Reive Doig2013-05-25T05:07:40-04:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=reive-doigCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Reive DoigGood old fashioned elbow grease.Missing Women Forgotten In This Electiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31659912013-04-29T11:23:54-04:002013-04-29T16:14:51-04:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/who thinks the inquiry was a waste of time.
Hardly the talk of progress Wally Opal and others hoped for at the time the inquiry closed. Yet it seems the priority that was being given to the Downtown Eastside and its marginalized women--and other marginalized women throughout the province--disappeared as soon as the TV cameras did.
Recently, the organization PACE, which works primarily with survival sex trade workers here in Vancouver, was rejected for increased funding by the provincial government. This happened at a time when other organizations working with sex trade workers have shuttered their doors, leading to a near doubling of PACE's workload in the past few years. At a time when the organization should be hiring more staff to meet the increased demand they've instead had to lay workers off, increasing the workload of those who remain, and leaving those they try to help at even greater risk.
PACE's funding request was met with a letter from the Ministry of Justice noting that "$750,000 was provided to the WISH Drop-In Centre upon the release of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Report to expand the services provided to vulnerable women in the downtown eastside."
This ignores promises following the Missing Women's Inquiry that the $750,000 provided to WISH was just the beginning.
Of course that was then, when the press was focused on the issue, and this is now when they are not. Without the TV cameras looking on and reporters asking questions it seems that's all there is. It almost seems that the money's on the dresser and if there's nothing left you can get out, according to the provincial government.
Now it seems we're back to the attitudes this government held when they decided not to fund WISH, PACE, PIVOT and numerous other groups' participation in the Missing Women's Inquiry - effectively making their participation a fiscal impossibility. At the time two successive Attorneys General, Barry Penner and Shirley Bond, cited budget challenges and financial priorities as reasons the groups simply couldn't be funded. MWCI report or not, the women who stroll the same streets and alleys from which Robert Pickton snatched 49 of their sisters apparently still aren't much of a priority.
And while sex worker outreach organizations and others on the Downtown Eastside have come to expect little attention or help from the BC Liberals, the silence on behalf of Adrian Dix and the NDP has been deafening. In recent days Dix has said the campaign so far has reflected his party's priorities.
Where is the Opposition Leader who repeatedly called out the government during the inquiry to fund groups, and to extend the Inquiry beyond its scheduled report date of June, 2012, when it was clear there were still important questions to be asked? Where is the Adrian Dix who sat with the families of the murdered and missing women and who called their cause his own?
It's time for the politicians to speak out, and to let us know what their plans are to address the issues, often lethal issues, affecting survival sex trade workers and other marginalized women. It's time to take action on the promises, those made and those implied, that followed the Missing Women's Inquiry. Because, frankly, the women those promises were made to have faced too many broken promises in their lives. Should another batch of broken promises come at the hands of B.C.'s next government, no matter who forms it, while those women might not be surprised they will once again be heartbroken.
One thing might be made clear though: the difference between sex work and prostituting oneself. Because it will be clear that our political leaders have made their choice.
Full disclosure: Reive Doig sits on the board of PACE. It is an unpaid, volunteer position.
BDSM is a multi-purpose acronym: Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, and (consensual) Sadomasochism or S&M.
One of the kink community's more unfortunate fetishes seems to be for initialisms and acronyms: SS&C stands for Safe, Sane and Consensual; RACK is for Risk Aware Consensual Kink. CBT is, well, really you'll probably want to go out to a party or two before you hear about that one.
But back to Fifty Shades of Cliché. I tried to set aside any preconceptions and dove in. I made it less than halfway through. OK, actually a little more than halfway towards being halfway through. Don't get me wrong, I've got a masochistic streak myself — hell, I've been known to hang from flesh hooks for fun! But this... some things are just too painful to do to yourself.
And that might have been the last attention I paid to the subject were it not for the Taboo Sex Show happening this weekend at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre.
Many from the local kink community, including me, will be there to spread the word about responsible BDSM and the various events happening here in Vancouver which promote it. We'll be there teaching seminars, handing out flyers and other information, and answering the countless questions we'll be asked over the course of the four days of a show that will see tens of thousands pass through its doors.
