Pete Fry
Vancouver City Councillor. Fighting corruption and greed.
UBCM Director, planning commission, arts/culture, dog-guy. Green.
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- There have been conversations ongoing since summer where Greens and COPE have both advocated for the idea of some sort of "progressive primary" to consider getting behind or out of the way of a unity mayor candidate. Grounded in clear rational analysis, not partisanship, I am supportive of the idea.
- I appreciate the idea, but it feels a bit early. I’d be open to a fulsome debate once all progressive mayoral candidates are confirmed - it’s important that everyone has a fair chance to participate. But I’m also working that evening -with some pretty important council and public hearing on deck.
- On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, thinking about the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, along with hundreds of thousands of dissidents, LGBT, Roma, people with disabilities. Reflecting on those horrors, the statement "never again" and the systems that enable genocide today and ongoing.
- Last week after posting here on bsky - i went on to Jill Bennets CKNW show to talk about the London Drugs at Woodwards the current and historic context and what the future could look like. Pretty reasonable please give it a listen: open.spotify.com/episode/7nmN...?
- Meanwhile - the right wing trolls see my reasonable comments quite differently. Cue the anonymous hewers of outrage and drawers of rhetoric to spin up some angry misinformation...
- The closure of London Drugs at Hastings/Abbot is a loss for the neighbourhood. Yes, safety/security issues are a challenge for this and any operator, but there is more to consider in this story: the outsized location relied on a market that doesn't exist. History🧵 vancouversun.com/news/london-...
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View full threadThis is in no way to diminish the very real challenges that London Drugs staff and stab proof vested security guards would have had to deal with on a daily basis here and as LD president admits are issues across BC - but the business model and consumer market at this location are part of the reality
- It's hard to imagine a 27k ft retailer filling this space (see nearby empty Bay and Nordstroms), big footprint retail is challenged in this online age --but thoughtful interventions to support local-serving small business, third spaces other than streets, and curtail criminal activity would help.
- By the time the tax exemption ended in 2020, the foreign investment-driven Vancouver real estate market had dried up, and COVID-19 catalyzed a broken system and challenges around mental health, substance use and acquired brain injury, exploding into a crisis of theft, violence and street disorder.
- This left an oversized shopping destination with an undersized consumer market expending scant resources and staff's wellbeing on safety and security. And the promise of redevelopment bringing new residents and new customers had all but evaporated.
- When the new Woodward's mixed use development opened with housing and cultural spaces and retail it was heralded as a success, and anchor tenants like London Drugs were welcomed with a permissive ten year property tax exemption (thanks to sec 396A of the Vancouver Charter).
- London Drugs in Woodwards opened as an outsized flagship sort of a store at 27,000 sq ft: almost as big at the Georgia and Granville location; twice the size of Olympic Village. The logic was likely that a super size London Drugs would attract more investment and development, as downtown moved east
- The site stayed vacant for several years, but for the Artropolis show and later Woodsquat occupation. Planners, pundits, and small businesses alike recognized the Woodwards Block served as a bulwark to the chaos of DTES drifting west. Activists recognized that any redevelopment needed social justice
- In 1998, a well-intentioned but disastrous decision by the council of the day shut down 'undesirable' businesses: 24h cafes, convenience stores, buy & sell markets and pawn shops. With nowhere indoors to go, more people ended up on the streets, and small businesses faced increasing street disorder
- In 1993, when Woodward's closed I was owner/operator of a print shop on that same block at 159 West Hastings. The impacts of the department store's demise were immediate and profound: foot traffic dropped off, street disorder rose and many small businesses on that same block folded within the year.
- While voting as an ABC block, Cllr Zhou - quoted in the article -- professed to be solidly "pro housing," but his voting record suggests he's "solidly" voted against new supportive housing, rentals in Shaughnessy, and now, social housing city-wide #notallhousing
- Vancouver council rejects move to fast-track social housing towers, citing public opposition vancouversun.com/news/vancouv...
