This weekend: Joe rocks for votes, Sean rocks the boat

This isn't normally where you'd go for entertainment listings. But it's election time and think of this as an "edification listing."

DOA's Joe Keithley, a B.C. cultural icon, is performing a solo acoustic gig for Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby April 27 from 8 p.m.-11 p.m. at Saint James Community Hall, 3214 W. 10th Ave., Vancouver. Admission for the "Dance for a Change" is $15. 

Eby is not scheduled to be jamming with Joe, but the man who seeks to unseat Premier Christy Clark will not be performing any Bon Jovi covers. (Obscure reference to the 2011 leadership convention.)

Joe lost to two-time world champion wrestler Chris Wilson for the Coquitlam-Burke Mountain nomination to run against Liberal Doug Horne, but he is volunteering for the party during the campaign. 

If you miss Joe then, he'll be doing a 

fundraiser for Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate Matt Toner at Go Studios, 112 E. 3rd St., Vancouver on May 3 from 7 p.m.-9 p.m.

(Is your party holding a fundraising party during the 2013 election? Regardless of your party, send me the info and I'll mention it here.)

On April 28, Sean Holman will screen his new documentary "Whipped: The Secret World of Party Discipline" at 7 p.m. in the Vancouver Public Library's Alice MacKay Room. Suggested donation is $5. 

I saw the premiere at the University of B.C. on April 26 and it is a shocking look at how B.C. is governed. It is a must-see that will cause you to question the state of our democracy (or lack thereof). 

It was great to see Holman back in B.C., rousing the rabble like he does so well. This province's loss is Alberta's gain. The former Public Eye Online proprietor is an assistant professor of journalism at Mount Royal College in Calgary. 

Occupy Vancouver: the great unknown

Is the City of Vancouver ready for Occupy Vancouver on Oct. 15?

Transportation director Jerry Dobrovolny says it is, but admits the local version of Occupy Wall Street is a great unknown.

“The difficulty here is that there is not a clear organizer, there is nobody that has stepped forward to take out a permit, there is no plan that we can review with them and approve,” Dobrovolny said on the eve of the protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery. “Our number one priority is safety to the public and property in the area.”

If protesters occupy the VAG plaza and try to camp there, Dobrovolny said city staff will ensure they are not using combustibles, such as propane-powered stoves. A propane tank exploded before the official opening of the Vancouver Christmas Market at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre last year.

Occupy Vancouver organizers held a planning meeting on Oct. 8 at W2. Asked if any of City of Vancouver staff attended to gather information or connect with the organizers, Dobrovolny said: "I'm not aware if any staff were at the planning meetings."

Mayor Gregor Robertson issued a statement on Oct. 14, recognizing the discontent with the global economical upheaval but encouraging peaceful protest. He mentioned the June 15 Stanley Cup riot as an event marred by a minority. The Stanley Cup fan zone that was marred by the riot was organized by Robertson, who is among the public officials who have not admitted fault for the chaos that happened the night the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup on home ice. Four months after the riot, not a single rioter or looter has been charged.

Occupy Vancouver could be the first big test of the April-enacted Bylaw number 10252, better known as an amendment to the Street and Traffic Bylaw regarding political expression on structures on streets. The controversial bylaw says “a person must not build, place, maintain, occupy or cause to be constructed, placed, maintained or occupied in any street any structure, object or substance which is an obstruction to the free use of such street, or which may encroach thereon, without having first obtained a permit issued by the City Engineer...”

Those who do get permits must take down their temporary structures from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily. Tables that convey political expression, however, do not require a permit, if they meet 18 requirements, including the 8 p.m. curfew and a limit of one table per city block at any time.

But, as Dobrovolny said, the Occupy Vancouver group has not applied for a permit.

One can only wonder whether the lack of permit might be all the police need to move in and put an abrupt end to any protest that lasts more than a day.

Needless to say, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association was opposed to the measures when they were introduced in reaction to a court ruling on a long-running protest hut outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver by members of Falun Gong.

BCCLA executive director David Eby is scoffing at the Vancouver Police Department’s ridiculous Oct. 14 advice to protesters to not wear masks “for everyone’s safety.”

“You have no business wearing a mask at a legitimate protest,” said Const. Jana McGuinness.

Said Eby:

"I guess I've just never seen the press release from the RCMP or VPD that talks about the threat presented by insider trading and corporate malfeasance to Canadians' pensions and retirements. Or how a large gathering of corporate executives can act as a cover for 1% to pay themselves absurd rewards at the expense of the rest.

