The People Have Spoken
Defund the VPD
Local
The People’s Budget 604 survey results are in and the people have spoken!
The People’s Budget survey, a project of the Defund 604 Network, ran from May 1 to September 30, and received 761 responses. 86% of survey participants supported defunding the Vancouver Police by 50%.
The budget results illustrate that the majority of respondents believe it is time the City of Vancouver redirect public money from the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) to initiatives that build safe, healthy and sustainable communities for all.
Based on what was shared in the survey, the People’s Budget 604 demands:
Peer-led Non-Violent Mental Health Service, Supports, and Wellness Checks
Accessible non-market housing and ending the displacement of homeless people
Peer-led indoor sex worker spaces
Peer-led access to safe drug supply
Land Back and building a traditional healing centre at Carb Park
Participatory budgeting
This year, the VPD is requesting $325 million for its 2022 operating budget, $4 million more than recommended by the city’s finance team, which will enable them to continue to police and criminalize communities already made vulnerable by systemic injustice. In advance of Vancouver City Council’s public hearing on the city’s 2022 budget, which took place on Wednesday, Dec 1, Mayor Kennedy Stewart indicated he would support the VPD’s 2022 budget request.
Defund 604 invites you to make your voice heard and amplify the demands of the People’s Budget 604 in advance of council’s vote on the budget, which is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, December 7. Use this template letter to write to the City of Vancouver – tell them what your priorities are: safe, healthy and sustainable communities, not cops and carceral injustice.
Read More: Defunding the VPD is an investment in safety and collective well-being – Chucka Eckjam from the Pivot Legal Society.
If you would like to learn more about the Defund 604 Network visit linktr.ee/DefundNetwork
Exchanging Art for Advocacy: Vancouver Artist Holds Print Sale for Environmental Activism
Vancouver-based artist and writer Taylor Neal (@nzzltea) is using their photography as a way of offering monetary support to several local non-profit environmental organizations by way of a Print Sale For Relief. Operating on a sliding-scale/donation basis, Taylor is offering fine-art prints of a collection of some of their favorite shots taken in beautiful BC, which take inspiration from an “awe of the land that is not mine, but which I humbly occupy and have the privilege to admire each day.” Taylor will be accepting orders via Instagram until December 10, at which point lump-sum donations will be made to selected organizations including @fairycreekblockade @ancientforestalliance @raincoastconservation. To participate visit Taylor Neal's IG.
The OPS 2022 Pet Calendar - in partnership with Community Vet Outreach
A great stocking stuffer for a great cause. All proceeds from sales of this calendar will be directed to help DTES residents' pets through Community Vet Outreach, which offers preventive veterinary care, resources and education alongside human health services for individuals and families experiencing homelessness and housing vulnerability. Pick up in person at 390 Columbia St. Vancouver, or email orders to OPSorders390@gmail.com
Provincial
Photo Credit: Amanda Follett Hosgood in The Tyee
RCMP attack Wet'suwet'en land defenders and journalists on behalf of Coastal Gaslink Pipeline
At the time of writing our last issue, the BC Provincial government had sent the RCMP up to Wet’suwet’en territory in northern BC to remove Wet’suwet’en land defenders who had kicked workers from Coastal Gaslink off of their traditional territories a few days prior.
Since then, three journalists (who have subsequently been released) and well over a dozen land defenders have been arrested in traditional Wet’suwet’en territory, and the RCMP axed through the door of a structure erected by Wet’suwet’en indigenous leaders on their traditional territory. As of writing, the latest two arrests took place on November 30, and the Gidiment’en Access Point is vowing to fight on against the pipeline in the face of the latest arrests.
The following is a roundup of some news items that provide a rough timeline of events:
Two pipelines stalled in B.C. as RCMP raids resume in Wet’suwet’en territory – Chen Zou, Ricochet, Nov 20, 2021
Police Stand With Pipeline, Arrest Journalists & Land Defenders In B.C. – David Doel, Rational National, Nov 22, 2021
RCMP tracked photojournalist Amber Bracken in active investigation database – Mike De Souza, The Narwhal, Nov 22, 2021
Trudeau, Horgan governments do nothing as RCMP arrests journalists – Ethan Cox, Ricochet, Nov 23, 2021
Police Axe Through Door of Indigenous Leaders as NDP Enable It – David Doel, Rational National, Nov 24, 2021
Two more arrests at new Wet’suwet’en blockade near Coastal Gaslink Pipeline in Northern B.C. – Betsy Trumper, CBC News, Nov 30, 2021
Gidiment’en Access Point vows to continue resistance after latest RCMP raid – Lee Wilson, APTN News, Dec 1, 2021
Community Hubs to replace Autism Funding Unit
The autism community in BC, which currently benefits from the Autism Funding Unit, is facing a big threat: the removal of the unit in favour of 'community hubs'.
The reason given by the government for this change is that there has been a significant number of children and families with disabilities other than Autism who have been left out and not received funding.
Those opposed to these changes believe that other disabilities need and deserve funding. But community hubs and needs-based services are not the way.
When asked to explain, Jewel Goodwin, mother of three neuro-divergent children, outlines:
1. Currently the public school system in BC operates as a needs-based hub and is a good example of what can happen in this kind of system. It is chronically underfunded and understaffed.
2. Families with children with a diagnosis would need to be further assessed by staff at a hub to determine needs. The assessment tools proposed are not culturally appropriate. And repeated assessment re-traumatizes families as they must relist deficits and challenges in order to gain support. Finally, the proposal involves less qualified professionals reassessing those who have been diagnosed by psychologists, medical doctors, and psychiatrists.
