Redeye

Changes in law that bring about more equality have complex roots, but they almost always start with someone who takes a stand. A new book examines ten of the legal cases that advanced women's rights in Canada. The stories it tells of the women who challenged the law remind us that advances in equality are hard-won and should never be taken for granted. The book is titled Women Who Woke Up The Law. We spoke with author Karin Wells in September 2025.

International students have long been seen as a source of extra income by Canadian universities, who charge them much higher tuition fees for the same education as domestic students. In their new book, Not Your Cash Cow, Not Your Scapegoat, the Racialization of Asian International Students Collective studied the experiences of over 145 international students from China, India and South Korea at five universities. We speak with Lori Wilkinson, professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Manitoba and a member of the collective.

A program in BC schools that helps kids navigate gender and sexuality has become a prime target of conservative politicians. In an article called SOGI 123: What It Is, What It Isn't, and Why the Truth Matters, author Wilbur Turner lays out the facts behind BC's Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity framework. Wilbur Turner joins us in this episode.

One of the consequences of the war on Iran is that it has provided the oil industry with the opportunity to engage in rampant profiteering. In the first month of the war, the Canadian oil industry made after-tax profits in excess of $6 billion dollars. If oil prices stay this high for a year, it's on track to make $90 billion in profits. Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood says that the current windfall could be Canadian oil's final boom, so the proceeds should be taxed and invested into economic diversification.

Namesake has its West Coast premiere at the Doxa Festival this month. The film documents an ongoing conversation between the Tla'amin Nation and the city commonly known as Powell River over a proposal to reclaim the city's name, which is derived from a recent colonial official. We speak with Dr. Evan Adams, co-director of Namesake.

Last week Mayor Sim and the ABC Council passed a motion to identify a potential ownership group for a major-league baseball team in Vancouver. Details leaked out this week about who that is and what they want. Ian Mass joins us with the details of this and much more in this week's City Beat report.

Body cameras and increased security in grocery stores are a corporate response to concerns about retail theft. But at the same time, profits in the grocery sector are on the rise, food prices are going up, and food insecurity is widespread. We speak with Alissa Overend, who teaches and researches in the areas of health, food and intersectional equity.

In her latest film, There Are No Words, award-winning documentary filmmaker Min Sook Lee turns the camera towards her family. The film documents Lee's search for memories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when Lee was twelve years old. There Are No Words was produced by the National Film Board. It has its Western Canada premiere at DOXA on May 3.

This week, Vancouver City Council heard directly from sex trade advocates about service cutbacks, a questionable unity agreement crafted by the three progressive parties, lifeguards, community centre renewals, baseball and lots more. Ian Mass joins us today with his City Beat report.

African American sculptor Selma Burke chronicled many of the events of the last century in her art: lynchings, the Harlem Renaissance, the Holocaust, and the assassination of Martin Luther King. Two Calgary playwrights have created an award winning play based on her life. The manuscript is now a book, Selma Burke: Carving a Sculptor's life. We speak with one of the authors, Caroline Russell-King.

Paloma Housing Co-op was founded in 1983 by a group of people in Vancouver. This year marks the coop's 40th anniversary and there's a film to celebrate that milestone. It's called In It Together: Stories from Paloma Housing Coop. We speak with producer Pat McClain, an original member of the coop, and director Ben Walsh, who is currently the president of the board.

In Alberta, Danielle Smith's government is putting nine questions to a province-wide referendum in October. These include proposals to restrict social services for some immigrants. In a recent article, Esri Ari and Bronwyn Bragg say that these questions fuel an ‘us versus them' divide in Alberta. We speak with Esri Ari.

In 2019, BC premier John Horgan and his government passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act or DRIPA. Now current premier David Eby says DRIPA poses “legal liabilities” for the government and was intending to introduce a bill to pause sections of the Act but withdrew it when it became clear that the government didn't have enough votes to make it pass. Terry Teegee is Regional Chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations and a member of The First Nations Leadership Council.

Paueru Gai is the Japanese name for the Powell Street neighbourhood in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It was a place of early settlement for Japanese Canadians and of their forced removal during the years of internment in World War II. It's also been a site of regeneration for the community since 1977 when the first Powell Street Festival took place. Emiko Morita was the executive director of the festival from 2015 to 2024 and is editor of the new book, Return to Paueru Gai, published this month by Arsenal Pulp Press. Emiko Morita joins us in this episode.

