Vancouver Police Ignore Assault on Christian at Christmas

Matthew Lee, and a group of Christians paid $75 for a permit to preach at Cambie & Hastings in downtown Vancouver at Christmas time.  A passerby who disapproved of their preaching shoved Mathew down onto the sidewalk, knocking out two of his front teeth.

Matthew and the witnesses had a detailed description of the suspect for the Vancouver Police, including the fact that he was dressed in black and wearing a band across his forehead that read, "Resistance".  But police seemed indifferent.  They didn't take a report.  They simply told Matthew to, "stay out of the vicinity."  Matthew actually lives in the vicinity, in a bachelor suite in the old Woodwards building.

Matthew is a mix of Asian and native, and he said the man who assaulted him was native.

Neither myself or other bloggers know Matthew well, but he's been around for years and has never come across as aggressive.  He also works for the BC Lions, looking after their uniforms.

Stephen Harper has set up an office to deal with religious persecution around the world, a move that is largely believed to be a response to recent attacks on Christians.

It's time Chief Chu sent an officer over to the Woodwards building to assure Matthew that this assault will be investigated.

Rainbow at Main & Terminal

On Tuesday evening I was walking by the Ivanhoe Hotel and it was raining and the sun was shining.  I thought, "There's gonna be a rainbow."  By the time I got to Main & Terminal, there it was.

Mayor Robertson Accused of Pay Off to Police Chief Jim Chu who was Supposed to be Criminally Investigating him

This is something you might expect in the Chicago political establishment. Mayor Gregor Robertson is accused of giving a payoff to Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, while Chu was continuing to evade a request for a criminal investigation into evidence of criminal activity on the part of Robertson. At the very least, Robertson 'rewarded' Chu with a five year contract extension worth over one and a half million dollars for a job well done during the period in which he was stalling on investigating Robertson.

In May 2010 a request was made to VPD Chief Chu to arrange for an external police force to investigate evidence that Robertson, City manager Penny Ballem, and two security guards at Carnegie Centre were involved in the manufacture of a fraudulent security report and a pre-meditated plan to bar a Carnegie member under fraudulent pretenses, a barring which involved assault and extensive public humiliation. One of the guards involved, who the victim had never seen before but who had clearly been incited to target her, implicated Robertson and Ballem in comments he made at the time.

For some time, evidence has been reported on this blog of efforts by City staff to "bar" people from Carnegie who have complained of abuse, particularly those who have made their experiences public by talking to bloggers. We have reported that these barrings often involve public humiliation as well. When we reported this targeting of individuals who take their stories to the media, we could not have anticipated that evidence would eventually surface that Vision Vancouver has a "media hit list" along with a plan to ridicule people creating negative impressions of Vision in the media. Former 24 Hours columnist Alex Tsakumis broke the story. Mike Magee in the Mayor's office has denied the existence of any such hit list.

Despite the request being made in May that Chu arrange for an external police force to investigate Robertson -- Chu can't investigate because of conflict of interest due to Robertson's role as Chair of the Police Board -- Ballem, and two Carnegie security guards, the investigation has not yet been carried out. There is no doubt that Robertson knew that the investigation had been requested. Immediately after the request was made in May, Robertson reportedly held a secret meeting at Carnegie with witnesses and offenders. He interfered in a pending police investigation into himself.

By September, Chief Chu was continuing to stall in arranging for an investigation into his boss, Robertson. It was in the midst of this stalling that Robertson gave Chu a five year extension to his contract, at over $300,000. Now, seven months later, the case against Robertson and Ballem has still not been investigated. Are you surprised?

It is easy for Chu to treat Downtown Eastside women as though violence against them doesn't matter, because he knows they can't afford lawyers. Now a lawyer has offered to meet pro bono with the victim in this case to discuss how to proceed. He will review the evidence in the case, including a photo of the bruise the victim received. But that won't occur until the beginning of July when the lawyer returns to Vancouver from China.

Watching Chief Chu "on the take", benefiting from monetary and other rewards from a man into whom he is supposed to be arranging a criminal investigation, has led to distrust on the part of the victim. Even if Chief Chu was to suddenly meet his professional obligation to arrange for the investigation, she will be having no further contact with the VPD about this case without a lawyer present. Since not much happens over the summer, estimates are that there will be no progress on this case until September or October. A press conference will be held by the lawyer to update the public when a decision is made about how to proceed. (No further information will be released until that time.)

This case highlights the hypocrisy of Robertson and Chu on the issue of violence against Downtown Eastside women. Chu held a public meeting earlier this year at Carnegie to talk -- in front of media cameras of course -- about how committed he is to ensuring that violence against Downtown Eastside women is seriously investigated. To get into that meeting in the Carnegie theater, Chu had to walk by security guards at Carnegie that he was supposed to be investigating.

Chu would no doubt say he didn't take a pay off from Robertson, that he was due for a contract extension. But Robertson had an obligation to at least recuse himself from the decision. And Chu should have at least asked him to. An extension requires a performance review. How did Robertson manage to conclude that the Chief is doing a fine job when he knows the Chief is sitting on evidence of criminal activity against him.

