I wrote this correspondence to Vancouver City Council about the proposed budget today, and I’m sharing it here to encourage others to do the same. Council is considering a budget that grows property taxes a very small amount (over a base that is already tiny), while funding rather than defunding the police, and slashing almost every department’s funding. Details of the budget are available on the City’s website here.
Mayor and Council,
I am writing with respect to the proposed city budget for 2021. I have several concerns.
First, the proposed 5% residential property tax increase is too low. I have written council the last several years to advocate for significant increases to residential property taxes. We pay some of the lowest property taxes in the country – even after accounting for our inflated real estate market. Homeowners – myself included – can afford to pay significantly more in taxes to fund the desperately needed services in Vancouver.
The failure to increase taxes appropriately is leading to a cut in the City’s overall funding by 1.1%, compared to an already slashed budget for 2020. This appears to be coming mostly from Planning, Engineering, and Corporate Services. These departments are already badly underfunded and badly understaffed. Further cuts will be worse for the City as a whole, leading to worse outcomes for residents and businesses – processing times for anything that goes through the City are already unacceptably long, and staff are regularly forced to tell residents improvements of any kind can’t be made because they simply don’t have the funding. I strongly oppose cutting these budgets and encourage the City to tax us appropriately to fund them.
Next, the City proposes to increase the police budget by $2.5 million. This is amidst calls to defund police departments across the continent, and at a time when our police department continues to contribute to – rather than lessen – violence on our streets, while using our tax dollars to fund victim-blaming “safety” campaigns that fail to recognise vulnerable road users as such. I encourage council to rethink this additional spending, and indeed to slash the police budget significantly, regardless of whether or not the police force itself doesn’t wish for that. Council’s tacit acceptance of the department’s “no” when it was asked to cut 1% from its budget earlier this year is a shameful embarrassment for this City.
The proposed budget does not reflect the principles of building back better, or even of a just response to the climate emergency. Vancouver can and should do better – we should be investing in the public sector, in safer streets, in public housing, and more, rather than cutting staff and services in most of the City’s functional departments. I strong urge council to do better than this.
Premier Horgan, Minister Robinson, and MLA Chandra Herbert,
I am writing today to express my disappointment in this government’s handling of TransLink and, in particular, its labour relations. We are currently facing potential strikes from bus and Seabus drivers and maintenance workers, as well as SkyTrain workers. I expected a New Democrat government to be worker-friendly, not to be the first government in two decades to lead to a series of strikes over what I believe are fundamental issues for workers in the Lower Mainland.
While I am well aware that TransLink maintains a form of artificial independence from the government of BC, it would not have any reason to fight workers on the fundamental issues of pay and working conditions if it were properly funded through provincial taxes. The responsibility for this problem lies directly on all of your shoulders, and you should all be ashamed of failing BC workers like this.
Our transit workers help millions of us get around every day, and perform vital functions in our society. These are green jobs. What kind of message is being sent to BC residents if our own government is unwilling to support these workers? The government should be leading by example by providing transit workers with good pay, good working conditions, and reasonable scheduling. I can only hope that other employers would follow.
These workers are making very reasonable demands and it is entirely your responsibility to ensure that their demands are met – you cannot get out of this mess by continuing to pretend that TransLink is independent of the provincial government. In particular, the demands regarding scheduling, if met, will help to provide more consistent and reliable public transportation throughout the Lower Mainland. This is an absolute necessity in the face of the climate crisis.
The NDP is supposed to be the party of workers. Your complete failure to properly fund essential public services in order for these services to pay their employees well and to provide fundamental workers’ rights is an embarrassment, and I’m ashamed to admit I voted for your party with an expectation that you would do better. It is time to properly fund TransLink and to insist that money spent by TransLink go towards providing its workers with fair pay and good working conditions.
I never think to post here anymore, and oddly I often end up posting lengthy posts on Facebook that should probably go here in the first place. This post is precisely one of those.
I tweeted a lot and randomly throughout the evening, so I’ll summarise thoughts here:
Overall this election went about as well as I could have realistically expected. Liberal, not Conservative, with a plurality but not a majority. Greens gained, albeit not by much. The NDP were not totally obliterated, and Singh seems to have the needed focus to force the Liberals into doing the right things. And the results were basically over before 10pm, but weren’t over before we finished voting.
