The ruling civic party wants to ask people if the city should crack down on open drug use and open a secure facility for involuntary care
Article content
Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver party wants to make public drug use and public safety a central issue in this fall’s municipal election, proposing two plebiscite questions for the Oct. 17 ballot.
Article content
One would ask voters whether the city should strengthen bylaws against open-air use of hard drugs, the other whether B.C. should establish a secure treatment facility in Vancouver with voluntary and involuntary care beds.
Article content
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
The proposal was welcomed by some business leaders and medical experts, but drew accusations of electioneering from political opponents who say Sim and his majority party have had four years to deal with the street disorder and public drug use they had campaigned on fixing.
Article content
Sunrise
Article content
Sim framed the plebiscite as a way to give Vancouverites a direct say on whether the city should take a tougher approach to addiction and public disorder.
Article content
“Vancouverites will be asked two questions about some of the most significant policy and cultural shifts this city has considered in decades,” Sim said Thursday at a downtown Vancouver hotel flanked by ABC councillors and candidates.
Article content
“This is a fundamental change in how Vancouver responds to the crisis on our streets, and it’s important because we’ve given the status quo years to work, and it hasn’t.”
Article content
Article content
The non-binding questions ask whether voters support strengthening city bylaws to prohibit public use of hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl and crack cocaine, and whether the city should formally request that the province convert the old St. Paul’s Hospital, or a similar location, into a secure medical facility with acute voluntary and at least 100 involuntary care beds for people with severe substance-use and mental health disorders.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
Council is expected to decide at an emergency meeting on Friday morning whether to add the questions to the ballot.
Article content
Read More
-
Ken Sim hanging on as front-runner for fall election
-
Sex workers lose protections after VPD changes: Advocates
-
Advertisement 1
Story continues below
Article content
A yes vote would give a future council a strong mandate to strengthen bylaws and reinforce the expectation that open hard-drug use is unacceptable, Sim said.
Article content
Jane Talbot, president and CEO of the business improvement association Downtown Van, said businesses are bearing the cost of open drug use and public disorder. She said her group’s community safety team has recorded more than 2,100 incidents of open drug use this year and 1,500 welfare checks.
Article content
“That’s 1,500 times since January we have had to make sure someone is breathing on our streets,” Talbot said at the ABC event.
Article content
The rising numbers show downtown Vancouver is paying the price of failed policies, she said. “Visible street disorder, including open drug use, shapes people’s perception of safety, and that perception matters because if people don’t feel safe, they’re less likely to come downtown.”
Article content
The proposal, however, drew fire from political opponents.
Article content
Green Coun. Pete Fry called it a last-ditch attempt by Sim and ABC Vancouver to shift responsibility for public safety onto voters after failing to deliver meaningful improvements during their term in office, despite making public safety a central promise of the 2022 campaign.
