Mulcair doing a ‘Leadership Candidate Press Conference’ at W2…
As I wrote yesterday- Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) has become a power-base for some of the more radical elements of the NDP. The Old-Left Saviour Industrial Complex (OLSIC®) have been profiting off of the poor in a number of ways including political power, union jobs and many millions of dollars in funding. Today’s story is about how this funding is used and manipulated for the benefit of politicians.
Today’s story also has an element of corruption…
The W2 Media Centre’s sordid history began long before it’s conception. The building where W2 resides is inside of Vancouver’s infamous Woodward’s Building. The site originally belonged to a large department store that went bankrupt in 1993. The building was abandoned for many years until it was finally decided to turn it into condos- that’s when the fit hit the shan.
A group of the usual suspects decided to do everything within their power to stop the development. They started off with a squat inside the old building. When they were kicked out of the squat, they setup a tent city on the sidewalk. Some of the squatters included Marxist troublemaker Ivan Drury, Kevin Annett’s sidekick Ricky Lavallee, and anarchist flower shop owner Ruth Meta.
As Meta explained it to me, W2 was part of a compromise use to pacify the radical campers. The developer and the city provided a space that was supposed to be used as a media centre for people in the DTES community- unfortunately, things didn’t turn-out as expected. The only place you’ll find people in genuine need at the W2 is at the front door, asking people for change.
That’s not to say that the W2 isn’t blessed with its share of diversity- you wouldn’t believe the cast of characters who pass through the place. Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson will be there on Friday morning, David Eby has had multiple appearances, Renewal Partners books space there, TIDES Canada too- even NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.
David Eby and Thomas Mulcair aren’t the dirtiest things to happen at W2 though. This is also the site of the infamous Occupy Vancouver video where Sasha Wiley-Shaw (Creepy Bittergrrl) participated in a mass bullying of a man who asked hard questions about OV’s finances.
Not dirty enough yet? Well, I’ve got more- the W2 Media Centre has also been used for rave nights (with bars) and sadomasochist sex parties. I’ve alerted mayor Gregor Robertson about this situation- but, he has yet to have responded.
Let’s hope Mulcair got the memo on wearing slutwear!
W2 is also the location of one of the most shameful incidents in the history of the Vancouver activist community. It was shortly after the anarchist violence at the 2010 Olympics when they held a debate between pro-violence anarchist Harsha Walia and peace activist Derrick O’Keefe. Walia packed the audience with people who backed her and they collectively bullied O’Keefe for the crime of speaking out against violence.
Up until a couple of hours ago, I thought that was as dirty as the W2 got. But, then, I discovered an article from Jeff Lee in the Vancouver Sun that raises some interesting new questions. What Lee published was a list of organizations that paid for tables at a fundraising event for VISION Vancouver– the political party of Mayor Gregor Robertson.
Think about this for a moment. The City of Vancouver gives the property to W2, a non-profit, so that they can provide services to the people of the DTES. Instead, they provide services to political parties, anarchists, rave clubs and sex parties. Then, with the money they raised, W2 pays-out for a table at a fundraiser for the mayor’s political party.
Is this legal? I don’t know- I don’t have enough knowledge about Canadian campaign contribution laws. That said, the whole situation seems a bit immoral. There’s a conflict of interest here- right? What percentage of W2’s activities are dedicated to political activities? It seems like a lot…
Perhaps this explains how Gregor Robertson has neglected to take any action over W2 using city-provided space for sex parties. After all if W2 is such an essential space for VISION and the NDP, and as long as their busy raising funds to them- how could would Robertson imagine interfering with them?
And, as usual, the people who the space was dedicated for are outside pan-handling at the entrance…
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GREAT ARTICLE and very timely as well. We here in Toronto have organizations very much like the ones you made mention of as existing in the DTES. Here is Toronto we a group called OCAP which claims to be an anti poverty group but does little to nothing for those who actually are living in poverty. They like the organization you mentioned, are really nothing more that a group of bodies for the NDP party and they actually ran a candidate in a recent election, Cathy Crowe who was a street nurse and worked very closely with OCAP. She was a media queen who loves to grand stand before the cameras, but did nothing for the people she claimed to work for or represent. They and other groups of like mindedness use a facility here that is the steel workers hall on Cecil street ,a VERY pro NDP / International socialist organization as a means of controlling who gets to attend and who stays out, to ensure very partisan audience . When politicians start to get involved, it is very problematic because they are no longer representing the people but rather, they become a spokes person for the organization.
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I’ve run across one of those ‘street nurse’ poverty pimps in Vancouver before. She’s a nasty one- had more insults than Jenny Peto! What’s interesting is how we have the exact same patterns in Vancouver as in Toronto. Each time I learn something about one city it becomes easier to understand the other.
