.”

He calls this phenomenon “generation squeeze” in polite company and generation screwed in other company.

In the last 40 years, the number of middle-income-earners in Vancouver has decreased by 35 per cent. In that same period, the number of low-income earners has increased by 21 per cent.

Those who stay, pay

Families that choose to stay in Vancouver, despite odds that are stacked against them, are having to lower their expectations about just what kind of a lifestyle they can expect to enjoy in the world’s second-least-affordable city. Demographia conducted an international survey on housing affordability and rated Vancouver as being second only to Hong Kong in terms of being amongst the least affordable cities in the world to live.

Zaph built a sanbox for his two youngest kids over the weekend.

Colby Zaph and Lynda Fletcher met and fell in love in Philadelphia 13 years ago. They both have PhDs and they moved to Vancouver when Zaph landed a prestigious job as a professor at the Biomedical Research Centre at UBC. They had dreamed of a home with a big tree and a big yard where they could eventually bury the ashes of their beloved family dog.

Although that dog, Mr. Cool, has since passed away, they never did manage to move into that imaginary house in Vancouver with the big yard and the big tree. And Mr. Cool’s ashes still sit in a box on a shelf.

Despite Zaph and Fletcher sharing six university degrees between the two of them and a solid and steady income, they are still struggling to make ends meet. “We’re still spending more than we earn each month,” said Fletcher.

“We just threw Luke his second birthday party last weekend and, yeah, we couldn’t really afford it, but how do you not have a birthday party for your son?”

If the two little ones were in daycare and the two big ones were in after-school care, the family’s overall monthly costs for childcare would amount to $ 2,600 per month. “That’s almost much as I’d be earning as a post-doc, after tax,” said Fletcher. Because of those high childcare costs and because she wants to raise her own kids, Fletcher elected to be a stay-at-home mom, at least for now.

Ripple effects

Tremain laments the fact that, when families leave, the city loses more than just skilled workers. The social fabric of the city frays and “there is significant structural fallout,” said Tremain.  If that family has school-aged children, then a school is losing a pupil. When many pupils leave, there are fewer classrooms and, ultimately, fewer teachers required.

Then those teachers end up having to move. Jonathan Dillon, a kindergarten teacher and a father of two, is one such example. He moved up north to teach in the rural Peace River region of B.C.

“Even if I did find full-time work as a teacher in Vancouver, which is next to impossible, I still wouldn’t be able to afford a decent home there for me and my boys,” said Dillon. “Now I live in this gorgeous cabin with lots of space, and I have my own classroom, which would have taken me years to get in Vancouver.”

Dillon says his quality of life has dramatically improved since moving away from Vancouver. “I have more time to do things and I have more money to spend on trips away with my boys.”

Growth of Squamish and Fort St. John

Areas of population growth in B.C.. Source: BCStats

Dillon’s decision to move north is one that many families are making, as they search for the balance of decent-paying jobs and reasonably affordable housing.

Another option is places like Squamish, just outside of the borders of Metro Vancouver, still accessible but far less pricey.

Those two regions saw the biggest growth in population in the province.

According to Ryan Berlin, director at Urban Futures, “families are spurring growth in these areas.” Berlin said Fort St. John has a higher population growth because “people are having kids there.”

Squamish is growing so rapidly because it is “attractive for families to move there and it is increasingly connected to Vancouver,” said Berlin.

In terms of Vancouver, Berlin said, “The question we need to ask is, ‘When those couples who have babies move out of their Vancouver apartments, who is moving into them?’”  Berlin’s answer: most likely, couples who don’t have children.

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The Missing Women’s Memorial in Crab Park is a tribute to the women murdered in the DTES

Members of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside’s community have praised new police guidelines to protect sex-trade workers, but are also raising concerns about whether they will make a difference.

The police released an eight-point set of guidelines in January stressing that the department considers the safety and security of sex workers a priority and reinforcing that all cases of violence or abuse have to be treated as serious criminal matters.

“I think the new guidelines are a really important shift in the right direction,” said Katrina Pacey, litigation director of Pivot Legal Society. “Sex workers will be given the kind of protection they deserve by police who traditionally have not been there for them in the ways that they needed them to be.”

These new guidelines are aimed at improving the usually conflicted relationship between the sex industry and law enforcement that has often ended with sex trade workers being arrested or left unprotected.

