Last week, a large memorial was installed near the entrance to Stanley Park in Vancouver. The flags planted in a large grassy area are a visual representation of the number of lives lost due to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, and a reminder of Canada’s role in funding the slaughter. This Vancouver installation follows a number of displays across …

If a recent commercial is to be believed, then FortisBC is in the business of selling outdoor gear. Nothing in the 30-second ad of a parent and child walking through a forest suggests that connecting your home to gas could lead to catastrophic global warming. Two concerned B.C. residents and the organization Stand.Earth are taking FortisBC to court…

Next week, Vancouver City Council considers tenant protection for residents of single room occupancy hotels, a 30 kph speed limit on all Vancouver streets, e bikes and scooters on the seawall and lots more. Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.By Redeye Collective

On March 6, Green Party MLA Adam Olsen retabled a bear den protection bill in the BC legislature for the third time. Olsen has been pushing for legal changes since October 2022 but has yet to have his private members bill heard. For decades, environmentalists and First Nations have been advocating for an amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act to …

Drug activist Dana Larsen appealed the loss of the business licence for his Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary in Vancouver. In response, Green Party city councillors Adrienne Carr and Pete Fry voted to re-issue the licence. Now they are going a step further by introducing a motion to create a regulatory framework for psilocybin and other psychoactive m…

NDP MP Charlie Angus has introduced a private member’s bill calling for a ban on what his party calls 'misleading, deceptive' fossil fuel ads. The NDP says the bill would take the same approach Ottawa took to tobacco ads in 1990s. While there is predictable opposition to the bill from the oil and gas industry, others see the bill as a very modest s…

Drug companies often give payments to doctors and other health-care workers for consulting fees, speaking at events or funding research, as well as meals and travel expenses. But, in Canada, it’s difficult to know how much was paid to whom. Our guest, Dr. Joel Lexchin, says this information needs to be readily available to Canadians.…

A report released last month by the BC Fed and CCPA-BC says British Columbia’s local transit systems could be united into a province-wide public transit network within a decade, offering safe and affordable service throughout the province. We talk with Sussanne Skidmore, president of the BC Federation of Labour, about their vision.…

Unless governments act to build and save housing that low income people can afford, the number of houseless people in Vancouver is on track to increase by 50% by 2030. This is the stark prediction in the Carnegie Housing Project’s 2024 report, released last month. We speak with Devin O’Leary, one of the co-authors of the report.…

A ground-breaking new book examines and exposes the use of defamation law to silence victims of sexual violence. Author Mandi Gray draws on media reports, courtroom observations, and interviews with silence breakers, activists, and lawyers from across Canada to examine the impact of so-called liar lawsuits on those who report or are thinking of rep…

Next week, Vancouver City Council is going to consider a massive social housing development in East Vancouver. Also, on the agenda, expanding free public Wi-Fi in the Downtown Eastside and an update on City plans to dissolve the Park Board. Redeye collective member Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.…

Legislation brought in last year will require the government to examine the links between racialization, socio-economic status and environmental risk. That link is very clear in communities like the Aamjiwnaang First Nation just outside of Sarnia, Ontario, in an area known as Chemical Valley. Last year, the Ontario government released the findings …

This week Pharmacare legislation was introduced on Parliament Hill. The historic program was announced after months of negotiations with the NDP, who pressed the government to launch Pharmacare as a condition of their supply-and-confidence agreement. On Wednesday, Lorraine Chisholm spoke with Nikolas Barry Shaw, a key campaigner on this issue, in a…

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Canada introduced a program to allow Ukrainians to temporarily come to Canada. Two years later, the government has introduced a new temporary residency program for people in Gaza. However, Palestinians in Canada are discovering there are major barriers to getting their family members out of the war zone. W…

If you live in Metro Vancouver, and get around on transit, you know that the bus network has been seeing unprecedented levels of overcrowding. Even though buses move the majority of riders, there’s no committed funding to expand the system. Dennis Agar thinks that needs to change and he has plenty of ideas about how to do that. Agar is the executiv…

On Feb 22, the BC government brought in their 2024 budget, the last one before the October provincial election. While Kevin Falcon characterized the projected deficit as “reckless” and John Rustad says it was set to “bankrupt the people of the future”, Alex Hemingway says this budget rightfully prioritizes public investment over austerity, but it c…

