Big Bylaw

Introduction

Toward the end of July 2009, Vancouver City Council rammed through a complex and far-reaching bylaw. The document runs to 90 pages as an administrative report. The bylaw broadly extends municipal powers during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Sharp and detailed criticism from citizens and from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association went mostly disregarded.

At the Council meeting where the motion passed, a defensive Councillor Geogg Meggs asserted Council’s good intentions, saying that critics simply should trust them to do the right thing, no matter how vague and unbridled their powers.

The details and peculiarities of what happened and what got reported are best sorted out in a thematic and chronological account. The biggest (and so-far otherwise unreported) story is how City Council almost immediately abandoned its intention to subject Vancouver’s central library to surveillance, heavy security screening, and arbitrary exclusions.

Ruckus on July 21

On July 21 an omnibus Olympics bylaw went before Vancouver City Council. The day before, Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight speculated on his blog that Council might even refuse to hear speakers.

On the day, a crowd of people from the Downtown Eastside filled the gallery of Council chambers. At the start of the meeting the group intervened and took Council to task for allowing the Vancouver Police Department to target their neighborhood for selective enforcement of trivial offenses like jaywalking. Councillors Meggs, Jang, and Reimer left the meeting to talk with the group while Council proceeded with regular business. Brandi Cowen reported on the intervention. Jeff Lee blogged a followup to correct his Vancouver Sun article. In order to hear speakers, Council referred consideration of the Olympics bylaw to the morning of July 23.

No Input from the Civil Liberties Advisory Committee

Council minutes for July 23 record thirteen speakers to the bylaw, “all of whom expressed concern.” [My remarks are provided as an appendix.] The most striking point to emerge in Council discussion was that the bylaw had received no input from the City’s own Civil Liberties Advisory Committee. The motion as finally worded by Councillor Geoff Meggs consequently called for inviting a strange retroactive review:

FURTHER THAT the Civil Liberties Advisory Committee be invited to review and comment on the 2010 Olympic By-law changes to ensure implementation respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Removal of Prohibition on “Promoting an Idea”

The only other significant alteration to the bylaw motion involved this additional wording, which came in an amendment put forward by Geoff Meggs:

… while deleting the reference to “promoting an idea” in the definition of signs on a street …

The amendment responded to a criticism made by Rider Cooey, circulated in email to Council ahead of time. Before Cooey’s turn came to speak to the bylaw, the change was as good as approved.

The true circumstances of this detail expose the inattention of Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee, who extrapolated from this item that councillors did more than pull out a rubber stamp. Lee’s inattention then expanded to the fulsome and misplaced approbation of giving Meggs credit for having a brain on this point:

What caught me by surprise was the fact that city councillors actually read the omnibus bill so thoroughly that they actually understood some parts of it would be fairly reprehensible if misinterpreted. And so they acted to red-circle some of the potentially odious parts of it. The fact that Councillor Geoff Meggs wanted removal of a sentence that defined an offensive sign as one that “promotes an idea” shows that while the city is a captive partner of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, its elected politicians aren’t dead above the neck.

The Curious Case of the Central Vancouver Public Library

The bylaw’s prefatory discussion of City Land Regulation By-Law stated (p. 4) that it would apply not only to the two LiveCity sites, but also to Vancouver House (at the time destined for the promenade outside Vancouver Public Library) – and any number of other unspecified “city sites.”

This measure led me on July 20 to communicate concern about the situation of Vancouver’s central public library to the Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the President of the British Columbia Library Association, and Vancouver’s City Librarian. The heading for the letter: Proposed Screening, Surveillance, and Exclusion at Vancouver Central Library.

As reported previously by Spectacle Vancouver, V2010 ISU head Bud Mercer replied to my specific question about Vancouver House at the March 26 Forum on Policing at Strathcona. His assurance at that time – that the location would remain under Vancouver Police Department jurisdiction during the Olympics – indicated that no high-level security would be imposed on Vancouver’s central public library.

