Vancouver Courier January 22 2014 by Vancouver Courier

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014

Vol. 105 No. 7 • Established 1908

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THE VOICE OF VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS

NEWS: Bike program derailed 4 / SPORTS: Paralympic boosting 22

Dissident associationswin injunctionagainst parkboard EVICTION PREVENTED UNTIL COURT CASE ON DISPUTE HEARD SANDRA THOMAS Staff writer

photo Rebecca Blissett

THE TRUCK STOPS HERE: Culver City Salads owner Christina Culver was in Hawaii to celebrate her 30th

birthday this past Saturday so she left her food truck in the capable hands of her sister Sarah, right, with Una Trevillion for the January Food Truck Festival at Nat Bailey Stadium as part of the Winter Farmers Market. Scan this page with your smartphone or tablet using the the Layar app to view an online photo gallery.

JO grads repay school with gift of reading VANCOUVER COUPLE LEADS FUNDRAISING DRIVE FOR LITERACY PROGRAM CHERYL ROSSI Staff writer

hen Barj and Rita Dhahan heard in November about disabled students arriving with empty stomachs at John Oliver secondary school, they decided to fund the life skills class’s breakfast program for the next three and a half years. “We both looked at each other and I said, you know Rita, this is our school, we went here. I think we should do

something,” Barj Dhahan said. And when JO principal Tim McGeer made a presentation to the Fraserview Rotary Club, to which Dhahan belongs, about the Sunset school’s extensive literacy programs, they acted again by leading fellow John Oliver alumni to pledge raising $100,000 for the school’s Wonder of Reading Legacy Fund. The Kerrisdale couple and JO graduates presented cheques totalling $22,500 at the Sunset school Monday morning, ahead of Family Literacy Day Jan. 27. Much of the money came from the Dhahans and their family members, with contributions from other former students. John Oliver secondary, along with 23 community partners, held a massive literacy event in September to launch its Wonder of Reading campaign. See ENGLISH on page 9

he B.C. Supreme Court has temporarily halted the attempted evictions of six community centre associations by the Vancouver Park Board. In a decision brought down Jan. 17, B.C. Supreme Court justice Gregory Bowden ruled Hastings, Kensington, Kerrisdale, Killarney, Riley Park Hillcrest and Sunset community centre associations can stay put until a court case is heard later this year or in 2015. The Vision Vancouverdominated park board served the six associations with eviction notices last fall after the group launched several legal proceedings in B.C. Supreme Court regarding an interim joint operating agreement. The associations launched the ﬁrst lawsuit in September, asking for an injunction against what was initially the forced use of the OneCard, a universal access pass that eliminates the need for individual community centre memberships. According

to the provincial Societies Act, the associations must have a membership list to qualify as a non-profit society. The park board also wanted to centralize programs and services at community centres across the city, which the associations say isn’t practical. As well, the board wants to create a new financial model, which when first proposed would have seen all of the associations pooling their revenues and that money being diverted to “have not” community centres. A new financial model has yet to be decided and negotiations are ongoing in cementing a permanent joint operating agreement. The associations then accused the park board of alleged violations of their joint operating agreements and filed for damages, which was followed by eviction notices from the park board. The third court proceeding was a successful request for an injunction to temporarily lift the eviction notices until the court case regarding the joint operating agreement can be decided. See INJUNCTION on page 7

THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

news

Councillor Andrea Reimer wants the big money out of civic politics.

photo Dan Toulgoet

Vancouver sends yet another campaignreform plea to province 12TH & CAMBIE with Mike Howell

NO END IN SIGHT TO CIVIC PARTY ELECTION SPENDING RACE

pparently, the provincial government isn’t getting its mail or email from the City of Vancouver. How else to explain the government now requesting feedback on its so-called plan to introduce new campaign ﬁnance rules for civic elections? And, the government implored, give us something by Jan. 31, 2014! What the ..? As regular readers will know, the call from city council to get the big money out of civic politics goes back almost a decade. In fact, all three mainstream parties — Vision Vancouver, the NPA and COPE — once signed a tri-party agreement in an effort to stop the multi-million dollar campaigns. I’ve lost track of how many times council then dutifully sent a letter, email — whatever — to the provincial government requesting a new set of campaign ﬁnance rules. I’ve been told that council cannot simply change the rules in Vancouver. As well, no politicians appear to be taking up former municipal affairs minister Ida Chong’s suggestion of a handshake deal between parties to stop the spending race. Regardless of such a suggestion, minister after minister — Chong, Bill Bennett and now Coralee Oakes — have clearly said they aren’t interested in changing the rules only for Vancouver. Which is kind of odd, since I would guess electoral reform is not exactly on the agenda of, say, Mayor Ted Lewis in the village of

Zeballos on Vancouver Island. But here we go again. Yet another motion drafted by Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer was scheduled to go before city council Jan. 21; I swear I could hear her heave a heavy sigh in having to do this again. As Reimer pointed out, council has sent formal requests to the government for campaign ﬁnance changes in 2005, 2009, 2010, 2012 and in 2013 via a motion endorsed nearly unanimously by the Union of B.C. Municipalities. “The funds used to campaign for elected ofﬁce in Vancouver have grown 175 per cent in eight years [that] Vancouver has waited for provincial action on this issue, with the unprecedented case in the 2011 Vancouver municipal election of $960,000 donated to one electoral organization from a single corporation and more than $5.2 million spent by all parties,” her motion reads. That $960,000, by the way, came from developer Robert Macdonald and went to the NPA. Reimer, for the record, did not total up the amount of money her party has received from developers, many of whom do regular business with the city. Anyway, in case council’s earlier dispatches got lost in the mail, Reimer posted a long list of recommendations agreed upon in March 2010 by council that outlines what it wants changed. The biggies here are a ban on union and corporate donations, impose spending limits and have all donations and expenses for candidates disclosed on a continuous basis at six-month intervals. The election is in November. And Oakes has already indicated spending limits won’t be in place for the campaigns, which again are expected to see millions of dollars spent. And that, of course, means none of the I’m-on-a-low-budget independent candidates will get elected. Sadly, the party machine always wins. mhowell@vancourier.com twitter.com/Howellings

W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

news City’s bike share dream hits dead end THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

MIKE HOWELL Staff Writer

he city’s director of transportation believes implementation of a massive $6 million public rental bicycle system in Vancouver will likely not roll out until next year. Jerry Dobrovolny said negotiations have been slow with Alta Bicycle Share of Portland to set up the system, which involves 150 stations and 1,500 bicycles, that was supposed to launch in the spring. “I don’t think that’s realistic now,” Dobrovolny told the Courier Tuesday. “We’re still hopeful that we can see something in 2015.” Dobrovolny spoke to the Courier the day after news broke that the company working with Alta to supply the stations, bicycles, a helmet service and information systems in Vancouver is in financial trouble. PBSC Urban Solutions, or Bixi, announced Monday that it filed a notice of intention to seek protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act related to its Montreal bike share system and growing debt. The Montreal company, which has not been able to repay more than $40 million in loans from the City of Montreal, said in a statement on its website the move is being done to restructure its business and finances. The statement did not comment on the proposed Vancouver system. Though Bixi would be the supplier in

