October 2022 Civic Affairs Report

By Elizabeth Gautschi, Civic Affairs Convenor

It’s Election Time! VOTE on October 15!

Important Dates to know:

Oct – Advance Voting Opportunities – dates vary. Check with your city electoral office. Oct 14 – Deadline for receiving mail-in ballot packages 4:00 pm

Oct 15 – General Voting Day from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm

Oct 19 – Declaration of official election results 4:00 pm

What’s happening in your riding? Do you know who is running for mayor? For council? For school board?

Two long-time city councillors, Harold Steves in Richmond and Lois Jackson in Delta, will not be running again. Harold Steves has served on Richmond City Council continuously since 1977, and served a previous term as alderman from 1968-1973 before serving as an NDP MLA from 1973-1975. He is one of the founders of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Lois Jackson served as Mayor of Delta from 1999 to 2018. She was elected to Delta Council in 1973 and became the first woman elected to the position of Delta Councillor. Under her leadership as Mayor, Lois served as Chair of the Metro Vancouver Board of Directors from 2006 to 2011.

In Port Coquitlam, Brad West has been acclaimed and has won a second term as Port Coquitlam mayor after no one signed up to run in opposition by the September 9 deadline. Two trustee spots on School District 43’s board of education will be held again by Michael Thomas and Christine Pollock, being acclaimed and earning a third and second term.

Delta residents will vote to elect one mayor, six city councillors, and seven school trustees. Candidates for mayor are: George V. Harvie, Joginder Randhawa, and Peter Van Der Velden.

New Westminster voters will elect one mayor, six councillors and seven school trustees. There are three candidates for mayor: Ken Armstrong, Patrick Johnstone and Chuck Puchmayr.

In the city of North Vancouver, voters will elect one Mayor, six Councillors, and three School Trustees. Linda Buchanan and Guy Heywood are the mayoral candidates.

In Surrey, there are 84 candidates running for office but there can only be one mayor, eight councillors and seven school trustees.

In Vancouver, with a long list of candidates, including 15 running for mayor, there is one mayor, ten councillors, seven park board commissioners and nine school trustees to be elected. There are now five main challengers in the race for Mayor: Fred Harding, Colleen Hardwick, Mark Marissen, Ken Sim, and Kennedy Stewart.

Remember that at our October 3 Vancouver Council of Women Meeting we will have an election panel made up of some of the women candidates running for Mayor, City Council, School Board and Parks Board. Since my last report, we now have 16 confirmed speakers at our event:

Mayor Colleen Hardwick (TEAM)
City Council Sarah Kirby Yung (ABC Vancouver)
Cleta Brown (TEAM)
Adriane Carr (Green)
Iona Bonamis, (One City)
Asha Hayer (Progress Vancouver)
Marie Noelle Rosa (Progress Vancouver) Elaine Allen (NPA)
Arezo Zarrabian (NPA)
Leslie Bolt (Vision)
School Board Susie Mah (COPE)
Krista Sigurdson (One City)
Park Board Laura Christensen (ABC Vancouver)
Maira Hassan (COPE)
Tricia Riley (Green)
Hilary Thomson (Vision)

Plan to attend our Vancouver Council of Women on October 3. Lunch is at 11:30 am and the Election Panel begins at 12:15 pm.

We have limited seating capacity. Please let Bev Wong know how many guests you will be bringing.

Are you registered to vote? Check with your city’s electoral office on line or by phone.

October 2022 Seniors Report

By Donna Webb, Seniors Convenor

 

Below are links to some of the studies relating to seniors and aging occurring at UBC.

Geriatrics and gerontology – UBC

Aging | UBC Health

Aging – UBC Experts Guide – The University of British Columbia

Social and biological determinants of aging – UBC

UBC University of BC Division of Geriatrics

Division of Geriatric Medicine – Academic Unit – Vancouver

GERO @ the UBC School of Nursing

Research Cluster in Aging in Place

Residency & Education – UBC Division of Geriatrics

Active Aging Research Team

September 2022 Civic Affairs Report

By Elizabeth Gautschi, Civic Affairs Convenor

 

