FIRST READING: Vancouver objects to Poilievre’s characterization of “hell on earth.”

Vancouver Rejects Poilievre’s Depiction of City as “Hell on Earth”

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The Tory leader was referring to the “failed” addiction policies of the city’s Downtown Eastside

Published on 2/7/2023 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 4 minutes read

Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during Question Time February 1, 2023. Poilievre recently stated that liberal drug policies have turned parts of Vancouver into a “hell on earth.” Photo by REUTERS/Blair Gable

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Less than a week after becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to decriminalize possession of hard drugs, BC politicians are protesting their characterization by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre as “hell on earth”.

In particular, Poilievre pointed to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a long-standing hub of open-air drug use that has been an epicenter of both fatal drug overdoses and government efforts to alleviate them.

“The Trudeau/NDP approach will be on public display in Vancouver. It’s a complete disaster. It’s hell on earth,” Poilievre told reporters on Parliament Hill last week.

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Ken Sim recently won election for mayor of Vancouver, in part due to a campaign in which he similarly labeled the city a hotbed of crime and public disorder. Still in August, Sim described Vancouver as being plagued by a “public safety and mental health crisis”.

Still, Sim was more defensive when asked about his reaction to the “hell on earth” comments. “I don’t think Vancouver is hell on earth. I think Vancouver is an amazing city and we have so much to offer,” he said in an interview with CityNews Vancouver.

Sim added that they have some “challenges” but they are “absolutely” being addressed.

In a later statement, Sim directly condemned Poilievre, saying the comments were “neither appropriate nor constructive”. “We are not supporting anyone who is using our most vulnerable residents to advance a political agenda,” he said.

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British Columbia’s newly appointed Prime Minister, David Eby, has also taken a stronger-than-normal line against the growing specter of public disorder in British Columbia’s cities. One of his first moves as prime minister was to tighten bail laws to curb the chronic release of repeat offenders.

In November, Eby had even proposed the idea of involuntary detention and treatment for addicts with a history of overdoses – before abruptly withdrawing comments due to criticism.

Eby did not directly address Poilievre’s “hell on earth” comments when similarly asked about them in an interview, but instead defended his government’s push to move forward with decriminalization.

“The goal is to save lives, to get between predatory drug dealers and people with serious addiction problems, and we want to get between doctors and nurses, so part of that revolves around our safe care initiative,” Eby said.

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A feature in the Toronto Star also targeted the “hell on earth” comments by characterizing the Downtown Eastside as a “unique community of people trying to protect themselves and support one another.” “There’s a magic hidden behind the kind of rough exterior,” says a man named Scotty, who was interviewed while helping to look out for drug users who were collapsing from an overdose.

Instead of anger farms, Pierre Poilievre should try to recognize that the complex problems facing people in our downtown Eastside can only be overcome if all governments work together to reduce harm, provide access to treatment and support for mental health to improve health. https://t.co/Lke159gPkD

– Taleeb Noormohamed 🇨🇦 (@Taleeb) February 5, 2023

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Poilievre has in recent months campaigned against the ‘harm reduction’ approach to drug addiction that has become dominant across Canada, ultimately originating in Vancouver.

In a video shot next to a tent camp in downtown Eastside in November, Poilievre called the city’s large addict community the victims of a “failed experiment.” “This is a deliberate policy by the awakened Liberal and NDP governments to provide taxpayer-funded drugs and flood our streets with easy access to these poisons,” he said.

If the Conservatives are to form a government after the next election, Poilievre said he would reverse decriminalization and prioritize a shift toward treatment and detoxification.

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Adam Zivo: The Silence of Drug Addiction Experts Criticizing “Safe Supply”.
Adam Pankratz: Perhaps BC’s drug addicts should be faced with shame and stigma

IN OTHER NEWS

This was announced by Justice Minister David Lametti last week The Trudeau administration would wait another year before expanding assisted suicide to include the mentally ill. Next month, following a liberal 2021 law that significantly liberalized access to MAID, assisted suicide was due to be legalized for Canadians whose only underlying medical condition was a mental illness. Lametti didn’t give many details as to why, only that the government was “taking the time to get this right”. Conservatives praised the pause but said it was a sign the Trudeau government may be acknowledging right now that it has been going too hard and too fast on assisted suicide. “They have made a decision to proceed with a radical expansion of MAID without first determining whether it is appropriate, whether it can be done safely,” Tory MP Michael Cooper said.

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Last week, Ontario farmer Jerry Huigen went viral with a video documenting how he was forced to dump 30,000 liters of milk because it exceeded his Canadian Dairy Commission quota. The whole purpose of the quota (and the necessary dumping) is to artificially limit the supply of milk in Canada so prices can be fixed. And it’s thanks to that price-fixing that the price of milk just rose another 2.2 percent, according to the Canadian Dairy Commission. Photo by TikTok/Terry_Huigen

Speaking of assisted suicide, Canada’s euthanasia regime was the subject of a recent investigative article (Canada’s Department of Death) in the National Review, a US conservative monthly. An interesting thread that author Alexander Raikin traced was the powerful behind-the-scenes influence of Dying With Dignity Canada, a lobby group that had strong support from Moses Znaimer, owner of Zoomer Magazine. “In every interview I’ve had with disability advocates or physicians who are skeptical about on-demand euthanasia, I’ve asked why they think euthanasia has become such an industry in Canada,” Raikin wrote. “The answer was always the same: ‘Die with dignity Canada’.”

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The Toronto Star has previously advocated “putting the brakes on” Canada’s MAID regime, but over the weekend they released a particularly bizarre take on assisted suicide from contributor Samantha Israel. Israel described a severely depressed friend who once begged for a ride to a nearby bridge so she could jump to her death. The girlfriend has since recovered and feels “lucky to have gotten over her depressive episode”. Nevertheless, Israel insists it is the state’s duty to ensure that people in their friend’s state have the freedom to seek suicide if asked. “And because I’ve witnessed her suffering firsthand, I think I’d drive her this time,” she writes.

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