Bixi bikes in better days on display in Vancouver June 2012. Vancouver, Alta Bicycle Share would own, ﬁnance and operate the system and provide customer service. Alta also has to secure corporate sponsorship and donation contracts. “Really, the ball is in [Alta’s] court,” Dobrovolny said. “We’ve made progress but it’s been much slower than we had hoped for. If for some reason it was suddenly to pick up pace and — boom — it was done, that would be great.” As part of the deal, the City of Vancouver has to provide a one-time $6 million investment toward the purchase of the equipment to run the system. In an email statement to the Courier Tuesday, Alta said it only received the news

photo Dan Toulgoet

Monday of Bixi’s troubles and was not in a position to discuss alternate suppliers. “We are working closely with the PBSC’s subordinate suppliers and are conﬁdent that we will be able to meet our 2014 launches,” said Mia Birk, vice-president of Alta. As well, Birk said, the company continues to work on a solution to B.C.’s mandatory helmet law. Alta’s CEO Michael Jones told the Courier in June 2012 that solution would likely involve helmets sold in vending machines. “Vancouver’s system has a number of complexities that have created a slower rollout, including the reliance on sponsorship monies and the need for a helmet solution,” Birk said.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said in statement Monday that Vancouver’s system is not dead because of Bixi’s troubles. “Bixi is not the primary partner in Vancouver’s planned bike share program, and Vancouver has always refused to offer any of the loan guarantees or obligations that have created significant risk to taxpayers in other cities,” Robertson said. The mayor said the system will only launch “if and when the city is fully satisfied that all partners involved can move forward with operations that are successful and fiscally responsible.” NPA Coun. George Affleck said news of Bixi’s financial troubles, along with other losses in cities such as Toronto, is enough for him to request staff to no longer pursue a system for Vancouver. “I just don’t think we should be investing in something that’s so risky,” said Affleck, acknowledging Bixi is not the only bike supplier in the world. “But at the end of the day, using up more city resources at city hall and our time to focus on something that appears to be the impossible dream — it’s just not viable at this time.” Bixi has also run into financial trouble in Toronto, Chicago and New York City, where it supplies bikes and infrastructure for the public bike share systems. Alta’s website noted Bixi was named one of Time magazine’s top 50 innovations of 2008 and a global leader in bike share systems. The company’s bikes and stations are also used in London, Washington D.C., Boston, Minneapolis and Ottawa.

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Vancouver’s planning czar ready for surprises in 2014 DEVELOPING STORY

with Naoibh O’Connor

dopting the Downtown Eastside and Marpole plans, bringing the Pearson-Dogwood lands policy statement before council, presenting the urban structure plan for Great Northern Way where the Emily Carr University of Art and Design will move, handling applications for two health care facilities — including a contentious one proposed for Casa Mia, and dealing with the Oakridge Centre rezoning application are among Brian Jackson’s priorities for 2014. Jackson, the city’s manager of planning and development, listed his goals during a sit-down with the Courier earlier this month at city hall. Only a few weeks into the new year, one goal is already moving forward as the Pearson-Dogwood policy statement goes before council Jan. 22. But the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods, which represents 23 community groups, has raised concerns about the release of the policy statement. The coalition issued a press release Monday complaining the lengthy document was posted online only six days before council is slated to discuss it, which doesn’t give residents enough time to digest it.

Vancouver Coastal Health owns the 25-acre Pearson-Dogwood site, located at West 59th Avenue between Heather and Cambie streets. It envisions a mixed-use development, which features healthcare housing and related services, housing, community amenities and park space. The policy statement is meant to guide redevelopment of the property for density and building height. If council approves it, VCH can ﬁle a rezoning application. “The release of this report with so little time for the public to study it and its implications is in line with a series of such delayed publications,” the coalition wrote in the release. It considers it an ongoing problem, citing other examples such as the West End Community Plan being issued 10 days before a hearing and the Transportation 2040 policy being approved shortly after being posted. Whether city hall addresses the coalition’s complaint remains to be seen, but its critique kicks off what will almost certainly be another tumultuous year for planning and development in Vancouver. “We’ve got an ambitious planning agenda for 2014 and recognizing that it is an election year, I won’t be surprised by anything that happens,” Jackson told the Courier Jan. 6. “And my job is to bring forward the best possible applications and developments for council to consider and let them make a decision.” Jackson anticipates the Downtown Eastside plan and the proposed Oakridge development will attract the most attention this year.

Brian Jackson has an ambitious planning agenda for 2014. While the Oakridge redevelopment proposal has proved controversial over on density and tower height concerns, Jackson believes the project, if approved, will be transformative in a positive way. He cites the public beneﬁts included such as a civic centre, 11-acre roof-top park and affordable housing. “So I think the total of what we’ve been able to achieve with Oakridge will help create a compete community,” he said. Jackson also said he’s pleased about progress since the affordable housing plan was passed at the end of 2012, which included as many as 20 affordable housing

photo Dan Toulgoet

pilot projects. One has been approved — a co-housing project on East 33rd Avenue and another, called Beulah Garden, is in the works, Jackson said. The project on East Fourth is for 57 units of affordable seniors housing. “They already have a seniors housing project there, so they’re just expanding across the street,” Jackson said. Thirteen other projects are in the pre-application, the serious enquiry or the initial inquiry stage, including the second co-housing proposal that’s in the pre-application stage. noconnor@vancourier.com twitter.com/naoibh

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

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ix years after police launched a ticketing blitz that targeted Downtown Eastside residents for such offences as jaywalking, Mayor Gregor Robertson has accepted what critics have said all along about the practice: Police went overboard. Robertson, who doubles as chairperson of the Vancouver Police Board, acknowledged the criticism last Thursday after a police board meeting attended by the Pivot Legal Society and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Leaders of both organizations urged the police board to create a policy that will ensure a blitz will not be repeated in the Downtown Eastside, which saw an average of 83 tickets per month issued in 2008. The board rejected the request based on fewer tickets now being issued and the addition of crosswalks, countdown timers at intersections and improved lighting. The city also lowered the speed limit to 30 km/h along a stretch of East Hastings. “The police board recognized that the VPD has modiﬁed their approach dramatically from that ticketing blitz, recognizing that was overboard,” Robertson said after the meeting. As the Courier reported last week, a police report said an average of 17 jay-