Pacey: New guidelines are a shift in the right direction.

But Meghan Murphy, founder and editor of award-winning Canadian feminist blog Feminist Current, said that without changes to prostitution laws, the relationship between sex-trade workers and police won’t change.

“I think it is really important to decriminalize prostituted women,” she said. “[At present,] if they are raped, if they are assaulted or if there is violence, they are not going to go to the cops because then they could be at risk for being thrown in jail.”

Is prostitution legal?

The Canadian law on prostitution is complex. Technically, prostitution in Canada is legal, but all the illegal components that surround it make women in the sex trade vulnerable. Running a brothel, pimping and communicating for the purposes of prostitution are all illegal, according to the Criminal Code.

Murphy said that it’s the prohibition on communicating for the purposes of prostitution, “plus a culture and a history of misogyny within the RCMP and the VPD,” that effectively criminalizes sex trade workers and prevents them from seeking help from the police.

“[The communication law] doesn’t work particularly because it’s out to criminalize women who are prostituting,” she said. 

The country’s prostitution laws are being challenged. Advocates for sex trade workers’ rights are going into the sixth year of a court battle to decriminalize sex work.

But Vancouver police — who came up with the new guidelines after the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry identified seven critical failures in the police investigation into the missing women in the DTES — believe that putting the safety of the sex-trade workers at the forefront of their work will make a difference even without a change in the laws.

Related: Enforcing the new guidelines the hard way

“In the past, sex-trade workers have been harmed and injured and they have been at risk in the community,” said VPD spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham. “We are hoping that changes such as the ones we’ve done to the VPD policy … create a safer work environment for sex trade workers on the street.”

Putting the word out

The release of the guidelines has spurred local groups to initiate campaigns to educate sex workers in the DTES about their rights.

The guidelines were put together with the help of various groups including Pivot, which has been pushing for the decriminalization of sex-trade work and for police accountability for more than 10 years.

Demas: Helps sex workers learn about their rights.

Pivot, in partnership with Sex Workers United Against Violence Society (SWUAV), recently launched one such campaign. The group printed 2,000 pocket-sized cards that highlight the changes introduced in the new guidelines, as well as the actions sex-trade workers can take in case they feel “harassed, targeted, intimidated, followed, told to move along, or arrested by the police.”

Pivot started distributing the “Know your rights” cards in February through community centres and outreach groups. Even though there have been delays in getting the cards to some centres, volunteers have been handing them to sex-trade workers directly.

Corinne Demas, a member of SWUAV’s outreach team, said her group just wants to get the word out.

Twice a week, the group spends its evenings giving out bags of supplies – and with them, the “Know your rights” cards – to sex workers.

“We always [take] a bundle of them and hand them out to all the girls. And some of the girls refuse them, but most of the girls take them.”

She claims that, in all the times she´s been out, she’s only been turned down by a sex worker once. She sees that as an indicator that these cards are wanted. “I wish they [all] would take [the cards,] but you can’t make them,” she said. “I think every working girl should have one.”

The new campaign emulates another one initiated by Pivot 10 years ago.  The earlier campaign has distributed approximately 100,000 cards nationwide since it started.

Pacey said Pivot has not measured the impact of the cards and relies on direct feedback from residents to judge the effect of the outreach.

“There’s no real proper evaluation for it – we just have to rely on what we hear on the streets,” said Pacey. “We talk to sex workers … they give feedback to Pivot all the time. If they tell me that they are happy with it and we’re hearing through outreach that women on the street are feeling better informed, then we’ll carry on.”

Is having a card knowing your rights?

Allan has concerns about the overall effectiveness of the cards.

Jennifer Allan, a local activist and former sex-trade worker, said that while she supports the cards in theory, she is worried about their overall effectiveness, given the diversity of the DTES population.

One of her concerns is the language barrier that the English-only cards create, taking into account the large immigrant population of the DTES. She also said that the cards won’t make a difference by themselves.

“Just because some organization did a nice little “Know your rights” card isn’t going to change [police behaviour],” she said.

Allan said the cards aren’t enough – they need an accompanying education campaign about sex-trade workers’ rights.

“What I would like to see [are] sessions and classes where the women are brought in, paid a little honorarium, given a bus ticket and food, and are sat down and taught [about their rights],” she said.

