MAYORAL CANDIDATES BACK INSITE

Vancouver will continue to support the city's controversial
safe-injection site, no matter who sits in the mayor's chair after the
November elections.

Mayoral candidates Gregor Robertson, Raymond Louie, Peter Ladner and
Allan De Genova put aside politics and partisanship yesterday and
presented a united front urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep
Insite's doors open after June.

Incumbent Mayor Sam Sullivan, who did not attend yesterday's news
conference, is on record supporting Insite.

"We cannot do this without federal help," said NPA candidate Ladner.
"Listen to the experts, show some compassion . . . and don't get hung
up on the ideology."

Former mayor Philip Owen, a pioneer of the city's Four Pillars Drug
Strategy, said the war on drugs has been a failure and that Canada
should take a different route. "Let us work together open-mindedly and
leave the hostilities somewhere else and work out a Canadian
solution," he urged Harper.

Insite, the only supervised safe-injection site in North America, has
operated in the Downtown Eastside since 2003 under a federal drug-law
exemption. The permit, which has been extended twice, expires June
30.

Vision Vancouver candidate De Genova said he's disappointed at the
lack of support from the Tory government: "We should be expanding the
Insite centre, not fighting to keep the one centre open."

Liz Evans, director of the Portland Hotel Society which runs Insite,
said about 600 to 1,100 people use the facility daily. "We're
absolutely maxed out. The need for a second site is pretty essential
right now," she said.

The society has filed suit in B.C. Supreme Court, arguing Insite
provides a health service and should be under the jurisdiction of the
provincial government.