Also at fault here are Police Board members. Why did Glenn Wong tell the media that he agreed with Robertson and other Police Board members that Chu was doing a fine job and deserved an extension of his contract. Did it ever occur to Wong, who told the media that Chu often calls him at home to talk, to ask Chu to avoid taking any form of reward from a government official he was supposed to be investigating. If Wong claims he didn't know about the investigation requested into Robertson, then he didn't do due diligence before approving Chu's contract extension, as the requested criminal investigation was a matter of public record.

Allan Garr, a columnist with the Courier newspaper, said in a column earlier this year that the Vancouver Police Board tends not to provide effective oversight of Chief Chu and his officers. Garr said the Police Board are more "lapdogs" than watchdogs.

Entire TD Bank Window Lies on Sidewalk

Look at the amount of glass on the sidewalk. On Sunday, May 23 at 12:30 a.m., a couple of Vancouver Police officers were standing outside the TD bank on Main St. at Pender, and more officers were walking around inside, surveying the damage.

Thanks to Terry for sending us the photo.

The real story here is that the two officers didn't interfere with the photographer. Under Chief Jim Chu, the VPD have regularly harassed and too often phyically assaulted photographers. A woman using her cell phone to photograph police taking a man down outside the No. 5 Orange earlier this year is suing the City of Vancouver, alleging that Vancouver Police officers tackled her and broke her nose.

Marilyn WhiskeyJack's Son Recalls the Day he Learned his Mother had been Murdered

Marilyn WhiskeyJack was murdered at Main Rooms in the Downtown Eastside in Sept. 2007. Her son Jerry WhiskeyJack sent the following message to us recalling the day he learned of his mother's death and his hope that justice will be done.


Dear Judge,

It has been a very hard couple years. Our family is trying to deal with this tragedy. I remember when the phone call came in, it felt like a movie. I was in my room watching tv. when the phone rang, I knew something was wrong, the whole house was silent, You could hear a pin drop, My grandmother let out a scream, that gave me goosebumps, my throat swelled up as I ran upstairs. She fell into the couch, clutching the phone. I picked it up to hear and officer telling me that " my mother had passed away". Marilyn Whiskeyjack was a mother of 5 children. I as the oldest had to tell all my siblings, that our mother had been taken away from us. We never lived with her, cause of her addiction, but we all had close contact with her. At our awake, in native tradition, we sit with the body for three days before. Remembering her. The looks on all my brothers and sisters faces, was excruciating. We baried her, in the cemetary. I still remember when I shovelled dirt onto her coffin, I felt empty. This tragedy has been very painful on our whole family. Marilyn was not a rich person. She was not even an important person in most peoples eyes. But she was very Important to us. I never want anyone to feel the way our family feels. We lost someone, that had alot of years ahead of her. She didn't die, from a freak accident, she was taken away from us by someones hands. Someone that didnt know that she had children. Today, Marilyn would of been a grandmother of two babys. One was born two weeks ago, the other was born a month ago. I leave it in your hands, I know that you will find it in you to come out with the right decision. Our family doesn't want this to happen to another family.

Thank you,
Jerry WhiskeyJack (son)

UBC Learning Exchange Cleans Up

Photo: George, who the Learning Exchange forces to stand outside on the sidewalk.

Computer aid or Molly maid?

Have you ever read one of the media interviews granted by UBC Learning Exchange Director Margo Fryer, assuring funders and taxpayers that the Exchange is helping Downtown Eatsiders. In a Globe & Mail interview, Fryer said she learned so much from "troubled" people and that there is really little difference between the homeless and the rest of us, other than a bed. Well, there is only one troubled person who goes to the Learning Exchange and that is homeless George Cartier with his shopping cart. They make him stand out front on the sidewalk. Priceless.

But other Downtown Eastsiders are spending more time out front on the sidewalk too. They have been locked out every Monday since March 8th, under the pretense that Co-ordinator Dionne Pilan had to write two grant applications. Those grant apps are taking a looooooong time.

But after Pilan spends a day without Downtown Eastsiders, it must be tempting to take another. She put a poster on the door, "Closed Tues. April 20 for Spring Cleaning". That meant staff were getting essentially a four day weekend, time when they didn't have to work with the clientele they are funded to work with.

When Pilan and Fryer decided to lock Downtown Eastsiders out last Tuesday, they didn't choose just any Tuesday. They chose the busiest day of the month, the Tuesday before welfare cheque Wednesday, when it is common for people to be broke and eager to occupy themselves working on computers. The Learning Exchange opened again on Welfare Wednesday, the slowest day of the month, the day when most people have shopping to get done and errands to run.

UBC has 17 staff persons working for the Learning Exchange, many of them fundraising. Because every day, the Learning Exchange is cleaning up.

Fire

In February, I was walking out of Nester's Market in the Woodwards building and saw a fire across the street. It was apparently a simulated fire in the Simon Fraser University art studio

New SFU studios will be opening in the Woodwards building.

Human Rights Trial Wrap-Up: When is a Comic Not a Comic?