They’re Vancouver artists desperate to find affordable, intimate places to present their work. Vancouver has the highest number of artists per capita in Canada. But these performers say there aren’t enough suitable spaces to showcase their talents.

The China Cloud is an underground arts venue in East Vancouver.

Some artists have taken matters in their own hands and created their own performances spaces tucked away in the city’s nooks and crannies, flouting local bylaws. According to the City of Vancouver, there are 250 to 500 such illicit events per year.

But the people running makeshift venues now have a way to go legit. Vancouver city council approved a pilot program March 12 that will allow cultural events in spaces like warehouses, art galleries and stores.

Bringing underground arts venues into the fold

The city hopes the program will resolve the need for more performance spaces and possibly kindle an outburst of creative activity.

“It has long been recognized that it is difficult to find places for live performance in Vancouver,” says Coun. Heather Deal. “As a result, many events happen ‘underground’ and therefore are in constant threat of being shut down due to complaints.”

But although many artists applaud the new effort from the city, they say that it is only a baby step. They’re still hobbled by two other significant barriers.

The city’s pilot program for small-venue licensing is an experiment that will run for up to two years.

The program is trying to encourage people who run the city’s off-grid spaces — quirky operations with names like the Dental Lab, 1067, China Cloud or the Emergency Room, frequently on the city’s east side –  to do two things. First, apply for a licence and, secondly, abide by the city’s new, modified bylaws. During that time, performance organizers will have access to a much cheaper and more simplified licensing system.

Event organizers can now submit a single application for a licence for as little as $25. In the past, they had to apply separately to the fire, engineering, and police departments and spend nearly $1,000 in the process.

They’ll still have to comply with some safety requirements, but a list that’s lower than the one for the Orpheum or the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

City staff will collect information, while doing random checks at the venues, to evaluate the program.

City’s ‘baby steps’ fall short of demand 

Colin Cowan runs the China Cloud, an underground arts venue in east Vancouver.

One of the spaces that will be trying to work with the new rules is China Cloud. The artist-run space is currently licensed as artist studios and an art gallery. On weekends, though, it hosts intimate performances by some of Vancouver’s and Canada’s best musicians. Its operators try to keep the location quiet.

Originally a cockroach-infested dive, the China Cloud has blossomed. The walls showcase hand-carved, wood-based art. Kitschy decorations adorn the tables. Comfortable couches surround the stage. The main room has a warm, welcoming feel to it.

The self-professed “Mr. Mother Goose” of the China Cloud is Colin Cowan.

Smiling readily under a mop of thinning red hair, Cowan sees the change as “a good start.” But like many artists who spoke at the council meeting, he was disappointed by the pilot program’s ceiling of two events a month.

“It’s nice to have a baby step,” he says, “but you want to make sure it’s at least a worthwhile baby step.”

City staff recommended a cap of two events a month per location so they could cope with the influx of applications. The venues will need to have concrete flooring and be at street level.

Like other underground venues, Cowan is hesitant to give out too much information about the China Cloud for fear of being shut down. The space doesn’t have a website or a Facebook page. Events are rarely advertised. People hear about shows by word of mouth.

Despite his reservations, Cowan is planning to apply for a licence for his two bigger monthly events.

But that still leaves another six unlicensed shows a month — one of the difficulties the new city program hasn’t addressed. Those shows will just stay under the radar, as they always have been. Many of them barely meet the minimum 25-person threshold that requires a licence in the first place.

Cowan doesn’t want to skirt the law. He’d like to see the program expand to eight events a month so that he could host musicians and other art without the constant fear of getting shut down.

“What would change is that we could legitimately put on shows and get licensing,” he says. “We could confidently run a business the way we want.”

The city estimates that it will receive up to 336 applications a year. If its assessment that there are up to 500 such events annually is correct, that leaves a shortfall of almost 14 events a month that will remain underground.

The two-events-a-month limit happens to coincide with the rules around another major issue in the underground arts scene: liquor.

Mixing arts, alcohol and business

Andrew Volk (bottom left) is working on a new underground arts space in Vancouver.

The reason the city limited events to two, in part, is that it’s only possible for event organizers to get two temporary “special-occasion” liquor licences a month. The B.C. liquor control control and licensing branch rarely distributes “liquor primary” licences, which allow venues to operate more like a club.