Normally you can never anticipate the questions you'll be asked in the dungeon, other than the obvious "does it hurt?" ("Yes," would be the smart ass answer, "that's the point.")
This year the show management has let us know that at their events in other cities they've already heard the questions that will be asked this year. Questions asked by more people than ever, as those who used to mill about at the doorway to the dungeon but wouldn't come in, and those who passed it by entirely with a bemused or scoffing look, will now make a beeline to the folks they previously deemed untouchable
And those questions, those many, many new questions, will mostly be variations on just one: "Is it just like in Fifty Shades of Grey?"
He's also a man with a masochistic streak sufficient to read not just Fifty Shades itself but the whole trilogy.
So does Fifty Shades get better the further in you read? Did I give up on it too soon because further in it does actually paint an accurate picture of BDSM? Not according to Tupper.
"EL James makes vague gestures towards consent and negotiation and safewords and safety, but when she describes the negotiation process, Christian shamelessly manipulates it, when he isn't ignoring it entirely," he said. "It's an example of knowing just enough to sound like you know what you're talking about."
Knowing just enough to sound like you know what you're talking about. Well, we've all met people like that. If it's someone over-representing his knowledge of flying and he's never actually piloted a plane it's only going to be dangerous if you decide to fly in a Cessna with him.
In the same way, if he's intimating an intricate knowledge of the risky practices of breath control play and you end up in the bedroom with him things might not turn out so well if he actually doesn't have a clue what he's doing.
Tupper worries that those reading Fifty Shades might actually have an idea of what BDSM looks like, and how they might set about exploring it, when they actually don't.
"I think any person entering the BDSM community, or even just adding kink to an existing vanilla ("normal") relationship, with these books as their only guide, will be woefully unprepared and possibly in danger. Even more so than if their only exposure were Story of O or The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty; at least those books make no pretense of having any connection to real world BDSM."
Indeed, that's the worry of those who promote and teach about kink: those reading Fifty Shades will then dive into recreating the relationships within it. Relationships that if they were taking place in real life wouldn't be viewed as kinky, fun and romantic, but as abusive, emotionally if not physically.
Fortunately there are those more than willing to correct the inaccuracies in the book for those looking to discover the real world of BDSM.
At the Taboo Sex Show you'll find many of the players in Vancouver's alt-sex scene represented, and in particular its BDSM community will be there in the dungeon to help bring kink out of the shade and into the light.
Metro Vancouver Kink, which has spearheaded this year's dungeon, and which presents Vancouver's largest kink conference, Westcoast Bound, in just a few weeks' time will be there. Sin City Fetish Night and NOIR Fetish Ball will also be there, promoting not just our events but our lifestyle. We'll be there with countless volunteers to answer your questions, the ones borne of your desires or from what others have told you, and even, yes, those borne of Fifty Shades of Grey.
"My hope is that the Fifty Shades fan who wants to explore kink will not stop there, and will learn more," says Tupper.
If they do, this weekend will certainly be a good place to start.
Reive Doig is a partner in the NOIR Fetish Ball, one of the events mentioned in this story.
]]>Oh Fun City! Vancouver's Vibrant Alt-Sex Scenetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24077482013-01-07T16:14:25-05:002013-03-09T05:12:01-05:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/Erotic Vancouver Magazine, the passage from one year to another always marks the time when people start asking what I thought THE events of the year were, and what are my can't-miss events of the year ahead.
The first question I always find hard to answer. Some of the most magical times for me might have been a small dinner party, or an amazing conversation that took place at an event that, otherwise, was only average, and of course one person's perfect night is another person's OK one. Many great nights are the perfect coming together of incidents at a regular event, be it monthly or bi-weekly, and you can never predict at just which events that will happen!
But when you ask me what events I'd be upset to miss in the year ahead, then things get easier!
Here's that list:
NOIR Fetish Ball Grand Opening at Chapel Arts: Jan. 19, 2013
I feel a little guilty including this on a list I'm compiling: this is the monthly night that I run after all. But then I realized that's the reason it's got all the things I love!
