On Tuesday, the WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre held a rally in Vancouver to kick off the school year with a call for post-secondary institutions to address sexualized violence and support survivors on campus. I was invited to speak at the event but, unfortunately, was not able to make it over to Vancouver on that dat so I sent the organizers a copy of the speech I had prepared.

Below is a transcript of the speech that their Executive Director Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer graciously read on my behalf.

Text of Speech

Please accept my apologies for not being able to participate in this important event in person today. I would have loved to attend but unfortunately I have commitments in Victoria.

I am pleased to have been offered the opportunity to send along some information about the legislative progress that has been made relating to sexual assault policies over the past six months.

First, please let me provide some context on how I got involved with this topic – for most of my life I have either studied at or worked on university campuses around the world. For the last two decades, I have been a professor at the University of Victoria, the same university I attended as an undergrad in the 1980s.

My professional responsibilities are now largely centered around the legislature and my position as the MLA for Oak Bay – Gordon Head and Leader of the BC Green Party. But I still spend a great deal of time working with, and speaking to, students and young adults and have been absolutely sickened with the seemingly endless wave of stories about sexual assaults happening on and close to universities and other post-secondary campuses in B.C.

This past Spring I arrived back at my legislative office after a meeting in Vancouver to find my staff eagerly waiting for me with a campaign pitch and copies of Ontario legislation on their desks.

“Sexualized violence is a massive issue in B.C.”, they started, “and there is so much we can do to improve the situation – starting with colleges and universities.” One sentence in and I was on board. We immediately got to work, reviewed Ontario’s Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment, and drafted up a B.C.-version of their Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act.

We compiled a list of over 50 student societies, assault support centres, and key people across the province and contacted each one for input.

On March 8 I introduced Bill M205: Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act. The bill, based on similar legislation introduced in Ontario, was designed to address the pervasive occurrence of sexualized violence plaguing universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions in British Columbia.

Noting that many post-secondary institutions lack sexual-assault policies, few have on-campus sexual assault crisis centres, and hardly any collect related incident data, the bill was designed to create a legal responsibility for universities and colleges to develop and maintain policies that would work to prevent the occurrences of sexual violence and provide support for victims.

The act would also require university and college-specific policies to be developed that would meet the needs of students, including education and protection, while working to create a safe environment for all students to come forward to report a sexual assault.

With an estimated one in three women and one in two transgender individuals experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime, this is a community issue that desperately needs to be addressed and post-secondary campuses present a unique opportunity to intervene.

The week after I tabled the Post-Secondary Sexual Violence Policies Act I followed up with the Premier in question period.

Noting that action on this issue was long overdue, she pledged to work with me to officially pass a version of my bill – urgently before the spring legislative session ended in May. I was thrilled with the progress on this pressing issue. I have since met with the Minister of Advanced Education to discuss next steps in moving this forward, and will continue to consult with students, survivors, support groups and university faculty and staff to make sure their voices are included as we build these laws. Sexualized violence in our communities is a huge problem, but it is important to remember that it is also a problem with incredible potential for progress.

With the start of the school year upon us it is important to remember that your universities and colleges are now legally obligated to develop and maintain policies that would work to prevent the occurrences of sexual violence and provide support for victims. These policies must be developed in consultation with the student body, and they need to be implemented by this coming Spring – one year from when the bill passed. If you feel that your school is not fulfilling their responsibilities, engage with your student society, ask the administration what policy progress has been made and how you can provide input to the policy development process. If you have additional concerns, you are always welcome to call my office at the legislature.

I am grateful to be able to work on this crucially important issue and owe a debt of gratitude to the incredibly courageous survivors of sexualized violence who have spoken out and help move us all forward.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide a few remarks, I wish you all a successful and safe term!

Photos by Jeremy Lye

Skyrocketing real estate markets across the Lower Mainland and Southern Vancouver Island are dragging the rental market with them.

Frances Bula recently wrote in The Globe and Mail, “as people are shut out of the housing market, more people have no choice but to remain as renters who are competing for a limited supply of housing in a system that has treated renters like second-class citizens for decades.”

She’s right, and for people who are young, non-white, have mental health issues, unemployed, recent immigrants, poor, disabled, or have pets, finding a safe, affordable home can seem nearly impossible in markets with vacancy rates around 0.6 per cent like Victoria.

