The Thorn on Thursdays
October 22 Newsletter | Vancouver Independent News + Analysis
Introducing The Thorn on Thursdays
It’s a little known fact that the City of Vancouver’s official flower is the rose, which also happens to be the unofficial symbol of the resurgent socialist movement. Everybody loves the beautiful blossom, but forgets about the thorns beneath it. In a city built on stolen Indigenous land, whose beauty is sold by the square foot for profit, there has always been money to be made by obscuring the ugly realities under the guise of greenwashing and boosterism.
The Thorn aims to contribute to the collective work of digging for the truth and telling the stories of the city from the bottom up. We need sharp — sometimes even prickly — criticism in order to think clearly about making a better world.
The Thorn on Thursday is a weekly e-newsletter, and a first step towards a broader publication blending independent journalism and left commentary from and about Vancouver. Subscribe to The Thorn at https://thethorn.substack.com and help us spread the word by sharing this first newsletter on your social media. If you’re interested in reaching out to prepare a paragraph, an article, or more - please contact us at contact@thethorn.ca.
A big win for the city we need!
Since we’re launching this newsletter amidst the awfulest of years, we thought we should start off with some good news from municipal politics: On Tuesday, Vancouver city council voted 7-4 to approve a new Overdose Prevention Site in the heart of the downtown peninsula, at the corner of Seymour and Helmcken. Guess who voted against it? That’s right, all four councillors representing the ridiculously named “Non-Partisan Association.”
Read more from the Tyee: ‘This Is a Crisis We Can’t Afford to Delay’
Could it be that Vancouver City Council is starting to take housing seriously?
More good news!
Last week, Vancouver city council passed a total of three motions that seek to address the dire need for affordable, accessible, and secure housing in Vancouver. Two in particular deserve special attention.
First, Council passed a motion requiring Mayor Stewart to advocate to the BC government for a rent forgiveness program. Council further condemned the use of “rent banks” as an unacceptable solution to the rent crisis, leading renters further and further into debt. While the possibility of a rent forgiveness program is left in the hands of the province, we should commend Council for their strong position on rent banks. Rent banks, which provide short-term loans to renters, serve as little more than a public subsidy for landlords, and do little to alleviate renters’ underlying financial concerns. Council is right to focus on more long-term solutions, such as complete rent forgiveness.
Second, Council took a strong position on renovictions, passing a motion that calls upon the Mayor to advocate for legislative changes with the BC government while simultaneously leveraging the City’s own powers to prevent evictions due to major repairs or renovations. Renovictions and demovictions -- distinctly BC problems -- continue to displace tenants from long-term and affordable housing across Vancouver. Landlords exploit loopholes in the Residential Tenancy Act to drive out tenants paying below-market rent. Council’s decision to finally take action on this pernicious problem is long overdue.
These motions are just the first step of many; and they didn’t fall from the sky, or come from the goodness of elected representatives’ hearts. Instead, they came primarily from the collective work of organizing. The work of the Vancouver Tenants Union and others remains vital to organizing and achieving lasting victories for renters and the precariously housed.
Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience
Ken Monkman’s exhibition “Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience” is currently on display at the MOA at UBC. The exhibition is narrated by the two spirit ‘Miss Chief Eagle Testickle’ and follows her journey through the last 150 years of Canadian history. Shame and Prejudice includes more than eighty pieces of paintings and installations that challenge Canadian narratives of nation building from an Indigenous perspective, and exposes the obscured systematic violence of this nation’s history and present.
Monkman describes his work: “The last 150 years—the period of Modernity—represents the most devastating period for First Peoples, including the signing of the numbered treaties, the reserve system, genocidal policies of the residential schools, mass incarceration and urban squalor.”
Monkman’s works are vital, devastating, necessary, essential. The decolonial project, Monkman’s art, and Indigenous voices are directly relevant today. They are relevant during this election when all three major political parties discuss the extent to which they will allow Indigenous peoples to protest energy projects in their communities. They are relevant as we watch the colonial attacks being committed against the Mi’kmaq lobsterman in Nova Scotia.
The exhibition discusses the legacy of colonial violence and may be triggering for those who have experienced trauma.
For those who are able to travel to the MOA, the exhibition runs in person to January 3rd 2021. Due to Covid 19, all museum visitors require a pre-purchased time-entry ticket.