This month we move into new, larger digs, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better venue for a night named for film noir. Chapel Arts is the city's oldest venue, a former chapel and hall that was built in the 1890s and then turned into a funeral parlor. Renovated in the art deco style in the '20s it's only in the past couple of years that it's been turned into a unique event venue.
With NOIR's signature front and centre dungeon play space, and now the opportunity to add a second room of DJs, the city's most underground fetish event promises to get even more amazing.
Taboo Sex Show: Jan. 17-20, 2013
After auspicious beginnings a decade ago, back when it was the Naughty But Nice Sex Show, this yearly event sunk from being a bonanza extravaganza to, well, frankly, blech! But last year they really turned that around, and this year looks to be truly phenomenal. Sure, it's largely a giant sex shop, but it's a sex shop with added value! Seminars, entertainment, and my favorite part, the dungeon, and all the diabolical demonstrations you'll discover within it.
While I've already stated that I am loathe to pick an event that's the best of the best, personally if I were told I could only go out one weekend this year, this would be it!
Mark this on your calendar, grab your tickets, and start planning for it NOW. Vancouver has hosted plenty of kinky conferences over the years, but with last year's offering from Metro Vancouver Kink (MVK) we finally made the leap from really good to WORLD CLASS KINK!
In every other month of the year MVK offers up the city's largest dungeon play party, usually combined with at least one educational seminar; in some months they might also offer one or two other special events. But for this one weekend it's as if they combine as much action as they offer the other 11 months of the year and cram it into just three days.
Forty seminars, 21 presenters, two nights of dungeon play parties, one kinky speed dating session, and countless opportunities for fun. That's Westcoast Bound.
Blog continues after slideshow:
Sin City's 12th Anniversary Party: Usually the last Saturday in July
Ask the man or woman on the street what they know about Vancouver's kink scene, and odds are that if they know anything they'll mention Sin City. This is the night that has brought fetish to the masses of Vancouver in a way that nothing before or since has been able to do, first on a monthly basis and now twice as often.
While their Halloween Party has gone from being their best event of the year to a victim of its own success, attracting as many looky-loos as kinksters and fetishists, their anniversary party still captures all of what makes this night great, then magnifies it and serves it up on a platter of spectacle.
While I've been asked not to share just what the promoter, DJ Pandemonium, has planned for their biggest party of the year, suffice it to say that it's going to be the grandest fetish extravaganza Vancouver has ever seen!
Vancouver International Burlesque Festival: May 2-4, 2013
From small beginnings only a few years ago, the VIBF has grown into Vancouver's sexiest festival, bar none. While the majority of the offerings on this list are for the truly sexually adventurous, at many of the various VIBF shows you're likely to find multiple generations of the family laughing it up in style.
Point of pride for the city: while this festival brings in a lot of world-class talent from elsewhere, more and more the world at large is coming to recognize that some of the best in burlesque actually comes from Vancouver.
Club Eden Halloween Party: Oct. 26, 2013
As a long-time bartender I despise Halloween parties held in a club environment. It's amateur drunk night. For years the local fetish scene managed to avoid that scourge , but as I've written above, unfortunately it does no longer.
Fortunately in 2012 I discovered a Halloween event where the sexy vibe isn't messy.
Club Eden is Vancouver's premiere swingers' club, and takes place in an amazing, purpose-decorated hall in New Westminster. Just about any party there is a good one, but on Halloween not only do the organizers bring their best game, so do all of the attendees.
Expect to see more skin than you would at a typical Halloween night, more moderation in the drinking department and, yes, some truly bizarre sexual couplings because of the costumes involved. Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses getting it on together could really give you a whole new take on mythology.
Whistler Lifestyle Weekend: Nov. 8-11, 2013
Of all the events I'm listing for 2013 this is the only one I haven't been to in the past. I intend to rectify that huge mistake this year.
This year they've once again taken over the 69 room (how fitting!) Summit Lodge in its entirety, and once again they foresee having to book overflow rooms in other hotels to accommodate their crowd. (And keep in mind, very few people choose only double occupancy this weekend.)
While this is primarily a swinger's weekend, there was more than a nod to those interested in BDSM, with demos, workshops, and play equipment on hand at various events over the course of the weekend.
