Post 182--Irresponsible Boaters Saddle Me with E.coli and Taxes

A Wimpy City Council Enables Irresponsible Boaters

I live in one of the most desirable places in one of the most livable places in the world, as world polsters insist. In fact, my city is often cited as the most livable of all cities.  I suspect that’s an exaggeration, gross even.  Perhaps it’s most desirable for the rich cats, like corporate CEO’s who are parachuted into the city along with their absurd salaries and perks.  It hardly can be the most desirable for the residents of Canada’s poorest postal code, the East Side of the city, popularly referred to as DTES or Down Town East Side. Neither can it be the most desirable for the mostly young people who cannot afford to get into the housing market because it has spiraled out of control and is way beyond them.  But for me and Fran, my wife, it is definitely the best of all cities in the world for a whole bunch of reasons I will not bore you with. 

The city?  If you’ve been reading my blogs, you will know it is none other than Vancouver, British Columbia, on Canada’s Pacific West Coast. We’ve lived on three continents and four countries; we’ve traveled to over 40 countries, but we for ourselves prefer Vancouver as a place to live above every other place, even those we have not visited. 

Our city location?  The West End (WE).  Where within WE?  Davie Village, the very centre of the street at Davie and Bute. The new plaza recently built amounts to our front yard and that has made it twice as pleasant as it already was, what with all the places we need to go within a few minutes walking—groceries, restaurants, dollar store, doctor, dentist, sea wall, Stanley and other nearby parks and swimming place, both in and outdoor--you name it and it’s there all within a few minutes.  Don’t even need a car to get around.  Legs and transit are all you need, thank you. If you have legs stronger than our senior ones, bikes are helpful as well.

But the place is not a paradise; it has its very serious problems and inconveniences—and some yucky places that just plain make you mad. Just four blocks down the steep hill from our rental unit there’s the Sea Wall alongside False Creek, a beautiful place to walk, saunter, sit, relax and enjoy. If you need proof of that, come and check out the crowds making use of the place on any sunny and even not-so-sunny days. 

So what’s the problem?  Crap, that’s what it is. Sorry for the coarse word, but what it describes cannot be put in polite Christian language.  You need a more acceptable word? Well, the article from I am drawing uses the term “waste.”  For me, that doesn’t do it; it’s much worse. It’s the crap that boaters dump into the waters of False Creek and has so contaminated the place that its level of E.coli is too high for safe swimming.  Fran and I cannot swim in that most beautiful and natural swimming place just down the street from us.

And that only because of egoistic and irresponsible boaters who can’t be bothered using the facilities that are in place to dump their crap.  The city has been offering two free sewage pump-out stations for people to use, but you think they care enough to take the trouble?  No, too much trouble.  Jonathan Paetkau, a company that is now providing the new additional  free pump-out service, suggests that “one of the main reasons people are not using the city pump-outs is it takes a lot of time to move your boat off the dock, take it to a pump-out , pump it out and take it back to the dock.”  However, “if there’s a way they can pump out their boats without that stress, they are happy about that.”  Another boater said, “The whole pump-out situation was too messy, too stinky and really haphazard.” So, just dump it into these pristine waters in the middle of a great city and let the community suffer from it. Who cares?

The new facility referred to consists of two pump-out boats that visit the boats and relieve them—again free of charge,  at least, to them, but I pay for it via taxes.  So, here we have another case so typical of this city. Instead of forcing responsibility on people, they find a tax-supported way of evading responsibility for eliminating the problem without forcing a change in behaviour.  Not even when His Handsomeness, the Mayor, admits publicly that these boaters “have no business pumping any of their sewage into False Creek.”  Indeed, but does the Mayor have any business charging me for the privilege of boat life that these people apparently love?  I think not.

I believe I have a better suggestion.  At the beginning of the city’s tax year, charge an annual fee to each boater, enough to cover the average annual cost of dumping and some extra to pay for this programme. When at the end of the year a boater can show receipts for having been a responsible dumper, he gets a rebate or it gets applied to the next year. No receipts, no rebate, and that annual fee will apply each time. If the fee is not paid in time, the boat gets hauled away at owner’s expense.

There may be some problems with this approach, especially legal, lawyers will see to that, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. And that’s the problem with the fathers of this most beautiful or livable of most cities: they have no will. They prefer to crawl around a problem to facing it head-on. A city run by lack of resolve. It’s costing me and in the meantime, I have to go elsewhere to swim.

