Van Gogh at the Ivanhoe

A friend took this photo today of a painting of the Ivanhoe Hotel that hangs in the Ivanhoe Hotel. The artist's name was too smudged to read. The style reminds me of Van Gogh.

When I left the Ivanhoe Hotel about 5 p.m. today with my friend and walked up Main St., an unmarked car with a red light on top stopped at the intersection at Main & Terminal. There were four stiff looking men in dark suits with gold badges, two in the front seat, two in the back. I couldn't stop staring at them, trying to figure out what kind of police they were. My friend said they looked "lifeless". Then my friend said, "Oh, it's Harper!" Stephen Harper's bus was following them, his blue bus with "Harper for Canada" written on the side.

If Harper had stopped at the Macdonald's at that intersection, he could have mingled with our burgeoning population of masked women. They remind me of bank robbers. There is a cluster of these masked people that go to that Macdonalds now, where Downtown Eastsiders regularly have coffee. I never saw any until this year. They may have gotten into social housing in the area since they turn up there semi-regularly on weekends with their kids. They even eat under their masks. I was looking at one a few weeks ago and her husband made a point of glaring at me; I thought he was going to punch me.

I would have liked Harper to stop and answer a question: Exactly how do people wearing masks pass our points system for immigration? We don't allow Klu Klux Klan followers under hooded masks into Canada because we know they hate Blacks. So why do we allow people into the country who hate women to the point where they believe they should be hidden under hooded masks.

Harper did tweak immigration policy to tie it more to the needs of Canada's labour force. South Vancouver MP, Ujal Dosanjh, said on CBC this week that if the Liberals are elected, they will reverse Harper's changes. More masks in Macdonalds.

Another thing: it seems to me that it's more often men than women who are taking stand against these masks. Like Lowell Green who wrote the book, "May Day, May Day."

Carnegie "Kangaroo" Election

Most Carnegie members didn't know their was an election last evening. And that was no accident.

The notice on the bulletin board was small enough that members could be counted on to miss it. "I had to take off my glasses and put my face right up to it to read it", said one member. He said the notice announced, "CCA AGM", letters that wouldn't catch the attention of most members. The election wasn't mentioned until the end of the notice, in fine print. I recall seeing this small notice myself but it was so small, I didn't stop to read it.

They should have announced the election in large print, said one member. "They hang banners over the steps out front all the time" when they want the poor to turn out for their povertarian projects and marches, but when there is an election, they produce only a teeny weeny poster.

Members of the Carnegie establishment such as paid anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson have worked to disenfranchise the poor ever since the poor's choice of Board members -- William Simpson, Rachel Davis -- didn't match their own. They stack elections with their friends and political allies. One member described last evening's election and the prior well-attended nomination meeting this way. "A bunch of strangers showed up, and they voted in their yes-people." He said the result is that longtime members who use Carnegie on an almost daily basis are finding decisions made by people they barely recognize, and at times don't recognize.

Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty, the City's representative at the meeting, left early, saying she was "busy". Very little Whitty says is believed by members, many of whom are aware of her well-documented record of lying. "Maybe she didn't want to be put on the spot and have to answer any questions," said one man. A woman said she saw Whitty leaving the building after the meeting in the theater had ended, supporting skeptics' view that she hadn't or shouldn't have been too busy to sit through the Carnegie AGM.

One member later sitting at a patio table at Waves coffee shop in the warm evening breeze, summed up the Carnegie election this way. "They pulled a fast one on us again".

NPA Promises "Mobile Foot Washing" on Vancouver Streets

Photo: All Candidates Meeting at Carnegie Centre on Monday (left to right) Raj Hundal, Vision Parks Board candidate; Andrea Reimer, Vision Council candidate; Michael Geller, NPA Council candidate; Leanore Copeland, NPA Council candidate

Leanore Copeland, NPA candidate for Vancouver City Council, reminded the audience at an All Candidates meeting in the Carnegie Center theater on Monday that she is a "human being and a citizen". And she recognizes that people need "clean feet, clean socks, and clean shoes".

She has been working with unions and other organizations, she said, to bring "mobile foot washing" to the streets of Vancouver. People would be given "clean socks and clean shoes twice a year".