Photo: Painting behind chair in which adjudicator Murray Geiger-Adams sat at BC Human Rights Tribunal while hearing lesbian's complaint against comic

When is a comic not a comic? When he takes insults about "dykes" and "c*nts" off stage, when he twice marches over to the table of two lesbians in the audience, when he later grabs the sunglasses off the head of one of the lesbians after insulting her at the bar, when he hollers at the lesbians outside as they leave the restaurant, prompting one of their heterosexual female companions to holler back, "Hate speech is not free speech." That was the position taken by Devyn Cousineau, lawyer for one of the lesbians, Lorna Pardy, at the BC Human Rights Tribunal during closing arguments on Friday, April 9th.

Comic Guy Earle says he was a comic that night at Zesty’s restaurant as he hurled insults – he admits to the insults and to grabbing and breaking the sunglasses — at the lesbians. Earle’s lawyer, James Millar, said during a media scrum after he walked out of the Tribunal on the first day, that Earle’s right to freedom of expression as a performer is protected under Canada’s Charter of Rights & Freedoms. Millar was clearly exasperated with the Tribunal: "They are saying essentially that artistic expression should follow the same rules as somebody slingin’ hamburgers at Mcdonalds or some other outfit. Or that the same rules that apply to waiters apply to artists in British Columbia."

Cousineau constantly attempted to demonstrate during closing arguments that Earle’s remarks to the lesbians were not artistic expression. "The attacks were not part of a comedy routine", she said, as she began outlining what she considered the "most salient parts of the facts" of the case.

The Facts as Argued by the Lawyer for Lesbian Lorna Pardy

Pardy and the women sitting with her at Zesty’s that night were, "singled out on the basis of their sex and sexual orientation" and subjected to a "brutal and hateful" attack by Guy Earle at Zesty’s restaurant on May 22, 2007.

Pardy had worked that night until 6:30 p.m. as a meteorological technician at the Vancouver airport and then joined her friends on the patio at Zesty’s restaurant on Commercial Dr. She had "no intention of seeing a comedy show."

The patio closed at 11 p.m. and the women were asked by a waitress to move inside the restaurant. When they got a table inside and were speaking to a waitress, Brandy. As the conversation went "back and forth", a second waitress joined in. There was testimony, Cousineau said, that the "women were laughing and talking."

Around this time, "Ms. Broomsgrove leaned over and kissed Ms. Pardy on the cheek."

"The reliable evidence is that the women were not ‘making out’ as some of the witnesses have suggested." Cousineau noted that "a third party" at the table, Carlin Sandor, testified that Pardy and Broomsgrove were not making out at her table, and that she would "feel quite uncomfortable with such behaviour." This evidence that Pardy and Broomsgrove were not making out is important as making out has been "pointed to by respondents as a justification" for Earle’s attack.

The kiss "appears to have drawn Mr. Earle’s attention to the women’s sexual orientation which then became the focus."

Earle then made a number of comments to the audience:

"Don’t mind the inconsiderate dyke table."

"Don’t you have a strap-on dildo that you can take your girl home and fuck her in the ass with tonight?"

"Are you on the rag? Is that why you’re such a fucking cunt?"

He continued to call the women "dykes" and "cunts" from the stage.

"No one was laughing", Cousineau said at this point. "The comedy act had stopped."

"You ruined it for everyone, you stupid dykes, you stupid c*nts." The audience was booing Mr. Earle. Ms. Pardy was booing. Nobody from Ms. Pardy’s table was shooting insults back.

"Earle heads off the stage", Cousineau says.

He heads towards Pardy’s table, with his "eyes locked on her". She felt "threatened" and "splashed" water on him as he approached.

"Why do you have to be such a f*cking c*nt?", he asked.

"She was afraid; she was smaller than him….Ms. Sandor also testified that she felt uncomfortable with Mr. Earle angrily marching toward her."

Some of the witnesses — Cousineau said she was anticipating what Earle would say here — testified that Mr. Earle wasn’t threatening. The "only person" who could say whether he was threatening, Cousineau argued, "is Pardy herself". "The other male comedians were not reliable sources as to the level of fear she was experiencing."

Mr. Earle got back on stage and again began insulting the women:

"Thanks for ruining the evening you f*cking dykes"…or "c*nts."

"You want to be a man; that’s why you’re such an @sshole."

"That table of b!tches threw water in my face."

Then to Broomsgrove, "You’re a fat and ugly dyke and no man will f*ck you."

Then he said to Pardy, "Stick a d*ck in her mouth."

Cousineau noted, "These were not part of a comedy routine and nobody testified that they were."

Earle didn’t end it there, but continued "calling them dykes and c*nts", Cousineau said.

"Ms. Pardy felt shocked and embarrassed….felt like she’d been assaulted."

"A few minutes later, again feeling threatened, she threw water at Mr. Earle, saying, ‘I told you not to come near our table.’"

"Her hands are sweating….She’s amazed no one in the restaurant would intervene."

Earle is "not on stage now."

