former vancouver city councillor and aids activist alan herbert dies at 78
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a 1995 photo of alan herbert near granville island.
bill keay
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vancouver sun
the city of vancouver gave aids vancouver initial funding of $50,000 in 1987 to open an office and hire staff to write canada’s first support programs for people with hiv and aids. it came amid an atmosphere of fear and stigma, as case numbers reached epidemic levels.
“people don’t understand anymore. we had no medicine. people were dying,” said former board member alan herbert in a decade-old youtube video posted by the non-profit. in it, he recalls securing the support of then-vancouver mayor gordon campbell, but being turned down by then-b.c. health minister peter dueck, who balked at the plain language in a safe sex guide.
getting the municipal backing was one of the many contributions alan herbert made to the community over his lifetime, said his son jason herbert in a social media post.
herbert, an activist and politician, died at the age of 78 on april 11 after living with hiv for decades and battling parkinson’s disease.
he was a board member at aids vancouver from 1983 to 1987 and the first elected board chair of the vancouver pride society in 1994.
he helped establish the mclaren housing society of b.c., which ran the country’s first housing centre for people with hiv and aids, and was a vancouver councillor with the non-partisan association party from 1996 to 1999.
alan herbert of tracks, a citizens group lobbying for the south false creek streetcar line celebrates with news that the city of vancouver has purchased the line from the cpr.
ian lindsay
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vancouver sun
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gordon price, who helped establish aids vancouver and served on council with herbert, said he thrived during an extraordinary period in the development of the west end, where davie street is now widely-known as a lgbtq2s+ friendly neighbourhood and tourism destination.
as a councillor, herbert pushed hard to get a liquor licence for the fountainhead pub, a prominent gay bar.
“technically, it couldn’t be done for one of those bureaucratic reasons. those were the rules. the intent was to limit the number of bars under any one ownership,” said price. “but because it was the gay village and it was a gay bar, it turned into a quite an issue actually.”
herbert had a “love of the city and place, and particularly the meaning of davie street and the village and the west end as a gay community. i think that rather astutely, he thought it still had to be fought for, that it wasn’t a given. and in retrospect, i’m looking back now at this age, and thinking, he was right.
“he had a chance to stride across the stage of civic life and politics at that time, and there was so much happening,” said price. “he would look for roles to play and they were very much, oh god, ya … almost everything (he got involved with) had personality issues and conflicts.”
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the rub of some of the controversies contributed to herbert being a one-term councillor, said price.
“he was passionate. too much so actually, particularly for politics,” said price. “he was a real fighter, a great advocate.”
former vancouver councillor alan herbert in 1998.
nick procaylo
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province
in recent years, herbert worked with a personal trainer, tricia barker, who specializes in helping clients with end of life conditions such as parkinson’s disease she had been a parks board commissioner who spoke up for seniors with disabilities and was in office until the last election in 2022, when she left the npa.
herbert “loved the fact that i was also a politician. … he loved that we could talk. he would be trying to give me advice … and we could still laugh. i was the one with him in his last afternoon,” barker said.
“it’s a reminder that these people do these really, really great things, but they’re still really human and all of those other things happen. to me, he was just a great guy that really loved it when i brought dark chocolate. he was a truly lovely man with a killer sense of humour.”
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