Social geography » Ren Thomas

Double Dutch

Settling into The Netherlands has been full of unexpected encounters and insights: waiting in interminable lines, adjusting to hordes of bikes and learning new social cues. On these and many other issues of integration, I can’t provide more valuable (or hilarious) insights than the writers of The Undutchables (Colin White and Laurie Brouke), the Holland Handbook (XPat Media) and many others who have written on this topic. However, I do feel qualified to report on one aspect of integration: the language.

The knee-jerk reaction to our difficulties with the language has been the same from both Dutch and non-Dutch alike: ”Everyone speaks English in The Netherlands–you don’t need to learn Dutch.” Yes, it’s true that most people speak at least a little English and many are quite fluent. I would say that most of the ex-pats I know have landed in jobs with very international staff, and English is indeed the lingua franca. However, that has not been our experience. At my job, people don’t seem to enjoy speaking in their second (or third or fourth) language for the entire day. While most of my co-workers speak quite good English, they regularly converse in Dutch at lunch or any other time when they are speaking to a native of their own country. The University of Amsterdam offers almost half of its degrees in English, but lectures, newsletters and events are often in Dutch. My husband has been looking for work as a gardener, and all the job postings are in Dutch–even the Netherlands branch of the International Association of Arboriculture (of which he is a member) advised him to learn Dutch. One woman who called him this week about a job sadly informed him that although his resume was nice, they really needed someone who could speak Dutch fluently.

Important paperwork, such as immigration papers, bank statements, and health insurance are also in Dutch. And good luck calling your gas company or cell phone provider–their automated services are all in Dutch, so you can’t even choose which option you need. If you take the tram or train, all the stops are announced in Dutch. And you will run into lots of people in shops, particularly those who immigrated here from a non-English-speaking country, who have naturally put their energies into learning Dutch over English. In many Amsterdam neighbourhoods with Turkish bakeries, Indonesian restaurants and Chinese groceries, you will encounter shopkeepers who don’t speak a word of English. And to be honest, I’ve always felt (as a second-generation immigrant in Canada) that learning the native language is necessary for integration.

So it was that, about a month after our arrival here, we decided that we needed to learn Dutch. This provoked the predicted response: it’s not necessary, surely you aren’t having that much trouble without it, etc. It also spurred commentary, from practical to laughable, on the best course to learn the language. The national government in The Netherlands requires a certain level of Dutch as a condition of permanent residence and citizenship, and courses are provided for this purpose. There are also courses at the University of Amsterdam, the Volksuniversiteit, and of course at schools for travellers like Berlitz. Without fail, my co-workers who had taken a Dutch course–any Dutch course–told me how useless it was. The teacher didn’t know what they were doing, the homework was excessive, they didn’t learn anything, or the course “totally messed up what little Dutch I already knew.” The twice-a-week classes were deemed too difficult; the once-a-week classes wouldn’t teach enough. It was too hard to learn Dutch because everyone just switched to English. Their cumulative advice was not to take a course at all, but to “just find a Dutch person to talk to every week for an hour.” With memories of Elizabeth Gilbert’s gorgeous Italian Tandem Exchange Partner (Eat, Pray, Love), I wondered how I would find someone who would be willing to talk Dutch to me, in a monologue, without me understanding or contributing a response, week after week. After all, one can’t begin from nothing.

We enrolled at the Volksuniversiteit. In the first week of our course we learned the useful phrases, I am Steve Smith, I come from England, and I speak English–that is, the entire class learned how to say these things about themselves. The next day my Dutch co-workers were duly impressed that I could say, Ik ben Canadese. Ik spreek Engels en Frans. In the second week we learned pronouns, direct objects and a number of words for questions (how, who, which, etc.) This proved much more difficult because English has no deferential treatment: there’s no formal you like the vous in French and the u in Dutch. We have no genders: it’s the dog and also the house. So as our Dutch teacher commented, “The discussion on whether to use de versus het will go on forever.”

It was also difficult because–it pains me to admit this–I never learned English grammar at school. So when our teacher explained to us that we use the direct object rather than the indirect, I was transported back in time to my eighth-grade French class, when the teacher discovered that we didn’t understand this concept in English either! (Things got worse a couple of years later when we learned the conditional verbs in French, upon which our exasperated teacher exclaimed, “How can you not know what a dependent clause is?”) Sadly for you linguists out there, I am living proof that it is possible to finish school–even three degrees–without knowing this crucial information.

