MAYORAL CANDIDATES AT UBC

Hot Topics Were Safe Injection Sites And Public Transit

Vancouver mayoral candidates came to UBC's Faculty of Law building Tuesday
for a forum put on by the Law Students' Social Justice Club. The candidates
spoke to students about their platforms for the upcoming civic election.

Law Professor Margot Young introduced the potential mayors, assuring the
crowd it was only coincidental that Non Partisan Association (NPA)
candidate Jennifer Clarke sat on her far right, while Coalition of
Progressive Electors (COPE) candidate Larry Campbell sat on her far left.

Describing herself as "completely apolitical," and telling the crowd that
she chooses her seats and her fights wisely, Vancouver Civic Action TEAM
(vcaTEAM) candidate Valerie MacLean sat in the middle.

The ever-present problems in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) surfaced
in Tuesday's talk, with candidates expressing varied commitments to
implementing safe-injection sites. Vancouver's current Mayor, Phillip Owen,
has begun to develop this idea, said Campbell, as part of his Four Pillar
Approach to Drug Problems, a plan which integrates prevention, treatment,
enforcement and harm reduction.

Clarke described her research done in Frankfurt and Amsterdam in the summer
of 2000, and said she wrote a report stating there were very good systems
of safe-injection sites in both places. Amsterdam also has safe-consumption
sites for drugs that users aren't able to inject.

"They worked very well in conjunction with a law enforcement system that
pushed addicts into these supervised consumption sites," she said, "and
those in turn were the first sort of contact with medical care that many of
the addicts [had]."

Clarke said that after a seven-year period the addicts and dealers had
decreased. "I think safe injection sites could work well here...in
conjunction with a law enforcement strategy," she said.

McLean echoed Clarke's approach to harm-reduction strategy. "Not only is it
important to the Four Pillar program, but we would implement it
aggressively and quickly if I become mayor of the city of Vancouver," said
McLean.

Campbell directed his response to Clarke's, citing objections about her
vague timeline and her party's lack of commitment to implementing
safe-injection sites. "The fact of the matter is, is that this is not
optional," he said.

"Her answer demonstrates that this is not going to happen in the near
future and while this is going on my coroners are going into those alleys
and picking up people in [unsafe injection] sites."

"I tell you right now, right here, that there will be a safe injection site
one way or another within one month of my election," he said. Last year's
bus strike and the direction TransLink would take under each candidate was
another key point in Tuesday's forum.

McLean said she herself is a transit user, and said her party would look at
all possible solutions to avoid the gridlock across the city. "My solution
is...more buses running, articulated buses running, buses running 24 hours
per day, seven days per week," she said, adding that rail and water
transportation options would be explored.

Campbell directed his answer to UBC students. "I live on 12th and Sasamat,
so every morning I watch six B-Lines coming to UBC full," he said. "Buses
have to go where people are and where people have to go."

Clarke, who has served as a city councilor for the last nine years, was on
TransLink's board of directors during the four-month bus strike last year.
She mentioned the newly-completed Millennium sky-train line as a
achievement of the NPA and a reason to re-elect her party.

She added she also supports extending the sky-train line into the False
Creek area, as well as the creation of a north-south rapid transit line
linking Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport.

The forum lasted roughly one hour, although Clarke had to leave early for a
council meeting. Votes can be cast for the Vancouver civic election on
November 16.