E3-58 A bold strategy Cotton

The two questions that... abc brought forward and had to call a special council meeting after they had adjourned previous one saying we don't have any time to deal with more business before the election they called a special council meeting the preface to the two questions is vancouver has experienced unprecedented levels of street disorder open air hard drug use and disruption to community safety and individual health therefore Yes or no.

Are you in favor of the city of Vancouver strengthening its laws to forbid open-air hard drug, bracket, heroin, meth, fentanyl, and crack use in public spaces? Two, should the city of Vancouver formally ask the province of BC to convert portions of the old St.

Paul's Hospital or another similar site into a secure medical facility that provides acute voluntary and 100-plus involuntary care beds for individuals posing a serious risk for themselves or others due to severe substance use and mental health disorders?

It's a lot.

Let's start with the preamble there.

Vancouver has experienced unprecedented levels of street disorder, open air, hard drug use and disruption to community safety and individual health.

So they're asserting that.

So this is an attempt to shape public perception in the preamble.

They're not presenting evidence to support some sort of claim against the long history of Vancouver.

They're just saying things are worse than they ever have been.

And so clearly something has to be done.

That's the implication.

Are you in favor of doing something or not? It's a highly charged opening to what is supposedly a neutral testing of public opinion.

Also, Stuart, remind me if I'm wrong, but if this claim is true, who's been in charge for the last four years with the majority on council? Well, this is an excellent point.

This is presumably the culmination of four years of ABC's attempts to bring about public order.

This has been a priority for them since coming to office with their... famous commitment to hire 100 cops and 100 public health nurses to deal with the situation.

They have taken dramatic action, including the sweep through the downtown Eastside, displacing unhoused people there into other parts of the city.

Those people don't cease to exist when they have been displaced from where they have been congregating.

So really drawing attention to, presumably, the lack of attention to the issue by council over the last four years.

It's a bold strategy, Cotton, as the meme would have it.

And it is also, just to point out, using charged language, even in describing the situation, talking about open-air hard drug use.

Like, that's not exactly a neutral framing.

This is trying to drive it home that this is something bad to be worried about.

I'm surprised they didn't use more slang terms for drugs, talking about the use of molly on the streets among the kids and whatnot.

Like, it is torped.