Chris Shaw wants Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»to put limits on its growth.
Shaw, who gained prominence as a critic of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, is taking another run for a council seat, this time with De-Growth Vancouver, an offshoot of the Work Less Party with which he ran in 2008.
The city's continued growth is a key part of his platform. "Do we want this ultimately to look like Manhattan because if we do, that's certainly one path," he said. "We can't tell people not to move to the city, clearly, but then again, the rational discussion about growth, in all of its dimensions, needs to happen."
He notes Bill Rees, the University of B.C. scholar who pioneered the concept of an ecological footprint, had the same message at this year's De-Growth Conference, which was organized by Work Less Party founder Conrad Schmidt.
He says De-Growth makes the Work Less Party's expanded platform more explicit. "It contrasts us to the other political parties out there, especially those who pretend to have green sympathies, because none of them are talking about limits to growth," he said. "They're talking about growing the economy and growing the city and this, that and the other thing, and we frankly don't believe that, so we want to really distinguish ourselves from that whole wave of greenwashing that happens."
Shaw says he wouldn't veto every proposed development as a city councillor, but he'd ensure "mega projects," that in his view mainly serve to drive the inflated real estate market higher, would be better scrutinized. "If we can't get a control on that, we are ultimately only going to be a city only for the rich and then the serfs who literally couch surf and the working poor and the homeless [suffer]" he said. "That's the biggest issue, is to not continue that trend to ever increasing growth and ever increasing concentra-tion of wealth in the hands of a few."
Shaw said land at Little Mountain, a former social housing site that's slated for condos and replacement social housing units, could have been used for gardens and farming.
Shaw, who wrote a book about the 2010 Olympics and ran in a 2000 federal election with the Canadian Action Party, says the Olympics galvanized him to get involved in the civic scene. He said his opposition to corporate control continues. He ranked 21st in the number of votes earned by each council candidate in the 2008 election.
A neuroscience researcher for the University of B.C. and former army medic who's working in the first aid tent of Occupy Vancouver, Shaw isn't sure whether his support will have ebbed now that the Olympics have passed or whether it's increasing because of his involvement in the protest.
Ian Gregson, a two-time Paralympian and a community activist who launched the 2010Watch website with Shaw, will run as a De-Growth candidate. He ranked 23rd in the number of votes he garnered in 2008 and ran for the Green Party of B.C. in 2001 and 2005. East Side poet Chris Masson is the party's third candidate.
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