After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!
Ellen Woodsworth is a community organizer and former COPE Vancouver City Councillor, working for social justice, economic equality and environmentally sound planning. She served as a Vancouver City Councillor from 2002 to 2005 and from 2008 to 2011, worked tirelessly to organize Housing, Climate Change, and Harm Reduction forums.
Born in Toronto, Woodsworth is the grand-niece of J.S. Woodsworth, a founding leader in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation – the New Democratic Party's predecessor. She went to high school in Japan and returned to finish her education at the University of British Columbia. She also operated a travelling women's bookmobile and founded a women's newspaper, The Other Woman in Toronto before moving to London, England to work with the International Wages for Housework Campaign. She returned to settle in Vancouver in 1979. She was an organizer in the DTES for 10 years, BC Chair of the Action Canada Network fighting the Free Trade Agreements, etc.
Before entering politics, Woodsworth was a social planning analyst in North Vancouver.
She loves talking with people, reading, hiking, biking, snowshoeing, skiing and generally living up to the Woodsworth traditions.
Even for former city councillor Ellen Woodsworth, forced to leave her home after 33 years, the search for affordable housing in Vancouver is like the search for the holy grail.
A packed meeting of over 300 members and another 50 onlookers gathered on Sunday for the Annual General Meeting of COPE (Coalition of Progressive Electors). The meeting was alive and...