Before Pardy, Broomsgrove, and Sandor left the restaurant, Pardy had to go to the washroom. "As she passed Mr. Earle, he called her a ‘f*cking dyke’"…. In the washroom, "She cried….She felt afraid at that point for her physical safety." When she left the washroom, "She walked past the bar", where Earle said, "You had to ruin the show, you f*cking dyke, you f*cking bitch’." …. "He broke her sunglasses….She couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears."

[…]

As the women left the restaurant, "Mr. Earle was still talking to them…..Ms. Sandor said to Mr. Earle, ‘Hate speech isn’t free speech’….Mr. Earle told Zoey Bloomsgrove to fuck off. He began to follow them up the street but it appeared his friends tried to calm him down, so he didn’t."

At the end of Cousineau’s outline of what she presented as the fact of that night, Cousineau moved into her legal arguments and reiterated her position that Earle was not acting as a comic whose right to freedom of expression was guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: "My understanding is Mr. Earle says he was a comedian and this type of expression is subject to an enhanced protection under the Charter….But we have no evidence to support the argument that all or any of the expression in this case was creative expression as part of his comedy routine." She went on to say that "the abuse in this case was physical as well as verbal" and therefore not deserving of a "separate status from other harassment cases that the Tribunal hears ….where a landlord harasses his tenant in the way that we’ve heard in this case."

Non-Lawyer Sam Ismail Responds for the Defense, Accusing Lesbian of being motivated by "hatred".

One of the criticisms of the Human Rights Tribunal is that it stacks the deck by funding a lawyer for the accuser but not for the accused. Salam Ismail, who along with Earle is accused of discrimination based on "sex and sexual orientation", despite the fact that all witnesses except Pardy corroborate his claim that he was not in the restaurant when the abuse occurred, is represented by his brother, Sam Ismail, a lay person. Salam sat calmly beside Sam as Sam made little attempt to conceal his outrage, responding with a shocked expression when Cousineau stated during closing arguments that $10,000 in damages would be an appropriate award for Pardy. Sam looked at Pardy at one point and accused her of being motivated by "some kind of hatred, to destroy somebody, him and his business." "This was a huge burden on Salam for years", he added.

Sam acknowledged that without a law degree, he was no match for Cousineau, saying, "We are here to find facts; it’s not about who is smarter or who can twist an interpretation of the law."

Sam Ismail asked for an extension for submitting his written arguments and was granted one by adjudicator Murray Geiger-Adams, who previously said he has plenty of experience dealing with defendents who appear at the Tribunal without lawyers.
Sam Ismail did make few comments in response to Cousineau’s oral arguments.

Sam Ismail objected to the characterization of Pardy as an assault victim when in fact she had thrown water at Earle on two occasions that evening prior to him grabbing her sunglasses. "You say she was assaulted and she was insulted as well," Sam said. "How can that claim really be put forward by a professional person, when he was assaulted?"

“I’m not looking to defend Mr. Earle; they were both wrong”, said Sam Ismail. He added that if Salam Ismail had been in the restaurant at the time, he probably would have kicked both of them out.

Sam Ismail, speaking in broken English, also objected to an emphasis during Cousineau’s closing statement on the fact that Salam Ismail failed to create consequences for Earle after the attack. As Sam put it, "Salam wouldn’t go after the one who assaulted [Earle]. I don’t think Salam was obliged to go after that."

Sam Ismail further took exception to Cousineau’s presentation of Earle as an employee of Zesty’s in his role as MC of the ‘open mic’ comedy show the night in May 2007 when he insulted the lesbians, a status that would make Zesty’s owner Salam Ismail liable for Earle’s behaviour. Referring to the fact that the comics were given a $50 beer tab for pitchers of beer in exchange for showing up, Sam Ismail argued in slightly broken English, "Then I guess all the other comedians were employees as well, because that pitchers of beer was distributed among them." He pointed out that Earle and the other comics could not be seen as employees as their relationship with Zesty’s was so casual that Salam could not rely on them to show up, "You don’t know who your employees are if you don’t know who’s coming, who’s going, who’s going to MC the show and who’s not." He added, "It makes it very difficult for a business man to run a business when there is not a clear definition of what an employee is." He pointed out that if a definition of employee had been provided in advance, we "would not have to be here". With that comment Sam Ismail was on the same page as a real lawyer in this case, James Millar who was representing Guy Earle.

Millar had earlier attempted to put a stop to this Tribunal by going to the BC Supreme Court. The Court had in turn asked the Tribunal not to proceed with the hearing before reconsidering a few legal questions, ‘Was Earle a service-provider at Zesty’s?’, and ‘Could the service-provision section of the Human Rights Code be used to circumvent the Charter of Rights & Freedoms which guaranteed the right to freedom of expression?’ The Tribunal ignored the Supreme Court and proceeded with the Tribunal, saying they would answer the questions after the hearing. That’s the reason Millar walked out and Earle stayed at home in Ontario. "I’ve practised for 30 years and never been in a situation quite like this," Millar told the Tribunal on that first day. "You can’t put these people through it for three years and not even make a decision concerning your own jurisdiction. … It’s an abuse of process." Millar has once again headed back to the Supreme Court, asking that they find the Tribunal in "contempt".