We speak with Marusya Bociurkiw, director and writer behind a new documentary tracing the explosion of grassroots feminist media projects from Halifax to Vancouver. She explores how women took up cutting-edge media technology to document everything from violence towards women to how to insert a diaphragm. Analogue Revolution kicks of the GEM festiv…

Next week, Vancouver City Council will debate paying a certified living wage to everyone who works for the City, both staff and employees of a contracted service. Redeye collective member Ian Mass also discusses the city’s climate emergency action plan and a revitalized vision for West End services in his regular City Beat report.…

This month, the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge by Quebec to the Canadian government’s Indigenous child welfare law, reversing a Quebec Court of Appeal decision to declare the 2019 federal law partly unconstitutional. The decision was widely celebrated by First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders. Yet, according to lawyer Bruce McIvor, the decisio…

Since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began, nearly 400 schools have been damaged or destroyed. Last month, Israel destroyed Gaza’s last standing university. According to Chandni Desai, Israel has a long record of targeted attacks on Palestinian academics and institutions that produce knowledge and culture. Chandni Desai is Assistant Professor in t…

A new report measures how much a family needed to earn to afford the necessities of life in Metro Vancouver in 2023. It found that the gap between the minimum wage and a living wage continues to widen, as housing and food costs spiral upwards. We speak with senior economist Iglika Ivanova, one of the co-authors of the Working for a Living Wage repo…

On February 1, Premier Danielle Smith announced that she plans to implement a slate of policies that target transgender and gender-diverse children and youth in Alberta. The proposed measures go far beyond what has already been brought in in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. We speak with Corinne Mason, professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Pro…

It seems that the more that comes out about the effects of social media on children and youth, the more concerned we should be. Now a law firm that represents victims of social media has filed cases against platforms including Meta, Snap, TikTok, and Discord, on the basis that they are harmful by design. Lorraine Chisholm speaks with Matthew Bergma…

In January, the Federal Court agreed with Wilderness Committee and others that the federal government had failed in its duty to protect bird habitat under the Species at Risk Act. The court said Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault needs to reconsider protection measures under the legislation. We speak with Charlotte Dawe of Wilderness Committee.…

Vancouver City Council meets next week to talk about those 100 mental health nurses promised in the last election campaign. It’s also going to look at a people-focused Gastown and revisit the living wage debate. Ian Mass joins us with these stories and more in his regular City Beat report.By Redeye Collective

In the early 2010s, the Harper government’s muzzling of scientists was an issue of urgent concern. Researchers at Dalhousie University have surveyed the current situation and found that, despite some improvement, environmental scientists are still reporting significant interference in their work. We speak with researchers Manjulika Robertson and Sa…

A couple of weeks ago, the federal government announced a new cap on the numbers of international students coming to Canada. They’re aiming for a 35% reduction over last year. The government and current media coverage of the cap appears to blame international students for Canada’s housing and health care woes. We speak with Leah Hamilton of Mount R…

On Friday, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel has to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide. In response, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly only noted that the ICJ “ delivered its response” and didn’t express support for the ruling or calling on Israel to comply with its legally binding provisions to pr…

The 2022 Vancouver municipal election brought in new mayor Ken Sim and a majority of ABC councillors to push through Sim’s significant list of campaign promises. OneCity councillor Christine Boyle joins us to talk about what to expect from the ABC council in 2024.By Redeye Collective

BC’s hospitality industry got over a billion dollars in government subsidies during the pandemic. At the same time, the mostly female and racialized workforce either lost their employment or had their hours cut. A new report says fallout from the pandemic is still impacting workers’ health and livelihoods. We speak with the report’s author, Alice M…

More and more Canadians are unable to access public primary healthcare, according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal at the beginning of December. In fact, about 20% of Canadians have no family doctor at all, and many more have irregular access to clinicians. The CMAJ study compares the Canadian primary care system wit…

Vancouver mayor Ken Sim’s specially appointed budget task force missed its deadline for the 2024 city budget but - better late than never - the report comes before council this coming week. The task force is calling for a radical rethink of what the city is prepared to fund as part of its core services. In City Beat, Ian Mass tells us all about the…

British Columbia is preparing a strategy to supply critical used in electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines. The Mining Association of BC is promoting the expansion of over a dozen mines to produce the minerals, and is pushing the province for regulatory and other changes to facilitate mine expansion. Nikki Skuce is co-chair of the BC Min…

