Author: Elaine Allan

What is Alberta’s Proposed Sovereignty Act? Danielle Smith, Alberta’s newly minted premier has identified that her top priority is to protect Alberta’s sovereignty. To protect Alberta’s sovereignty Smith proposes the drafting of an Alberta Sovereignty Act that would allow Alberta to act as a nation within a nation, as Quebec has done for years. Ideally,…

Vancouver’s City Hall is one of the city’s most beautiful art deco buildings.  Construction began in 1935 partly as a make-work project during the depression.  In the end, Vancouver’s City Hall cost $1 million to build and took 330 days to complete.  The building was officially opened as Vancouver’s new City Hall in 1936. Art…

Al & Toby I met Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton in 1998 while working at the WISH Drop-in Centre on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The WISH Drop-in Centre, then located at the back of the First United Church on East Hastings provided dinner and respite for the neighbourhood’s sex trade workers. Al and Toby were well-respected…

Our city is no longer safe, and Vancouver is in desperate need of leadership at City Hall. Sadly, we are seeing increased violent stranger attacks on innocent people in our city. For example, on August 19, 2022, DH Vancouver’s headline read, “Stabbed while walking”: Three stranger assaults took place in under three hours in Vancouver…

When I began working at the WISH Drop-in Centre, on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, I knew little about addiction, street life or the sex trade.  Up until this point my career had been focused on communications and technology start-ups where I spent the bulk of my time behind a computer. Working At WISH Working at WISH…

While Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has provided the backdrop for many of Vancouver’s saddest moments, it’s also a neighbourhood that has also inspired some people to do their best work. Bonnie Fournier I met Bonnie Fournier in 1998 while working at the WISH Drop-in Centre on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a block up from the open drug…

The story of Vancouver’s Missing Women is a big one.  It spans several decades, multiple police jurisdictions and involves over sixty women. Sadly, I knew twenty women who went missing from the streets of the Downtown Eastside.  I met them while I worked at WISH (1998 – 2001) a drop-in centre for sex trade workers,…

Vancouver’s City Hall