I don't know about you, but I want New Balance. I saw an article on the front page of the National Post about a prisoner doing life in Canada for triple murder and he got New Balance runners. He claimed he had injured himself when deprived of New Balance and the soft landing they provide.

NPA. A soft landing.

Hard to Get to Know Jenn McGinn

Above photo from Jenn McGinn's campaign website

Although "Get to Know Jenn McGinn" is the headline on the website of the NDP candidate in the current by-election in Vancouver-Fairview, it is not so easy to get to know her. McGinn ignored a written request by CUPEwatch to state her position on alleged abuse and illegal conduct by her campaign funders, CUPE, BC Federation of Labour and their respective leaders Barry O'Neill and Jim Sinclair, in what has become known as the “secretary scandal”. The alleged illegal activity was reportedly intended to silence secretaries about unfair labour practices inside CUPE.

The secretary scandal involves documented evidence that CUPE, with the cooperation of BC Fed President Jim Sinclair, allegedly employed intimidation tactics in an attempt to muzzle a secretary from CUPE Local 116 after she blew the whistle about unfair labour practices. The secretary had complained to Sinclair and O'Neill about the fact that CUPE was staffing the Local 116 office exclusively with non-union secretaries and then firing them when they complained about triple workloads. The whistle blowing secretary was highly credible as she was the only woman NOT fired from Local 116; she had earlier resigned her secretarial position and received a glowing letter of reference.

There is evidence to support allegations that CUPE, the BC Federation of Labour, and lawyer Ian Aikenhead (a former NDP President) arranged for the Vancouver Police to “harass” the whistle blowing secretary at her home. (The Vancouver Police do not have jurisdiction at Local 116 which is on the UBC Endowment Lands.) The secretary was shocked to discover that a polite, professional, letter she had sent to Sinclair about working conditions at Local 116 was filed in the Police Property office. A similar letter she had sent to O'Neill was filed there too.

There are also allegations of “evidence tampering” in this case. The secretary learned from the police report that a woman pursuing the issue of unfair labour practices with CUPE or the BC Fed is considered to be engaging in “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT”. The secretary then told Sinclair that she intended to ensure that this labelling stuck to his reputation. Later, she discovered that the label on the “CLOSED” police report had been retroactively – and illegally – altered to drop the word “WORKPLACE” and substitute “HARASSMENT/OBSCENCE COMMUNICATION”.

Although McGinn won’t state her position on the secretary abuse issue, the whistleblowing secretary has always been clear about her own position: If CUPE and the BC Fed think it is obscene or harassing for a woman to bring abuse of non-union secretaries inside CUPE to their attention, Jenn McGinn should not have been taking money from them. “She should have told them to stuff it”.

Ken Gets Cancer

Vancouver School Board trustee Ken Denike, who has been accused of being complacent about the VSB's alleged practice of Soviet-style political psychiatry, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Denike says the cancer was caught early and he will start radiation and chemotherapy this week. He still intends to run for School Board in the November election.

Denike has been a trustee as an international boycott of Vancouver School Board Diplomas organized by Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry has gained ground. The boycott was organized as an "absolute last resort" by COPP when Denike and fellow trustees allegedly showed no interest in curbing the well-documented use of Soviet-style political psychiatry by VSB staff to deter complaints. Denike in fact was on School Board -- he has served two terms -- when an alleged cover-up of a political psychiatry case was orchestrated.

A victim of VSB political psychiatry and related fraud, says she has seen no sign whatsoever of concern on Denike's part about such illegal practices by VSB staff. Denike never once spoke to her about her experience. Although she had been in touch with the VSB previously about her case, she specifically wrote to Denike in his role as Chair of the VSB in 2007," she says. When asked if she had received a response, she shook her head and said, "I'm still waiting."

When I asked, this alleged victim of VSB political psychiatry about his cancer, she responded, "I wish him a full recovery". But she added that she hopes he comes out of it with more sensitivity to people whose wellbeing has been jeopardized by the political psychiatry openly practiced by the Vancouver School Board.

Special Meeting Tonight Over Demand for Recount of Election Results at Carnegie

There will be a Special Meeting at 5:30 p.m. today in the Theatre of the Carnegie Center. Members will vote on whether to have a recount of the June 2008 election results. Members have been demanding a recount.