With constrained real estate mobility, people have little choice but to stay in suites that would have previously been viewed as shorter-term student rentals and I am getting increasingly concerned about where the young people in my riding are going to live this upcoming school year. A representative from Camosun College told us he too is very worried about the situation and described it as a complete crisis with some students living in cars and others forced into overcrowded, expensive shared suites.

We so desperately need more designated long-term rental units in B.C. Spaces that people can make their home, places that welcome children and pets and have some outdoor space. Homes for people who will rent for large portions of their life, either by necessity or choice.

Co-operative housing arrangements are another promising avenue to bridge the gap between the rental and homeownership markets. They provide shareholders with a long-term, sustainable home and create diverse communities, supporting multi-generational residents of varying income levels.

Unfortunately, few co-operative housing developments have been built in B.C. since the 1990s when the federal government released its social housing responsibility to the province and existing units have multi-year waitlists. Given our current housing crisis, and the province’s new Housing Priority Initiatives Fund, I think the B.C. Liberals, in conjunction with municipalities and the federal government, need to step in to help housing co-operatives with land acquisition and planning costs.

Each level of government has various tools available to them that they can use to tackle the housing crisis from different angles. To guide these initiatives we need, and have needed for years, more comprehensive data about the trends impacting our housing market. The information about buyer nationality that the province began collecting this June is a start, but making major policy decisions based on five weeks of data – as the B.C. Liberals did with Bill 28 – is far from ideal.

Knowing that we are going to be faced with challenging housing decisions for years to come, we need to start collecting more data now so we can design informed policy for the future. Determining who is purchasing homes, and how many, in B.C. would allow the government to identify the flow of foreign investments, the role corporations are playing, and whether we are seeing speculation in our market coming from other regions in Canada.

Tracking house flipping (when investors buy a house to quickly resell it at higher price) is an important aspect of understanding an over-inflated market. Imposing a sales tax on homes sold within one or two years of purchase could be an effective way of curbing house flipping but, again, it is a policy that should be founded in comprehensive data.

Studying the impact of Airbnbs, I suspect, would shed a lot of light on changes happening in the rental market. Airbnb has already said it’s open to some restrictions tailored to tight rental markets, including banning hosts from using the popular online platform to run a business renting out multiple units, but governments (municipal and provincial) will need solid data to move forward with such policies.

Long-term and ongoing data collection is vital to the future of homes in B.C. – the sooner we start the better.

Feature photo by Josefontheroad.

Many might not be aware that an emerging, and entirely preventable, crisis in affordable rental accommodation is developing in the Burnaby Metrotown area. Perhaps the reason for this is that neither the government nor the official opposition has been raising this issue publicly. That’s one of the reasons why I accepted an invitation from the Metrotown Residents’ Association to tour the region on August 18^th. While my visit to the area generated some excellent local media coverage in Burnaby Now and Vancouver 24 hours, I thought it was important for me to expand upon what I learned from my tour.

Background

The issue that Burnaby is now facing has arisen from recent and imminent changes in policy. The first concerns legislative changes to the Strata Property Act that were passed in Bill 40, Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2015. An obvious question concerns why changes to the Strata Property Act were passed within a Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act. There is, of course, no justifiable reason for this to have occurred. My own opinion is that it was done simply because Richard Coleman is the Minister of Natural Gas Development and also the Minister Responsible for Housing. By burying housing amendments in a natural gas bill the minister was able to deal with his entire portfolio at once. Bill 40 contained provisions that allowed Stratas to be dissolved (and hence the property sold) with only 80% instead of 100% of strata owners agreeing.

The second important policy change is that the municipality of Burnaby is moving towards rezoning low-rise areas to mid- and high-rise in and around the Metrotown skytrain station. While in and of itself this might sound like a fine idea — by increasing density you increase availability of housing stock — the reality is that it is compounding the affordability crisis in the area. Below I’ll attempt to outline why this is the case.

But first, I’d like to thank the  Metrotown Residents’ Association for inviting me to participate on the tour. I’m also grateful to the residents of the Maywood,  Marlborough and Cedar Place who took the time to speak with me.

