Friday night, while B.C. Place flashed and thumped with music in anticipation of the Grey Cup football final, a gathering of a different sort was taking shape down the street, in the basement of the Vancouver Public Library. What this subterranean get-together lacked in glitter and bang it made up for in spontaneity and earnestness.
“Who are the 99%: The Occupy Together Movement” was an ad-hoc panel discussion thrown together by local activist Harsha Walia, the Council of Canadians, unions, alternative media and a few other organizations. It was announced through e-mail, social media and word-of mouth. No one expected much of a turnout--not on a Friday night. They were wrong.
Hundreds packed the Alice McKay room and organizers kept expanding the rows with additional chairs. Even then people lined the walls, willing to stand for two hours to hear about “systemic inequality, environmental destruction, and government and corporate power.”
The spontaneous and explosive nature of the event speaks to the urgency of the problems at hand. Social inequality is growing, and fast--faster in Canada than the in the US, Walia said in her introductory comments, adding that BC has the highest child poverty rate in the country. Some single occupancy rooms, roach and bedbug-infested hovels in the Downtown Eastside that are supposed to house the city’s poorest, go for as much $1000 these days, according to anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson (welfare is under $800).
But these statistics are nothing new.
But these statistics are nothing new.
“Up until a few years ago, the 99 percent was 98 percent,” Walia said, explaining that the income gap--or chasm--has been present for a while. A couple of centuries, actually, if you trace the history of class oppression back to colonization. The corporate shenanigans and bailouts of the last half decade have merely expedited “resource extraction on indigenous land, dispossession and theft of labour,” said Walia.
It hasn’t trickled down yet; can we tax the rich now?
Occupy Together movements across the world have forced the political conversation to shift, corporate media to take note (finally) of social inequality and the public at large--not just a fringe--to get serious about change, according to the panelists.
“The outrage [Occupy participants] feel is felt by many, many others. It has captured people’s imagination and it’s been done in a peaceful way,” said Seth Klein, BC director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Klein added that provincial and federal “regressive taxation systems”--the more you make, the less tax you pay--are largely to blame for inequality and poverty. The burden has shifted from corporations to households. For example, the BC government earns more from Medical Service Plan premiums than from corporate tax, according to Klein.
The Occupy Movement is a megaphone that’s popularizing solutions eggheads at the CCPA have been advocating for years, Klein said: a living wage, a full and fair tax commission (not a a referendum on a single tax like we had in B.C. over the HST) and the restoration of corporate taxes to 2007 levels (they are now lower in Canada than in the U.S.).
“We need to do it creatively. I was particularly captivated by the bank transfer days,” said Klein, referring to a campaign by Occupy to get people to move their money from corporate to cooperative banks. “It was a way in which the majority of Americans, who could not get to an occupy site could do something about it.
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| Money Mart on East Hastings with really expensive car parked in front of it. Can you say...gentrification? |
Occupy Together movements across the world have forced the political conversation to shift, corporate media to take note (finally) of social inequality and the public at large--not just a fringe--to get serious about change, according to the panelists.
“The outrage [Occupy participants] feel is felt by many, many others. It has captured people’s imagination and it’s been done in a peaceful way,” said Seth Klein, BC director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Klein added that provincial and federal “regressive taxation systems”--the more you make, the less tax you pay--are largely to blame for inequality and poverty. The burden has shifted from corporations to households. For example, the BC government earns more from Medical Service Plan premiums than from corporate tax, according to Klein.
The Occupy Movement is a megaphone that’s popularizing solutions eggheads at the CCPA have been advocating for years, Klein said: a living wage, a full and fair tax commission (not a a referendum on a single tax like we had in B.C. over the HST) and the restoration of corporate taxes to 2007 levels (they are now lower in Canada than in the U.S.).
“We need to do it creatively. I was particularly captivated by the bank transfer days,” said Klein, referring to a campaign by Occupy to get people to move their money from corporate to cooperative banks. “It was a way in which the majority of Americans, who could not get to an occupy site could do something about it.
One Voice
If you’re on Twitter and socially engaged in Metro Vancouver, chances are you’ve heard of @lorene1voice whose tweets offer real-time coverage of every union meeting and social activist gathering she attends in #YVR. So when she left her phone on her desk Friday evening in a rush to get to the ad-hoc panel discussion, Lorene Oikawa, vice president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union, was worried her tweeps would feel left in the dark about the event.
For Oikawa, social media is vital to solidarity. As an example she talked about public sector workers in Wisconsin demonstrating against legislation aimed at choking their unions.