Board President Mathhew Mathhew has announced that at least 30 Carnegie members have to show up to make the election valid. But Carnegie member, B.B., alleges that number is "arbitrary". Sort of like the arbitrary 150 signatures, Mathhew said members had to get on a petition before the Board would consider a recount.

Even if a recount is granted, it is unlikely that the results will be trusted by members. The election was just too sloppy. One member has pointed out that the ballots are photocopied and that anybody could photocopy a few more, add some Xs, and substitute these ballots for others. This could have been done over the two months that have passed.

Some members such as B.B. say that the request for an election recount is actually pre-mature, that members should first demand that the Board release the results of June's election. To date, Carnegie Board of Directors and Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty (who is given an automatic seat at the Board) have avoided releasing the Teller's Report from the June election that would reveal how many votes each candidiate got. Members have been waiting for two months for this report. The Board is required by Roberts Rules, which was adopted by the Board, to make the Teller's Report public. But fair elections have never been a strong point of the Carnegie Board or Whitty; they after all colluded with the locking of an elected Board member out of the building for a year, denying him access to Board meetings.

Carnegie member, Jim A., who is usually not politically active, is one of several members asking about the Tellers Report. He asked Whitty why the Tellers Report was being concealed from voters. She responded that it was tradition not to release it.

Board President Mathhew Mathhew has told a different story than Whitty. According to B.B., Mathhew said the Teller's Report would be printed in the Carnegie Newsletter. Three Carnegie Newsletters have been published since that promise was allegedly made. No Teller's Report.

A primary reason behind the demand for a recount and for copies of the Teller's
Report is that Rachel Davis, a popular candidate amongst members who frequent Carnegie on a day to day basis, didn't get elected. Davis was the only incumbent who had spoken up -- and continued to speak up -- about the fact that homeless man, William Simpson, was banned from the building two weeks after Carnegie members elected him to the Board last year. Whitty told him he would not even be allowed into the building for Board meetings.

Paul Taylor, Editor of the Carnegie Newsletter who was forced to retract libelous commentary about the homeless Board member, and Jean Swanson, a paid organizer with the Carnegie Center Action Project on homelessness, stacked the election with pals who were instructed to vote for a slate which didn't include Davis. Low income Carnegie members who had not planned to run, report that they were instructed by Taylor or Swanson to show up at the election as they were going to be nominated. Taylor and Swanson were manipulating the poor.

Swanson's stacking, though, also involved bringing unfamiliar faces to the Carnegie election and getting some of them elected to the Board. These virtual strangers will now be making decisions affecting the lives of regular users of Carnegie. So much effort expended by homeless advocate Swanson so that incumbent Rachel Davis, who was speaking up about the banning of an elected homeless man and the banning of other members without just cause, would not get re-elected. Here is one of the few election results clearly revealed: Jean Swanson is not an anti-poverty activist, she is an anti-democracy activist.

Did Criminal Allegations Contribute to United Way's $3 Million Campaign Shortfall?

At breakfast Thursday, United Way of the Lower Mainland President, Michael McKnight, did not utter a word about criminal allegations swirling around United Way. He was speaking to over 1,000 people on at the United Way breakfast awards ceremony at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. The early morning breakfast was to recognize the 5,000 volunteers, 56,000 donors, and 1,100 workplaces involved in last fall’s United Way fundraising campaign.

Truth is though, United Way fell almost $3 million dollars short of this year’s $34 million goal. They raised $31.2 million.

McKnight may not be solely to blame for the shortfall though. For one thing, he inherited baggage from former United Way CEO, Ron Dumouchelle. Dumouchelle left United Way shortly after a woman surfaced documented evidence of persistent fraud in a police report written when Dumouchelle lodged a complaint against her with the Vancouver Police. Dumouchelle lodged the complaint in an apparent attempt to stop her from making a Report on United Way available to donors. Dumouchelle stated in an internal document that if donors got even “a whiff” of scandal, it could reduce donations.

