Posts from — April 2009

The decision to push forward on Vision’s commitment to build more affordable market and rent housing is producing results.

On Saturday, leading developers, architects and community housing activists from across the city will meet Mayor Gregor Robertson in the Centennial Room at Mountainview Cemetery — I know, weird location, but it was free and this is a grave situation, etc. — to brainstorm an action plan for council.

A multidisciplinary city staff team has already prepared some proposals to test at the Saturday roundtable. Look for quick results. Laneway housing should go forward by July, and now this memo from planner Ronda Howard promising new measures for secondary suites, this time in apartments, before the August break.

A great aspect of this job is the unexpected encounters with beauty and wisdom. So it was tonight at Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, organized by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre at the Jewish Community Centre.

The keynote address by Buchenwald survivor Robbie Waisman was a mesmerizing story of personal witness, linked to a reflection on contemporary holocausts, like Darfur, and the resurgence of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world. Ultimately, it was a challenge to remember, but not to despair.

Waisman, born in Skarszykso, Poland, was the youngest of six children. Only he and his sister survived. He was interned with his father and brother to work in a munitions factory, where he witnessed his brother’s death. A sister-in-law and nephew died at Treblinka. Ultimately he was transferred to Buchenwald, where he was liberated by the US Army on April 11, 1945. He was only 14. It was many years before he learned the fate of his mother, father and brothers.

“Forgetting the Holocaust is every survivor’s greatest fear,” he said, “and not an option.” He ended with this quote from Elie Wiesel: “Remember, because there is, there must be, hope in remembering.”

The long battle by women ski jumpers to overturn the IOC ban on their event in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games heads to court Monday. It promises to be a long week for VANOC, which insists it supports the women, but is named as the defendant in the case anyway, charged with violating their Charter right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender. 

Writer and athlete Laura Robinson unleashes this first withering salvo against the IOC and VANOC in today’s Globe.  Vancouver City Council endorsed the cause March 3, the second time it had done so. Here, for those interested in the IOC’s long struggle with women’s equality, is the plaintiff’s argument.

The defendant’s case is a massive 125-page file, but here are the key points:

“The IOC’s close control of the Olympics, and specifically its sole authority over the Olympic Programme, is fatal to the Plaintiffs’ claim on every major issue. . .

“VANOC is neither controlled by government, nor is it carrying out a government activity. To the contrary, VANOC is controlled by the IOC . . .

“The inclusion of an event in the Olympics is a benefit conferred by the IOC, not by any government. Further, there is simply no discrimination in this case. VANOC has not done anything contrary to Section 15 [of the Charter]; to the contrary, it supported the inclusion of women’s ski jumping.

“For its part, the IOC is a leader in the promotion of women’s access to sport and has adopted special rules and policies to increase women’s participation in thbe Olympics. While the IOC considered the gender issue raised by the women’s ski jumping application to be a strong factor in favour of its inclusion, ultimately the IOC determined that the sport was insufficiently competitive internationally . . .

“Pursuant to the Olympic Charter, the IOC alone has the right to determine which events will make up the Olympic Games and VANOC has no right, nor power, to reverse the IOC’s decision.”

In other words, the IOC is in charge, it’s above the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that’s the end of that.

The titanic battle to secure 122 new taxi licences in Vancouver hit an iceberg yesterday when Victoria’s Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) elbowed its way into the regulatory queue and rejected applications for 60 cabs before City Council even considered the matter.

Council deferred a decision on 122 new cabs at the industry’s request last October, in the throes of the civic election. In December, however, Vancouver Taxi and MacClure’s Cabs went straight to the PTB for 30 licences each. This would be on top of 111 new cabs added in 2007, an increase of 23 percent.

Oddly their applications were opposed by Yellow Cab, which is the strongest advocate for a big new increase. Why? One industry veteran explained it this way: “Welcome to Taxiland.”

Normally, the PTB would wait for the city to weigh in. Not this time. The decisions posted in the April 15 weekly bulletin rejected both applications.

A critical question considered by the PTB is public need. Board adjudicator Dennis Day analyzed two weeks worth of Black Top despatches in late 2008 covering 73,865 trips. An astonishing 96.8 percent were serviced within 10 minutes or less. The only exceptions: Friday and Saturday nights, when club traffic slows the response time. After cataloguing the decline in tourism revenue and cruise ship visits, which predated the current recession, Day ruled the evidence “is not supportive of the case for an increase in the number of taxis.”

Meanwhile, the city’s Taxi Roundtable grinds forward. Council will soon be briefed on the results and a report to council will follow. Will any of it matter?

Day concluded that “there is no evidence before me to support that the applicant has made any attempt to continuously monitor service levels in order to assess the impact of the last round of expansion or to substantiate the need for further expansion of the fleet.” No new taxis in Taxiland.