Jim Green was an American-Canadian who was a longshoreman, taxicab driver, community activist, non-profit housing developer, municipal politician, university instructor and development consultant.
Education
Green holds a Masters in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of South Carolina, and has studied at the Sorbonne, the Millennium Film Institute in New York, and the University of Colorado.
Career
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Green moved to Canada to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Early in his career, Green worked as a longshoreman and a taxicab driver. Green was an advocate for the city"s Downtown Eastside and led the development of many housing projects, including the experimental Woodward"s building redevelopment designed by architect Gregory Henriquez.
He was a development consultant for developers and non-profit community groups.
In 2009 he left his role as Chief Executive Officer of the Misty Isles Economic Development Society to take a position working with Millennium Developments Limited. on the 2010 Olympic Village development in Vancouver. Green taught opera and architecture at the University of British Columbia and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, and co-founded the University of British Columbia Urban Field School.
Green was chair of Four Corners Community Savings, which was closed by the Gordon Campbell led British Columbia Government. He served on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Green co-founded the Portland Hotel Society which operates Insite, the first legal safe injection site in North America.
Under the Vision Vancouver banner, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2005, losing to Sam Sullivan by 3,747 votes. Some blamed voter confusion for his loss, as there was an unknown candidate named "James Green" who received 4,273 votes. Six years later, Green again faced Campbell, this time in the 1996 provincial election for the Modern Language Association seat in Vancouver-Point Grey.
Green, a New Democrat, was defeated by British Columbia Liberal leader and future premier Gordon Campbell 12,637 to 11,074.
In 2008 Green supported Gregor Robertson in his successful run for mayor of Vancouver. In February 2012, his family released a brief statement saying he had suffered a serious recurrence of the lung cancer he had previously battled.
At 06:15 Socialist Workers Party on February 28, 2012, Green died following his battle with lung cancer.
Politics
In 2002 he was elected to Vancouver City Council as a member of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (Committee on Publication Ethics), and subsequently, with mayor Larry Campbell, councillor Raymond Louie, and councillor Tim Stevenson left to form a new party, Vision Vancouver.
Membership
lieutenant was the second time Green had run for mayor unsuccessfully, having been beaten as a member of Committee on Publication Ethics by then-Non Performing Asset mayor Gordon Campbell in 1990.