The Edmonton Sun, BC, Canada
VANCOUVER — Vancouver police have arrested two men in connection with an attack on a man that investigators say may have been a hate crime.
Jordan Smith says he was holding hands with a man Friday night, when the pair were approached by five men.
They started yelling profanities and gay slurs and when Smith walked away, the group pursued.
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by Patty Comeau
Xtra West, BC, Canada
A member of West End Renters at Risk, Fuller speaks about the housing climate from personal experience. "People are so afraid of what it means to be taking on their landlords and fighting for their rights, that they just end up moving," she says.
The threat of displacement and its accompanying loss of community turned personal in March 2006 for Fuller and her fellow tenants in the Bay Tower on Harwood St, when Hollyburn Properties began informing residents that their rents would be brought up to market levels for the area.
Using a loophole in BC's Residential Tenancy Act, a number of landlords in Vancouver have evicted their tenants in order to renovate and re-list the units at significantly steeper prices.
Although landlord-tenant relationships are provincially legislated, many feel that the federal government should play a substantial role in the construction and maintenance of affordable rental units and subsidized housing.
Equally significant and no less emotionally laden in the current corporate climate, is the West End's own future as a nexus and stomping ground for queer visibility and expression.
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Note: This sounds similar to what happened in The Castro (San Francisco). Some call it progress, others call it greed.
by Jillian Deri - Vancouver
Posted By ERICA BAJER, THE DAILY NEWS
Ontario, Canada
There's a rainbow over Chatham- Kent.
It symbolizes gay pride and it's flying high over the municipality in celebration of gay pride week.
Mayor Randy Hope raised the rainbow flag Tuesday in front of the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre.
He's the first mayor to attend the annual flag raising ceremony-- this was his second year at the event.
He said all people should feel welcome in the municipality.
"I will not discriminate against anybody," Hope said. "I want people to feel comfortable in our community."
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By 365gay Newscenter Staff
(Toronto, Ontario) Police in Peel Region, a sprawling suburb of more than 2 million people west of Toronto, have set up a special LGBT Hate Crime Hotline, believed to be the first of its kind in North America.
"We are dedicated to providing prompt, fair and equitable services to everyone in our community, and know that this initiative will make it easier for people to come forward,” said Insp. Brian Cryderman, head of the Peel Regional Police force’s Diversity Relations Unit.
For emergencies and crimes in progress, people should still call 911 for immediate assistance, he said.
The LGBT Hotline number is (905) 456-5905. It is posted on the Peel Regional Police internet site under “Contact Us,” and is accessible through operators at the central police number (905) 453-3311.
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By SCOTT TAYLOR, Sun Media
The Ottawa Sun, Canada
It may not be war they’re waging, but Ottawa’s gay and lesbian community is conducting a subtle blitz all the same in its quest to have a six-block portion of Bank St. formally recognized as Ottawa’s gay village.
After two radically differing surveys and a challenge by the by the Bank St. Promenade Business Improvement Area (BIA) to self-brand the area between Nepean and James streets, a spokesman for the village initiative says fundraising, information and branding strategies are firmly in place and already making a difference.
“During Pride we want to continue to bring awareness to our plight and to raise funds for long-term goals, such as signs and flags we can install in the area,” Glenn Crawford said.
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by Alex Hayter
The Cord Weekly
Wilfrid Laurier University’s official student newspaper
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Homophobic graffiti was found in a single unit bathroom on the second floor of the Arts building Monday, and currently the university and security services have no leads or suspects for the crime.
An identification officer from the Waterloo Regional Police Service’s (WRPS) forensics team was at the scene Monday after the Wilfrid Laurier University Special Constable Service (WLUSCS) determined that the language used in the graffiti was criminal.
According to Kevin Crowley, Associate Director of News and Editorial Services at Laurier, words including “Kill fags” and “Kill homos,” with a swastika symbol in place of the final ‘s’, were scratched into the drywall of the bathroom. Also discovered on the wall was a rough drawing of a penis ejaculating, which seems to have been drawn by the same person.
“This will be the fifth incident that we’ve had in 2007-2008, where graffiti has been used in a way that we feel has been hateful,” said Crowley. This graffiti has involved hate language directed towards specific, identifiable groups – previously, sexual orientation was targeted, as well as the Muslim and Jewish communities.
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VANCOUVER — They've been bombed three times, received death threats and stood before the red-robed justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.
No, Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth are not killers or terrorists.
The soft-spoken Vancouver men sell books.
And in some peoples' eyes, Deva says, that made the gay owners of Little Sister's Book & Art Emporium dangerous.
"Because we were (openly gay) and we were very, very blatant about being open . . . we were threatening to homophobes," Deva says.
Only two years after the store opened in 1983, the owners took on a fight that bolstered and exhausted them, lasting until just last year and challenging Canada's censorship laws.
After 23 years of fighting Canada Customs' seizures of books bound for the gay and lesbian bookshop, the partners have put Little Sister's up for sale.
It's time to do something else, Deva says as he plans to get a choir booked for the store's 25th anniversary celebrations.
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