The main source for this post is Wanyee Li, “Mobile pump-out service launches in False Creek.”  MetroNews, August 16, 2017, p. 4. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/08/15/vancouver-launches-free-mobile-pump-out-services-for-false-creek-boaters.html.  Thank you, Li.

      

Post 131—Prostitution: Further Ruminations

Rehabbing Prostitute Culture               

So the City Fathers of Vancouver decided the reputation of former West End (WE) prostitutes needed to be rehabbed. (See Post 130.) Did they consult with us WE residents at all? They may have, but I certainly never heard of such an event, while I usually try to keep on top of such happenings. Such consultations are usually well advertised far ahead of time. I must admit, of course, that I do travel a lot and thus might miss some of these occasions.

Lack of Citizen Involvement

But were there any cries from the current residents that a former injustice had to be undone?  Was the city under local pressure on this matter?  Even if I missed out on whatever public consultations might have taken place, I have noticed nothing of public pressure to restore the honour of prostitutes, let alone thank them for their historic contribution to advancing our “progressive” WE culture. I am sociable; I spend time on the street; I drink tea on the new plaza in front of our building. I heard no such discussion of any kind. It seems the City Fathers just quietly slipped this one over us, possibly alerting some citizen groups they would expect to support such a move, but almost definitely no general public consultation. Though St. Paul’s Anglican Church participated in and approved of the action, I doubt that other area churches such as my church, the large Baptist “cathedral” at Burrard and Nelson, was consulted, or the Guardian Angel Catholic Church on Broughton. Possibly St. Andrews United, for they could be expected to support the move and, perhaps, the Presbyterians.

Citizen Reactions

As could be expected, citizen reactions ran the full gamut from warm embrace to vigorous rejection. One Derek Frew wrote that he initially thought it a case of “blasphemy” that “involved…placing a monument to paganism in front of a Christian church.” But then he had second thoughts urged on him by words attributed to the famous writer G. K. Chesterton: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” Frew concluded that “perhaps not a bad place for it after all” ! (Vancouver Sun, Sept 20, 2016, p. A11).  If nothing else, his has at least a humorous touch to it.

The Earlier Part of the Story

From the other side of the opinion track, we get Ray McNabb’s piece on the same VS page under the title “Memorial to sex workers a wrong-headed affront.”  He’s lived in the WE for 40 years and has always found it “a wonderful area to live in. However, I vividly recall a time when it wasn’t.” That time was the early 1970s when there was so much traffic that he could hardly get onto the street. There was a constant lot of “noise, car horns, car radios booming, shouting, swearing from the traffic. The cars were all headed for Davie Street, where the prostitutes all gathered. Bumper to bumper stuff. Some WE-enders organized a “Shame the Johns” movement. “We were upset and annoyed with the lack of action by the police and city hall….”  A pressure group of citizens, including some politicians, finally was heard and the “court ordered the…hookers out of the WE.”  Traffic was forced away from the regular tours by a mini-park on Jervis and a cul-de-sac at Bute & Burnaby, right in front of my building here. The neighbourhood slowly “returned to normal.”

Then and Now

So, that time there was public pressure on the authorities to stop the sex trade in the WE.  The residents did not want it. It ruined their lives and turned the area into a noisy and chaotic place. Davie village became so infamous that even in Africa, where I lived at the time, I heard about it, just like today the place is world famous for its gay-friendly culture so that gay people from all over the world gather in the WE to participate in the annual week-long activities that culminate in the huge local gay parade. But notice the difference:  infamous vs famous. At that time it was the laughing stock of the province, nation and even world! 

An Affront

And now, McNabb rightly complains that city Counselor Andrea Reimer, judging from the name, a descendant of that morally pristine Mennonite community, refers to the citizens’ action in the 70s as “a tragic injustice.”  Oh, yeah? How about opening up space for that crowd on her street and see if she would still feel that way! Her neighbours would likely drive her out with the rest of the crowd to follow!  If not worse!  “What an affront!” comments McNabb. “She lost my vote”—and mine as well. I am coming close to dubbing her an “idiot!”  Again, something like calling a spade a spade.

The Next Post

I hope to have the time to prepare for the next post to deal with the more overtly Christian perspective on the issue. You will learn that I do not see it all in black and white terms. My prostitute story in Post 130 is illustrative of the tragic circumstances that can drive a person into prostitution. I am far from judging an individual prostitute, but that is very different from elevating the culture of prostitution to the level of desirability to which more communities should aspire.     