“Corporate media was not talking about it. How did I find out? Through Twitter and Facebook” said Oikawa. "Sometimes you just feel so alone and you wonder, ‘Is anyone listening?’ What’s great is to click on Twitter and to see you are not alone.”
For Oikawa, this kind of solidarity is essential to bringing about social equality and a world where the government does not earn more from student loan interests than from corporate taxes--which is the case in B.C., she said.
Brave new post-NAFTA world
Harjap Grewal, an organizer for the Council of Canadians and for No One is Illegal (a migrant justice organization) also argued for solidarity. He called for partnerships between equality activists and environmentalists, and for an understanding of the more acute ways in which inequality affects colonized and indigenous people around the world.
In a globalized economy, said Grewal, all these aspects of social injustice become intertwined within and exacerbated by free market economics.
“Trade agreements take power away from the people to make decisions that would undermine the profits of corporations,” Grewal said. In this trend away from local decision-making and towards globalization, people lose the ability to control their day to day lives.
Water and food become contaminated while profits from resource extraction go elsewhere--to a universe far, far away where the one percent live.
Grewal gave some poignant examples. In 2009, the American company Dow AgroSciences LCC threatened to sue the Canadian government because Quebec had banned one of its pesticides. Dow claimed that the provincial ban violated NAFTA provisions. The case was settled out of court and with no monetary exchange in May 2011, when Quebec dropped its challenge of NAFTA. Dow saw this as a “vindication” of its pesticide. Here’s a summary of the case from the Council of Canadians.
Grewal also talked about B.C.’s Fish Lake. Vancouver-based Taseko Mines Ltd. wants the gold-copper deposits located in that area. Local groups such as the Tsilhqot’in National Government oppose the mining project on the grounds that it would destroy a trout-bearing lake that is economically and culturally significant for the First Nation. In November 2010 the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency agreed that the mining project was environmentally unsound and turned it down. Again, here’s a summary from the Council of Canadians.
Taseko promptly resubmitted a revised proposal, which the CEAA accepted earlier this month.
“The people of Fish Lake already said no and yet they are forced through a process that supports the one percent, ” said Grewal. “We are all still going through the process that supports the one percent. How do we engage? Let’s stop appealing to the systems but challenge their jurisdiction.”
Occupy Vancouver, with its non-hierarchical processes of discussion, is one example that would make a good alternative.
For Oikawa, social media is vital to solidarity. As an example she talked about public sector workers in Wisconsin demonstrating against legislation aimed at choking their unions.
“Corporate media was not talking about it. How did I find out? Through Twitter and Facebook” said Oikawa. "Sometimes you just feel so alone and you wonder, ‘Is anyone listening?’ What’s great is to click on Twitter and to see you are not alone.”
For Oikawa, this kind of solidarity is essential to bringing about social equality and a world where the government does not earn more from student loan interests than from corporate taxes--which is the case in B.C., she said.
Brave new post-NAFTA world
Harjap Grewal, an organizer for the Council of Canadians and for No One is Illegal (a migrant justice organization) also argued for solidarity. He called for partnerships between equality activists and environmentalists, and for an understanding of the more acute ways in which inequality affects colonized and indigenous people around the world.
In a globalized economy, said Grewal, all these aspects of social injustice become intertwined within and exacerbated by free market economics.
“Trade agreements take power away from the people to make decisions that would undermine the profits of corporations,” Grewal said. In this trend away from local decision-making and towards globalization, people lose the ability to control their day to day lives.
Water and food become contaminated while profits from resource extraction go elsewhere--to a universe far, far away where the one percent live.
Grewal gave some poignant examples. In 2009, the American company Dow AgroSciences LCC threatened to sue the Canadian government because Quebec had banned one of its pesticides. Dow claimed that the provincial ban violated NAFTA provisions. The case was settled out of court and with no monetary exchange in May 2011, when Quebec dropped its challenge of NAFTA. Dow saw this as a “vindication” of its pesticide. Here’s a summary of the case from the Council of Canadians.
Grewal also talked about B.C.’s Fish Lake. Vancouver-based Taseko Mines Ltd. wants the gold-copper deposits located in that area. Local groups such as the Tsilhqot’in National Government oppose the mining project on the grounds that it would destroy a trout-bearing lake that is economically and culturally significant for the First Nation. In November 2010 the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency agreed that the mining project was environmentally unsound and turned it down. Again, here’s a summary from the Council of Canadians.
Taseko promptly resubmitted a revised proposal, which the CEAA accepted earlier this month.
“The people of Fish Lake already said no and yet they are forced through a process that supports the one percent, ” said Grewal. “We are all still going through the process that supports the one percent. How do we engage? Let’s stop appealing to the systems but challenge their jurisdiction.”
