Come sizzle with us at Hot Pink!

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Hot Pink Turns 12! Join Victoria’s award-winning, cheeky, tassel-twirling sensation—the Cheesecake Burlesque Revue — for our Peers Victoria fundraiser Saturday, March 22 at the Belfry Theatre.

Fresh from Las Vegas, where the Cheesecake Burlesque Revue won 2024 Winners of Best Large Group at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Hot Pink is an evening of guaranteed sass, hilarity, and dazzling entertainment. This not-to-miss, fabulous annual event is a key fundraiser for Peers Victoria. Sex work is work—let’s get shimmying about it!

Doors open at 7 pm, show starts at 8pm. The show is 2.5 hours, with an intermission. Oh, and if this is your first Hot Pink — and how lovely if so! — be aware that there will be adult themes and situations, and partial nudity. Under 19s will be admitted only in the company of an adult.

Tickets: Regular $39.00 — or Pay It Forward to cover the cost of a ticket for someone in the community!

The evening will also include a 50/50 Draw to support Peers Crisis Grants. Enter online or email carley (at) peers.bc.ca for details and cash sales.

Buy Tickets to this Event

Speaker series on toxic drug crisis wraps March 26 with dialogue among past and present substance users

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Join us March 26 at 1 p.m. for a dialogue grounded in resilience, persistence and diversity as past and present substance users share their personal experiences of recovery and wellness — and their insights into how BC’s challenged and patchwork substance-use supports helped and hindered them on that journey.

Harm reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella will be joining us for a second time to lead this inspiring and truthful conversation, the final event in Peers Victoria’s speaker series on the toxic drug crisis, “Out of Harm’s Way: Innovation, Insight and Action to End the Toxic Drug Crisis.”

March 26 agenda

This is going to be a powerhouse afternoon. We’ll be welcoming advocate and story-teller Sekani Dalketh as our opening keynote, and have confirmed a number of people from Victoria and Vancouver Island to be part of the dialogue led by Guy Felicella.

Our closing keynote speaker will be the one and only Ann Livingston, co-founder of Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and a key figure in BC’s early days of harm reduction, when advocacy efforts led by Ann and Dean Wilson led to the opening of Canada’s first supervised injection site in 2003. More recently, Ann has helped organize the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users.

The event is at First Metropolitan Church sanctuary at 932 Balmoral Ave., with the entrance on Quadra Street. Admission is free — come on down and bring all your friends!

And if you haven’t had a chance to watch our Jan. 29 event, here it is. The Feb. 26 event video will be coming soon.

Series on toxic drug series continues Feb 26 and March 26

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Panelists at Jan. 29 opening event

Our first event is a wrap in our speaker series on the toxic drug crisis, “Out of Harm’s Way: Insight, Innovation and Action on the Toxic Drug Crisis.” More than 200 people attended the event at First Metropolitan Church sanctuary.

Join us Wednesday Feb. 26, 3–6 p.m. for the second event in the series, a look at interventions and evidence related to the toxic drug crisis.

The afternoon will open with a keynote from Dr. Ashley Heaslip, Island Health’s Medical Director for Addictions Medicine. People working on the front lines of the toxic drug crisis will then share some of their successes, challenges and hopes for the future in a lineup that includes information on the work of:

  • Doctors for Safer Drug Policy
  • Overdose prevention in social housing
  • The Harbour safe consumption site
  • SAFER drug substitution program
  • First Nations Health Authority toxic drug response
  • Umbrella Society and paths to recovery

Our second dialogue that afternoon will look at what the evidence says about effective ways to reduce the terrible toll of the toxic drug crisis. Harm Reduction Nurses’ Association President Corey Ranger will lead a dialogue with Island Health Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Reka Gustafson; University of Victoria researcher Karen Urbanoski, Canada Research Chair in Substances, Addictions and Health Services; and Jeanette Bowles, University of BC research scientist in the Department of Medicine, BC Centre on Substance Use.

More details coming soon on our final event on March 26, 2–5 p.m., featuring a powerful dialogue among people with lived experience talking about their own experiences with recovery (in the broadest definition of that word). Click here for updated information on these events as the dates draw closer.

Thank you to the participants of our opening dialogue on Jan. 29 — from left to right in the photo above: harm reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella; former BC chief coroner Lisa Lapointe; Canadian Drug Policy Coalition Executive Director DJ Larkin; Qom Qem outgoing director Lacey Jones (and incoming Director of Toxic Drug Response for the First Nations Health Authority); Moms Stop the Harm co-founder Leslie McBain; and moderator Dr. Perry Kendall, BC’s former provincial health officer.

Admission is free for all events. See you there!

Public dialogue on toxic drug crisis starts Wednesday

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Peers is excited to launch our speaker series this week on the toxic drug crisis. “Out of Harm’s Way: Insight, Innovation and Action on the Toxic Drug Crisis” gets underway Wednesday with the first of three events.

Join us Wednesday Jan. 29, 1–4 p.m. in the sanctuary at First Metropolitan Church (corner of Quadra and Balmoral streets) for our opening event, featuring a dialogue with former BC Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe, Leslie McBain of Moms Stop the Harm, harm reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella, QomQem Director Lacey Jones, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition ED DJ Larkin, and BC’s former provincial medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall.

More details at the link, where we’ll be posting more information about the next two events soon. All events are free — hope to see you there for one of the most important conversations of this decade.