The problem

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of demolition permits that have been issued by the City of Burnaby. Older, low rise apartment buildings are being bought up at an alarming rate by developers whose intention is to demolish them and turn them into high end condominiums. Now in theory, as I note above this might sound like a great idea. The current stock of rental housing is dated and densification increases housing supply. But in reality, what is happening is that lower income rental housing is being replaced by higher income luxury condominiums. The result is that these lower income people are displaced and have nowhere to go. This is particularly troubling as Burnaby is ranked dead last in terms of affordability in the Canadian Rental Housing Index.

Metrotown mall and the Metrotown skytrain station are immediately adjacent to the neighbourhoods that are being affected. The proximity of rapid transit is particularly important to the residents living in the area who rely on it to get to their employment. At the same time, it was evident that the residents moving into the newer high-end condominiums are far more affluent. One can readily see this simply by looking at the cars parked along the residential streets immediately in front of the new constructions as opposed to the older ones.

The response by Burnaby’s Mayor has been to blame the provincial and federal government for the problem. I find this odd in that zoning falls squarely within municipal jurisdiction and that municipalities have the power to create standards of maintenance bylaws which can incentivize upkeep of existing stock. They also have wide discretion as to how they use funds acquired from developers through the granting of increased density. Of course, the development of affordable rental housing, like Cedar Place in Burnaby, often requires the investment of resources from multiple levels of government, but it’s simply not good enough to pass the blame to someone else.

Residents in the area that I talked to spoke of the constant stress that they are living with as they wonder if their apartment building will be next. They have tried to organize and meet regularly. Unfortunately, several of them told me that whenever they put up posters advertising their next gathering, the posters are quickly blacked out, like the example shown to the right.

So what is being done for those being evicted. The honest answer is that virtually nothing is being done. Burnaby council seems to be turning a blind eye as the demoviction problem gets out of hand. Rather than recognizing that the municipality has a moral obligation to look out for the best interests of their constituents, they seem content with the knowledge that property taxes and developer funds acquired through granting increased density will increase the City’s coffers.  In fact, Burnaby’s Mayor has been reported to have said “he’s not about to give in to downloading what he says are provincial and federal responsibilities.”

The solutions

Burnaby council doesn’t have to look far to get a sense of what they might do. Under the leadership of Gregor Robertson the City of Vancouver has taken numerous steps to incentivize the development of rental houses. At the same time they successfully petitioned the provincial government to bring in enabling legislation that would allow Vancouver to introduce a vacancy tax that would penalize those purely speculating in the marketplace.

Burnaby did not. In fact, I wrote to Burnaby Mayor and Council in May asking them for their views on the vacancy tax. As I have written about earlier, the addition of the vacancy tax only into the Vancouver Charter and not the Community Charter as well (which other communities like Victoria and Oak Bay have been calling for) makes no sense at all. For example, on one side of Boundary Road (in Vancouver) a vacancy tax could be applied; on the other side of the street (in Burnaby), it would not. I never received a response or even an acknowledgement that my letter was received. In addition, Burnaby has the jurisdictional ability to slow the pace of demovictions to ensure that the construction of affordable, rental accommodation keeps pace with the increased densification.

Unlike the more progressive housing approach of Vancouver, Burnaby’s response to the affordability crisis has been to call on the BC government to allow municipalities to introduce “rental-only” zoning. The BC NDP have also been musing over the possibility of introducing legislation that would allow rental-only zoning options for municipalities.  In my view this is not a solution. In fact, I would argue that this has the potential of being disastrous as it would potentially lead to the development of big city ghettos as found in other jurisdictions world wide.

This is the 25^th in our series of stories celebrating the outstanding accomplishments of youth in our community. These inspirational young adults are enriching our lives with their passion and commitment to the betterment of society.

Robert Lee

I first met Robert on May 23 last year at a symbolic passing of the torch at the Old Oak Bay High School Farewell Ceremony. Oak Bay High has four pillars that capture its culture: academics, athletics, fine arts, and community leadership and philanthropy. At the event an alumnus, signifying past success in one of Oak Bay’s pillars, was asked to say a few words about the foundation we received at Oak Bay High. I had the distinct honour and privilege of representing the academics pillar and passing the torch to Robert Lee.

I met Robert a second time on October 27, 2017 at the Grand Opening of the New Oak Bay High School. Now it was Robert’s turn to say a few words about Oak Bay’s academic pillar and what it meant to him. Upon hearing him speak, I knew that this articulate young man was destined for great things.

