Category — News

Former trekker Ken Hoggarth (right) unveils the plaque to be mounted at the Main Street Overpass to commemorate the 1935 On to Ottawa Trek.

Several hundred gathered at Crab Park this afternoon to mark the 75th anniversary of the On to Ottawa Trek, the epic protest that began on Vancouver’s waterfront on June 3, 1935, as 1,200 unemployed workers clambered on to box cars to travel to Ottawa demanding “work and wages.”

Ken Hoggarth, who was 18 when the Trek set off, delivered a remarkable speech about the impact of the Depression and his experiences during the long protest, which ended in a violent police riot in Regina.

In a time when global economic crisis is again in the news, the desperate struggles of the 1930s seem more relevant than ever. [Read more →]

Next week, Vancouver City Council will debate the recommendations of an all-party committee on the city’s response to the Local Government Elections Task Force, the snap review of civic election law announced by Premier Gordon Campbell last fall during his speech to the Union of BC Municipalities.

Council’s decision should help kill the worst idea floated by the Premier: return of the business vote, so business licence holders could vote in civic elections. This relic of pre-democratic times, when male property owners were once considered the only folks suitable for casting ballots, was shoved back onto the provincial agenda by an aggressive lobby by small business interests.

The idea of “one person, two or more votes” held no fear for them if they had the multiple ballots.

Fortunately, the reaction has been universally negative. Last week’s rejection of the concept by the UBCM should make the idea Dead On Arrival as far as the task force is concerned. [Read more →]

Sam Sullivan’s somewhat dark reflection on his three-year term, published in today’s Sun, is cast as advice to future mayors.  In reality, it is an effort to spread the blame for the fate he suffered at the hands of his own party even before the election began.

Lesson 1: Don’t trust senior staff, particularly when it comes to labour relations. “I deferred to the experts on collective bargaining but asked them to inform me when the time was appropriate.” The resulting strike was not the worst in the city’s history, but the worst in recent memory.  Concludes Sullivan: “I could have learned just how poisonous the relations had become between the union and some senior management.” Sullivan had already been a councillor for more than 13 years at the time. [Read more →]

In yesterday’s Tyee, a beautiful report on Jack Nichol’s memorial service by Charles Campbell.