"Hey, no mask required!

"Don't wear a mask, says the VPD release. 'We need to identify you because your protest is a threat to the public,' is the implicit message.

Yes, we have seen irresponsible, violent mask wearers at the 1999 World Trade Organization protest in Seattle, the 2010 Heart Attack protest on the second day of the Vancouver Winter Olympics and when the G20 summit was hosted in Toronto in 2010. The ugly actions of a few (coupled with bad reactions by police) overshadowed the important messages of the majority of people expressing dissent.



But since when did the VPD anoint themselves the fashion police, especially during the mask-wearing season of Hallowe’en? It’s not a one-night celebration anymore, but a multi-weekend, big business season that rivals Christmastime from a business standpoint. I have never heard VPD discourage the wearing of masks among attendees of Playland's Fright Nights or nightclubs on the Granville Mall.

I witnessed a peaceful anti-Olympic torch relay protest in Victoria on Oct. 30, 2009 where most of the participants wore some form of mask or face paint. The participants were under the constant watch of both police and media and got their message across without violence or damage. Mind you, they didn't exactly make new friends when they forced the torch relay's re-routing and disappointed several people who were looking forward to running the Olympic flame on its first day in Canada.

There is no law that prohibits law-abiding citizens from wearing a mask in public, either as individuals or members of a group. Go right ahead and draw attention to yourself -- expect stares and whispers. A reasonable person should never wear a mask in places like a bank or a hospital.

If a masked citizen in public crosses the line and assaults another person or damages property, that's when police have reasonable grounds to unmask and arrest a masked person under the “Disguise with Intent” law in section 351(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada. The consequences are serious. It says:

“Every one who, with intent to commit an indictable offence, has his face masked or coloured or is otherwise disguised is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.”

So that means you’re free to wear a Guy Fawkes mask, Phantom of the Opera mask, cucumber/avocado facial healing mask or even paint your face like your favourite member of KISS (I always wanted to paint my face like Ace “Spaceman” Frehley). Just obey the law and respect people and property while exercising your freedom of speech and assembly.

Protests where the words speak louder than the actions are the most effective. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, the roles and responsibilities of governments and corporations in our lives deserve to be debated in a rational manner.

The busiest woman in B.C.? Oh, really?

Citizens of Vancouver-Point Grey will go to the polls on May 11 to elect a successor to Liberal MLA Gordon Campbell, who was Premier from May 2001 until February 2011 when Christy Clark was elected new leader of the B.C. Liberal Party.

The by-election will happen without the star candidate attending an all-candidates meeting. She even pooh-poohed an invitation to appear with her opponents on CKNW, the radio station that employed her as a talkshow host and gave her the microphone and profile that she exploited for her political comeback.

Clark claims she is too busy and needs to spend her time wisely, because she's a mom and she's a premier.

How busy is she? Ms. Openness and Engagement doesn't proactively disclose her agenda, but I was able to obtain a copy of what she did during the first week-and-a-half on the job.

You'd think that taking over the top elected office in the province would translate into a packed schedule of 16-hour days to learn absolutely everything there is to know about overseeing a government with a $41.9 billion budget in a jurisdiction of 4.5 million people. After all, one would want to have the job for years to come.

Some two weeks after winning the Liberal nod, Clark was sworn-in on March 14 at Government House in Victoria. Some of her closest friends were there, including her campaign mastermind Patrick Kinsella and his horseracing buddy Glen Todd. That was her busiest day of work in her first week-and-a-half on the job.

Premier Christy Clark's first agenda

On March 19, Clark's only appointment was the Vancouver Whitecaps' first Major League Soccer game at Empire Field. There she beat a drum before kickoff with Whitecaps' co-owner Steve Nash and MLS commissioner Don Garber and then sat in her own seats. The next day her schedule says "family day" -- a euphemism for day off. Isn't every day supposed to be family day under Clark?

On March 22 at night she attended Cavalia, the equine circus under the tents next to the Olympic Village.

The real reason Clark avoids all-candidates meetings like the plague? Because David Eby would be there. The NDP candidate and former B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director is intelligent, humorous and hip. Eby is much more than his fair-to-middling cover of Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer at the NDP convention. (He deserves applause for the effort in front of a tough crowd that would rather hear Pete Seeger than Bon Jovi.)

I witnessed Eby beat former Attorney General Wally Oppal in a Fraser Institute debate on Olympic security in January 2010. He delivered a scathing critique of the RCMP and VANOC before storming out of a public forum on Olympic security in November 2009. He would certainly make mincemeat out of Clark in a debate.

