Commissioner John Irwin

Vision Vancouver Commissioner John Irwin joins the Park Board for his first term.

His goals are to reduce fees and eliminate fees for children and increase access; restore community pools; provide playing fields for field sports; increase active transportation; build more pocket parks; and protect park land from other uses, such as development, commercialization, traffic routes, and Hydro substations.

Commissioner Irwin will consult and partner with First Nations and urban Indigenous communities to fund and create new Indigenous-centred infrastructure and programming, and will treat community centre associations as equal partners.

As coordinator of the Southeast False Creek Working Group, Commissioner Irwin has advanced social and ecological justice in the developing Southeast False Creek Village. From 1997 to 1999, he sat on the City of Vancouver’s advisory group for the sustainable neighbourhood planning process in Southeast False Creek, and he was on the City of Vancouver’s Stewardship Group for Southeast False Creek from 2000 to 2008.

John also holds a PhD (UBC) specializing in sustainable urban development. He is a lecturer at SFU and UBC. He also worked as a policy analyst for the Tenant’s Rights Action Coalition (now the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre) and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC office. He worked in fair trade retail from 1996 to 2003 (Bridgehead and Ten Thousand Villages).

He served on the boards of community-based organizations: the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC); the Friends of False Creek (now the False Creek Watershed Society); and the West End Residents Association. John was chair of the Henry Hudson Out-of-School Society from 2011 to 2016, and is an advocate for affordable child care.

As a father of three school aged children, John is keenly aware of the importance of Vancouver’s parks and recreation facilities for the social and ecological sustainability of our city.

Park Board liaison

• Kerrisdale Community Centre Society
• Kitsilano War Memorial Community Association
• Mount Pleasant Community Association