Ellen Woodsworth

At the regular council meeting this Tuesday March 2, 2010 Ellen is putting forth a motion to address the issue of Vancouver becoming a True Sport Community.

True Sport

WHEREAS:

• True Sport is a national movement for sport and community. Its core mission is to be a catalyst to help sport live up to its full potential as a public asset for Canada and Canadian society – making a significant contribution to the development of youth, the well-being of individuals, and quality of life in our communities;
• There is now evidence that sport’s benefits go far beyond the positive health effects of physical activity that have long been understood including:
  • A healthier, more active population
  • Improved school enrollment, attendance and achievement
  • More employable youth with transferable life skills
  • Less youth crime and gang involvement
  • Lower rates of teen pregnancy and health risk behaviour
  • More inclusive communities
  • Higher levels of social capital and social trust
  • Faster community integration of newcomers
  • Improved inclusion, health and wellbeing of people with disabilities
  • Strengthened Aboriginal communities and youth
  • Improved workplace skills and productivity
  • Enhanced sport tourism and neighbourhood renewal efforts
  • Attraction of mobile knowledge workers and companies that hire them
  • Improved environmental awareness and social mobilization;
• No other aspect of community life has demonstrated sport’s capacity to connect so many young people to positive adult role models and mentors, opportunities for positive development, and help in acquiring critical life skills.
• To gain these valuable benefits the sport we do must be good sport, built on the values of excellence, fair play, fun and inclusion;
• The Big City Mayors’ Caucus has declared itself a True Sport Community

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED

THAT the City of Vancouver declare itself a True Sport Community, joining over 1500 other True Sport communities, organizations, clubs, leagues, and teams across Canada; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the City of Vancouver encourage other FCM member municipalities to work towards the following True Sport principles:

• Ensuring equitable access to sport facilities and programs, especially for new Canadians, low income people and those with disabilities
• Setting clear standards for ethical behaviour and inclusion for all municipally funded sport facilities and programs
• Asking how sport can help advance key social and economic goals and developing strategies and linkages to make it happen
• Facilitating dialogue between sport and other community organizations and working together to achieve community objectives
• Developing an integrated community sport plan aimed at providing accessible, quality sport experiences to all community members.

Ellen has put forth a motion addressing racism and discrimination that will be discussed at the regular council meeting on Tuesday, March 2 at 2 p.m.  If you wish to speak to this motion, send an email to mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca and then the city clerk will let you know when you will speak.

MOTION

Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination

WHEREAS:

1. The City of Vancouver of Vancouver is one of the most diverse cities in Canada a majority of whom are “visible” minorities or aboriginal;
2. The City’s Multicultural Relations Policy recognises the importance of all residents being able to conduct their daily lives free from evidence of prejudice on the part of their fellow residents and public servants;
3. Addressing the social ill of racism and discrimination is necessary to achieve institutional completeness which is the groundwork for achieving a multicultural society;
4. The exclusion of and making invisible diverse communities that represent the ethnic composition of Vancouver today, was clearly manifest at the opening of the Olympic ceremony which speaks to the urgent need to have greater diversity represented at both structural and decision making levels in our Canadian institutions;
5. More work needs to be done to expose systemic and systematic racism which continue to have a adverse effects on minorities in the context of marginalization, alienation and has depoliticized minorities;
6. March 21, 2010 is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Vancouver:

1. Express our strong and ongoing commitment to champion equity and respect for all people through the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination, the endorsement of the Ten Common Commitments Against Racism and Discrimination (See Appendix A) and our municipality’s own unique plan of action;
2. Acknowledge that racism and discrimination in Vancouver continues to divide communities, threaten democratic and participatory citizenship and entrench and aggravate inequalities within society;
3. Welcome the ongoing role of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO in the work of the Canadian Coalition and of UNESCO in the international coalition and the regional coalitions;
4. Call upon municipal governments, in partnership with local, municipal, provincial and pan-Canadian organizations, to invest in efforts and recommendations set forth by the Coalition;
5. Further call upon the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to make a strong and ongoing commitment to support the work of the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination and to reiterate its call to its members in the Member’s Advisory issued March 19, 2009 to join the Coalition.
6. That this motion be forwarded to the City of Vancouver Multicultural   Committee and the EEO to recommend a plan of action to address these serious concerns.

Appendix A

Ten Common Commitments and Sample Actions against Racism and Discrimination

Municipalities are urged to develop their own plan of action in keeping with ten Common Commitments addressing three areas of municipal responsibility:

• The municipality as a guardian of the public interest

1. Increase vigilance against systemic and individual racism and discrimination

2. Monitor racism and discrimination in the community more broadly as well as municipal actions taken to address racism and discrimination

3. Inform and support individuals who experience racism and discrimination

4. Support policing services in their efforts to be exemplary institutions in combating racism and discrimination.

• The municipality as an organization in the fulfillment of human rights

5. Provide equal opportunities as a municipal employer, service provider and contractor.

6. Support measures to promote equity in the labour market.

7. Support measures to challenge racism and discrimination and promote diversity and equal opportunity in housing.

• The municipality as a community sharing responsibility for respecting and promoting human rights and diversity

8. Involve citizens by giving them a voice in anti-racism initiatives and decision-making.

9. Support measures to challenge racism and discrimination and promote diversity and equal opportunity in the education sector and in other forms of learning.