Tonight is week 3 and we have learned numbers and letters (useful when getting change and spelling your achternaam). But I’m pleased to say I can already ask for what I want at the kaashuis and understand the route numbers on the tram. The Dutch subtitles on TV and the ticket vending machines at the train station are almost legible to me at this point. This morning I spotted a billboard from the tram, and realized that I could read every single word of it. But I specialize in the detection of overall patterns–details like the meanings of conjunctions escape me. And it will likely take me at least a year to be able to hork up the Dutch g in gracht and morgen. So I’ll stick it out for a course or two, trying to memorize word lists and irregular verbs like zijn: as our teacher points out, the verb “to be” is irregular in every language. Like the others in the Volkuniversiteit Basis I course I’m learning Dutch because, despite all advice to the contrary, I need to. It makes my life easier.

Polls fail again: Alberta’s PCs win overwhelming majority

After weeks of predicting a tight race in Alberta’s provincial election, pollsters are scratching their heads. Articles such as “Wildrose on track for majority with a week to go in Alberta” (The Globe and Mail, April 18th) were widespread just a few days ago. Yet somehow, Premier Alison Redford led her Progressive Conservative party to its 12th consecutive majority government with 62 seats, while Danielle Smith’s upstart Wildrose Party has become the Official Opposition party with 17 seats. The popular vote was closer: Redford captured 44% of the popular vote and Smith 34.5%. So what happened in the battle of conservatives?

Premier Alison Redford. Photo: John Lehmann, The Globe and Mail

Some sources report that strategic voting played a major role: those who may have voted Liberal or NDP may have voted PC to keep Wildrose from power. Albertans seem to have shown a healthy skepticism for the Wildrose party, particularly issues of gay rights and racism raised by two Wildrose candidates (Allan Hunsperger and Ron Leech, neither of whom was elected). Other centrist and left voters may have disapproved of the party’s stance on the fundamental right to refuse a medical service–such as abortion–based on religious objections, and their refutation of climate change. But another interesting factor has emerged: the polls weren’t really that accurate. Only a few polls, such as that by Leger Marketing, asked voters whether they were undecided: they found that up to one-fifth of voters were undecided in the final week of the campaign. Despite technological advances, polling has not become more precise, and the margins of error are significant: lest we forget, not a single poll predicted Stephen Harper’s majority government in last year’s federal election.

Wildrose also had poor support in Alberta’s cities. PC support was strong in Edmonton and Calgary: the province’s two largest cities hold half of its seats, 44 in total. In Calgary, the Wildrose party took only 3 of 25 ridings while in Edmonton Wildrose failed to win a single one. Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Fort McMurray were also overwhelmingly PC. It seems that urban Albertans preferred Redford’s Joe Clark-style conservatism, while many rural residents considered the PCs too centrist. But many journalists are saying that the values, views and opinions of Alberta voters may have been too complex to capture using polls.

Alberta’s election pitting Redford and Smith against each other would have had a historic result no matter who won. Only nine women in Canadian history have ever served as provincial/territorial premier: five were elected leader of their party while it was in power, and four were elected premier in a general election. Redford became premier in October when she was elected leader of the party, and this win makes her the first female premier elected in Alberta. BC’s Christy Clark is in a similar position: she became premier after Gordon Campbell resigned in 2010 and narrowly won his seat in a by-election. If she were to win the general election next May, she would become the province’s first elected female premier (Rita Johnson briefly held the position of premier in 1991 after Bill Vander Zalm resigned and she was elected leader of the Social Credit Party, but she was defeated in the 1991 BC election). With this win, Redford also marks a second milestone: the PCs will become the longest-standing provincial government in Canadian history by the end of this term.

Daring Vancouverites to be social

It’s hard to believe that Jorge Amigo was once on the receiving end of so many cold shoulders from Vancouver women, he may have rivalled About A Boy‘s Will Freeman in his level of cool. Sub-zero. Dry ice. As Frosty as the Snowman.

