Grad 2008

You work hard to graduate, you get all dressed up, and where do you end up? McDonalds.

Hopefully it won't be a metaphor for your life.

A red and black bus carrying grads -- presumably so that they wouldn't drive drunk -- parked behind McDonald's at Quebec St. and Terminal Ave. on Friday at about 5:45 p.m. The young woman in the gown above was enjoying a McFlurry.

Because anyone who survives the BCTF deserves a reward.


Related story: http://downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com/2007/08/vancouver-school-board-concealed.html

City Staff Lock Out Poor on Welfare Day

Who is on welfare? Wednesday was welfare day and City staff at the Carnegie Center locked the poor out of the building all morning, claiming they were having a staff meeting.

Then they closed the cafeteria early in the afternoon, claiming "It's a staffing issue." One Carnegie member dropped in to buy some soup and found the cafeteria closed at 3:40 p.m. Another guy had dropped by earlier and was irritated to find the cafeteria closed, pointing out that there were two full time staff walking around inside the cafeteria. And the kitchen supervisor, Catriona Moore, was in the building too.

This is an ongoing problem. CUPE members who staff Carnegie, as well as City management Ethel Whitty and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault, act like welfare day isn't a regular work day. But you'd be surprised how many low income people in the neighborhood want to use Carnegie Center on welfare day.

It doesn't have to be welfare day for Carnegie staff to slack off though. On Tuesday morning, the day before Welfare Wednesday, the line up in the cafeteria was so long it snaked out of the cafeteria and well into the seating area. There was one inexperienced volunteer doing all of the serving and working the cash. Carnegie members reported that staff were standing around chatting with one another. Catriona Moore, the kitchen supervisor was there. Colleen Gorrie, the Volunteer Co-ordinator was there putting her hands on an older man in the line up and joking with him. "There's staff everywhere," a guy with a French accent called out. "They don't see." Another man said he stood in line for 20 minutes just to buy a bowl of cereal.

The problem of the kitchen closing early is certainly not restricted to welfare day. When Anthony -- who members say is friendly and a pretty good cook -- is supervising, it is not uncommon for the kitchen to close ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes early. This is irritating to people who make a point of going over to Carnegie to get a cheap bowl of soup before closing.

There is one thing that can be counted on to get CUPE members moving: bloggers tipping off taxpayers. The topic even dominated one of their welfare day staff meetings. Some CUPE members are worse than others though: Catriona and Anthony haven't been instigators in the witch hunt for bloggers. But Colleen Gorrie was. She would like to, as George Bush says, "Smoke 'em out."

"Cooking Drugs" Triggers Flood at Glory Rooms

Last week a guy was “cooking drugs” in his room on the top floor of Glory Rooms near the Gassy Jack statue at Carroll and Powell St. on the Downtown Eastside. But his home cooking accidentally triggered the sprinkler in his room. (The late City Councillor Bruce Erikson, Libby Davies husband, fought to have sprinklers installed in all Downtown Eastside hotel rooms because people were dying in fires.)

Water was streaming down the stairs of the Glory. An aboriginal man who lives in the room below – he's not a drug user and quit drinking years ago – came home in the late evening to find water streaming down his walls. His brand new big screen tv was wet. So wet, in fact, that he's still scared to turn it on. His laptop computer was wet too and he's been drying it out with a hair dryer, said a guy chatting with other Downtown Eastsiders in the Ovaltine Cafe. Even his desktop computer was wet.

Flood damage extended to the Glory Foods store below. The man who runs the store said water came through the ceiling and walls. "I lose a lot of money", he said with a Korean accent. He said that the insurance covers some but not all of his losses. He had to replace a lot of merchandise.

“What happened to the guy cookin’ drugs?”, I asked Downtown Eastsiders talking about the flood at the Ovaltine Café. “He took off”, said one. But he returned on the weekend when he knew the manager would be off. He hung around outside but the other tenants wouldn’t let him in.

