Democracy Watch

It's two weeks till Vancouver's municipal election and the News Collective takes some time to talk with Vancouver’s Chief Elections Officer, Rosemary Hagiwara, to learn about efforts the city is taking to get people out to voting, including its expansion of mobile voting services.

After that we speak with CBC's Municipal Affairs reporter, Justin McElroy about how and why UBC became Canada's largest community without a municipal government.

The show ends with some fun facts on Vancouver's local government with political science professor Jack Lucas. Jack tell us why the number of Vancouver city councillors hasn't expanded proportionally to our population growth and why our municipal elections now happen every four years, rather than every three or two years.

We start off the show with UBC political science professor Max Cameron, who discusses the decline in party brands on the local level and the simultaneous rise of independents in Vancouver’s 2018 election.

Democracy Watch then turns to the province’s recently amended annual allowable rent increase. What was originally set at 4.5%, has now been lowered to 2.5%. We hear from mayoral candidates Kennedy Stewart, Shauna Sylvester, Wai Young and David Chen on whether this rate goes too far or not far enough.

The show ends with a story on some of the cuddliest creatures in the ocean in honour of Sea Otter Week!

We begin Democracy Watch by interviewing Vancouver pollster, Mario Canseco. Mario is the president of Research Co, a polling company that specializes in public opinion research. The News Collective chats with him about his latest poll and what it suggests about trends in voter confidence.

After that we have a short interview with city hall reporter and UBC journalism professor, Frances Bula. Frances tells the News Collective her thoughts on Vancouver’s newest mayoral candidate: Connie Fogal. As of today, Connie Fogal, the wife of former COPE city councillor Harry Rankin, joins the race for mayor, bringing some very outlandish perspectives with her.

Democracy Watch ends with an original report from last night’s municipal election panel on housing policy. From the lavish halls of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel’s Star Sapphire Ballroom, CiTR’s News Collective captures housing policy highlights, as expressed by our city’s civic party leaders and independent candidates.

There's been a lot of buzz about the new billboards promoting Hector Bremner. And mysteriously, the group who paid for them hasn't been answering phone calls or emails. What level of transparency are third party advertisers required to provide to the public? And what defines a "third party"? We speak with a representative from Elections BC to find out.

Democracy Watch then presents a special story on Hector Bremner's socially liberal, fiscally conservative approach to fixing Vancouver's housing crisis and its social woes, all through increasing housing supply. In this piece, UBC economics professor, Kevin Milligan, reviews Hector's housing strategy and comments on whether or not it's economically sound.

Democracy Watch starts out with Part 2 of our documentary series, "How We Got Here." This episode, titled: "Vancouver's Civic Government," provides a meaningful look at why our unique electoral system is adding to the weirdness of Vancouver's 2018 civic election.

We then turn to an interview with local, self-taught election expert and politics podcaster, Ian Bushfield. Ian has been graphing and charting the Vancouver municipal election through public surveys and open-source information sharing. He talks about his participatory reporting methods and gives us a summary of the status on this year's increasingly confusing civic election.

This episode of Democracy Watch starts with Maxwell Cameron, a political science professor and the Director of UBC’s Centre for the study of democratic Institutions. Cameron explains why BC’s October electoral reform referendum is important, and why you should vote in it. We then turn to an interview with Coalition of Progressive Electors city council candidate Jean Swanson who discusses the four days she recently served in prison after breaking a court injunction on Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby tank farm facility and why she hopes to serve as an “activist-councillor.”

Wondering what Wai Young's Coalition Vancouver wants to do besides remove bike lanes? The News Collective gets a preview of this new civic group's housing plan and learns about its self-described centrist values from Coalition Vancouver president and former NPA board member, Peter Labrie.

This episode also contains a five minute bonus interview with Peter, focused on a provocative retweet he posted on August 15th.

This April, ProVancouver joined an already crowded race for office in Vancouver’s 2018 civic election. ProVancouver, lead by mayoral candidate David Chen, aspires to build strong communities, increase rental housing and maintain transparency at City Hall. ProVancouver also claims to be neither a right wing or left wing party. And they actually aren't even a party.

Today's Democracy Watch features an interview with David Chen on these topics and more.

We have Part 2 of our ongoing series, “It’s not weed, it’s not pot, It’s the cannabis industry." This segment focuses on whether there will be a supply shortage in the initial days of marijuana legalization, whether a black market will remain and how approaches to marijuana legalization will be similar to alcohol regulation. After that Democracy Watch presents Part 3 of our series, “Warning: Backpage Not Found." This episode features local sex worker and trans-rights activist Hailey Heartless, who tells us about the impacts SESTA/FOSTA has had on her life. We end the show with a re-airing of last week's "Shark Report."

Today on Democracy Watch we have part one of a series on how the national legalization of marijuana will affect Vancouver. This timely series is called “It’s Not Weed, It’s Not Pot, It’s the Cannabis Industry” and today’s story is an intro to the topic, with input from industry reporters and experts. We then play the latest episode of Seeking Office—the News Collective's civic elections podcast. This episode is part one of our “How We Got Here" series and It’s all about the history of Vision Vancouver. The show ends with an update on West Coast sharks in honour of the Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week!