Council discussion on July 23 made it clear that Councillors Anton and Meggs expected the Vancouver Public Library site to move forward as planned and be a great experience. As Meggs discounted the oppressive security to be assigned to the location, I could not refrain from overtalking him from the gallery with “That’s not what Bud Mercer told me at Strathcona.”

On July 25 Meggs used an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun to attack the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and to misrepresent planned heavy security as just “a bag search” for things like knives and alcohol. The Vancouver Sun chose not to publish my criticism of Meggs’s spin, although it did give rebuttal space to David Eby of BCCLA on July 29. [My unpublished letter is provided as an appendix.]

On July 28 City Council approved an administrative report titled Relocation of Vancouver House. This action attracted no immediate notice except for brief unanalytical coverage in the Province. The recommendation,

THAT the location of Vancouver House will be changed from the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library at Library Square, to LiveCity Downtown at Georgia Street,

is made in a report that takes a page “to explain the rationale.” A listing of four key factors mentions “impacts on accessibility,” security considerations, and financial costs. Appeal to financial costs receives special emphasis in both the Background and Discussion:

The change of location … will significantly mitigate the risk of cost overruns. … One of the shortcomings of the location was that [it] was financially prohibitive.

The Vancouver House recommendation goes back to March 4, 2009. The timing of this concern for finances looks like obfuscation and face-saving. Bringing finances to the fore fuzzes away the appearance of making a rapid and direct response to civil liberties criticisms. (Approving that change of location in the middle of summer while heading toward a long weekend also helps in escaping attention.)

Remaining Problems with the Bylaw

My appended remarks to Council mention some of the salient remaining problems. An emailed B.C. Civil Liberties Association update of July 2009 observes:

The by-laws carve out extensive public zones in which the City can dictate massive security screenings and draconian curtailment of free expression. In a sorry effort to mask the rest of the by-laws’ failings, Council deleted one blatantly unconstitutional provision which would have allowed the removal of signs on city streets that “promote an idea.”

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Appendix:

Remarks of Joseph Jones to Vancouver City Council on July 23, 2009

This morning City Council is considering a ninety-page bylaw proposal. However, those measures may not be strong enough to counteract a very serious threat that faces our city.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent ten minutes surfing the internet, and I found clear evidence that an international organization is operating in and against the City of Vancouver right now. [This is satirical echo of Bud Mercer's July 7 comment to Council on plans for criminal protest.] Its shadowy financing brings in at least $80 million a year, free and clear, no matter what. Its primary activities include diversion of government spending, extortion through heavy long-term debt, collusion with exclusive corporate interests, and suppression of citizen whistleblowing.

That organization goes under the name of International Olympic Committee, aka IOC. It appears to have direct links with a well funded temporary local umbrella enforcement organization that bears the cryptic designation V2010ISU. The recent history of the IOC includes 2002 criminal activities in Salt Lake City, 2008 facilitation of massive population displacement in Beijing, and current denial of charter rights to women in Canada.

Billions of Canadian dollars have already been redirected to the purposes of the IOC. The present bylaw proposal appears to fall within that broad undertaking. Fear of ambush marketing seems to stand foremost in these extreme measures to safeguard IOC interests.

Here are half a dozen specific points.

Recommendation A claims to seek “fair and reasonable balance.” In the City Manager’s brief comment I see nothing but concern for “the success of the Games.”

The summary’s first sentence trots out the notorious word “temporary.” The same page contradicts: “But some of these by-law provisions may make sense to implement on a permanent basis.”

The summary asserts “input from many sources” in developing these bylaw changes. To my knowledge those unspecifed sources did not include ravaged taxpayers or beset citizens.

The bylaw seeks to establish vague ad hoc powers of decree for the City Manager and the Mayor. Olympic enthusiasm offers no justifiable cause for Vancouver residents to be rendered the subjects of Queen Penny and King Gregor.