This January, Amigo wrote a now-famous article in Vancouver Magazine entitled, “Do Vancouver women suck?” in response to Katherine Ashenberg’s “Do Vancouver men suck?” These and other writers (including myself) have noted a distinctly tepid social climate in this city that leads to lonely singles, particularly men of the failure-to-launch type and women of the cold-shoulder type. Outside of the dating scene, it also seems to lead to the formation of cliques and the social exclusion of those of us who weren’t lucky enough to be born and raised in Lotusland (see Jesse Donaldson’s “Three Customs of the West Coast Friend” in The Tyee, April 14th, 2012). After a tremendous response to his VanMag article, Amigo decided to do something about it: he started #bemyamigo, a social club that dares Vancouverites to “chat with strangers and help make this city friendlier.”

Since February, Amigo has held a regular social event every two weeks at The Union Bar (check out the latest event on eventbrite). Participants buy tickets that entitle them to a drink, browse a menu of appetizers created for the event, and chat with twenty or so strangers at a long table. Having found out about tonight’s event fairly last-minute, I decided to check it out.

I spent much of my time chatting with a woman who has just moved here from Dublin for work, a geologist working for a mining company, a musician friend of Jorge’s, and a multilingual woman who recently spent six months in Rome learning Italian. Most of these folks weren’t from Vancouver (which all of us felt was pretty typical) and most had come to the event on their own. Jorge himself was the perfect host, circulating among the participants and chatting with everyone. He was pleased with this evening’s turnout, which was a good mix of men and women (apparently the first event drew 22 women and only 3 men!) The conversations began with what people did for a living and how long they’d been in Vancouver and progressed to insights we’d picked up travelling in different countries and the social faux-pas committed daily on Facebook. Hilarious stories were told, and proto-friendships were forged–when we left, several of us made plans to attend a future #bemyamigo event and keep in touch online.

It’s too early to tell whether this little social experiment will make a difference in Vancouver’s chilly social scene, but several folks at the table seemed to think a critical mass of more sociable types has been reached in this city. While an event like #bemyamigo might terrify an introvert or one accustomed to their own little clique, sitting down with a table full of strangers who were honestly interested in meeting new people was a breath of fresh air in a city where even the weather patterns refuse to budge. Could you do it?

I dare you, Vancouver.

The dream is alive in the Great White North

We can all rest easy. Despite many studies showing increased income inequality and a shrinking middle class in Canada, a rags-to-riches story is more likely to happen here than in the “land of opportunity.”

University of Ottawa professor Miles Corak, a social policy economist and former director of family and labour research at Statistics Canada, and his co-authors Lori Curtis (Professor of Economics, University of Waterloo) and Shelley Phipps (Professor of Economics, Dalhousie University) found that Canadians are three times more economically mobile than those in the US. The difference is largely due to those at the very top and the very bottom of the income distribution. In Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada, the three researchers found that social supports such as the Child Tax Credit, paid parental leave benefits, and schools funded through provincial income taxes help ensure that children receive better care and schooling than in the US, where these supports are absent and schools are funded through local property taxes, leaving poor neighbourhoods with failing schools. With sky-high tuition fees at universities, the richest Americans can buy their children the best educations and tutors. These differences between rich and poor mean that if you’re born poor in the US, you tend to stay poor; this also applies to the 1%–the very top of the income pyramid. For example, although “the average Canadian child is not as affluent as the average American, the poorest Canadian is not as poor in an absolute sense as Americans at the bottom of the income distribution.” This may help explain why discussions of class are more prevalent in the American literature and popular press.

The authors caution that rising income inequality rates in Canada could erode the high rate of economic mobility that we see now. Indeed, a look at their graphs shows that we still have issues: 15% our poorest children may still grow up to have incomes in the lowest decile (Figure 3, p7), but they have a better chance at the 7th, 8th, and 9th deciles than they do in the US. More Canadian children are born in the lower income deciles than American children (Figure 8, p33). But Table 1 (p21) shows some clear differences in the characteristics of families and parents. In Canada, 2.1% of children are born to teenage mothers; in the US, it’s 8.3%. In Canada, 14.9% of mothers are single compared to 22.1% in the US. Far more mothers and lone mothers in Canada have completed some post-secondary education or a post-secondary certificate (but oddly, more American mothers have completed degrees). Health problems among the poorest mothers are also more prevalent in the US, likely due to the cost of health care. As the authors suggest, Canadians must protect policies such as paid parental leave, the right to return to their jobs after the birth of a child, tax-transfer programs that help reduce the severity of poverty, and funding for schools through provincial income tax, ensuring a more equal distribution of resources across municipalities and neighbourhoods. Although we have fewer barriers to health care, we need to ensure the lower-income population has sufficient knowledge on navigating the health care system and can pay for prescription medication.

