“A lot of F’s, eh?”
Those words by Leslie Madison pretty much sum up the Stop Demovictions Campaign’s recently released “report card” on the three major-party candidates running in Burnaby-Deer Lake.
Several members of the protest group – which has sprung up in response to demovictions in the Metrotown area – held a press conference outside Bonsor Recreation Centre on Tuesday night to draw attention to their cause in advance of an all-candidates meeting inside.
The “report card” gives grades to three candidates (B.C. Liberals’ Karen Wang, B.C. NDP’s Anne Kang and B.C. Greens’ Rick McGowan) in three categories: demovictions, social housing and protecting renters. It gives Wang F’s across the board, while Kang rates an F on demovictions and two D’s. McGowan and the Greens emerge best of the lot, with an A- on demovictions, a B- on social housing and a C on protecting renters.
Zoe Luba, a member of Stop Demovictions, said none of the three main parties has offered a solution that is truly working to save renters.
“Every major political party must do more to protect the vulnerable renters,” she said.
Sara Sagaii said residents have suffered under the B.C. Liberals’ “war on the poor and working classes.”
“The new platform, just like the old one, has nothing to offer the poor and working classes,” she said.
She added that the NDP “postures” about standing up for the poor but still focuses their platform on the needs and votes of single-family homeowners. She also took aim at the Burnaby Citizens Association – the “junior affiliate” of the NDP – for failing its citizens.
“The NDP too is not interested in renters and the working class,” she said.
Matthew Hunter took a turn in the spotlight to tell his own story of having to move four times in the last six years thanks to rent increases and evictions.
“This is a very stressful situation,” he said. “The government really needs to step in.”
He, too, said the NDP likes to “posture” that they’re helping, but he said the renters’ rebate promised in the NDP platform is a “token gesture” and not enough to solve the problem.
Madison said the group is demanding action by government because the status quo isn’t good enough.
“Market-based forces will not solve the housing crisis,” she said. “We refuse to accept homelessness and displacement as the normal course of things.”
WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE:
The Stop Demovictions Campaign’s report card offers a list of proposed solutions on the issues of demovictions, social housing and protecting renters.
On their list:
- Burnaby-Deer Lake candidates must take a public stance against Corrigan’s demoviction plan for Metrotown
- Implement an anti-demoviction law that protects low-end-of-market rentals from redevelopment until they can be replaced
- Enact tight measures at the provincial level against developer-friendly civic rezonings and enforce standards of maintenance at the provincial level to stop the deterioration of rental stock
- Build 10,000 units of social housing every year in B.C.
- Replace old walk-ups with a range of non-market housing for indigenous, racialized, disabled and senior residents, with appropriate facilities and access.
- Decriminalize squatting to house the homeless
- Enact rent control on unit rather than on tenancy
- Give renters security of tenure; reform the Residential Tenancy Act so landlords have to apply through the Residential Tenancy Branch to evict a tenant
- Reform the B.C. Human Rights Code to outlaw “discrimination according to social class.”