For those unable to visit in person, there are three upcoming events at MOA that discuss the exhibition and can be viewed online. MOA Curator Jennifer Kramer will lead a free online tour, on zoom, through the exhibition Thursday October 22, 2020 from 7-830pm. Tickets are available at https://moa.ubc.ca/exhibition/shame-and-prejudice/
Organize! Vancouver Animation Studio First to Unionize
Titmouse Studios is an animation company with studios in Los Angeles, New York City, and Vancouver. The New York & Los Angeles studios were already unionized, but this past week, Titmouse Vancouver joined them after a highly successful union drive. Per IATSE’s press release: “With 87% of the workers participating in the vote, a resounding 98% voted to join The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 938.” This is only the beginning - Titmouse’s workers must still enter into collective bargaining with management. But it proves that there is broad support for organized labour in Vancouver’s Animation Industry.
Animation workers suffer from rampant unpaid overtime and wage theft. Until the BC Supreme Court ruled against them, some studios tried to claim the HTP Exclusion, which exempts High Tech Companies from paying overtime. Combined with a young, diverse workforce who have little leverage negotiating as individuals, burnout and industry churn are high.
In 2016 the movie Sausage Party was released. Nitrogen, the studio that animated it, came under fire for abusing, exploiting, and not even crediting artists who worked on it. This prompted the formation of the Art Babbit Appreciation Society (Named after a senior animator who risked his career supporting the 1941 Disney Animators’ Strike). ABAS partnered with IATSE to address ongoing labour issues & advocate for unionization of all animation workers.
Despite broad pro-union sentiment among workers, there are still a small, vocal number of anti-union workers, many of them in senior positions. Their arguments are old saws with dull teeth: “Unions stifle worker creativity & freedom.” “We don’t need a union, this studio is like a family.” “If we unionize, the work will go away and nobody will have a job.”
Film & TV workers in BC & the Yukon formed the IATSE 891 chapter in 1962. The same arguments were made then, but the BC Film industry continues to thrive. If anything, 891 made it possible for Film & TV workers to gain living wages, gave them stable benefits, and secured them seats at the bargaining table. Animation workers who unionize should expect no less.
Youth organizing for B.C. election
A number of activist groups are rolling out endorsements for B.C. election candidates as the race comes down to the wire. The Democratic Socialists of Vancouver, have endorsed a dozen candidates, including young climate activists like Tesicca Truong in Vancouver Langara, Harrison Johnston in North Vancouver - Seymour, and Jaeden Dela Torre in Richmond North Centre. Speaking of young climate activists, Our Time Vancouver has also been encouraging supporters of urgent climate action to get involved in the election.
The UBC Social Justice Centre, a socialist student organization at the University of British Columbia, have used the election to highlight issues that are important to its members, including a safe supply of drugs, defunding police departments, and vacancy control, recognizing that neither the BC NDP nor the BC Greens adequately reflect their values as an organization. The Social Justice Centre supports progressive champions such as Bowinn Ma, Harrison Johnston, Tesicca Truong, Jaeden Dela Torre, and Justin Kulik. For more on youth organizing around the election, read this piece by Alex Nguyen in Ricochet: B.C. Youth are organizing for climate candidates in this election -- even if many can’t vote.
Analysis: Whatever the results, it won’t resolve the crises of capitalism
Some socialists don’t think that the B.C. election will resolve any of the crises facing our province and planet, such as the economic downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic, the housing and homelessness crisis, the opioid poisoning crisis, the environmental crisis, and the crisis of colonialism for indigenous peoples. The Thorn contributor Tim Kennelly wrote an article on this topic which was published by the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group. In particular he thinks that drastic action is needed to address the climate emergency. Read the full article here: The B.C. Election and the Crises of Capitalism.
A recent piece by Vyas Saran in The Tyee also forcefully argued for a more systemic analysis of politics in B.C., and is worth reading for anyone who wants to orient themselves for the key political struggles ahead in the months and years after this election.
International news: Socialists retake Bolivia
A much-needed jolt of good news for the global left! One year after Bolivia’s Indigenous socialist president was ousted in a right-wing coup with imperialist backing, Luis Arce, the presidential candidate for Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party won a clear majority of the vote in the Bolivian presidential election, held on October 18, 2020. In power from 2005-2019, Morales presided over the nationalization of Bolivia’s natural gas industry (hydrocarbons), and his government instituted a series of new social programs and increases in social spending that led to a drastic reduction in poverty and inequality.
Self-proclaimed coup President Jeanine Áñez hoped to reverse the reforms brought in by Morales and the MAS. She proved so unpopular that she ran in the election but withdrew her candidacy after trailing badly in the polls. Sustained protests in the streets by Bolivia’s Indigenous social movements forced her coup government to hold an election, which would not otherwise have happened.
It should be noted that the Canadian government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau backed the coup against Morales, and that his Liberal government has only issued the most pro forma, muted congratulations to president-elect Luis Arce on his landslide victory.
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