Andrew Percy: Vancouver's pro-crack smoking faction is out in force - National Post
Tents in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, B.C., May 25, 2026. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNGArticle contentVANCOUVER — On Oct. 17 Vancouverites will be offered the chance in a plebiscite to vote on two questions relating to public order and the addictions crisis facing the city. The first of these will ask if residents think the city should strengthen its laws on open air hard drug use — necessary for seizures given federal prosecutors are instructed not to prosecute for possession — and the second asks residents to back calls for the province to help provide 100 voluntary and involuntary care beds to help get the victims of this crisis into treatment.
The fact that these questions need to be asked is astonishing, but even more astonishing is the fact that some elected officials voted against this proposal by Mayor Ken Sim and his councillors, whilst other groups are actively campaigning for a No vote.
Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Channel Israel will soon be in your inbox.
We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again
That’s right, there are people in this city actively campaigning against cracking down on people openly smoking crack in the middle of the day on city streets and against proposals to get people into treatment and out of the hands of the cruel drug pushers who profit from this human misery.
I first came to work in Canada in the late 90s on a youth work visa, earning my spurs in the Canadian economy working at Eaton’s (remember them) in the Pacific Centre. I fell in love with the city and B.C. immediately. There are few places more beautiful in summer than B.C., there really aren’t. It’s a beauty that assaults the senses from the sheer scale and size of the mountains to the glorious bays and inlets of the Pacific, to those sunsets at English Bay one can never tire of.
I realized though back then that there’s something else out here that assaults your senses and it is really rather shocking. It’s something anyone visiting me has commented on too. I’m talking of course of the heartbreaking addiction issues and homelessness.
Two and half decades after my first time working here, and after countless visits in the intervening years, I decided to make a home here two years ago and become a permanent resident. The mountains, the ocean, the scenery still speaks to my soul in the way it did in my 20s, but I have watched the flip side of that — the addiction crisis and street disorder — grow and deteriorate in the intervening years.
