As the countdown continues with the transfer of power from President Trump to President-elect Joe Biden, the world is on edge. Rumours continue to circulate that President Trump will launch an attack on Iran during the dying days of his presidency. Even worse is the unthinkable but very real risk he will push the nuclear…
Category: Vancouver
The NPA is as good as dead
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…
Help stop The Ice Pick for good. It insults us all!
The Toronto-based developers like to describe it in terms of origami for its so-called “folded planes”. But just about everybody I know calls it The Ice Pick for its cold indifference to its surroundings, and how it stabs at the heart of our city’s most iconic district. We all thought the dreaded Ice Pick project…
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…
Turning over a beautiful new leaf with homelessness
I read in the news recently of a very exciting study called the New Leaf Project that was done by Foundations for Social Change, a Vancouver-based charitable organization, and UBC. Starting in 2018, a number of homeless individuals were each given $7500. Their spending was then tracked over a year and compared to a control…
$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…
“Pinnacle” landmark to a failed political party isn’t what Vancouver needs
City council will decide Wednesday Sept. 30, whether or not to approve Pinnacle International’s rezoning application for a proposed 55-storey luxury high-rise at the north end of Granville Bridge. (Over the years, the project has crept up from 52 to 54 and, now, 55 storeys.) By the time you read this blog, city council may…