walking tickets per month were issued in the Downtown Eastside in 2013. That average further dropped to nine per month in the last half of 2013. In 2007, police handed out an average of 39 tickets per month, 20 in 2009, 23 in 2010, 35 in 2011 and 22 in 2012. Police Chief Jim Chu wouldn’t say whether the blitz in 2008 was overboard but said police continue to seek feedback from the community and “find that right balance between what’s appropriate in terms of enforcement, yet not coming across as being too heavy handed. And trying to find that right balance — I think we’re there right now.” Added Chu: “We don’t want to give up the right or authority to conduct some enforcement because in some circumstances it is appropriate.” Lawyer Douglas King said he will likely launch an appeal to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner over the board’s lack of interest in a ticketing policy. King has reminded members in several presentations that a recommendation out of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was to reduce the number of tickets for minor offences. The concern was residents, particularly vulnerable women, would not seek out police when in danger for fear of being arrested for not paying a bylaw ticket. But a VPD report said it was “a widely

spread misconception” that police ofﬁcers can arrest someone for unpaid bylaw tickets where a warrant does not exist. Regardless, King said he’s concerned another ticketing blitz could occur in the Downtown Eastside. Pivot obtained statistics from the police department via the Freedom of Information Act that revealed 76 per cent of 2,699 jaywalking tickets issued in the city between 2008 and 2012 were to people in the Downtown Eastside. Another 17 per cent were issued in downtown while none was handed out in Shaughnessy, Point Grey, Oakridge, Marpole, Killarney and several other neighbourhoods in the city. “We want to see something on paper,” said King, noting the senior executive at the department will eventually change and he’s worried a new regime could return to unfair ticketing practices. “Think about it in the long term, police chiefs come and go.” A police report that went before the police board showed that 189 pedestrians between 2002 and 2012 either died or were injured in the Downtown Eastside after being struck by a vehicle. The report pointed out a person is eight times more likely to be struck by a vehicle in the Downtown Eastside than in the whole of downtown. mhowell@vancourier.com twitter.com/Howellings

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

news

file photo Dan Toulgoet

Kerrisdale Community Centre is one of the six associations that last Friday won an injunction against a park board eviction notice. A meeting at the centre last year regarding a new joint operating agreement between the park board and the associations was a heated affair.

Injunction means business as usual for now Continued from page 1 Ainslie Kwan, president of the Killarney Community Centre Society, said in a press release: “This decision is a win for all non-profit community associations across the city, including those not involved in this legal action — it means not only can we continue providing our services and programs in the centres we built and have jointly operated for decades, but that the park board cannot bully community volunteers when they aren’t getting their way.” According to the associations, with the injunction in place it’s business as usual for patrons of the six community centres and services and programs will continue as always. Based on comments made during various court proceedings in 2013, the associations hope the park board will drop its efforts to evict the six groups. Last Friday park board chair Niki Sharma told the Courier she’s unaware of any promise to drop the eviction should the associations win this injunction. On Mon-

day, Sharma added the board hopes the six will return to the negotiating table alongside the city’s 12 other community centre associations. “Our position has always been we’ve wanted to negotiate with those six since the beginning, even in light of the lawsuit,” said Sharma. “The new joint operating agreement is still on the table.” In response to the decision, Dean Davison, legal counsel for the six associations, said, “The court clearly recognized that the relationship between these parties is unique. One party cannot decide arbitrarily how the two parties should work together, nor can one party decide unilaterally what should happen if the two cannot work together.” In the past year, NPA commissioner Melissa De Genova unsuccessfully put forward several motions calling for community consultation on the new joint operating agreement with the support of fellow NPAer John Coupar. sthomas@vancourier.com twitter.com/sthomas10

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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English lit, creative writing teachers inspired love of reading and writing Continued from page 1 Low levels of interest in books, reading and language have been reported in the Sunset community. “The educational attainment [of] 16 per cent of the JO parent population is about Grade 9,” McGeer said. Some homes lack books, the money to buy them or the understanding that literacy is linked to brain development and dropout rates, he added. McGeer says teachers at JO have noticed that a signiﬁcant percentage of their students are starting Grade 8 with Grade 3 or 4 reading skills. They start preschool with a deﬁcit that continues throughout their education. “These kids are just as smart, just as able, just as loved as any other kid, they haven’t had access or en-

gagement with literature, it’s just that simple,” McGeer said. “The more they read the more neural connections you create, the more language you have, the more neural resilience you have. You apply that to different areas of your schooling and your life. The more you read the more you dream, the bigger you dream because it just is creating brain capacity.” Dhahan attended JO for grades 11 and 12, graduating alongside Rita in 1975. A commercial property owner and Tim Hortons and Esso gas station franchisee, Dhahan recalls three English, creative writing and literature teachers at John Oliver who inspired his appreciation of reading and writing. “We’ve been really blessed so we feel this is a

small way to give back to the school that provided me a great education,” Dhahan said. “Not only for economic prosperity, but for wellness and health and the community’s prosperity, we need to ensure that our kids have equal access to learning.” He said his desire to help comes from his upbringing.

“I was raised up with the idea that whatever you earn, give a tenth of that to those who are in your community,” he said. “Give wherever there are needs.” Dhahan said anyone interested in donating to John Oliver should call the school. crossi@vancourier.com twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

photo Dan Toulgoet

John Oliver alumni Barj Dhahan and his wife Rita are funding a breakfast program at the school for disabled students for the next three and a half years.

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Ferry fares a riddle wrapped in a mystery FUEL AND TICKETING STRUCTURE EQUALLY CONFUSING, COMPLICATED

our ferry ticket these days is like Russia as described by Sir Winston Churchill: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” It jumped 3.5 per cent this week because of the sudden imposition of a fuel surcharge, the result of a series of complicated factors. One of them is the price of diesel fuel. Oil prices are a mystery unto themselves, far beyond the comprehension of most people. Related to that mystery is the pump price of gasoline. And folded into that conundrum is the price of diesel, which seems to float at its own level, independent of the price of regular gas. (The retail price was 25 cents a litre higher than regular at the time of writing.) Ferries run on marine diesel, which is a separate grade that involves additional complexities. Over the 10 years the ferry system has been running as a stand-alone entity, a system has evolved to deal with fuel prices. But it’s just as complicated as the fuel prices themselves. The independent ferry commissioner watchdogs most of B.C. Ferry Services’ accounting practices. It is designed to hold the corporation to account over the length of each multi-year performance term. Part of that process requires the company to estimate its fuel costs several years into the future. If they overestimate, the legislation requires the company to return the amount to users in some fashion. If they underestimate, the system allows the company to impose a fuel surcharge to cover the shortage. The company underestimated the price this time around. It wrote the commissioner last month trying to explain the situation. “Notwithstanding the recent easing of retail gasoline prices at the pump, diesel prices have not abated in the same fashion.” The letter stated that in the current fiscal year, B.C. Ferries has been paying an average of $1.05 a litre for marine diesel. But it had estimated 95 cents a litre, so “the debit balance in the fuel deferral account is growing.” The deferral account was set up to provide some leeway in the calculations, by allowing some time to pass for the fluctuations to balance out. But the auditor general cast a leery eye on deferral accounts a few years ago. The system in place with B.C. Ferries requires the account to balance out to zero every two years, so it doesn’t run too deeply into the red. B.C. Ferries said that since March, 2013, the account has swung from a credit of $1.5 million to a debit of $3.5 million. And since it’s currently paying 10 cents a litre more than it budgeted every day, it’s getting worse. That’s why the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen car-and-driver fare jumped $2.25 on Friday. There’s an equally complicated structure for the basic ticket price. It caps the average price systemwide at a set amount and requires adjustments depending on performance. Performance this year indicates that a small fare break will be coming before March. A discount coming after a surcharge is going to confuse people. So B.C. Ferries wants permission to move “excess” revenue into the fuel fund, so the fares don’t jerk up and down so much. Even if that’s approved, another routine fare hike of four per cent is set for April 1. So the ins and outs are quite murky, but the trend is pretty clear. It points up, up, up. lleyne@timescolonist.com twitter.com/LeyneLes