With the possible exceptions of the annual Winter Pride LGBT Ski Week, and some of the athletes' after-parties that reportedly took place during the Olympics, I don't think Whistler has ever been this wild!
Note to Tourism B.C.: Event attendees from around the world left touting the old B.C. slogan "The best place on Earth!"
Oh Fun City
All in all that's a lot of great events for the alt-sex crowd. So while vanilla Vancouver may still be "No Fun City," with its regulations, liquor laws and misguided Granville Entertainment District, for the sexually open or open minded we find ourselves living in "Oh Fun City!"]]>Missing Women's Inquiry: Wally Oppal's Good Intentionstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23336942012-12-20T13:51:04-05:002013-02-19T05:12:01-05:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/
And, of course, the former attorney general of B.C. is also a good politician.
The hope on the part of those who called Vancouver's murdered women family and friends, the hope of those who work on the Downtown Eastside, or who work to better the lives of those who do, was that the good man, the good judge, would show up to chair the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry.
He did, and it was evident in the empathy he put out to the families of the victims who appeared day in and day out in the inquiry room; but in the end it was the good politician who wrote the nearly 1,500-page report titled "Forsaken."
It's aptly titled, as Oppal observes, "the missing and murdered women were forsaken twice: once by society at large and again by the police."
That fact is necessary for a full understanding, but using it to say that if we're all responsible then no individuals are responsible for the often-botched investigation is not. There are officers and civilian staff of both the RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) who failed to do their duties diligently. There was overt discrimination by both civilian employees and officers of the VPD that has been called to attention many times during the inquiry. In short, there is fault to be found.
Yes, the prejudices faced by the missing women were systemic and institutional, but systems and institutions are made up of individuals, and ultimately some of them should be found responsible.
Repeatedly, Oppal fails to do so. The judge has failed to judge. Imagine if during his time on the bench he'd been willing to hear such damning evidence, and then at the end of the trial declared that no sentence should be passed because, after all, in the end it's society's fault.
One of the most glaring examples of this is Oppal's review of the conduct of Sandy Cameron, a civilian employee of the VPD's Missing Person's Unit. As the final report sums up, she "was rude, abrasive, made racist remarks and was biased against women engaged in the sex trade and people with addictions."
Oppal goes on to "...conclude that Ms. Cameron's comments had a significant adverse impact on the ability of family members and friends to communicate with the VPD and thereby directly and detrimentally affected the investigations. The impact was a long-lasting one."
Strong words. But in the end they are words of little impact. "It is inappropriate to single Ms. Cameron out, however. The problems went beyond a single individual," Oppal writes. He seems to believe that if there's not one single, solitary individual to blame we won't blame any of them.
What of the Crown counsel who decided not to pursue charges against Pickton, after a naked and handcuffed sex worker had escaped a knife attack from him? The terms of reference of the inquiry forced Oppal to address this in a "neutral and non-evaluative manner."
The former attorney general wasn't so restricted in how he was allowed to evaluate the police. Yet successive VPD Chief Constables Bruce Chambers and Terry Blythe get a pass from Oppal. So too does Inspector Fred Biddlecombe, who repeatedly insisted that investigators look for people who'd simply gone missing, not for evidence of foul play.
And what of the VPD brass who clung to the idea that the missing women were transients who had simply left the city, not bothering to check in with family or friends, and in some cases leaving welfare cheques behind, despite experts telling them the transient notion of sex workers was a myth? Not really to blame.
And those higher-ups in the department who dismissed the assertions of their own geographic profiling expert, Det. Insp. Kim Rossmo, that a serial killer was at work, maintaining that if there were no bodies there was no crime? We can't lay the blame at their doorstep according to Oppal.
Despite some strong words, none of them in the end are to be held responsible for their actions, actions which in part allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to go on murdering women.
Before anyone says, "Well, that's all in the past," it should be noted that we now know that at the time Pickton was prowling the DTES murdering women, at least two other serial murderers were killing in the Lower Mainland.
One who murdered five women in the Mount Pleasant area, and another responsible for three bodies found near Mission in the Fraser Valley. While one of those cases is now closed — an identified suspect being deceased — the other case is still open. Given what we know about the Pickton investigation it's worth asking if that murderer might remain unidentified because of mismanagement and ineptitude on the part of police.