Corak, Curtis and Phipps write that “The citizens of both countries have a similar understanding of a successful life, one that is rooted in individual aspirations and freedom. They also have similar views on how these goals should be attained, but with one important exception: Americans differ in that they are more likely to see the State hindering rather than helping the attainment of these goals. Yet, at the same time the citizens of both countries recognize the need for public policy to contribute to reaching this ideal, with Americans believing more than Canadians that a whole host of interventions would be effective in improving the prospects for economic mobility. One interpretation of these findings – an interpretation that only becomes evident in a comparative context – is that in some sense this need is going unmet in the United States.”

Goodbye U-Pass! (Unbelievable Prescription for Access to Sustainable Savings)

Since I finished my Ph.D. this month, today was officially my last day to use my U-Pass, and a sad day it was! Long past young adulthood, my grad school status awarded me a universal transit pass since 2005; the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University started the program as a sustainability measure way back in 2003 with the cooperation of TransLink and intense student lobbying. I’ve travelled the entire region with my U-Pass: it’s taken me to North Vancouver’s Lynn Canyon, Surrey City Centre, Richmond Centre, and New Westminster Quay, all for less than $30/month. Among other things, it’s allowed me to avoid car ownership for another six years; the U-Pass and my Modo car sharing membership meet all my travel needs. The U-Pass has since spread to encompass other colleges in Metro Vancouver, and has had a major impact on transportation mode shift in the region.

U-Passes are part of a demographic swing that’s taking place among young people in Canada and the US. Unbelievable as it may seem in countries that have espoused driving and highways as the only way to traverse our expansive vistas, young people are actually driving less than in previous years (check out the Transportation Research Board’s presentation on this among other demographic trends in the US). Car ownership rate has decreased among youth and young adults. Part of this shift is due to increased availability of programs like university U-Pass programs, better transit service, and growing mainstream popularity of sustainable transportation. Today’s young adults also spend more years in post-secondary institutions, take longer to enter the labour market, graduate with more debt, get married and have children later, if at all.

In honour of my last day with a U-Pass, I travelled to East Vancouver to the Pacific National Exhibition at Renfrew and Hastings. The #14 UBC/Hastings and #16 Arbutus trolley buses travel there, as well as the #135 express bus to SFU. The bus routes along Hastings Street transect the entire sociodemographic range that is Vancouver, from the suit-wearing jewellers in the stone-clad Birks store at Granville Street to the homeless and addicted masses gathering near the faded grandeur of Main Street’s Carnegie. It seemed a fitting way to end six years of unlimited, supercheap transit travel in Metro Vancouver; as of tomorrow, I’m buying full-fare tickets like everyone else.

Vancouver riot: hooliganism at its finest

Fans watching Game 4 in front of the Vancouver Public Library

Two weeks have passed since the Vancouver Canucks’ Game 7 Stanley Cup loss to the Boston Bruins and the ensuing riot. Other events have prevented my journalistic ink from flowing as freely as others’ on this topic…yet the amount of ink spilled (both literal and virtual) has done little to answer the fundamental question of why the riot happened. Opinions range from “there wasn’t enough of a police presence” (“Police actions questioned in wake of Vancouver riot”, CTV News) to “the potential for violence always exists in the human brain” (“Sometimes, is a riot normal?”, The Georgia Straight, June 23).

I’ll let the experts discuss the reasons behind it, although I will say that I was as surprised as anyone at the Game 7 riot, having been downtown watching Games 4 and 6, both of which the Canucks lost. There were over 100,000 fans downtown on earlier game nights, and many of us watched the game on the big screens at Georgia and Hamilton Streets. There were big groups of police and security personnel standing around, as most fans went home in a state of quiet depression during the barren third period of each game (“Vancouver riot saw 800 cops on the street“, The Globe and Mail, June 28). The Stanley Cup Playoffs ran nine weeks this year, and considering it would have been the Canuck’s first Cup ever and Canada’s first since 1993, Cup Fever had built up over a two-month period.

