The Tyee is one of the few news agencies in the country that has a journalist in the room while this story unfolds. Not only do we rely on official press releases to tell them the story, we’re here and making our own observations.
We just need to put more resources into this story because a few thousand Tyee readers contribute to our editorial budget every month.
We need to be able to say “yes” to cover maximum vital stories, even if it’s expensive. Can you help us say yes? Click here to register now in Tyee Builders.
Independent journalism that puts readers first is more vital than ever. Tyee can focus on publishing detailed articles and public interest objectives without charging access to the reader.
For what? Because a small percentage of regular readers participate in our editorial budget each month, we call them Tyee Builders and they are amazing.
Tyee Builders is the fuel that makes The Tyee run. As other editorials shrink, we’ve been able to expand our team and publish more of our reporters and our expanding independent team, keeping our articles loose and open to everyone.
If you think Canada wants more independent journalism, join Tyee Builders.
Independent journalism that puts readers first is more vital than ever. Tyee can focus on publishing detailed articles and public interest objectives without charging access to the reader.
For what? Because a small percentage of regular readers participate in our editorial budget each month, we call them Tyee Builders and they are amazing.
Tyee Builders is the fuel that makes The Tyee run. As other newsrooms shrink, we’ve been able to grow our team and publish more of our developing reporters and loose equipment, keeping our articles loose and available to everyone.
If you think Canada wants more independent journalism, join Tyee Builders.
Jen St. Denis is the journalist for Tyee’s Downtown Eastside. Look for it on Twitter . . JenStDen. This reporting rate is made imaginable through the Local Journalism Initiative.
We are in an era of wonderful expansion and able to upload a new member to the team. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.
Five days of panels, workshops, pitch and more, from 18 to 22 November. Charge your headphones!
Sullivan, a re-election candidate at Vancouver-False Creek, said the organization has the same call as a previous organization, is not the same and does not share the hardline position of former Vancouver Safer, now known as Save Our City. .
“Vancouver’s security is different from a month ago, a lot of renovations have been carried out there,” Sullivan told Tyee.
“These are other teams that merged, split and merged: the Center Community Security Watch, Save Our City, which used to be Safer Vancouver, and now Safer Vancouver, which is a faction. “
Sullivan is also supported by Dean Wilson, former president of the Vancouver Area Drug User Network. Wilson said he still supports Sullivan because of his track record of supporting Canada’s first injection site in Vancouver.
Sullivan advocated for the electorate who did not need to see an overdose prevention moved to a covered domain of Seymour and Helmcken streets near Emery Barnes Park in Yaletown, saying they feared the resolution would drive more violence, open drug use and discarded needles. your neighborhood.
“Yaletown is outrageous because it will bring down other people with serious untreated addictions in the middle of a community full of young families with mortgages and raising children,” he wrote. “It is right in front of a playground and soon a new school.
The town hall passed on Tuesday. Wilson said he thinks the board made the right decision.
The resolution comes amid an increase in overdose deaths and the expansion of homelessness, either aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The most recent overdose statistics show that another 1,202 people have died so far this year, far exceeding 983 deaths by the 2019 total.
In an interview with News 1130 today, Sullivan said drug sites were “ethically contrary. “
“They don’t make medical sense where you have the pharmaceutical characteristics. Supervised injection style is one in which other people borrow or take begging aggressively, or prostitute themselves to make money,” Sullivan said.
Terry Lake, a former Liberal DEPUTY of British Columbia who was the province’s fitness minister during the 2016 overdose crisis, said on Twitter that he was disappointed by the comments. Safe intake sites “keep other people alive and do not update the remedy with an opioid agonist, even rather they are a component of a comprehensive technique for public fitness,” Lake said.
But Sullivan said he was proud of his record by voting at Canada’s first secure injection site, Insite, as a municipal advisor to the NPA. At the time, there was no other option for others using illicit substances, he said.
As mayor in 2007, Sullivan said he defended the style of origin of prescription heroin as practiced through the Crosstown Clinic on the Downtown Eastside. Expanding those types of origin systems is a better option than overdose prevention sites, he said.
“Now there’s no way for other people to take illicit drugs when pharmaceuticals are available,” Sullivan said.
