Video: Pete Fry places priority on affordability and accountability

These are excerpts from Stuart McNish’s interview with Pete Fry, the Vancouver Green party’s candidate for mayor. You can watch the entire interview online at vancouversun.com/conversations. We’ll be reporting Saturday on the interview with Ken Sim, who is seeking re-election with ABC.

Stuart McNish: Let’s project four years out. You’ve been elected mayor, and you’re seeking re-election. How does Vancouver look different four years from now?

Pete Fry: I think Vancouverites feel better about the city for a variety of reasons.

The city feels more transparent and accountable as a government. I think that people feel they have a place in the city and that it’s affordability needs are met. … I think that people feel that they are welcomed in the city. … I should say that we’ve also engaged and supported robust business development in the face of what we’re experiencing right now with the Trump tariffs … and that we’ve built in the resilience.

But the big one for me is also that we’ve really addressed some of the issues around community safety in and around the Downtown Eastside.

McNish: So, is community safety first for you?

Fry: The top three are cost of living, good governance and community safety.

McNish: Let’s talk about safety. It must be connected to a discussion about what amounts to a failed open use drug policy.

Fry: The reality is that consumption and trafficking of drugs is a criminal issue. So, it’s not really the jurisdiction of the city of Vancouver per se.

What I believe that we can do, and we have not done, is to better manage the public spaces. And we can do that by saying, you know what, you can’t do that there. You can do it over there. And we can create spaces that are a little bit more sanctioned and places where it’s not acceptable.

I think that Ken Sim has misstepped by trying to ban overdose prevention sites and ban supportive housing. … I think the opportunity … is to take overdose prevention sites and set some criteria around the operational conditions to run an overdose prevention site.

Right now, there’s actually none. You have more conditions on your licence if you want to open a bar or a restaurant than you do if you open an overdose prevention site.

This is a health issue and blocking an overdose prevention site is a fool’s errand because it is actually a constitutional right.

McNish: So, you see an increase in the number of overdose prevention sites along with greater guardrails?

Fry: I think responding to the need, and I don’t know that it necessarily means an increased number or better operations. I also look within that context of your classic sort of methadone clinic, some of them are very poorly run.

I’ve got one in my neighbourhood next to my own pharmacist and he struggles. He’s had to hire private security to keep his patrons safe because he’s next door to a poorly run clinic that doesn’t care about their surroundings