It’s Election Time! Across BC, municipal elections will take place on Saturday, October 15, 2022. Within Metro Vancouver, 12 mayors of 17 of the region’s largest municipal governments have confirmed their incumbency.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart and all of the present members of Vancouver City Council are standing for re-election. There are many contenders and more parties than previously. Some of the current City Council members have left their parties and joined new ones, or even started new ones. Vancouver voters will decide on:

  • 1 Mayor and 10 City Councillors 9 School Trustees
  • 7 Park Board Commissioners
  • 3 Capital Plan questions

At our October 3 Vancouver Council of Women Meeting we will have an election panel made up of some women candidates running for Mayor, City Council, School Board and Parks Board. At this time, confirmed speakers at our event are the following candidates:

Mayor Colleen Hardwick (TEAM)
City Council Sarah Kirby Yung (ABC Vancouver)
Cleta Brown (TEAM)
Adriane Carr (Green)
Iona Bonamis, (One City)
School Board Susie Mah (COPE)
Krista Sigurdson (One City)
Park Board Laura Christensen (ABC Vancouver)
Maira Hassan (COPE)
Tricia Riley (Green)

We are also expecting candidates from Forward Together Vancouver, NPA, and Vision.

Plan to attend and bring lots of questions!

Some of the current issues in Vancouver for the upcoming election include: homelessness, mental health and addiction, and The Broadway Plan, which is a 30-year plan to integrate new housing, jobs and amenities around the new Broadway subway. According to a survey by Research Co., just over half of Vancouver’s likely municipal election voters want to see the elected body of commissioners that govern the Vancouver Park Board abolished, with the responsibility of governing the city’s parks and recreation system then transferred to Vancouver City Council.

September 2022 Citizenship And Immigration Report

By Victoria Shelkovnikova, Citizenship and Immigration Convenor

Immigration matters in sports

How we practice sports in Canada today is influenced by several factors, including our four seasons and geographic and social diversity. For example, lacrosse, our national summer sport, has been played by Indigenous peoples for nearly 1,000 years.

Hockey, our national winter sport, was invented in Canada in the 1800s. Basketball was invented by Canadian Dr. James Naismith in 1891 to condition young athletes during the winter. Our sports system allows people from all segments of Canadian society to get involved in sports activities at all levels and in all forms of participation.

Football – like citizenship – is the ultimate team game. It requires people of every size, strength, and skillset to work together as a team to achieve great things. [Canada’s] new citizens, and our players, are part of a proud history that has made our league and country stronger.

~ Randy Ambrosie, Commissioner of the Canadian Football League

Impact of immigration

  • More than 2,800 immigrants work as athletes, coaches, officials, and referees across the country.
  • Immigrants make up 20% of all people working in Canada as sports coaches.
  • There are more than 16,000 immigrants who earn their living as program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness.

Number of immigrants in sports-related occupations

Immigration profile: Vancouver, British Columbia

Quick facts:

  • Immigrants in the Vancouver area represent 41% of the population.
  • More than 58% of immigrants who came to the Vancouver area between 1980 and 2016 were economic immigrants, while family sponsored nearly a third (31%), and 9% were refugees.

Did you know?

A total of 128 athletes were named to the Tokyo 2020 Canadian Paralympic Team, with 21 (16%) from British Columbia.

Famous Canadian immigrants

Geraldine Heaney

Geraldine Heaney immigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland and became a pioneer in women’s hockey. She was a Canadian national women’s hockey team member in the first seven Women’s World Championships, winning gold each time. She’s a two-time Canadian Olympian (silver in 1998, gold in 2012). She was also inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall.

Donovan Bailey

Donovan Bailey immigrated to Canada from Jamaica. He won two Olympic golds in sprinting for Canada in 1996, with one run recorded as the fastest time ever recorded by a human. He was also inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.

Wally Buono

Wally Buono immigrated from Italy to become one of the most legendary coaches in the Canadian Football League (CFL). After playing college football in the United States, he became a linebacker for the Montréal Alouettes. He was head coach and general manager of the Calgary Stampeders and then the BC Lions, where he retired at the end of the 2018 season. Wally’s impressive CFL career spanned a remarkable 46 years.

Bianca Andreescu

Born in Canada to Romanian parents, Bianca Andreescu became the first Canadian woman to win a tennis Grand Slam title at the 2019 US Open Final. She’s currently ranked fifth worldwide by the Women’s Tennis Association.