The more I learn about it all, the more I have the feeling that the NDP is (knowingly) keeping people in poverty as a means of keeping their power base. It turns my stomach just to think about it. It’s time for a change…
I can’t help but wonder at the implications of the association of bondage-culture with that of the Left. I don’t have any problem per se with deviant sexuality, but if people get off on being dominated, are they appropriate to have in politics? I would wager that most people do not get off on such; most find it degrading. But if these people do, it would explain the obedience-cult mentality that prevails: such is how they get their kicks, both in and out of the bedroom.
To be fair (and I’m no apologist for the DTES poverty industry) many social-profit groups rent out their space to for-profit ventures as a way to raise funds for their own activities. A dance party (which could be a rave, a hoe-down, or an S&M fete) is a legitimate use of such space. If you’re feeling a little squeamish about fetishists in our midst, that’s another issue. Unless you have evidence that sex was taking place in a publicly funded space (there are always unsubstantiated rumours about “fetish parties”), no laws were being broken and W2 was doing nothing different than numerous other groups that rent their often subsidized spaces to local community groups. I think it’s called “community access”.
You raise and pursue numerous extremely important issues in this space and elsewhere. I hope you don’t get sidetracked by a few leather and bondage queens!
I have to disagree. These sorts of “parties” (where open sexual activity _does_ occur, I have heard reliably) are part and parcel of the leftist skullfucking of society. N years ago even advertising such would have been considered obscene. What changed in the interim? Radical Leftist agitation where, paradoxically, all manner of sexual deviancy is A-OK but other forms of expression are not. It’s obviously a way to appeal to degenerates who are easily led about by sex—after all, if the left is good at one thing, it is manipulating low-functioning people: sex sells.
Well “Standing Water”, we’re going to have to agree to disagree, but as a gay man (and Canada’s first “out” journalist circa 1970) I am very sensitive to the bandying about of phrases like “all manner of sexual deviancy” and “degenerates” and “low-functioning people”. I know very well where that leads.
And you know something, everyone I know who claims that there is open public sex at these fetish parties has always “heard reliably” but never actually witnessed it themselves.
Interestingly, not too long ago the sort of fetishism we’re talking about was considered the shameful secret of the British upper-crust, not a notoriously “leftists” strata of society.
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I’m going to have to say that I agree with Kevin on this one. There are an equal amount of degenerates on both sides of the left/right paradigm. The only difference I’ve observed is that the people on the left are more likely to express their deviance in-front of others.
Personally, I think that if people aren’t hurting each other, there’s no harm and no foul. That said, I’ve lived in Amsterdam- perhaps I’ve been desensitised to this from over exposure. lol
“Personally, I think that if people aren’t hurting each other, there’s no harm and no foul. That said, I’ve lived in Amsterdam- perhaps I’ve been desensitised to this from over exposure.”
*shrug*, I guess I am old-fashioned, but I don’t believe people can consent to assaulting one another. That’s why “prize fights” like boxing matches must be licensed, regulated—at common law, they’d be criminal because people cannot consent to be unlawfully imprisoned, etc. Being put into handcuffs, for example, without the warrant of law, is an unlawful imprisonment, and it is inappropriate for someone to enjoy such. It diminishes the appropriate biological response to confinement, which is a form of torture, which is to try to escape. Old legal materials are replete with statements that escape from custody is warranted by the law of nature; therefore, enjoyment of custody is contrary to natural law.
And if society allows this sort of deviancy to be advertised as acceptable, I believe it speaks to deep psychological problems with the society—no matter how much fun individuals may have reveling in degraded biological responses to situations that nature has prudently doomed to be intolerable.
“The only difference I’ve observed is that the people on the left are more likely to express their deviance in-front of others.”
Yes, I would not say these are right/left differences, but they are perhaps kept more private by the aforesaid Aristocracy and Right, who recognize these things as deviancies to be at most indulged behind closed doors. In public, there is a natural theatrical code which is to uphold decency and virtue, you know, those silly old words that people no longer believe in. The will to express deviancy in front of others is perhaps rooted in a desire to recruit, which is far stronger in the left than in the right.
But don’t get me wrong—I don’t want to go back to the Bad Old Days where the criminal law were used to oppress people, but I do wish that purported “adults” could exercise more circumspection and self-direct their conduct…you know, for the sake of the children. Does anyone have a kid and think “gee, I hope it grows up to be into S&M”?
I think your repeated use of words like “deviancy” and “degrading” and “inappropriate” pretty much give your game away. But we must remind ourselves that this conversation is about serious issues surrounding W2 and not about your peculiar obsession with other peoples’ sexual activities. So maybe we can pick this thread up elsewhere, and later.