Chinatown Opens Donation Depot for Earthquake Victims

On Main Street near Keefer in Vancouver's Chinatown, a storefront has been opened to take donations for victims of China's recent earthquake. They have photos and information about the quake.

I saw it open a few times when I walked buy. It was open on Wednesday.

I am Mark Steyn

The blogosphere is abuzz over the protest planned for Monday outside the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal in downtown Vancouver. The Tribunal is holding what truepeers, a blogger at the Vancouver blog Covenant Zone, calls a “Stalinist Show Trial” for author Mark Steyn. But Steyn's rights are everybody's rights. Hence slogans like, "I am Mark Steyn" or "We are all Mark Steyn."

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has scheduled a hearing for Steyn, a Canadian-born newspaper columnist living in New Hampshire, and MacLeans magazine on Monday. Both are accused of hate speech based on an excerpt published in MacLeans from Steyn's best-selling book, America Alone. One of the complainants is Dr. Mohammed Elmasry, president of The Canadian Islamic Congress who pushed for sharia law in Ontario.

But Mark Steyn is not alone, says dag, one of several bloggers at Covenant Zone -- he also writes at No Dhimmitude -- who is organizing the protest in support of Steyn as his trial kicks off. "His right to express opinions is on trial", says dag. The protest will be held at 8 a.m. on Monday, June 2 in front of the Provincial Court House at 800 Hornby where, according to the BCHRT website, the hearing will take place.

The Steyn hearing is not the first time Human Rights Commissions or Tribunals in Canada have acted as “thought police” on behalf of Islamic Imams. Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard, has been forced to appear in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing material that a Saudi-trained Islamic Imam has complained about. Levant has pointed out that when complainants don’t have a leg to stand on in the real courts, they take their case to a Human Rights Commission.

How did Human Rights Commissions get the power to harass authors and publishers? They were founded as an inexpensive way to handle disputes between landlords and tenants or employers and employees, cases in which discrimination was being alleged. Now they've become a tool for Islamic Imams to curb the free speech of infidels.

If you think Human Rights Commissions care about free speech, listen to the words of Dean Steacy, the primary internet "anti-hate" investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. When questioned by Barbara Kulaszka, a lawyer for a website owner in a human rights case, Steacy said, "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has become a bad guy here too. It was pointed out on Covenant Zone, a generally pro-Harper blog, that before becoming Prime Minister, Harper called Human Rights Commissions in Canada “totalitarian”. But since then, he has angered his supporters by failing to reign in these publicly-funded “thought police”.

Not only Prime Minister Harper but the average Canadian has done little to rescue their right to free speech from Human Rights Commissions/Tribunals. According to Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren, most of the donations to Mark Steyn's defense have come from Americans.

On Monday, though, Canadians will be speaking out about free speech erosion by Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals. That's obvious from the 80 comments left on the Covenant Zone post about the planned protest. As dag says, “I’m getting really excited about it.”

Vancouver Art Gallery Presents Lifetime Achievement Award to Jeff Wall, Alleged Operator of SFU Sexual Harassment Ring

The Vancouver Art Gallery knew of allegations that he had operated a sexual harassment ring at SFU. Condo developer Michael Audain knew of allegations that he had operated a sexual harassment ring at SFU. But that didn't stop them from awarding artist Jeff Wall the Audain prize for Lifetime Achievement at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Thursday.

Did Wall's lifetime achievements include operating a sexual harassment ring when he was head of the Visual Arts Department at Simon Fraser University? At least one serious complaint is outstanding at SFU about a sexual harassment ring which operated in the 1980's and was allegedly composed of Wall, who was head of the department at the time, and Assistant Professors Greg Snider and David McWilliam.

A woman who suffered lifetime consequences when she dropped out of SFU without finishing her degree due to alleged chronic sexual harassment, calls Wall the "crotch-watcher" due to his signature style of sexual harassment. "One thing he would do that really bothered me was he would stare at my crotch in a really obvious way and then he would look me right in the eyes."

