Login / RegisterNPA candidate Sean Bickerton concerned about gay bashing in Vancouver
Council candidateSean Bickerton today (November 8) outlined the Non-Partisan Association’s plan to improve public safety on Vancouver streets.
Bickerton made the announcement while standing in a parking lot on Davie Street where he said he was the victim of a gay bashing 28 years ago.
The NPA candidate said there have been a string of recent attacks in the city and Vancouver has earned the title of “gay bashing capital of Canada”.
“That’s a shameful title. It’s unacceptable. We shouldn’t stand for it and I will not stand for it,” Bickerton said.
A key element of the NPA plan is to call for more police foot and bike patrols in Davie Village during times when assaults are most likely to happen.
Other elements of the plan include bringing in mental-health workers to help police with calls involving mental illness, and lobbying for programs to combat bullying in schools.
The NPA also wants to restore the city’s anti-graffiti task force, and launch an awareness and enforcement campaign to improve safety for pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists.
Asked about the cost to the city for the NPA plan, Bickerton said: “We can do this within existing budgets.”
He speaks from an experience that none of our gay citizens should have to endure. This is Canada. Our people are free to love -- and marry -- whom and why they please. Homophobes are unwelcome here, and homophobia remains a shameful mental disorder.
More power to Mr Bickerton. The NPA has come a long way since the 70s. Good for all of us that they have done so. If my gay friends choose to walk holding hands on any street in Vancouver, they have an absolute right to do so.
And no one has the authority to deny them that right, anywhere, any time. This is Canada. We don't much care for bigots.
From the NPA I've seen Bill McCreery, Joe Caragi, Bill Yuen, Ken Charko, and no one else other than the little worm Jason Lamarche. Why the NPA hasn't thrown this guy out of the party for his hateful blogs is beyond me.
I'd like to see Sean talk about comments made by Lamarche.
I am glad he isn't a Candidate for Mayor. Wait he may have been helpful to me in that capacity.
Even worse, enforcing licencing would take police resources away from making our streets safer; the very thing that they claim to want. Where are they getting these ideas from; anonymous comments on the Internet?
http://www.straight.com/article-400738/vancouver/walk-peace-reclaim-down...
Neither SB, nor any of his friends or supporters commented on that 'low-key' attempt at raising SB's profile.
Serial killing as well.
No matter even with them, hate is a pathology of a criminal, not the crime, the beating is the crime. Why just helps you find them or evidence and tips to who did it.
Also the Mayor has fiat powers over the police. I'd refer to it as violence and property crime.
With my activist hat, what would you say to MindFreedom(.org)?
My knee, that was done by cops "under the mental health act." With the MHT.
Strange M.Dr. Jang is so quiet on this.
Oh under the Mental Health Act of 2005 the cops without the Mayor stopping or preventing it has unlimited no warrant needed ability to take what they think of mental cases in. Including if they catch you with a dube, do not see a conviction in a he said cop said and wants to claim "drug problem," or if someone is gay or considered through the DSM as "Gender Confusion," even that they parents can call a car 87 and say their Gay kid is Schitzo and needs 48 hours watch.
Or bi-polar or any label can be used homophobically and try proving it. They don't need warrants or physical evidence. Just a police opinion that there is mental
illness."