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

WE WANT YOUR OPINION

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Quack gets payback from on-the-ball doc

ou may have heard of Dr. John Brinkley, but probably not. Dr. Morris Fishbein is even less well known, but these were two of the titans of 20th century medicine, one a fraud, the other a fraud-hunter. Brinkley’s story is far more colourful, from which you can quickly deduce that he was the crook in this tale. Born in 1885, he started his career selling patent medicines. He then spent some time studying at a college in Chicago that specialized in something called “eclectic medicine.” He finally simply bought a diploma from a shady college in Kansas City and set up his practice. By chance, he stumbled onto an insane and insanely profitable scheme — implanting goat testicles into men to cure impotence. In the early 1920s, he turned this into a gigantic business, with a clinic employing numerous doctors. He charged $750 an operation when a Model T Ford cost $260. Did his surgery work? Well, no, unless you count the placebo effect. Brinkley broadened his market, advertising his surgery for every medical issue from flatulence to cancer. He could have bathed in money. Fishbein, born 1889, was an actual doctor, who also studied in Chicago, though at a more reputable school. Instead of practising, he spent most of his career as the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and campaigning for safe medical equipment and against quackery. Quackery like the mighty empire of nuttiness Goat-Gland Brinkley was building in Kansas. From the start, the AMA was opposed to Brinkley. The turn of the century was one of the major turning points for medicine — up until the midto late-1800s, medicine was as much art and craft as science, and it wasn’t much better than folk remedies. Sometimes, it was worse. By the end of the century, medicine was growing up, coming to rely on science more and more and formalizing itself as a profession. Brinkley had one foot in the old school of the half-trained country doctor and another in pure fraud. He was everything the AMA hated. Fishbein and his journal railed against Brinkley, and called for his medical licence to be pulled. Brinkley dodged the first few attempts to stop him practising and he ramped up his own promotional efforts. In 1923, he started his own radio station, featuring music, medical advice (to use his branded medications, naturally), and advertising. He would later switch to a massive transmitter in Mexico to reach the entire U.S. southwest. Finally, in 1930 enough complaints (including claims of wrongful death and a lot of his former patients turning up sick to see other doctors) convinced Kansas to yank his licence. Brinkley upped the ante by running for governor, as a write-in candidate. He almost won, splitting the field three ways between himself and the two major party candidates. Brinkley tried again in 1932 and again came close, but shortly after he moved on to Texas. He was piling up more cash there in 1938 when Fishbein exposed Brinkley’s shady credentials and called him a “charlatan” in print. Brinkley sued. He lost. In 1939, having been openly dubbed a charlatan and a quack by a Texas jury, Fishbein was deluged in lawsuits claiming numerous medical blunders. He died in 1942, flat broke, facing mail fraud charges, and having already had multiple heart attacks and one leg amputated. Fishbein would live to the ripe old age of 87. Today, he’s a minor icon among medical skeptics and a figure of horror among many practitioners of modern quackery. mclaxton@langleyadvance.com

MATTHEW CLAXTON

He stumbled “ upon an insane

and insanely profitable scheme — implanting goat testicles into men to cure impotence.

”

CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER DENOUNCED

To the editor: Re: “Letter: Olson backward on science cartoon,” Jan. 17. One disturbing trend among those who deny man-made climate change is that they would have us believe they are more knowledgeable than the thousands of climate scientists who make a career out of researching the issue and that those scientists are incapable of recording global temperatures or accounting for the complex variables. That, or there is an impenetrable conspiracy among scientists from dozens of different countries, ethnic origins, cultures, languages and religious and political beliefs to falsely manufacture the 97 per cent agreement that greenhouse gasses are the primary driver of current global warming. Letter writer Bob Hoye has to make a further incredulous assertion in comparing Galileo to climate-change deniers as if scepticism itself is a noble outcome. The Vatican was not a scientiﬁc organization. The Church of Christianity was a primary socio-political force and Galileo merely conﬁrmed for them what Copernicus had deduced a hundred years prior. The Church didn’t appreciate the threat to their power.

Today the primary socio-political force is obviously not climate science, as Hoye asserts, but the fossil fuel sect of the church of capitalism which, for the same reasons, resists the scientific conclusions with the same religious tenacity. Some skepticism is healthy. But faced with such a frightening problem as climate change, ignoring the best scientific evidence is madness. Note that Hoye claims two examples of an authoritarian government which has condemned “government” science, but then only provides one. It is nonsensical to call climate science an “authoritarian government science” especially under the political conditions we see in Canada (and most of the world) today. Quite the opposite. It is also laughable that Hoye accuses supporters of the conclusions of climate science as being in it for the money considering the trillions of dollars of fossil fuel profits at stake. Furthermore, there is no scientific assumption that “only CO2 influences climate.” Therefore his examples disproving the connection are meaningless. Climate scientists are well aware of the hundreds of variables and the irregular patterns of warming. Ron van der Eerden, Vancouver

••• Thank you Geoff Olson for your two recent political cartoons January 8th and 15th!

Both were right on the money. While Mr. Hoye takes a different view of your cartoons, it would appear that he has been spending too much time reading nonsensical, non-peer-reviewed denier postings on the Internet. Mr. Hoye might be interested to know that from Nov 2012 to Dec 2013, of the 2,258 peer-reviewed climate articles by 9,136 authors, only one author rejected man-made global warming. He might also like to know that his fellow professional climate change-denying friends, who spread the same nonsense, get their funding from a network of secret funds like the Donor Trust — funds that can usually be traced back to Big Oil. Mr. Hoye seems to be OK with the Conservatives wasting $40 million of his tax dollars to promote the tar sands with halftruths and distortions. Yet he is not OK with the fact that scientists who are working hard to protect people’s health are also receiving his tax dollars. It would seem that he supports Harper’s muzzling of scientists, cutting their funding, closing their world class lab and destroying their world class science library. So, Geoff Olson, please keep the political cartoons coming. The Harper government must be continually exposed for their ongoing destruction of our country. Bob Loveless, Vancouver

