(Kristen Frier)
Researchers from Simon Fraser University hosted a webinar in December to discuss a study that explored how hotel workers’ commute in downtown Vancouver can be affected by transit subsidies provided by their employers.
The study was done in partnership with the City of Vancouver, TransLink, Unite Here Local 40, the hotels, and workers who took part in the study.
Urban Studies professors Dr. Anthony Perl and Dr. Peter Hall led the study which found that, in many ways, employer-based transit subsidies can benefit employees in the long run, and according to Hall, this is because of how convenient the subsidy program is for the workers.
Public washroom on Main and Powell in East Vancouver. (Kristen Frier)
The Vancouver Park Board plans to build new washrooms and upgrade existing ones in parks, recreation centres, and other public places to address the public’s health and accessibility concerns.
Demands regarding this matter have increased as the pandemic continues to affect businesses like fast-food restaurants or local shops, which originally allow people to use their washrooms. Individuals now turn to public washrooms and portable potties, but the constant usage may present potential health risks for the community.
A comprehensive plan for Vancouver’s public washrooms is in the works containing short and long term strategies for improvements, sanitation, and maintenance, a news release by Daily Hive reports. The Vancouver Park Board allocated around $25,000 annually for janitorial services and added to the budget for the operating costs of 95 washrooms.
Image is an artistic representation not meant to display accurate statistics. (Kristen Frier)
In 2018, a manager at The Teahouse restaurant in Vancouver was fired after refusing to serve a customer wearing a MAGA hat.
In a public statement justifying the decision, Sequoia Company of Restaurants said they “cannot discriminate against someone based on their support for the current administration in the United States or any other bona fide political party.”
It’s wonderfully ironic that Sequoia used the term “bona fide” to describe a party whose president publicly lied so often that the
Toronto Star’s former Washington bureau chief had to turn fact-checking the administration’s false and misleading claims into his full time job.
(Kristen Frier)
Last year I experienced eco-anxiety. Forest fires, droughts, and plastic pollution began to recklessly smash through the doors of my otherwise gentle thoughts. I could no longer read, watch, or hear about the climate crisis without feeling my jaw tightening.
Eco-anxiety or climate anxiety is defined as “mental distress caused by climate change and environmental degradation.” If the anxiety gets severe, individuals can experience “panic attacks, insomnia, obsessive thinking and depression.”
While I have not experienced those exact symptoms, I do think about what the world will look like twenty years from now. NASA recently released “Images of Change,” a slide show showcasing the before and after photographs of places in the world that have been affected by climate change.
(Kristen Frier)
Since the beginning of the pandemic, federal and provincial governments have strongly advised everyone to avoid all non-essential travel inside or outside of Canada. The strong message for Canadians was, and still is, to “stay home.”
However, politicians seem to think that the rules don’t apply to them. More than a dozen political leaders and political aides have travelled despite lockdowns and rising COVID-19 cases in provinces.
At the beginning of January, news broke out that Rod Phillips, former Ontario Finance Minister, flew to the island of St. Barts in the Caribbean for Christmas. According to an article by CTV News Toronto, his office posted regularly on his social media while he was gone this made it appear as if he was in Ontario the whole time.