Unfortunately for the murdered women of the DTES, and those who still stroll its streets and alleys, Oppal doesn't ask that question, let alone answer it.
There is some hope to be taken from Oppal's report, for it appears that the 65 recommendations it contains were written by the good man and the good judge.
Yet amongst those who work on the DTES side, doing sex work or trying to make better the lives of those who do it, that hope is severely tempered. Because it's going to take good men and women to see those recommendations come to fruition, and there's a belief that in Victoria, and in the higher echelons of both the RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department, there are still fewer good men and women than there are good politicians.
But you be the judge of that. Because it's clear that Wally Oppal won't.
]]>Geeks After Dark: Fandom, Humour And Awkward Sexinesstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18444802012-08-31T16:42:52-04:002012-10-31T05:12:02-04:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/nerdlesque, a mixture of burlesque and comedy aimed at fan-boy and fan-girl hearts.
They are here for Geeks After Dark.
Geeks After Dark are Cam Russell and Tyler James Nicol. Together with their stage manager, Fairlith Harvey, they've created a night that melds fandom, humour, and what can only be termed awkward sexiness. The night is part homage, part parody, and of course, part striptease. Tonight their subject material is all things Joss Whedon, the veritable demigod of nerddom.
The superheroes in the room are Avengers (Whedon directed the movie) and X-Men (he wrote a limited series of the comic). The sci-fi cowboys are in tribute to Firefly, and the vampires are Angels and Spikes, the "and more" are in tribute to every other Joss Whedon project you may or may not have heard of.
While I'm trying to identify the various costumes, Cam takes the stage dressed as Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly and the crowd goes wild as if he were actually actor Nathan Fillion. By the time Tyler appears as the punch line to a joke, the laughter of the crowd is in danger of overwhelming the actors' voices, and volumes are adjusted.
Before the show I had the opportunity to interview the GAD men, and it showed me that they can be just as funny off the cuff as when on script. That's a good thing, because as Tyler has pointed out, they frequently veer off of it. After six previous shows together (Cam joined after the first GAD show, a fundraiser for a convention that never happened) they still haven't pinpointed just what it is their shows are, and that's the way they like it.
"It's a show, it's a comedy routine, it's a burlesque performance, it's a dance party, it's a trivia contest, it's a costume contest, it's a night of fun -- a night of nerdy fun," Cam answers when asked to describe Geeks After Dark in a nutshell.
"It's a grown-up nerd fever dream," Tyler chips in, a smile splitting his bearded face.
In its two-year run they've covered a wealth of material that indeed proves their nerd cred: Back To The Future, Batman, Spider-Man, Toy Story, Star Wars and British Sci-Fi have all gotten the Geeks After Dark treatment. And while recycling material might make financial sense (at the very least they'd save on costumes) they don't foresee having to do it with so many great sources to parody.
"We only do stuff we care about," enthuses Cam. "We don't do shows that we don't have any interest in. It's hard to write jokes, and we're just not about that. We love Firefly. We love Star Wars."
HAPPIEST MOMENT AS ARTHUR DENT
Tyler chips in with just how much he loves it. "I got to be Arthur Dent on stage, which was like my happiest moment. Because I'm a huge Douglas Adams nerd. I got to dress up in my pajamas, with my towel, and come out and talk to Dr. Who on stage. Then half-dressed women come out and run about. And, like, suddenly I'm 14-year-old Tyler, excited for reasons I can't explain."
Indeed, half-dressed women are the other part of Geeks After Dark's success. The dancers are a mixture of local burlesque performers and friends and fans of GAD who are often taking the stage for the first time. What they may lack in experience is made up for in enthusiasm -- both theirs and the crowd's.
The cleverest of this night's burlesque performances is actually a multi-piece, drawn-out one. A dancer named "Whatshername" takes the stage as a firefly, not the ship from the Whedon show of the same name, but a bug. Tyler and Cam berate her for not doing her research and send her offstage to work on her act.
