Barbara Yaffe: Davies chips at Rock

The outspoken MP declares her priority in Ottawa is to get assistance on
drug issues, not to get invited to social affairs.

Barbara Yaffe Vancouver Sun

It's not every MP who has made a fine art out of "bugging Allan Rock." But
then, Libby Davies has her own style.

Davies intends to "keep on bugging" the federal health minister until she
gets the help that's needed for the Downtown Eastside.

The New Democratic Party member for Vancouver East, the only new NDP
candidate from B.C. to win a Commons seat on June 2, would readily admit
she is less diplomat than activist. The 44yearold selfdescribed UBC
dropout, a Vancouver municipal politician for 11 years, is a diminutive
single mother who sports a "zero poverty" button in her lapel alongside her
MP's pin.

She uses words like determination, plugging away, not giving up. And
speaks of uphill battles, monumental tasks and tremendous obstacles.

"I'm not going to get sucked into Ottawa and the whole scene there,"
Davies pledges.

"It's its own world and there are all these cocktail parties and
ambassadortype things and lobbies and breakfasts. And someone said to me,
remember, you represent your riding."

The neophyte MP represents a riding with some of the neediest
neighbourhoods in Canada. In the Downtown Eastside a health and housing
crisis exists and the spread of HIV is rampant, with drug addicts sharing
needles without regard for consquences.

In a recent conversation at her spartan Mount Pleasant riding office, she
recalled: "The day the Speaker was elected, I happened to be walking down a
corridor beside Mr. Rock and I began talking 'I'm Libby Davies and I've
got to tell you blah, blah, blah.' He sort of kept looking at me, like
'okay, who is this woman?' "

But Davies got a commitment from Rock that he'll meet with her to talk
about Vancouver East's needs.

She'll push Rock on two fronts. She wants doctors to be able to legally
prescribe drugs, even heroin, to addicts. And she wants addicts to have
access to an environment where they can be dealt with from a health rather
than a criminal justice perspective.

Davies also wants Ottawa to reinvolve itself in housing. "Housing is a
fundamental human right. If you don't have safe, appropriate, affordable,
secure housing there really is nothing else in your life that works. It's
so basic."

When I ask her about potential controversy surrounding the issue of safe
houses and shooting galleries a notion rejected this week by B.C.
Health Minister Joy MacPhail, she replied firmly: "There's probably 1,000
reasons anyone could throw at this issue and say it won't work. I'm saying,
well, we have to make it work because the fact is, drug overdoses are now
the leading cause of death for men and women in B.C. between ages 30 and 44
and there's an HIV epidemic."

Resources for dealing with addicts, money for housing and, another big
need in East Vancouver, help for aboriginals living off reserve these
will be Davies' priorities in Ottawa. "I choose these monumental tasks, but
I just feel it has got to be taken on."

Davies, who lives in coop housing in the riding (she also owns property
on Gambier Island), has been a socialist as long as she can remember. She
left her job with the B.C. Hospital Employees Union and ran for Parliament
because she and her late husband Bruce Eriksen felt progressive voices were
needed in Ottawa. And she wanted to help the NDP increase its federal seat
count from a meagre two in B.C.

"Bruce and I both felt Parliament was becoming this exclusive place that
really didn't represent the interests of a place like Vancouver. The
Liberal government had moved so far to the right there was a huge vacuum in
terms of people willing to stand up and fight for a Canada that also
represents social justice and social equality."

Davies, who will take French lessons so she can converse with Bloc
Quebecois MPs in their own language, has noticed since arriving in Ottawa
"there's this sort of dismissive attitude" toward B.C.

"The way the media works, the ministers, the seat of power, it's very,
very focused to Eastern Canada and the government has a long ways to go to
demonstrate that it's willing to do more than just have Martin or Chretien
come out once in a while to give a speech."

For all the challenges she faces, Davies feels invigorated "by the stuff
I've got to take on."

The new MP gives the clear impression she represents earnest good
intention and that she will be a loud and healthy voice in the Commons,
balancing a prevailing shift to the right.