vancouver

So this weekend, as I previously mentioned, was Pride Weekend in Vancouver—a little bit late, compared to many other places, but carefully scheduled to coincide with B.C. Day so lots of people got a three-day weekend! The night before, the Celebration of Light, an annual international fireworks competition attracted huge crowds to the beaches to watch the grand finale. (Only complaint: music selection. China, of all countries, played a Céline Dion song, and the United States played U2 and the credits song from CSI. What??)

Pride was terrific as well, as usual, but there were two things I noticed that deserve special attention: (1) the commercialism and (2) the politics. Commercialism, of course, is going to be rampant at Pride celebrations most anywhere, and it’s easy to understand where much corporate presence comes from. Corporations know, for the most part, which side their bread is buttered on, and know that there’s lots of money to be made by self-promotion and advertising in the gay community. To that end, you get lots of things like banks handing out promotional literature and coffee companies offering samples of new concoctions. (This also reinforces my suspicion that the only thing you need to do—indeed, the only thing usually done—to advertise to the gay community is to put the word “gay” in front of anything, as in “gay credit card” or “gay holiday to Europe”. Also, sometimes there’s a shirtless man in the advertising.)

As for the fact that this was one of the most political Pride celebrations I’ve seen in a long time, I’m referring specifically to domestic politics. What with a possibly looming federal election come this fall, all three left-wing parties are trying to brand themselves as the “gay party”, with varying degrees of success. This is especially evident in Vancouver, where there was a recent by-election which the Liberals won by an extremely slim majority. The Greens and NDP are threatening to make a strong stand again in the riding of Vancouver Quadra, as well as in Vancouver Centre, and to this end all the potential candidates showed up to Pride to promote their political parties. It’s also interesting to note that in the United States, you often see the Republican Party or Log Cabin Republicans at Pride celebrations—another example of knowing which side your bread is buttered on—but the Conservatives were nowhere to be seen in Vancouver, at least this time. A similar effect was evident with the two organizations running candidates for mayor of Vancouver, Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association. At any rate, it was interesting to see this phenomenon at work, and it’ll be interesting to see which of these parties emerges as the “gay party”, if any, or at least the best on gay issues.

(Two brief side notes. First, if the Single Transferable Vote system were implemented—as there was certainly very strong support for doing in evidence at Pride—the fact that there are three major left-wing parties in Canada (four, if you count the Bloc Québécois) might not have such a negative impact on actual left-wing representation at the provincial—and hopefully, one day, the federal—level. Second, I was chatting briefly with Hedy Fry, the Liberal MP for Vancouver Centre, when one of the 9/11 Truthers, who had a strong presence as well at Pride, loudly interrupted and started making a scene at her. I felt kind of bad for her, but she is the MP…)

At any rate, you can check out all my photos from Vancouver Pride at the Xyre Gallery. Enjoy!

Also, I now have a new computer after Apple very graciously decided simply to replace my old, broken MacBook after having replaced both the hard drive and the logic board several times each. So I apologize for my absence for the last few days—but I’m connected once again, and back to writing all those essays I had promised to post. Whee!

(X-posted to Feministe.)

What the heck has happened to the weather? It feels like freaking March or April out there. Clouds, rain, the whole bit. It’s supposed to be sunny and bright and happy, no? And we appear to be in for another day or two of it, at least:

At least it’s supposed to get sunny and bright and happy this weekend (hopefully), just in time for the gay pride festival. Until then, enjoy the drear.

As promised, here is Don Cherry’s tribute on Coach’s Corner to Luc Bourdon, the Vancouver Canucks hockey player who was killed in a motorcycle accident in Shippagan, New Brunswick on Thursday:

Since I have just learned, using this excellent blog post as a jumping-off point (my own instructions are forthcoming), how to capture HDTV with nothing more than a MacBook, a FireWire cable, and a free (and legal) software download, I present Don Cherry’s jacket du jour straight from HDTV!

Also, Don’s tribute to the Vancouver Canucks’ Luc Bourdon, who died on Thursday in a motorcycle crash, was very classy, for a change: Don just shut up and played the video. I’ll post it too when I get a chance.