3. Many small businesses that currently provide services to the autism community will be expected to either join a government hub or forfeit their business. The service providers, SLP, Counselling, OT, BC and BI's whom we have vetted and trusted in coming into our homes and helping us guide our children to a path of success will be stripped away.
In a petition, Consultation Before Change, which already has over 24,000 signatures, more can be learned:
“The BC Government has announced that the Autism Funding Program and many other programs under the MCFD's umbrella will be replaced with the Hub Model like Ontario. All funding previously given will be cut off by 2025. In this new model the already established relationships with service providers will be effectively cut off for all families who cannot afford to pay out of pocket to continue them. Just one example of economic disparity that will emerge between low-income diverse families, families on reserve, ESL Families, and many others.
Not only was there no consultation with parents or service providers but also none with any of the Autism organizations here in BC who have been working with 1000's of families for years. Autism BC & Autism Support Network Society represent 80% of CYSNs current caseload.
Parents and families are demanding that Individual Autism Funding and the AT Home Program should remain in place for all; service centers and providers dedicated to Northern Parts of BC; investment in increasing availability and service provider capacity for diagnostic assessment; small business tax breaks for setting up practices in these fields, specifically in remote regions; and leave the Autism Funding in place and expanding the individualized funding program to include other diagnosis’, Down Syndrome, Intellectual Disabilities, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deafblind, Blind & Partially Sighted, Cerebral Palsy, Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia and ADHD.”
Petition: Consultation Before Change
National
Majority of Candians support ditching the Monarchy
As Barbados became the latest country to ditch the British Monarchy and become a republic earlier this week, a new online poll released November 29 from the Angus Reid Institute with 1,898 respondents shows that a majority of Canadians support ditching the British Monarchy once Queen Elizabeth II dies and do not want Charles to become king.The poll asked the question “Do you think Canada should continue as a constitutional monarchy for generations to come?”Responses to the poll were as follows:No: 52% (+7)Yes: 25% (-14)Unsure: 23% (+6)Full story: For many candidans, interest in remaining a constitutional monarchy will die with Queen Elizabeth
International Honduras elects Xiomara Castro as first female President
In a national election held on November 28, Hondurans elected Xiomara Castro as the first female president in the country’s history. Xiomara Castro, presidential candidate for the leftist Libre Party, is the wife of former Honduran President (and current Libre Party leader) Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power during a coup in 2009. The coup was backed by the Canadian government of Stephen Harper.
Full Story: HUGE Win As Honduras Elects Democratic Socialist & First Female President – David Doel, Rational National
Related: International Community Recognizes Victory of Xiomara Castro – Telesur English
Save the bees …. Or not.
Neonicotinoid pesticides, or “neonics,” have been banned from the fields of the European Union and the UK since 2018, but apparently the industry of exporting banned insecticides will not be changing anytime soon. An investigation by Unearthed has revealed that eight different EU countries, as well as the UK, continue to export banned pesticides to more than sixty countries around the world, most of them poorer countries.
The European Commission, in an interview with Unearthed and Public Eye, noted it is still “considering the options” for how to put an end to these exports and does not expect to have a concrete proposal for changing the law before 2023.
Pesticide manufacturers such as NuFarm and Bayer justify their continued export activities pointing out that the products were approved by the countries receiving them and insisting the EU ban does not mean the product is unsafe.
Pesticides campaigners in countries where the pesticides are being sold do not agree. Layla Liebetrau, project lead for Kenya’s Route to Food Initiative, spoke to Unearthed: “On the part of exporting countries, I think this is a violation of universally accepted human rights and a blatant disregard of the crisis we are facing in terms of biodiversity loss.”
The pesticide industry, in typical colonial fashion, is profiting off countries that do not have the capacity for control nor the infrastructure and systems to evaluate the risks of individual pesticides. Meanwhile farmers in these countries are being forced to pollinate their crops by hand due to insect decline as a result of pesticide use.
Upcoming Events
Housekeepers Morning Breakfast Action
Saturday, December 4, 7:30am
1133 West Hastings St, Vancouver
Dear Vancouver community,
You are invited to a breakfast action on Dec 4th outside the Pinnacle hotel downtown!
Vancouver housekeepers are coming together to celebrate each other in solidarity on Saturday morning. They want to know why hotel rooms are not being sanitized every day. Come downtown to the Pinnacle Hotel on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 am and join us in asking guests: FOR OUR SAFETY, MAY WE CLEAN YOUR ROOM?
Come support hotel workers as they rally together with chants, instruments and breakfast!
DSOV Holiday Social
Monday, December 13, 2021
Come out and join your comrades for an in-person socialist party.
Socialist Unity Assembly
Sunday, January 2, 2022, 7-9pm
Host: Vancouver Ecosocialists
Media Roundup
Treehouses against TMX: another frontier of civil disobedience – Chen Zhou, Ricochet
Horgan’s NDP “suppressing” a party debate on LNG industry, insiders say – Dru Oja Jay, The Breech
Cuba’s Vaccine Could End up Saving Millions of Lives – Branko Marcetic, Jacobin Magazine
Tariq Ali: The 40 Year War in Afghanistan – In this video, Jacobin’s Ana Kasparian interviews stalwart anti-imperialist activist and writer Tariq Ali on the subject of his new book “The Forty-Year Was In Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold.” Ali discusses how four decades of US intervention in Afghanistan destabilized the country, led to countless civilian deaths, and fueled the global opium trade. Ali also debunks the dangerous imperialist rhetoric around the Taliban’s recent victory in Afghanistan, rhetoric which is fuelling a devastating humanitarian crisis in the country.
Billionaires hurt economic growth and should be taxed out of existence, says bestselling French economist - Robert Frank, CNBC
MPs embrace after bill to ban conversion therapy passes unanimously in House - Nick Boisvert, CBC