This Friday, October 22 at 7pm, my partner Penny and I are hosting a virtual screening of The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical, a documentary film about my hero and mentor, Harry Rankin. You can register to join us and see this wonderful film here, which will be followed by a political panel and…
Category: poverty
Why the Canada Disability Benefit should be a priority for everyone this election
The time is now for a Canada Disability Benefit. My good friend Al Etmanski has been hard at work for many years to reduce/eliminate the poverty experienced by 1.4 million disabled Canadians. We should never count our chickens before they hatch, but victory may be just around the corner. Most parties in the current federal…
The real reason Cubans are taking to the streets
For the seventh day in a row, thousands of Cubans have taken to their streets to demonstrate. The Western media was very quick to frame their actions as demonstrations against socialism. These media portrayals could not be further from the truth. For example, on July 14 the New York Times published an opinion piece by…
David Eby: A big heart and no fear when it comes to housing
In the past, I’ve been very critical of the provincial NDP with regard to housing, with one notable exception — NDP Premier Dave Barrett’s 1972-75 administration. I still remember the day, while on a high school field trip to Victoria, I had the good fortune of running into Premier Barrett outside the legislature. In a…
Make a commitment to change!
Here we are in the holiday season with its many celebrations and events coming up. This has been a challenging year. But we’ll all do our best to follow Dr. Bonnie Henry’s sensible advice and keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. So I’d like to remind us all about a few action items. Close…
Hats off to council — for getting behind $1 billion for housing!
Last week, I tipped my hat to Mayor Stewart Kennedy for his $30-million proposal to address homelessness. This initiative was a welcome and significant step forward in addressing our current emergency homelessness crisis due to COVID-19. It was also a major first — never before has a Vancouver mayor proposed spending such an amount of…
Are we moving closer to a universal basic income?
UPDATE: please sign these petitions to make UBI a reality! Petition your MP Petition to the House of Commons For decades, many in the poverty-reduction movement have advocated for a universal basic income, or UBI (some also call it a guaranteed annual income), to be set up at the federal level. A UBI would mean…