That was one c-word Cousineau avoided mentioning in her closing statement. But she stated that it "should be common ground that the Tribunal doesn’t have jurisdiction to consider the Charter." This Tribunal cannot do the analysis, she argued, as to whether Mr. Earle’s behaviour under Section 8 of the Human Rights Code is a reasonable limit on the Charter right to freedom of expression.

It simply cannot be the case that all a respondent has to do, she argued, "is raise the Charter and the Tribunal is instantly deprived of jurisdiction". Everyone has access to the Supreme Court, she added. "Mr. Earle could go to the Court and ask that Section 8 of the [Human Rights] Code be declared unconstitutional, but merely citing the Charter cannot in and of itself deprive the Tribunal of jurisdiction.""

If Ms. Pardy wins", Cousineau continued, "then that’s the point at which he would argue to the Court that Section 8 [of the Human Rights Code] is unconstitutional."MacLeans magazine had intended to make just that argument should they have lost when the BC Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing into their publishing of the article, "The Future Belongs to Islam" by Mark Steyn. Cousineau referred to that case in fact: "The Tribunal considered Charter jurisprudence which involved the Macleans article and in that case they did take into account Charter jurisprudence regarding free speech and allowed it to influence their analysis of this case." Steyn tells it more bluntly:

"Under BC’s shitty "human rights" code, Maclean’s and I were, as a point of law, guilty. So we dared them to convict. And, like all bullies when someone stands up to them, the gutless pussies wimped out. I understand Guy Earle doesn’t have as deep pockets, but he needs a support network that will make the political price too high for Commissar [Heather] MacNaughton."

The price would be too high, argued Cousineau, if Earle were allowed to walk away from Pardy’s complaint, as it would "empty the Code of it’s power".

Geiger-Adams asked Sam Ismail to consider when preparing his written arguments, "whether Mr. Earle, independent of Mr. Ismail and independent of Zesty’s, was providing a service to the public." Perhaps Geiger-Adams is trying to lower the price for Salam Ismail.

BC Housing Sues Downtown Eastside Residents Association

Photo: Libby Davies, Member of Parliament (Vancouver East) and DERA founder

Photo: Audrey Laferriere, ousted DERA Board member

DERA Board member Audrey Laferriere was the first person I heard whistleblowing about wrongdoing at the Downtown Eastside Residents Association. DERA responded to the whistleblowing by borrowing Carnegie Centre's recipe -- there is some overlap between political operators at Carnegie and DERA -- for handling a Board member who won't be a lap dog. They banished the unruly Board member from the Board.

Looks like Audrey gets the last laugh. I came across the following article in the Vancouver Sun today:

"THE COURTS: BC Housing Sues DERA; activist group falls on hard times"
by Doug Ward"

"....the provincial government is suing the advocacy group for mishandling public money meant to subsidize rents for low-income tenants in social housing.

A statement of claim filed Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court by BC Housing alleges that a housing society run by DERA improperly used rent subsidy money provided by Victoria to help pay for the group's administrative costs."

BC Housing also alleges that the DERA Housing Society used provincial housing money to help cover the rent of ineligible tenants, including directors of DERA and its housing society.'"

Looks like Jamie Lee Hamilton is also laughing last. If I remember correctly, she was the first person to expose DERA for allowing people with union wages to live in subsidized apartments in Solheim Place.

Jim Green, who once came close to becoming Vancouver's mayor, told the Sun that some of the people living in DERA social housing were members of the far left group, Anti-Poverty Committee. Green believes that becoming too tight with the Anti-Poverty Committee, some of whom became DERA staff, contributed to DERA's undoing.

There is no love lost between Green and DERA. Green worked for DERA over twenty years ago but left and started the Main & Hastings Society. DERA had accused Green of stealing money, but he was never charged.

Look who's laughing now.

BC Housing has accused DERA of misrepresenting the cost of administrative services for their social housing apartment buildings, and evading payment of $500,000 in property taxes and rents from the three buildings.

The Court is being asked to appoint a receiver to replace DERA as manager of three social housing apartment buildings owned by the government: Solheim Place on Union Street, Tellier Towers on East Hastings Street and Pendera Place on Pender St."

Maybe while cleaning up DERA's shit, the new management will be quicker to clean up piss in the elevator. A tenant at Solheim Place told me just a couple of weeks ago that the building was no longer being properly maintained by DERA. "Somebody pissed in the elevator and nobody cleaned it for a week." This tenant had a visitor who was upset by the stink and considered washing the elevator, but thought it would send the wrong message as that was a job a union person was supposed to be doing.

Green told the Sun that DERA had some "great victories" in the 1970's and 80's but that he couldn't think of anything they had done for 20 years.

I can.