Later in the night she reappears as an angel, the heavenly kind, not the vampire, and the guys appear to tell her to take the time to do a Wikipedia search. When towards the end of the show she reappears to finish her performance, it's to dance to the Roseanne show theme song, dressed and undressing as the famous comedian. The trivia geeks in the audience get the joke; the rest of us need to have it explained by the performer: Whedon wrote for five episodes of the series.
The trivia geeks are important. No GAD night is complete, I'm told, without the Sudden Death Incredibly Unfair and Random Trivia Contest. It's not as easy as the name implies. In short order 25 contestants are reduced to a single winner.
ACCEPTING EVERYONE
By the time the performance is closing out and before the dance party starts, they've fit in mention of seemingly everything Joss Whedon has ever done. There's been not one but two costume contests, a bevy of half-naked women, and many, many dick jokes.
Through it all there's a feeling of shared camaraderie in the audience that I wouldn't expect at a burlesque night. "We pride ourselves on accepting everyone," Tyler says. "That's the Geeks After Dark badge of honour. You want to dress up like a giant bunny wearing steam punk clothes? Awesome. You want to be in just a latex bra and panties? Fantastic. Anything you want to be, come to Geeks After Dark."
Perhaps I've been caught up in all the nerd-love, but it's a sentiment that seems very, very sexy.
The next Geeks After Dark show is Saturday, Sept. 1 at the Cellar Nightclub. It's a tribute to Jim Henson and The Muppets. Check out GAD on Facebook at www.facebook/GeeksAfterDark]]>Damning Report To B.C. Inquiry: "Wouldn't Piss On Them If They Were On Fire"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18260622012-08-23T16:52:17-04:002012-10-23T05:12:11-04:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/"Wouldn't Piss On Them If They Were on Fire": How Discrimination Against Sex Workers, Drug Users and Aboriginal Women Enabled a Serial Killer," it pulls few punches.
Indifference. Ineptitude. Discrimination. These words reverberate throughout the document.
While Gratl levels those criticisms at both the Vancouver police and the RCMP, his harshest critiques at least on paper, appear to be directed at the city force. Gratl told me that the report should not be viewed as any vindication of the RCMP.
"I would say the VPD receives the bulk of the criticism, but the comments regarding the provincial RCMP service, the major crime squad, are equally damning but shorter because we heard very little about what they were doing. Because in fact they did next to nothing."
Gratl also made the point that he was representing the Downtown Eastside at the inquiry, and the RCMP had much less interaction with the DTES than Vancouver police.
His issues with the VPD include asserting that those in management were not only strongly and actively opposed to a serial killer investigation, but at times went so far as to engage in deceptive practices throughout that investigation. They then engaged in a smear campaign against victims' families and police critics following Pickton's arrest. Chapter 3 of the report is titled "Suppression of Recognition of a Serial Killer."
'BREACH OF PUBLIC TRUST'
Among the events it describes is the VPD's deliberate deception of the B.C. attorney general on the existence of a serial killer. Gratl's report says it is "a breach of public trust of the highest order, is contrary to the Rule of Law, is a violation of the principles of civilian oversight, and deserves the highest level of censure available to a Commission of Inquiry under the Public Inquiry Act."
Moreover, while Gratl points to many instances of discrimination and ineptitude on behalf of individuals, his report also repeatedly points to the low priority and worth that were placed on the investigation by Vancouver police brass. Investigations into the missing women were inadequately resourced, and frequently had their resources poached or reassigned.
In addition to institutional and individual prejudices that hindered investigations, particularly within the Missing Person's Unit, funds and officers were also in short supply. The initial assignment of the investigation of missing women to the unit, described by Sgt. Mackay-Dunn as a "dumping ground for the walking wounded" in his appearance before the inquiry, is yet another suggestion of the lack of gravity with which the investigation was treated for years.
At the same time, vastly greater resources that amounted to millions of dollars were devoted to investigations such as a task force on home invasions, and the Downtown Eastside Extraordinary Police (DEEP) program which aimed to raise property values. Gratl's report thus suggests a greater importance was placed on landowners' concerns and property values than on the lives of missing sex trade workers, many of them aboriginal.