ON YOUR MIND ONLINE COURIER STORY: “UBC: University Endowment Lands residents push for democracy,” Jan. 17. Charles Menzies: It’s somewhat irrational to incorporate the UEL but not the 20,000 residents living in students’ residences and the UNA [University Neighbourhood Association] areas. One gets the feeling that perhaps the more established well-heeled UEL residents are more interested in preserving their status quo than in actually seeking democratic local governance. COURIER PHOTO GALLERY: “UBC: Then and Now,” Jan. 17. Sheldon Goldfarb: There was no Irving K. Barber Centre in 1929. True, the structure pictured now forms the central core of the centre, but in 1929 it stood alone and was known as the Main Library. The Barber Centre (known to students as Irving) didn’t open until 2008. COURIER STORY: “UBC: Women’s hockey T-Birds taking flight,” Jan. 16. EnragedCity @EnragedCityVan: Canucks could learn a thing...or two. COURIER STORY: “Abbotsford ends crusade against the homeless,” Jan. 16. Pete Quily @pqpolitics: About time Jihad finished. KUDOS & KVETCHES: “Seeing Things,” Jan. 17. Ugabug @MaryPChipman: This is awesome and I bet Frank will appreciate it & start working on this perceived weakness. ;-)

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initials), home address, and telephone number (neither of which will be published), so authorship may be veriﬁed. Send to: 1574 West Sixth Ave., Vancouver BC V6J 1R2 or email letters@vancourier.com

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Development Permit Board Meeting: January 27 The Development Permit Board and Advisory Panel will meet:

REBECCA BLISSET

Monday, January 27, 2014 at 3 pm

Contributing Writer

tationed at the very end of the parking lot of Nat Bailey Stadium was the Soho Road food cart. Sarb Mund had just ﬁnished stringing up his lights, twinkling gold against his black cart from which he recently ripped out the conventional oven for a tandoor oven and a whole lot of authenticity — especially if you happen to be from Birmingham, England. “You usually don’t see Indian food, straight-up UK Indian food, at a farmers market,” said Mund who is usually found at his downtown location at West Georgia and Granville. “It’s a big deal to be leaving our spot on a Saturday, we kinda pride ourselves on being more downtown than farmers market. Always wanted to do it but we got a little snobby,” he said with a laugh, “We love being around other food trucks.” Last weekend was the third Saturday of the January Food Truck Festival which is part of the Winter Farmers Market that runs out of the baseball stadium’s parking lot until April. Five new food trucks, including Soho Road, are at the festival each weekend this month along with the regulars. The best-liked of the bunch, decided by public vote, is awarded a regular spot at the summer farmers markets. “The food trucks like us in the winter because it’s not quite as busy on a street corner on a winter day as it is in the summer,” said Vancouver Farmers Market district manager Laura Smit while she directed trucks into their parking spots within feet of each other. “They know if they come here they already have a captive audience.” The cheery green truck next to Soho Road did a tour of duty in the 1980s for Canada Post, was then sold to ice cream sellers, and now Christina Culver owns it as a mobile base for Culver

Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue Ground Floor, Town Hall Meeting Room to consider this development permit application: 626 Alexander Street: To develop the site with a four-storey, multiple-dwelling building containing 29 residential units (24 market units on the second to fourth floors and five social housing units on the ground floor) with parking at grade and vehicle access from the lane. Please contact City Hall Security (1st floor) if your vehicle may be parked at City Hall for more than two hours. TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM: 604-873-7469 or lorna.harvey@vancouver.ca photo Rebecca Blissett

Chris Evans reacts to being given a crepe from Creperie La Boheme at the Winter Farmers Market at Nat Bailey Stadium this past Saturday. Visit vancourier.com or scan this page with Layar to see more photos. City Salads. Working at the farmers market is a perfect fit, said co-worker and sister Sarah Culver, as their market menu item, one of the categories voted on by market-goers, features carrots purchased from organic grower Crisp, a truck-length distance away. “We had some friends’ boyfriends eat the salad and, at first, they didn’t want the salad because they wanted Thai food,” said Sarah, the younger Culver. “But afterwards they agreed they’d never had so much flavour in their mouths.” The entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family as the girls’ father, Bruce, owns his own landscaping business. “Most of all, I like working with my sister,” said Sarah. “Our whole family is involved. My mom has worked on the truck, my brother, my brother’s girlfriend. It’s really a family business. Our dad will drive by in his truck and ask, ‘Okay, what do you need fixing?’ He’ll pull out his tools, fix whatever needs to be fixed and then carry on.” Culver City Salads was the secondfavourite truck going into the day, right behind leader Soho Road. At the other end of the market, the

regulars also had line-ups. Chili Tank’s Steve Forster, whose face was sometimes obscured by rolling steam coming from his chili machine — a 1943 mobile soup kitchen once owned by the Czechoslovakian army — said the best thing about working the farmers markets is the people. He recalled an older fellow who watched in tears as he doled out chili. Turns out the man, as a 12-year-old boy, had been separated from his parents during the Second World War and during his six months living with Allied soldiers had eaten out of a military soup kitchen every day. “A year and a half later, he was reunited with his parents. He didn’t know they had survived,” remembers Forster. “He hadn’t seen one of these machines in 68 years, he was blown away.” The people and the mobile food community were reason enough for Mund to quit his job as an accountant in 2011. “I’ve done the desk job and all that. I made the switch as soon as I got my truck designation,” he said. “We have a cool day, every day.” rblissett@telus.net

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seniors City promises remaining money for seniors centre Staff writer

he city was expected to approve a motion Tuesday that will help expedite the construction of a new seniors centre for southeast Vancouver. The motion was to ask council to commit surplus money from the city’s operating budget to resolve the funding gap remaining on the estimated $7.5 million project. Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson made the announcement Sunday. Two weeks ago, the federal government announced $2.5 million towards the project, following the city’s commitment of $2.5 million in 2011. In 2009, the park board dedicated property adjacent to the Killarney Community Centre for the project and last year the province promised $1.3 million, leaving a $1.2 million shortfall in funding. “The City of Vancouver’s strong budget position allows us to invest in key priorities for the community,” said the mayor in a prepared statement. “Surplus funds from Vancouver’s operating budget should be used to ensure that this importantnewresourceforsoutheast Vancouver seniors is built as soon as possible, building on the $2.5 million investment committed by the city in 2011.” While there are seven seniors centres located west of Cambie Street, there are none in southeast Vancouver, home to onethird, or 27,000, of the city’s seniors. Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie, a longtime supporter of the centre, said he’s pleased the project will finally move forward. “I’ve been working with Lorna [Gibbs] and others from the southeast part of the city for more than a decade now and I’m delighted we’ll finally be able to provide this service these seniors so need,” Louie told the Courier Monday. “This comes after such efforts from these seniors.” Louie said the next step is to finalize the city’s accounts for 2013, but he’s confident there will be at least $2.5 million surplus that can be reallocated. The city then must

sign a funding agreement with the federal government. “But subsequent to that we need to go through a robust design process with the community,” said Louie. “We need to determine exactly what it will look like.” Louie hopes the project can be completed as originally planned to include a full kitchen and elevator in a 10,000-square foot facility, while staying within the initial $7.5 million budget. “But of course if there are other funders out there

who want to contribute, that would give me a higher level of confidence,” said Louie. “Because there have likely been some cost escalations.” The mayor’s announcement came two days after the B.C. Supreme Court approved a temporary injunction to block the attempted eviction of six community centre associations, including Killarney, by the Vision Vancouver-dominated park board. As well, Saturday was the first day of the controversial closure of Point Grey Road to commuter traffic