I've known people who went to DERA for advocacy. Like the guy whose rooming house landlord in Strathcona let other tenants, many of whom were drug users, clean out his room. I talked to this guy at Blenz coffee shop on Granville -- he now lives in a hotel on Granville and sometimes eats his meals at Carnegie -- and he told me that DERA had helped him during a dispute with the landlord, Jack Lee. He and Lee had argued over bed bug spraying or some such thing and he left and returned a week later to get his belongings, only to discover that they had been stolen. His laptop and computer equipment -- all gone. Just a few books and things of little value had been packed in a box and left for him. A DERA advocate, Sobrina, took his case to binding arbitration and Lee was ordered to pay him $4,000, if I remember correctly. Sobrina didn't have a law degree or anything but she was a stellar advocate.

Member of Parliament for Vancouver East, Libby Davies, who helped found DERA along with her husband Bruce Erikson -- we're talkin' before her lesbian phase -- told the Sun that the allegations in the law suit are "very serious". She's right.

I've never noticed Davies actually attempting to curb povertarian abuses on the Downtown Eastside, whether at Carnegie -- she donates cash to the Carnegie newsletter despite their failure to respect free elections -- or DERA. Her son Leif Erikson got parachuted into a job at Insite just a few doors away from Carnegie and DERA.....ssssshh, nobody's supposed to know that. I guess we'll have to rely on Audrey for the whistleblowing.

Email from a former Downtown Eastsider

I've been out of touch with the happenings of DES and today I thought I would catch up on the [Carnegie] newsletter. Now, I haven't read it in a couple of years, but it was like looking back in time. Same people patting each other on the back. Looks like a mutual admiration society to me.
[...]

I suppose there was some good to Ms. Prevost, but I never got to see it because I wasn't in the circle. Whenever I saw her and if I happened to say Hi, I was ignored, but she was true to the circle! I'm so glad that my circumstances got me out of Dodge and away from these people. It's too bad too because Vancouver has a lot to offer, even in the DES. I belong to a community centre here that is partially funded by the city and private donations and I have yet to hear about a single banning or any left wing politics.

Tear the place down and start over with people who care about people not their pay cheques. Take care out there. It's not paranoia if they're really watching!

Pacific Central Kills the French ,

At the Pacific Central train and bus station, they used to announce arrivals and departures over the loud speaker in English only. Just before the Olympics, I noticed they were making the announcements in both official languages.

But as soon as the Olympics were over, so was the French. Announcements are once again in English only.

Olympic Finale: A Mob of Maple Leafers with Digital Cameras

I was in the crowd on Granville St. last night, the last night of the Olympics. Every few seconds, somebody would cheer in celebration of Canada's hockey win. I pointed out to my buddy that by the looks on the faces of many people walking by me, many weren't having that a great time. "Yeah," he said, "It's forced."

There really wasn't much to do, other than wander up and down Granville St. looking at people wearing maple leaf capes or waving maple leaf flags. I pointed out to my buddy that in some countries, like Mexico, people would be dancing in the street.





Those who seemed to be thrilled by the mob of Maple Leafers were small children. A little boy walking through the mob, holding his father's hand, was looking up with a smile. A little girl being pushed in a stroller was looking up with a genuine look of amazement on her face.


It was one big photo op. Digital cameras were as ubiquitous as Maple Leafs. That was the part I found most interesting, because you wouldn't have seen it ten years ago: every body with a camera either snapping or posing. Nobody worrying about the cost of developing film. Everybody a journalist of some sort.

Chinese New Year

Saw these Chinese New Years decorations on a rooftop in Chinatown Saturday.

Tinseltown mall was crowded with Olympic tourists Saturday afternoon, the busiest I have ever seen it. Usually that mall looks on the verge of bankruptcy.

BC Civil Liberties Assoc. on Hot Seat over taking Orders from Olympic Protester

Questions are being raised about the neutrality of the BC Civil Liberties Association and its director David Eby in the wake of Saturday's violent protest by anti-Olympics anarchists in downtown Vancouver.

Eby told CKNW that the BCCLA had not sent "Legal Observers" to the event. He said the organizers of the protest had asked the BCCLA not to send Legal Observers because they were concerned that they had been infiltrated by the police and that any photos they took could be used against them (an indication that they planned to break the law.)

A CTV reporter who had attended the protest, contradicted Eby. Lisa (I didn't get her surname) told CKNW that she had seen Legal Observers there. I too saw them in photos that a blog photographer had taken at the protest. In fact, as the photographer showed me photos and asked me to help decide which to post and which to delete, I pointed out a couple of Legal Observers in their trademark orange t-shirts in one of the photos. I have since asked the photographer about that photo but it was deleted along with most of the others not selected for posting.

When the CTV reporter contradicted Eby, CKNW gave him an opportunity to respond. In a voice that was a tad stuttering, Eby said that after the violence began, "we received instructions" to send Legal Observers. But by the time the Legal Observers arrived, he explained, the violence was over and they got no photos of the violence or of the arrests.

A woman identified as Lauren Gill interviewed on a video shot by Independent Media at the protest, appeared to contradict Eby's claim that Legal Observers arrived after the violence and arrests were over. In the video posted on Youtube, Gill stood on the street in the midst of violence and criticized police aggressively arresting protesters. "They won't talk to our Legal Observers", she said.