Also hindering the probe were repeated failures of communication, both between officers investigating the missing women themselves, and between the investigators and other units which might have helped them, such as the Vancouver Police Native Liaison Society. These marked failures ensured that information discovered was often lost or squandered.
Gratl pays less attention to failures to communicate between the VPD and the RCMP, but these failures were a key point raised by reports of the internal inquiries of both forces.
VPD spokesman Cst. Lindsey Houghton's response to the report was:
Thank you for your inquiry, however, since we have been strong advocates from the beginning for a full and thorough Inquiry we would now find it disrespectful of the process if we were to comment while the Inquiry continued. Out of respect for the inquiry we will reserve comments until after the inquiry has concluded with the release of Commissioner Wally Oppal's report.
AUTHOR'S CRITICS
As for Gratl, he is not without his critics. Reached for comment earlier this week regarding inquiry fees, Toronto lawyer Eddie Greenspan, who represented former VPD chief Terry Blythe at the inquiry, took the opportunity to say he was seriously offended by some lawyers in this case: "They went out to sully the reputation of this commission, and they may have succeeded."
More than once during the inquiry, Greenspan sparred with lawyer Cameron Ward, who represented the families of missing women. His reference to lawyers indicates to this blogger that his criticism is also meant for Gratl and his allegations of deception and smears by the VPD.
Gratl, however, questioned whether Greenspan had meant that criticism for anyone other than Ward given that Gratl had challenged him on just that point in the inquiry room and he did not re-voice those criticisms at the time.
Gratl was appointed as Independent Counsel to the inquiry a year ago, after funding was denied to 13 groups representing stake holders on the DTES by then Attorney General Barry Penner. Gratl's report will be used by Oppal as he prepares his final report for the government.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Gratl's report concludes with 37 recommendations for positive change. Among them are:
• Financial compensation for the children and grandchildren of the missing women. Money is no substitute for a mother's presence, love and support, but financial compensation may assist the children of the missing women to build their lives and advance the interests of their own families.
• The creation of a province-wide missing persons intake system and a civilian operated missing persons system with clear and formal rules to transfer investigations to the appropriate police service if foul play is suspected.
• Decriminalization and regulation of possession and trafficking of heroin and cocaine, allowing at a minimum for physician-prescribed heroin and cocaine.
• Implementing a sex worker liaison unit operating seven days a week throughout the day and night.
• Cease the harassment of sex workers with checks, searches, and involuntary information collection.
• That the Minister of Justice direct the Director of Police Services to conduct an audit of VPD and RCMP policies and practices to identify ways to reduce and eliminate racism and discrimination against groups and individuals at risk of serious violence, including sex workers and drug addicts.
• Funding to reopen the Vancouver Police Native Liaison Office under civilian direction and with an investigative mandate.
• Amendment of municipal bylaws to create zoning and licenses for sex work and brothels
"I never count myself an optimist. But even if one of those 37 recommendations gets picked up by the commissioner I will have done my job," said Gratl.
Now it is time to hope that Oppal will pick up many of these recommendations. They form a reasoned, considered and ambitious conclusion to Gratl's report. It's a shame that such qualities are not the ones that characterized the investigation it details.
DISCLOSURE: Reive Doig has served on the PACE board as a volunteer for the past year and is currently vice chair.]]>B.C. Missing Women's Inquiry Budget: Who Is Prostituting Themselves Here?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18081892012-08-20T12:29:06-04:002012-10-20T05:12:04-04:00Reive Doighttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/reive-doig/budget for B.C.'s Missing Women's Inquiry (approaching $7 million) and the amounts charged by those working for the commission with what's spent by frontline charities like WISH and PACE that actually work with sex trade workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES.)
PACE and WISH are two of the 13 advocacy groups that were denied funding to participate in the inquiry by the B.C. government. At the time, former B.C. Attorney General Barry Penner said it was because of trying economic times, that there were limits to taxpayer funding for the inquiry, specifically for lawyers for advocacy groups.
What a sick joke that seems like now.
Those "limited" public funds paid inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal $324,267 for the most recent fiscal year. That's $20,000 short of what WISH allocates annually for its Drop-In Centre. The centre is open seven nights a week from 6-11 p.m., and serves 80 to 100 dinners each night, while offering clean clothing and showers. It also provides health-care services two nights a week, and a learning centre three nights a week. That's a lot of services and meals for less than $1,000 a day; Oppal's per diem is reported to be $1,500.
