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Rights + Justice

Tyee's Andrew MacLeod Wins Social Justice Award

Honours for 'A Better Place on Earth,' chronicling stark BC inequality.

Robyn Smith 26 May 2016TheTyee.ca

Robyn Smith is editor of The Tyee.

The Tyee is today cheering Victoria legislative bureau chief Andrew MacLeod, who has received a significant social justice award for his 2015 book on the growing wealth gap between rich and poor in British Columbia.

A Better Place on Earth: The Search for Fairness in Super Unequal British Columbia, a rich and sobering investigation into the origins of the province's economic disparity, is this year's recipient of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness.

Inspired by Summerland playwright George Ryga, the award is handed out annually to a B.C. author who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a published work.

"It's an honour to receive an award named for George Ryga, who as a playwright provided a sharply critical yet nuanced voice for people living on society's margins," MacLeod said. "I'm proud to join a list of recipients who have maintained a strong British Columbia tradition of agitating for social justice and fairness."

MacLeod said the trend of inequality in B.C. hasn't changed much in recent years. "Christy Clark became premier promising to put families first, but five years later British Columbia continues to have one of the worst records in Canada for child poverty."

A Better Place on Earth started out as a series of articles for The Tyee with funding from Tides Canada Initiatives, MacLeod noted.

"I'm indebted to founding editor David Beers for sparking the series and for supporting it, as well as to publisher Howard White and the team at Harbour Publishing for encouraging me to expand the ideas from the series into the book," he said.

MacLeod will receive the award at a free public event at the Vancouver Public Library on June 29, starting at 7 p.m. The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award will also be presented, and members of The Tyee crew will be on hand to celebrate.

The $2,500 award is administered by the Pacific BookWorld News Society and is supported by Yosef Wosk and the Vancouver Public Library.

Runners-up for this year's honour include David Boyd for The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Toward a Greener Future, Larry Gambone for No Regrets, Chris and Josh Hergesheimer for The Flour Peddler, Carrie Saxifrage for The Big Swim: Coming Ashore in a World Adrift, and David Suzuki for Letters to My Grandchildren.

A Better Place on Earth is available for purchase online or at many B.C. bookstores. Read a Q&A with MacLeod on the book here.  [Tyee]

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