The blog photographer recalls speaking to two female Legal Observers on Georgia St. around Nicola or possibly a short time before they got to Nicola, after the window of a bank on Seymour St and a bank window on Howe St. had been broken but well before the protest ended on Robson St. The blog photographer told the Legal Observers that one of the protesters had hit somebody with a hammer, "Well, these things happen," said a Legal Observer who said she was a law student. "No, these things don't just happen," the blog photographer told her. To hit someone with hammer involves lifting it.

Eby's claim that the BCCLA "received instructions" from protesters, raises concerns that the BCCLA is not neutral, that they are taking orders from a group of anarchists known for violence.

The BCCLA, under Eby, has been vigilante in relation to police abuses of power -- I think Eby has been doing an excellent job of attempting to ensure police accountability -- but, it was pointed out on CKNW, the BCCLA doesn't seem as interested in the illegal conduct of protesters. They seem to be taking sides. Is this how the Legal Society funding the BCCLA intends for Eby to act?

Before becoming Director of the BCCLA, Eby was head of Pivot Legal Society, which works to ensure that the civil liberties of the poor are respected on the Downtown Eastside (although they have always appeared to exempt abuses by unionized workers on the Downtown Eastside such as security guards at Carnegie Centre, while advertising for people to come forward with accounts of abuse by private security guards.) These protesters are people they would defend. Eby may not be adequately distinguishing between his old role at Pivot and his new role at the BCCLA.

Riot Promised for 2010 Olympics Happened Saturday

Photo: Demonstrators gather at Thornton Park on Saturday, the morning after the opening of the 2010 Olympics.

Anarchists in Vancouver, Canada have been promising "Riot 2010" for a few years now, and it happened Saturday. A crowd of roughly 200 people, mostly in their 20s, many dressed in full black regalia with their faces covered by cloth masks, assembled this morning at 8:30 at Thornton Park outside the city's main train station in preparation for some post-corn flakes and orange juice state smashing.

Black flags fluttered in the wind and misty rain, and yellow jacketed cops on bicycles circled nervously as the crowd of demonstrators began a confused march within the park trying to find a way onto Main St., a major artery in the city leading to Hastings St., the main route to the central business district, past which the march was to end, at Denman St. in the city's West End.

The marchers found their way to Main St. and onto the road itself, leaving behind at least three people in wheel-chairs, one of whom complained, "These young people move so fast." The youths were in a hurry, indeed, at least to make their presence felt on opening day of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics. Blocking traffic with their bodies, the marchers also added orange pylons and trash to the scene as they passed, throwing anything they could find onto the street. The crowd surged toward Hastings St.

At the intersection of Main and Hastings, the rotten core of the old city business district, the marchers made their way through the worst of the city's skid road. Seeing them come, the area's street people, ranging from old alcoholics to young crack heads and professoinal povertarians drew back from the black-clad protestors, a few street people hurling insults, one particularly gnarled old drunk yelling, "Get a job." The protest leaders, failing to make the turn, found themselves on a minor street and had to back themselves up to continue down Hastings toward the City centre.

Turning left on Hastings they marched through the guts of skid road, angering those street people who scavenge from dumpsters to find goods enough to sell on the sidewalk by the bottle and can return depot, forcing the street people to gather their goods and huddle over them as the marchers swarmed through and brought a small army of police in tow. Crack-heads too shouted abuse at the anarchists, sputtering and inarticulate cries of anger and outrage at the sight of well-off kids wrecking a morning's commerce.

At the War Memorial at Cambie St. the marchers turned left again up three blocks south and moved right into the first section of the central business district, at which point the newspaper boxes on the sidewalks began to land with regularity on the street, pushed by two young men, neither of them being in shape to push it himself, one metal box going under the front wheels of a city bus. Added to the noise of chanting, drumming, shouting young people and the grating noise of metal scraping across the pavement, the nauseating smell of spray paint permeated the air as anarchist logos appeared on building fronts.

As the demonstrators penetrated further into the central business district there were some arrests for violence, someone reportedly using bear spray on a civilian, some windows being smashed by a man who had earlier found and stolen an aluminum chair. Having lost a few members, the march continued down Georgia St. to Granville, another major intersection in the city and then past Granville into the heart of the business district. Anarchist rioters and police together marched down the sloping street till they came to a halt short of the Denman destination. A confrontation broke out between police and some demonstrators, the police moving along after those who turned south onto Robson St., Vancouver's high-end shopping street. At Robson the march came to an end, the police pinning the demonstrators against the wall of a pizza place, and at the opposite side of the street, police kept order as one irate bystander stripped off his leather jacket and sweatshirt and prepared to pound on a grinning and terrified protestor separated from his fellows, saved by a bicycle cop who jumped the curb and landed between the two men. Seven people were arrested, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu announced later.

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Though some buildings were vandalized, the Tax Department building somehow escaped damage, though nearby there was a scrum of policemen tackling and cuffing a demonstrator in the middle of the street, attracting reporters like... reporters. Others were held back, the police saying that some had been assaulted, one with a hammer.

