The health and humanitarian crises that have come about as a result of Vancouver's high rates of illicit drug use are truly disturbing. Among the resident population of those living in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), for exa...
We all get away with things at the backs of the bus, but soon enough, passengers will think twice when they ride in Vancouver. TransLink and the Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) are currently testing video surveillance on eight of the city's new trolley buses. According to Ken Hardie, communications director wit...
Large numbers of honeybees in many parts of the US and increasingly in Canada have been vanishing without a trace, and it's beginning to raise concern among more than just beekeepers.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a mysterious condition where beehives are suddenly abandoned by worker bees.
Alth...
An extra week of news in Bizzaro BC is like a lifetime. I can’t fit it all into one little column without skipping spitting bus drivers, astroturfing Liberals, skyrocketing convention centre costs, corporate sponsorship of Vancouver parks and rec centres, MLAs voting to remove murals at the Legislature, Suzuki’s greenwashing of the Vancouver Sun, and a Three-hundred acre land deal for Whistler area First Nations as part of a bribe, sorry, deal to host the 2010 Winter Games.
After more than fifteen years of steady business, Tomato Cafe is closing its doors on Cambie Street, and you don’t have to look far to understand why. Construction of the Canada Line, also known as the RAV, has severed Cambie Village’s ties to pedestrian traffic. Christian Gaudreault, owner of Tomato, is moving his restaurant to West Broadway in search of greener pastures. “After this long, I don’t want to leave Cambie,” he says from the new location, “but if there’s no access to the street, how can we manage?”
An extra week of news in Bizzaro BC is like a lifetime. I can’t fit it all into one little column without skipping spitting bus drivers, astroturfing Liberals, skyrocketing convention centre costs, corporate sponsorship of Vancouver parks and rec centres, MLAs voting to remove murals at the Legislature, Suzuki’s greenwashing of the Vancouver Sun, and a Three-hundred acre land deal for Whistler area First Nations as part of a bribe, sorry, deal to host the 2010 Winter Games.
About 20 anti-poverty protesters calling for more transparency at a closed-door meeting of the taxpayer-funded Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee had their point made by the VPD who built a double fence around the ominous corporate headquarters and surrounded the building with riot cops, the dog squad, snipers, and even a helicopter. Well, at least the fence was transparent.
Al-Qaeda terrorist, sorry, anti-poverty protester David Cunningham, arrested for “uttering threats” against VANOC. Apparently this is a threat: “We’ll definitely be showing up at Jack Poole’s office. We’re going to try and hit as many offices as we can. This campaign will be escalating. Hopefully there will be no need to have a campaign that’s ongoing and targeting their homes like they’ve targeted poor peoples’ homes.”
A large protected property in central Richmond will be more valuable in the long run if it remains part of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) and is not released for development, say local residents.
An emergency town hall meeting was held on May 23rd to discuss a vision that would keep Richmond’s 135 acre Garden City lands in the ALR while providing an innovative and much-needed community farm environment.
About 20 anti-poverty protesters calling for more transparency at a closed-door meeting of the taxpayer-funded Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee had their point made by the VPD who built a double fence around the ominous corporate headquarters and surrounded the building with riot cops, the dog squad, snipers, and even a helicopter. Well, at least the fence was transparent.
Al-Qaeda terrorist, sorry, anti-poverty protester David Cunningham, arrested for “uttering threats” against VANOC. Apparently this is a threat: “We’ll definitely be showing up at Jack Poole’s office. We’re going to try and hit as many offices as we can. This campaign will be escalating. Hopefully there will be no need to have a campaign that’s ongoing and targeting their homes like they’ve targeted poor peoples’ homes.”
A large protected property in central Richmond will be more valuable in the long run if it remains part of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) and is not released for development, say local residents.
An emergency town hall meeting was held on May 23rd to discuss a vision that would keep Richmond’s 135 acre Garden City lands in the ALR while providing an innovative and much-needed community farm environment.
Surrey Residents out-NIMBY Vancouver by firing paintballs at a sex-offender’s house, uttering threats, and by holding a big “once a pervert always a pervert” rally at the local high school. Paul Callow, who served 20 years in jail for sexual assault, says he is fully recovered and concerned for the safety of his family. Witnesses saw a jalopy packed full of young NASCAR fans wearing straw hats, blasting Kid Rock, chewing on some knee-jerky, and shouting slogans such as “Git R Done”.
While Campbell was slutting it up in photo-op heaven with Schwarzenegger, the Governator is not considered so green friendly at home. Get out! Next you’re going to tell me he isn’t actually Danny DeVito’s twin.
In legislature on May 28th, Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson introduced an initiative to compensate Cambie Street businesses suffering due to Canada Line construction.
As reported in the May 15th issue of Tooth and Dagger, more than thirty businesses have closed on Cambie as a direct result of construction. Remaining stores claim losses between 40 and 70 percent . Before legislature adjourned until October, Robertson proposed a private member’s bill titled the Small Business Fairness and Protection Act.
