David Eby
Executive Director; British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.
Last Contribution:
Protesting the Podium
Contributor Biography
Named one of Vancouver’s most public and effective advocates by Vancouver Magazine and the Vancouver Sun newspaper, David Eby is the Executive Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. An adjunct professor of law at the University of British Columbia, David is also the President of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. David has appeared at all levels of Court in British Columbia.
Called to the British Columbia bar in June of 2005, and a regular commentator on CBC, CTV and Global national news, David is the author of The Arrest Handbook: A Guide to Your Rights which has had over 10,000 copies distributed in four languages and is in its second printing. He has had several articles on issues of police policy impacts on health, marginalization, the impacts of gentrification, and homelessness published internationally.
David’s advocacy work with Pivot 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 protecting the tenants of 4 low-income rental buildings in the Downtown Eastside from mass illegal evictions between 2007 and 2008.
In 2009, David’s work with the BCCLA created a coalition of AIDS Service Organizations to oppose a police crackdown in Vancouver’s downtown eastside that was affecting resident access to needle exchanges, methadone pharmacies and the safer injection site. The Vancouver Police Department reversed their policies and revised their business plan as a direct result of that advocacy. He was also one of ten members of Vancouver’s mayor’s Homeless Emergency Action Team, which opened 400 temporary shelter beds in the winter of 2008.
