We asked him about Vancouver’s shitty public art, his thrash metal band, and the dickheaded Christopher Columbus statue that the devil replaced.
Author: Sarah Berman
Sarah Berman’s writing has appeared in VICE, Adbusters, Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun and many others. A lifelong supporter of independent and alternative media, Sarah has contributed to nonprofits like Journalists for Human Rights, Megaphone Magazine and Paper Tiger TV.
As America doubles down on climate targets, Canada stays quiet
Can you hear the awkward silence? That’s the sound of Environment Canada not releasing its annual report on national carbon emission trends, amid news that America and China have both made ambitious commitments to curb climate change.
Reporting from the First Nations resistance camp that’s evicting Imperial Metals
After a man-made lake full of mining waste spilled in British Columbia in early August, locals have been up in arms about the residual damage caused. We visited an active First Nations mining resistance camp that sits eight kilometres away from the spill zone.
The Mount Polley disaster has sparked a First Nation blockade
After a man-made lake full of mining waste collapsed last week, BC Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett compared the disaster to an avalanche.
For ‘Little Mosque’ creator, ‘everything is copy’
Zarqa Nawaz gives Islam the Nora Ephron treatment at Vancouver’s Indian Summer Festival.
‘I was a PR campaign’: oil cleanup worker
As Cold Lake disaster oozes into year two, wildlife rehabber remembers ‘insane’ media day.
Canada is super chill about commercial drones
Unlike the US, Canada is pretty lax about commercial drone use. Wildlife scientists, filmmakers, and real estate photographers (to name a few) have taken advantage of these flying robots in Canadian airspace.
Why do the residents of Victoria, BC buy more sex toys than any other place in Canada?
Grey, wet vibes in Canada’s sex toy capital.
Is Vancouver the bitcoin capital of Canada?
The city’s patented mix of real estate market speculators, gaming industry nerds, recreational druggies and lefty counterculturists seem to be creating a perfect storm of bitcoin enthusiasm.
The RCMP and CSIS are creeping on environmentalists
Heavily redacted documents released in November show that Canadian spies ‘monitored’ opponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway through social media, blogs and a storytelling workshop at a church in Kelowna, B.C.
BC’s ‘other’ multi-billion dollar energy projects
Most Canadians are vaguely aware that Enbridge is planning a massive pipeline expansion through northern British Columbia. But there are two other megaprojects in BC—one more costly, the other more risky—flying under the radar.
Lan Tung sets out to redefine ‘Chinese music’
The musician and improviser puts her eclectic tastes on display with the first-ever Sound of Dragon Festival beginning May 1.
When work is play (and play is work)
For more than two decades Vancouver has been a global leader for video game development. While a few big studios like EA Games and Capcom are still here, major industry shifts have pushed smaller tablet and mobile games into the spotlight. Guidebook sits down with indie gamers to find out the best ways to score a gaming job in Vancouver.
Canada sets refugee removal target at 875
This year border services in Canada have a set a minimum quota for stripping refugee status. Here is what you need to know about refugee cessation and vacation—the two ways border services take away protected status and residency.
The spill that keeps on spilling
Eight months and nearly two million litres of spilled bitumen later, Canadian energy company CNRL hasn’t figured out how to stop four mysterious leaks in northeastern Alberta.
Doctors in BC can no longer prescribe heroin
There’s at least one recorded casualty in the fight over prescription heroin in British Columbia. Back in September, B.C. doctors won approval from Health Canada to prescribe diacetylmorphine—the active ingredient in heroin—to 20 hardcore addicts in Vancouver. That decision lasted two weeks.
Chuck Strahl oversaw government spies while registered as an Enbridge lobbyist
Like those underemployed twenty-somethings the internet loves to ridicule, former cabinet minister Chuck Strahl has to hustle a few side jobs to get the bills paid. “I’m not independently wealthy,” he told the National Post earlier this month, when questioned about his work as both an energy lobbyist and a government spy watchdog.
Young Bucks in the Mushroom Kingdom
It’s been a banner year for British Columbia’s wild mushroom foragers. And with one month left in the high season, there’s still money to be made.
Mennonites in southern Alberta have connections to a notorious Mexican drug cartel
I called up the DEA—not to discuss their expensive, racist and failed war on drugs—but to unpack the devoted/bearded supply chain that brings Calgarians their party drugs.