Occupy Vancouver, with its non-hierarchical processes of discussion, is one example that would make a good alternative.
Words of wisdom from DTES elder
Cheers welcomed veteran anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson to the microphone. Coordinator of the Carnegie Community Action Project at Main and Hastings and author of Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion, Swanson has been fighting poverty and inequality in Vancouver for more than 30 years.
Like Grewal, Swanson has little faith in governments and “the system". Politicians of all stripes and at all levels have let the poor down again and again.
“The City hasn’t bought property for social housing in three years, even though their policy is for one a year,” she said, adding that Rich Coleman, B.C.’s minister responsible for housing, isn’t any better and needs to fund new construction of more social housing instead of announcing the same units again and again.
Swanson is also critical of charity, such as the Blanket Drive to donate blankets to the homeless.
“Why do we need it? Because incomes are too low and housing is too expensive,” said Swanson. “What’s CCAP’s solution? Build housing low income people can afford.”
The Occupy movement has forced media to pay attention to CAPP’s issues, according to Swanson.
“The CBC called [CAPP colleague] Wendy Pedersen and asked ‘is there any inequality in Vancouver?’ after we had been trying to raise the issue for years."
Enter the Occupy Movement
Richard Porteous is a mild-mannered guy who reminds me of someone I knew in my Poli-Sci class years ago. He reminds me of me. Not someone you’d expect to see as a spokesperson for a movement that’s been characterized as a refuge for drug users and aimless youth. During her campaign for mayor a few weeks ago, Suzanne Anton referred to Occupiers as “pests”. Porteous doesn’t look like what Anton imagined when she said that. Yet he’s been on the ground at Occupy Vancouver since the beginning.
“At the original meeting there were 15 people and we said, ‘what the heck are we going to do?” Porteous reminisced.
Occupy Vancouver decided to leave policy to the wonks.
“Others have been writing about it for years and come up with well-articulated demands,” Porteous said, adding that Occupy Vancouver has more to do with changing the way communication functions. "We are modelling what we want to see in the world, non-hierarchical communication for a profound sense of empowerment.”
The fact that Occupy Vancouver is supported by an eclectic set of activists and policy-thinkers with long-standing respect in Vancouver shows not that the movement lacks focus, as has been claimed by some pundits, but that social injustice cannot be summed up in one simple problem-and-solution equation. The many aspects that exacerbate social inequality--from a regressive taxation system to environmental degradation to colonialism and a complete disregard for the poorest of the poor--need to be addressed from a variety of angles and in solidarity.
Like Grewal, Swanson has little faith in governments and “the system". Politicians of all stripes and at all levels have let the poor down again and again.
“The City hasn’t bought property for social housing in three years, even though their policy is for one a year,” she said, adding that Rich Coleman, B.C.’s minister responsible for housing, isn’t any better and needs to fund new construction of more social housing instead of announcing the same units again and again.
Swanson is also critical of charity, such as the Blanket Drive to donate blankets to the homeless.
“Why do we need it? Because incomes are too low and housing is too expensive,” said Swanson. “What’s CCAP’s solution? Build housing low income people can afford.”
The Occupy movement has forced media to pay attention to CAPP’s issues, according to Swanson.
“The CBC called [CAPP colleague] Wendy Pedersen and asked ‘is there any inequality in Vancouver?’ after we had been trying to raise the issue for years."
Enter the Occupy Movement
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| Sign at Occupy Vancouver, late Oct 2011 |
“At the original meeting there were 15 people and we said, ‘what the heck are we going to do?” Porteous reminisced.
Occupy Vancouver decided to leave policy to the wonks.
“Others have been writing about it for years and come up with well-articulated demands,” Porteous said, adding that Occupy Vancouver has more to do with changing the way communication functions. "We are modelling what we want to see in the world, non-hierarchical communication for a profound sense of empowerment.”
The fact that Occupy Vancouver is supported by an eclectic set of activists and policy-thinkers with long-standing respect in Vancouver shows not that the movement lacks focus, as has been claimed by some pundits, but that social injustice cannot be summed up in one simple problem-and-solution equation. The many aspects that exacerbate social inequality--from a regressive taxation system to environmental degradation to colonialism and a complete disregard for the poorest of the poor--need to be addressed from a variety of angles and in solidarity.
Thanks for writing about the forum Helen. Yes,so many issues to be addressed and I believe we can make positive changes by working together in solidarity.
ReplyDeleteInformative article, Helen. I look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteAmber (Roomie)
Thanks for your encouraging comments Lorene and Amber!
ReplyDelete