Although selling alcohol isn’t the primary objective of these underground venues, many see liquor and the arts as a natural combination.

Patrons get to have a drink. Proceeds from the bar help subsidize the cost of hosting a show.

City officials recognize this. In the policy report they presented to council, they warned that events with alcohol can pose safety risks. But they recognized that “alcohol is also an integral part of many arts events” and that “audiences at arts and culture performances do not typically have problems with binge drinking or troublemaking.”

But it still kept the limit to two.

The bigger-picture restrictions around liquor-primary licences are what Andrew Volk believes is keeping Vancouver from its potential as a creative city.

An energetic guy with pale skin and crystal blue eyes, Volk has been running unlicensed parties and events for over a decade. He is working on a new space in east Vancouver. It will house artist studios, a printing press for a monthly arts and culture magazine, a recording studio, and an open room with a stage. So far, he has invested almost $10,000 into the space.

Volk looks to Berlin, where he lived for six months, as a model for innovation. “In Berlin, you can have the hippest shit going on,” he says. “You’ve got kids owning clubs and then making huge amazing things.”

For Volk, the regulations, costs and red tape associated with primary liquor licenses means that only well-established, middle-of-the-road businesses can pursue them. “It means that nobody young and cool is going to open anything,” he says.

Supporting the arts vs. stifling creativity

Vancouver’s underground arts scene has been around for a long time. While some artists are knowingly defying the rules, many more may not even be aware of them in the first place.

Jess Hill is a singer-songwriter who recently performed at a haberdashery in Yaletown.

Jess Hill is one such artist. A local singer-songwriter, Hill had no idea she needed a licence for her last event. For the release party for her latest CD, she packed just over 70 people in her living room in east Vancouver. Hill has also performed in art galleries, tattoo shops, and grocery stores. Recently, she even performed in a haberdashery in Yaletown.

For Hill, performing in her home was as much about creating a memorable performance as it was convenient and cost-effective. “When you make an experience that’s more sharable and that people feel more connected to,” she says, “then the word of mouth builds for the next thing.”

Events in residential areas are not included in the city’s new licensing program. But events like house concerts have long been popular across Canada. Home Routes is a Winnipeg-based organization that organizes cross-country house concert tours. Old Crow in North Vancouver hosts monthly home-based events. And artists often use house concerts as fodder for fundraising their next album with IndieGoGo.

When Hill found out about the new licensing program, her first thought was concern that it might stifle the city’s creativity. “There’s such a burgeoning vibrancy that’s already here and it could go one way or the other,” she says.

“I feel like we’re at that fork in the road where it could continue to thrive and grow or it could get killed by the paper trail.”

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.

Kim Leary glances over at one of her students. He is slowly and methodically passing a soccer ball from one foot to the other. He is a gifted soccer player, so his uncharacteristically sloppy movements reveal something more to the teacher observing him carefully.

“You look less energetic than usual,” Leary says. She asks him what he had for lunch;  he smiles silently. She asks him what he had for breakfast; still no answer. She rephrases: “Have you eaten anything today?” He looks up from his soccer ball.

“An apple,” he replies.

Leary turns around and opens the floor-to-ceiling cupboard near her desk. She emerges with enough snacks for him and all the other students nearby. Smiles creep across their faces and one student exclaims: “This is why you’re our favourite teacher, Ms. Leary.”

It’s not unusual for Vancouver teachers to help feed their students. But for Leary, this food exchange is part of a new initiative running out of Britannia Secondary School called the Youth Engagement Program. Leary is the director of this unusual experiment in student motivation.

YEP is an incentive-based program, which started last October giving students money to attend classes and improve their grades: $50 a month if they meet their goals. But the program isn’t just about paying for higher grades; it’s also about addressing social and economic inequities.

Leary says it’s about creating opportunity and support for the kids who really want and need it.

“We really thought about how we could engage kind of the least engaged students in the school,” says Leary. “The idea is just to have them know that there are some people who are really focusing on them – who really know who they are – so they are not invisible in the school.”

Listen: An older sister explains in her own words how she felt invisible in school. Her two younger sisters are in the Youth Engagement Program (1:44)

Why Britannia?