The loose extension of VANOC territory beyond defined venues into ordinary Vancouver street space gets described as halo effect. A better term would be “blast radius,” one which I overheard a journalist use in these chambers on Tuesday.

The City Land Regulation By-Law proposal calls for any number of unspecified locations to be subject to personal security searches, camera surveillance, and subjective exclusion on grounds of nuisance or disturbance. Proposing to apply these measures to Vancouver’s central library is hugely symbolic. [Interjection here of a comment that I am a librarian by profession.]

A month ago I agreed that Council was on the hook to cough up yet another $22 million for the Olympic Village. Council is not on the hook to perpetrate civil liberties atrocities on the people of Vancouver. Reasonable contract fulfillment – yes; servile grovelling before the IOC – no. Send these bylaw proposals back for reworking. There is still time to achieve the balance that city staff have thus far only paid lip service to.

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Appendix:

Unpublished Letter to Vancouver Sun on July 25, 2009

Re: Reality check needed on human rights complaints for Olympics (July 25)

Councillor Geoff Meggs wants your readers to believe that the powers arrogated by Vancouver’s omnibus Olympics bylaw are innocuous, and that the B.C. Civil Liberties Association is off the mark in its criticisms.

It did not look good when city staff admitted that they failed to consult their own Civil Liberties Advisory Committee before bringing the bylaw forward on July 23. In a rearguard maneuver, Council will seek a CLAC review of the already approved bylaw!

To close with just one example of Meggs’s spin. The searching that he describes as “a bag search … at live sites” goes beyond the two designated live sites to include Vancouver’s central library and any number of other unspecified “city sites.”

The bylaw goes beyond the bag to “search any person,” to subject that person to “airport style and other security measures,” and to exclude and/or impose a fine of $2000 on any person loosely considered to “carry any sign” or to “cause any disturbance or nuisance.”

Olympic Security Visits City Hall

On the afternoon of 7 July 2009, Bud Mercer of V2010 ISU and Steve Sweeney of the Vancouver Police Department presented a report to Vancouver City Council on 2010 Olympics and Paralympics Security.

Mercer stated that “criminal protest” is planned at local, provincial, national, and international levels. He drew comparison with Seattle 1999, Quebec City 2001, and Vancouver’s own Stanley Cup Riot 1994. As evidence for his belief, Mercer cited images found in ten minutes of surfing the internet: Olympic mascots with Molotov cocktails, Nazi swastikas, blood running from Olympic rings, masked protesters, burning tires blocking a highway, derailment of the Olympic “Spirit Train,” a beheading, a “Riot 2010” banner drop from 2008, masked protesters with the Olympic flag stolen from Vancouver City Hall in 2007.

Mercer also cited these numbers: 5500 athletes and officials; 80 countries; 10,000 media personnel; 25,000 volunteers; 140,000 accreditations (42,000 already in database); 400 free events; 1.75 million attendees; 7000 RCMP and police, 5000 private security, 4500 Canadian Forces.

COPE councillors Ellen Woodsworth and David Cadman were his only real questioners. Woodsworth pursued Mercer’s comment that he could tell councillors more if they would schedule an in camera session. She asked what had been excluded, and Mercer mentioned Olympic venue perimeters. Woodsworth pressed Mercer on the free speech implications of police approach to critics immediately following the Council meeting of 22 January 2009. Cadman asked who the present database of 42,000 names was being shared with, and Mercer replied “Canadian eyes only.” Mercer fell into an unintended pun about “free speech zones,” offering to help protesters pick it [picket]. Woodsworth criticized Mercer’s reliance on cartoons as evidence of planned criminal acts.

Steve Sweeney described a boundary between V2010 ISU and Vancouver Police Department jurisidiction: the former control Olympic venues and Olympic transportation corridors, the latter the rest of the City of Vancouver. However, the VPD will go into V2010 ISU territory if there are criminal acts. [With these provisions, it seems clear that both forces will in effect operate everywhere, except perhaps in the parts of Vancouver distant from venues and transportation corridors.]

