After just a year of publishing our quarterly print and online newspaper, The Volcano collective is launching a weekly newsletter. Like The Volcano newspaper, this newsletter will be dedicated to covering, boosting, analyzing, and celebrating community struggles against the violent forces of displacement and dispossession in British Columbia, and beyond. With a weekly publishing schedule
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Reconcile This! Uniting struggles against colonial dispossession & capitalist displacement
The theft and commodification of resources through settler-colonial occupation underlays every aspect of Canada’s wealth. Under 21st Century austerity governing policies that cut taxes for the rich to cut social programs for the poor, that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer super rich, while more and more low-income working class
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When “rights” are not enough – Lessons from Tent City Resistance: By Ivan Drury and Ashley Mollison
It felt like a major victory when, this spring, the courts refused to grant an injunction to the Provincial government to remove Super InTent City (SIC) from the lawn of the Victoria court house. Never before has a Canadian court refused a state injunction to displace homeless people. Adding to this significance was a sense
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How do we leap towards a better future? An Indigenous perspective on the Leap Manifesto: By Natalie Knight
The months leading up to the 2015 federal election stirred up demands for change so that all of us can live the lives we want. Other articles in this issue of The Volcano show how many of us are struggling for good housing, healthy food, safe relationships and freedom from violence and discrimination. And some
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“Enlarged Citizenship” in Coleman Country – The failure of BC Housing creates tent cities where homeless people are building their own power: By Ashley Mollison and Ivan Drury
We acknowledge the unceded Lekwungen Territories on which Super InTent City stands and thank the people who shared their stories for this article. Forty tents set up on the Victoria courthouse lawn surround a sacred fire, open kitchen, and supply tent. Within its first three months, over a hundred people have made this tent city
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How do we work together to stop displacement when it seems like everything is against us?: By Alliance Against Displacement
Alliance Against Displacement (AAD) (originally Social Housing Coalition/Alliance) formed in the lead-up to the provincial election of 2013 to raise the issue of the need for social housing in BC and oppose the imminent threat to social housing programs. For decades, the threads of the social safety net have been cut one by one. Behind
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You can’t vote against the free market – Lessons from the Greek struggle against austerity: By Ivan Drury
In September the Alliance Against Displacement (formerly Social Housing Alliance) began a discussion group series about austerity; the first discussion in the series focused on “Lessons from Greece.” The Volcano editorial collective participated in this discussion in order to better understand what happened in the Greek fight against government austerity policies, and what we in
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Organizing Against Austerity: By Harold Lavender
Austerity is not a lack of money. Austerity is a lack of democracy. When government says we have to tighten our belts, they are hoping we won’t find out how their tax system helps the rich and hurts the rest of us. We are told there’s not enough money, and we have to spend less.
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The Fiery File – A vision for organizing action against displacement in 2015: By Social Housing Alliance
Introducing Movement Questions: This section of The Volcano looks at the analysis and strategies for action taken up by social movement organizations. We hope by making space for organizations to explain what they think and how they fight, we can strengthen dialogues, collaboration, and actions related to the path towards a different, better world for
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Brief reflections on community displacement and the strategy of “Touching the Corners”: By Herb Varley
Developers see the Downtown Eastside (DTES) as a gold mine of development potential. The city government wants to “revitalize” the area with this real estate development. People of the DTES have built a community out of some of the toughest conditions imaginable and they don’t want to move. The city can’t make the residents disappear
For our issue on the BC Liberal legacy, Volcano editors turned to our Community Spotlight on a legacy of our own to highlight her over 40 years of anti-poverty work. Jean Swanson is an editor with The Volcano alongside her work with the Carnegie Community Action Project. She previously worked with the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association (DERA) and is the author of a book titled Poorbashing: The Politics of Exclusion.
You’ve been active in anti-poverty work for a long time. What has been the biggest realization that you have had with regards to poverty in this province? Has your understanding or approach to government changed over time and through experience?
My approach to government has definitely changed. Back in 1979, I actually ran as an NDP MLA candidate because I thought being involved in electoral politics was a way of implementing the things you’ve been fighting for in the community. I ran with COPE for city council too, along with my co-workers Bruce Eriksen and Libby Davies, who were elected. In those days it seemed possible to get city council to do some good things for the Downtown Eastside if we worked hard at it: fund the Carnegie Centre, pass a Standards of Maintenance bylaw, put sprinklers in the hotels.
In the early 90s, after the NDP cut welfare and brought in a whole poorbashing framework to justify it, I couldn’t bring myself to vote at all, let alone run for office.
Read more about Jean Swanson's commitment to anti-poverty organizing here.