Britannia Secondary School serves one of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

The average family income for Britannia students is just over $33,000. That’s less than half of the provincial average. Many students also face language barriers, with almost half speaking a language other than English as their mother tongue. Over 30 per cent of Grade 10 students at the school are already so far behind that they’re likely not going to graduate in two years with their classmates, according to the Fraser Institute’s interpretation of provincial test results.

Not reaching high-school graduation significantly decreases the opportunities available for these students. In 2010, the unemployment rate for high-school dropouts was 23 per cent. This was almost double the 12-per-cent unemployment rate for graduates.

Leary and her team are hoping to curb dropout rates among these students by providing them with support and an increased opportunity to pass high school.

A model for success

A YEP student enjoys a mystery novel. (Photo: Leif Zapf-Gilje)

The Youth Engagement Program is modelled after the federally funded Pathways To Education program, which began in Toronto and now operates in 12 low-income communities across eastern Canada.

The Pathways to Education program has helped reduce high-school dropout rates by 70 per cent. Since the program’s inception, there have been three times as many students going on to post-secondary educations.

At Britannia, the program is open to any student who failed one or more classes in the previous year and is willing to commit.

The 15 students who chose to sign up have agreed to go to all their classes, attend a minimum three hours of homework club at least twice a week, and keep regular contact with the YEP teachers.

In return, they get extra help from tutors, hot meals, field trips, personal support, and the chance to earn the coveted $50 per month for meeting their goals.

If they manage to pass all their classes for the year, $500 a year will be set aside for a post-secondary education of their choosing.

The immediate cash gets the students excited. YEP worker Eric Schofield says, “[It’s] obviously an incentive for money in their pockets, which in most cases is very much needed.”

Listen: The students share their experiences about how the program is working for them (1:45) 

The bandage for a larger issue

Critics say that while incentives get kids to class, there are concerns with this strategy. It’s generated a lot of debate in the U.S., where incentives have been more widely used.  

“Incentives actually reduce [students’] motivation over time. Kids will actually stop learning for the sake of learning if you give them any kind of external reward,” says Jennifer Vadeboncoeur, associate professor in UBC’s faculty of education.

But she also understands the need to address the social and economic challenges these students face.

“We have to appreciate the program, for a small number of kids, as a short-term fix. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that it is trying to address a long-term societal problem,” says Vadeboncoeur.

She says it’s the broader education system that needs to be fixed.

“Why as a society aren’t we doing better for teachers and students? There is something about the school system that really pushes them away.”

Looking to the future

There are no guarantees that YEP will see these kids through to graduation. YEP was funded for only one year, most of it from anonymous donor.

Students in the YEP program have formed close friendships. (Photo: Britney Dennison)

Leary is currently in the process of trying to get grants and donations for the second year, enough to carry this group of students through to Grade 12. But so far, she doesn’t have it, so the fate of the program is uncertain for both this group and any future students.

Donor-dependent programs often face long-term support issues. And that uncertainty raises more concerns.

“Once you start giving people external rewards, it is very difficult to stop doing it,” says Vadeboncoeur, “so then they end up just needing them constantly to keep going.”

Leary is optimistic that enough funds can be raised to continue and eventually to expand.

“Ideally one day, looking 10 years from now… there are 100 YEP kids that are involved in this program,” says Leary.

Listen: Students at Britannia’s YEP program are gathered at the Homework Club. It is time to go home, but they don’t want to go (1:20) 

Midway through the first year, Schofield has already begun to notice the program’s impact on the kids.

“The success … as far as engaging them, absolutely 100 per cent. We want their grades to improve a lot as well as a consequence and that one’s proving to be challenging, but I think the big one is that first step.”

John Brennan’s music struck a discordant note in his hometown of Goderich. The Ontario town of 8,000 on the banks of Lake Huron boasts famously beautiful sunsets and proudly calls itself “Canada’s prettiest town.”

When Brennan and his high-school friend detuned their guitars and walked onstage at an old local theatre, the sound that came out of the speakers jarred with the picture postcard foliage.

“We had a bunch of drinks before,” said Brennan, a lean, T-shirt-clad musician now in his 30s. “Then we spent, I think, 15 minutes standing in front of our amplifiers doing feedback and pressing on the pickups making weird clicking sounds.”

A sizeable chunk of the audience got up and left. Nobody clapped. When they were finished, nobody said anything. “I think one person said something, but it wasn’t good,” recalled Brennan. “It wasn’t a positive thing.”

