WHAT THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE NEEDS IS A POWERFUL OVERSEER

Prominent Panel Would Reconstruct The Neighbourhood

Who wouldn't like to find a dark, far away cell to deposit Robert
(Willie) Pickton in, lock the door and forget him and his farm of
horrors? But that's the revulsion reflex.

It's too easy a reaction to indulge in and hardly the smart thing for
us to do. As a city it's time to for us to reflect on Pickton -- and
the women he sadistically slaughtered -- more than ever.

And I don't mean an exploration of what made him evil incarnate,
preying upon our city's poorest and most vulnerable. We don't need to
know much more about Pickton's cruel modus operandi. The last year of
testimony has given us enough of that.

What we do need, though, is an unflinching examination of what
facilitated the serial killer's survival in the midst of one of
Canada's great cities.

What were our failures as a community that allowed him to turn the
Downtown Eastside into his human hunting ground? Why did the
disappearance of dozens of women from our very own, made-in-Canada
ghetto spark no alarm in the rest of Vancouver or among our police
force? More importantly, why do those grim conditions -- poverty,
drugs and ghettoization that assisted the crimes of Pickton -- still
exist today, even with millions of dollars in public and private
investment being poured into the Downtown Eastside?

So how best to to deal with this next chapter in our local serial
killer's story? Another trial, to try and convict Pickton for the
deaths of 20 other women he is charged with murdering? Or is it time
for an inquiry, perhaps styled as an inquest, into what made his
multi-year killing spree possible?

Frankly, I think the smart decision is to forgo the trial -- at least
for now.

Even if he's convicted again, Pickton cannot get more jail time than
the 25 years handed down Tuesday, after he was convicted on the
second-degree murders of six women. He has been given the equivalent
of a life sentence and I can see no parole board ever deciding to put
him back on the street.

So let's go to the next step. A full inquiry into what has created
Canada's worst ghetto, an incubator for addiction, drug-dealing, the
sex trade and murder.

It's time to analyse the public policies, or more specifically a lack
of them, that has allowed this small patch of urban despair to exist
in Vancouver's heart for more than a generation.

Now, I'm not naive about the waste of time and tax dollars most
inquiries turn out to be. Too many go on for months or years, costing
millions of dollars, only to conclude with a news conference and a
tome of recommendations that end up gathering dust, forgotten.

But the Downtown Eastside could be put under a unique sort of inquiry.
Here's a way to get sure results, to turn around the problems.

First, waste no time. Strike the inquiry in the new year and give it a
short lifespan, say 90 days. Second, apply a forward-looking mandate.
It must not dwell on what has gone wrong, a subject that can be the
source of endless tragic stories. It must focus on practical measures,
immediately applicable, on how to eliminate the some manifestly
obvious problems.

A few practical solutions the inquiry needs to answer: Find a way of
closing down or seizing the buildings of slum landlords; find a way of
taking drug dealers, a key source of the misery, off the streets; find
a method of better coordinating the social housing and anti-poverty
agencies in the area; find a practical way of shaming the men who buy
sex from drug-addicted and mentally ill men and women in the area;
develop a way of keeping the young who move into the area from being
forced to live with, or next door to, drug dealers or junkies.

Now, here's the crucial key to giving this inquiry a shot at changing
life in the Downtown Eastside. At the same time the inquiry gets going
with creating this complex blueprint for change, the provincial
government must create a new entity, a sort of Downtown Eastside
community corporation.

It would be run by a small, blue-ribbon panel of eminent British
Columbians -- all removed from the messy partisan politics that have
too long defined the Downtown Eastside.

Springing to mind are names like financier and philanthropist Milton
Wong, developer Robert Fung, Osoyoos Indian Chief Clarence Louie,
billionaire Jimmy Pattison, or his left-hand man Glen Clark. Perhaps
even Carole Taylor, if she chooses not to run for mayor. There are
others.

The community corporation's duty would be quite simply to use the
results of the inquiry and their collective influence to reconstruct
the Downtown Eastside. And it must be given power. Social agencies
would be audited, operators of social housing would report their
results to the board, the police chief would have to discuss policing
plans.

What would finally emerge is a grand plan, a generational strategy to
reconstruct our poorest neighbourhood. Easy? No.

Possible? Absolutely. What better tribute to the Downtown Eastside's
legion of murdered and missing women could there be?