Posts from — June 2011

Many reporters, including the Globe‘s Gary Mason, are demanding to know the details of City of Vancouver decision-making in the run-up to what became the 2011 Stanley Cup riot.  Specifically, did Chief Jim Chu have sufficient budget, did he make the key decisions without political interference and did council have knowledge of the 1994 “Riot Report” recommendations?

Here, revealed for the umpteenth time, is the VPD’s report to council April 19, 2011, which set out all the material facts in a public meeting. The budget was outlined, the process for handling overruns was spelled out and the detailed VPD consideration of various “riot reports” laid out for all to see.

With the November civic election just five months away, two new faces seeking places on the Vision and COPE teams are out meeting voters.

Since this column was submitted to Philippine News Today, Vision newcomer Tony Tang has won nomination, but RJ Aquino, a council hopeful for COPE, must wait until September for COPE’s nomination decision.

Tang is stepping in for Councillor George Chow, who did not seek a Vision nomination.

Did the Vancouver Police Department implement the relevant recommendations of a report into the 1994 Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver? Or were some ignored, as the author has claimed?

Ultimately, that question must be resolved by a review conducted by the  Vancouver Police Board. But this quote from the Executive Summary of the BC Police Commission Report on the Riot that occurred in Vancuver on June 14-14, 1994 leaps out:

Even if all the recommendations in this report are followed, we cannot guarantee that riots will not occur in the future in this city.

Crowd behaviour is wildly unpredictable in the best of circumstances and the hype that follows major sporting events in this country, combined with a multimillion dollar marketing interest in linking alcohol and sports, is beyond the control of any local jurisdiction, no matter how well co-ordinated.

This means that both luck and constant vigilance and coordination on the part of local authorities (including but not limited to police) will be necessary if we are to avoid such events in the future.

The City of Vancouver’s groundbreaking mentorship project, designed to give 18 recent skilled immigrants on-the-job experience in city workplaces, has achieved what few city projects can claim: a transformation in the lives of its participants in just five months.

Proposed by Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Working Group on Immigration, which I co-chair with UBC professor Dan Hiebert, the pilot project was designed to test what immigrant-serving agencies have long predicted.

A critical obstacle facing new immigrants, they warned, no matter how skilled, is lack of Canadian experience, local networks and on-the-job credentials. A mentorship program changes that by linking a “mentee” — the immigrant — with a mentor, someone in their field who will advise them on their job hunt.

As City Engineer Peter Judd, a mentor himself, told council, the advice could be as simple as adding a cover letter to a resume, something that is never done in some countries.

Today, just five months after it began, the mentorship project celebrated its first group of graduates, many of whom are already on track to new jobs. In one case, an electrical designer from the Philippines who had searched for work for three years, it led to a job with the city itself.

Veronica Zhou, one of the mentees, told council how she had learned the hard way that immigration is “not an easy journey, nor certain.” [Read more →]