DAN RATHER HERE TO SHOW UGLY SIDE OF VANCOUVER

The Downtown Eastside, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, has long
been a time-bomb this city has never bothered to defuse. Now it's
about to explode on the international stage. Dan Rather, one of the
best and most famous U.S. TV journalists of his generation, is in
Vancouver for the next few days with a news crew.

His subject is the drug- and crime-infested neighbourhood in
Vancouver's heart, our very own made-in-Canada ghetto that could hold
its own with any in Rather's home country.

This is not going to be the sort of report the board of trade will be touting.

Some unflattering international attention became inevitable the day
Vancouver won the competition to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, of course.

The world's media always dissect -- sometimes vivisect -- an Olympic
host city and country.

But we've made it more delicious for the journalists by, a) labelling
ourselves "the greatest place on Earth", b) constantly gloating about
those surveys in The Economist that rate us the most livable city on
the planet and, c) doing far too little for years to rescue the
Downtown Eastside, an unfolding human tragedy in our midst.

For international journalists -- especially the edgy,
poke-the-powers-that-be sort that Rather fashions himself as -- the
Downtown Eastside story offers an irresistible juxtaposition: A
neighbourhood of abject poverty surrounded by the five-star hotels
that will be booked solid during the Olympics. It's the hubris of the
privileged smack next door to the images of a humiliating social
failure, a ratings grabber every time.

When Rather sat down with Mayor Sam Sullivan Thursday, the newsman
asked whether the world would see the "Dickensian" underbelly of
Vancouver in 2010.

He zeroed in on the mayor's drug policy and the Insite project, which
helps addicts to inject illegally obtained heroin. Isn't the mayor
"mollycoddling" drug users, prostitutes and ne'er-do-wells in the
Downtown Eastside? the Texan asked. And what of U.S. officials who
contend it is tantamount to "state-assisted suicide?"

Sullivan likened addiction to his life as a quadriplegic: a
disability people need help with. "I need help managing my
disability, just like they need help managing their disability."

I suppose some will say not to overestimate Rather's power. He no
longer has quite the platform he used to, after all.

Rather left his anchor desk at CBS News and 60 Minutes in the wake of
his flawed report suggesting U.S. President George W. Bush didn't
fulfil the conditions of his National Guard Service, a popular
posting many of America's bluebloods used to avoid the Vietnam War.
Rather is suing the network for $70-million for being squeezed out of
60 Minutes and now broadcasts on the smaller cable network, HDNet,
which hosts his news magazine, Dan Rather Reports.

But it would be a mistake to diminish the significance of Rather's
arrival. A newsman with a legendary instinct for picking the
international news stories of the moment, he offers a taste of the
sort of coverage this city's leaders ought to expect over the next
two years as the Olympics approach.

Past history shows Olympic journalists will not be entirely focused
on the heroic tales of gold-medal winners, underdog athletes or video
montages of "Supernatural!" B.C., as our old logo used to go. Olympic
journalists also like to search for a meta-narrative on a city and
country. Often, it isn't flattering.

For the 2000 Sydney Games, the narrative was Australia's history of
racist relations with aboriginals. For the Moscow Olympics, which
were boycotted, it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. For
Beijing, in 2008, it will be the country's still-abysmal human rights
record, the legacy of Tiananmen Square and the environmental
degradation that is the price for China's economic boom.

At the moment, the world's meta-narrative for our fair city -- and
Canada by extension -- is shaping up like this: Vancouver, a
beautiful city with a dark and tragic secret. A ghetto, full of the
poor -- many aboriginals -- whose lives are devastated by drugs,
mental illness, the sex trade and even killers. Yes, you can expect
Rather and the world's media to also bring up all those missing women
who often worked in the Downtown Eastside and have shown up dead.

The United Nations Population Fund has also given this narrative its
official stamp. It released an international report, written by
Vancouverite Patricia Leidl, describing the Downtown Eastside as "a
two-kilometre-square stretch of decaying rooming houses, seedy strip
bars and shady pawnshops. Worst of all, it is home to a hepatitis C
rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an
estimated 30 per cent -- the same as Botswana's."

There's nothing new in any of this. Canadian and B.C. reporters have
been chronicling it for years. It's just that thanks to the Olympics,
now outsiders are on the story. Perhaps our leaders will finally be
embarrassed into uniting to create a coordinated, long-term strategy
to fix one of North America's worst ghettos.

[sidebar]

RATHER'S QUESTIONS

. Will the world see the "Dickensian" underbelly of Vancouver in 2010?

. Isn't Mayor Sam Sullivan "mollycoddling" ne'er-do-wells in the
Downtown Eastside?

. Is the supervised injection site "state-assisted suicide?"