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On July 21, over 200 people are signed up to speak to a motion brought by councillor Jean Swanson calling for the police board to itemize the work officers do related to mental health, homelessness, drug use and sex work. The motion is the first step in an attempt to move funding from the VPD and into community-led harm reduction and safety initiatives. We speak with Taz Khandwani about what the motion says and what it hopes to achieve.

When sociologist Ingrid Waldron started teaching in the School of Nursing at Dalhousie, she says she got a lot of pushback from White student nurses who didn’t understand what race had to do with health. In this wide-ranging conversation, Waldron examines the connections between the social determinants of health, environmental racism and police violence.

Canada has committed millions to research and development of some of the world’s most promising candidate vaccines and therapeutics to treat Covid-19. However there is no guarantee that this expenditure of public money will result in a vaccine or treatment that is affordable. Jason Nickerson is the Humanitarian Affairs Advisor for Doctors Without Borders in Ottawa. He argues that public investment should not result in high profits for private corporations.

Fortis BC is proposing a major $3 billion expansion to its LNG storage facility on the Fraser River. Local residents are concerned 300-metre LNG tankers negotiating the river will pose a serious threat to public safety in Delta. We speak with Eoin Finn of the Friends of Tilbury Coalition about why they think this expansion poses a threat to public safety in Delta. If you would like to comment on the proposal, you have until July 16. Go to https://lngtankersafety.org/ to find out how to submit your comments.

Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send military troops into cities and states if they fail to quell the recent protests against racism and police brutality happening throughout the U.S. Chris Savage is a lawyer in Washington, D.C. who is leading an attempt to have the Insurrection Act replaced. We talk with him about the dangers of the current legislation and what he would like to see replace it.

In 2018, the Alberta Energy Regulator approved an application for a 10,000-barrel-a-day tar sands project adjacent to Moose Lake. The Fort McKay nation went to court to challenge the approval and, in May, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in their favour. Ben Parfitt is a long-time analyst with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He explains the grounds for the decision and its significance for similar court challenges in BC.

Vancouver’s tight rental housing market has eased significantly since coronavirus-related travel restrictions brought many short-rental units back into the rental housing market. Economist Marc Lee of the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says now is the time to make sure that short-term rentals are properly regulated so that renters in Vancouver aren’t squeezed out of the city.

Street checks are when police stop someone in public to question them and record their information in a police database, outside the context of an investigation. Statistics show that Black and Indigenous people are by far the most common target of this kind of police attention. The BC Civil Liberties Association, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the Hogan’s Alley Society are calling for a stop to the practice. We talk with BCCLA policy lawyer Latoya Farrell about their concerns about the legality and usefulness of street checks.

Vancouver police evicted homeless campers from a tent city near Crab Park in the early morning of June 16. Organizers and observers say the police moved in without due notice and did not work with local agencies to provide other housing options for the campers. We talk with organizer Chrissy Brett and lawyer Anna Cooper about their concerns about the way the VPD enforced the court injunction to remove them from the Vancouver Port Authority parking lot.

The police killing of George Floyd ignited a global uprising against police violence and created a space for anti-racist voices to be heard. One idea that has gained traction as a result is that of defunding the police and investing in other programs to deliver safety and security. Sandy Hudson co-founded Black Lives Matter Toronto and is vice-chair of the Black Legal Action Centre. She’s currently a UCLA law student. Sandy Hudson joins us to talk about what defunding the police could look like.

In 2016, 200,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were rendered stateless overnight in an attempt to expel Black people from the Dominican Republic. Documentary filmmaker Michèle Stephenson returned to her country of birth the following year and tells their story in her new film Stateless. The film is available online all week until Friday June 26 as part of the DOXA film festival. We speak with Michèle Stephenson from her home in New York.

The new invasive species the Asian giant hornet has been characterized in the media as the Asian murder hornet. Christianne Wilhelmson and Gillian Der of the Georgia Strait Alliance say terms like this are deeply unscientific and serve to promote racist stereotypes about Asians. We spoke with them on June 1.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a marked rise in harassment of people who are Asian and Asian Canadian. These attacks range from verbal assaults to physical assaults. Often we’ve seen bystanders intervene to show solidarity and defend the people being targeted. Asian Americans Advocating Justice and Hollaback have partnered to offer online training in how to safely and effectively intervene. We speak with Emily May of Hollaback.

The UN Security Council currently has five temporary seats available. Canada, Ireland, and Norway are vying for two of those seats with the final vote to be held on June 17th. On May 19th, an open letter was published, calling for a “no” vote for Canada to join the Security Council. We talk with Yves Engler, one of the signatories of the letter.

Early signs suggest that race matters, when it comes to COVID-19. In Chicago, black residents are 30 per cent of the population, but make up more than 70 per cent of COVID-19-related deaths. And yet Canada doesn't collect race-based data. In a recent article on Policy Options, physician Aimée-Angélique Bouka and academic Yolande Bouka argue that Canada should be collecting better health data that looks closely at the intersecting issues of race and immigration.

Over 5500 academics have signed a letter calling for the democratization of work in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The letter says that human beings should be seen as one resource among many. Simon Black is one of the co-signers of the letter. He is a writer, activist and academic and currently assistant professor at the Centre for Labour Studio at Brock University.

The Healthcare for All National Coalition is calling on all levels of government to ensure healthcare access for everyone in Canada. Their open letter to the federal government was endorsed by more than 200 organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Labour Congress. Janet Cleveland is a researcher on the rights and health of refugees and non-status migrants at McGill University. She joins us again to talk about why this issue is so important.

The Covid-19 crisis has disproportionately impacted communities already vulnerable because of poverty, racism and other forms of inequality. The Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition formed to advocate for a progressive, equality-focused recovery when the pandemic is finally over. We speak with Kimberley Wong and Matthew Wong, co-chairs of the Coalition.

The Migrant Workers Centre in Vancouver has launched a campaign calling on the federal government to grant an amnesty to the thousands of undocumented workers in Canada. They say the Covid-19 crisis has exposed the extent to which the Canadian economy depends on migrant workers and it’s essential to regularize their status immediately. Natalie Drolet is staff lawyer and executive director of the Migrant Worker Centre. We spoke with her on May 5.

On April 2nd, Mel Watkins died at age 87. Mel Watkins was a political economist at the University of Toronto, as well as an activist and writer. In the late 1960s, he was founder and co-leader, with James Laxer, of The Waffle, a left-wing political formation within the NDP that advocated for an “independent, socialist Canada.” Jim Stanford is author of a collection of essays on Mel Watkins’ Staple Theory of Economic Growth. Jim Stanford was formerly an economist with Unifor, and is currently director of the Centre for Future Work. He joins us to pay tribute to his friend and mentor.