The Greater Vancouver Transportation Police Authority, noted for their use of Tasers on people without valid fares, has changed the relevant jargon from “non-compliant” to “actively resistant”:

The old policy, adopted a year ago, caused a public outcry after it was learned through a Freedom of Information request that transit police had deployed a Taser on non-violent passengers, including a person who had not paid his fare and tried to run away from an officer.

The old policy stated: “A Taser may be deployed…to gain physical control of a non-compliant, suicidal or potentially violent subject.”

But it’s not at all certain just how much real change this alteration of terminology is really going to bring about:

Inquiry counsel Art Vertlieb asked [deputy transit police chief Ken] Allen if the new policy would allow a Taser to be deployed on a person fleeing police during a “fare blitz”—a check to see if passengers had paid fares.

“It would depend on the extenuating circumstances surrounding why the individual was fleeing,” the deputy chief replied.

In other words, Canada’s only armed transit police force not only gets to keep its Tasers, they get to keep using these potentially deadly weapons on “actively resistant” human beings who make the bad judgment not to pay their transit fare and the misfortune to get caught. If TransLink is so concerned about revenue loss from non-compliant individuals, they should install some fucking turnstiles on the SkyTrain instead of Tasering their riders.

A couple of interesting tabs I’ve had floating around in my browser for the past couple of days, to slake your thirst for the time being, but hopefully whet your appetite as regards the future—all right, I’m done:

• From Failed Messiah: Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel: Real Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) don’t abuse children; child abuse is a problem only among ba’alei teshuvah (naturalized ultra-Orthodox Jews). Reason? Haredi children don’t call their teachers by their first names.
• From the Slog: University of Washington College Republicans are holding an odious and racist event on Tuesday: ‘Find an Illegal Immigrant Tag’. Stated purpose: ‘to send a a “clear statement that we need to get serious and crack down on illegal immigration and secure our borders.”’ Unstated purpose: to be huge white-privilege racist dicks.
• From The Province: A good summary of the problems surrounding this year’s Vaisakhi parade and festivities in Surrey, B.C. A what point does it stop being a family-friendly religious celebration and start being political, especially when you throw photographs of Sikh men who committed violent terrorist attacks against Indians in support of a Sikh homeland into the mix?
• Finally, from the Onion:
  
  

  

  Mead Releases New Grad-School-Ruled Notebook

  The pages, in addition to having extremely narrow ruling, will be triple-perforated and seven-hole-punched, to meet the modern grad student’s requirements. I’ve been wanting something like this for years.

Across Canada, people protested the recent decisions by the CBC to axe the only remaining radio orchestra in North America and change the character of Radio Two away from classical music as a major focus. At the protest in Vancouver, about three hundred people showed up: this was the biggest turnout in Canada, but this is, after all, the city that is the home base of the CBC Radio Orchestra. Many important people in the Canadian music scene—not just strictly classical music—were there to address the crowd and lead us in very well-tuned protest songs and anthems and chants.

The full album of pictures is here (I’m slowly migrating my photo software to Plogger). Here are some ‘best of’ hits:

Also, check out Adam Abrams’ blog post, with which I express my complete agreement, as well as his photo album from the event. Also, if you have Facebook, check out the event page for the nationwide protests, as well as the Facebook groups for classical music at the CBC and for the CBC Radio Orchestra. Also make sure to check out the web site for Stand on Guard for CBC.

The last remaining radio orchestra in North America, the Vancouver-based CBC Radio Orchestra, will be disbanded after 70 years. From the CBC:

The decision to disband the orchestra—formed in 1938 when radio orchestras were common—comes down to dollars and cents, a CBC executive in Vancouver said Thursday.

“We know for example that for a concert that we fund through our CBC Radio Orchestra, we can extend our reach to three by doing it through other musical organizations,” said Jennifer McGuire, executive director of CBC English Radio.

In other words, it’s too expensive to fund classical music, since nobody listens to it except old fogies and you can’t compete with the private sector that way. Needless to say, this decision has many people—not least the musicians—ticked off. From today’s Globe and Mail:

“It is a travesty that this decision has been made. It’s a travesty that the government continues to cut the funding to the CBC. But it is also a travesty that bureaucrats that occupy the top echelons of radio don’t have the guts to stand up for this orchestra,” said violist Andrew Brown as he emerged from the meeting, receiving an impromptu standing ovation from other musicians who had gathered in the hotel’s lobby.