The BC government is currently reviewing the effectiveness of Bill 48 brought in two years ago. It established precedent-setting protections for platform workers. Platform workers are predominantly racialized, migrant and new immigrant workers. BC Policy Solutions advocates for closing the worker protection gap between gig workers and other employees. We speak with Véronique Sioufi.

If you have never been homeless, you probably have a lot of misconceptions about what it means to live on the street. Street Medicine 101 is a series of short videos that aims to dispel them. It features Dr Jill Wiwcharuk, known to her patients as Street Doctor Jill. She is a Victoria-based family and ER physician, specializing in addictions, inner city family medicine and emergency medicine. We speak with Street Doctor Jill in today's episode.

At the end of March, the BC government quietly eliminated its Climate Action Secretariat. This is the long-running agency that produced and implemented climate policy across government ministries. The Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions says that although the Secretariat is gone, the cuts as a “reconfiguration.” To find out what's going on with BC's climate policy, we've contacted Sven Biggs, Canadian oil and gas campaign director for Stand.earth.

Next week, Vancouver City Council will be talking about the 2025 homeless count, a big money ask from the Park Board to deal with the poor condition of our recreation facilities and parks, and lots more. Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

In March, public health care advocates across the country took part in rallies and news conferences in response to Alberta's new two-tier health care law, which allows doctors to practice in both the public and the private system. In early February, we spoke with researcher Andrew Longhurst about the threat that Bill 11 poses to universal access to health care. In a follow-up to that conversation, he warns that Alberta's new law opens the door to US companies selling private health insurance for basic care. Andrew Longhurst is a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Oakridge looks like it is getting another massive development, there's a new affordable mortgage model for the Heather Lands, more festivals are turning to the city as they struggle to survive and lots more. Redeye Collective member Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report.

Every member of a former panel the BC government appointed to identify old-growth for potential protection in 2021 says they're concerned about continued logging in those same forests. The five panellists voiced their concerns in a document sent to Premier David Eby and other officials last week. To find out more about the progress - or lack of it - on protecting old-growth in the province, we speak with Jens Wieting, senior forest and climate campaigner at Sierra Club BC.

As Israel and the US carry out devastating attacks on Iran, the Canadian oil industry and some politicians are seeing it as an opportunity to expand fossil fuel production. Nick Gottlieb argues the fossil fuel industry is replaying its 2022 playbook, when they used Russia's war in Ukraine to effectively destroy the Western climate movement. Nick Gottlieb is a climate writer and author of the newsletter Sacred Headwaters. We speak with him from Terrace, BC.

On March 4, the provincial government announced that it was making amendments to the Residential Tenancy Act to provide new tools to address health and safety issues in supportive housing. Christine Boyle, Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, said that the changes to the Act came in response to calls from operators of supportive housing. However, tenant advocates say this is the latest iteration of a political campaign to erode the rights of low-income tenants in BC. We speak with Danielle Sabelli, a lawyer at the Community Legal Assistance Society.

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran including attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Iran. Analysts say that the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran are neither preemptive nor lawful and represent a further erosion of the international legal order. In the face of the US and Israeli attacks, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is being called upon to unequivocally condemn the aggression and take active measures to achieve a diplomatic solution. We speak with Rachel Small, Canada organizer for World Beyond War.

In 2021, Betty Baxter was inducted into the Volleyball BC Hall of Fame. But as a lesbian athlete and coach, the journey to that recognition was far from smooth. Baxter competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and helped found Canadian Women & Sport. She was the first woman coach of a national team, and was then fired from that job because of her sexual orientation. She went on to many new roles in advocacy, activism, education and politics, and was a key force in organizing the 1990 Vancouver Gay Games and cultural celebration. We speak with Betty Baxter.

More and more websites that position themselves as news outlets are serving up what observers call AI slop. Last month, a Surrey-based site published false information about mayoral candidate William Azaroff, and an AI-generated picture of a real murder victim. Zak Vescera is a staff reporter for the Investigative Journalism Foundation. He tells us what he found out about the content and ownership of Surrey Speak.

An informal coalition of organizations in the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown are sounding the alarm about what they call the massive human rights implications of the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026. The World Cup is set to come to Vancouver, first through the 2026 FIFA Congress in April, and then for seven matches at BC Place scheduled between June 11-July 7, 2026. Laura Macintyre is a staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. She joins us to talk about the coalition's concerns..

