Sister Elizabeth Kelleher speaks about the moral need to build social housing

This interview aired in 2011 and is still relevant today, Sister Kelleher passed on Aug 16 2013 and her life continues to be an inspiration to all***Gives us all something to think about at this time of year**

We speak to Sister Elizabeth Kelleher, an 85 year old nun with the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, we talk about her efforts to stop more gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside the poorest postal code in Canada.

Sister Elizabeth is a pillar in the Downtown Eastside where she tirelessly gives of her time and continues to be a source of inspiration for many, many people. She operates a soup kitchen that feeds between 300 and 500 of the city’s most poverty stricken each day.

It is estimated that there are over 10,000 homeless people in BC , of which 32 percent are aboriginal, and amongst women, 50 percent. A homeless person dies every 12 days in B.C. Conservative Estimates put the national homeless numbers at close to 300,000. The annual cost of homelessness in Canada in 2007 was approximately $4.5 to $6 billion in emergency services, community organizations, and non-profits. The cost both financially and morally of doing nothing is tremendous. Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing plan or poverty reduction strategy.

New Green Deal or Military Spending, which future will we fight for

Host Stuart Richardson interviews Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and publisher of a blog called Organizing Notes. We speak about why Bath Iron Works ship yard (a shipbuilding yard in Maine that builds US Naval destroyers) needs to be converted into a plant that builds Green technology, how  US military spending is out of control globally and how that steals from the American people. We speak about the new Biden administration and how social change happens, how we cannot sit on our hands and hope things change for the better.

Charles Boylan a Life of Resistance

Activist and radio legend and my good friend Charles Boylan  did this interview while in the late stages of his cancer, he will always be in my heart , he never stopped trying to make a better world

Charles Boylan was a Canadian radio broadcaster and political activist. He was the former producer of Wake up with co-op and the program Discussion, on CFRO 100.5FM; a community-run, co-cooperatively-owned, non-corporate radio station broadcasting from Vancouver, British Columbia. Boylan  also run for political office federally and provincially as a representative of the Marxist “Leninist Party of Canada and People’s Front respectively.

We spoke about the upcoming year 2017 which Charles coins the “The Year of Resistance”, we speak about the struggles and challenges ahead and the hard work that needs to be done to realize the new horizon where ordinary people get together and  chart their own future taking back power from the monopoly interests, a bright future where the working class rises up with communities of interest to deal with the issues of our time, real action on the environmental, social and democratic crisis can be accomplished when we work together. A most importantly how to create an anti war government that respects human dignity with social love for our brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Conscious Landscapes

A sharing of hopeful visions and stories  that bring  us back to the land, a place that heals and replenishes us in a world that is in rapid transition.My hope is that we come to know we are a single whole with each other and nature, when we hurt nature we hurt ourselves.

Damien Gillis  a B.C.-based documentary filmmaker and journalist. He co-directed and produced the award-winning feature doc Fractured Land and is the co-founder and publisher of the online journal, The Common Sense Canadian. His writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times and The Tyee.

Host Stuart Richardson speaks to Damien about the politics and ideology of building pipelines and the status quo energy policy, he uncovers many falsehoods and misconceptions that stand in our way to a healthy future.

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