11 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Please discuss Jonathan Le Drew's candidacy in this thread.

[Chris J]

Johnathan LeDrew is an independent video journalist who has been covering Victoria Elections events for 13 years.
This campaign he has launched, along with several of his fellow candidates, www.electionsvictoria.ca.
The first featured videos are a seven-part unedited look at one of this campaign's Mayoral Forums, hosted by Restorative Justice Victoria at James Bay New Horizons.
Johnathon likes to describe his approach to this campaign as "A healthy democracy means a well-informed public"

[Coreyburger]

It is great to see videos of these events made public. They all should be online somewhere. I only wish the recent OB one was, if only so I can see how I did, as an exercise is self-flagellation.

[Chris J]

We'll try to get that one up tomorrow or the day after.
If anyone else has suggestions as to what meeting they'd like to see, we have them all on tape, and we need to prioritize which ones we get up.

[Caramia]

I'd actually really like to see the Rob Reid & Dean Fortin one from Nov 3rd. Even though I was there, I still am struggling to understand the differences between these candidates - and I think a lot of Victorians are in the same boat. Also, since it wasn't a public meeting less people may have had the chance to go.

[Chris J]

I will pass that along.
My opinion is that there isn't much difference between them. Minor points on how to make the rich (or middle class) get richer, while doing the absolute minimum allowed by law for the poor.

[Mike K.]

^say again?

[Chris J]

Which part?
By absolute minimum for the poor, what I'm saying is we just won a court case where a judge ruled some changes had to be made to ensure better rights for homeless people.
What can often happen, what we expect to happen in these cases, is that our governments decide not just to follow the letter of the law, but the spirit of it. We can do more that just follow the strict interpretation of the charter. We can use it as a bottom line for the way we treat each other. That is it's intent in many of our minds. (Including the lawyers I know).
What the city did was choose to interpret it so strictly that there is a major debate on whether or not they interpreted it correctly at all.
When I talked to Dean about tent cities the other day, he and his team kept telling me about his plan to give tax breaks to developers to build more affordable housing. I can't say that I disagree with that, but it does not take into account the urgency of the situation on the street. It helps some, but not all. Maybe we can't help everyone, but I fail to see how helping some means we can't help others. Granted we have a limited budget, but the argument that myself and others are making for a tent city kind of temporary structure encampment is that it is cheaper than shelters, and will keep people alive until this affordable housing can be built and we get them into it.
Dean is the only candidate who refuses to accept even one tent in this city. (Although we have him on camera offering to pay for porta-potties if we built a tent city on the legislature lawn). Not only is he resisting our attempts to work with him on the construction of some temporary alternative shelters, he wants to appeal the charter challenge ruling, so that people have no choice but to go sleep on mats, which by the way, there are not enough of, and no plans from any level of the government to make enough of.
Our choice, as advocates of people dying on the street, is let them die, or let them wait to get into this housing that we've been promised every election by every adminstration for decades. We've waited long enough and we're not declaring war on the city here, we're just asking that we be given the opportunity to work as a community to take some of the pressure of the city to create something to save lives that will not lead to the kind of problems that Dean keeps telling us they will. We have been planning this for a long time, travelling to Portland and Seattle visiting other such places, learning what to do and what not to do. These places are clean and safe.
I know people who were at the Cridge Park tent city years ago. 150 people were there for two and half weeks. No one was arrested except for when they came to shut it down. All that money spent on clean-up (which is Dean's arguement for why it costs too much) was spent on four trucks and a cherry-picker that took four men to take down ropes that campers had erected without a truck for free. So these kinds of things are expensive because the city chooses to respond in an expensive way.
19 police responded to one tent on city hall lawn last month, for 4 people who have a reputation for being as peaceful as they come. They went willingly, as they had planned to do if confronted, and 2 cops could have done that.
So the arguements are based on presumptions based on the fact they don't listen to us, and don't want to because it's not about the money, it's not about safety, it's about we are not the priority here.
Sorry to rant maybe in the wrong area, but that is how I elucidate what I feel about the typical response to this crisis that we see from people like Dean. Is Reid different? If he is being influenced by the downtown businesses, then I doubt it.

[Mike K.]

Thank you, Chris.

Victorians from all walks of life are frustrated by municipal politics and the inability to push forward meaningful change in a meaningful amount of time. In fact this website was created largely out of a desire to air the voice of the community and to participate in setting the agenda, not merely responding to one.

Your insight into the homelessness issue is appreciated and I can assure you that your thoughts will reach not only the media, but also elected officials, candidates and, of course, residents of the city.

[Caramia]

I think that downtown business might surprise you. There is an incredible diversity of opinions there, some of them quite radical. I think it is a challenge to both sides of the class divide to avoid stereotypes.

For example, things I have heard advocated at downtown business owner meetings:

- Squatters rights in buildings left abandoned for more than 5 years. (Mechanism: direct police not to spend resources policing buildings left empty by owners.)
- Government issued tents (apparently they do this in Tokyo)
- "Adopt a homeless person" incentives for small retailers (the argument being that many of them already have)
- Resist gating alleys and pushing drug addicts onto the sidewalk.

Regarding Rob Reid and Dean Fortin, one key difference in their platforms is that Rob Reid has come out saying that he does not support spending City money on an appeal. I agree with him on that stance.

[Chris J]

Point taken on the stereotyping. All apologies to the business owners with heart.

[Holden West]

Candidates barred from next election

Victoria News
Published: April 24, 2009 3:00 PM
Updated: April 27, 2009 5:15 PM

Four Victoria council candidates and one mayoral candidates failed to file their financial disclosure documents by the deadline. That means they're disqualified from running in any campaign for city council, school board or trustee for Islands Trust until after the next municipal election.

Kristen Woodruff, Robert Allington, Nick Baker, Allen Jones and Jonathan Le Drew all failed to file their paperwork on time