{"id":831465,"date":"2026-07-28T13:43:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831465\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T13:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:43:16","slug":"union-president-refuses-to-answer-questions-about-controversial-vancouver-council-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831465\/","title":{"rendered":"Union president refuses to answer questions about controversial Vancouver council campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The president of Unite Here Local 40 is refusing to answer questions about controversial tactics to filibuster Vancouver city council meetings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;m taking those concerns seriously,&#8221; was all president Zailda Chan would say about what happened last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During a public hearing on July 22, several callers <a data-ylk=\"slk:opposing a Vancouver urban planning proposal acknowledged to council;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11987150\/americans-call-vancouver-council-meeting-mayor-says-foreign-interference\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">opposing a Vancouver urban planning proposal acknowledged to council<\/a> that they were not local and some were from California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The next day, a union spokesperson acknowledged that they reached out to U.S. supporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On the heels of this controversy, at Monday&#8217;s <a data-ylk=\"slk:public hearing about a different development;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11995642\/vancouver-council-approves-mega-tower-project\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">public hearing about a different development<\/a>, some speakers scheduled on the phone did not show up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They are believed to be the same out-of-town callers from last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Coun. Peter Meiszner said out-of-town callers can prevent people who actually live in the city from weighing in on a topic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s super frustrating not just for councillors, but I think especially for Vancouver residents who have waited hours to be able to call in and give their feedback on, you know, proposals that actually impact their lives,&#8221; he told Global News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Unite Here Local 40 union represents hotel, food service and airport workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Members have spoken out before against a floating hotel and other developments, saying Vancouver has an affordability crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The president of Unite Here Local 40 is refusing to answer questions about controversial tactics to filibuster Vancouver&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55,197024],"class_list":["post-831465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver","tag-vancouver-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}