I’ll also leave aside the alarming, or alarmist, media coverage, which quickly spun the story out of control. At 10pm on June 15th, a mere hour after the game ended, CTV reported that ”Rioters left downtown Vancouver reeling from countless fires, widespread looting and numerous stabbings in the wake of a crushing loss for the Canucks.” (In fact, fifteen cars were set on fire, several stores were looted along Georgia and Robson Streets and there were exactly two stabbings.) Stories abounded about how people were trapped downtown after TransLink was forced to shut down bus service into/out of downtown. (Anyone living here knows that Vancouver’s downtown is a peninsula. You can walk east, south, and southwest about 20 minutes and you’re out of the core and can hop on a bus.) The international media quickly picked up the events unfolding through thousands of Twitter feeds, Facebook updates and incessant hand-wringing of middle-aged news anchors on CBC, CTV, and local Canadian networks. Even now, media comparisons persist between Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riot (over 100 arrests) and Toronto’s G20 protests last year, an event still being pursued in the courts involving 19,000 police offers, 1,100 security guards and over 900 arrests, the highest number of mass arrests in Canada’s history.

I’m more concerned with how quickly Vancouver residents disowned the riot, saying it was not typical of Vancouver.

Fans walk home along Granville Street after Game 6

“It is extremely disappointing to see the situation in downtown Vancouver turn violent after tonight’s Stanley Cup game. Vancouver is a world-class city, and it is embarrassing and shameful to see the type of violence and disorder we’ve seen tonight.” Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, June 15, 2011

NBA player Steve Nash, a Vancouver native, agreed the riot was an embarrassment for the city. Police Chief Jim Chu was quick to pin the blame on “anarchists and criminals” (though he took back those words within days). Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail wrote that rioters came from all over the region, not just Vancouver. Solicitor-General Shirley Bond said that the riot was due to a very young, predominantly male crowd–a different crowd than other Stanley Cup playoff nights. Spectators interviewed by the press indicated their disappointment, saying, “This is not Vancouver.” Later, when locals started penning their thoughts on the wood panels used to shore up broken windows of vandalized stores, a common theme was “Don’t judge us by a few hooligans.” Quickly, now, repeat after me: Vancouver is pretty. Not ugly.

In fact, this is Vancouver. Like any city, Vancouver has a history of violence, and riots have arisen out of political protest, civic unrest and hooliganism. In September 1907, 2000 citizens gathered in “anti-Asiatic riots”, smashing in the windows of Japanese business owners on Powell Street. A drunken riot involving 600 citizens and soldiers demonstrating in front of the Vancouver Police Station was broken up by tear gas and military police in August 1943. In November 1966, 5000 rioters swarmed into a three-block area along Georgia Street, throwing beer bottles, breaking windows, and starting fires in sidewalk trash bins after the annual Grey Cup parade; there were 200 arrests. In August 1971, Gastown residents rioted against a police crackdown on illegal drugs; 100 people were arrested. Less than a year later, in June 1972, 2000 people outside Pacific Coliseum hurled rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails at riot-equipped Vancouver Police officers during a Rolling Stones concert (warmup act: then-22-year-old Stevie Wonder). Thirty policemen were injured as the mob tried to crash the concert. And of course, following the Canucks’ Stanley Cup loss in 1994, a riot ensued lasting six hours; 200 were arrested. Some of these riots were inspired by political events, but some involved a bunch of hooligans who thought it would be fun to smash some stuff up and set a few things on fire, just like June 15th, 2011. Many came prepared to riot regardless of whether the Canucks won or lost, with black knit masks, fire extinguishers that could be used to smash windows, and signs that said, “Riot 2011″. Countless people took digital photos of themselves with the burning cars, arms held high as if they’d scored a victory. In Vancouver’s first social media riot, Twitter feeds, Facebook postings, and the confessions of several teens who have been charged after the incident confirm how lightly participants took acts like setting cars on fire. They seemed to just go with the flow, and even seem surprised at the internet backlash that has led to them losing their jobs, being suspended from sports teams, and endangering their families. Like Stephen Quinn joked, some might even have hooked up as a result of their actions (“Missed Connections/I saw you (through the tear gas)”, The Globe and Mail, June 24).