10. Promote respect, understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity and the inclusion of Aboriginal and racialised communities into the cultural fabric of the municipality.

By joining the Coalition, a municipality commits to:

• Endorse 10 Common Commitments.
• Develop or adapt a Plan of Action against Racism.
• Make the 10 Common Commitments and the municipality’s unique Plan of Action an integral part of the municipality’s vision, strategies and policies.
• Cooperate with other organizations and jurisdictions including governments, institutions and civil society.
• Set its priorities, actions and timelines to achieve its Plan.
• Allocate resources to achieve its Plan.
• Exchange expertise with others.
• Share best practices.
• Report publicly on an annual basis on actions undertaken in implementing the 10 Common Commitments and its Plan of Action against racism.

More information on the ten common commitments can be found in the CMARD booklet .

Ellen breaks her seven day fast with a cracker on Sunday Feb 14 at the Women’s Memorial March in the Downtown Eastside. Celebrating with Ellen is Rachel Marcuse, the Executive Directive of COPE

“I feel good that I took a stand for a National Housing Program,” says Ellen.  You can hear Ellen talk about the “One Percent Solution” in this video from WorkingTV or go to www.2010homelessness.ca.

Ellen passed the wooden spoon to artists Emillio Rojas and jamie griffiths. Rojas, a performance multimedia artist slept in the front window of Vivarium Gallery as part of a Performance/Installation entitled “Of Hunger, Homelessness and Spectacle.”

Emillio Rojas, Ellen, & jamie griffiths at the National Housing Program Rally, November 20, 2010

As part of her week-long fast in support of the Hunger Strike Relay, Councillor Woodsworth will be spending time in different areas of the city to talk to people about the hidden costs of homelessness. She will be handing out Valentines Day cards and encouraging people to send them to their MPs or the Prime Minister to ask them to support Bill C-304 – MP Libby Davies’ bill to start a national housing program. A Facebook group has just been created at http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=299608881002&ref=mf

Where Ellen will be during her hunger strike

Sunday, Feb. 7 (11am): spoon exchange at Pigeon Park then the “Poverty Olympics” at the Japanese Hall (487 Alexander St.)

Monday, Feb. 8 (11am-2pm): stationed at Trade and Convention Centre with “Walk for Justice” sisters.

Tuesday, Feb. 9 (11am-2pm): walk about in West End (meet at Davie and Thurlow)

Wednesday, Feb. 10 (4pm-6pm): stationed at Broadway and Commercial

Thursday, Feb. 11 (11am-2pm): Hastings St at Woodwards

Friday, Feb. 12 (11am-2pm) stationed at Robson Square

Saturday, Feb. 13 (9:30am): Peace Walk and Meditation (meet at 33rd Ave and Cambie St.) and going on to Little Mountain Housing Project

Sunday, Feb. 14 (9:00am): Lunar New Year Parade and Carnegie Community Centre Memorial March for the Missing Women of DTES

Dear Friends,
I’m participating in the 2010 Hunger Strike Relay (www.2010homelessness.ca) starting this Sunday February 7 through next Sunday February 14. Below is more information and you can view my schedule of events if you’d like to join me.

What is the 2010 Hunger Strike Relay?

Each week new volunteers take on the Wooden Spoon and participate in a week long fast for 7 days. The hunger strike will continue past the 2010 Olympics to June 2010. We are calling for the re-establishment of a National Housing Program based on the One Percent Solution in Canada.

Why am I participating in the 2010 hunger strike relay?

The City has been proactive on dealing with homelessness, but the temporary HEAT shelters are just that – temporary. They close on April 30. To truly solve homelessness, we need to get other levels of government on board. Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing strategy. The cost of keeping people off the street is significantly cheaper than the medical and other associated costs of leaving them on the streets – the hunger strike is another way to bring attention to our need for a national housing program.

Solving homelessness isn’t as complicated as curing cancer – it’s a matter of political will. We need to build homes and put supports in them so people are successful.

Some stats:

• Canada’s homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people and 1.7 million residents across the country struggle with housing affordability issues.
• There are between 10,500 and 15,000 homeless people in British Columbia.
• A homeless person dies every 12 days in British Columbia.
• The 2008 homelessness count identified 2,660 people who were homeless in the Metro Vancouver region.
• Homelessness has more than doubled since the Olympics were awarded to Vancouver.
• Roughly half of all Canadians live in fear of poverty, and 49 per cent polled believe they might be poverty stricken if they missed one or two pay cheques.
• 73% of homeless aboriginal people are street homeless in Metro Vancouver.
• 45% of homeless women in Metro Vancouver are aboriginal.

Get involved!

Send a Valentine’s day CARD  to your MP or the Prime Minister! Tell them to support Bill C-304 – MP Libby Davies’ bill to start a national housing program.

Ellen Woodsworth will be part of a panel discussion on Women and the Olympics on Sunday February 7, 2010 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. This event will take place at the Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway, Vancouver.

Joining Ellen on the panel will be Michael Vonn, Policy Director BC Civil Liberties Association, and Harsha Walia, a South Asian activist, writer and researcher who works with the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. Moderating the discussion will be Noga Gayle from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

The event is being presented by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The panel discussion is free but donations are appreciated. Food is available for purchase.

If you plan to attend, please reply to: RSVP-women-and-peace@shaw.ca