An oil spill in Cold Lake, Alberta can’t stop, won’t stop
Over 1.5 million litres of heavy crude has seeped out of the ground at a military base in northeastern Alberta. Regulators aren’t sure of the cause or when the spill will end.
British Columbia should keep an eye on the Fukushima disaster
Just a friendly reminder that two-and-a-half years after an earthquake and tsunami caused a series of equipment failures and nuclear meltdowns in northeastern Japan, the threat of radiation poisoning in the Pacific Ocean will be around another 40 years or more. Have a nice day.
The B.C. government trusts Nestlé with the province’s fresh water
B.C. hasn’t bothered to update a century-old law that allows multinational corporations like Nestlé to take water without measuring, reporting or paying for it. You’re welcome, billionaires.
Canadian crowdfunding just got crowded
In 2013, crowdfunding is no longer the realm of little guys and start-ups. Not only is Spike Lee funding hislatest million-dollar film on Kickstarter, but Vancouver’s own educational institution Science World recently turned to online community donations to build an upcoming exhibition called AMPED.
Search and rescue, doggy-style
When my cat went missing this summer, the last place I thought to look was the Internet.
Don’t get me wrong—I look at cute animals on the interwebs as much as the next Buzzfeed reader. I just never thought such an activity would somehow result in my pet’s return.
BC Liquor announces changes to allow direct sales, in-brewery events
Wine and liquor establishments across the province have a few reasons to toast this weekend. Today B.C.’s Liquor Control and Licensing Branch announced a set of policy changes that will positively impact several sectors of the industry.
Donuts! Ice cream! Beer!
What do donuts, ice cream and beer have in common? (Besides the carbs.) In this installment, small-scale treat makers combine resources for sweet and savoury pairings.
REVIEW: Elsethings Festival with Raleigh, PrOphecy Sun and We Are Phantoms Again
While East Vancouver celebrated the demise of a beloved venue with abandon, a smaller gathering in the West End launched an unexpected new haven for fun-having. Though it certainly wasn’t the first show hosted by Googly Eyes Collective, Elsethings Arts Festival—a collage of performance, film, art, and cozy hangouts—was charged with expectation, light, and new beginnings.
‘You are not a loan’
B.C. has a debt problem.
On average, British Columbians owe $38,837 in non-mortgage loans—more than any other province. Across Canada, consumer debt grew 37 per cent over the last five years—way ahead of the country’s nine per cent inflation rate.
REVIEW: Mother Mother with Hannah Georgas at the Orpheum
At a sold-out Wednesday night show, whilst a snowstorm swirled outside, it was obvious just how much frontman Ryan Guldemond of Mother Mother enjoys the drama associated with a perceived apocalypse. Forces both natural and amplified came together in theatrical tension on the Orpheum stage, beginning with a foreboding opener (and new album title) “The Sticks.”
Women-only recovery experiment: did it work or not?
For Sherri Johnstone, resident at the Rainier Women’s Treatment Centre in the Downtown Eastside, the last two weeks have brought on some tearful goodbyes. As Health Canada funding for the four-year pilot project ceased Dec. 1, Johnstone and the Rainier’s 37 current residents are adjusting to immediate cuts in staff and programming.
“It’s been hard,” says Johnstone, who struggled with crack addiction and failed at traditional treatment programs before she was referred to the Rainier in 2011. “We started to open up to these women and now they’re not here… Now we have to do that again with somebody else — it makes me feel like I’m almost back at day one again.”
Occupy Wall Street’s new job: disaster relief
Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, many New Yorkers are struggling to understand why parts of the city are still in crisis. By the time the lights in my East Village apartment returned, the citywide death toll had crept north of 40, thousands were still displaced and hundreds of thousands remained without basic utilities like electricity, water and heat.
Amid this darkness and uncertainty, a once-familiar movement reignited. Long before the first subway tunnels were pumped dry, members of Occupy Wall Street sprang into action, assessing the needs of people who lost everything in the storm.
Schooled in the rodeo
In her first semester at the University of Saskatchewan, Katie Dutchak missed barrel racing with her horse Rootbeer Kazanova. A competitive cowgirl throughout high school, she missed the type of community the rodeo had offered her.
Not anymore. Last January, the first-year arts and science student teamed up with fellow student and racer Shelby Clemens and brought competitive rodeo back to U of S.