Author
True, this story isn’t about the deviance of the people who went to the sex party – but it is about the poor decision making on behalf of the management of W2. It’s also about the conflict of interest of W2 funding a table at a Vision fundraiser.
The sex angle only makes the story that much more interesting…
“But we must remind ourselves that this conversation is about serious issues surrounding W2 and not about your peculiar obsession with other peoples’ sexual activities.”
If your characterization is mostly accurate, it’s still incomplete—the issue is mostly “public sexual activities.” I can remember when television didn’t really have sex, at least what I watched, certainly not the graphic softcore that’s on today, along with horrible prurient humor even in before 9:00PM sitcoms. I can remember when it didn’t really have gore, when there was still some respect for “childhood”, &c. &c. I am with Trudeau—keep the state out of the bedrooms of the nation; but that implies another thing: keep it in the bedroom. And if part of your sexual identity is talking about it publicly, as by putting up posters advertising sex-parties, I think that’s a political concern.
Using the funds from a deviant sex party to fund a donation to Vision Vancouver when such funds were generated through a heavily subsidized space, that’s a political issue. I understand it is not popular to suggest that there be any regulation of public sexuality, but perhaps there should be—after all, enough people in “the left” who appear to be A-OK with all sorts of totalitarian speech control would bristle at the suggestion of any regulation of public sexuality, would they not? Why is that? Why the huge inconsistency? Why is sex such a big thing for these people? Don’t they read books?
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Hi Kevin,
I’m glad to hear you may also see problems with the poverty industry. There’s a growing number of people out there who are waking up to it- hopefully, sooner than later, we can see some real changes.
As for the SPIT party, I’ve spoken to someone who was there- they said that the ‘kissing booths’ were used for sex and drug use (often both simultaneously). I wrote about this in an article back in May. Here’s the link.
This isn’t about getting sidetracked by the fetish community- it’s only an example how how the property at the W2 is misused. It should hardly be the focus though, it’s much more shocking that W2 paid for a table at a VISION fundraiser than than the fact people were having sex and drugs in their basement.
Let’s agree to focus on the fact that W2 has failed in their remit of helping people in the DTES. Have a look at their calendar- W2 has become part of VISION’s and the NDP’s political machine.
It’s not the sadomasochism that’s obscene- it’s the fact that the NDP/VISION profits from W2 while the poor (who it was meant for) get very little. That’s more disturbing than scat play…
The Old-Left Saviour Industrial Complex (OLSIC®) is all over Ontario and Quebec. The OLSIC have a protest planned today at the office of the local Liberal MPP. A similar organization the Education Industrial Complex (Teachers unions) have been doing protests there for months. Odd when you consider these two groups spent a fortune of their member dues to campaign for the Liberals. Telling the rest of the province that it would be the end of the world if we did not re-elect them to a third term.
The Liberals had been buying votes from the union for 10 years. And union aristocrats lived the high life on the government credit card. Card is maxed out though. And the Ontario Liberals have learned, much like the Ontario NDP 20 years ago, that Margaret Thatcher was right when she said “The trouble with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money.”
And these groups protesting are in for a real shock. The cuts they are protesting have only shaved about 5% of the deficit. The upper class tax hike the NDP insisted on only reduced it by another 3%. Credit card is maxed out. The Old-Left Saviour Industrial Complex now has all of Ontario in debt bondage. And you do not get out of debt by spending more money.
I agree that it is time for a change.It is necessary tyo realize,though,that on the provincial level there are candidates from other clearly correct parties to chose from.I am refering to candidates from the Green Party,the Family Coalition Party,The People’s Political Party,The Vegan Enviromental Party,The Political Party for People with Special Needs,The Canadian’s Choice Party and the Paramount Canadian Party.(OF COURSE,contact details for all of these [and certain other] provincial political parties may be seen at the “PARTIES” section of the http://www.elctions.on.ca website. (MOREOVER,it is imperative to vote for a candidate that fully agrees with the need to change the voting system from “first-past-the-post” to a correctly workable proportional representation system.[OF COURSE,the folks at FAIR VOTE CANADA advocate this.]It is also imperative to vote for a candidate that will rightfully bring about various correct/necessary changes that folks in the DEMOCRACY WATCH organization rightfully advocate.These include:a) recalling your MPP-and then rightfully forcing a necessary byelection-under certain correct/limited criteria ;and b) having laws made in this province/country after a certain amount of the general public rightfully demand it via a correctly-run citizen’s referendum.])
I am thinking that trying to vote for “the right party” is doomed if they all use the same basic “software” model of appointing candidates to do our thinking for us. What we need is a representative software system such that all things a rep. would vote on are presented to the party members in real time so that they can vote on them. Then, the rep simply follows the expressed will of the voters. Even an alternative voting system doesn’t fix the problem of lack of input while a member is in office, does it?