As usual, the big loser of the evening is Canadians, as FPTP continues to fail us. The Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc all benefited from it, and the Greens, New Democrats, and even the PPC lost out. CPC got more votes than LPC and significantly fewer seats. This is not right.
I’m also concerned about the continued urban-rural divide, which seems to worsen every election.
In my riding of Vancouver Centre, I take comfort that Fry’s share of the vote is likely down to around 42% from 56%, with the NDP up from 20% to 24% and the Greens doubling their vote to 12%.
The continued entitlement of Trudeau in pulling that gross power move of going on air with his speech while Scheer was just starting his just really gets under my skin. I like Trudeau significantly less today than I did even a couple months ago. Althia Raj commented that many Liberal candidates won this time not because of Trudeau (like last election) but in spite of him. I agree. There are many good people in his caucus and I hope he can learn to yield to them more often.
I’m sad for the losses of Brosseau, Goodale, Raitt, and Robinson, and for the retirement of David Christopherson in Hamilton. I’m happy for the win of Wilson-Raybould.
What’s remarkable to me is that despite the fact that almost all the parties had disappointing results this election, my social media feeds are full of people who are quite pleased with the results. Many of us are quite happy the big parties didn’t succeed. I know I am basing this on small social media bubble, but I think we need to better embrace political diversity in our parliament and this very colourful election map is to me a good start (if only we had electoral reform to make it match closer).
And finally, despite some hilariously bad graphic design choices, the CBC had reliable and excellent coverage tonight and the many many members of their team covering this election deserve so much credit. I hope Rosie Barton gets a much-deserved vacation soon.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Today, I am thankful.
I am thankful for those who lived through the riots, and those who have come after to make this world better for me and people like me and people not-so-like me.
I am thankful that I grew up in a world where, even when I didn’t feel safe where I was, I knew I could find somewhere where I would feel safe. I am thankful that from the early yawns of the internet there were corners where I could be myself. I am thankful that today there are not just corners, but entire rooms and cities and countries and worlds – online and offline – where I can be who I am and feel safe.
I am thankful that I’ve been a witness to so many firsts in pop culture – the first out gay character on network television, the first same-sex kisses, the first teen characters coming out, the birth and growth of mainstream queer cinema, and an endless line of out and proud musicians. I spent this evening attending the Queer Songbook Orchestra, an event that could not have taken place without all those that came before us, fighting obscenity laws and fighting for our right to take up space in public.
I am thankful that here, in 2019, we have achieved acceptance in so many parts of society. That I’ve gotten to work in mainstream non-queer organisations that simply take for granted that queer people are part of our society and should be included – in health care, in technology, in housing, in business, and in history.
And I’m thankful for the immense amounts of privilege that I have access to, that those before me did not. That I could come out as a teenager and, uncomfortable home life and a few harsh words from peers notwithstanding, everything turned out okay. That I could thrive and grow as an individual while embracing my sexuality. That I had opportunities to participate in and be a leader of groups where sexuality and gender were a focus. That I could be an out and proud queer without ever worrying about losing my job, or my home.
I’m thankful that, when I went on my first date, I never worried that people were looking at us. That when we made out in the back seat of his car, I was more worried about getting hassled for trespassing than for homosexuality. That I’ve had many emotional and sexual relationships with other men, and never once feared being arrested for them. That I had access to the information I needed to make healthy choices in those relationships (whether they lasted a day or a year). That I could party all night long, rubbing shoulders with people of all genders wearing whatever they like, without fear of the party being shut down by the police. That I could hold hands with a lover or kiss in public and no one even noticed. That when one idiot with hate in their heart tries to be a problem, I know there are thousands of people willing to line up to defend me.
I’m also thankful for community. I’m thankful to be young enough to have lived in queer communities much of my adult life, whether they centred around bars or coffee shops or nightlife or community centres or activism (or, usually, all of the above). I’m thankful to have made so many wonderful, dear, friends from this community – brought together by little more than a shared otherness. And I’m thankful that, when our community has been threatened, we have worked together to fight back and win. I’m thankful to have been a part of demanding and achieving changes to marriage legislation, human rights codes, and more. I’m also so very, very, thankful for the privilege of attending pride events in 2019 and seeing large numbers of queer and trans youth marching proudly with strength and resilience – something my generation didn’t have when we were younger.
