About Us

About Metro Vancouver Alliance

Metro Vancouver Alliance is a grassroots coalition of community, faith, labour, and nonprofit organizations. Our vision is a world where communities of all kinds come together united by common goals. We know we must collaborate to tackle the issues we face today. We work on the issues that matter to our membership and result in winnable actions that improve the community. We decide which issues to work on through a process of listening and discernment throughout the Alliance.

What We Do

Institutional Relationship Building

Relationships are the bedrock of our power. We focus on building relationships within and between our members to create understanding, expand our sense of belonging and find common ground.

Listening‑Research‑Action Campaigns

Member organizations set the agenda together. We listen, discern the problems that are arising for people across institutions and then facilitate broad‑based action to be taken on those issues.

Community Organizing Trainings

We offer in‑depth community organizing training to members of our member institutions to empower them to create the changes in their communities that they want to see.

Campaign Wins

In 2016, we won a commitment from the City of Vancouver to be a Living Wage employer. North Vancouver followed suit in March 2021. The minimum wage for all City employees and contractors is now $24.08 compared to the provincial minimum wage of $15.65.

We successfully advocated for provincial legislation around poverty reduction. In April 2017, John Horgan (leader of the BCNDP and then-Premier) and Andrew Weaver (leader of the BC Green Party) stood before 800 MVA leaders at an Accountability Assembly held at the Italian Cultural Centre in East Vancouver and committed to legislate a poverty reduction strategy. In 2018, the province passed its first poverty reduction plan, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Act.

In 2016, we won commitments from the North Shore mayors and MLA to address the affordable housing crisis on the North Shore.

In 2019, we won commitments for improved transit services, such as free transit for kids 12 and under from TransLink/BC Transit and handyDART funding which increased the accessibility of transit by providing door-to-door service for those with greater assistance needs. These changes were implemented in 2021.

In 2015 we organized with the Hospital Employees Union and local church congregations to successfully pressure the employer at Inglewood Care Home in West Vancouver to bargain an improved contract and job security, increasing the quality of care for residents. In 2017 we won a commitment from the BC NDP to allocate resources for community healthcare centers.