Last week, Mayor Kennedy Stewart called a special city council meeting regarding a motion he was introducing to address Vancouver’s homelessness crisis, especially the 300 or so unsheltered people now living in Strathcona Park. I’m pleased to see that at this Monday’s council meeting, councillors directed staff to look into and report back on the…
Category: NDP
Is the NPA on life-support?
When the provincial NDP were elected in 2017, one of their first orders of business was a very positive change to campaign financing at the municipal level. Within months, they passed legislation prohibiting donations to municipal political parties from corporations and unions, and banning individual donations over $1,200. Vancouver’s two developer-friendly municipal parties — Vision…
Svend Robinson’s SFU appointment is a breath of fresh air
On Tuesday, I learned that my hero, Svend Robinson, has been appointed as the new J. S. Woodsworth Resident Scholar for the 2020–21 academic year at Simon Fraser University. It’s such a fitting appointment: James S. Woodsworth was a pioneer of Canada’s progressive social movement. A Member of Parliament and a founder of the social-democratic…
COVID-19: All hands on deck get us in the right direction
So much has happened in the week since I blogged about the novel coronavirus. While there’s been so much breaking news none of us can keep up, I want to give credit where credit is due regarding the leadership we’ve seen. Provincially, I have to say how impressed I’ve been by our provincial health officer,…
Cleaning up campaign donations
Those of you familiar with my blog will recall how pleased I was when the provincial government introduced regulations governing the funding of municipal election campaigns in 2018. These new restrictions prohibited donations from unions and corporations — including developers. They also limited donations from individuals to a maximum of $1,200. However, even during the 2018…
A little bit sad, but quite a bit glad
The federal election results are in, and they make me both glad and sad. To start, I sure am glad that the Liberals did not get a majority — although a Conservative majority would have been even worse. As those of you who are regular readers of my blog know, I was hoping all along…
A dream come true: A Liberal minority with Green and NDP support
With election day (Monday, October 21) around the corner, it’s looking more and more likely that we will end up with a minority government. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I’m a big fan of CBC’s Poll Tracker. With the election so close, I’m now in the…