CLARKE CALLS COPE DRUG PLAN UNREALISTIC

Npa Candidate Lays Out Her 60-Day Agenda

Mayoral candidate Jennifer Clarke has set out an ambitious 60-day plan for
resolving problems in Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside and
kickstarting the city's economy while lashing out at her opponent for
delivering "bombastic rhetoric" instead of a practical timetable for action.

In a wide-ranging interview in her office at city hall, the candidate for
the Non-Partisan Association offered nothing so dramatic as her rival's
promise of a safe-injection site for drug addicts by Jan. 1.

But in a biting attack on COPE mayoral candidate Larry Campbell, she said
such a deadline is completely unrealistic.

"There is no point in making a Jan. 1 deadline unless he plans to rent a
room himself, get the spoons and the water and hand them out himself. He
doesn't have the legal authority, nor does he have the resources or the
staff to do it," she said.

She said the establishment of a safe-injection site must be done with
community consultation. Otherwise, "it is doomed to fail" because it will
become another problem rather than a workable solution, she said. Also, the
so-called four-pillar approach to dealing with the drug problem will become
a one-pillar approach, that being safe-injection sites.

It must also be done in careful consultation with both the provincial and
federal governments. She plans to put those consultations in motion the
minute she is elected mayor.

In drawing up a 60-day plan of action, she said the clock for many of the
initiatives would start ticking the minute she is elected. She wouldn't
delay until she is sworn in Dec. 2. There is no need for such a delay when
it comes to setting the wheels in motion for her reforms, she said, adding
that being elected will give her the authority to pick up the phone and get
rolling with appointments.

She stressed in the interview that she feels far too much of the civic
election campaign has been focused on the Downtown Eastside, saying
Vancouverites have many other concerns as well. That is not to say, she
specified, that she would not take bold action on that problem-plagued front.

Within the first week after her election, she would chair a meeting of the
Coastal Health Authority, which oversees medical services in the
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, of Vancouver's police chief and of Inspector
Rob Rich, who oversees policing in the area, to develop an implementation
schedule for a "roll-out" of health services for addicts and for new
policing measures.

The measures would be part of a broad scheme to "break up the open drug
scene down there," she said. More specifically, they would be designed to
make it uncomfortable for addicts from other communities to congregate
there, reduce property crimes and help addicts "out of the desperate cycle
of addiction."

She said she would want to discuss with the chief and the police board the
resources they need, looking initially at whether redeployment of police
officers and the arrival of new constables would be sufficient or whether
new resources are needed.

Within days of being elected, she said she would contact provincial Health
Minister Colin Hansen and federal Health Minister Anne McLellan for
meetings. In the case of the former, she would attempt to extract from
Hansen an exact time line for implementing a provincial addiction strategy
that is in the works to ensure there are services available for addicts in
their home communities when they are dispersed back there.

If there is no time line forthcoming, she would want to know why and she
would attempt to extract from him a plan to provide needles, condoms and
methadone replacement in other communities.

She would also urge him to enact measures to prevent other communities such
as Surrey from passing bylaws preventing the establishment of addiction
facilities in their communities. Otherwise, she said, the drug scene and
its consequent problems will remain in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Experience in other countries has shown that dispersing people to their
home communities has been effective, but Clarke said that is difficult if
those communities don't have support services for addicts.

She aims to have meetings by the end of the first week of January with both
the Lower Mainland Municipal Association and the Union of British Columbia
Municipalities to ensure they have adopted drug strategies similar to
Vancouver's and that the municipalities are working together on this front.

Within 30 days of her election, she wants a meeting with McLellan to find
out what the federal guidelines will be for allowing or disallowing
safe-injection sites, provision of replacement therapy to addicts and
potential heroin trials.

Although McLellan has said she is in favour of pilot projects for these
things, Clarke said she would need to work with the minister to see how a
Vancouver plan would fit into federal guidelines.

Also, she said she would consult with the community on the establishment of
safe-injection sites. It would be realistic to assume that that
consultation will take place in January, she added.

She would meet with small groups of stakeholders to find out what
safeguards they want in place. She would aim to bring them together at the
Wosk Centre for Dialogue.

"If you want to shove something down on the neighbourhood, people are going
to feel threatened and it is simply not going to work."

She added many people are worried about stand-alone safe-injection sites,
fearing they are being seen as some sort of magic bullet, which they are
not. "But these people would be more receptive to them if they are part of
a continuum of health care as opposed to facilities to facilitate the
continuation of a lifestyle."

In January, she would work with the police chief and the police board to
establish a property crime task force to crack down on property crimes in
the Downtown Eastside.

Within 60 days of her election and as early as December, she would also
contact Attorney-General Geoff Plant to get his support for the enforcement
pillar of the so-called four-pillar approach to dealing with the drug problem.

More specifically, she would press him for more prosecutions of drug
dealers by Crown counsel. Too often, she said, police make arrests and the
Crown refuses to proceed. She wants to know what the problem is.

She also wants to know whether changes in law might be required to make
court convictions more obtainable.

Immediately after being sworn in as mayor, she would arrange a meeting with
city staff to develop a plan for rehabilitating buildings in the Downtown
Eastside.

She would also seek meetings with federal and provincial cabinet ministers
Stephen Owen and George Abbott, who are in charge of implementing a
Vancouver plan for the city's development, to discuss the creation of a
special economic zone, similar to zones protecting and fostering Gastown
and Chinatown, for the Downtown Eastside.

Such an initiative, she said, would be designed to attract investment,
perhaps through a payroll tax credit, and affordable rental housing. She
would also discuss with the two levels of government what resources they
would provide to retrain and employ reformed addicts down there.

She would like to discuss with Abbott changes to welfare regulations to
ensure addicts in treatment and getting subsequent retraining are not cut
off welfare.

She needs to discuss with the provincial government changes to the medical
services plan for methadone dispensing fees to ensure addicts don't revert
to heroin because they have lost the methadone replacement. She also feels
MSP should provide some money for counselling, which is not the case now.

Also, within 60 days of her election, she would work with a non-profit
foundation to purchase an existing building or build a new one and turn it
into drug- and alcohol-free housing. Such discussions are already taking
place. She thinks it is feasible to have such housing open within the first
three to six months of taking office.

"If anyone can do more than that in 60 days, they should have the job," she
said. Unlike her opponents, who she said have never accomplished anything
so ambitious, "I have a reputation for getting things done."

On issues other than the Downtown Eastside, she said that within her first
two months, she would establish a small-business council and a panel of the
city's chief executive officers. They would identify sectors of the city's
economy that are ripe for further development, measure Vancouver's economic
development against its competitors and set benchmarks for improvement and
see how city regulations might be streamlined to encourage business
development.

She aims to complete negotiations on the transfer of the Pacific National
Exhibition from the province to the city by Dec. 31.

Within 60 days of taking office, she would establish a cultural cabinet to
promote the arts in the city and inject herself in the city's 2010 Olympic
bid. She noted that the International Olympic Committee will visit the city
in February or March to see how it is preparing itself. "I want to get
involved in the bid as soon as possible."

By the beginning of February, she wants to have held the first in a series
of town-hall meetings around the city. These won't be public hearings or
formal council meetings. Rather, they will be a forum for citizens to come
forward and present concerns to city council.

She has also undertaken to appoint within the 60-day time frame a chairman
and board of directors for a new multicultural arts, entertainment and food
festival called Divercity, which she wants to be held in Stanley Park on a
weekend in August.

She will identify a team to establish a youth parliament in the city so
young people can speak out on the issues affecting them.