- Important reckoning. Sadly, this is a broken record / broken system where supposedly well intentioned child apprehensions often result in real harm to the kids and parent(s) and very little accountability. I know and have worked with many of the people involved in this story 🙌🏽 gratitude and respect.
- Today, as Trump awarded new "FIFA Peace Prize" his militarized ICE agents are targeting football-loving racialized migrants Wednesday, I ask Vancouver to affirm our commitment to Sanctuary City: Access Without Fear as part of our FIFA Human Rights Plan. Please council.vancouver.ca/20251210/doc...
- The beautiful game, used as a cover for deportation and breaking up families, while FIFA strokes Trump's ego with some symbolic prize. Please let's do something meaningfully symbolic and stand for Sanctuary, and Access without Fear in Vancouver's FIFA plan www.hrw.org/news/2025/12...
- Another timely call out of this serial tormentor that landlords over many renters in our city. Plan A is quite literally one of the worst, and keeps successfully gaming the system. thetyee.ca/News/2025/12...
- 'Twas weeks before Christmas And staff at the City Checked stockings for pink slips Such a Holiday pity... "'Tis best for our budget!" laughed our malevolent hero "More layoffs to come, 'cause Zero Means Zero!" www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...
- Zero Means Zero Meets FIFA Staff report Dec 9 recommends terminating 10/11 Advisory Committees. As the World Cup looms and we've yet to see a Human Rights Plan, volunteer-led citizens advisories are scrapped. Eliminating Committees saves $160,000 @ department targeted by #zeromeanszero cuts
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- I posted details above - but I think recognizing the damage these cuts will inflict and the value these volunteer committees bring to our city is helpful
- ❌2SLGBTQ+ ❌Arts and Culture ❌Children, Youth and Families ❌Older Persons and Elders ❌Persons with Disabilities ❌Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity ❌Renters ❌Transportation Advisory ❌Food Policy Council ❌Women’s Advisory #zeromeanszero
- If you share concerns about eliminating the public advisory committees, you can sign up to speak to it at Dec 9 Council, its Report #1 on the agenda. Link to report and details to sign up: council.vancouver.ca/20251209/reg...
- Budget silver lining? Disappointing to hear the Celebration of Lights are being cancelled. BUT on the upside, this does free up over $1m of in-kind policing City of Vancouver contributes, perhaps we can refund some of the cuts to community services? #zeromeanszero www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
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- Also. Admittedly, song was in the context of the budget, the speakers opposed to it, and a council week that at times has felt like a bit of a (metaphoric) street fight, so for me, from the trenches it was the perfect motivator 🎯
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- Yes, Paul Weller et al, The Jam "In the City" was Quinn's win for the wakeup
- You had me at The Jam wake-up song, but that interview was the golden icing on the cake!
- This is absolutely horrific. 36 dead, 279 missing in Hong Kong highrise complex fire. This photo from CBC captures the anguish many of us are feeling for our friends and family across the Pacific in our spiritual (not official) sister city. www.cbc.ca/player/play/...
- LIVE Budget Engineering fees set to go up across the board for everything was severed to provide relief for patio permits (a nice $300,000 nod to consider small business) but when I suggested it could be offset by increasing Street and Traffic By-law Fines specific to road safety, ABC rejected 😒
- Magnanimous gesture from ABC to include offer new funding for baby change tables, which would otherwise be defunded - and that's great who doesn't love babies! No word on how it will be paid for though, sponsorship? Having a sh!tty season? Enjoy this Canucks change table.
- Cllr Zhou brings amendment to cut funding for energy retrofits like residential cooing grants, to fill potholes... On brand since Zhou also voted for lifting the natural gas ban - and in fairness he wasn't on council when 117 ppl died in the heat dome. Ignorance is bliss.