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to make way for a bike lane. The timing of the announcement was not lost on Ainslie Kwan, president of the Killarney Community Centre Society. “The society hopes that the mayor’s motion is not simply a knee-jerk reaction to quell recent bad press resulting from the Supreme Court ruling against the Vision-dominated park board,” said Kwan in an email. “That it represents a true and lasting commitment to better supporting seniors.” sthomas@vancourier.com

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E D N E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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GOT ARTS? 604-738-1411 | events@vancourier.com

OUR

PICKS JAN. 22-24, 2014

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Local indie-folk artist MELISSA BANDURA, a.k.a. FAMILIAR WILD, brings her violin, ethereal vocals, pop sensibilities and lush orchestral arrangements to Kozmic Zoo (53 West Broadway) Jan. 23, 8 p.m. She’ll share the stage with Harmony Trowbridge, which is a delightful sounding name if there ever was one. Tickets $8 at the door. Info at thekozmikzoo.wordpress.com.

Don’t think twice, it’s alright as the Biltmore Cabaret hosts an evening of local musicians mumbling their way through the tunes of BOB DYLAN, Jan. 22, 8 p.m. Performers include Rolla Olak, Skye Wallace, Bob Sumner of the Sumner Brothers, Colin Cowan, Heard in the Mountains, Lydia Hol, the Oceanographers, Steven Beddall and Missy Cross, and Terence Jack. Tickets $6. Details at biltmorecabaret.com. Vancouver jazz saxophonist MIKE ALLEN and his QUARTET haul their sophisticated selves over to the Cultch for a night of soulful, swinging original tunes in support of their new release PANORAMA, Jan. 23, 8 p.m. Celebrated trombonist Hugh Fraser will also be on hand. For tickets and info, go to thecultch.com. BFA acting alumna KATHLEEN DUBORG takes up the directing reigns in THEATRE UBC’s production of Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL. The tragicomic tangle of romance, intrigue and unrequited love runs Jan. 13 to Feb. 8 at the TELUS Studio Theatre in the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. For tickets and details, call 604-822-2678 or go to theatre.ubc.ca.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

arts&entertainment

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For information about eligibility criteria, how to apply and more, please visit www.kitshouse.org or if you cannot access the website come by the Seniors Resource Centre to pick up an information sheet. Kits House Seniors Resource Centre 2425 Vine Street | 604.732.7773 Hours:10am-3pm Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri

KUDOS& KVETCHES EXILE ON LAME STREET On a day that will go down in infamy and forever be known as Salt and Pepper Monday, this week ﬁery Vancouver Canucks coach John Tortorella was suspended 15 days by NHL brass for arguably the most exciting ﬁve minutes of Canucks hockey this season. Unfortunately the incident took place off ice and involved Tortorella losing his cool and attempting to barge his way into the Calgary Flames’ dressing room to give Calgary coach Bob Hartley a piece of his mind for sending his goon squad out on the ice at the beginning of the game and triggering a line brawl seconds after the puck dropped. The 15-day suspension means we won’t have Tortorella’s manther-like aura vibrating behind the Canucks’ bench for six whole games. That’s at least 360 minutes we won’t be warmed by the glistening embers of his coal-black eyes as he yells profanities at the refs. His dusty stubble will become a distant memory like Zack Kassian’s hairline or David Booth’s last crossbow kill. And worst of all,

no more of that rascally smile, resembling a cruel marmot ensnared in a leg-hold trap but determined to chew his way to freedom. Truth be told, no other Canucks bench boss besides sharp-dressed, provocative gum-chewer Alain Vigneault has been as easy on the eyes as T-dawg. And frankly, assistant coaches Mike Sullivan and Glen Gulutzan, both of whom will be covering for Tortorella during the interim, don’t exactly make our goal crease slushy. We don’t even know what that means. So what will Torts being doing on his twoweek exile? Tanning his taut and limber bod in the Florida sun until it’s baked like a golden Fig Newton? Going deep into the woods of the Paciﬁc Northwest, à la Rambo, where he mounts a campaign of retribution against his oppressors while yelling, “Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off! It wasn’t my war! You asked me, I didn’t ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn’t let us win!”? Or will he be working behind the scenes like a mysterious but sexy puppet master, cloaked in the darkness of night and his bespoke charcoal grey suits, tailored to the exact measurements of his compact Drakkar Noirscented frame that refuses to quit. Deep breath. Only 13 more days to go. twitter.com/KudosKvetches

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W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A19

arts&entertainment

Emmelia Gordon and Jeff Gladstone star in Honest Fishmongers’ production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.

‘Problem play’ still problematic MEASURE FOR MEASURE At Paciﬁc Theatre until Feb. 8 Tickets: 604-731-5518 paciﬁctheatre.org

f anyone can make power-mad, dissolute Angelo look repentant at the end of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, it’s Simon Webb. Woebegone, eyes averted, he speaks the lines, “Immediate sentence then, and sequent death/Is all the grace I beg” with such sincerity, Webb does tug a little on the heartstrings. Thin as a rapier in a black velvet suit, his Angelo persuades us to consider: “Who sins most?” Does Isabella use her monstrous virtue to tempt him and if she does, can Angelo be blamed for taking the bait? It’s a meaty role and Webb serves it up splendidly. But Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s so-called “problem plays” with elements of comedy — mostly delivered by the simple-minded constable Elbow (Michael Fera) and ridiculously hypocritical Lucio (Peter Anderson) — offset by the threat of tragedy: the impending execution of poor Claudio (Jeff Gladstone), convicted for impregnating Juliet (Pippa Johnstone) before marriage. The balance is tricky. The problems I have with this play are these: the Duke (Ted Cole), not wanting to do the dirty work himself, turns the cleanup of Vienna over to his deputy Angelo. Later in the play, he plays the cruelest game of cat-and-mouse with grief-stricken Isabella. He’s not a nice guy. And then there’s Isabella (Julie McIsaac), who’s so protective of her chastity that she won’t submit to the licentious Angelo to save her brother’s life. Fair enough. But she’s OK with persuading Mariana (Katharine Venour) to sacriﬁce her chastity to entrap Angelo. And then, after being cruelly toyed with by the Duke, Isabella whips off her wimple and falls into his arms. Huh? In complete contrast to Isabella’s much-vaunted chastity is Pompey (Emmelia Gordon), a loud and loose bawd in ripped stockings and a scarlet, bosom-revealing minidress. Continued next page

