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CINDY E. HARNETT
Times Colonist
B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson says he would restrict tent cities, work with municipal leaders to better help vulnerable people and restore order to urban streets if his party forms government.
“Health is a provincial responsibility, period,” said Wilkinson at a campaign stop in the Lower Mainland on Thursday. “When you have people languishing on the streets, living in tents, being warehoused in hotels with untreated schizophrenia — that is wrong.”
Wilkinson said the province must work with mayors and communities to come up with viable solutions.
“These vulnerable people who are preyed upon by criminals are citizens of British Columbia and they deserve to be treated like citizens of British Columbia,” he said.
Wilkinson’s comments follow a letter from 13 mayors calling on political parties to pledge immediate help for the spiralling mental health and addiction crises in urban areas, where people are sleeping in city parks.
Victoria and Vancouver had tent cities prior to COVID-19, but since the pandemic began and shelters closed or reduced beds, they have multiplied and sprung up in more and smaller cities.
The province responded by buying and leasing hotels and building modular housing to house those living in tents.
NDP Leader John Horgan said this week that his government has made progress getting people off the streets in a number of communities, but added: “Despite our best efforts, it seems to the public like this is getting out of control.”
The newly formed B.C. Urban Mayors’ Caucus wants to see expanded treatment options and increased access to a safer drug supply. Pandemic-related border closures have led to an increasingly toxic drug supply by disrupting supply routes.
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog, a former NDP MLA, has called for the return of secure facilities where people with more severe mental health and addictions issues can receive care and medication, while Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who co-chairs the caucus, says simply providing housing with supports isn’t enough for people with more complex needs.
The mayors of cities including Maple Ridge and Nanaimo have been crying out for help from the provincial government and have been “ignored” or have had modular housing dumped into their communities without approvals, said Wilkinson.
Wilkinson didn’t offer specifics on how his party would ensure better prevention and treatment programs, house people who are homeless and curtail tent cities, saying the Liberal platform will be out soon.
Wilkinson said court rulings saying people have a right to camp if there’s no shelter for them are “appropriate,” but they need a place to go that’s “effective and helpful for them.”
“These are transient, temporary solutions to a problem that needs to be addressed squarely,” he said. “And let’s be clear, a tent does not treat schizophrenia, a tent does not treat addiction.”
“A tent is not a home when it’s -10 C and snowing in January, a tent is not a home when someone comes by at 2 a.m. in the morning with a knife and rips it open.”
Speaking in front of a digital backdrop of news headlines about stabbings, weapons, thefts and business break-ins, Wilkinson also said the proliferation of street crime in urban centres needs to be fixed. “It is not acceptable to hear of people being chased down the street by a man with a chainsaw, it is not acceptable to hear of a loaded assault rifle being found in an alleyway in Strathcona,” said Wilkinson.
The NDP’s attempts to fix the problems have not worked, he said.
“Our most vulnerable people are being left to drift on the streets of our cities,” said Wilkinson. “These are people who are suffering from brain injuries, untreated mental illness and addictions. They deserve better.”
ceharnett@timescolonist.com