Ready for Better: For Everyone.
Breen believes that community leaders should understand the needs of the people they serve. His dream is to represent all of us in Vancouver: as our City Councilor, as a partner with other levels of government; and as your advocate when no one else will fight for you.
Breen also believes that working on our politics and trying to have a more inclusive, safer, and healthier country is something we should celebrate. Watch the video to the right for an example of that celebration.
In short, Breen advocates that basic human needs must be universally protected human rights. And for those human rights to carry meaning - to really mean something - Local government must be required provide these needs to meet the rights of every person in Vancouver.
We make it happen by taxing the super-rich like we have in the past. They could pay it before, so they can pay it again. We must ensure that individuals with more than enough are paying their fair share toward the common good.
Housing: A Human Right.
Human rights are intended to protect people and guarantee that they can satisfy their basic needs. Higher order human rights like freedom of speech become nearly meaningless if a person’s most basic human needs are unmet. Housing is one such basic human need. Canada must respect its commitment to housing as a human right: a commitment made when our country signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948!
In the 1980s, the federal government made the terrible mistake of shifting its property development focus to home ownership. Co-op and social housing have been neglected in Canada ever since. This mistake is largely responsible for Vancouver’s rental shortages and the glut of expensive luxury condos. Most of us have been affected, from seniors and people with disabilities, to skilled workers and young families. So many of us are forced to leave our city because we can’t afford to live here.
Breen will advocate for the federal government to reinstate the federal housing ministry, fix the damage done to the CMHC during the Harper years, return the federal focus to social and co-op housing, and take a strong stand against corruption, tax evasion, and property hoarding.
Ending Homelessness.
Homelessness is all around us, on Denman and Robson, in our neighbourhoods and the downtown. It doesn’t have to be this way. Other cities have ended homelessness. Medicine Hat in Alberta ended homelessness! Vancouver can end homelessness, too, with assistance from the federal government.
Homelessness was unheard of in Vancouver in the 1980s. Then the federal government dismantled the national housing ministry and focused on home ownership as the presumed goal of every Canadian. The result has been disastrous. The homeless population has nearly doubled in Vancouver since 2005. And we’ve seen how the pandemic has made it worse.
Breen and the NDP have the clear solution: invest in co-op and social housing development. Use the CMHC to impose social housing quotas on every development project that receives federal funding. Luxury condo builds are the last place incentives should be focused. Luxury condo buyers do not need our help. Breen will take our message to Ottawa: ending homelessness must be Canada’s priority.
Addressing the Drug Crisis.
It has become painfully obvious across our country that our government is failing to address the drug crisis.
The Liberals and Conservatives want to continue the status quo of criminalizing and stigmatizing people with addiction disorder, instead of address the health crisis that we see on our streets and in our neighbourhoods every day.
There are solutions. The Portuguese model is one such answer to the Canadian opioid crisis.
In the 1980s, Portugal was reeling from a heroin addiction crisis. One in every 100 Portuguese citizens had a heroin addiction. The country had a choice to make, and they changed the narrative from stigma to health support. Portugal got serious about providing dedicated health resources to help people beat their addiction disorders. And they decriminalized all personal drug use to ensure that they did not continue the vicious cycle oppression and abuse. Portugal now has the lowest drug addiction rates and best health outcomes in the European union, even on legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco!
The NDP knows that we must address the opioid crisis now. This is why the NDP has committed to implement the Portuguese model of addiction disorder treatment. Breen believes we should follow the evidence, and Portugal has made it crystal clear that we do not have to wait any longer to end the opioid crisis in Canada.
Healthy Environment.
The Liberal government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline in an indirect bailout of Kinder Morgan, a company based in Texas. The Liberals have moved ahead to triple capacity of Trans Mountain, despite promises made in 2015 to shut it down. The Liberal government has failed to meet Canada’s CO2 reduction targets, and now they are on track to make things even worse.
Further, Kinder Morgan has used the Liberal bailout money to significantly reduce its corporate debt. It has reduced its debt to reposition itself to aggressively frack natural gas!
In essence, our government has provided a massive indirect bailout to a foreign company, which has strengthened that foreign company’s ability to increase fossil fuel extraction and consumption, damage our fresh water supply, and create geological instability. This is consistent with the apparent Liberals lack of desire to meet Canada’s CO2 reduction goals.
Breen believes that Liberals must not receive a continued mandate to make even more indirect bailouts. Direct subsidies of the oil and gas industries must end, and those subsidies must be diverted to green research and developing a job-sustaining clean energy industry in Canada.