Every city has the potential for inexplicable violence, because every city is home to hundreds of thousands of people. We did manage to hold the Olympics here without major incident. We’ve also held countless international events like Expo ’86, and community events like Car-Free Day on the Drive, the Kitsilano Greek Festival, and Chinese New Year celebrations, all of which draw thousands of people. All of these events are carefully planned with the presence of police, first aid, and security personnel. Most of the time, nothing goes awry. Occasionally it does (few outsiders remember that downtown windows were smashed by anti-Olympics protesters on the first day of last year’s Olympics). When it does, we all have to deal with it: the mayor, the police chief, the gutsy few that helped hold back looters (“Police seeking Stanley Cup riot Good Samaritans”, The Toronto Star June 27th) and more than 14,000 citizens who volunteered to help store owners clean up the shattered glass and debris on the morning of June 16th. These stories, both good and bad, become part of the city’s history, at least for those of us who can’t stomach the sugary-sweet myth of Vancouver. Those of us who live here know that this is also a city with persistent homelessness, sharply polarized incomes (with the poorest and richest postal codes in the country), and serious drug traffic. People exist here, like they do elsewhere, within a fragile network of social connections kept alive by a veneer of civility. Certain events (whether it be sports, politics, or inequity) motivate people to take sandpaper and blowtorches to the shiny surface, exposing the conflicts underneath. Other events, like “most livable city” contests, buff the veneer right up again. So never fear, politicians and business scions: the myth of Vancouver as some kind of laid-back hippie paradise (for rich people) persists.

Maybe this riot, like the 1994 Stanley Cup riot, the 2001 transit strike that lasted so long it produced skewed Census results, and the persistent smashing of Starbucks’ windows when they first opened on Commercial Drive, offers us a little insight into the complex social, income, and ethnic diversity of this city. These events, like the Olympics and Expo ’86 and the hundreds of festivals held here, are as much a part of the city as the Downtown Eastside and Kitsilano. The rioters, the Good Samaritans, the cleanup crew, and the internet vigilantes who have sent police thousands of pictures to help identify rioters: they are all Vancouver.

Vancouver: a hookup nightmare?

Vancouver has a lot of things going for it: beautiful scenery, coffee shops on every corner, and some fantastic local foods. But as my regular readers know, Vancouver also has undesirable characteristics: it’s ridiculously expensive, socially polarized and inward-looking. It’s also notoriously difficult for young singles to meet potential mates in this town. So when The Tyee‘s Vanessa Richmond asked, “What the heck is wrong with men in this town?” I couldn’t resist responding.

There’s a fair amount of Vancouver-bashing going on now that the Canucks have made it to their first Stanley Cup finals in 17 years. Most of the talk indicates the lukewarm attitudes the rest of Canada has towards “the most livable city in the world”.

“The fact is, as cities go, many Canadians view Vancouver as effete, a metropolis made up of snotty, latte swilling, cargo-shorts wearing, too-cool-for-school yuppies for whom pleasure and real estate remain their only abiding concerns.” Gary Mason, Can Canucks really be Canada’s hockey team?, Globe and Mail, May 18, 2011)

“We are yuppie, expensive and shallow. Look at the place! We’d be stupid not to be yuppie, expensive and shallow. I’m writing this column in my hot tub while sipping a clever little Okanagan Pinot Gris. Life is good here.” Pete McMartin, “Dear rest of Canada, please get your own hockey team”, Vancouver Sun, May 12, 2011)

Vancouverites know that it’s more than geography that separates them from the rest of Canada, and they’re proud of this cultural distinctness in the same way Alaskans revel in their separation from “the lower 48″. But there are specific characteristics that make it difficult for singles to hook up in VanCity (depending on what your definition of “hookup” is):