Robert was born in New Westminster, BC and moved to Victoria with his parents at a young age. He attended Willows Elementary, Monterey & Arbutus Middle Schools and Oak Bay High School, from where he  graduated  this past June with an exceptional record of academic achievement and community involvement. Robert loves learning and told us his favourite courses are “everything I took in school”. He also loves languages (he speaks a bit of French and Mandarin) and history, but acknowledges that he is more of a “science and math type”.

Highly successful in all his courses, Robert  received Honours with Distinction (5.0 Grade Point Average) throughout high school. He has received awards in a wide range of subjects including Top Student in Science 9, Planning 10, Chemistry 11, English 11, French 11, Physics 11 and Mathematics 12. In 2014, the Greater Victoria School District Board of Education honoured him with a Recognition of Outstanding Achievement. His list of awards and achievements is long and impressive.  They include winning the national 2014 Michael Smith Science Challenge (first among 1,753 participants) and the 2016 Oak Bay High School Kiwanis Citizenship and Service Award with Ruby Tang.

In the fall of his grade 12 year, Robert took a Computer Science course at the University of Victoria (in the UVic uStart Dual Credit Program) and received the top mark in the class — that’s a first year university class!

Outside of academics, Robert has also distinguished himself as a leader through various activities at school and in the community. In 2015, with the school’s Bowker Creek Student Group, he participated in an exchange trip to the Netherlands where the students analyzed water samples and plant distribution in Holland’s saltwater marshes and later in Bowker Creek. He led fundraising and successfully secured a grant from a local organization. From his teacher Derek Schrubsole we learned that upon returning from the Netherlands, Robert volunteered his time to assist with a different group of students who would later be attending the Water is Life conference. He assisted with editing, proofreading and formatting the Bowker Creek restoration project and the creation of the project website.

What so impressed Mr. Schrubsole was that Robert was happy to help out and donate his time and effort despite the fact that he was not even attending the conference this year.

Other school involvement includes Student Council, Peer Tutoring, Project Leader for the Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock Campaign in 2015 and Leader in the Community Leadership Program since September 2015. Robert was Co-Leader of the school’s Reach for the Top Team that competed against Vancouver schools in April of 2016.

Robert was pleased to tell us about his work as Leader and Organizer of University of Victoria’s Senior’s Program, where students from his school and other local high schools volunteer their time to teach seniors computer skills. In this role, he created teaching materials, wrote news releases, recruited volunteers and seniors, solicited funding, managed Senior’s program inquiries, mentored volunteers, delegated responsibilities and delivered workshops. All this because Robert wanted to “give back” to his community and he loved working with seniors.

Since 2014, Robert has been a member of the City of Victoria Youth Council, engaging in several events each year, including Go Out and Vote (for the civic election in 2014) and the Employment Fair. In the latter he helped youth find resources to build their resume and practice interviewing skills. As a member of the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL) Teen Council, Robert participated in youth focus groups, was a Reading Buddy and a Tech Buddy and acted in an advisory capacity to the GVPL.

Robert has been inspired by many teachers, including his Physics teacher Mr. Simonson, Science teacher and Environment Club sponsor Mr. Shrubsole and Planning teacher Mr. Alexander, who helped him with scholarship applications. “He’s a kid who I think we will hear a lot more about in the future with his ideas and drive” says Mr. Alexander. Frankly, I suspect Robert has inspired many teachers as well!

Robert is one of only 25 recipients across Canada of the prestigious $80,000 Schulich Leader Scholarship in engineering.  He’ll be taking up this scholarship at the University of Victoria where he hopes to eventually explore his passion regarding the electrification and automation of transportation, a field he sees himself working in sometime in the next decade.

At the end of our interview I asked him if he’d ever driven an electric car before. He hadn’t so I pulled out an N to put on the back of my Nissan Leaf and let Robert drive himself home with me as a passenger. Upon exiting the car he let me know that he is determined to convince his family to buy an electric vehicle!

Mr. Shrubsole gave us a fine example of Robert’s humility: during one of the Environment Club meetings, a fellow student came in congratulating Robert for winning the Schulich Leaders Scholarship. Robert, who had not said a word about it prior to this, simply smiled and indicated he was thankful for the amazing opportunity. “Robert is one of those students I felt honoured to work with, both in the classroom and out” says Mr. Shrubsole.