Vancouver city workers vote in favor of strike. Aww man, couldn’t they have waited for 2010? Remember the last garbage strike? Man that was super fun. Robson started to look like the Downtown Eastside, and the Downtown Eastside started to look like, well, the Downtown Eastside. Plus as a side bonus it could provide material for makeshift housing. Everybody wins!
While Vancouver businessman Frank Giustra donates $100 million to anti-poverty charity…In South America.
The 44-and-a-half million dollars set aside to reward executives with Vancouver’s Olympic organizers would be better spent on social housing. Oh come on, Furlong only makes 300,000 a year. He can barely afford his 1 bedroom apartment in East Van.
A recent Vancouver radio contest has sparked an unprecedented outcry––on Facebook.
On June 11, the Beat 94.5 launched the Facebook 5000 contest through the weekly morning program, The Kid Carson Show. Listeners were instructed to create Facebook groups entitled “Help (name of contestant) win $5,000 with The Kid Carson Show on the Beat 94.5.”
The creator of the group with the most members was promised a $5,000 cash prize at the end of the contest, originally set to finish July 2.
But the imperative that the contestant with the “most friends wins” led to a citywide social network furor that blindsided the station’s broadcasters.
A province-wide electronics waste collection and recycling program beginning Aug. 1 will mark a crucial step in ensuring that highly toxic tech-junk is dealt with responsibly. However, so far the public and local recyclers are being left in the dark on perhaps the most important question: where’s it all going to go?
The industry-led Electronics Stewardship Association of B.C. (ESBC), in partnership with Encorp Pacific (which runs the Return-It bottle depots), have developed a pilot recycling system for “end-of-life” electronics, or e-waste, such as computers, TVs, printers and fax machines.
Sarah Westervelt, an e-waste toxics research analyst for the Basel Action Network (BAN), affirms there has been no official announcement about which three B.C. recyclers will be taking on the waste that is collected at the Return-It Depots.
“Now, of course all this starts on Aug. 1, so you can imagine that the decisions have been made. Whoever is taking the equipment has to be ramped up to handle that,” Westervelt says, whose company works globally to prevent toxic trade and dumping.
Notice that they aren’t buying icebreakers.
Ottawa buying up to 8 Arctic patrol ships. To patrol what exactly? A suspicious lack of polar bears? Is there a menacing polar bear thief? Ottawa should buy a Chuck Norris instead.
War on Error
Dirty bombs missing in Canada. Oops! We got so distracted making new enemies by invading a country that never attacked us; we forgot to put a padlock on the shed where we keep the nukes. While Ottawa certainly has their priorities straight: New futuristic fighter jets cost $4 billion. Because that’s how you fight the war on terror. Anybody remember the Maginot Line?
Traffic
Canada steps into void left by U.S.-Colombia rift: “In a thinly veiled slap at U.S. congressional Democrats who oppose a trade deal with Colombia due to rights concerns, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used a trip to Bogota to present himself as a steadier ally”. Yeah! Take that Democrats! Always caring about human rights and shit. You guys are suckers!
The night after Alex Cieslik took the top prize of $1,000 in a city sponsored graffiti contest, another one of his paintings was sliced from its frame outside Little Mountain Studios on Main Street.
“Alex was outraged,” recounts Ehren Salazar, who co-runs the gallery where Cieslik’s “Misty Morning Vietnam” was stolen. “He sent out a mass email.”
“[The television news] heard about it and sent a crack team of reporters here. They were here for maybe 10 or 15 minutes before they had to run for some breaking news about a city councillor being charged for drunk driving or something.”
An ad-hoc group of local nerds is planning on changing the way that you think of your internet connection. If they succeed, it wont be your connection and my connection, but our connection. Their idea is to create a large “wireless mesh network” in Vancouver, and they’re doing so in a way that a...
Mayor seeks credit for Broadway extension idea. “Incidentally, the report that recommended that $1 million study was part of a three-year plan that TransLink approved in 2004, which was more than a year before Sullivan became mayor”. What a slimy little ...
If things go according to plan, the BC Liberals and Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon will have achieved a major legislative coup by the time this story is printed. With hardly a squeak from the province’s corporate media, they will have passed a law that strips TransLink of what little democracy and acc...
On November 13th, almost a year after Mayor Sam Sullivan and City Councillor Kim Capri announced Project Civil City, project commissioner Geoff Plant submitted his first progress report. In November of 2006, Project Civil City was given $300,000 to achieve a 50% reduction in homelessness, aggressive panhandling ...
James Starblanket was nearing the end of a 40-kilometer trip from Surrey to the Downtown Eastside. The trip took 4 hours, and he was planning on heading back to Surrey as soon as he sold a stereo he’d found. The approaching darkness did not concern him. He had his sleeping bag, a tarp, and an air mattress. ...