On the first page of the police report, major United Way donors were named as witnesses in the case: Canada Safeway, Revenue Canada, Canadian Red Cross, Canada Post, Westminster Savings, even the President of the Toronto Dominion Bank. But woman calls this an exercise in “public mischief”, claiming that there was never any evidence of criminal conduct on her part. Indeed Constable St. Amant wrote in his report that he and Dumouchelle agreed that this was “not a criminal matter.”

When having the woman treated like a criminal failed and she invoked her right to remain silent, a new tactic was employed against the woman. She was targeted for a VPD “Car 87” psychiatric visit under what she alleges – and the paper trail lends support to her allegations — were fraudulent pretenses. This tactic led to accusations of “political psychiatry” by Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry. Although Dumouchelle left United Way — no reason given publicly — these allegations didn’t leave with him.

This case of alleged fraudulent evidence and political psychiatry dates back to Dec. 2002 — but what a difference five years makes. Now that anybody can publish on internet news sites, this story finally caught up with United Way during their fall 2007 fund raising campaign.

Another political psychiatry case exposed during this campaign causedembarrassment for United Way. It was a political psychiatry case that Chris Kelly, the United Way Board member who made the speech kicking off the fund raising Campaign, has been sitting on for years in his role as Superintendent of the Vancouver School Board. The School Board had allegedly used political psychiatry to counter criticism of their handling of bullying complaints, and Kelly, upon taking the job as Superintendent, appears to have done diddley squat to resolve one particularly scandalous case. Also Kelly has apparently done nothing to ensure that the evidence of fraud against School Board employees in this political psychiatry case is investigated; he has allowed all staff involved to remain unscathed.

But it gets worse: Kelly has knowingly concealed from parents the fact that the VSB’s failure to take responsibility for it’s employment of political psychiatry has resulted in a global boycott of Vancouver School Board high school diplomas. A victim of VSB political psychiatry caught up with Kelly during the campaign and requested his resignation as a United Way Board member. Not the best guy for United Way to be promoting as a “visionary” on their website.

And then there was the embarrassing interview given to the Vancouver Sun during the United Way Campaign by an earnest middle class man and his equally earnest wife. The man said he used to be a loyal supporter of United Way -- until his mother left United Way some money in her will. When an issue regarding the will came up, he was hurt by how quickly United Way sicced their lawyers on him. He's finished giving to United Way, he said. He and his wife now give only to charities with no paid staff. This is the sort of "whiff" that United Way can't afford to have donors get in the middle of a fund raising Campaign.

The woman who alleges she became the victim of fraud during efforts to stop the dissemination of a Report on United Way, believes $31.2 million is a large enough wad for United Way to take away from their recent Campaign. “They should be able to get by on that", In fact, she believes that setting unrealistically high campaign goals is what got United Way into trouble in her case. In an internal document dated the week police were on her, Dumouchelle revealed that he was under pressure as United Way was $600,000 short of that year’s campaign goal.

McKnight faced an almost $3 million shortfall. Imagine the pressure he felt.

Candidates Endorsed by Author of "Poor Bashing" Win Seats on Carnegie Center Board of Directors

The Left got organized to get trusted comrades elected to two vacant positions on the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Center this evening. That’s the same Board that homeless Bill Simpson was elected to in June 2007, only to be banished two weeks later to the sidewalk by the City of Vancouver, denied access to Board meetings as punishment for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Jean Swanson, author of "Poor-Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion" and an organizer with the Carnegie Center Action Project [CCAP] to end homelessness, sent an email about the election to volunteers on the CCAP mailing list. Swanson, an American ex-pat who spoke to a UN representative about the issue of homelessness in Vancouver but apparently found no time to speak up about the "exclusion" of homeless Bill Simpson from the Center from which she organizes, gave recipients of her email not so subtle hints about who to vote for:

”Hey CCAP folks. A Carnegie board election is coming up, for 2 people, and our very own CCAPer, Rolf Auer, the famous letter to the editor and article writer, is running.”

