CNN International, World's Untold Stories, Shooting Up Legally April 2013

CNN International's documentary unit focuses on INSITE, the safe injection site for heroin users in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. While many other cities around the world are considering this strategy for their own problems and many in Vancouver applaud the program, addictions therapist and Executive Director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, David Berner, thinks the whole idea is misguided and destructive.

bit.ly/2Bhr6Ms via @YouTube

Remembering Vancouver’s First Race Riot

It all began on the morning of the 24th: a sign was paraded through town, reading: “The Chinese Have Came [sic]. Mass Meeting In The City Hall To Night”. The labourers had only been back in town for only two or three days before they were discovered, keeping a low profile on a large portion of vacant land near the foot of modern-day Burrard Street. By 8:00 that evening, the municipal building was a seething mass of bodies, with speakers declaring that action must be taken -- a position backed by prominent local business interests. However, by the end of the meeting, the crowd whipped into a frenzy by racist rhetoric, no concrete plan of action had been formed, and it quickly became clear that speeches wouldn’t be enough.

bit.ly/2GFlYHl via @TheTyee

The Pig Farm Documentary

This is the story about Robert Pickton, Canada's most prolific serial killer.

bit.ly/2Bc7IjQ via @YouTube

Insite - Not Just Injecting, But Connecting

Last year the HCLU's video advocacy group traveled to Vancouver to film about Insite, the only legally operating injecting facility in North-America. When we have arrived to Hastings Street, Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, where Insite is located, we were taken aback by the magnitude of the street drug use scene we found there. Hundreds of marginalized people live on the streets -- they are virtually homeless because I would not call those crowded stuffy buildings home where they get cheap a bed and breakfast. A lot of them come from other parts of Canada, where the climate is colder and there are no services like Insite, and all the other health and social services the Portland Hotel Society provides to drug users.

bit.ly/2TR7nus via @YouTube

Streets Of Plenty Vancouver Homeless - Улицы Изобилия в Канаде

Vancouver Homeless Doc - Документальный фильм о бомжах Ванкувера.

bit.ly/2Gcaqcw via @YouTube

Former Vancouver TV Reporter Ron Bencze Sentenced To Four Years For Sex Assault

METRO VANCOUVER — Former Global BC television reporter Ron Bencze was sentenced in Surrey Provincial Court Tuesday to four years in jail for sexually assaulting a young boy.

At the sentencing, Judge Robin Baird said the Crown's request of two to three years in prison was "too lenient", and his decision was greeted with sighs of relief from people in the public gallery. The defence had asked for an 18- to 24-month conditional sentence followed by probation, or an intermittent sentence.

Bencze, 45, will also have to register as a sex offender and is prohibited from using electronic devices to contact minors for the next 10 years and from going to such public areas as parks, schools, playgrounds, community centres and daycare centres for the next 20 years.

Bencze was arrested in January, 2011, and later charged with nine sexual offences related to three children. He pleaded guilty in July to one count of sexual assault involving a boy, who is now 14. The offending began when the boy was around six years old.

Bencze was initially charged with three counts of sexual assault, four counts of sexual interference, two counts of invitation to sexual touching involving three people under the age of 16 and one count of breaching his bail conditions. The remaining charges were stayed by the Crown following sentencing.

bit.ly/2CztvTS via @VancouverSun

History Of The Grandview-Woodland Neighbourhood In Vancouver

This video was produced by the City of Vancouver as part of the Grandview-Woodland community plan, to give residents a sense of the planning and development historic milestones that shaped their community today.

bit.ly/2RuQRhI via @YouTube