Candidate Endorsement for the April 5th Municipal By-Election
General Membership Meeting This Sunday, Feb. 23 from 6pm to 7pm on Zoom
As a democratic organization, the DSOV is calling all members to join us Sunday, Feb. 23 from 6pm to 7pm online to decide on candidate endorsement for the April 5th by-election in Vancouver.
Members of our VOTE Socialist working group and others attended last Wednesday’s packed launch party for the campaign of Sean Orr, who is running with COPE in the by-election. COPE stands for the Coalition of Progressive Electors, and has been Vancouver’s left party since it was founded in 1968.
At the launch event, Sean Orr gave a rousing speech focusing on the fight for housing:
“We need to take democracy back from the billionaires. We can fight back, and we can win…
In healthcare, everyone in Canada knows, if you let the free market rip, if you deregulate and let middlemen and profiteers go wild, the cost of healthcare skyrockets. In the U.S. -- I have friends in the U.S. -- if they get hurt, they don’t go to the hospital. They’re afraid of the cost of the doctor.
That’s what happens when you take an essential service and give it over to profiteers. The same is true for housing, and it’s what's happened in Vancouver. We have the “US Healthcare system” of housing in Vancouver. Investors, middlemen, landowners, and profiteers are making their living stealing from us on the housing market. They’re taking something we all need, they’re putting themselves in the middle of it with nothing but their wealth, and they are using that position to exploit us.
The housing market is not broken, it’s working as designed.
We need a public housing system in Vancouver. We need to fight for housing. Permanently affordable housing, that’s owned by the public as an asset. With shelter-rate units that can end homelessness, and affordable units for every income level.”
You can read Sean’s full speech HERE.
We invite all DSOV members to join the discussion about candidate endorsement this Sunday.