This summer, Robert will spend six weeks working at TRIUMF on the University of British Columbia campus, coincidentally the exact same place I had my first undergraduate summer job.  He is a recipient of TRIUMF’s High School Fellowship Program that offers fellowships each year to graduating secondary students entering their first undergraduate year at a recognized post-secondary institution. The Fellowship includes an award of $3,000 and a six-week summer research experience at TRIUMF.

Robert is a brilliant young man who approaches life with great humility, scientific curiosity and a tremendous work ethic. He quietly goes about tackling challenges and accomplishing great things. We expect to hear much more about his accomplishments in the years to come. And while I thought that May 23, 2015 was the first time I met Robert, closer inspection of the image he provided us to the right from when he volunteered at UVic’s Science Venture shows that it obviously was not! My own son is seen sitting in the front row. And I guess that what’s we all love about Victoria, you are never more than one step of separation from any one in our community.

On Saturday June 25, Squamish became Canada’s 5^th solar city. Initiated by the Canadian Solar Cities Project, Squamish joins four other British Columbia communities in meeting the ten criteria required for this designation. These ten criteria are:

1. The municipality has a climate change plan with short-term and long-term targets and time-frames in place
2. The municipality has a community energy plan in place
3. The municipality has an energy plan in place for its own facilities
4. The municipality has adopted targets for a proportion of total community energy demand to be met by renewable energy
5. The municipality has established policies and incentives for solar electricity and solar thermal utilization for residential homeowners
6. The municipality has established policies and incentives for solar electricity and solar thermal utilization for commercial ratepayers
7. The municipality has a communication plan in place to build awareness of its renewable energy projects and policies
8. The municipality has established policies for land use planning to promote and encourage energy efficiency
9. Community renewable energy, energy efficiency technologies and green living demonstration projects are developed, supported and encouraged by the city to demonstrate these concepts to the public
10. The municipality has policies in place to encourage district energy projects within its jurisdiction

Canada’s first solar city was Dawson Creek which received its designation in June 2012. It was followed by Colwood (in March 2013), the T’Sou-ke Nation (in September 2013) and North Vancouver (in March 2014).

Squamish resident Matt Blackmon spearheaded the initial drive to Solar City status which was supported by numerous local residents, environmental groups and Squamish Council. The award was also made possible by the generous support of local realtor Andrew Laurie, seen to the right shaking hands with Bob Haugen, Executive Director of the Canadian Solar Cities project, and Matt Blackmon at the microphone on his left.

Accepting the award — a stunningly crafted bronze sundial — on behalf of the District of Squamish was Mayor Patricia Heintzman. Councillor Karen Elliott was also in attendance as were numerous other local area residents and civic leaders.

I had the distinct honour of speaking at the event and took the opportunity to congratulate District of Squamish for their leadership.

A lot of lot exciting things are going on in Squamish these days. Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company that has developed innovative technology to create liquid fuels from atmospheric carbon dioxide, recently set up shop in Squamish. This potentially revolutionary technology also has the ability to capture and sequester human produced carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. I had the pleasure of touring the Squamish facility back in April of this year.

In addition, UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre, the District of Squamish, the Squamish Nation, Newport Beach Developments Limited Partnership, and Carbon Engineering recently signed an agreement to explore ways in which a centre for clean energy research and education could be established on the waterfront brownfield industrial site located at the head of Howe Sound. This exciting opportunity would mean the creation of a satellite campus of UBC in Squamish focused exclusively on Cleantech education, research, and development. It’s precisely this type of investment in innovation that I have been advocating for since the time I got elected as it is critical in terms of positioning British Columbia at the forefront of tomorrow’s economy.

Ironically, as Squamish takes bold steps to lead British Columbia through innovation towards a 21st century economy, it is having to deal with the unwanted Woodfibre LNG proposal that would be located a stone throw away from the town. The fact that the Squamish Council voted against this project; the fact that West Vancouver and Lion’s Bay Councils voted against it;  the fact that it goes against their district’s branding as Hardwired for Adventure; the fact that it undermines Squamish’s efforts to become a leader in cleantech seems utterly lost on the BC Liberals. For in their desperate and reckless quest to land an LNG plant to fulfill their irresponsible election promises all that matters is “getting to yes”. But at some point, you need to ask what the question is.

Let’s get to yes on Squamish becoming a centre for Cleantech education, research and development while saying no to doubling down on chasing the losing proposition of LNG.