Chinatown Festival is NOT a neutral space

Beedie Living, the gentrifier developer behind 105 Keefer, is a sponsor.

This weekend, the Chinatown Business Improvement Association (BIA) is hosting its annual Chinatown Festival. Marketed as a celebration of heritage and family-friendly fun, the event is, in fact, a site of deep contradiction.

The Festival is funded in part by real estate developer, Beedie Living, one of the most aggressive forces of gentrification in Chinatown.

For over a decade, community members young and old have fought against Beedie’s proposed luxury condo project at 105 Keefer Street (570 Columbia St), located right next to the Chinatown Memorial Monument, which honours Chinese railway workers and veterans.

Following thousands of petition signatures, countless rallies, and hundreds showing up at public hearings opposing the development over multiple years, the City of Vancouver rejected the project twice. But Beedie sued its way to the BC Supreme Court and ultimately won in 2023.

Despite this, the Chinatown BIA, made up primarily of landowners, has continuously supported 105 Keefer (570 Columbia St). Every year, the Festival accepts sponsorship from Beedie Living, specifically for the Kids Corner.

So as the Chinatown Festival unfolds this weekend, it’s worth asking:

Is this the kind of community care we want to model for our children?

Whose Chinatown is being celebrated, and who is being pushed out?

Celebration without accountability is complicity.

奮鬥到底
THE FIGHT IS UNFINISHED