Both Mercer and Sweeney emphasized their concerns about protest signs being used as weapons or obscuring the view of others. [Since any sign of a significant size could be presumed to have these potentials, are police already laying grounds to criminalize protest signage at will?]

During questioning Sweeney told councillors that the post-Games disposition of fifty to seventy public area surveillance cameras would be up to them. Sweeney also denied knowledge of the letter sent to police by Jason Gratl of the BC Civil Liberties Association on behalf of persons who had been approached by officers in public and at home about Olympic protest.

On June 24 the Olympic Resistance Network together with the BC Civil Liberties Association held a well-reported press conference (Globe & Mail, 24 Hours, CBC) to respond to police intimidation and harrassment. If Sweeney, two weeks later, remained unaware of this:

• $492 million for security does not buy much intelligence
• Sweeney is not on top of his portfolio
• Communication with police is a one-way street

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Appendix:

[On the morning of 9 July 2009 City Council heard speakers referred from July 7 on the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics Games: (a) Security (b) Coventry Declaration.]

Remarks of Joseph Jones to Vancouver City Council on July 9, 2009

On Tuesday afternoon I heard Integrated Services Unit director Bud Mercer tell you about his protest concerns based on ten minutes of surfing the internet. I am here to tell you about my Olympic security concerns generated by official engagements with local residents who have done little or nothing to offend. I will not even go into the infamous invitations to activists to just have a little talk with a police officer.

When I think about feeling unsafe these days, the first thing that comes to mind is a Little Mountain housing resident who hears an illegal demolition chainsaw ripping into an adjacent dwelling unit. This attack on property had a direct relation to Olympic interests and pressures. I know that many of you have been concerned about the impending loss of scarce housing units, apparently to facilitate an Olympic parking lot. Given this Council’s lack of love for the automobile, the humor in this situation veers right off into the sick zone. Your quid pro quo dealing with the Province trades an immediate demolition permit for who knows what may come back from those many empty acres of land – or when it may come, if ever.

One more instance of feeling unsafe. Last week’s Vancouver Courier headlined a story about a 39 percent increase in assaults in Strathcona over a two year period. The report ended with an incredible statement from the Vancouver Police Department media relations officer. After mentioning a December 2008 municipal campaign to issue tickets for offenses such as jaywalking, she said this: “The street disorder leads to the robberies and assaults.” How protected should I feel by a police department that can make such a boneheaded causal jump from jaywalking to assault? A more considered analysis of the situation in Strathcona might find correlation between Olympic extravagance, real estate interests in the area, and displacement of people from their housing. In terms of feeling secure, give me jaywalking over the Olympics any day.

The rest of what I have to say takes a look ahead at Olympic security issues, and highlights two instances where you have a choice and where you can make a difference.

On Tuesday afternoon VPD representative Steve Sweeney pointed out that it is up to City Council, what will happen to those fifty to seventy cameras being brought in for public surveillance during the 2010 Games. Since this is up to you, decide that you do not want to keep those surveillance cameras around. Make them go away along with the 900 for venues that Bud Mercer promised would disappear. I do not want an Olympic legacy of citizen surveillance.

Here’s the second thing. You have already requested changes to the Vancouver Charter so you can enact a signage bylaw for the Olympics. When you come to that bylaw, incorporate two specific provisions. First, include a sunset clause that terminates the bylaw. Second, explicitly uphold public rights to free speech and expression of opinion. Put in redundancy to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to make a clear statement: To police about what it is that they are enforcing, and to Olympic opponents about what it is that they are still permitted to say.

Shelter Saga

Having the Olympics on the horizon commonly spurs a host city to attempt to remove certain people from its streets. Near the top of that list are people that visitors from around the world should not be allowed to see actually living on the street. Ironically, in Vancouver, the very impact of preparing for the Olympic Games exacerbates that particular “problem.” Frenetic real estate development, coupled with landlords out to profiteer, crowds even more desperate people out onto the street. The viciousness of this particular circle so befits the trademark five rings.