This former student says her life was destroyed by the sexual harassment. She had to interrupt her education because she lost her ability to concentrate due to the sexual harassment. And after dropping out, she lost her student loan eligibility . . . .

Destroyed Room by Jeff Wall

Michael Audain, a condo developer who funded the award, has been aware for months of sexual harassment allegations against Wall. But Audain was apparently willing to overlook allegations that Wall's sexual harassment had resulted in a woman dropping out of SFU and entering a life of poverty on the Downtown Eastside. And Wall could hardly be seen as an ingrate: "As an artist you have to appreciate the fact that someone is appreciating you", he said when interviewed by the Vancouver Sun about the prize Audain had funded. The two men are apparently on a first name basis, with Wall referring to Audain as "Michael" in the Sun interview.

The Vancouver Art Gallery was aware when they hosted the Audain prize ceremony that Wall faced allegations of sexual harassment. Shortly after Kathleen Bartlett became Director, the VAG was asked to put a hold on accolades for Wall until SFU met its obligation to hold an investigation into sexual harassment in the SFU Visual Arts Department under Wall. A victim says she "spoke at length" to Bartlett's assistant about the allegations against Wall and still has her notes from that conversation. The VAG and Bartlett nonetheless continue to publicly present Wall as the VAG's little darling, giving the public no hint of their awareness that he evaded investigation for a serious matter.

The sexual harassment in the then tiny SFU Visual Arts Department -- just 15 students were accepted each year -- while it was headed by Wall also involved an element of fraud, alleges the woman who eventually dropped out due to sexual harassment. Each applicant to the School for the Contemporary Arts was expected to attend an interview, ostensibly so that their potential as an artist could be assessed, but there were indications that potential as a sex partner for professors was being assessed. The woman recalls being interviewed by Greg Snider and an administrator on the Burnaby campus. The two men were sitting side by side, both facing her, and when the adminstrator was jotting down notes, Snider sexually harassed her. “He gazed at my body, up and down. He was leering at me and then he tried to lock eyes with me.” She didn’t confront him, partly because she was shy, partly because she “couldn’t believe what was happening”, and partly because she desperately wanted to get accepted into the program. “I figured I could just avoid this letch if I got accepted,” she says. “But when I got in, I found out they were all like that!”

In fact, when the eventual drop-out arrived at her first Drawing class, the professor, Jeff Wall -- she didn't have a clue who he was at that time -- engaged in similar behavior. “It happened the instant I walked in the door,” she says. “I was just six feet in the door; it was as though he knew I was coming.” She had the impression that Snider had discussed her with Wall in advance. She believes that these professors were sharing information about potential conquests and being competitive in getting students into bed.

The woman who dropped out of SFU recalls finding Wall's brazen style of staring at her crotch odd considering he often came across as a shy man. She wasn't the only student who perceived him as shy. She recalls that after she disclosed the Visual Arts sexual harassment during a Women's (History) Studies class, a beautiful woman with long auburn hair and green eyes approached her outside the office of the School for the Contemporary Arts. The woman, whose name she recalls, was in both her Women Studies and Visual Arts studio classes but they didn't know one another well. The woman disclosed that Greg Snider had been putting the moves on her. Snider, she said, would stroke her back and say, "How's your back, [name]?" She imitated the soft voice he used as he asked her that question. (Snider had a spouse and at least once child.) The auburn-haired woman said she had not experienced sexual harassment from Wall but during the brief conversation that ensued, she did offer an observation, "He's a very shy man."

The woman who dropped out believes that Wall's gruff, even authoritarian communication style, was an effort to cover up his shyness. But he wasn't always gruff. Like when she was working in the SFU third year studio on Quebec St. and he commented, "You got your hair cut". She had gotten several inches trimmed off the ends of her hair and he told her, "It looks nice." Even that comment though made her uncomfortable because it was part of a pattern of inappropriately "intimate " conduct for a professor who was, to quote a phrase he once used with his class, "hanging a mark over your head".