Rolf Auer wrote in "The Long Haul", the now defunct newspaper published by End Legislated Poverty, a Vancouver organization Swanson helped found, and he knows her well. He continues to write letters to the editor of the Carnegie Newsletter, cookie-cutter left-wing letters. It’s doubtful that Auer can be counted on to protect the right of Bill Simpson and other Carnegie members to freedom of expression. Last summer, the Carnegie Newsletter published a letter of support Auer had written for Paul Taylor after a campaign was launched by Carnegie members to curb Taylor's power as editor of the Newsletter when he admitted libeling Bill Simpson. Taylor had written a column claiming that Simpson had written blog material that was “sadistic” and had relied on fraud to get elected to the Board -- the libel was written after Simpson supporters began agitating about his barring from Carnegie for freedom of expression.

Swanson continued in her e-mail:

“Sandra Pronteau is also running. She is active in Raise the Rates and is going to be part of the Poverty Olympics on Feb. 3.”

Pronteau is part of the group of activists Swanson is involved with, activists who have been publicly agitating for higher welfare rates.

At tonight's meeting, Pronteau, an aboriginal woman with long dark hair, in her thirties, with four children, said she wanted to see the "ongoing trafficking" of drugs outside the building addressed. She closed by saying, "Poverty is another issue that I totally support, and homelessness."

Auer, a tall, bald, middle aged caucasion, was nominated by Paul Taylor. In his brief election speech, Auer said he had been an "anti-poverty activist" for over 10 years. He expressed concern about gentrification on the Downtown Eastside: "I want to see the neighborhood saved and do everything in my power to see that that happens."

Neither Auer or Pronteau mentioned the elephant on the table: the barring of duly elected Board member Bill Simpson from the Carnegie building for daring to operate a website which "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which has criticized Carnegie.

Both Auer and Pronteau were elected to the Board.


See related article, "CBC Interviews Bill Simpson", at:
http://downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com/2008/01/cbc-radio-interviews-bill-simpson.html

Vancouver Teachers Demand Recycling in Schools

It was a back flip worthy of the Olympics.

Yesterday, Vancouver School Board Chair Ken Denike said no to teachers insisting that a standard recycling program be set up in all schools. It would be too expensive, he told CBC news on Tuesday, Sept. 25. He said recycling in schools was a volunteer effort, although he admitted that it at times deserved a failing grade. "We have attempted in a number of schools to put in a recycling program," Denike said. "But unless you have a diligent teacher there, or someone really pushing it, it doesn't continue."

But here’s what Denike told the CBC the next day: "It's time to do it." On Wednesday, Sept. 26, he said, "I think it's important to do it fairly soon while we've got motivation and interest in schools. Students have also been pushing for the change.” Denike promised a review by the School Board of the possibility of a district-wide recycling program.


One teacher who put pressure on the School Board to organize a standard blue box program is Michelle Tayler (photo above), a Grade 4 and 5 teacher at Queen Mary Elementary. Tayler told the CBC on Tuesday that while the curriculum emphasizes environmental education, the School Board sets a poor example by discouraging students from actually practicing what they've learned. "Just after lunch you'll see a lot of juice boxes — they're thrown into the garbage cans", Tayler said. "I would have thought by now something would be in place."

Last spring, students from Lord Tennyson Elementary and Lord Byng Secondary made a presentation to Vancouver School Board committees on the topic of recycling and overall sustainability in schools.

Sharon Gregson, the trustee who oversees Lord Byng Secondary School and who last year appeared in the National Firearms Association Journal sporting a gun on the front cover and a tattoo on an inside page, told the CBC that she is keen on recycling. [In fact, after she recycled her husband, Ian Gregson, he accused her in The Tyee news in April 2005 of taking off on vacation to the Dominican Republic with her new boyfriend and saddling him with their joint-custody kids, sabotaging his ability to campaign as a Green Party candidate.]

Gregson told the CBC that it will take time for a standard recycling program to be voted on by the School Board. First funding will have to be found and then the issue will have to be discussed at appropriate committees.

Gregson says the issue of recycling got backgrounded as trustees have been focused on other issues lately, such as “a lack of adequate funding from Victoria, the problem of last year’s lower than expected enrollment, the problem of facilities that need to be seismically upgraded.” She avoided any mention of the international boycott of Grade 12 diplomas that the VSB was accused in the media last week of concealing from parents. The boycott has some parents looking to next year's election, when even a new recycling program may not be enough to save this School Board from ending up in electoral landfill.