A safer Vancouver was formed after other homeless people were moved from a tent to the city at Oppenheimer Park on the east side of town to the Howard Johnson Hotel, now called Luugat, on Granville and Davie streets. in parks after moving in.
Safer Vancouver’s latest edition called damage relief a “failed experiment,” lobbied for an audit of all agencies in the East and East Central, and partnered with StepUP, an organization of homeowners with multimillion-dollar assets that opposed the BC. The NDP’s most sensible tax on housing, more than $3 million.
Former spokeswoman Dallas Brodie advised that others with intellectual diseases or addictions be locked up in establishments outside the cities. He’s with Save Our City now.
“He lives Shaughnessy. Es part of that Yaletown group,” Sullivan said of Brodie’s involvement in the group.
On October 10, Sullivan also gave the impression on a podcast presented by James Faulkner, a Yaletown resident, who interviewed Brodie several times.
In this podcast, Faulkner said he believed that other people who use drugs are a “tribe,” while the middle-class citizens of the center are another “tribe” and that any of the teams would have difficulty living next to each other.
“The total lifestyle of Vancouver, the tribal component of other people who paint very hard to pay an exorbitant amount for genuine property, probably more than they can, will now have to check to use all the skills they have to navigate in the face of those who don’t actually contribute anything to the community,” Faulkner said in his interview with Sullivan.
At many points in the interview, Sullivan rejected this view, saying that when other people with addictions live in homes where they receive good support, they are “good neighbors. “
Sullivan also talked about the history of drug control in Canada, and explained to Faulkner that Canada has followed the style of enforcement of U. S. law rather than the British style of drug remedy as a medical problem.
“Let’s describe the smart neighbors, ” replied Faulkner after Sullivan’s history lesson. “Do you make a contribution to society?”
Sullivan told The Tyee that Faulkner had one of other people living in Yaletown and that he sought to publicize his prospects to that person.
Safer Vancouver’s current director, Michael Geldert, spoke to City Hall on October 13 about the Yaletown Overdose Prevention Site. When asked if he was sometimes in favor of safe ingesting sites, he replied, “We don’t need more, but it’s not better. “
The Tyee asked Geldert if Safer Vancouver supports relief from the wounded and a safe supply. He did not respond, but in an email he said the organization was committed to “advocating for responses that result in relief in the number of other people using street drugs, overdose deaths, and injuries resulting from the use of harmful supplies. “
Geldert said Safer Vancouver is also interested in studies through Julian Somers, a professor at Simon Fraser University. Studies show that long-term remedies and supports are more effective than “crisis-based services. “
Sullivan said he disagreed with the way the NDP government expanded the source with ingredients like Dilaudid tablets, which many users then weigh to inject even though the pills are not designed to be injected.
Sullivan would like to see an expansion of the prescription heroin program still operating at the Crosstown Clinic in Downtown Eastside, a program that began as a study trial and is still limited to less than two hundred participants.
Sullivan was also criticized for adding a quote from Garth Mullins, a journalist and drug advocate, in a recent cross-crusade video to show that damage relief advocates are critical of the NDP’s approach.
The video also included warnings that an overdose prevention in Helmcken and Seymour would bring needles and crime to the neighborhood.
But Mullins replied that his appointment had been used with his permission and called the B. C. Liberals to remove Sullivan from his list.
Read more: Health, B. C. Election 2020, Municipal Policy
When you subscribe to an edition of the newsletter, you’ll also learn about Tyee events, news, promotions, spouse messages, and special initiatives.
In addition to the privacy provision of the Privacy Act, non-public data is kept confidential through TheTyee. ca and will be sold, exchanged, disclosed, shared or distributed to other individuals, organizations or agencies without prior consent or ification.
Measures have been taken to ensure the integrity of non-public data and protect it from misuse, loss or manipulation. All data sent to The Tyee should only be delivered to workers or subcontractors who are required through an agreement with The Tyee to Keep Data Private. Email addresses are only used for Tyee correspondence or comment moderation.
If you have any privacy concerns, please contact us at info@thetyee. ca
Tyee Poll: Do you think B. C. replace your plan to fight the pandemic in schools?
This week’s survey responds