“Just bafflegab,” said Brian G’froerer, who has played principal horn with the orchestra for 30 years, when asked how CBC executives Jennifer McGuire and Mark Steinmetz had responded to the musicians’ concerns inside the meeting.

Today in Toronto, Stéphane Dion extolled the gains the Liberals made in yesterday’s byeletions, despite the fact that such gains were rather thin. The Liberals took two seats in Toronto handily, both with former leadership candidates running. They squeaked by to take a third seat in Vancouver by 151 votes, and lost a fourth in Saskatchewan to the Conservatives. Yet Dion still sees this as a smashing victory:

“Yesterday has been a very good day for Liberals,” Mr. Dion announced at a Toronto news conference.

Okay, sure, that’s where the spin is going, I see that. But it gets crazier:

Mr. Dion seemed particularly pleased about the win in Vancouver Quadra, B.C., where former provincial environment minister and onetime tree planter Joyce Murray took the vote, despite heavy losses to the Green Party.

Conceding that “the main point in Quadra has been the Green vote,” he dismissed suggestions the increase in Green support was a concern for the Liberals, who have sought to distinguish their environmental policies as more far-sighted than the Conservatives’.

Just have another look at those numbers from yesterday’s elections returns. The Liberals scored 36% of the vote, down from 49% when they last took the riding in 2006. Meanwhile the NDP and Greens took 13–14% of the vote each. The whole platform of the Greens has been that neither the Liberals’ nor the Conservatives’ positions on climate change and the environment were far-sighted or aggressive enough enough. Joyce Murray’s laughable assertion that ‘The public has spoken and it’s about the environment’, as we discussed on Monday, is flatly contradicted by the polling numbers. When 13% of the voters choose the Green Party over yours, you can bet your boots it’s about the environment. Just not in the way you think.

The Liberals saw their share of the vote in Vancouver Quadra fall to 36% from 49% in the 2006 election, despite devoting weeks in the House of Commons to questions on the Cadman affair, which the party hoped would resonate in the riding.

Oh, so that explains why the Liberal leadership have been wasting time during each and every Question Period to asking the same questions and getting the same non-answers from Harper and Moore and other Conservatives about the Cadman affair. I’d wondered about that: why were they letting the Bloc Québécois and the NDP ask real question about real matters, such as NAFTA-gate or, y’know, the environment. These then end up looking like pet political issues because the official ‘opposition’—if the Liberals truly deserve that moniker—won’t take them up. Instead, they devote their time to making the Conservatives repeat the same half-truths about ‘financial considerations’ because they think this will resound in Vancouver Quadra.

Well, the Cadman affair didn’t resound in Vancouver on Monday. The environment did.

The final numbers in Vancouver Quadra from Elections Canada are in, with all 237 polls reporting:

Turnout was abysmal: 28,165 of 83,121—a mere 33.9%—of registered electors voted. Still, this is a higher turnout than any of the three other elections held today, none of which even hit 28%.

Joyce Murray takes the seat for the Liberals, but by a margin of only 151 votes. This is a stunning result because the seat was considered so safe for the Liberals, even with many voters expected to vote for the NDP and the Greens, thus causing a spoiler effect. Furthermore, the counting showed a clear and consistent lead for Joyce Murray right up until the end. As this CBC article makes clear, the election was called before the results got really close, and the celebration was a hair’s breadth from being premature.

Murray said Monday night’s victory in Vancouver, and Liberal wins in byelections in Toronto, will make the Liberal Party more effective in holding Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper accountable in the next weeks and months.

“The public has spoken and it’s about the environment,” she said, promising to be a tireless advocate for the reduction of greenhouse gases and to push for social housing for those in need.

Yeah, not quite—if the Liberals had owned the environment issue, 28% of voters wouldn’t have voted for the NDP or the Greens. As I pointed out in my previous post, this should send a stunning message to Stéphane Dion and the Liberal leadership. The fact that over 28% of voters who might have voted for the Liberals did not do so stands for a stunning repudiation of the Liberal Party. There are a zillion issues on which he and his party appear not to have connected with voters, especially here in liberal (small l) Vancouver, B.C. The environment. Government transparency. Western alienation. The opposition’s failure to be effective against the ruling Conservatives in Parliament. These combine to give enormous appeal to parties like the NDP, and especially the Green Party, which finished only 0.2% behind the NDP in Toronto Centre.

