PG's Town Hall on Community Safety
A missed opportunity
Good morning! I hope you all have been enjoying this delightfully rainy weather and joining me in saying “man, we really needed this” whenever the topic comes up in conversation (because boy, we really needed this).
Last night was the much anticipated and VERY well attended Town Hall on Community/Downtown Safety and like a good civically engaged citizen (a Super Citizen as I’ve learned the City has branded us), I put on my cape and tights and joined a room full of PG Avengers.
My attempt at summarizing the event
Maybe before we dig in, I’ll just note Mayor Simon Yu was out of town for this event and the organizers provided no context on where or what he was doing but there was a noticeable “????” feeling when Councillor Polillo announced he would be Acting Mayor for the event. Without more information on his decision, I can only just say that it’s hard not to feel a bit discouraged by his lack of presence.
Okay, on to a brief summary of presentations.
The City outlined the things they’re doing (with some VERY carefully sculpted language around how they illegally dismantled encampments and are not allowed to dismantle Moccasin Flats until they can provide proof that there is enough alternative housing). They went over some other timelines and initiatives happening in the city. While I clearly haven’t agreed with every step of the journey, I will say it was nice to see it laid out plainly and I think was valuable context for the room.
The Fire Chief broke down some statistics around their calls and I think did a good job explaining how complicated their job has become in responding to the kinds of fires that occur in encampments and small fires downtown.
The RCMP Superintendent reviewed overall case and call stats, and maybe tipped his hand a little too hard on how he felt about decriminalization and Safe Supply. We learned our crime severity index has gone down, there’s some positive downward trends in police calls/cases BUT it is undeniable that our City’s RCMP members are overburdened relative to the provincial average and a LOT of that burden comes from downtown.
So, that’s it. Those were our speakers for the night and if you’re wondering what the temperature of the room was at this moment, I guess I’d say it was pretty luke warm.
You may also be wondering:
“Where are representatives from local and regional First Nations?”
The crowd was clearly also wondering this as it was the first question of the Q&A period that was immediately voted to the top of the Slideo app on the screen.
The City Manager responded something to the tune of “we have always believed in the importance of our relationship with the Lheidli T’enneh and will relay all of our findings” which I’m not sure if it means they weren’t invited or weren’t able to come - similar to the Mayor Yu situation - I can’t fairly speculate beyond what was said but I can’t help but think they would have provided that explanation if they did send an invite.
And if I’m being honest, at an hour and 15 minutes in, I think this was the moment where I mentally just checked out of the whole thing (and eventually physically checked out).
I’ll try to explain why:
Where you point the spotlight matters.
Some questions:
Beyond just missing representation from Lheidli T’enneh, where was representation on-stage from the organizations like Foundry or The Fire Pit or any of the different supportive organizations? Why were there no advocacy groups presenting on the good work that has been done on the social support end of things? PGNAETA did a survey of our homeless population in 2021 - where was their presentation on the work that is being done to understand these people’s lives and the circumstances that lead to homelessness? No representation from Moccasin Flats to tell us about the supports and services being provided or the initiatives being deployed by those who work on the front lines.
I understand some of them were in the crowd and were able to participate in the Q&A section but I think it’s pretty telling who was given a spotlight for who had a presentation and a spot on the stage.
And I’m going to be a bit specific here:
You know what I believe the community needs more than the RCMP recapping 2 scary stories of boogeyman criminal repeat offenders? Stories of the youth who were born into these broken systems, into families who were struggling with intergenerational trauma as a result of an attempted genocide, who fell into addiction and homelessness because there are no safety nets - who don’t light fires in alleys to be a “nuisance” but because they have no other way of staying warm.
Why was there 0 attempt to generate empathy and compassion for the people who are experiencing homelessness and addiction and instead, a full on attempt to garner sympathy for the City and Emergency Services?
So what was this event ACTUALLY doing?
I appreciate the IDEA of an event like this - I believe in the function of Town Halls and Community Forums. Though I may not agree with every stance and every vote they’ve taken, I appreciate Kyle and Cori - I put them on the side of trying to do good by our City. Transparently, I voted for both of them (and would do it again) but as the co-sponsoring Councillors of this event, I’m just disappointed in the avenue they chose and the people/services they put a spotlight on.
To me, the decision to highlight City officials and emergency services and not the different social services is symbolic of the great error most people make when thinking about the issues at stake here.
The solution to the City’s problems do require punitive action - I would never diminish the complexity of the RCMP’s role in the problems at play here BUT to not acknowledge the social and compassionate actions required last night was a huge miss. This was a rare moment - a captive audience of concerned citizens and it was such a ripe opportunity to give them an ounce of compassion and education.
My attempt at concluding this newsletter
I wrote a whole newsletter about this but every time we call these “downtown problems”, we are diminishing the severity of what is happening - these are coinciding gigantic, societal and economic cataclysms.
It feels a tiny bit like going to a Town Hall and asking Cori and Kyle to solve inflation.
That isn’t me trying to give our City a pass - there’s so many things we can be doing to make the lives of those struggling (both those experiencing homelessness and addiction AND the business owners and citizens who are impacted by it). A forum is a good place to share stories, frustrations, and facilitate conversation.
In that way, I acknowledge there’s value in giving the community space to vent last night so I won’t say this event was a total failure but I just wish there was more done generate compassion and empathy from the organizers.
My ask for future events would be to balance the scale of folks on stage - to make sure that we’re not just telling the story of crime and emergency but building a narrative of compassion and hope.
Alright. That’s it from me.
I’m going to skip the recommendation section this week - I always feel a bit weird putting like a “you gotta try these donuts!!” at the bottom of these heavier newsletters so instead, I will just point you toward the Indian Residential School Survivors page here.
There’s a ton of great organizations you can donate to so don’t feel pressured to choose this one but I think these are the kinds of organizations that deserve our attention and our spotlight and setting up something like a recurring $50 donation (if you have the means, of course) can go a LONG way.
Thanks for reading, as always! See ya next week.
Well said. I was also very disappointed with this event. Its telling when we're in the middle of drug toxicity crisis and the conversation is dominated by the air quality of the Miller Addition. Who is impacted by the former? Predominantly poor, predominantly Indigenous community members. Who is impacted by the latter? Predominantly wealthy and predominantly white ones. I swear the average age of the room was 60+ years old.
It really does show who is prioritized in our political discussions.
I'll type more when I'm off work and home on my comfy laptop and not this tiny phone (I'm old too). I had to leave just as the RCMP started their presentation as I had a volunteer meeting but after reading the open house posters and noticing the lack of indigenous and social services representation on stage and panel, it was pretty clear how the messaging was going to lean. The poster in the open house that had four levels of government and their responsibilities, with a lazy footnote underneath about indigenous governments... followed by the city manager talking about government responsibilities again in his presentation and completely skating over any acknowledgement of indigenous governments, was all one big red flag for me. I'm waiting for the recording to get posted so I can catch the rest of it. I
I just typed more on this tiny phone than planned.