TOO MUCH TOLERANCE BEHIND SAFE STREETS LAW

Ian Haysom Special to Times Colonist

So how tolerant are you? Most of us, if asked, would say we're pretty
tolerant about things, pretty laid back, not prejudiced. Good small-l
liberal Canadians living in a tolerant and highly tolerable society.

So let's put it to the test. Imagine you're a non-smoker or a reformed
smoker. You see a guy across the street smoking. That's OK, you might
think, it's his funeral.

You go to buy a coffee at the coffee shop and sit outside because it's a
sunny day. The people at the table next to you are smoking. Sometimes
second-hand smoke drifts towards you. OK, you think, this is not pleasant,
but they allow smoking at these tables, so you'll -- yes -- tolerate it.

You now go stand at the bus stop. A smoker walks up to you, positions
himself in front of you, and continually blows smoke in your face. You turn
away. He moves in front of you and blows more smoke in your face, so much
so that you start coughing.

You can't tolerate it any longer. Being a good small-l liberal Canadian,
you ask him to stop. He doesn't. So instead of smacking him in the face you
walk away as quickly as you can. And, presumably, leave him to go find some
other victim.

Tolerance is a matter of degree. And now in British Columbia our tolerance,
and our patience, is increasingly being put to the test.

We've tolerated panhandlers and street people and drug users and skuzzier
and skuzzier streets to such an extent that now they have spread, like an
unstoppable cancer, throughout our cities. Dysfunction is rampant.

We have tolerated this dysfunction for a few reasons. First, because at
first it was contained, on the other side of the street. Once it was
contained in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

But then it spread east up Hastings Street towards Burnaby and New
Westminster. Then it spread west towards the West End. Over the Strait to
Victoria and Nanaimo. Up to Kelowna and Kamloops. And now it's in just
about every city in B.C.

Suddenly the smoke is blowing directly in our faces.

The second reason we tolerated the dysfunction was because we haven't been
able to sort out the street jerks from the street victims. We know some are
lazy beggars and should go get a job. We also know many are true victims,
mentally challenged, societally challenged or downright down and out.
Government action, and inaction, at all levels helped put them there.

Thirdly, we on the West Coast have an amazing capacity for tolerance -- or
perhaps indifference. Even though the situation has been increasingly
uncomfortable, we've fiddled while Rome burned.

Suddenly, however, it looks as though we're not going to stand for the
status quo any more. Safe streets legislation was introduced Thursday, as
the provincial government tries to get rid of of aggressive panhandlers,
squeegee kids and the like.

Mayors are on task forces. Callers to phone-in shows fume over the causes
and the solutions. Most are furious that livable downtowns are becoming
skid rows. Some say it's a war on the poor.

The problem was never simplistic, and neither are the solutions. Yes, we
could go the knee-jerk route and adopt a broken-windows policy, which
helped clean up New York ... but all that did was move the problem to New
Jersey. We don't want the rigidity of a Singapore solution, where tossing
gum in the street was almost a capital crime.

The Safe Streets Act isn't going to solve everything, but it's a start.
That's my intolerant side speaking, the side that's increasingly
embarrassed and impatient about what's happened on our streets.

My tolerant side says we've got to work on a more effective -- and
co-ordinated -- approach to get to the real victims. That's a Herculean
task, but all levels of governments, and social agencies, must work on a
united approach. Accept there's a problem and address it from all angles.

At the heart of it all is our tolerance. We thought it was a virtue. But
did we, collectively, become far too tolerant, far too forgiving, rather
than insist that someone clean up this mess before it spread beyond control?

Tolerance may be an overrated quality. The writer E.M. Forster, he of A
Passage To India, wrote that tolerance is a dull virtue, akin to
indifference: "It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand
things."

Another novelist, W. Somerset Maugham, wrote that tolerance is just a
gentle disguise for prejudice: "The tolerant often behave as self-appointed
connoisseurs of weaknesses in others, or self-appointed protectors of those
whom they deem to be their inferiors.

"Psychologically, there is a strong resemblance between the stridently
'tolerant' and the prejudiced. For while the one may descend to attacking
whole groups of men and the other may rise to a passionate defence of them,
both are equally indiscriminate in their attack or defence; and neither has
any concern whatsoever for individual character."

Maybe that's the lesson here. Let's become intolerant about the situation,
not the people, and work on getting it fixed.

And while we're at it, become a little less prejudiced too.

Note: Ian Haysom divides his week between Vancouver and Central Saanich. He
is the news director of BCTV News on Global.