Here’s another good quote from Joyce Murray:

“Tonight we are sending a very clear message to Stephen Harper: The Liberals are strong.”

The Liberals’ failure to own any of these issues—especially the environment, which Murray cited as the reason she won so, er, resoundingly and convincingly—is spoken to by the huge percentages of the vote being split by the NDP and the Green Party. If the Liberals are smart, they’ll take these issues far more seriously in the future, especially before they plunge the country into another federal election. Losing a seat in Saskatchewan to the Conservatives is a blow—not a huge one, but a noticeable one nonetheless. Coming within 151 votes of losing in Vancouver Quadra, a heretofore reliable Liberal riding in the wealthy heart of the Vancouver west side, is a victory, but only in a narrow technical sense. Today, the Liberals did not demonstrate that they ‘are strong’, in Joyce Murray’s words. This victory is one that must make the party leadership sit up, take notice, and take a good hard look inside themselves.

Four seats, all previously held by Liberals, were being contested in today’s Federal by-elections. The news media are reporting that the Liberal Party has won three out of four: two in Toronto and one in Vancouver. All three of these seats were considered fairly safe Liberal territory. The fourth riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, elected the Conservative candidate Rob Clarke. There was a significant Nader effect in the Saskatchewan and Vancouver races: exact numbers are not yet available, but the latest data from Elections Canada seems to indicate that the results could have come out differently if the NDP and Green totals could have been added to the Liberal total. (One of these days, I’ll shut up about the single transferable vote system. But not today.)

Basically, these election results allow all sides to claim (read: spin) victory. The Liberals can claim that three out of four is a good hold, they held on to traditionally Liberal territory, this election sends a clear message to Harper’s government that people are fed up with its lack of transparency and distance from the common people, and is a good recovery from the Liberals’ failure during the by-elections in Québec last year. The Conservatives can claim that the Saskatchewan pickup is a vindication of their policies and their government, the Liberals should have run the table because the candidate there was hand-picked by Stéphane Dion, and if the people were really so fed up with the Conservatives, the Liberals should have picked up the seat. The NDP and Greens can claim, especially with the very high numbers they received in Vancouver Quadra and Toronto Centre, that both major parties are flawed and incompetent. For my part, I think Stéphane Dion really needs to take a long, hard look at himself and his leadership of the party.

More on this later. Analysis and actual numbers when Elections Canada finishes counting the votes, and I (and the rest of the country) have had a chance to sleep on it all.

There are several by-elections happening all over Canada today, including one in Vancouver Quadra. The riding is considered to be very safe Liberal territory, but party leader Stéphane Dion and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff (remember, the ones that the PM is suing) came out here to forestall fears that low turnout could harm elections results. The NDP candidate Rebecca Coad is a UBC student in philosophy; I met her some time ago, and she seemed pretty on the ball. The Green candidate, Dan Grice, is a UBC graduate in classical archaeology, which I think is fantastic. The Georgia Straight endorsed him, reasoning that they could not endorse the NDP candidate because of systemic problems with the NDP, the Conservative candidate didn’t even bother to show up to debates and meetings, and the riding is safe Liberal territory anyway, so people could be safe and vote their conscience to send a message to the Liberals about what issues they’d like to see on the party agenda. I think this is not a bad strategy, provided that it doesn’t skew the elections results, as Dion and the party leadership are obviously afraid of. Of course, if elections were held in accordance with an alternative system such as Single Transferable Vote, as I have argued, people could vote for the Green or NDP candidate to vote their conscience and send a message, and then mark the Liberal candidate as their second choice, thereby voting both ideologically and practically.

Anyway, I’ll have some updates later in the day about the results of the by-elections. Look for the Liberals to make a few pickups, especially in urban areas like Vancouver and Toronto, due to dissatisfaction with the current government. Meanwhile, a few interesting links:

• How do you prove you’re gay when applying for refugee status?
• Religious groups are trying to shut down a Russian television channel because they show programming that is ‘anti-religious, violent as well as promoting homosexuality’, such as South Park.
• The hilarious malapropisms of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, such as ‘I deny the allegations and the allegators.’

