the view from my easel: what happened to canada?

October 4, 2026 | Vancouver, British Columbia

It's a chilly October 4. The sun is shining, the sky is beautiful, and I'm sitting at my little pop-up art show in a nice Vancouver neighbourhood, surrounded by towers, concrete, glass and the everyday comforts of city life.

I've brought my original oil paintings out into the world. Forty-five paintings, two collections, and a whole lot of hope. I'm trying to raise $4,000 to get back to Mexico, where I hope to survive the winter and live a little more freely until my pension begins in February.

But as I sit here, my mind keeps returning to what I saw on the way.

Just up the street is a homeless shelter. Not some beautiful transitional housing facility with private rooms, gardens and support services. It's an old Art Knapp's building, now covered in tarps and being used as a shelter.

I saw people coming out. Men, mostly white, in their 40s and 50s. They looked worn down, unwell and as though life had taken a terrible toll on them.

There was urine on the road. I crossed a bridge and encountered human waste and a pile of something burned.

And then there was the man with the severely curved spine and surgical scars.

I don't know his story. I don't know what happened to his back, what surgeries he underwent or how he ended up in that shelter. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live with a serious physical condition without a proper place to rest, recover or even sleep comfortably.

Where is the medical care? Where is the accessible housing? Where is the dignity?

And where is the safety net?

These are not abstract political debates for me. I am witnessing the conditions right here in my own city.

I've been without stable housing since 2019. I know what it means to live without the security of a home, to stretch a few dollars and to constantly wonder what happens next.

And now, as I sit here trying to sell my paintings, I'm thinking about what happens if I don't.

How do I get to Mexico? How do I pay for food? How do I make it through the winter?

I look around this neighbourhood. Beautiful towers rise above the streets. People walk by with their coffees, shopping bags and busy lives. There is nothing wrong with that. People are entitled to live comfortably.

But what kind of city are we building when a few blocks can separate such different realities?

We have people living in expensive towers and people living in emergency shelters that look like temporary construction sites. We have people trying to recover from serious health problems without stable housing. We have people who appear to have fallen so far through the cracks that the cracks have become their entire world.

And this is Vancouver, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Our federal government can announce grocery benefits and affordability measures. Politicians can talk about economic growth, infrastructure, investment and building a stronger Canada.

But what does all that mean to someone who has nowhere safe to sleep?

What does a $90 grocery payment mean when you don't have a kitchen, a refrigerator or even a secure place to keep your belongings?

What does economic growth mean when people are visibly deteriorating on the streets?

And why are we so accustomed to seeing it?

I keep thinking about my MASH-unit idea: small, mobile, modular housing with private spaces, proper sanitation and access to health and social services. Not another tarp-covered building where people are simply warehoused until the next crisis. Actual places where people can begin rebuilding their lives.

Why is it so difficult to imagine providing people with a safe, clean place to live while they work toward permanent housing?

We have the technology. We have the skills. We have the resources. What we seem to lack is the urgency to match the scale of the problem.

And I know I'm only one person. I'm an artist sitting at a little pop-up show, watching the world go by. I don't have a government budget or a development company. I have a collection of paintings, a bicycle, a few belongings in storage and a plan to get back to Mexico.

But I have eyes. I have memories. I have lived experience.

I can talk about what I witness.

And what I witnessed today was deeply unsettling.

It's not just the urine on the pavement, the burned debris or the makeshift shelter. It's the human beings behind those scenes. It's the possibility that some of these men once had ordinary lives, jobs, families, homes and plans of their own.

It's the knowledge that a serious injury, a lost job, a mental health crisis, a relationship breakdown or a financial disaster can change someone's life in ways they never anticipated.

And it's the realization that a society's safety net is only as strong as the people it actually catches.

I don't want to live in a city where suffering becomes background scenery. I don't want to become so accustomed to homelessness that I stop noticing the people experiencing it.

I don't want to see someone with a badly damaged spine and wonder how on earth he's supposed to manage another night in a makeshift shelter.

I want better for him. I want better for all of us.

Today, the sun is shining on my little art show. My paintings are colourful. People are walking by. Life is carrying on.

And yet, I cannot shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong.

What happened to Canada?

More importantly, what are we going to do about it?

Because a country should be measured not only by its wealth, its buildings or its economic performance, but also by how it treats the people who have the least.

And right now, sitting here in the sunshine on a chilly October afternoon, I am not impressed by what I'm seeing.