A coalition of health and environmental groups are celebrating a court victory that protects the federal government's ability to regulate plastic pollution. In its ruling, the Federal Court of Appeal affirmed that the government acted lawfully when it designated plastic manufactured items as ‘toxic' under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We're joined by Dr. Sharon Dodd, a family physician and a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

In one of the biggest BDS victories in Canada to date, Scotiabank no longer holds any shares in the Israeli weapons maker Elbit Systems, according to its latest financial statements released in February. The coalition No Arms in the Arts was centrally involved in the divestment campaign. We speak with Michael DeForge, an author and a cartoonist and an organizer with No Arms in the Arts.

The Vancouver organization, Women Transforming Cities, aims to reshape who cities are built by and for, so that everyone can participate, and thrive. WTC works to build the civic skills and power of those who have been historically excluded from local government processes. On Monday, March 9, they are offering a new workshop to honour the roots of IWD through the lens of The Feminist Killjoy. We speak with Florence Li, education coordinator at Women Transforming Cities.

In City Beat today, the fallout from accusations that Vancouver city councillors are dealing drugs, plus yet more money for the FIFA World Cup, a 30-year plan for Vancouver's growth, the fate of car-free day festivals and more. Redeye Collective member Ian Mass joins us with all the details.

On February 16, a group of Palestinian footballers and Palestinian clubs joined with others to file a complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. They are accusing the Presidents of FIFA, and Union of European Football Associations, UEFA, of aiding in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territory. We speak about the reasons for this complaint with Jill Thomson of Scottish Sport for Palestine.

True North tells the story of the 1969 protest against racism at Sir George Williams University, now Concordia. Following the occupation of the university, 97 students were arrested or faced deportation. The film includes recent interviews with activists who were involved in the uprising. In making the documentary, director Michèle Stephenson draws on her Haitian and Panamanian heritage, and experience as a social justice lawyer. We speak with Michèle Stephenson in this episode.

The mass school shooting in Tumbler Ridge has had a devastating impact on Canadians across the country. Amidst the collective grief for those who lost children and community members, government and school leaders face pressure to act quickly to keep students safe. But the best way to do that is not necessarily clear. Beyhan Farhadi researches surveillance technology in Canadian schools. She is concerned that this sense of urgency will lead to the hasty adoption of security measures with unintended impacts on students and teachers. Beyhan Farhadi joins us on the podcast today.

The Hope Dialogue Radio Show and Podcast is created in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and explores the topics, issues and complex circumstances challenging low-income neighbourhoods like Downtown Eastside. Their new season starts March 2 at noon on Vancouver Cooperative Radio. The show is the brainchild of The Central City Foundation. We speak with president and CEO Jennifer Johnstone.

Ahead of BC Budget 2026, the provincial government was already laying the groundwork to defend austerity measures by arguing that there is not enough wealth to redistribute. Economist Alex Hemingway disagrees. He and fellow economist Silas Xuareb at Canadians for Tax Fairness say that there is wealth in BC and Canada, and claiming otherwise is a way to distract us from the massive concentration of wealth in this country. Alex Hemingway is Senior Economist and Public Finance Policy Analyst with BC Policy Solutions. He joins me today to talk about the report published last week, The New Robber Barons.

For more than six decades, the U.S. has targeted Cuba with economic sanctions, blockades and campaigns to destabilize the Cuban government. Now, Trump's latest salvo toward Cuba is his January executive order that sanctions any nation that provides oil to Cuba. The result has led to severe consequences for the Cuban economy and is harshly affecting the daily life of Cuban citizens. Medea Benjamin has just returned from a humanitarian trip to Cuba. Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization, Global Exchange. She joins us on the podcast today.

Redeye's Ian Mass joins us to talk about calls for unity on the progressive left which heated up this week. Plus he wonders if, after 19 years, a school in Olympic village will finally be approved, and asks if the city is ready for when the FIFA World Cup comes to Vancouver in June. All this and lots more in Ian's regular City Beat report.

British Columbia's Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said that the budget she brought down on Tuesday wasn't an austerity budget. However, key spending areas have been given very small budget increases spread over the three-year fiscal plan, which will mean real cuts to services. In addition, the B.C. government's tax increases will hit low- to moderate income households. In their analysis released Tuesday, Marc Lee and Andrew Longhurst say the budget lays a financial burden on the poorest in BC. Marc Lee is an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He joins me today to talk about this week's provincial budget.

