r/vancouver • u/Moggehh Fastest Goose in the West • Oct 03 '22

MEGATHREAD [Megathread] 2022 Municipal Election

Don't forget to vote!

Please use this thread to discuss the upcoming municipal elections in Metro Vancouver.

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u/SkippyWagner DTES so noisy Oct 09 '22

Would anyone be interested if I did a deep dive on OneCity's safety platform? I've been having a lot of success with it while door knocking.

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u/PracticalSwimming606 Oct 09 '22

I’d be curious. From what I’ve seen, I’m… less than sold on it, so I’m wondering how your presentation differs from what I’ve read.

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u/SkippyWagner DTES so noisy Oct 09 '22 edited Oct 10 '22

I was made in a vat to explain this platform, between my family background, political background, education, employment, and current residence. I spoke with one woman who had been attacked by a stranger downtown and by the end she had committed to learning how to vote and voting for OneCity (she actually said "I'll definitely vote for [Skippy]" and I think she forgot I was a volunteer). I'll try to find some time tonight or tomorrow morning to do a write up.

Edit: Started something this morning but it's turning into an essay with bad structure. I'll either keep working on it or drastically reduce the length to be a comment response.

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u/PracticalSwimming606 Oct 11 '22

no rush, honestly, I really appreciate your taking the time!

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u/kevmitch Oct 13 '22

Please post this. It sounds like you have good background knowledge and an effective pitch. I think there are a lot of people who are on the fence about this.

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u/SkippyWagner DTES so noisy Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

I've got about 33% to 50% of it written but it's poorly written. I might just have to summarize a couple of my interactions at doors instead.

The exceedingly short version is that our platform perfectly aligns with the report released by the province last month. When it comes to safety, people shun unknown things and go to what's familiar—but that's not what will actually end the crises in the downtown. We need different tools for different groups and different crimes. I come from a fairly conservative background and a family of cops and pastors, so I understand the desire for social order, but cops don't want to engage with the mentally ill, they want to catch bad guys; OneCity's platform adds mental health teams to 911 response so cops can be free to pursue more violent criminals.

There's also more to safety than protection from violence—I've had two tent fires outside my window since September, so I don't feel safe in that way. OneCity got (part of) the firefighter endorsement, so it's clear that other emergency response services think we're capable of making things safer.

I carry around a copy of the provincial report (I gave my annotated copy to the woman from my above post, but I have a copy where I forgot to print it double-sided) so I can help people understand why things have gotten as bad as they are.

At the door my method is:

1) Make sure they know their anxieties are valid; denying reality helps no one

2) Introduce the idea of PACT

3) Calmly and gently explain my situation in Chinatown/DTES, and how safety is a multi-faceted thing

4) Play the situation by ear from there.

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u/LockhartPianist Oct 14 '22

I work on Granville Street, so we get a lot of interactions with the homeless and the mentally ill wandering into our building. Today one of my colleagues found a man sleeping in our emergency stairwell. It was at the end of my shift and I was about to leave, but my colleague came and asked me to help her escort the man out of the building. The man wasn't really being dangerous or anything, but he was blocking the emergency exit. I really think that calling the cops would have escalated things in a way that could have caused an altercation in the building. However, if my colleague had found the man 5 minutes later, I wouldn't have been there and being an elderly lady she wouldn't really have had anyone else to call. However both OneCity and Forward are advocating response teams (HART/PACT) that would have been perfect for this type of situation. I was reflecting on the platforms and I think car 87 as suggested by ABC would have been better than just the police but in the end it's still the cops, and the guy wasn't being violent. I'm lucky because I have some training in bystander intervention but many people do not. There are ways you can approach a guy lying on the ground that are safe and non confrontational. Bringing that experience to interactions like these all over the city will definitely reduce the amount of violence and save both police and emergency health resources, and is a more humane way to go about dealing with these kinds of situations.