In 2020, there were widespread calls to defund the police following the police murder of George Floyd. In Canada, a poll from that year found over 50% of Canadians wanted to see police budgets reduced. Despite this, no major Canadian city police department has had its funding reduced and in fact, budgets have gone up. We speak with Ted Rutland is a…

There are more than 40,000 ride-hail and food-delivery workers in BC. The province brought in new proposed labour standards in November but Véronique Sioufi says they don’t go far enough, leading to entrenched racism in the sector. Véronique Sioufi is the CCPA-BC’s researcher for racial and socio-economic equity.…

Municipalities and the labour movement are among those calling for British Columbia to include caste-based discrimination in its human rights legislation. Burnaby city councillor Sav Dhaliwal took up this challenge last year. He joins us to talk about caste system discrimination and what Burnaby has done about this issue.…

On December 29, the BC Supreme Court granted a temporary injunction to the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, putting BC’s Bill 34 on hold for 3 months. The Bill imposes sweeping restrictions on the province’s decriminalization pilot launched a year ago. We speak with Caitlin Shane of Pivot Legal, one of the lawyers representing the Harm Reduction …

On December 12, COP 28 closed with an agreement that the UN heralded as the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era. At the meeting in Dubai, world leaders agreed to quote “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. I spoke with Jens Wieting shortly after the climate conference wrapped to get his assessment of what this means for B…

In City Beat this week, Ian Mass tells us about the stunning move to abolish Vancouver’s Parks Board, Vancouver’s 2024 budget which includes a climate emergency budget for the first time, plans for new artist studios and much more.By Redeye Collective

Education and public schools are often a hot button issue. Parents, teachers and governments sometimes have criticisms about our schools. But most people agree that public education should be supported and preserved as an important part of a democratic society. BC's Institute for Public Education is asking British Columbians to share their hopes an…

It’s gotten a lot harder to find solid, progressive journalism in the face of social media bans on Canadian news. But there is some good news! A brand-new independent media platform launched last month. Unrigged.ca is a non-profit journalistic collaboration featuring 20 publishers of online articles and op-eds, print magazines, community newspapers…

The independent Canadian media outlet The Breach published a story last week about the suppression of critical coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. They report that CTV directed journalists not to use the word Palestine and has cultivated a ‘culture of fear’ at the network. We speak with Emma Paling, who investigated the story for the Breach.…

The National Farmers Union’s held their annual conference in Ottawa last month. The day before the conference began, NFU members gathered on Parliament Hill to demand a ban on investor ownership of farmland. To find out more, I speak with Rav Singh, youth advisor with the National Farmers Union – Ontario and Hannah Kaya, the NFU’s farm worker organ…

Recently, there has been a raft of affordable housing initiatives coming from all levels of government. Alex Hemingway is a senior economist from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives of BC. He joins me today to talk about how effective these policies are likely to be and what else needs to be done.…

More than 30 Palestinian trade unions have issued a united call to stop arming Israel. This call comes in light of Israel’s intensified assault on Palestinians over the past weeks, and particularly the unfolding genocide in Gaza. Activists in Canada have responded by blockading weapons facilities in Ontario and Quebec and informing Canadians about …

As the climate emergency deepens, we hear repeatedly that the solution involves sacrifice. Fossil fuels, travel, meat - all things we need to give up to preserve the planet for human habitation. However, trio of academics say that effective climate action requires us to stop viewing our efforts as a sacrifice. We speak with Daniel Steel, associate …

On City Beat with Ian Mass this week, a draft of Vancouver’s 2024 budget with a recommended property tax increase of 7.6%, a motion supporting the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, plans for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and more.By Redeye Collective

The Gaza Strip is now a graveyard for thousands of children. UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, says that more children have now been killed in Gaza than all other conflicts since 2019. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Gaza’s population are refugees, they are not included in the United Nations international refugee protection reg…

Temporary Modular Housing currently provides over 750 units of shelter-rate housing across Vancouver. OneCity councillor Christine Boyle brought forward a motion in July to renew or extend the leases for all these sites. Mayor Sim and his ABC party majority unanimously voted against that motion - and the dismantling or demolition of these units is …

This week, the BC Health Coalition is in Vancouver talking about the urgent need for reform and innovation in public health care. Meanwhile the Canadian Medical Association is sponsoring a cross-country conversation about the role of private – read for-profit – health care. We talk with Dr. Saad Ahmed of Canadian Doctors for Medicare about the trut…