And while I’m thankful for all this privilege, I’m also mindful. I’m mindful that our trans siblings haven’t achieved all the successes that cisgendered queers have. I’m mindful that black, indigenous, and people of colour who are queer or trans don’t have the same level of privilege us white folk have. I’m mindful that all these things I’m thankful for are constantly under threat and/or are at risk of being lost. I’m mindful that even for cisgendered white queers, where you live can have a big impact on whether your experience reflects mine.
But this mindfulness does not change the fact that today I am thankful for all the work that has been done by those who came before me (and those who are still here). Stonewall was a moment – it wasn’t the first moment of our movement, though it was an important one – and we have had so many moments since. We must not stop having these moments – these battles, these wins, these life-changing instances. We must thank our predecessors, but never forget that we must keep fighting. Fifty years from now, I want someone to be thankful to our generation for the work that we did on their behalf.
After I wrote this email to the Vancity board on Thursday, we endured two more days of a system outage. As a brief summary of what ensued:
Late in the afternoon on Friday (40 or so hours after the outage started), the CEO released a hastily-recorded video repeating the talking points that the social media team had been using, and still refusing to give any further information on what was going on. That video has since been deleted from their YouTube account.
Friday evening I got the following email in response to my earlier email, addressed to me from a staff member – still no word from the board itself at this point. Note the word “inconvenience,” which will continue to be used throughout this process. This appears to be the beginning of management and the board gaslighting us into believing that this is a mere triviality, rather than a failure of the entire banking system at our credit union.
Dear Neal,
On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you for taking the time to write. We understand your frustration and apologize for the inconvenience and stress that our online banking system outage and its impacts are causing you. Please know that we are doing our utmost to resolve what has been a difficult few days for all Vancity members and employees.
Your points are well taken. As an organization, we want nothing more than to explain what has caused the technical problems we have experienced these past few days, to resolve those problems, and to communicate to our members precisely what steps we are taking to address their concerns.
Unfortunately, we just aren’t there yet.
You can be assured that all of us–everyone across the organization–are working on a solution. Our first priority is to have the system returned to its proper functioning capacity. As we do that, we are also working closely with our members to make sure their needs are being met.
Part of the effort means standing up and taking accountability. Our president and CEO, Tamara Vrooman, and the rest of our senior executive team have this top of mind. They have been working with our technical team and partners in an effort to repair the system and return it to its normal operating condition.
Tamara has also been responding to media inquiries, getting important messages and updates to the membership and the public at large. She wants everyone to know that we have ruled out a privacy or security breach and that we understand what this outage means for our members. She has also participated in a video message, which you can find here: https://www.vancity.com/AboutVancity/ServiceDisruption/
All of our branches will be open each day this weekend, including Thanksgiving Monday, from 9:30AM to 3:00PM. Our Member Services Centre will be open to serve you from 8:00AM to 8:00PM each day.
Again, we thank you for your letter, and we hope that we can continue this dialogue, and to serve you in the manner you deserve.
Regards,
Lara
Lara Hamburg
Board Liaison
Office of the CEO
183 Terminal Ave
Vancouver, BC V6A 4G2
I responded with the following:
Lara, and Board, with a copy now to the Financial Institutions Commission,
This communication (this email and the video from the CEO) all came too late – and is thoroughly incomplete. “We don’t know what’s going on” 40 hours into an outage is not a good enough answer. And suggesting that the fact that the CEO has been talking to media is evidence of proper communication ignores the fact that members trying to get information – from our website, from our social media platforms, and so on – have been told less than the media has. The public relations campaign thrown together in a rush this afternoon is not a substitute for effective communication with members.
I sincerely hope that, as the board liaison, you are not filtering messages to the board. Board members need to know that Vancity members are not happy with them or the management they are supervising, and they need to hear our specific concerns. The technical outage has so far been an unmitigated disaster, but the response from the board (which is nonexistent – I do not consider a form email from staff to be even close to a communication from the board) and from management is nothing less than offensive. I sincerely hope that there are severe repercussions for the staff and board members responsible for this fiasco.
