Vancouver

Sunday at 3:30 PM Location: Arbutus Greenway at 41st Avenue (Intersection of 41st and West Boulevard)

This Sunday, join neighbours in the Vancouver-Quilchena riding to stand up for kindness and honour survivors who have shared the truth of the impacts of the residential school system.

MLA Brodie was kicked out of the Conservative Party Caucus on March 7th after mocking the testimony of residential school survivors. This harmful behaviour would be unacceptable for anyone in Canada and is inexcusable for an elected official. Now that Brodie is an Independent MLA, she cannot effectively represent the interests of our riding. We did not vote for her as an Independent. She should resign so a by-election can be held.

There are moments when we must look around and ask who will speak up. The answer is, we will! We should all speak up when politicians use issues like this to rewrite history for their own benefit and distract from other issues that require attention.

As Vancouver nears its April 5 two-seat byelection, candidates have been in neighbourhoods talking directly with voters at several all-candidates meetings, but two in particular have, so far, been absent.

The pass on the events by ABC Vancouver candidates Jaime Stein and Ralph Kaisers — running for the party with a current majority on council — has puzzled some voters and candidates from opposition parties who are making community-led events a central pillar of their campaigns.

"I mean, this is democracy manifest, right?" said Theodore Abbott, one of two TEAM for A Livable Vancouver byelection candidates at an event Monday in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood.

"This is democracy in action happening."

Costco Wholesale has major plans to add at least two more store locations in Metro Vancouver, but what sets one of these future locations apart is that it will feature a store concept unique to the region.

The region’s first Costco Business Centre is planned for New Westminster, catering specifically to business customers with bulk and specialized products, in contrast to the far more common Costco warehouses primarily tailored for everyday shoppers.

For obvious reasons I'm trying to be more local and cutting out American produce, so I figured a CSA box (Community Supported Agriculture) would be a good move. Unfortunately, DuckDuckGo has given a bewildering collection of results and I've heard some CSAs are less good than others. Have any of you fine folks used any, have any recommendations or anything else that might help?

Funding highlights:

• 411 Seniors Centre Society: $210,000 over three years was granted for community information, referral services, and activities that promote active aging and social connection to their network of Vancouver's seniors, the majority of whom live on a very low income.
• Indigenous Healing and Wellness: $245,000 was granted to organizations that provide traditional, spiritual and cultural healing and wellness activities to support Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers in Vancouver’s urban Indigenous community.
• Leave Out Violence (LOVE) Society BC: $34,628 was granted for programs and workshops to address violence prevention for at-risk youth.
• Neighbourhood Houses in Vancouver: $1.3 million collectively was granted to support a wide range of programs, activities and services in neighbourhood houses across the city that address City priorities.
• QMUNITY, BC's Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Resource Centre Society: $125,000 was granted to provide to improve the lives of 2SLGBTQIA+ through support, connection and leadership.

The City of Vancouver is proactively initiating municipal-led rezoning of certain areas of both area plans into new low-rise building and high-rise tower zoning.

If the City’s proposal is approved, it would eliminate the need for case-by-case rezoning applications for individual projects that already align with existing area plan policies, within the selected areas for pre-zoning.