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STATE OF THE ARTS

raphic designer Sigrid Albert started drawing the alleys, dumpsters and old houses in her Mount Pleasant neighbourhood as a stress reduction strategy in 2010. “I’m really normally very busy and I run around and I don’t take time to slow down, so sitting in the street, looking at something for an hour or two and drawing it was very meditative and it gave me a good balance to my frustrating work life at the time,” she said. Last winter, Albert spent three months in Berlin, connected with the German

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capital’s Urban Sketchers group and returned determined to fashion a similar community in Vancouver. She started the Vancouver Urban Sketchers group on Meetup.com last February. The group boasts 467 members, a portion of whom attend weekly drawing sessions. “There’s 35 of us on Saturday getting together and it used to be just 10 or 12 and it keeps getting bigger,” Albert said. She says a lot of young students from Asian countries have arrived in Vancouver seeking an artistic activity and joined the group. Members include professional animators, retirees and people who haven’t drawn since elementary school. “You just have to admire their courage and then they’re so happy when they’ve sat there for an hour and they’ve actually done their ﬁrst sketch and they’re very excited,” the 48-year-old said. Albert loves how this common interest in urban sketch-

ing, which is based on the tradition of reportage drawing, links people of different ages and backgrounds. “There seems to be this connection when you’re drawing next to somebody and you’re not necessarily talking… It creates some kind of a connection or a vibe that is very exhilarating,” she said, adding it can boost the conﬁdence of artists working in public places to have other sketchers near them as part of a critical mass. “It keeps everybody a bit motivated when they have to RSVP and make an appointment to go draw,” she added. Albert not only found community in Vancouver Urban Sketchers but also has been drawn to sites she’d never previously visited. “The Burnaby Village Museum, I didn’t know there was a pioneer village, I had no idea, and there’s an animal farm in North Van that somebody suggested — I’ve never been there,” she said. “I’m expanding my own horizons.”

Shakespeare play doesn’t measure up

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Vancouver Urban Sketchers have put pen, pencil, paintbrush and pastel to paper at the central library, Hastings Racecourse and at Kits Beach. They typically gather for 10 or 15 minutes and then fan out on their own or in small groups, later returning to check in with one another. At the end of a meet-up, the remaining sketchers lay their sketchbooks on the ground and Albert captures their images in a photo. She’d like to self-publish an online book of Vancouver Urban Sketchers and perhaps instigate an exhibition of sketchbooks. Albert encourages members to post events on their meet-up page. She notes that as part of the upcoming Vancouver International Dance Festival, dancers will pose at noon at the Roundhouse Community Centre from March 12 to 28 and Opus Art Supplies will lend drawing materials free of charge. She also likes to attend the monthly Dr. Sketchy event at the Wallﬂower restaurant on Main Street where attendees drink, dine and draw a live model, usually a burlesque dancer who discards clothing as the night progresses. All beginners need is a sketchbook with a hard cover, a drawing implement of any variety, warm clothes and perhaps an inexpensive folding camping stool, Albert says. “There’s so much to do around the city if you’re into drawing.” crossi@vancourier.com twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

The one character we think we can hang our hopes on is Escalus (Alison Kelly), the embodiment of reason and mercy but who, in the end, is eager to exact punishment on all the malefactors. It’s a problem play alright. But it’s an interesting production under the direction of young Kevin Bennett whose Hamlet and King Lear (at the tiny Havana studio theatre) were brilliant. Here at Paciﬁc Theatre he faces similar space constraints that he minimizes by making use of the north and south stairways. Shizuka Kai’s all-purpose set, which appears

to be constructed of door skin or very thin plywood, features three beautiful “cut-out” chandeliers. Graham Ockley’s lighting design is unique but not entirely successful: with a double clap of the hands, any of the characters can either light the stage brilliantly or throw it into the illumination of hundreds of little candles. While the change in lighting sometimes makes sense, it often feels arbitrary and it’s hard to see the actors’ faces. This Honest Fishmongers production makes effective use of the space and Bennett makes some interesting directorial choices. With the loss of some

actors well into the rehearsal period,openingnighthadsome shaky moments but, without doubt, these will smooth out; this is a skilled cast. But here’s the thing: I don’t much like this play. Do I care about Claudio? No. Isabella? I should but I don’t. Angelo? Well, with Webb in the role it’s possible, at the very least, to dredge up pity. But it’s hardly enough to measure up to the best Shakespeare has to offer. Note: A longer version of this review appears at vancourier.com/entertainment. —review by Jo Ledingham For more reviews, go to joledingham.ca.

W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4

GOT SPORTS? 604-738-1411 | mstewart@vancourier.com

Paralympic athletes face risky boost in competition

photo Rebecca Blissett

BANNED BY IPC, ‘BOOSTING’ INVOLVES SELF-HARM TO ELEVATE BLOOD PRESSURE JENNIFER THUNCHER Contributing writer

photo CPC/HC/Matthew Manor

photo submitted

Top: Rockclimber Brad Zdanivsky, photographed in his home living room with his pulley weight system for working out, is familiar with “boosting,” which many Paralympians partake in to enhance performance. Middle: Greg Westlate (12) ﬁghts for the puck during 2010 Paralympic Games sledge hockey action at UBC Thunderbird Arena. Bottom: Zdanivsky climbing the Stawamus Chief in Squamish.

thon racers who did a 7.5-kilometre wheelchair race on rollers. For one race they boosted (some chose to clamp off their catheters, some pricked themselves with pins) and for one race they didn’t. In the boosted state, performance improved by 10 per cent. A significant increase in performance, said Bhambhani. However, in many incidences, their blood pressure rose to fairly dangerous levels. Boosting is risky — if an athlete’s blood pressure gets or stays too high, it can cause a heart attack, stroke or even death, which is why it has been banned by the IPC for over a decade. “There is no way of controlling it. You can’t say OK, if I am going to clamp off the catheter for 10 minutes, my blood pressure is going to go up by a certain per cent. Because blood pressure is controlled by the autonomic system and it is very, very difficult for a person to regulate their blood pressure,” said Bhambhani. “The message should be to try to avoid this under all conditions and compete safely and on an equitable basis with other athletes. That is where the IPC is coming from. Because they feel that they have a responsibility, a fiduciary responsibility, in ensuring the safety of the athletes.” The IPC, the governing body for the Paralympic Games, sent the Courier a statement about the practice of boosting. “From the Canadian perspective, we are informing all athletes of the dangers and illegalities of the practice and advising them that random testing will be conducted by the IPC,” it read. “Every team will be made aware of the specifics of the testing procedure.” Zdanivsky finds it unfair that athletes who boost are banned from Paralympic sports. “You are basically calling the person a cheater for getting back what they already had,” he said. He believes of the classification system within the Paralympics needs to be changed to recognize the different levels of function among athletes to make the Games fairer and safer for all athletes. Zdanivsky’s spinal cord doctor, Andrei Krassioukov, is working towards doing just that. Krassioukov is a renowned researcher at International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries, Vancouver’s spinal cord research centre, and has done extensive research on boosting. He is also a UBC professor. continued on next page