Last winter the City of Vancouver opened five emergency shelters that have housed about 450 people a night. In March the Province kicked in $1.5 million to fund those shelters through June.

During the last three weeks of June, public disorder associated with two shelters near the Granville bridge generated media controversy. Sandra Thomas in the Vancouver Courier may have provided the first coverage (June 10) on this mushrooming story (previously noted by Spectacle Vancouver in the Nasty Little Surprises sidebar). What a problem to have brewing in downtown Vancouver a few blocks away from the future Olympic live site in David Lam Park!

The Globe & Mail caught up with the story about two weeks later. At that point Wendy Stueck could add that the City had increased police patrols in the area, and that a street stabbing had taken place in the area a few days earlier. An online commenter remarked that the story failed to mention other armed individuals roaming the streets with a hatchet, the butt of a pool cue, and a medieval flail.

Allen Garr neatly laid out the hidden middle of the story in a news-filled Vancouver Courier editorial on June 24. While the City looked to the Province for $4.5 million to fund the shelters until after the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the Province felt anxious about obtaining a municipal permit to demolish social housing units at Little Mountain. [Rumor has it that the convenient vacant land is destined to become an Olympic parking lot. Ironies multiply almost as fast as Olympic debt.] The two levels of government were playing chicken, as Garr put it.

The next day Gary Mason joined the fray, describing a nightmare of a completely changed neighborhood. Mason went on to mention that a retired American couple living part-time in the area had asked the U.S. State Dept. to issue a travel advisory on Vancouver.

As a week filled with news of the situation came to an end, Richard Dalton reported that Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson was looking to the Province for $6 million to operate the shelters through April 2010, saying: “If people think that the homelessness problem is an embarrassment now, just wait until February 2010, when the world’s media are literally just blocks from the Downtown Eastside and the core of this challenge.”

After the weekend, Frances Bula from somewhere off in Europe exclusively reported a “partial agreement” in which the Province unilaterally made a decision on the two Granville shelters: to shut one down immediately, to give the City thirty days to deal with problems at the second. At the same time, the Province provided $8 million to run the other shelters “until next April, after the Olympics are over.” [This funding seems so Olympic – up from $4.5 to $8 million in one week of reporting.] Bula described the bargaining between the Province and the City as “clearly the most fractious and confrontational” since a new City Council took office at the end of 2008.

On the Tuesday June 30, the drop-dead day for shelter funding, the finale to the story bloomed across the newspapers after a press conference at City Hall. Michael Smyth luridly opined:

I’m sure there are some Vision Vancouver [new majority on City Council] types who thought it was deliciously subversive to stick a bunch of junkies and crackheads into a smug cocoon of latte-sipping condo-dwellers and watch the ensuing mayhem.

For our hubristic Olympic host city of Vancouver that so lives in and for the moment, the real story gets lost in all the political posturing: Nobody cares about planning for anything after April 2010. And nobody will have any money left after the taxpayer-funded blow-out party for the world’s elite.

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In chronological order:

Sandra Thomas, “Outrage mounts over no-barrier homeless shelters,” Vancouver Courier (10 June 2009) 4

Wendy Stueck, “Fearful residents urge city to close Vancouver homeless shelters,” Globe & Mail, (23 June 2009)

Allen Garr, “City, province play chicken for housing,” Vancouver Courier (24 June 2009) E08

Gary Mason, “Vancouver’s homeless solution becomes a problem,” Globe & Mail, (25 June 2009)

Richard J. Dalton Jr., “Shelters could close July 1: mayor,” Vancouver Sun, (26 June 2009)

Frances Bula “B.C. to cover cost of emergency shelters,” Globe & Mail, (29 June 2009)

Michael Smyth, “Who’ll trust mayor after shelter freak show?” Province (30 June 2009)