Following recent court decisions around Indigenous rights and Aboriginal title in BC, public discourse is full of conflicting assertions. Premier David Eby has criticized the court and called their decisions overreaching and unhelpful. RAVEN works to support Indigenous Nations upholding their rights in court. It published an article to clarify some of the confusion, comparing what they are hearing to what they know to be true. We speak with Jamie-Leigh Gonzales of RAVEN.

Vancouver City Council will hold public hearings on redevelopment of the 800 block of Granville and the old Army and Navy department store on Hastings, as well as a proposal for a 25-storey hotel a block from Stanley Park. Also this week, OneCity has chosen their candidate for mayor, Vancouver's auditor general comes down hard on the real estate department and lots more in City Beat with Ian Mass.

In his new book If You Want to Win, You've Got to Fight, transportation activist Carter Lavin shares strategies about how to create the change we want to see in our communities. Whether it's more protected bike lanes, improved bus service, or safer streets for pedestrians, Carter provides a comprehensive toolbox of campaign tactics and advocacy tips. He is co-founder of the TransBay Coalition and has helped lead and study over a hundred advocacy campaigns across the United States. Carter Lavin joins us this episode.

The No More Loopholes Act, Bill C-233, is a private member's bill put forward by Vancouver-East MP Jenny Kwan. It puts pressure on the Canadian government to abide by the Arms Trade Treaty it signed in 2019. Currently, arms exported to the US are exempted and have ended up being used by Israel in Gaza, by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and by ICE in Minnesota. The private member's bill will be voted on in Parliament at Second Reading in late February. We speak with Johanna Lewis of the Arms Embargo Now coalition.

Vancouver City Council will hold public hearings on redevelopment of the 800 block of Granville and the old Army and Navy department store on Hastings, as well as a proposal for a 25-storey hotel a block from Stanley Park. Also this week, OneCity has chosen their candidate for mayor, Vancouver's auditor general comes down hard on the real estate department and lots more in City Beat with Ian Mass.

As Canada grapples with a deep housing affordability crisis, women continue to experience some of the most severe housing needs. The Women's National Housing & Homelessness Network say the role of anti-feminist ideology shapes who gets safe, adequate, and affordable housing—and who does not. We speak with research assistant Aymen Sherwani.

Vancouver is a host city for the FIFA World Cup this year, co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the US. There are going to be seven matches at BC Place Stadium and an official FIFA Fan Festival at the PNE Amphitheatre. Organizers say more than a million visitors are expected province-wide, including over 360,000 during the tournament itself. The question is how all those people will move around the city once they get here. We speak with Denis Agar, executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders.

The number of businesses inviting us to tip their workers is growing all the time. Tipping used to be restricted to full service restaurants, but now it's spread to coffee chains and fast-food joints. A new analysis published by BC Policy Solutions proposes that it's time to finally ban tipping in Canada and enact a living wage. We speak with Simon Pek, one of the authors of the piece.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada said natural disaster claims cost a record 8.5 billion dollars in 2024 due to the increased frequency and severity of weather-related losses. Now Canada's insurance sector is talking about the potential for the country to become uninsurable in 10 years, due to insufficient policy action on escalating climate disasters. Sue Big Oil is a campaign to pass along a share of the costs to the industry responsible for creating the crisis. We speak with Andrew Gage of West Coast Environmental Law.

Vancouver Council has booked themselves a heavy meeting schedule between now and the municipal election in October. Over and above their general council and committee meetings, they have 20 public hearing dates, with multiple redevelopment and rezoning applications to consider. Redeye's Ian Mass joins us to talk about rezonings, world cup soccer, fireworks, Vancouver politics and lots more in his regular City Beat report.

The Hungry Stories Project is a team of scholars, dietitians and artists who are fighting for the elimination of food insecurity by sharing what it takes to collectively care for each other's food needs. They are producing resources to understand food insecurity, and they say that we need to look at root causes. Dr. Jennifer Black is a member of the Hungry Stories Project and Associate Professor in Food, Nutrition and Health at the University of British Columbia.

First Nations across the country are reporting a major loss of funding for children's programs after the federal government changed Jordan's Principle rules last February. Mis­sissaugas of the Credit First Nation have been at a hearing at the Cana­dian Human Rights Tribunal since October, accusing Ott­awa of sys­tem­at­ic­ally under­fund­ing on-reserve child and family services in Canada. We speak with law­yer Kent Elson.