Vancouver Police Department badge on an officer's uniform sleeve. VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT INSTAGRAM PHOTO

Seeking indigenous cadets

VPD Indigenous cadet program aims to recruit more officers

By KIRSTEN CLARKE

ancouver’s Indigenous
cadet Program convinced
Christian Olver to become
a police officer.

Olver, a Métis, was one of the first
cadets to participate in the program
in 2007 after he had previously
applied for a job with the department.

‘The Indigenous Cadet Program,
a paid program that runs for three
months in the summer targeted at 19
to 29-year-olds, is one of the many
ways that Vancouver police are work-
ing to recruit more Indigenous ofh-
cers.

Olver spent the first half of his
summer shifts working with patrol
officers and on the water with the
marine unit, or with the mounted or

dog squads.

“It’s about fostering partner-
ships and building community trust
between police agencies and the
Indigenous community,” Olver said,
now a detective
who oversees

“When they take part

police officers are Indigenous,
according to a 2017 Statistics Canada
report. In Ontario, Indigenous offi-
cers represent 4.4 per cent of the
total 18,289 officers; in Manitoba,
16.4 per cent
of the total

the Indig- 1,577 officers
enous Cadet in certain programs are Indigenous.
rogram. . . ut some
Indige- like this they see say that
nous officers ; . n the recruit-
make up 1.83 things differently. ment efforts

per cent of
Vancouver's
police force,
according to
police statitstics. In Metro Vancou-
ver, Indigenous people make up 2.8
per cent of the total population.

In B.C., 5.1 per cent of all 2,567

— REBECCA HACKETT, EMPLOYMENT ADVISOR
FORACCESS

in Vancou-
ver so far are
not enough.
"We've defi-
nitely got to improve that, and
from my perspective we've got to
start younger,” said Tami Omeasoo,
director of employment services at

the Aboriginal Community Career
Employment Services Society and
president of the Vancouver Aborigi-
nal Friendship Centre Society.

Omeasoo’s organization has been
working on that.

In October 2018, the department
worked with Omeasoo’s employment
centre, which sponsors the cadet
program, to create a 10-week initia-
tive that connects indigenous youth
ages 14 to 19 with police officers.

“Our kids today, they hear
so many negative things about
Vancouver police officers, but
when they take part in certain
programs like this they see things
differently. They see it with a
different set of eyes,” said Rebecca
Hackett, an employment advisor

for ACCESS.

Parents resist location change

Kitsilano program
moves to Down-
town Eastside

By PATRICK PENNER

arents at a Kitsilano elemen-
Ps school are refusing to

accept the school district’s
plan to move their French-immer-
sion program to a Downtown East-
side school.

Robert Ford, chair of the parent
committee at Henry Hudson and a
Kitsilano resident, said most of the
parents would switch their kids to
the English track rather than change
schools.

“If the goal was to free up some
space at the school, we don’t see this
working,” Ford said.

The school board has been shuf-
fling student populations enrolled
in specialty choice programs, like
French immersion, to schools with
surplus room across the city in recent
years.

Patti Bacchus, a former school
board chair, said the city has not kept
up with building the required school
space in line with the enrolment
growth in the city. “It’s like a chess-

Lord Strathcona Elementary School has received some seismic upgrades. FLiCKR PHOTO BY SQUEAKYMARMOT

board, you move one piece and it
always has other impacts, not always
good ones,” Bacchus said.

‘The parents first learned details of
the plan to move the program from
an overcrowded Hudson to Lord
Strathcona elementary, near China-
town, during a board meeting on Jan.
23.

The district wants to make room
for two new kindergarten classes at
Hudson where the enrolment for
next year is 61 students above the

= a

official capacity.

The district staff’s basis for
moving the program is the fact that
the majority of French-immersion
students at Hudson live in the down-
town peninsula.

But a large portion of students, 42
per cent, reside in Kitsilano.

‘The parents are upset at the disrup-
tion to their schedule, the lack of
available space for extra childcare,
and the rough area surrounding-
Strathcona, which is only 650 metres

from East Hastings and Main streets.

‘The Strathcona parents were also
upset about the potential influx
of new students coming with the
program.

Only two buildings have received
seismic upgrades at the Strathcona
school complex and the surplus space
is in areas that have not been reno-
vated.

Parents worry which students will
be shifted into the unsafe areas.

Bylaws
archaic:
councillor

Gender biases and an-
tiquated housing rules
prompt change

By KATHRYN TINDALE

Vancouver councillor is
calling for the removal of
gender biases from the city’s

bylaws that make it illegal for more
than five women to live together.
Coun. Melissa De Genova said
she thinks it’s shocking that Vancou-
ver still has a bylaw on the books
restricting the
number of people
living together.
“Five people
could live in
a house very
comfortably and
that would be

nse more affordable.
CITY COUNCILLOR And if they ee
women there

shouldn't be a bias

against their gender,” she said.

De Genova is getting support
from groups in the community who
want to see more housing options,
including more leeway for women
or other non-related individuals to
share a house.

“Historically, those sorts of rules
limiting the women is to prevent
brothels. Unfortunately, the bylaws
are only supposed to be about
preventing certain types of build-
ings, but it comes down to prevent-
ing certain kinds of people living
in an area,” said Jennifer Bradshaw
from Abundant Housing Vancouver.

Enforcing these regulations

“Those sorts of
rules limiting the
women is to prevent
brothels.”

— MELISSA DEGENOVA, VANCOUVER CITY
COUNCILLOR

restricts low-income folks who want
to live in collective housing or other
housing options that aren't related
to a nuclear family, Bradshaw said.

A city official said however, that
it’s taking longer than staff originally
thought to change the bylaw.

“That is work that we're looking
at and we're exploring it. One of
the things that we’re finding as we
look at the ability to just amend the
bylaws to remove the things that, if
you will, we don't like about them
we just need to do a little bit of care-
ful work to make sure there aren’t
any unintended consequences,” said
Dan Garrison, the assistant director
of housing policy for Vancouver.

Besides the prohibition against
unrelated women living together, De
Genova is also pushing for the city
to redefine the meaning of family in
the bylaw. The current specifications
ofa family restrict the opportunity of
collective or social housing.

Smithers is officially a nuclear-
weapons free zone

Oak Bay prohibits habitually
noisy dogs

Quesnel prohibits any sport
that could frighten horses