At that point, police sectioned off three groups of protestors, pinning two groups against walls, a third group moving down an alley to Denman St. as the police, unarmed because, "things could get out of hand and we don't want anyone getting shot," reconfigured their plans.

Regular police in their bright yellow jackets form human barricades to channel the crowd, and behind the regular police, though clearly visible, stood the body-armored and shotgun toting riot squad, sausage-sized rubber bullets in their belts.

Across the street the anarchists chanted about captialism, and as drums banged and flags waved about saving the seals in Newfoundland, victory was declared; capitalism, if not actually destroyed, then at least given a damn good scare by anarchists on the march. The crowd dispersed.

In all, most people, other than those hit by hammers or those maced or whose property was vandalized, most people, and that includes numerous civilians who stood clapping while watching the police acting reasonably under duress, had a good time. Captitalism and world evil still exists, giving the anarchists a reason to continue living so they can continue fighting for ... whatever.

Photo: a newspaper box has been thrown through a window in downtown Vancouver

Dean Dies

There are some sad people at Carnegie. Dean Obrol, a longtime musician in the Carnegie Music Program, has died. Dean wasn't a drug or alcohol abuser, so his death came as a surprise to Carnegie members. He was found in his apartment in a social housing building on Hastings.

Dean had worked in a fish clearing house in the past, and now was often seen playing his guitar at Carnegie or sitting in Waves coffee shop surfing the net on his laptop. He was always eager to get paid gigs playing at events in the Carnegie theatre.

Some musicians and other Carnegie members had known him for over two decades.

He was born July 25, 1954 and died Dec. 3, 2009. He was 55.

A couple of months ago, Dean was saying that he regularly bought multi-vitamins on sale at one of the large natural food stores downtown. "So I'm covered", he said. Looks like he wasn't covered.

Photographer with Zoom Lens Creates Discomfort at Christmas Day Dinner at Sally Ann

On Christmas Day, the Salvation Army, Harbour Light, on Cordova St. near Main in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside served their annual free Christmas Dinner to anyone who wanted it. The turkey dinner with all the trimmings was reportedly tasty, with pie for dessert.

A man volunteering as a server walked around squirting extra whipped cream on everyone's pie, exclaiming, "It's Christmas!"

Some people were uncomfortable with the newspaper photographer (above) with a long zoom lens.

The tension between the need of the Sally Ann for publicity and the need for the poor to have privacy is ongoing. A man in a wheelchair told me that at a previous Sally Ann Christmas dinner, he had put his hand over his face and asked a television camera man to stop taking his photo.

UBC President Stephen Toope Snubs Million Dollar Poor at Christmas

Photo: Christmas Party takes place in background at UBC Learning Exchange on Downtown Eastside while reception staff continue to work

If Stephen Toope drops into the Learning Exchange when there is no media around, does anybody hear?

Probably not. So why bother dropping in.

UBC President Stephen Toope didn't show up at the Christmas party yesterday for the poor at the UBC Learning Exchange on the Downtown Eastside. And neither did the Director of the Learning Exchange, Margo Fryer, whose office is upstairs from the lobby where the party was held. And neither did most of the other 20 people employed full time by the Learning Exchange, a UBC storefront set up on Main St. to grab a share of the lucrative poverty industry.

When journalists from the major newspapers are invited to a Learning Exchange event that could come to the attention of current and prospective funders, Toope and Fryer show up. Last year Toope, who collects $576,000 annually in salary and perks, showed up to give a speech to a sea of camera flashes at the Anniversary of the opening of the Learning Exchange. And last month Fryer was yet again featured in a Vancouver Sun article about this enterprise which has a $2 million annual budget, an enterprise about which she says, "I got drawn in. I couldn't walk away." Priceless.

The Christmas Party was held the day after Welfare Wednesday, a day when Fryer and her staff would, like all povertarians, be aware that most of the poor would be out spending their welfare cheques and wouldn't show up.

P.S. Thanks to Downtown Eastsiders who sent photos.

Arrests made in Tyson Edwards Murder

Early this year, the DTES Enquirer ran a post about Jim, a Carnegie regular who picks bottles and cans in the bar district on weekends, being upset at coming across Tyson Edwards lying in the curb by Richards on Richards nightclub. Edwards had been stabbed in front of friends and later died in hospital. Jim talked about the incident for weeks afterward because he was under the impression that Edwards could have been saved if emergency response times had been quicker.

Today, I heard on the radio that police made three arrests in the murder. Two men were arrested in Calgary and one in Moncton, N.B. All have been charged with manslaughter and returned to Vancouver. The police said these three men, if not exactly gang members, were involved in gang-type activity. Edwards was not.

Jim says that while picking bottles in the bar district over the years he has seen lots of dangerous stuff, like gun fire in an alley, that never gets reported in the newspapers.

Car Hits Main St. Lamp Post on Rainy Night

Last night at about 12:30 am., I came across this car accident on Main St. at Prior, just across from the Georgia Viaduct. A young woman was talking to police, so I assume she had been the driver. It was raining.