Strict Prohibition-era liquor laws make it more expensive to drink here and enforce earlier closing hours for Vancouver bars outside of the Granville Street club strip. When I moved here in 2005, I was shocked to discover that last call for bars and restaurants here is midnight…I mean come on, even in London, Ontario it’s 1:30am. It’s even illegal to take BC wines across the Alberta border, as a local radio reporter demonstrated recently (noted: I’m about to embark on a road trip to Calgary, so I guess we’ll have to stock up once we cross the border).
The weather. Canadians in Toronto and Montreal somehow manage to socialize in the rain and snow, but 8 months of rain per year literally dampens Vancouver’s social scene.
Urban planning. Metro Vancouver’s segmented land mass joined by precious few bridges makes socializing in the (tiny) downtown much more difficult than in other cities, where the downtown blends seamlessly into inner suburban neighbourhoods. It’s still a relatively small city (1.8 million for the entire region) and still largely suburban: people retreat to their homes after work, rather than sharing in the traditional urban pastime of after-work drinks that spill into dinner. And it’s still a relatively young city, so neighbourhoods don’t really have their own local bar/restaurant scenes. Vancouver still doesn’t feel like a vibrant urban centre.
Culture. Urban planner Gordon Price, quoted in Richmond’s article, notes that aloof behavior is “embedded in the cultural bedrock upon which this place was founded”. This British reserve means that men don’t approach women in bars, social hangouts, or even online dating sites: Richmond calls this “the eternal shyness of the VanCity man”.
Transience. Vancouver has a reputation that draws people from all over the country, and increasingly, all over the world. This creates a relatively transient population: many stay in Vancouver, but lots choose to return home when housing prices and incessant rain start to make them miserable. Many of my single friends have complained that the men they’ve dated weren’t into anything serious because they didn’t intend to stay here.

In other cities, singles aren’t hard up for hookups…how does anyone ever meet in VanCity? When I moved here for grad school, those of us from out of town quickly realized that the “townies” didn’t really socialize with us. They had their well-established networks of friends and family, and didn’t have the time or desire to add more. A classmate of mine who had moved here for work several years earlier told us how difficult it was to make friends here, and several of my friends have shared their own struggles in Vancouver’s social scene. One friend recently mentioned that her husband has had a tough time making guy friends. “You think it’s hard for women to make friends here?” she asked. “It’s ten times harder for men.” Even after living in Vancouver for six years, most of my friends are from out of town, and many from out of province. (Lest I be outed as “anti-Vancouver”, my husband and I noticed the same social phenomenon in Ottawa, where we lived for three years). This difficulty making friends in Vancouver inevitably extends to other social activities like dating.

I don’t know what the solution is any more than Richmond does; even her suggestion that women be more assertive in approaching men might be problematic in Vancouver (the men in her article are rebuffed when they approach women, so who’s to know how they would react if a woman were to make the first move?) All I can say is that Vancouver’s social scene is markedly different from Montreal’s, where waiters at restaurants flirt with every woman in sight, and Toronto’s (I dare you to find a Toronto friend who hasn’t gone out for after-work drinks in the last month).

Election excitement? The startling turn of events preceding May 2nd

Since Easter weekend, when record-breaking numbers of voters took to advance polls, election fever has gripped this country from coast to coast. I can’t remember a more exciting campaign, nor a time when the Liberal and NDP parties have ever changed places in a mere five weeks (according to pollsters, anyway). The surge in NDP support has left political commentators breathless: could Jack Layton’s NDP become the official Opposition party? The Toronto Star endorsed Layton as Prime Minister, but urged Canadians to vote strategically to prevent a Harper majority. The Globe and Mail, rather characteristically, endorsed Stephen Harper…and went so far as to call this “an unremarkable and disappointing election campaign”!

The polls have been fluctuating wildly in the past week, leaving the outcome undecided: will the NDP grab seats in BC, as the polls suggest? Both Harper and Layton ended their campaigns in Vancouver this week: we’re home to several key ridings like Burnaby-Douglas, Vancouver Centre, Newton-North Delta, and Surrey North. Will waning Liberal support lead to Conservative wins in key ridings? Will the Quebecois shift their support from the Bloc to the NDP in ridings like Gatineau? How exactly will the NDP surge play out in terms of number of seats? The media are also trying to decipher the significance of youth turnout encouraged by vote mobs (see my last post: this picture is from today’s vote mob in my hometown of London, Ontario which gathered over 1500 people. London, you may recall, is where two students were kicked out of a Conservative party rally way back at the beginning of the campaign. Organizers say London’s was the biggest vote mob of the year.)

