It’s Vancouver’s oldest and some would call it the city’s most venerable political party, since it has dominated our local political scene for decades. The Non-Partisan Association, or NPA, was founded in 1936 to claim the centre-right when Vancouver’s business class was petrified of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation or CCF — a socialist democratic party…
Category: NPA
$30 million for housing is welcome. But how far will it go?
Recently, Mayor Kennedy Stewart proposed that the city spend $30 million addressing the homelessness emergency crisis arising from the pandemic. The funds are for buying or leasing hotels, apartment buildings and single-room occupancy hotels to provide housing for those on the streets or squeezed out of shelters with COVID-19 distancing requirements. I’m so pleased to…
The NPA’s Christopher Wilson should be run out of town for his hate speech
Even in a democratic society, there are limits to freedom of speech. We have laws that prohibit libel and slander for good reason. Libel is when you write an untruth — something demonstrably false — about someone else. If you say Danni is dishonest, when they’re not, that’s libellous. Slander is the same thing, but…
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…
Speak out against Councillor Kirby-Yung’s motion restricting freedom of speech
South of the border, any time high profile politicians such as Bernie Saunders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even gently criticize Israel for breaking international law, they are labelled by President Trump and others as antisemitic. Over the last number of years, the pro-Israel lobby has been very successful at getting governments, both in the US and…
Lots of problems with Rental 100, not city councillors!
Carlito Pablo, who has been doing a great job covering Vancouver’s Rental 100 program and its shortfalls for a while, recently reported in the Georgia Straight that city manager Sadhu Johnstone is concerned that Vancouver city councillors are “causing a lot of problems” by pushing for more affordability in the program. But the problems are…
Imagining a different Vancouver with Kennedy Stewart
I was reading Mike Howell’s interview with Mayor Kennedy Stewart in the January 7 Courier, and I was struck by the extent to which our new mayor appears to be genuinely interested in collaboration with all members of Vancouver city council, no matter what their party is. The interview got me thinking about how differently…