Senior commission counsel Art Vertlieb billed the province $483,741 for his work on the inquiry. If you put that together with the $482,139 billed by associate counsel Karey Brooks and her law firm you could fund WISH, with its $900,000 budget, for an entire year, and still have enough left over to fund PACE for a season.
The amount billed by Oppal's researcher, first-year lawyer Jessica McKeachie, would completely fund PACE -- for all its outreach work, violence prevention programs, and ongoing day-to-day support for crisis issues, for more than a year. That annual budget comes in at $192,000, just shy of the $203,134 Ms. McKeachie billed the province.
SHOCKING AMOUNTS
The frankly obscene amounts paid out to commission counsel and staff have shocked those working with survival sex trade workers on the front lines and those doing advocacy work on their behalf.
"I don't feel it's inappropriate for senior counsel to be making what is considered a fair wage for their expertise, but it reaches a point where anyone would have to ask themselves: is this ethical?" wonders criminal defence attorney and PACE president Karen Mirsky.
Even among those working with the commission there was shock and anger. "As far as we know it's unprecedented for the government to reject the recommendation of the Commissioner when it comes to funding," said Neil Chantler, associate counsel to the inquiry and a lawyer at Cameron Ward & Company, which represented the interests of the families of the slain women. Chantler was referring to Oppal's repeated earlier recommendations that funding be made available for those 13 organizations; funding denied first by Penner and then by his replacement as Attorney General, Shirley Bond, because taxpayer dollars were so limited.
It begs the question of whether the 13 groups could have been funded if budgets were better allocated. Others concerned are asking whether the money might have been better spent all together.
Kate Gibson, executive director of WISH, said that her most prevalent thought was what could have been done with the money spent on just a few commission staff:
"For just a fraction of what has been spent here, there could be a 24-hour shelter and drop-in for women who are in the same circumstances as those who were murdered and missing."
Gibson also observed that the sums spent on the commission were far from limited to the fees charged by counsel and the wages of staff. "The part of their offices I saw were very upscale with etched glass on the front door, beautiful wood boardroom tables and a fabulous view of the mountains."
It's a contrast to the conditions that WISH and PACE work out of on the DTES. PACE is located in a building with constant maintenance problems. Pipes leaking sewage into a room used by staff and their clients, many of whom are immuno-compromised, is just one ongoing concern.
In the months ahead, as the commission concludes its work and after its recommendations have been laid out, there are going to be some hard questions to answer. Mirksy wonders whether any of the recommendations from the commission will be ones that haven't already been shared, recommended and advocated for by PACE, WISH and others for years.
$7 million dollars later -- not counting fees paid to lawyers representing the RCMP, Vancouver Police Department, and individual officers, nobody seems truly satisfied.
It seems to this blogger that Oppal missed his one true chance to make a difference here. He chose to stay on as commissioner rather than resign after funding for the 13 advocacy groups was denied.
When it became clear that this inquiry was going to be about little more than burnishing the tarnished reputations of those in the police and government, even as police and government insiders were afforded the opportunity to drink at the trough of excess, he did a disservice in continuing to serve.
Meanwhile those on the front lines trying to make a difference in the lives of survival sex trade workers still struggle to fund their work day-to-day.
"There are so many lawyers doing amazing work throughout the province, without any hope of remuneration, just because it is right," said Mirsky. "We serve on boards, we do pro-bono work, and we do our best to help those with socio-economic conditions that preclude them otherwise having access to the law. To think the commission staff, lawyers, have made so much money on the backs of some of the most marginalized women in the country is shameful, and it makes me very sad."
Indeed. Shameful and sad. Who is prostituting themselves here? The answer is not the women working the streets, not the women this inquiry was supposed to help.
DISCLOSURE: Reive Doig has served on the PACE board as a volunteer for the past year and is currently vice chair.]]>
Tupper worries that those reading Fifty Shades might actually have an idea of what BDSM looks like, and how they might set about exploring it, when they actually don't.