Post 130—Prostitution Gone Mainstream?

Out of / in Nigeria

You may remember that I spent 30 years in Nigeria, from 1966-1996.  Even though that’s been 20 years ago now, it still seems like yesterday. Since I left the country, I have written 13 books and many articles on my work there, including Christian-Muslim relations and mission memoirs. Thus, though I was physically away from Nigeria, psychologically, emotionally and mentally I was/am still there. Even today, due to sleep apnea, I dream frequently and by far most of my dreams are still about Nigeria.

During the course of my ministry in Nigeria, I often traveled far and wide. One car trip I stayed overnight in a “local” hotel, places few Caucasians frequent; we prefer the more modern and convenient ones. I chose a local one just to see what they are like and what goes on there. It was not a pleasant or comfortable place to stay, though much cheaper, something that does a Dutch heart like mine good. 

Hymn-singing Prostitute

Like most Nigerian hotels, prostitutes were abundant. I overheard one of them humming and even softly singing Christian hymns. So I screwed up my courage and asked her how she could be singing Christian hymns while practicing prostitution. Her story broke my heart. She was from Ghana, where she had married with two or three children. Her husband abandoned her and her children. She tried every which way to provide for her children but was not successful. In her wanderings she ended up a prostitute in this Nigerian hotel. She could see no alternative.

Jesus and Prostitutes

Her story immediately reminded me of Biblical stories about Jesus and prostitutes. Go to John 7:36-50; 8:1-11 and to Luke 7:236-50.  If you want to read further on the subject in the Bible, just google “Jesus and prostitutes” and you’ll get a very full plate of stories and commentary on these stories. I am an emotional person and had to work hard at containing my emotions at  her story and those about Jesus all at once. This was the first and only time in my life that I consciously sought out a prostitute, even if it was only to satisfy my curiosity about her story. But the Jesus stories told me one thing very clearly: I was in no position to judge her.

Prostitution in Vancouver

The above paragraphs form the backdrop to this and the next post about prostitutes in my city, Vancouver, Canada. (When you write about Vancouver, you always need to specify which Vancouver, since there is a smaller city by that name in the south of the American state of Washington.) 

Apology to Sex Workers

On September 17, 2016, about three weeks ago, the Vancouver Sun featured a story on p. A16 with the heading “West End sex workers get civic apology,” written by Glen Schaefer, with the subheading, “City unveils memorial to trades people driven to margins during 1980s.” The article was flanked by a picture by Ben Nelms I might have included in this article if I had the digital know-how for it. As it is, I can only reproduce the caption underneath the picture. It reads, “Indigenous transgender sex work activist Jamies Lee Hamilton, left, and University of British Columbia professor Becki Ross unveil on Friday a memorial—a retro lamp-post with a red bulb—that has been dedicated to sex-trade workers of Vancouver’s West End Community.” 

Now I live in that part of Vancouver and do remember the stories people told me about the situation in the West End (WE). The entire “industry” had been wiped out by the time we arrived on the scene in 2001. We were still left with quite a contingent of homeless folk and addicts, who were also under pressure to move out of the area, though today they are re-invading the area with a vengeance. Had my wife and I heard of the ceremony ahead of time, we probably would have attended it out of pure curiosity, since it took place within three short blocks from us. On the evening of Sept. 17, we did take a stroll there and, sure enough, there was that new retro lamppost with clear inscriptions and a red light on top, right in front of St. Paul’s Anglican Church. A very respectable memorial at a very respectable residential/church location.

Reversal of Attitudes

How things have changed during these short 15 years that we have lived in the WE.  During that decade and a half the official attitude had been turned upside down from chasing out these prostitutes—and their clients!—to apologizing for that act!  Ross, the UBC sociology specialist in the sex trade, spoke the following:

"The early 1980s marked the full fledged anti-
prostitution crusade to purge sex workers from 
the WE. Davie sex workers built the foundation of 
what would become this city’s first Gay-
neighbourhood, and yet hookers on Davie have 
never been honoured as the former fighters for 
gender, sexual and racial minorities.”

Though I hesitate to “correct” a sociology expert on the topic, my understanding of the background to the WE’s gay culture is that it goes way back to nearly a century ago. I doubt that these prostitutes—and I insist on calling a spade a spade—laid that foundation. Ross will have to persuade me of that.

Maybe, just maybe, more on the subject next time. I will try….