- TODAY: Budget day at City Hall
- Toxic rhetoric online isn't new, but when political leaders indulge violent language directed at local elected colleagues, it's a failure at most basic level of democracy. Politicians have a moral obligation to call our (not hug out) their supporters when they cross that line. Do better. ⬇️thread
- Ken Sim's comments on EarlyEd were delusional: His defense of "thorough budget presentation" suggested councillors were afforded multiple rounds of questions. In fact, critical councillors were given only two 5min blocks for questions and answers on 90 slide, 23p, $2.4b budget before ABC cut us off
- Listening to Ken Sim’s @cbcstephenquinn.bsky.social interview and it’s kind of surprising his team doesn’t prepare him better for this tough interviewer. He says the police board has said no to some budget asks and the police have cut back their spending - but can’t name examples. #vanpoli
- THANK YOU Vancouver! On doctor’s orders I’m reclined and elevating my leg after a torn calf muscle. But rest assured I’m gratefully watching/listening to the various Vancouverites speaking out against the cuts to staff and services behind ABC’s opaque #zeromeanszero 2026 austerity budget
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View full threadI would add that while I appreciate the mayor asking people to slowdown to allow the ASSL interpreter time on one hand, rigidly enforcing speakers' three minute time limit in that context is unjust to folk who may have carefully prepared and timed speeches.
- ABC have displayed a great deal of disinterest in dissenting opinion and democratic process: from censuring opposition councillors like me, to trying to suspend the integrity commissioner. One of ABC's first acts: to restrict procedure by-law on speakers time/access and ability to ask questions.
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- Our procedure bylaws govern who and how people speak to council, the interpretation is up to the chair who I believe erred on several occasions here. There is a parliamentary option to "challenge the chair" but since ABC councillors outnumber, any challenge to Sim's ruling is doomed to fail.
- The mayor cutting off a speaker for suggesting no-one on council wanted to get elected to hurt people just now seems to be an over-reaction - I don't think that impugns motive or is disrespectful under 61 of our Procedure bylaw. But speakers, it is important to avoid that perception
- I don't know what he said, but UBC Solomon soliloquy in Mandarin seemed like a chef's kiss
- There’s still time to let council know what you think of the proposed 2026 “zero means zero” budget Budget presentation and speakers begin Nov 12, more info and deadline below council.vancouver.ca/20251112/spe...
- Vancouver's 'zero means zero' budget will mean slashing 400 jobs “These aren’t surgical cuts. These are chainsaw cuts. We haven’t gotten the details of where these cuts are going to really land and what it’s going to mean for services that Vancouverites rely on" vancouversun.com/opinion/colu...
- Today at City Council
- Worst is not that Montague hasn't lived or paid taxes in our city his entire term, or that he lives over 400km away, or even his horrible decisions when he does show up. Worse, as other Canadians suffer & boycott, BM was on leave from his taxpayer-funded job to leisure in the US for a month.
- Can confirm from an internal email earlier this month, All Souls Night was canceled "after careful assessment, and considering current budget constraints" On behalf of councillors who rejected ABC's priorities, sorry we couldn't stop damage Sim's #zeromeanszero cuts are inflicting on our city
- Deeply disappointed to see @cityofvancouver.bsky.social terminated the All Souls Nights at Mountainview Cemetery. This event has been a tradition for us for the last 6 years, and the event has been going for 20. I’ll quote the statement from nightforallsouls.com In a thread:
- With no comment from ABC Councillors: Motion to extend votes to youth FAILS at ABC's hand. Despite ample evidence, a real imperative for youth engagement, and a clear path to enact. While they are at it ABC vote down safety for trick or treaters and SRA protections against predatory speculation.
- Most appalling and galling, Sim's Deputy Mayor Sarah KY - despite having previously voted to support youth enfranchisement - puts hypocrisy of full display to shut youth voices out of local elections in Vancouver
- You might have heard about the mayor’s new “zero means zero” austerity budget and the defeat yesterday of his scheme to sell off public land to build for profit housing to raise revenue for “council priorities”. Part of his imperative to run the city like a business I explain…