Is this election campaign best summarized by the Globe and Mail‘s headline, “Federal elections a tight race between boredom and hope” (April 29, 2011)? Or has this “unnecessary election” changed Canada for the better? (May 1, 2011) The youngest voters and NDP supporters are hoping for change across this great country, and at this point it looks like there is no hope of a Harper majority. My hope: that the 35% increase at advance polls signals high voter turnout on May 2nd…and that Harper is not re-elected to form a government, majority or minority. Hold on, kids, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

Filipinos: a growing presence in Canadian cities

Filipino immigrants are a rapidly growing group in many Canadian cities: there are almost half a million Filipinos in the country. In many ways, they are distinct: recent studies have highlighted their increasing dependence upon the Live-in Caregiver Program, their difficulties finding work in their occupations, and the implications of long periods of separation upon their families in Canada and the Philippines. Last year, the Vancouver Sun ran a four-part series on Filipinos in Canada, which they dubbed “The Filipino Factor”. This weekend the Globe and Mail featured a two-page spread, now that the Philippines outpaces China and India as the main source of immigrants to Canada. In my view, the distinctive patterns of Filipino immigrants make them an ideal case study that can teach us about immigrants’ integration, labour market participation and survival strategies.

As many of you know, my dissertation focuses on Filipinos’ housing and transportation choices in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), where over 170,000 Filipinos live. I’m rapidly nearing the end of my four years in the PhD programme at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, which means I’m finishing my study and getting ready to publish my results. I have found that Filipino immigrants display a remarkable resilience in their housing and transportation choices. It’s the same resilience that is portrayed in the media: Filipinos come from a country with far less economic and political stability than Canada, and they are willing to work hard to succeed here. They do experience significant barriers to their integration, if we’re talking about the labour market. But socially, they must be one of the most integrated groups in Canada: they are very spatially dispersed and do not form ethnic enclaves. They are also experts in community-building: Filipinos have established hundreds of non-profit, community, and advocacy groups in Canadian cities. These groups help new arrivals find jobs, train for new careers, and adjust to life in Canada; they are often staffed by both paid and volunteer Filipinos. Prominent Filipino researchers Dr. Nora Angeles and Dr. Aprodicio Laquian have done research in this area; Nora is currently an Associate Professor at SCARP and Prod is a Professor Emeritus at our school.

In my own research, I have seen that Filipinos’ lower homeownership rate and higher transit commuting rate can partially be explained by their flexibility: they make practical choices depending on access to transit and the location of their workplaces, their children’s schools, shops and services. They move back and forth between owning and renting, driving and transit use, depending on changes in their families and careers. These choices mirror their experiences in the Philippines, where many lived in dense, mixed-use communities with access to transit. Of course, their choices are also shaped by structural changes in housing policy, immigration policy, and the labour market over the years.

We can’t ignore the issues faced by growing number of Filipinos who work far below their education and skill levels, or the policy shifts that have made things more difficult for recent arrivals (Dr. Phil Kelly at York University has written extensively on this subject). In the 1990s and 2000s, immigration from the Philippines increased markedly, and many of these new immigrants entered under the LCP rather than Skilled Worker or Family Class immigration categories. It will take these more recent immigrants longer to find jobs in their professions than earlier immigrants, and during this time they work long hours and have difficulty studying for recertification; many have college diplomas or university degrees from the Philippines that Canadian employers and professional associations do not recognize. However, in the face of these changes in immigration policy and the labour market, Filipinos’ resiliency strategy serves them well. Because they remain flexible and mobile in their housing and transportation decisions, they are able to adapt to changing situations, like divorce, training for a new job, or offering a room to recently-arrived family members when they arrive in Canada.

Why all the fuss about Filipinos? After all, we’re a multicultural society…why focus on one particular group? Because Filipinos have higher than average rates of education and are fluent in English, but are not able to work in their professions, which means they often have lower than average incomes. For example, over the years, Filipinos’ jobs in finance, insurance and real estate have changed to jobs in manufacturing and the service sector. Filipinos seem to be more affected by changes in immigration policy, such as the LCP. Their resiliency strategy towards housing and transportation choice may be unique. For these reasons, a case study of Filipinos may be instructive to researchers studying immigrants’ housing, settlement, and labour market patterns.

This week, I’ll be presenting my work at the National Metropolis Conference here in Vancouver. I’m looking forward to seeing other researchers in urban planning, geography and sociology who are studying how immigrants settle into Canadian cities. Metropolis Canada is part of an international network of researchers on immigration and migration, and there is also an annual conference in Europe each year. The best part is the diversity of academic researchers, community researchers, non-profit housing providers, immigrant service providers, and of course students who come to the conference to share their research and best practices on immigrant integration. I’ll never forget my first Metropolis conference last year in Montréal…let’s hope Vancouver can be as much fun!

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)

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