Denis Shapovalov

Israeli-born Denis Shapovalov is the top-ranking Canadian male tennis player and 15th in the world. In 2017, he was named the Association of Tennis Professionals’ Newcomer of the Year and the most improved player of the year.

Elvis Stojko

Elvis Stojko, of Hungarian/Slovenian descent, represented Canada at the World Figure Skating competitions. He won titles in 1994, 1995 and 1997. He’s also a two-time Olympic silver medallist at the 1994 and 1998 Olympic Winter Games. Elvis Stojko was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Canadian Olympic Hall in 2011.

September 2022 Health Report

By Beryl Matthewson, Health Convenor

 

It has been an interesting summer with life-threatening heat and fires. Many medical experts are anticipating another wave of Covid-19 to influence this year’s fall influenza virus cases as health care systems face staffing shortages in local hospitals and fewer family doctors.

Travel has rebounded but long line ups to renew passports and catch airplanes are now the norm. Most Canadians have been vaccinated, but deaths are still occurring daily, and the use of masks and individual testing persists. There have been over six million deaths reported across the world due to Covid-19, but also an estimated 20 million lives have been saved by the vaccine. However, there is little known about long term effects of the disease, which can damage the heart and cause strokes.

Post-vaccine myocarditis seen rarely in young men is not nearly as common as post-infection cardiac damage. Data reported in the Journal of American Medical Association suggests that the Covid-19 vaccination actually protected against heart attacks in both men and women.

The world has experienced a severe respiratory infection approximately every 10 years, but there are also now reported recurrences of other diseases such as polio and monkey pox in younger populations who were never vaccinated, so for them precautions are still needed for the future.

 

September 2022 Housing and Safety Report

By Kerry Gibson, Housing and Safety Convenor

Housing

Developers have broken ground in Victoria for a 97-unit affordable housing complex that will replace three existing aging buildings. The new complex will become two four-story buildings in James Bay.

CEO of BC Housing Shayne Ramsay resigned amidst a litany of controversies and concerns. It remains to be seen if Atira will retain funding from BC Housing with the absence of the previous conflict of interest, or if that funding will require new oversight with new governance. On July 8th, there was a dramatic overhaul and dismissal of the former board of directors, which may have led to Ramsay’s resignation along with the results of the Ernst and Young report, which comprehensively condemned the effectiveness of the organization.

University students are finding each year more and more difficult to find safe, affordable, and available housing in Vancouver. Price-gauging is also a concern. This logistical obstacle is having long term consequences for students, who are forced to defer or drop out altogether.

The BC Rent Bank has released a survey that has determined a 94% success rate to provide stability through financial supports for low-income renters. The main reasons people utilized this service were to maintain custody of their children, engage in recovery from addictions, and resume employment. This initiative is supported by VanCity and the federal government.

Safety

A review was recently released regarding the 2021 heat dome determining that over 600 lives were lost. Minister Farnsworth has announced that preparations are being made for 2022 climate conditions, and that the province’s emergency alert system would be in readiness in June 2022 to notify the public of extreme conditions. The federal government has also announced an allocation of over $200 million to be designated to disaster recovery and climate resilience.

The Minister of Mental Health announced a harm prevention strategy to decriminalize the possession of less than 2.5 grams of formerly illicit substances. The opioid epidemic has resulted in significant loss of life in BC, and Minister Carolyn Bennett hopes this measure will mitigate the stigma associated with drug use encouraging users to seek support resources that prevent loss of life.

The escalation of both targeted and opportunistic violent crime continues to be a major concern to the community, both in daylight and nocturnal hours. It is important to be cognizant of one’s surroundings, walk in pairs whenever possible, do not wear ear buds that restrict spatial awareness, and consider carrying a personal alarm. Do not be afraid to call 911 regarding criminal acts, even if the call is after the fact.

Homeless people are especially vulnerable, and there is speculation that a recent podcast by Joe Rogan has contributed to the violence against the homeless, as he was quoted as saying in response to a question regarding the homelessness issue, “…just kill them”.

The South Asian community is also concerned about racial profiling. A list of 11 wanted men with photographs was released by the police, and people may use the wanted poster as the vitriol necessary for hate crimes on the community.