Pivot Legal Society

Imagine if your city government decided to take a public vote to determine whether you and your family members should have access to health care.  Maybe they decide that your mother is not entitled to receive the insulin she needs to manage her diabetes.  Based on what the public decides about your mother and her illness, and not what her doctors think should be done to promote her health, your city government says it will pass a bylaw that prevents her and others in her situation from receiving that treatment in their home community.  Preposterous and unreasonable?  Absolutely.   But, this is exactly what happens when municipal governments decide to ban harm reduction services based on public opinion and stigma about drugs and the people who use them.

After eight years of head-in-sand policies regarding harm reduction, including the province's most oppressive zoning bylaw limiting health services, the Abbotsford City Council may have seen the light of day.

Last Monday, the Executive Committee of Council voted unanimously to repeal the prohibition on harm reduction services in the City's zoning bylaw.  Although the Committee has not set a public target date for this change, signs indicate that Council has finally turned a corner in its approach to life-saving health care approaches such as distributing clean needles to people who are injecting drugs.

This morning, we gathered with dozens of Downtown Eastside residents at the corner of Hastings Street and Dunlvey Avenue, in the Downtown Eastside to launch a new rights card aimed at private security guards.

On April 3, two United Nations independent experts urged the Hungarian Government to retract a recently passed amendment that criminalizes homelessness.  The Hungarian Parliament had passed the amendment to the Hungarian Fundamental Law that would authorize national and municipal legislation to outlaw sleeping in public places.  "Through this amendment, the Hungarian Parliament institutionalizes the criminalization of homelessness and enshrines discrimination against and stigmatization of homeless persons in the Constitution," said the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Magdalena Sepulveda.  "Such legislation will have a disproportionate impact on persons living in poverty in general and on homeless persons in particular.  This will not only impede the enjoyment of human rights of homeless persons, but will also promote prejudice towards people living in poverty and homeless persons for generations to come."

A private security guard employed by Genesis Security who was fired after being caught on video swearing at a one-legged man as he threw him from his wheelchair is now suing his former employer in small claims court.

The guard, who was found to have breached the conditions of his license by the provincial regulator, has also been criminally charged with assault. He is arguing, however, that his dismissal was simply designed to minimize negative publicity.  

On June 12, 2013 Canada’s highest court will hear the matter of Attorney General of Canada, et al. v. Terri Jean Bedford, et al. Pivot, Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV) and PACE asked the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to be there to ensure that the voices and realities of street-based sex workers from the Downtown Eastside inform the Court’s decision, which will have profound implications for sex workers across the country.

Late last week we announced a major development in our campaign to regulate and restrict the use of police dogs in our province. Shirley Bond, the Minister of Justice, has confirmed that the Director of Police Services has struck a working group to analyze the training and deployment of police dogs in B.C, and will be examining the possibility of provincial regulations. When we filed our latest lawsuit against the RCMP on behalf of Bill Evanow, a Maple Ridge man who was accidentally bitten by a police dog while chasing a car thief from his property, the prospect of reforming the training and deployment of police dogs in the province still seemed very far away. Now, with the discovery that the provincial government will be taking action, there is hope that the issue has finally caught the attention of our lawmakers. 

British Columbia has suffered a number of tragedies in which women and their children where killed by an intimate partner.  Reports commissioned in the aftermath of these tragedies point to a consistent set of problems – lack of coordination, consistency and collaboration between systems responsible for responding to violence against women with children.

On March 18, 2013, BC’s took a long awaited and important step forward in addressing these problems with the introduction of the new Family Law Act (FLA).  The FLA, a culmination of years of stakeholder engagement, represents a major shift in how the province responds to violence against women, particularly where there are children involved.   Unlike its predecessor, the Family Relations Act, the FLA comprehensively defines family violence.  It also mandates that when making orders the court must consider both the impact of family violence on children, and the ability of the parent who suffered the violence to parent alongside the abuser.  Another important feature of the FLA is that it attempts to create clarity and consistency between family, criminal and child protection law.

I was recently taken on two tours of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) with two of my friends who both work in the area. One has been actively involved in volunteerism with several of the local community support services for 30 years and the other is a veteran social worker of 20+ years. I wasn’t sure of what to expect, but after having read Cracks in the Foundation, I was confident that the adventure I was about to embark on was going to sadden me and anger me. I was right, it did.

My introduction started off by a brief history lesson of the Riverview hospital. It was a medical institution that cared for many individuals with mental illness. It closed once mental health care became regionalized. Upon sizing down, many of its residents were not welcomed back to their respective communities with open arms as the hospital’s administration expected. Former patients eventually ended up in the DTES. At the time, it was the only place they could afford to stay long-term. Many of today’s DTES residents are descendants of those individuals, giving the area a long history of suffering.

If you’ve ever taken a look through the numerous By-Laws which have been created by the City of Vancouver’s you’re probably aware that something you have done within the last few hours is illegal. Stepping off the curb too soon, riding your bike to work without a bell, walking your dog without a leash, playing your Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood record too loudly. Most of us go about our day knowing that corners can be cut, By-Laws can be breached, and only once in a blue moon will you be caught, warned, or fined. When it does happen the effect is stinging, but short, and more often that not we look back and realize it was deserved.

The same rules don't apply to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.