I, personally, have gone from “I am upset at the outage and lack of communication” to “I have lost all trust in this institution and fear for whether I will ever be able to access my money again.” The fact that almost two full days later we have not been provided with even an estimate of when we will be able to access our funds again is shocking, and if we ever do get access again, I will be very quickly moving most of my own funds to a safer financial institution. I look forward to the next AGM where we can vote to replace the board of directors, too.
Members deserve better than this.
Sincerely,
Neal
I have yet to hear back on this email specifically.
Saturday morning I got frustrated and posed the following question to Vancity on the poorly-managed Facebook thread they had created:
The fact that they could not answer yes was, to say the least, terrifying. I posed a similar question on Twitter and was met with silence (though they did reply to other tweets). The eventual response (that’s cut off in the screen cap below) was notifying me that the system had been restored and came much later that day.
They also responded to this thread with more vague platitudes.
Around this time, I also followed up on my email back to Lara, but this time I copied the board chair directly – her email address is publicly listed on her website.
This follow-up is to the board, and the board only. We are now in day three, and staff are still not only unable to answer the question of when the system will be online, but they won’t even answer the question of IF the system will ever be back online (despite my repeated requests). This outage, and the uncertainty around it, puts our entire credit union at risk, and indeed the economy of our entire province if Vancity’s billions of dollars of assets have indeed vanished.
The board has remained completely silent on this matter for the last three days. It took until late yesterday for the CEO to say anything, and even then she said nothing of substance – this morning, it was more vague platitudes and we still do not know even what has gone wrong, let alone what is being done to fix it or whether it can be fixed at all. As a member, my only recourse is through the board, and I personally hold the board responsible. If the board is unwilling to at least communicate with members, let alone act, each member of the board should rethink their commitment to this credit union.
If there is not a satisfactory action from the board today, I will personally be petitioning my fellow members for a special general meeting to bring forward a motion to remove the board of directors and replace it with one that is actually willing to participate in the governance of this credit union. This goes well beyond the inconvenience of online banking – trust in the very foundation of our credit union has been eroded, and trust is the only thing that financial institutions truly deal in.
Sincerely,
Neal Jennings
So, long story short, we all spent three days wondering not just when, but if, we would ever be able to access our funds again, or whether this was simply the end of our credit union.
The CEO posted another message on Saturday which looked slightly more polished and was slightly more apologetic, but still provided absolutely no information about what was going on. By Saturday morning, the story was all over every single news outlet, which certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in me in the future of the credit union.
Around 4pm Saturday afternoon, the system was restored. With no warning, no “hey we found the problem and it’ll be back shortly,” just a new message:
This was soon followed by another video from the CEO, which is still available on Vancity’s channel:
Note the continuation of the “inconvenience” language.
Later that evening I got this bit of copypasta from the board chair:
The thing I found most remarkable about this email, besides the fact that it was clearly and poorly forwarded, was that there was neither an apology nor any acknowledgement of the complete failure of communications. Indeed, she commended the communications in this email, along with the CEO addressing media, which I find shocking. I have no disagreement that staff did an amazing job with the very few resources they were provided with – they did, and I’m certain that all the front-line staff have done heroic work to hold things together as much as possible despite complete lack of any support from management or the board.
I responded with an admittedly too off-the-cuff response:
I’m sorry, but apparently we experienced very different communications. In particular, your copypasta says: “In those updates, Tamara was candid, sharing what she and her team knew as the situation was unfolding.” That is not the case. The updates, which came at least a day too late, contained little of substance. Communications staff (who I do not blame for this problem) were unable to tell us what was wrong or even whether the system could ever be restored – I asked this question point blank several times and was met with meaningless jargon and/or silence. The statements from the CEO (who must share at least some of the blame for this problem) said little other than “we know this sucks but we don’t know what’s wrong and we’re working on it, don’t worry your information hasn’t been compromised.” These communications were insufficient at the very least.
The fact that you seem to think the communications were a-okay deeply offends me as a member. The fact that we still have not even been given a hint of why the system was offline for three days (even though you must know if you were able to fix it) is even more offensive. The board must be held responsible for this, and defending the actions of management and of the board rather than issuing a sincere apology says to me that you are not yet willing to accept responsibility. Let me be perfectly clear, this is not about the outage – this is about the lack of trust I and many other members now have that Vancity will be able to protect our money and make it available to us. The board has let us down.
