Pivot's been keeping track

Dear Republic:

Re your cover story "What's got into them", concerning Vancouver's police being overly keen to "supervise" protest while implicitly harassing activists with an excessive show of force.

While I was very glad to see The Republic providing analysis on this important subject, I note that your comments that police brutality allegations are never connected up to form a whole picture are mistaken as far as Vancouver is concerned. The PIVOT Legal Society, now almost five years with a mandate to advance "the interests and improving the lives of marginalized people through law reform, legal education and strategic legal action" is definitely on the police brutality case. Over the past few years, PIVOT has released "To Serve and Protect," an in-depth report consisting of 59 affidavits from individuals describing 50 incidents of alleged police misconduct and incidents of alleged abuse of authority by the Vancouver Police Department ("VPD"), primarily in the Downtown Eastside ("DTES"). This material has been forwarded to the BC's Office of the Police Commissioner with a demand for a full public inquiry into police brutality in Vancouver. Recently, PIVOT mounted a related campaign documenting police abuse of Vancouver sex trade workers in its new report titled "Voices of dignity: A call to end the harms caused by Canada's sex trade laws." All of this material and information on other PIVOT activities is available on the PIVOT website.

Having worked on community newspapers in the past, I know how difficult it can be to keep up with everything that is going on in the community. I'm sure PIVOT can use additional coverage and they are always happy to accept donations and welcome new volunteers. Kudos to everyone on The Republic's staff for adding to progressive media in the province.

- Esther Shannon, Vancouver

Vote fringe

Dear Republic:

Thanks so much for your article on fringe votes. I'm always afraid that by voting whom I "really" want to vote for will take away from the second best and leave me with the absolute worst! So based on your analysis I absolutely will vote for my fringe.

- Charlotte

Reagan lives

Dear Republic:

Ronald Reagan is dead, but Reaganism lives on. It's Canadian version is enshrined in the Conservative party.

As Kevin Potvin pointed out in his Faulty Powers column of May 27, “the door [to a Conservative government] leads to dark alleys that not even former prime minister Joe Clark is willing to look at.”

If Stephen Harper becomes our prime minister, I predict his government will do the following:

It will means-test the guaranteed income supplement and the old age premium. This will inflict hardship on hundreds of thousands of senior citizens, many of whom are older women;

It will sell off tens of thousands of units of social housing, including co-op housing across Canada;

It will increase the number of Canadian soldiers by anywhere from 50 to 100 percent. Wherever the US invades, this Canadian government will eagerly send their young troops. Syria, Cuba, Iran, North Korea—you name the country, and young Canadians will be there fighting, killing, and dying;

Nearly every government crown corporation will be sold off, and the government will launch a head-on assault against public sector unions, just as Reagan did;

Canada will surrender its currency, its resources, and in the end any control of its economy to the US government;

Strict controls will be placed on abortion;

Massive tax cuts will be shoveled out to the richest ten percent, while social programs to the poorest 30 percent will be cut to the bone and beyond.

“But this is already happening under the Liberals,” you might say. At this point, only some of this is happening.

And others might say, “Harper just isn't electable as prime minister.” That's what many Americans used to say about Reagan in the late 1970s.

They were wrong, and the bottom third of Americans paid a terrible price. The same fate is in store for the poorest third of Canadians, if Harper becomes our leader.

All he and his Conservatives need is 33 percent of the vote and its game over for any progressive policies for the next decade and beyond.

- Dave Jaffe, Vancouver

Loss of library

Dear Republic:

In two commentaries, Kevin Potvin spreads too many words, and in the wrong direction, vis-à-vis the future of One Kingsway.

Parking availability (catering to automobile ownership) and the look of the proposed building take a back seat to a palpable loss when One Kingsway is completed.

Kingsgate Mall, a much-maligned and busy community venue, will lose the Vancouver Public Library branch that has been an integral part of the mall, and heavily used. The new branch, at One Kingsway--a few blocks from the mall--will be “better” I was told. Well, new and more square feet are not the defining factors for “better.”

As for aesthetics, the Library Board is known for its bad taste in architecture. The chosen design for the main library, an ersatz Roman forum look, should have come cheap--it didn't.

-Mike Tropp, Vancouver

****