How sad is the Vancouver Canucks’ future looking right now. They Canucks failed to pick up any offensive power to back up their terrific goaltender Roberto Luongo at the NHL trade deadline last week, instead making one relatively minor deal for a player who really has yet to fit in anywhere in his new team’s structure. It’s hard to see how the team thinks it can be competitive in the playoffs (if they can even get into the playoffs) with only a star goaltender and no goal-scoring power—this is exactly what did them in during last year’s playoffs. And given the way they’ve been playing lately—falling pathetically to Colorado, Columbus, Chicago, and Colorado again last night, in Peter Forsberg’s return—it’s hard to imagine they’re going anywhere this year. A shame, too, because earlier in the season it looked like it, with Luongo’s straight shutout streak across several games. But now, the team simply looks like it has given up and stopped caring.

The Canucks sure aren’t making it easy to be a Canucks fan these days.

Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, is beginning a libel action against the Liberal leadership, including Stéphane Dion, the party leader, as well as several other high-ranking party officials. He wants ‘defamatory’ articles to be removed from the Liberals’ web site, and that Dion read an apology, drafted by the Conservatives, before the entire House of Commons in both French and English, thus ensuring that embarrassment will stick to the Liberals in both French and English Canada. What, you may rightly ask, the hell is this all about?

From 1997 to 2005, the riding of Surrey North, in Metro Vancouver, was represented in the House of Commons by the independent MP Chuck Cadman. Independent MPs are somewhat uncommon in Canada, given the dominance that the three (in Québec four) major parties have over the system, but they can wield considerable power given that several major parties means frequent minority governments. Cadman was a former Conservative Party member, who lost the party primary, ran as an independent anyway, and won (think Joe Lieberman). In 2005, Cadman voted with the Liberals and New Democratic Party in favour of a budget proposal; the vote was eventually tied which meant the Speaker of the House of Commons had to cast the deciding vote. He voted with the Liberal bloc, which allowed the government to survive confidence. At the time, Cadman was terminally ill with cancer, and he died later in 2005.

Cadman stated that he voted with the Liberals because he didn’t want to put his constituents through more election turmoil only a year after a tumultuous election in 2004 that handed the Liberals minority control of Parliament. However, his wife Donna stated (before the vote), and his daughter Jodi has since reiterated that the Conservative Party offered Cadman a life insurance policy to the tune of a million dollars if he would vote against the Liberal budget and thus bring down the government. What is more, an audio tape has surfaced in which Stephen Harper, who was at the time the Leader of the Opposition, and is now PM, appears to give the plan his approval, in an interview with a CTV reporter in the driveway of Chuck Cadman’s house.

This appears to be attempted bribery, and as such a criminal offence, under Canadian law. But now Harper is moving to sue the Liberals for libel over their allegations that he personally was involved in this scandal. If you go to the Liberal Party website today—surely this will be gone in a few days’ time—you can see the ‘libellous accusations’ for yourself. The big headline: ‘Harper Knew of Conservative Bribery’. The problem for the Tories, of course, is that audio tape doesn’t lie, so they’re trying to turn the argument around and reframe the discussion: the Liberals are trying to slander my good name and the good name of the Conservative Party, oh poor me, you can’t possibly believe the Liberals because they’re lying cheats only trying to parlay this into their political advantage, and by the way Stéphane Dion should apologise both in English and French so that in Québec they hear a French-from-France accent (the equivalent to North American English speakers is a British accent) reading obsequious submission copy to the Conservatives. What’s weird, though, is that most of what’s on the web site consists of quotes from Question Period in the House of Commons, which are protected by parliamentary privilege and therefore not prosecutable as libel. The CBC is supposing that Harper wants to sue over the headlines, which are not so protected. Yay for legal hair-splitting.

I have a feeling that this could be more dangerous to the Conservatives than any of the other current issues, such as the military mission in Afghanistan and the federal budget and the environment. The issue, as Nik Nanos rightly points out, is that the Conservatives like to portray themselves as more trustworthy than the Liberals, but even the allegations of high-level bribery, even if nothing comes of them, could do great harm to the Tories’ image of trust, and harm the Conservatives when they have opportunities to pick up votes in minor byelections like in Vancouver Quadra, or in today’s snoozer provincial election in Alberta (which the Tories will win anyway, no doubt, but they seem to be suffering in turnout rates), or also in an impending federal election, if such comes to fruition.