The 1997 gig is a distant memory for Brennan, who now plays to more receptive crowds in Vancouver. The city is home to a small but enthusiastic audience for “noise:” music made with purposefully dissonant, harsh sounds.

Noise artists make music with everything from computers and effects pedals to chains and trash cans. It is intentionally inaccessible. But fans pack into noise shows in Vancouver and sit in rapt attention as one sonic torpedo after another crashes into their eardrums.

Some members of Vancouver’s noise scene have become internationally known. Brennan has toured Canada, Europe and Japan, playing noise. Sam McKinlay, a.k.a. “The Rita,” has produced a vast discography of harsh noise records.

In any other genre, artists of this stature might have a chance at supporting themselves with their music, like Vancouver’s top jazz musicians do. But noise plays to such a small audience that even its top echelon can’t swing a full-time music career.

Paying the bills

Artists like Brennan have to deal with the reality that their art is as uncommercial as music gets. Making noise won’t pay the stratospheric rent in Vancouver. But artists spend several hours a day making it anyway.

Brennan has been making music since age three, and started making noise in high school.

“I think 99.9 per cent of noise musicians in town all have other jobs” no matter how prestigious their reputation, said Brennan. “I can’t think of one artist in town that just does that.”

The jobs that support Vancouver’s noise artists range from sound-design contracts to working at safe-injection sites.

The safe-injection site jobs are “intense,” said Brennan, but they allow artists to take three or four days off every week. “A lot of people in the scene are really working as little as possible,” Brennan explains, so they can dedicate the bulk of their time to their art.

Brennan considers himself lucky that his job lets him be creative and make money at the same time. He works at Vivo Media Arts, where he curates a noise concerts series called Destroy Vancouver and organizes workshops in noise techniques like improvisation and circuit-bending.

He works part-time, which has an impact on his financial situation. “I am scraping by,” said Brennan. “But for me, I would rather work less, have less money and have more time to work on my art.”

The DIY philosophy

One element of noise that takes up a lot of noise musicians’ time is a technique called “circuit-bending,” in which he or she manually alters the circuitry in electronic devices, like toys and tape decks, to produce new and unheard sounds.

According to Jonathan Adams, a DJ and UBC graduate student in ethnomusicology, the DIY philosophy of circuit-bending and noise stems from strong anti-capitalist and anti-corporate sentiments.

“I think the fact that they don’t buy the tools from these huge, transnational corporations that are building the equipment and the software and so forth is actually a political statement,” he said. “I definitely think there’s a punk element.”

Graham Christofferson, known to Vancouver noise fans as “Worker,” definitely brings together the DIY approach and the political ethos of punk. He got involved in noise three years ago at a punk bar where everyone could play, Christofferson explained, “as long as they were doing something weird.”

Listen: Worker on the rebellious ethos of noise music (2’05″)

Christofferson’s “Worker” persona doesn’t do punk, but his roots show through in the aggressiveness of his sounds. Lately, he has adopted an angle grinder and a trash-can lid as instruments. In the middle of his performance, he starts grinding holes into the lid, producing sounds more commonly heard on construction sites while showering the audience with sparks.

Christofferson considers his music starkly political. In naming himself “Worker” and making aggressive music with homemade instruments and everyday objects, he hopes to use his art to communicate everything he hates about the capitalist system “and why you should destroy it.”

The Art of Noise

Noise actually dates back to at least 60 years before the birth of punk. In 1913, the composer Luigi Russolo wrote a manifesto called “The Art of Noise.” In it, he claimed that the human ear had become used to the speed, energy and noise of the urban industrial landscape and that music should incorporate similar sounds.

Since then, the major influences in noise have ranged from the avant-garde composer John Cage to the post-punk band Sonic Youth. Japan has produced a number of noise artists, like Hanatarash and Merzbow, whose influence is felt around the world.

Today, noise, similar to other music genres, encompasses a wide range of sounds. Even a single Vancouver noise concert can feature everything from abrasive industrial sounds to minimalist drones.

For Brennan, it’s about combining elements of noise with avant-garde jazz. He has been playing music since age three and studied jazz drums and guitar at Concordia before switching to electro-acoustics.

It has never been Brennan’s goal “to be a superstar or to get a million hits on YouTube,” he said. “I am just playing for myself and for the 13 people who really enjoy this, or whatever.”

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.