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Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under
Ok. Well first of all I am not sure where it said in the article there is not a crime or drug problem in Vancouver. Also not sure where you got the idea that anyone claiming there is a problem gets labelled "far right". Of course there are these problems in Vancouver. The DTES is a complete mess and is getting worse. The situation in Vancouver is bad. Maybe stop with the straw manning.
But a large part of the video is misleading and quite frankly a long VPD Union comms piece on keeping their massive budget and hiring more officers. Do I think the VPD are the victims in this as it seems to be portraying. No. The retired VPD officer wants to be arresting people for doing drugs on the street, says that a collaborative approach with the community was the wrong way to go and straight up says they are there to "control behavior". Aaron then says police presence has decreased in the DTES without any evidence to back that claim up. Then right away the VPD Union guy says you join this job to help people. Doesn't sound like that to me, sounds like you're there to control behavior. Again the VPD officer sounds off on being frustrated about not being able to stop anyone he wants to and indignantly says he can't because "that would be infringing on someones rights", Aaron didn't seem too concerned about individual rights and freedoms though. Aaron then disingenuously says K Stewart was part of the "defund the police movement" by removing 6 million dollars from their 360 million dollar budget, trying to ensure that property taxes didn't go up during a pandemic when people lost jobs in one of the least affordable cities on earth. Funny Aaron didn't seem to care about public spending there. In fact the VPD budget increases annually, up 50 million from 2019, and crime is getting worse, so they should be rewarded with..more money? Dropping a "woke" in there too and Aaron's credibility just dissolved into the ether. The other annoying thing is I don't like K Stewart and you made me defend him.
Equating SROs and Supportive Housing - again misleading.
Another troubling narrative with the movie is 'when it all stayed in the DTES, everyone was ok with that, but now we see drug use across our street, thats not OK' (essentially just go back to the DTES and be an addict there not here).
The lack of compassion is quite frankly troubling.
The one thing I do agree with Aaron is that treatment and prevention needs to be paired with harm reduction. Harm reduction alone is not working. And the emphasis on de-stigmatizing doesn't, in my opinion, do much to solve anything. And the safe supply system has to be paired with, intervention, treatment and most importantly, mental health supports. Safe supply alone does nothing and will likely be a large failure.
The tent cities suck. I don't know what the solution is. I do know that 100 VPD officers won't change anything except your tax bill though.
The ease at which the VPD can just get whatever they want from a city for a budget by demonizing a mayor and joining forces with a guy like Aaron Gunn to create a 'VPD is the real victim' video is silly.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matata
There are a lot of good counterpoints to the ViD video in this post. The article had none of these points and was just an ad-hominem appeal.
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This^
I wasn't suggesting the video is above discussion or this Aaron guy has it all down. I don't know much about him and he could be a complete tool like his new Tweet is showing.
I'm certainly open to hearing rebuts of the video and appreciate you're posting some.
But that article didn't dive into anything and through out "far right" about every sentence and in every direction including mayor Kim Sim. They even made sure to tie in a MAGA hat and a white power solute?
Lazy dismissal method of writing.