Clark's campaign boss is none other than Colin "HST" Hansen, who knows how weak his candidate is among political foes. Certainly neither Hansen nor Clark can forget her abysmal, embarrassing performance on Sept. 20, 2005 against Coun. Sam Sullivan. Clark and Sullivan were vying for the NPA's mayoral nomination. Clark literally lost it.

The headline on a column by The Tyee's Mark Leiren-Young read "Man in Wheelchair Runs over Christy Clark!"

In the Sept. 21, 2005 Vancouver Sun, Frances Bula wrote:

Most of the audience appeared to be decided on who they will be voting for at NPA elections on Saturday.
But one couple, Bill and Sonia Easton, said they came down to help make up their minds.
"We're looking at how much understanding Christy Clark has of municipal issues," said Bill Easton.
"We know Sam has a long background in politics, which can be good and bad. We're here to find out more about Christy."
One thing they learned is that Clark is still getting familiar with Vancouver names. She referred to the Southeast False Creek project as the south False Creek project and twice she said COPE when she meant NPA.
The second time, after she was wrapping up her opening speech with "Let's return a COPE majority to city council," audience members called out to correct her.

Olympic security spending too much? You be the judge.

The Vancouver Club will be an Olympic venue that most will never see. It’s perhaps the most exclusive of them all, so exclusive that members of the posh club aren’t allowed to enter.

It will temporarily be the Olympic Club, a place for International Olympic Committee members to rub shoulders with princes, prime ministers, dukes and dictators and various captains of industry. Plus our local politicians.

The 1889-established club at 915 West Hastings St. was host Jan. 25 to a Fraser Institute-presented discussion on the Olympics and civil liberties.
It was a respectful debate among two people prominent in the legal profession: B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby and Wally Oppal, the former B.C. Supreme Court judge who was a one-term Liberal Party wonder as the province’s attorney-general.

Oppal gratuitously cited the 1972 Munich massacre and 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park pipe-bombing to justify the $900 million security budget for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I expect a judge to be more rational than emotional, so I had to challenge him on it.

Here’s how it went.

Mackin: “Mr. Oppal, your background is as a judge, which is not an easy job. You have to consider all the evidence before you and during your presentation you mentioned Munich and Atlanta and I don’t want to be seen to be belittling what happened there, because those were very tragic incidents.

"But the evidence doesn’t support spending a billion dollars on security if you look at all the Olympics in the past, all the World Cups, all the Super Bowls, all the public gatherings.

"We have the Symphony of Fire/Celebration of Light here every year, a couple hundred thousand people converge in downtown. There has never been a major incident (here) that has caused massive human loss of lives, there has actually never been a terrorist incident at a Winter Olympics.

"I think you have perhaps been bought what has been sold by Bud Mercer and the security machine, the security industrial complex, because they want that money to spend in their budgets."

Oppal: "Point is well taken, we haven’t had an international incident here that can be characterized as terrorist, except we did have the bombing of an Air India plane a number of years ago, that originated from here. So do we wait for an incident to take place before we embark on any kind of security? Are the police and all other security personnel not entitled to rely on what’s taking place at an international level?

"We know of terrorist activities that have taken place on an international level wen there are global events that are taking place that could draw attention to the causes of those who may be inclined to take part in those activities.

"I hope you’re right, I hope whatever the amount spent on security was spent without any incident ever taking place. I don’t know if we want to take that chance that because nothing really has taken place in the past. We all know Canadians are a peace-loving nation and therefore we shouldn’t do anything about it and rely on our reputation of the past.

"Keep in mind that we have a lot of international visitors who will come here as well. The police have a very dificult job, I don’t know that $1 billion is too much, it is a lot of money. I agree with you. I’m not in a positoin to say it is excesssive under the circumstances, all I can do is say we have to rely on police and assume they are acting in the public interest."

Mackin: "The evidence with Air India, with 9/11, with 'Mr. Underpants Bomber,' was there were actually communications errors and the agencies were not working together beforehand. These weren’t about buying large amounts of equipment, there were agencies that weren’t talking to each other and not passing on information that could have been very useful to prevent what happened."

Oppal: "You’re right, in that there were a series of errors that were found to have taken place in Air India (flight 182). But we don’t know now what information the police have that if they did not act upon it would amount, would we be in a similar position where it could result in a tragic incident? We don’t know what information they have or what information they don’t have.

"I don’t think we can blithely ignore all of those potential threats that take place at an international level."