Vancouver Magazine
Care to travel the world, one plate at time? Visit Kamloops.
Flaky, Fluffy and Freaking Delicious: Vancouver’s Top Fry Bread and Bannock
The Best Gelato in Canada Was Made in a Hotel Room (and You Can Get it Now in Kitsilano)
Wine Collab of the Week: The Best Bottle to Welcome a Vancouver Spring
Naked Malt Blended Malt Scotch Whisky Celebrates Versatility and Spirit
A $13 Wine You Can Age in Your Cellar
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 20-26)
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 13-19)
Looking for a Hobby? Here’s 8 Places in Vancouver You Can Pick Up a New Skill
What It’s Like to Get Lost on a Run With a Pro Trail Runner
8 Things to Do in Abbotsford (Even If It’s Pouring Rain)
Explore the Rockies by Rail with Rocky Mountaineer
4 Fashion Designers From African Fashion Week Vancouver to Put on Your Radar
The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
Before Hibernation Season Ends: A Round-Up of the Coziest Shopping Picks
Most people treat street canvassers the same way they would a full-screen pop-up ad or someone who just escaped from prison. Politicians hate them too: in 2012, a Victoria city councillor named Shellie Gudgeon tried to ban canvassers (sometimes referred to as “charity muggers”) because, as she put it, her “personal enjoyment of the city was being disrupted.”She’s not necessarily wrong—not completely, anyways. I myself have walked off sidewalks into traffic, told elaborate lies, and role-played fake phone calls to avoid interacting with canvassers. “The worst is when someone makes eye contact with us but walks by without saying a word,” says David, a street canvasser of seven months. “It’s dehumanizing.” In truth, I had walked past David in exactly this way a week before. It hadn’t occurred to me that David might be a regular human being—with thoughts and feelings of his own—just doing his job.“We always laugh because people think they’re being clever, taking their phone out or putting their headphones in,” David says. “But it’s so obvious that they’re faking it.” The best rejections he gets are when someone acknowledges his existence for a split second and gives him a simple no-thank-you. “Or, just tell me, ‘I don’t want to.’ Being honest is completely fine, as long as you treat me like a person.”