Sunday mostly consisted of things settling down, and the poor social media team following up on every single comment and tweet to tell everyone that everything is working again and don’t worry our money is safe, and so on. I also got a call from my branch manager, who said “I was told you wanted to speak to a manager; I assume this is about the outage we’ve had”. I never made such a request, so I’m not sure who sent her to me or why, specifically. We had a good conversation, where I reiterated that this is not her fault and there’s nothing she can do about this, and where I once again made my points about this being a governance crisis and corporate head office problem, not a customer-service one. She repeated the same talking points I’ve seen in all the other communications, and asked if I incurred any specific costs (I hadn’t, thankfully, other than a few days of lost interest on deposits I couldn’t make, but I’m not petty enough to pursue that). I notified her that I’m still considering my options – I was, and still am, torn between trying to save Vancity by pushing for a complete replacement of the board (this can be done in accordance with provincial credit union laws) and simply leaving Vancity altogether.
And then, today, this:
The post is accompanied by a scripted YouTube video from the board chair:
My response was as follows (I reply-alled to my earlier off-the-cuff response from Saturday), and sums up my position at this stage:
Anita,
I want to follow up to this message. I received a phone call from my branch manager yesterday – I’m not sure if it was at your direction or someone else’s, but whoever sent her my way seems to have the misguided impression that this is a problem that can be handled through talking points and branch staff. I lay absolutely none of the blame at the hands of the staff or the branch managers – this problem goes all the way to the top. Forcing them to deal with the problem created by the corporate office is unfair to the staff that have already put in countless hours of overtime to clean up management’s mess.
I have read and watched the update you posted on our website tonight, and I think you’re failing to understand the seriousness of this problem. You, and all staff who are communicating with the public, continually refer to this outage as an “inconvenience.” This was not simply an inconvenience. There were three major things that happened here that completely undermine the trust I and many others have in the ability of Vancity to protect our assets:
The system went down in the first place, as has happened many times over the last several years. This is an indication to me of major flaws in our IT systems development and planning, and I have yet to hear a clearly articulated plan from the board for how we plan to address this, despite the fact that it has been ongoing for years. This makes me believe that we are relying on a faulty system that may never work properly.
There was no Plan B. Or, if there was a Plan B, it involved taking the entire system offline for three days with no warning. This is again a failure in planning at the corporate and board level – any organisation, but especially a financial institution, needs a disaster recovery plan to address problems like this. Failing to have one, again, makes me believe we are incapable of managing such a large amount of member money.
Communications to members were of limited use. We were given vague platitudes for three days, and no one could tell us anything other than that there was no breach of data and that staff were working on fixing the problem, with no clear deadline for success. I asked on both Twitter and Facebook, point blank, whether we even knew for sure that the system would ever be back – that is, if it would be back, not when it would be back – and no one would give me an answer that wasn’t a repetition of the standard talking points. What this tells me, as a member, is that no one actually knew. I never want to be in a position where we simply don’t know whether or not our financial records and financial assets will ever be accessible again. Whether this was a failure in communications – you seem to think communications were fine – or such a significant failure in the system that truly no one knew whether or not the system would ever be revived, this completely undermines any trust I had in the organisation.
The entire banking system, and indeed the economy, relies on trust. Money is only good when we can trust that it has value. If it can be erased in the blink of an eye – as appears to have been the case this week – it is worthless. The fact that I, and many other members, cannot trust Vancity to protect our funds and make them accessible undermines the entire institution.
Finally, while I absolutely agree that members who were hit with any financial penalties as a result of this failure should be compensated, the use of the term “we” to mean the institution that is Vancity and the use of the term “you” to mean members (“we will make it right for you”) implies an us-and-them relationship, which is not how credit unions work. It’s not like all these costs will come out of the profits and dividends of third-party shareholders – we, the members of the credit union, will pay for these costs. They’ll be distributed in a fair an even way to ensure that those most negatively affected will be reimbursed and those who were not will share only our proportionate share of the costs, but ultimately it is the members who will pay for these things. The way the board and management are treating members as customers first and members second says a lot to me about the culture of this credit union.
