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editors Kalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan » news@ubyssey.ca
Clark ready for Wednesday’s by-election
NEWS BRIEFS
Arshy Mann webeditor@ubyssey.ca When the The Ubyssey went to speak with BC Premier Christy Clark in her campaign office, she arrived talking about an issue that is generally seen to favour her NDP competitor, David Eby. “I am in such a good mood today,” she said before discussing the prayer breakfast she’d just attended with homelessness activist Judy Graves. “The thing about homelessness is [that it’s] a mental health and addiction issue…in lots of cases. In order for people to heal, the first thing they have to have is a roof over their head,” she said with an enthusiasm that few performers, let alone politicians, can muster. “So we have to provide people with [that] without conditions.” It’s that seemingly relentless positive attitude, even when talking about issues that are her opponent’s bread and butter, that she hopes will appeal to Vancouver-Point Grey voters in tomorrow’s by-election. “What I’m now trying to do is be candidate by morning, Premier by day, maybe candidate by lunchtime and then candidate by night again. And that’s the hard part.” While much of the coverage of the by-election against David Eby has become a smallscale referendum on an unelected Premier, the issues they talk about while canvassing focus on only one of BC’s 85 ridings. Transportation, as always, is
geoff lister photo/the ubyssey
UBC named first canadian “Fair Trade Campus”
Christy Clark speaks to The Ubyssey at her campaign office. geoff lister photo/the ubyssey
one of those issues. While Eby argues that rapid transit along the Broadway corridor could lead to a Cambie–like disaster, Clark feels differently. “This communit y at UBC needs that transit line. It’s the busiest transit destination anywhere in the province, so there’s a strong argument for making it happen.” She however, agrees with Eby that more consultation is needed. “We have time to consult and we need to consult. We need to make sure that the transit line happens in a way that respects the needs of the community and I think we can do it differently from the Cambie line.” On easing the student debt burden, Clark unequivocally pledged to maintain the inflation cap on
tuition rates and said that she was committed to reforming the student loan program, but did not provide any specific ways in which she would do so. “So [Minister of Advanced Education] Naomi Yamamoto is thinking about some of these issues, how we can address in particular how the student aid program works, because I’ve heard that a lot from students,” she said. “We’re not there yet for figuring it out, but we’re committed to trying to find an answer.” With regards to how the university endowment lands should be governed, Clark made no specific mention of students, but said she was consulting with property owners at UBC as well as the University Neighbourhoods’ Association, and wanted to ensure that she represented their views.
Clark also maintained that the UBC hospital, which Eby believes should return to providing 24hour emergency care, should continue operating as is. “I’m sure it was a really difficult decision...but I don’t think it’s one that we can revisit. What we need to be doing is figuring out how to stretch every dollar as far as we possibly can because we have to get the maximum bang for the buck.” More than just representing Vancouver-Point Grey on the issues, Clark believes that she has more in common with the neighbourhood than David Eby does. “If the two of us were to imagine the perfect street we would ever want to live on, for me it would be in Point Grey,” she said. “And for him it probably wouldn’t be.” U
Despite long odds, NDP’s Eby isn’t fazed micki cowan news@ubyssey.ca Meet your Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate—a community involved, thirty-three year old Law Professor who spends his time fighting AIDS and homelessness when he’s not singing and playing guitar in his rock band, Ladner. This is the self proclaimed “underdog” David Eby, who chose to go up against Christy Clark— the Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Point Grey and BC’s Premier. Eby said that it was the candidate search committee who approached him and asked him to run, in order to give voters a credible alternative to Clark. “I think that one of the things they were looking for is someone who would be in the community and be an advocate for the community but it wouldn’t be yet another absentee MLA,” he said. Eby is concerned about Clark’s devotion to the riding, as she has been neglecting local debates against her opponents. She didn’t attend the all-candidates meeting arranged by the Bayview Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) May 4. He said that he and the NDP would focus on topics such as the environment and education—issues that he thinks Clark is not devoted to. “I think that this riding is very environmentally conscious, and
the constituents that I’ve talked to have placed a huge importance on the environment—issues of tankers off our coast, the Enbridge pipeline bringing the tar sands oil over to load up tankers and ship it over to Asia,” he said. “They’re concerned about those plans as not being reflective of a sustainable future for BC, but rather a significant environmental risk.” A professor of Law at UBC, student debt is something Eby is well acquainted with and while short of specifics, he pledged the NDP would keep tuition rates affordable while making reforms to the student loan program. Before becoming the executive director for the BC Civil Liberties Association, Eby worked for the Pivot Legal Society on housing issues in the DTES. He hopes to bring some of that expertise to the riding to combat homelessness in the community. “This is a riding that’s very affected by issues of homelessness, although not many people think that when they hear the name Vancouver-Point Grey.” Eby is considered a longshot to defeat the Premier, but a strong result could be a stepping stone in his rise in the party. “I think I’m learning a lot while I’m out there about how to do politics and how not to do politics, and I feel very confident about the
photo courtesy of david eby
approach that we’ve taken, which is a grassroots, community based approach compared to Christy’s approach,” he said. When asked if this election was a test for Eby’s larger future
within the party, he was openminded about the idea. “I do think I have a future in Provincial politics, and I certainly hope it’s this election,” he said. “If not, then in the future.” U
UBC has been declared Canada’s first “Fair Trade Campus,” just in time to celebrate International Fair Trade Day on May 14. “There’s a lot of interest in Canada, and UBC just really picked up the leadership and ran with it,” said Michael Zelmer, Director of Communications for Fairtrade Canada, an arm of the international non-profit which designates products as “Fair Trade”. The distinction only applies to UBC and AMS entities, allowing private campus franchises such as Starbucks and Tim Horton’s to use—or not use—Fair Trade coffee on their own accord. Students from UBC taken down in Liberal collapse Three UBC student candidates that were running for the Liberals in long-shot ridings have all lost, in a federal election which the vast majority of Liberals found to be equally unwinnable. Kyle Warwick, Sangeeta Lalli and Stewart McGillivray, who were recruited by the Liberal Party to run in ridings where local candidates could not be found, all decisively lost. Of the three, McGillivray fared the best, with 4,110 votes in Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, 23,071 less than reelected Conservative cabinet minister James Moore. “Relative to the expectations going in, I wasn’t overly surprised,” said McGillivray. “It was disappointing that we went down [in this riding] compared to 2008, but that happened across the country.” syria detains ubc alumni The UBC Graduate School of Journalism is calling for the release of reporter Dorothy Parvaz, who is being held in Syria. Parvaz, a Canadian, American and Iranian citizen, obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia, and went on to a successful career as a journalist at The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Al Jazeera. The UBC Graduate School of Journalism is urging the government of Canada to do everything in its power to bring Parvaz home to her family in North Vancouver. “When one journalist is attacked, we’re all attacked,” said Prof. Peter W. Klein, who heads the School of Journalism’s International Reporting Program. “All journalists feel the pain, but so do all citizens of the world. Reporters like Dorothy Parvaz serve as critical eyes and ears in these hotspots.” U