2010 street cleanup takes shape
Larry Gilmour, 55, unsuccessfully panhandles former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion in downtown Victoria, where Dion attended a meeting on homelessness in November 2007.
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Updated: November 22, 2009 4:40 PM
VICTORIA – New measures to enforce order on the streets are moving through the B.C. legislature as the government gets ready to host the world and its news media at the 2010 Olympics.
Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman is the government's point man for two contentious bills being passed despite opposition objections. The Assistance to Shelter Act gives police new authority in extreme weather conditions to take people off the streets and bring them to the door of a shelter.
Another law denies social assistance to people who have outstanding arrest warrants for indictable offences. Introducing the bill, Coleman noted that there were exemptions for dependent children, pregnant women and "those who are in the final stages of life."
NDP critics argued that an "indictable offence" could be extended to even petty theft.
"It does include the single mom who doesn't have any money, who goes out and shoplifts some groceries and gets caught," said Vancouver-Hastings MLA Shane Simpson in debate.
B.C. courts decide whether each prosecution is by summary conviction, generally for minor offences, or by indictment in more serious cases.
Public Safety Minister Kash Heed replied that B.C. has the burden of criminals coming from other jurisdictions such as Ontario, which limits the distance it will pay to enforce an arrest warrant. Heed's study of 600 street-level drug dealers arrested while he commanded the Vancouver Police drug squad found many of them with outstanding warrants from out of province.
"They bring their crime skills with them," Heed told the legislature. "More often than not, many of these individuals that have outstanding arrest warrants, that are actually collecting social assistance, are carrying on committing crimes here in British Columbia."
Coleman has repeatedly denied that the Assistance to Shelter Act is Olympic-related. He said it can only take effect when a local committee declares an extreme weather emergency, which may not even take place in Vancouver during the Olympics.