I had initially resolved to petition to have the board removed, and replaced with one willing to accept the severity of the problem and take action to fix it, but frankly I don’t know if I have the energy for this. I may, ultimately, decide to withdraw as a member of Vancity altogether. Let me be very clear that this isn’t about incurring a late-payment penalty or not being able to bank at midnight on Friday. It’s about the fact that I cannot trust that this credit union is capable of maintaining basic financial services.
I just wrote this to the board of the Vancity Credit Union and realised it might be appropriate to share. We deserve better from our credit union than the problems we’ve dealt with today.
Hello,
I’m writing to the board because I’m extremely concerned that the board and management have not, on behalf of the members, empowered staff to engage in appropriate communications when there are problems.
As I’m sure you are all aware, the online banking system went down sometime this morning and has still not returned to service. All day, the social media staff have been diligently updating members, but they have not been provided with any information whatsoever on a) what the problem is or b) an expected return to service time. In fact, they were forced to post half-hourly updates saying that they didn’t know when it would be back and would update us again half an hour later. I had the following exchange with them, myself:
There are many similar comments within the Facebook thread on this topic, all of which make it clear to me that the social media team is doing their best, but that they are not being provided with the necessary information and tools required to communicate effectively to us, the members, about a very severe and sudden system outage.
This is completely unacceptable. I don’t know enough about the internal structures of the Vancity organisation, but whether this is an IT team refusing to communicate with the external comms team, or a management decision that members should be left in the dark (and treated like airline passengers on a flight that will probably eventually be cancelled but where the airline doesn’t want to have to reticket them), this is not the Vancity I’ve come to know and love, nor is it in the spirit of transparency and customer service I’ve come to expect from Vancity and from the credit union movement in general.
System outages happen, I think we all get that. Though they seem to happen all too often with Vancity, most of us are willing to accept them if we have some sense as to what happened, how it’s being fixed, and most importantly when it will be fixed. Being unable to complete necessary online banking is anxiety-inducing enough as is, but having an intense amount of uncertainty (at this stage, for all anyone knows we may never see online banking again) can causes serious distress among members, especially members who are low-income or whose work schedules do not allow them to visit branches.
I’m fortunate enough that the only impact to me is a couple days (I hope no more) of lost interest on a large e-transfer deposit that I’ve been unable to make. There are, however, numerous stories on Vancity’s social media right now about people who are going to miss bill payments and who are unable to make electronic deposits in order to make necessary purchases. We’re supposed to be doing good with our credit union, not destroying people’s lives. If our staff were empowered to communicate appropriately (and if we had the proper IT systems in the first place), we would at least be able to ease a small portion of the concerns caused by this outage.
I’m calling on you, the board of directors, to thoroughly investigate not only the problem that caused the outage, but also the internal channels of communication that are actively preventing members from having access to critical information about our credit union. I sincerely hope that this system outage is solved by the morning, and that a well-crafted apology that thoroughly explains all of the communication problems and how they will be solved will be quickly forthcoming.
With today’s news that Greyhound is basically pulling out of BC, I was inspired to write to the Minister of Transportation urging her to turn this into an opportunity for better public transportation. The following is the email I sent, and I hope that others will encourage her to make such a plan happen.
Minister Trevena,
With today’s news about Greyhound’s withdrawal from British Columbia, and with the past failure of other privatised systems like BC Rail, I believe it is now long past time for British Columbia to develop a strategy for a transportation network that is truly public, fully integrated, and locally-, regionally-, and provincially-focussed.
The loss of coach bus service amongst the communities in our province will have serious impacts to those who reside in these communities as well as to those who live in larger urban centres and spend time in communities currently served by Greyhound. This will mean that people will be forced to choose amongst driving or flying (incurring a larger impact on the environment), hitchhiking (dangerous, at best), and not travelling at all. This province should not have to function in this manner.
I see this failure of the private sector as an opportunity for the public sector to serve residents of and visitors to British Columbia in a much better way. Besides the fact that until now medium- and long-distance travellers have had to rely on unpredictable, poorly operated, and overpriced Greyhound services, regional transit in the Lower Mainland is virtually non-existent outside of the very-limited-service West Coast Express. The Fraser Valley, in particular, is very poorly served overall, and access to Vancouver is almost necessarily by private motor vehicle. It’s time for us to do better.
As a former resident of Ontario, I look to the model of GO Transit for a regional transit system that, for the most part, serves residents quite well. Here in BC, we already have an intraprovincial bus system in BC Bus North.
