Edmonton • Housing

Vacancy Numbers don’t tell the whole story

Jim Gurnett wants to dispel some myths about the housing market in Edmonton at an upcoming panel discussion, especially recent numbers from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corportation that show a slight increase in the number of available apartments.

“I don’t think it’s one speck better for poor people,” says the executive director of the Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, and a longtime advocate for the disadvantaged. “The [number of] available units has increased slightly for people in the middle and upper end, but for the roughly 20 per cent of the poorest people in Edmonton that have less than $500 or $600 a month for rent, there is still nothing available.”

A couple months ago, a CMHC report that showed rental vacancies in Edmonton had increased 0.3 per cent fueled talk that the rental market was beginning to open up again.

But Gurnett points out that CMHC numbers are averaged over neighbourhoods and cities, so the numbers include the full spectrum of rents. Just because there’s a couple more $1,000-a-month apartments on the market doesn’t mean that lower-rent apartments are opening up, he says.

The Quality of Life Commission, an umbrella social advocacy group, has organized a talk with Gurnett, Bill Moore-Kilgannon of Public Interest Alberta, and Marjorie Bencz from the food bank on the challenges that are still facing the poor in Alberta’s booming economy. You can check it out on April 7 at the Stanely A. Milner Library.

Canada • Animal Protection

anti-cruelty bill needs toughening, says advocate

Animal-advocacy groups and Humane Societies across the country are fighting a new federal animal cruelty bill, which they say doesn’t go far enough to protect animals.

The current legislation is over 100 years old, and a new bill has been in the works for a couple of years, but suffered a setback when the Liberal government fell in 2005.

The new bill (S-203) being discussed in parliament is far weaker than the bill proposed by the Liberals, says Tove Reece, spokesperson for the Edmonton-based Voice for Animals.

S-203 still considers cruelty to animals a property crime, meaning it isn’t taken very seriously. Also, stray or wild animals have less protection than owned animals. Although the new bill does increase punishments, it fails to set out what constitutes “cruel” treatment of animals, making convictions harder to come by, says Reece. 

She prefers a Liberal private members bill, also currently before parliament, that doesn’t approach animals as property and clearly defines acts of cruelty towards them. These provisions would make it easier for police to gain convictions in incidents like the recent hanging of a cat in Ponoka.

“If it does pass,” she says, “we are going to be stuck with some very ineffective legislation for a very long time. People will think something has been done, when in fact nothing has been done.”