It was during the same year, third year, that she was bent over on the floor working on her drawing when she looked up and saw Wall looking down her v-neck black sweat. A woman, Barbara, was speaking to him and he wasn't paying attention. "He was looking down my sweater."

She wishes now that she had spoken to the auburn-haired woman longer when she approached her outside the Center for the Contemporary Arts office in second year, but she remembers feeling "so burned out by the sexual harassment thing."

The auburn-haired woman, after confirming that she had not been sexually harassed by Wall, just Snider, said that Walll had actually recently come to her aid. It had been in response to David McWilliam (who was in a sexual relationship with another student from our class that year, the same year his spouse had a baby) telling her that he didn't think she should remain in the Visual Arts program due to her arthritis. She was in her early twenties but had arthritis in her back that occasionally required her to lie on the couch during studio classes, which were informal classes. She submitted a written complaint to the department that she was being discriminated against based on her disability. Wall then notified her that she was accepted her into third year.

That was part of the problem, says the woman who dropped out. "The sexual harassers got to pick who would get into third year." Students didn't automatically move from second to third year in Visual Arts; Wall, Snider, and McWilliam decided who they would allow to enter third year.

Keep in mind that the Visual Arts department, started by Wall, was small. There were only three studio instructors. Wall never hired a female studio instructor even though over 90% of the students accepted into the program were female. "All the studio professors were male and they were all trying to get laid", says the woman who would eventually drop out. After Wall left, women instructors began to be hired.

One of Wall's lifetime achievements not mentioned when he received the award at a ceremony at the Vancouver Art Gallery was allegedly hypocrisy. Wall, Snider, and McWilliam pretended to be sympathetic to feminism but it was an act. An act. The woman who dropped out recalls Wall showing up for a conference at a feminist video place on Broadway near Oak in Vancouver. She can't recall the exact name of the place but she does recall censorship being a theme of the conference. Lisa Steele, an artist from the Ontario College of Art presented a large-screen video of herself having sexual intercourse with her partner.

"Anyway, Wall shows up late and he sits at the head table and gives a keynote speech on something or other. I could barely listen, I was dumb founded. The crotch-watcher was at the head table! And feminists had invited him; he had them conned." This was just a few months before she would drop out of SFU due to the sexual harassment ring operating in the Visual Arts Department under Wall's stewardship, and it was roughly in this time period that a female Dance student left for Toronto to recover from her relationship with Wall whom she realized had no intention of divorcing his wife.

But you did not have to be a target of Wall's alleged sexual harassment to notice his hypocrisy. A former Theatre instructor in the SFU Center for the Contemporary Arts who acknowledged having had sex with a large number of women -- he was tight-lipped about whether any of them had been students and he avoided uttering even a peep about SFU's sexual harassment history -- recalled that Wall had crossed a picket line despite claiming to be a Marxist. (See Lifetime Achievement Award Given to Marxist who Crossed a Picket Line.)

After the woman who could no longer concentrate dropped out, she learned that Wall had left SFU and taken a job teaching photography at the University of British Columbia. He was later fired from UBC by Serge Gilbault, who was Department Head and a well known writer on art. The reason given by Gilbault in a front page article in the Vancouver Sun was that Wall was too often absent from work. That was a problem at SFU too says the woman who dropped out. Wall went to Holland for three weeks when she was in two of his third year classes, both a theory and a studio class, and he arranged no substitute instructor.

"It was hurtful", said the Downtown Eastside woman when asked how she felt after seeing Wall receive yet another award and more public accolades at the VAG. She would like to see a moratorium on awards for Wall until there is an investigation into the alleged sexual harassment ring that operated at SFU while he headed the Visual Arts Department.