Prosecute Tax Evasion.
The federal government must get serious about tax evasion and abuses. The Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated that $15-25 billion in federal tax revenue is lost every year due to tax evasion and loophole abuse by the super-rich (those bringing in mult-million dollar incomes every year).
Money laundering through property speculation is largely responsible for housing unaffordability in Vancouver Centre. This has been supercharged by the federal government’s promotion of luxury condos and complete failure to develop co-op and social housing. These abuses are preventable with the NDP plan.
An NDP government will close tax loopholes. An NDP government will also commit $20 million to new RCMP positions dedicated to ending money laundering. Half of these officers will be staffed in British Columbia. As our NDP MP in Ottawa, Breen will promote vigorous prosecution of offshore tax haven abuses and the money laundering that fuels property speculation.
Meaningful Pay Equity
Women in Canada are still paid significantly lower for work that provides equal value to the work that is dominated by men. Further, the disparity in pay for equal work has a larger negative impact on women from minorities, women with disability, and women approaching retirement.
Pay equity legislation was recently passed by the Federal Liberals; however, pay equity still has a long way to go. The legislation does not hold employers accountable, and the budget for enforcement is insufficient.
The government needs to put dedicated resources on the side of women workers!
Breen believes that Canada must implement robust, comprehensive, and effective protection for women’s economic equality rights. The legislation must shift the balance off of women workers and onto employers by providing women with real alternatives to difficult and expensive litigation.
Protect Indigenous People
Genocide was the overarching finding in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The report found that genocide is still happening today. It is not just a crime of the past.
Indigenous women have raised allegations of coerced sterilizations as recently as December, 2018. Indigenous children are massively over-represented in the foster care system. One recent report from BC saw an Indigenous infant taken away from the mother on allegations of neglect only 90 minutes after the baby was born by C-section. This happened while the mother was still sedated following the operation.
As a lawyer with the National Inquiry, Breen came to realize that industrialization and corporatization of government support services is a root cause of these crimes of genocide. Funding responsibility for Indigenous people usually falls to the federal government; billions are transferred each year from the federal government to the provinces to pay for expensive systemic oppression against Indigenous people. Many social workers try hard to make positive change within this system. However, financial interest and systemic racism ultimately cause Indigenous people to suffer under provincial government services. Provincial bureaucrats are drawn to the “free” revenues obtained through federal transfer payments for Indigenous services. These expenditures are not free for Canadians, though; we foot the bill for this genocide through our federal taxes.
The federal government has the moral and legal responsibility to protect the rights of all people, including Indigenous people. Services for Indigenous people must be safe and free from racism. Ideally, this will be achieved by transferring complete control and full funding of services for Indigenous people to Indigenous nations and Indigenous-led organizations. This will end the systemic dysfunction perpetrated by provincial government services, and place the power to change directly in the hands of those affected.
Respect 2SLGBTQQIA People
A number of double standards affect two-spirit and LGBTQQIA people in Canada. This is a residual effect of decades of the criminalization and stigmatization of LGBTQQIA relationships. In fact, the criminal offense of anal intercourse was only repealed in Canada in 2019, not in 1969 under Pierre Trudeau, as the Liberals have tried to make us believe.
Further, the Liberals promised in 2015 that they would end the unscientific and offensive blood donation ban that targets men that have sex with men. It hasn’t happened yet. Under the oversight of the Liberal government, Health Canada has failed to lift the ban. Instead, Health Canada places the burden to justify removal of the ban on Canadian Blood Services. The Liberals have failed to live up to another promise.
The ban assumes the highest risk of HIV transmission exists among all gay men, bisexual men and their partners, and other men that have sex with men. This assumption fails to give any consideration to actual risk factors of an individual donor. Thus, every gay man in a long term, monogamous relationship is included in blood donation ban.
The excuses used to justify the assumption are based in a legacy of hate. Health Canada offensively argues that the ban must continue because the general population resists allowing blood donations from men who have had sex with men! The ban has been supported by cost excuses, the failure to employ innovative thinking, and resistance from the general population born out of continuing stigma.
The ban was put into place in the 1980s in response to HIV contamination of the blood supply. The ban has remained in place despite the risks being much better identified in the intervening decades. Currently, eligibility to donate blood requires men to abstain from sex with other men for a period of three months. This remains a significant barrier for most willing blood donors.
Breen believes that the blood ban must end. Cost increases can be minimized by focused screening of all donors and testing of blood, while the unreasonable fears of bigots should simply be ignored. Canada must follow the tried and true examples set by other countries!