Anyway, Question Period in Parliament is coming up in a few minutes, so I’ll put this topic to bed for now and watch the Liberals get outraged, as one MP told CBC just a few minutes ago: ‘How dare the Conservatives sue the opposition for doing their duty as the opposition’ (or words to that effect). It’s sure to be a goodie—CPAC will have it live, streaming, and in easy-to-swallow podcast format, as usual.

恭喜發財 — Gong Hey Fat Choi — Gōng Xĭ Fā Cái — Happy New Year!

I went over to Chinatown to see the lunar New Year celebration and parade for the Year of the Rat. There must have been a hundred thousand people there: along parts of the route, spectators were packed in like sardines three or four deep with two-way traffic trying to pass behind them between the crush of humanity and the storefronts. Also, it was chilly and raining (as usual). But those who braved it were rewarded with a spectacular event: dancers, marching bands, more dragons and lions than you could shake a stick at, and of course zillions of flags, banners, and streamers. Various politicians (and their staffs) were handing out the traditional red envelopes filled with chocolates: I collected some from the Honourable Gordon Campbell, premier of B.C. (whom I met briefly), His Worship Sam Sullivan, mayor of Vancouver, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada (who, I believe, wasn’t actually there, but his lackeys were), and Gregor Robertson, MLA for Vancouver-Fairview. Not a bad haul, as these things go, I guess.

See the gallery of photos from the celebration.

The district municipality of West Vancouver is considering a ‘user fee’ if you get into a car accident and crews have to rescue you from your crushed car with the jaws of life, even if the accident is not your fault. Let me repeat that: if you get into a car accident, and your car gets crushed, you’ll get charged $970 to get rescued. Further clarification: the proposed fee is nine hundred and seventy dollars, as in ‘just shy of a cool grand’; not nine dollars and seventy cents.

The argument, apparently, is that such rescues are expensive, and that the person who needs to be rescued should have to foot the bill. This is actually a rather imprecise formulation: as I understand it, the city’s contention is that the party responsible for the costs should be the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which, as the only licencing authority for motor vehicles and their drivers in the province, would pass the cost on to the insured driver. This idea has apparently been floated before as part of a plan to increase the revenue of the West Vancouver fire department, but the council is apparently serious about it this time.

Surely there are other, better places where the city could look for money rather than from the wallets of people who have just been in life-threatening accidents. In fact, I think I can come up with a few off the top of my head. Seeing as how West Vancouver is one of the most affluent cities in the country, perhaps they could consider attempting to cut government waste, increasing government efficiency, and possibly—gasp!—enacting a modest tax hike to pick up the cost? (Actually, the best commentary I heard was on CBC Radio One today: someone proposed a sliding scale for rescues from burning buildings: $1000 if you want to be rescued from the first floor, $2000 for the second floor, and so forth.) It makes absolutely no sense to penalize innocent people, charging them a thousand dollars to get extricated from their smashed car, especially when they were not at fault. Emergency services—especially emergency rescuing—should be provided to all people without a price tag attached. This is pure and simple greed combined with a silly refusal to consider efficient and reasonable solutions.

My thoughts this morning on learning that there was a snowfall warning for Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, as expressed via a dinosaur comic parody of mine own devising:

The crown attorney general in British Columbia, Wally Oppal, is appealing the conviction of Robert Pickton, who was tried and convicted for the murders of six women in Vancouver. The crown maintains that numerous errors were made, such as Mr. Justice James Williams having refused to allow the crown to pursue convictions against all twenty-six women Pickton is alleged to have murdered, as well as having failed to uphold the law by allowing the jurors to find Pickton guilty of second-degree murder rather than first-degree murder. This comes in advance of Pickton’s lawyers filing their own appeal by the deadline on Thursday, which apparently will make many similar allegations against the judge and the trial proceedings.