his past Saturday the Hockey Canada and Canadian Paralympic Committee announced Canada’s National Sledge Team roster heading to the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Russia this March. James Gemmell is one of the 17 players who made the cut, and it was a long hard road to get there. He was in a car accident in 2004 and lost his right leg above the knee. A formerly avid hockey player in his hometown of Quesnel, for years after the accident he thought his life in sports was over. Then one day everything changed. “I was ﬂipping through channels and I saw a gold-medal game at the Paralympics on TV and ever since then I have been playing sledge hockey,” said the 34-year old defenceman and proud family man who lives in Delta. After years of training, Gemmell was disappointed not to make the Canadian team for the 2010 Games in Vancouver. When he spoke with the Courier prior to the Sochi announcement, he said he has worked twice as hard since 2010, sometimes spending up to six hours a day at the gym, for the chance to go make the Paralympic team heading to Russia. “If I get to go, I think there will be no feeling that will match it, I don’t think, in my life,” Gemmell said prior to Saturday’s announcement. Immediately after the Paralympic Committee released the roster Gemmell took to Twitter. “Biggest accomplishment in my life, truly honored to represent this great country,” he tweeted. Gemmell is an example of the pure hard work and dedication of Paralympic athletes and his passion demonstrates what making it to the Games means for so many. But for some Paralympic athletes with more severe spinal cord injuries, hard work and dedication aren’t enough. A small but signiﬁcant percentage of Paralympic athletes will likely feel forced to “cheat” at the Games for

a competitive advantage. This is the darker side of the Games and one many medical experts are trying to combat. “Boosting,” sometimes known as natural doping, involves self-harm to the lower part of the body. This is done in order to increase heart rate and improve performance capabilities. Medically known as inducing autonomic dysreflexia, it is one of the worst kept secrets of Paralympic sport and has been banned at the Games since 2004. However, evidence suggests it continues. A survey at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics by the International Paralympic Committee saw 17 per cent of athletes admit to boosting. Not all athletes at the Paralympics would want or need to boost, but for some it puts them on a level playing field. The need for the boosting has to do with the type of injury. Athletes with injuries high on their spine often can’t regulate their blood pressure and heart rate in response to exercise. Essentially, they don’t get the strength boost of a person without injury, or with an injury lower on the spine. Applying painful or non-painful stimulation below the injury site by clamping off a catheter to allow the bladder to over fill, sitting on tacks, or even breaking a toe, for example, tricks the body into elevating blood pressure and heart rate and improves performance. Vancouver’s Brad Zdanivsky, 37, while not involved in Paralympic sports, is an elite rock climber who, in 2005, was the first quadriplegic to reach the summit of the Stawamus Chief. His spine was crushed in a car accident in 1994, and since then his heart rate fails to increase as it should when he exercises, so he boosts. He is one of the few people who will talk candidly about how and why he does it. His chosen method of raising his heart rate is to administer electric shocks to his testicles. “If I exercise without doing something like that, I just get dizzy and pass out,” he said. Zdanivsky said boosting is most effective for sports where quick acceleration is needed. “Anybody that is doing a speed sport,” he said. Research shows boosting works. Dr. Yagesh Bhambhani, a professor in the faculty of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Alberta, was on the International Paralympic Committee sports sciences committee for the Beijing Paralympics. In 1994, he did a study with 10 wheelchair mara-

sports&recreation continued from previous page With a team, Krassioukov set up and ran a health research clinic at the 2010 Games in Vancouver and at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London where athletes were provided educational information on cardiovascular health. Krassioukov also began work with the IPC to design a new cardiovascular classiﬁcation system. He will continue this work at the Games in Sochi. Krassioukov is encouraged by the IPC’s openness to his work. “Being allowed to conduct research in the Athletes’ Village is an exciting milestone for me,” Krassioukov said in a 2010 University of British Columbia media release. “It suggests the IPC will consider how differences in autonomic function create inequities in performance and fuel the risky practice of boosting.” Other experts also ﬁnd the idea of athletes resorting to boosting extremely troubling. Edward Nieshoff is an expert in spinal cord injuries and a quadriplegic who said he has worked with thousands of injured people over two decades at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in the U.S. In a phone interview with the Courier, he expressed dismay at media reports of quadriplegic athletes harming themselves. “When you have a spinal cord injury, presumably your brain is still functioning and I think the vast majority of people with cord injuries, like the general public, would never do something like that,” Nieshoff said

W E DN E SDAY, JA N UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 4 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

from his ofﬁce in Detroit. “Boosting is a cry for help, from patients suffering from an under-recognized and seldom treated symptom of [spinal cord injury].” Nieshoff recommends athletes use midodrine, a medication he studied extensively, which he found safe and effective for athletes who need to elevate their blood pressure while exercising. The drug is banned from the Paralympics, something Nieshoff and Bhambhani want changed. Medicine can be traced, while boosting can’t, so athletes boost, said Bhambhani. They should be able to take the medicine they need to help them, he added. Back at Vancouver’s G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre, where Zdanivsky spoke to the Courier over the phone after a workout, he said he doesn’t use existing medications to boost his heart rate because it stays in his system longer than he needs. He just wants a quick hit to help him pull a bit harder to get over a large rock or to get up the mountain quicker. With electric shock he can control his blood pressure simply by turning his apparatus on and off. He understands the risks but still says athletes should be free to boost. “The issue is that it could kill someone,” he said. “[But] if you want to see the pretty horse run fast, let them do what they want. I mean you can have really exciting sports or really boring sports, take your pick.” The Paralympic Winter Games run March 7 to 16, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. thuncher@shaw.ca twitter.com/@thuncher

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U.S. Grown

#1 Yams

/lb $2.18/kg

Ruchi

Nectar Guava & Mango

$ 59

4x200ml +ECO +DEP

99 /lb $8.80/kg

Certified Organic U.S. Grown Jazz Or Pacific Rose

Apples

T-Bone Steaks

99 /lb $13.21/kg

Certified Organic California Grown

Collard’s

Organic

7th Generation

Spectrum Coconut Oil

Sale Dates: Wednesday, Jan. 22 - Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014

Canadian

$ 39

/lb $5.05/kg

69 414ml

Red Kidney Beans

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 8 am-9 pm

/lb $10.98/kg

$ 29

Non-Organic

1595 Kingsway 604-872-3019

Veal

T. Bone & Bone In Rib Steaks

/lb $13.21/kg

99 2.5 kg

bunch

Auto Dish Powder Detergent

$ 69 1.19kg

Non-Organic

Cous Cous

$ 99

CHECK US OUT WITH

www.famousfoods.ca

1 kg