As a first step, I would like to see the province step in and acquire the equipment, and hire the staff, to operate the existing Greyhound coach routes within BC (along with the previous connections to Calgary, Edmonton, and Whitehorse) when Greyhound withdraws later this year.
But I believe this should merely be step one. Here in the Lower Mainland, I would like to see this service work with Via Rail to expand the facilities at Pacific Central station to become a hub for true regional transit, along with opening up this facility to the public (it is currently guarded for passengers only). This service would provide regular express coach service along the Squamish/Whistler/Pemberton, Surrey/Langley/Abbotsford/Chilliwack/Hope, and Coquitlam/Maple Ridge/Mission corridors, for starters, though express service from Vancouver to suburbs currently served by slower TransLink services (Delta and White Rock, for example) could also be included. Similar expansions could be done in other growing regions (for example, along the Vernon/Kelowna/Penticton corridor, or the Victoria/Duncan/Nanaimo corridor), and additional service should be provided to smaller communities throughout the province in order to improve mobility with the minimum of environmental impact.
In the longer run, more popular coach routes could be replaced by suburban, regional, and long-distance (high speed) train service. This service could also investigate a second Vancouver terminus at an expanded Waterfront station, making use of existing rail lines and/or a bus terminus built on a deck over those rails.
I believe that mass transportation is something that can only be accomplished well by the public sector, and the failure of the private sector in serving this role provides proof that we should move forward as a province to provide this service. It is also only under a public sector mandate that we can achieve the efficiencies required to make the service truly integrated and useful for the public. For example, planning could be integrated to ensure the regional and intraprovincial bus and train services connect properly with existing transportation services provided by TransLink, BC Transit, and BC Ferries. Fares could be integrated, too, on a province-wide version of a Compass card (or some similar equivalent) that could work for foot passengers on all of these services, as well as on bike shares and other local transit connections like the False Creek Ferries.
I sincerely hope these ideas are given serious consideration, and in any case I hope that the government finds a public solution to address the void in transportation services that will soon affect most of this province.
As someone who grew up in a Jewish household, and who now identifies as atheist and supports secularism, I find it shocking and offensive that somehow the principal at this school considers Christmas to be “cultural” while Hanukkah is “religious.” It takes an immense amount of cultural privilege to claim that one’s cultural celebrations that are deeply rooted in religion are somehow completely devoid of religion.
While I support the notion of secularism in our schools, I also support multiculturalism and respect for diversity. I agree with the students in this article – “I have nothing against Christmas. I just think they should add more Hanukkah and other religions.” There is clearly a demand for the addition of other cultural objects, and to deny students their culture (whether it be founded in religion or not) is to deny them their identity. I shudder to think how this principal would react to similar requests from First Nations students.
While I understand the school board’s desire to allow autonomy to schools, the VSB does have the power to implement board-wide policies. While it may be too late to do something in time for this holiday season, I press upon you, and your colleagues at the school board, to develop a policy that allows for the inclusion of our city’s diverse cultures while maintaining secularist perspectives in the curriculum and programs of our schools.
This started as a Facebook post and it got really lengthy… I posted it anyway, but realised it would probably be more appropriate as a blog entry. Since it’s all about getting back to a happy place from the past, I figure maybe this is a good excuse to get back into writing here again. I’ve been promising myself I would do so for ages and still haven’t, so maybe this will be the only post I put up this year, or maybe it will create a whole new series. Regardless, here it is, in its entirety:
Sometimes, when it comes to music, one finds oneself in just the right place at just the right time.
I had that experience through the early 2000s. I was living in Southern Ontario, with slightly more time on my hands than I do these days and a seemingly-endless supply of student loans. I had my ears and eyes and heart open, and found no shortage of talent everywhere I listened. In those years I found Sarah Slean and Damhnait Doyle (and her Shaye bandmates Kim Stockwood and Tara MacLean) and Jeremy Fisher and Ember Swift and Danny Michel and Serena Ryder, and through these artists so many others who played in their bands or who toured with them or played at the same festivals.