When I first heard this news on the radio this morning, I thought it was a misfire by the prosecuting team, and I could not for the life of me understand why they were appealing a conviction. Sure, they didn’t nail him for all twenty-six murders, and they didn’t put him away for first-degree murder, but they still put him behind bars for twenty-five to life, didn’t they? Why would they risk throwing this away; why not simply hold a second trial for the other twenty women? I’m kind of proud that I managed to work out the answer on my own before looking it up on news, but a little ashamed that it took me the whole day to do it: if Pickton’s lawyers appeal and the crown does not, and the appeal is granted, the crown will only be able to try him on second-degree murder charges. This way, by virtue of having filed its own appeal, the prosecution leaves open the possibility that Pickton will be retried for first-degree murder.

More likely, in my judgment, is that all the appeals will be thrown out and the crown will proceed with a separate trial for the remaining women. Nobody wants to deal with the time, to say nothing of the expense, that would be involved in retrying a man so he can be put in prison for life again. At least, I hope that’s what happens, because we—and the families of the murdered women—so don’t need another year or so of waiting around to see if the crown can actually put away a murderer after years of inaction and a hiccuping justice system.

Those of you not in Canada, and especially not in Vancouver, may not have been getting inundated with Robert Dziekański news—here, it’s been only slightly less covered than the Robet Pickton murder trial. In a nutshell, Dziekański, a Polish immigrant, was kept waiting in Vancouver International Airport (YVR) for ten hours before he apparently became agitated, inducing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to shoot him repeatedly with Tasers. Much of this incident was captured on video (warning: huge trigger potential) by one of those nefarious cell phones that have the unfortunate tendency to record things that many people—law enforcement certainly included—would rather keep out of the public view. Dziekański died at the scene in YVR.

His death has rightly sparked outrage across the country, rising to the level of an international incident. It has prompted calls for reviews both specifically of how Dziekański’s case was handled and of how RCMP and other law enforcement agencies use Tasers in general. Every week, it seems, there’s another Taser-related death being reported in the media; recently Amnesty International figured that there had been at least 17 deaths directly linked to the use of Tasers since the weapons were introduced to Canadian law enforcement. I even heard a suggestion—a facetious suggestion, of course, but one that resounded particularly strongly among my local friends—that the newly introduced mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver didn’t really represent Canada or British Columbia as they exist today. What was the proposed alternative? A Mountie with a Taser. Bienvenue au Canada!

Seriously, though, this really does touch upon issues of language politics. Today, YVR released a preliminary report on how they would spend over a million dollars to improve security in the immigration area of the airport. If you’ve ever been to YVR—or pretty much any Canadian airport—you’ll know that all the signage is in both English and French, and at YVR there are many signs that are also printed in Chinese characters. Aside from the obvious ‘what good does French do’ question, which becomes somewhat more relevant the further away from Québec you go, a better question is ‘why aren’t signs in the Immigration section posted in more languages?’ This is something I’ve always wondered—even large airports in the United States, a country in which many states have notoriously anti-foreign language laws—post signs and employ interpreters for many different foreign languages. The rationale is obvious: how are you going to communicate with an immigrant—or even a resident—who doesn’t speak English if you don’t follow these steps? Yet YVR has been shamefully lacking in this department: although you have to be bilingual to work in the federal government, and therefore be a border guard/customs agent, ‘bilingual’ in this case means ‘both English and French’, and French is really not all that useful at the busiest airport on the North American end of the Pacific Rim.

Hopefully YVR will follow through and begin to employ more people with more varied linguistic skills than simply the government-mandated French and English. Such ‘biligualism’ across Canada, as advocated and established by the former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, is a fine thing. Now that the country’s got it, it’s time to expand to other languages; hopefully we can avert the next Robert Dziekański with proper communication.

Getting up this morning and seeing that it had resumed snowing, your humble correspondent braved the wet, the cold, and the snowy to take a jaunt around the neighbourhood and hopefully produce a photo or two of some notable Vancouver landmarks. Please enjoy the result! (I’m getting to think that there is some kind of secret Federal law that prohibits construction of government buildings unless it can be done such that their bilingual signs will at some point be covered with snow, thus preserving the cold and frosty image of Canada, or something.)
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Some time-separated pictures of the snow today in downtown Vancouver, progressing from early day (upper left corner) to late afternoon (lower right corner). Click for full-resolution pictures.
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