Activist profile: The BC Civil Liberties Association's David Eby

From Grounded TV [2]:

The youngest member of this year’s Vancouver Magazine Power 50 list, David Eby is the 33-year-old Executive Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association [3]. An adjunct professor of law at the University of British Columbia, David is also the President of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network [4] and a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [5]. David has appeared at all levels of Court in British Columbia, and co-represented United Native Nations at the provincial Inquiry into the death of Frank Paul, a homeless aboriginal man who froze to death after being left in an alley by police.

Called to the British Columbia bar in June of 2005, and a regular commentator on CBC, CTV and Global local and national news, David is the author of The Arrest Handbook: A Guide to Your Rights [6] which has had over 10,000 copies distributed in four languages and is in its second printing.

David’s advocacy work with Pivot Legal Society [7]contributed to the biggest provincial social housing investment in Vancouver in over 10 years, 91 recommendations from a provincial auditor for reform of the complaints process under the Police Act in British Columbia, increases in municipal fines for converting low-income rental housing to condominiums, the resurrection of a long unused City of Vancouver power to repair rental buildings that are neglected and bill those repairs to the building’s owners, and protection for tenants of 4 low-income rental buildings in the Downtown Eastside who were facing mass illegal evictions.

In 2009, David’s work with the BCCLA [8] contributed to reform of the Vancouver Police Department’s policies on seizing cameras from the media and the public, and a reversal of their plans to crackdown on street vending and other “crimes” of poverty in the Downtown Eastside. He is currently helping to establish the first ever team of independent legal observers at an Olympic Games for the 2010 Winter Olympics through the BCCLA. He was one of ten members of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Homeless Emergency Action Team, which opened 400 temporary shelter beds this past winter.

He is a guitarist and vocalist in the band World of Science [9], which charted in the top ten at college radio stations across Canada in 2008.

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