Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre arrives at a news conference in Montreal on July 12.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
In La Presse, columnist Maxime Bergeron recently told the story of a woman named Liah who had some cushions stolen from the patio furniture on the balcony of her Montreal home.
Not exactly the type of crime that makes headlines.
But every politician and policy maker should read about this “insignificant” incident, because it captures perfectly why Canadians are getting increasingly angry about the lack of response to the triple crisis racking cities big and small: homelessness, toxic drugs, and public disorder.
Here’s a brief summary of Liah’s story, which Mr. Bergeron recounted much more eloquently in his piece, “The cushions of shame.”
The young mother awoke a week ago to find someone had climbed over the back fence and scaled to the second-floor balcony to grab the goods. Being robbed is disconcerting. Liah dutifully filed a police report online.
But who would steal cushions? Liah had a hunch.
She lives close to Maison Benoît-Labre, a social housing project with a supervised consumption site and drop-in centre for homeless people. This is where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre recently held a news conference, vowing to close “drug dens” (as he wrongfully characterized supervised consumption sites), particularly ones close to schools and daycares.
Tensions exist with neighbours of many supervised consumption sites and other social agencies that care for homeless people and drug users because of the social disorder that often surrounds them. Encampments, open drug use, petty crime, public defecation, people (who are obviously ill) acting out, and more – it all gets to be too much, even for the most liberal-minded of residents.
There, outside Maison Benoît-Labre, in a homeless man’s shopping cart, Liah saw her cushions. She could have just grabbed them, but she was scared.
This is where the story recounted by Mr. Bergeron takes a Kafkaesque turn.
Liah asked the shelter’s staff for help. “Not our problem,” she was told. She called the local mediation and social intervention team that was created by the city to smooth relations between residents and the local homeless population. Same response: “Not our mandate.”
Police showed up, but for another matter. They told Liah to call 9-1-1. Four hours later – because petty theft is not a priority – officers showed up. They grabbed the cushions and gave them to her.
Liah admitted to the La Presse columnist that she went to ridiculous lengths to retrieve property of little value but, at a certain point, it became a point of principle. Her working-class neighbourhood has been turned upside down by an influx of drug users and homeless people. She feels overwhelmed, powerless, and angry.
Mr. Poilievre seems to understand this frustration better than other politicians, and is tapping into it.
We have taken all sorts of measures to respond to homelessness and the toxic drug crisis, including tolerating encampments in parks and on city streets, feeding people who are unhoused, opening supervised consumption sites, decriminalizing drugs, and more.
All well-intentioned. But, in many instances, these approaches have had unintended consequences, like public disorder that makes public parks inaccessible and makes streets look like garbage dumps, and criminality that threatens small businesses and leaves residents feeling unsafe and put upon.
None of this is acceptable.
Other countries understand this; if you go to Sweden or the Netherlands, there are no encampments, no open drug use, no (human) feces on the sidewalk. Extensive social services are provided but, if you refuse the help, you don’t get to do whatever you want. Laws are enforced, as they should be.
In Canada, we have intolerable double standards.
People considered homeless can openly sell stolen goods and drugs on the sidewalk, as they do in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. But if an entrepreneur tries to set up a hot dog stand without a business licence, he will be nailed. If you light up a cigarette on a restaurant patio, you will be fined, but metres away people can smoke crack with impunity.
We are told repeatedly that homeless people and drug users have the right to safe drugs, the right to housing, and the right to take over public space if they are homeless.
But everyone with rights also has responsibilities, including respecting laws.
Taxpaying citizens and business owners in neighbourhoods where homeless encampments exist and where drug users congregate are being told repeatedly by police, politicians and social-service agencies that social disorder is not their problem. That’s unfair and unjust.
Tackling the triple crisis of homelessness, toxic drugs and public disorder will remain challenging. But we have to do so in a more balanced manner, one that doesn’t leave any citizen feeling powerless.