Because all this amazing talent lived within a 100km radius of me, it meant I got to see them all perform regularly – at music festivals, street festivals, local tours, national tours, random one-off fundraisers, annual shows, in-residences, and workshops. I went on little road trips, big road trips, and took the occasional middle-distance flight, and music was a great excuse to go visit a new place I had never been before. I made friends with other fans, including a number of you who are still on my friends list here. We worked out ride-sharing, we swapped notes on what stores had the latest albums (or the coveted misprints) in stock, we helped each other steal setlists after shows, we kept each other informed when tours were happening, we swapped notes on who would be the next good artist to listen to, we even pooled our resources and formed our own street teams and websites.
I had no idea at the time how privileged I was to have the opportunity to experience so much great music (both live and recorded) in such a short span of time and within such short physical distances. A lot of this faded away somewhere around 10 years ago for me… I stayed in touch with a lot of the fans, of course, but these artists stopped touring as much, broke up with their bands, took (much-deserved) time for themselves and their families, focused on other projects, moved away, or a combination of these. I moved away myself in 2010.
Somehow, I never quite found that groove again – finding local music in Sydney took me awhile, and then I moved to Vancouver where a local band often has to leave town to make it big, since a “local” tour here involves driving for days across the province and not just a two-hour trip down the 401. Music has stayed a big part of my life, but I never found it in me to prioritise it and to go see live shows as much as I used to. I’ve continued to buy music, too, but often just single tracks instead of albums (thanks iTunes), and often just from the artists I’ve known for years who naturally have released less frequently. My radio listening transitioned from CHUM FM and Mix 99.9 to triple j to CBC Radio One. I would occasionally hear something new that I loved and buy it, but then whoever it was would never come to Vancouver, or my work schedule would somehow conflict and I’d miss their show and then lose touch. Artists’ email lists became used infrequently or poorly, in the age of facebook.
But something’s different now. 2017 has been a year of a number of great new releases by a number of artists I love both new and old. I haven’t added them up, but I’m sure I’ve seen more live concerts so far this year than I did in all of 2015 and 2016 combined. Music is back in my life. It’s still not exactly the same – the old days of following artists around Southern Ontario and Western New York may never return – but I’m pretty happy with this change. I only hope this trend continues.
Maybe one day Vancouver will become my new right place at the right time.
[With copies to Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould and MP for Vancouver East Jenny Kwan]
Prime Minister Trudeau,
It’s unusual that I would have reason to contact you more than once in a month, yet here I find myself once again disappointed by your inaction on a fundamental element of your platform.
I want to say unequivocally that while I absolutely do not support Kellie Leitch, or fringe parties generally, I still believe that fringe parties should be able to have seats in the house if they represent a significant enough portion of Canadians. When your argument against electoral reform is “I don’t want THOSE people in the house,” you’re fundamentally misunderstanding the very nature of democracy. You are also forgetting that our existing system led to Kellie Leitch being in parliament, so the status quo hardly seems to be solving this problem you’ve imagined. Government represents the people – all the people – government should not be formally established only to be comprised of people you like. I’m upset that you would abuse the power you were given (by, I might remind you, a minority of Canadians) to further entrench our unfair electoral system.
I also want to dispel the myth that fringe parties will get to hold the balance of power (and, by implication, get to dictate government business). You know who else holds the balance of power in a minority government with a fringe party with a few seats? Literally every other party in the house. That’s how our parliamentary system works. If the governing party is willing to form a coalition with a fringe party rather than co-operate with the opposition, that reflects on the government, not on the electoral system. You yourself talked about the need for ‘big’ parties and for the need for parties to co-operate with one another – it’s disappointing that you expect Canadians to believe you when you say directly contradictory things in the same sentence.
Finally, you stated “the fact that the NDP was absolutely locked into proportional representation, no matter what, at any cost, meant there was no give and take possible on that,” – this could easily be restated as “the fact that the prime minister was absolutely locked into instant-runoff, no matter what, at any cost, meant there was no give and take possible on that.”
I want to make it clear that I support an Australian-style instant-runoff system, just like you do. Of course, I would like this to come along with an elected Senate like Australia has, but acknowledge that has less popular support. Regardless, I would rather accept MMP or another form of proportional representation than continue under the antiquated, unfair, and barely representative form of democracy we currently employ. I’m disappointed that you would allow your desire to hold on to power to prevent these very necessary improvements to our democracy.
stay true to your nomad skies 