Stop the Sweeps: Statement from Sean Orr, former Vote Socialist candidate

On Wednesday I went down to witness the illegal decampment on East Hastings street and stand in solidarity with community advocates. 

A few hours later I was thrown to the ground as the VPD started pushing the crowd back. I saw the police use traffic barriers and bicycles to slam into people, including an Indigenous elder in a wheelchair. I saw them smash a ceremonial smudge plate to the ground, which is most likely a hate crime. I saw city workers throwing peoples belongings in the trash while destroying their homes. All the while legal observers begged them to stand down. 

Of course this is the daily reality that unhoused residents face. Poverty is violence, and street entrenched people face it everyday. What I experienced was nothing compared to ongoing colonial dispossession happening in the DTES and elsewhere on Turtle Island. These police sweeps, which continued Thursday, only serve to perpetuate the cycle of trauma that underpins the lives of the most marginalised in our society. 

ABC and Ken Sim, backed by the Police Union, got elected in part by riding a wave of media-amplified stigma and fear that blames the unhoused for their own plight. So yesterday’s raid on Hastings was just a matter of time. In fact, thanks to someone at City Hall who leaked plans to the press, we knew this large-scale police action was in the works. 

We also know that the City admitted there was insufficient adequate housing for people being violently displaced. This makes the police and City’s actions this week not only unlawful from a Charter perspective, but also a violation of its own Memorandum of Understanding. 

This was echoed by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Pivot Legal. The Federal Housing Advocate weighed in to condemn the sweeps, and former U.N. special rapporteur has called the situation in Vancouver a human rights crisis. 

Cities across North America are dealing with a crisis of homelessness caused by the hyper-commodification of housing, archaic regulations favouring the entrenched interests of landlords and wealthy property owners, and a lack of public investment in homes for all. There is no evidence that criminalizing poverty and unleashing police violence on unhoused people achieves anything other than increasing harm and trauma while wasting public funds which should be spent on housing and public services. 

The City of Toronto was just condemned by the Ombudsman report for their 2021 military-style encampment clearings. An Ontario Superior Court judge has found that a municipal bylaw to evict a homeless encampment in the Waterloo Region violates section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Women Transforming Cities reminds us that it is also likely in violation of UNDRIP.  

The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre issued a statement condemning the raids. Angela Marie MacDougall stated:  “The destabilizing of the DTES today will increase violence for women in this neighborhood. Women, and particularly Indigenous women and women of colour, are already at a higher risk for violence than their male counterparts, and being unhoused is a particular risk. Safe and secure housing for women in the Downtown Eastside and throughout Vancouver is desperately needed. Poverty is not a crime, and neither is being unhoused.”

Wednesday’s raid on Hastings was illegal and unconstitutional in another sense too: the VPD publicly announced the exclusion of press and media members attempting to report on events. The Canadian Association of Journalists responded on social media, and reporters from outlets across the country amplified their message. 

B.C.'s first independent Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender, who said the sweeps “only make many residents more vulnerable,” also condemned the restrictions on press freedom. “The City's restrictions on media this morning are unacceptable and a violation of public trust. We should not hear stories of reporters sneaking through alleys to do their jobs.”

As I’ve said before, we are fighting the ghosts of decades past. Decades of austerity and failed policy. 

We need to reverse course, not double down on austerity and authoritarianism. We need to refund Vancouver, rather than pouring more money into the enforcers of cruelty and greed. If we leave the police and ABC at the helm, the worst is yet to come. 

Please amplify groups organizing against the sweeps, and contribute as you are able to mutual aid efforts.