Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2007
Source: Saanich News (CN BC)
Column: B.C. Views
Copyright: 2007 Saanich News
Contact:  http://www.saanichnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1209
Author: Tom Fletcher
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

UGLY SUMMER IN THE OFFING

The "honour system" has finally been abandoned on the Greater 
Vancouver buses. The establishment of "fare paid zones" beyond the 
driver's seat and at least the theoretical appearance of someone to 
check tickets is an effort to stem the problem of people refusing to 
pay and assaulting drivers who remind them the ride isn't quite free.

It seems that once a city reaches a certain size, it doesn't have 
enough honour left for honour systems. Surveys indicate that Ottawa 
doesn't yet have bus anarchy, but Toronto does.

A relieved Vancouver bus driver interviewed on TV said being spit on 
wasn't the worst of it. He's also been punched, kicked and pulled 
from his seat while the bus was moving.

In Victoria, the Canada Day fireworks has been known for a finale 
involving drunken brawls on the upper deck of those London-style 
buses. (No reports yet of fights breaking out in horsedrawn carriages 
or rickshaws, but with international soccer matches in town I'm not 
ruling it out.) Victoria's just reaching the critical mass where such 
night-time public events are surrendered and the downtown streets 
given over to purveyors of the nightly buffet of blood, pee and pavement pizza.

Then there is the illegal drug problem. Victoria's mayor still 
believes in something called a "safe injection site," as the city 
looks for a new home for its blight of a "needle exchange program." 
Nanaimo's pilot project to hand out crack pipes has sputtered like a 
spent Bic lighter, due to threats from ungrateful recipients.

The Capital Regional District, which still can't keep its emergency 
radio system working, is right on the ball. They've just instituted a 
crackdown, not on crack, but on outdoor patio smoking. New provincial 
regulations are being worked out now to bar smoking around doorways 
and windows as of next year, but that's not far or fast enough for 
some urban social engineers.

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is offering a bit of fresh air on the 
drug problems that plague his city. He's moving on from the "safe 
injection" and "needle exchange" stopgaps that promote continued 
abuse. Give the hardcore addicts legal pills that approximate the ups 
and downs of cocaine and heroin, he suggests, and at least they have 
a hope of getting off the mean streets.

But the most sensible strategy is coming from Vancouver-Burrard MLA 
Lorne Mayencourt, who earlier pioneered the radical notion that 
pedestrians, like bus drivers, shouldn't have to put up with being 
threatened or assaulted. He has been touring the province to promote 
the model of the San Patrignano treatment community in Italy, a 
remote self-contained rural facility where people can check in and 
stay for three to five years, drug-free and working at a real job. It 
has more than 2,000 people in voluntary attendance, and claims a 75 
per cent success rate.

Mayencourt has identified a preferred location, a former radar 
station called Baldy Hughes located 30 km southwest of Prince George. 
It offers a dormitory, mobile home pads, welding and woodworking 
shops, a bowling alley, curling rink and gym.

Prince George already has its share of big-city problems, being a 
service centre for the medical, social and penal needs of the 
province's north. But it too could benefit from this refreshing 
approach to the low-level crime, panhandling and prostitution that is 
intertwined with drugs in urban centres.

There are other remote locations around the province that could take 
a similar approach. It seems like a better idea than waiting for 
Vancouver or Victoria to develop something that actually has a chance 
of working.

Vancouver is the site of another pilot project, a community court. 
Attorney General Wally Oppal has high hopes for this project, which 
has hearings underway led by provincial court judge Thomas Gove.

The court will deal with the break-ins and other low-level offences 
that form the revolving door for drug addicted repeat offenders. The 
idea is to direct offenders to treatment, housing and employment 
services to break the cycle of crime and drugs. If it's successful, 
community courts would be established in other B.C. centres.

While this approach has had some successes in the United States, the 
U.K and Australia, I have to wonder how effective it will be if it 
keeps people in and around Vancouver, or New Westminster or Surrey.

Perhaps a solution lies in combining the community court or drug 
court model with Mayencourt's suggested retreat. Getting people away 
from the drug and sex bazaar tolerated in major urban areas, and 
doing it for a period of years, might make the difference.

"Activists" in Vancouver were out to protest a six per cent increase 
in transit fares last week. That's two bits for a one-zone fare, or 
10 to 15 cents for those who buy passes.

These sorts of protests are generally orchestrated by a group that 
calls itself the "bus riders' union." They want you to think they 
represent the working poor, but these are the maggots who came to 
prominence by breaking up transit authority meetings with threats, 
shouts, and the general miasma of anarchist behaviour that's become 
commonplace in Vancouver.

Their antics are eerily similar to those of the "anti-poverty 
activists" who periodically manufacture a confrontation at Olympic 
events. They want free housing, transit, food, drugs, whatever. 
Increasingly, they get it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom