Beware the spin
May 11, 2007
News flash: Vancouver’s safe-injection site causes more harm than good.
So says the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, which last week reported “serious problems in the interpretation of findings” in a review of 10 studies about the site.
Research on the three-year-old site has to this point mostly been positive. Among other things, there’s been a drop in social disorder in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, an increase in the number of drug users wanting treatment, and successful interventions in 400-plus potentially fatal overdoses.
But prevention-network research director Colin Mangham contends the real picture is not nearly so rosy. He reviewed some of the studies and found that while they “give the impression the facility is successful. . . the research clearly shows a lack of progress, impact and success.”
Mangham’s findings were reported straight up by Canadian Press last week. They also made their way unchallenged into the on-line edition of Maclean’s magazine, CBC Radio, and some Canadian newspapers.
But as a number of intrepid bloggers have pointed out, the mainstream media outlets that took the CP story at its word did a disservice to anyone looking for all the facts.
A couple of rudimentary Google searches are all it takes to flush out some interesting details, as proven by the bloggers who looked a little deeper into the Mangham report.
Searching on the name of the group that wrote it, for instance, reveals that the organization is privately funded, abstinence-based, and headed by former Reform/Alliance MP Randy White. The vice-president of REAL Women Canada sits on the network’s board, as do representatives from a number of Christian groups.
Search on Mangham’s name and you’ll find that while he’s a genuine drug-policy researcher, his primary focus is abstinence.
His particular knowledge is around tobacco. Mangham runs the provincially funded Prevention Source BC, which aims to stop people from smoking.
Search on the name of the publication where Mangham’s report first ran, the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice, and you’ll learn that it’s funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sitting on its editorial board are U.S. groups such as the Drug-Free Schools Coalition, the Drug Free America Foundation, and the National Drug Prevention Alliance.
The journal has published just two issues.
The first featured critiques of liberal marijuana policies. The second focused on harm-reduction programs like the safe-injection site, with headlines including “The Lure and Loss of Harm Reduction in UK Drug Policy and Practice,” and “Is it Harm Reduction or Harm Continuation?”
Nothing wrong with differing viewpoints on drug use and harm reduction, of course. A safe injection site is, after all, just a tiny piece of the puzzle when it comes to addressing the harms of addiction.
Ultimately, the Manghams of the world want to prevent the many miseries caused by drugs. I can’t fault them for that.
But being able to weight the findings of those with something to say on this most vital issue is of critical importance. We can’t afford to keep on making wrong moves in our drug policy.
Health care. Justice. Human rights. Urban renewal. Personal safety. Child welfare. On all fronts, we’re feeling the impact of drug addiction. Add in the exponential effect of leaving a growing problem to fester unattended, and the future looks downright ugly.
So if we hope to do something about that, we need to be informed as never before. We need the facts, presented as often as possible without the spin of a special-interest group in the background.
We don’t need this forces-of-good/evil approach anymore when it comes to our drug policy. It’s not working. We need clear-eyed thinking and well-reasoned approaches, all of it based on proven, efficient strategies.
Hearing what people like Mangham have to say is part of that process. I’ve got no quarrel with some of his or Randy White’s thoughts on dealing with addiction, particularly around providing easy access to treatment for anyone who wants it.
But knowing how to weight the blizzard of “facts” we’re presented with on any given day requires knowing more about whose facts they are, and what’s the context.
So no problem with the mainstream media running a story about a literature review published in a fledgling anti-harm-reduction publication funded by U.S. anti-drug interests. Or that the author of the review is a long-time foe of harm-reduction strategies with the support of some of the most conservative groups in Canada.
But we really need to know all that going in. In this case, the bloggers made sure that we did. The mainstream media didn’t.
The lessons learned? Trust no one, me included. Verify your own facts. Know the sources of the information you’re using to form your opinion.
And in the interests of better Canadian drug policy, do it soon.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Don't tear down the Kinsol Trestle
May 5, 2007
People have been debating the future of the Kinsol Trestle for a year now. I admit to barely paying attention to a word of it.
I guess it just didn’t seem like something I needed to care about. But then my partner and I went to see the trestle for ourselves last Sunday.
It’s spectacular. Tearing it down would be a terrible thing. Count me an instant convert to the “save the Kinsol” movement.
Perhaps it’s a recent trip to Europe that has me thinking about the importance of preserving history.
Had our global ancestors been even a fraction as hasty as us in tearing down history, I’d have missed out on the amazing feeling of stepping into the past. Deep thanks to several millennia’s worth of taxpayers who have willingly borne the cost of history’s upkeep.
The pyramids of Mexico and Egypt. Greek ruins. Ancient churches. England’s Roman baths. Nothing you can read about them, or watch on television, can ever come close to experiencing them first-hand. There’s nothing like it.
Even the places where great ugliness has happened are spellbinding. They can be unbearably hard to look at - a concentration camp, the Ghanian slave prisons - but we need them to remind us of times when we did the unthinkable.
Like so many of the wonders of the world, the Kinsol Trestle is both marvel and tragedy.
The trestle is a beauty, and a wonderful reminder of B.C.’s past. On the day we visited, the tight little river valley that the trestle spans was sunny and inviting. We walked up and down, to see the trestle from all angles, and I could feel the tremendous vision and hard work that must have gone in to getting it built.
But men died building the massive structure. On that front, the trestle also serves as a reminder of the immense challenge it would have been in 1921 to build a structure so grand, high above the valley floor.
The trestle has been through a heck of a lot since being brought to life, the last 28 years of which have been quite ignominious. Abandoned by its former railway owners in 1979 and already in a state of disrepair, the trestle has been profoundly neglected in intervening years.
Its fate was sealed in a report last year that concluded it was too wrecked to fix. The province is planning to spend $1.5 million to tear it down, and another $1.6 million through the B.C. pathway program Local Motion to build a different bridge.
I’m no engineer, but even my untrained eye could see that parts of the trestle are in rough shape. I don’t know whether it’s realistic to restore it to working shape again.
But that doesn’t mean we have to tear it down. If it simply isn’t feasible to restore the Kinsol Trestle as a working pathway, then by all means, let’s build a different bridge.
But why does the trestle need to be torn down to accomplish that? We might just change our minds one day about a full restoration, or find other ways to fund the work. Why not repair the worst of the damage right now and leave the trestle standing?
New Democrat MLA John Horgan was quoted a year ago saying that getting across the river is “more important than preserving rotting timber.”
It needn’t be either/or. We can choose to get people across the river and preserve history at the same time. Building a new bridge for cyclists and pedestrians would, in fact, provide incomparable views of a preserved Kinsol Trestle.
And it might even save money. The Cowichan Valley Regional District figures it would cost $6.2 million to restore the existing trestle to working order, and $4.2 million if you started from scratch and built a two-thirds replica of the trestle instead.
We could save at least $1.5 million right off by not tearing the trestle down. Meanwhile, if the trestle remains in place where everyone can continue to gaze at it as they cross the valley on the new bridge, you can opt for a cheaper, functional bridge style rather than a costlier replica.
In the end, though, it isn’t really be about the money. It’s about respecting that a massive 86-year-old trestle is a sight to see, and living testimony to a time when B.C. had big trees, big dreams and endless amounts of crazy ambition. We owe a duty to the future to look after the legacies of the past.
Don’t take my word for it. Go see the trestle for yourself - it’s just past Shawnigan Lake, and easy to get to (www.kinsoltrestle.ca; click on “Map”).
The pictures don’t do it justice. Neither will a pile of rubble and a fancy new bridge marking the spot where the old trestle was torn down.
May 5, 2007
People have been debating the future of the Kinsol Trestle for a year now. I admit to barely paying attention to a word of it.
I guess it just didn’t seem like something I needed to care about. But then my partner and I went to see the trestle for ourselves last Sunday.
It’s spectacular. Tearing it down would be a terrible thing. Count me an instant convert to the “save the Kinsol” movement.
Perhaps it’s a recent trip to Europe that has me thinking about the importance of preserving history.
Had our global ancestors been even a fraction as hasty as us in tearing down history, I’d have missed out on the amazing feeling of stepping into the past. Deep thanks to several millennia’s worth of taxpayers who have willingly borne the cost of history’s upkeep.
The pyramids of Mexico and Egypt. Greek ruins. Ancient churches. England’s Roman baths. Nothing you can read about them, or watch on television, can ever come close to experiencing them first-hand. There’s nothing like it.
Even the places where great ugliness has happened are spellbinding. They can be unbearably hard to look at - a concentration camp, the Ghanian slave prisons - but we need them to remind us of times when we did the unthinkable.
Like so many of the wonders of the world, the Kinsol Trestle is both marvel and tragedy.
The trestle is a beauty, and a wonderful reminder of B.C.’s past. On the day we visited, the tight little river valley that the trestle spans was sunny and inviting. We walked up and down, to see the trestle from all angles, and I could feel the tremendous vision and hard work that must have gone in to getting it built.
But men died building the massive structure. On that front, the trestle also serves as a reminder of the immense challenge it would have been in 1921 to build a structure so grand, high above the valley floor.
The trestle has been through a heck of a lot since being brought to life, the last 28 years of which have been quite ignominious. Abandoned by its former railway owners in 1979 and already in a state of disrepair, the trestle has been profoundly neglected in intervening years.
Its fate was sealed in a report last year that concluded it was too wrecked to fix. The province is planning to spend $1.5 million to tear it down, and another $1.6 million through the B.C. pathway program Local Motion to build a different bridge.
I’m no engineer, but even my untrained eye could see that parts of the trestle are in rough shape. I don’t know whether it’s realistic to restore it to working shape again.
But that doesn’t mean we have to tear it down. If it simply isn’t feasible to restore the Kinsol Trestle as a working pathway, then by all means, let’s build a different bridge.
But why does the trestle need to be torn down to accomplish that? We might just change our minds one day about a full restoration, or find other ways to fund the work. Why not repair the worst of the damage right now and leave the trestle standing?
New Democrat MLA John Horgan was quoted a year ago saying that getting across the river is “more important than preserving rotting timber.”
It needn’t be either/or. We can choose to get people across the river and preserve history at the same time. Building a new bridge for cyclists and pedestrians would, in fact, provide incomparable views of a preserved Kinsol Trestle.
And it might even save money. The Cowichan Valley Regional District figures it would cost $6.2 million to restore the existing trestle to working order, and $4.2 million if you started from scratch and built a two-thirds replica of the trestle instead.
We could save at least $1.5 million right off by not tearing the trestle down. Meanwhile, if the trestle remains in place where everyone can continue to gaze at it as they cross the valley on the new bridge, you can opt for a cheaper, functional bridge style rather than a costlier replica.
In the end, though, it isn’t really be about the money. It’s about respecting that a massive 86-year-old trestle is a sight to see, and living testimony to a time when B.C. had big trees, big dreams and endless amounts of crazy ambition. We owe a duty to the future to look after the legacies of the past.
Don’t take my word for it. Go see the trestle for yourself - it’s just past Shawnigan Lake, and easy to get to (www.kinsoltrestle.ca; click on “Map”).
The pictures don’t do it justice. Neither will a pile of rubble and a fancy new bridge marking the spot where the old trestle was torn down.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Change the system to get more women into politics
Apr. 27, 2007
So the debate around how to get more women into politics is back in the news again. I have to admit, it’s much harder to feel enthusiasm for the fight this time around, having already seen how the story ended last time.
I note that we’re currently at the point in the discussion where we’re trying to decide whether it’s worth it to infringe on the democratic election process in order to jump-start the number of women elected to government.
I remember the previous discussion well - what was it, 10 or 15 years ago now? Oh, we had a good go at it, to the point that the federal Liberals did eventually bypass the nomination process to hand-pick female candidates in a few ridings.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s a vital discussion to have.
After all, what could be more vital to fair and democratic governance than political representation that mirrored the mix of the Canadian population? I’d love it if our politicians looked more like us on all fronts.
But like I said, enough years have gone by since then that I know how the story ends - right back here, with all of us talking about the same issues like none of it ever happened.
Our typical pattern is to toss the issue around for a few years and then forget all about it. A brief flurry of activity pops up the rate of female candidacy for one election, but efforts aren’t sustained enough to create genuine change.
Theories abound as to why female politicians are so scarce in Canada, particularly at the federal level. Take your pick of opinions: That it’s because the electorate doesn’t vote for them; or the political parties don’t support them; or that they hate the life; or are preoccupied with child-rearing.
Likely there’s some truth in all of those. But I think the bigger problem is the political system itself. It’s not only built to thwart any attempts to change it, but fewer and fewer Canadians are paying attention to begin with. If we actually want change, that has to end.
So if our country truly wanted to get more women involved in politics, the first step in my mind would be electoral reform. As B.C. already knows from dabbling with the concept, there are any number of voting systems around the world that yield more gender diversity than ours.
Strategies like fixing nomination meetings can be another way of getting at the problem. But they’re short-term fixes, and justifiably controversial. Unless we still want to be fussing about this in 2020, maybe it would be better to strive for more fundamental changes - ones that would increase the odds for any number of underrepresented groups.
Somewhere out there is a democratic electoral system that’s just right for us. And here’s a bonus: We already know a heck of a lot about the options, thanks to the brilliant work of the citizens’ commission on electoral reform in 2004.
But time’s a-wasting. We can’t afford to fritter it away on tired old 15-year-old arguments as to the rights and wrongs of leveraging women into politics.
Do we need more women in politics? Absolutely.
Had there been more women in politics from the start, I’m guessing it never would have been legal in Canada for a husband to rape his wife. Instead, it took until 1984 to make that happen.
And women obviously wouldn’t have been shut out of the voting process in Canada’s early years if we’d actually been part of it in the beginning. We’d likely have assumed control over our own bodies much sooner.
Wage inequities? Wouldn’t have happened. Nurses being fired if they chose to marry? Nope. Decades of problems with sexual harassment in the workplace? Probably not.
In defence of the existing political process, those changes did eventually come about. Just because men rule the world doesn’t mean that everything turns out badly.
But each victory is pretty hollow when you consider that all we’re trying to do is catch up to men. We started at the bottom and think it’s heavenly to be halfway up, when what we ought to be doing is claiming our place as equals. Enough with this wishful thinking that such transformation is possible within our current political and voting processes.
Women could, of course, continue to try to slug it out with the boys. Take it like a man. Look at the inroads that gays and ethnic minorities made into politics in the last couple of decades - what’s stopping women?
Clearly, something is. Gays and minorities fought hard for their gains, but at least they saw some. Women are still lost in the trenches. Despite decades of effort, we still account for just 20 to 25 per cent of provincial and federal elected seats, and are even rarer in cabinet.
Maybe that really is a sign that the female sex isn’t compatible with the rigours of the Canadian political scene. So let’s change the scene.
Apr. 27, 2007
So the debate around how to get more women into politics is back in the news again. I have to admit, it’s much harder to feel enthusiasm for the fight this time around, having already seen how the story ended last time.
I note that we’re currently at the point in the discussion where we’re trying to decide whether it’s worth it to infringe on the democratic election process in order to jump-start the number of women elected to government.
I remember the previous discussion well - what was it, 10 or 15 years ago now? Oh, we had a good go at it, to the point that the federal Liberals did eventually bypass the nomination process to hand-pick female candidates in a few ridings.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s a vital discussion to have.
After all, what could be more vital to fair and democratic governance than political representation that mirrored the mix of the Canadian population? I’d love it if our politicians looked more like us on all fronts.
But like I said, enough years have gone by since then that I know how the story ends - right back here, with all of us talking about the same issues like none of it ever happened.
Our typical pattern is to toss the issue around for a few years and then forget all about it. A brief flurry of activity pops up the rate of female candidacy for one election, but efforts aren’t sustained enough to create genuine change.
Theories abound as to why female politicians are so scarce in Canada, particularly at the federal level. Take your pick of opinions: That it’s because the electorate doesn’t vote for them; or the political parties don’t support them; or that they hate the life; or are preoccupied with child-rearing.
Likely there’s some truth in all of those. But I think the bigger problem is the political system itself. It’s not only built to thwart any attempts to change it, but fewer and fewer Canadians are paying attention to begin with. If we actually want change, that has to end.
So if our country truly wanted to get more women involved in politics, the first step in my mind would be electoral reform. As B.C. already knows from dabbling with the concept, there are any number of voting systems around the world that yield more gender diversity than ours.
Strategies like fixing nomination meetings can be another way of getting at the problem. But they’re short-term fixes, and justifiably controversial. Unless we still want to be fussing about this in 2020, maybe it would be better to strive for more fundamental changes - ones that would increase the odds for any number of underrepresented groups.
Somewhere out there is a democratic electoral system that’s just right for us. And here’s a bonus: We already know a heck of a lot about the options, thanks to the brilliant work of the citizens’ commission on electoral reform in 2004.
But time’s a-wasting. We can’t afford to fritter it away on tired old 15-year-old arguments as to the rights and wrongs of leveraging women into politics.
Do we need more women in politics? Absolutely.
Had there been more women in politics from the start, I’m guessing it never would have been legal in Canada for a husband to rape his wife. Instead, it took until 1984 to make that happen.
And women obviously wouldn’t have been shut out of the voting process in Canada’s early years if we’d actually been part of it in the beginning. We’d likely have assumed control over our own bodies much sooner.
Wage inequities? Wouldn’t have happened. Nurses being fired if they chose to marry? Nope. Decades of problems with sexual harassment in the workplace? Probably not.
In defence of the existing political process, those changes did eventually come about. Just because men rule the world doesn’t mean that everything turns out badly.
But each victory is pretty hollow when you consider that all we’re trying to do is catch up to men. We started at the bottom and think it’s heavenly to be halfway up, when what we ought to be doing is claiming our place as equals. Enough with this wishful thinking that such transformation is possible within our current political and voting processes.
Women could, of course, continue to try to slug it out with the boys. Take it like a man. Look at the inroads that gays and ethnic minorities made into politics in the last couple of decades - what’s stopping women?
Clearly, something is. Gays and minorities fought hard for their gains, but at least they saw some. Women are still lost in the trenches. Despite decades of effort, we still account for just 20 to 25 per cent of provincial and federal elected seats, and are even rarer in cabinet.
Maybe that really is a sign that the female sex isn’t compatible with the rigours of the Canadian political scene. So let’s change the scene.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Canadian sex workers deserve better
April 20, 2007
It’s no surprise that federal Justice minister Rob Nicholson is against decriminalizing prostitution. A party with Alliance roots just isn’t going to see its way clear to taking action on the issues of the sex trade.
But it’s still pretty galling to have to read Nicholson’s comments on the matter. Decriminalizing prostitution would lead to the exploitation of women, says Nicholson, and therefore can’t be tolerated.
Nice theory. But what he’s actually saying is that he upholds the status quo.
In other words, the tens of thousands of Canadian women and men who work in the sex trade will just have to figure a way out of it, because the government isn’t prepared to do a damn thing about their working conditions. The killings and disappearances of hundreds of sex workers will continue unabated, because nothing is going to change.
I just don’t get it. The sex trade exists because the men of our communities buy sex. There’s a demand, therefore there’s a supply. That’s how a free market works, as Nicholson well knows.
So even if Nicholson’s dream came true to end the steady flow of Canadians of all ages into the sex trade, not even 24 hours would go by before someone had hooked into a new supply of sex workers from some distant land where people needed money. Got to feed that demand.
The sex trade is on our streets, and in our newspapers, phone books and magazines. It’s on our televisions. It’s in our DVD players. Aside from drugs, sex is just about the most readily available service in any city - and on sale around the clock to boot.
Not only that, but it’s the one service that unites the world. Communist-controlled, dictatorship, capitalist, military-led, profoundly religious - whatever the form of government, sex is always for sale somewhere in the country.
Sex is also common tourist fare. I visited Cuba years ago and saw grandpas from Toronto and Montreal buying young girls for as litle as $5 US. More recently, I had the distinct displeasure during a trip to Prague of being seated for a restaurant meal next to three American sex tourists engaged in a loud and loathsome conversation about the night before. Here in Victoria, workers plan for the tourist season.
So what could possibly be our rationale for shutting out the workers?
Why is their workplace unregulated and without oversight? Why do we even have such a thing as outdoor sex workers? Why do the workers live in shame and profound stigma, judged at every juncture of their lives, while their buyers enjoy ease of service and complete anonymity?
And why do we carry on in this foolish charade about how we’re going to address prostitution in Canada by “focusing on reducing its prevalence?” Give me a break, Minister Nicholson. Just say it straight up: You’ve got no intention of doing anything about Canada’s sex trade.
Reducing the prevalence of prostitution is likely an impossible goal even in an ideal world unless all efforts were focused on reducing demand. But that goal is even farther out of reach in a time when governments are also slashing social supports on all fronts.
Children in particular drift into the sex trade because there’s no support system around them - in their home, at their school or in whatever recreational activities they might have been doing had they ever b een connected to them. Outdoor sex work is also primarily an issue of social disadvantage, along with whatever it is that sends men to prowl the streets for sex and violence.
Nicholson’s comments are particularly nervy given that his party has often led the charge around social-spending cuts. I’d sure like to hear his theories on how our country will reduce the prevalence of sex workers while actively priming the pump for more disadvantage.
And what the heck is wrong with the rest of us? There isn’t a single other mainstream service whose workers face the same kind of routine danger - all due to a lack of workplace regulation and oversight. With a workforce that’s at least 90 per cent female, it would be tough to find a more pressing women’s issue.
Yet time and again, the decades-old debate fizzles out with pious musings about the need to prevent exploitation and violence against women. And nothing changes.
We pay a terrible price on a number of fronts. Children continue to suffer in an industry that we completely ignore. Adult Canadians labour in profoundly unsafe conditions. Neighbourhoods break down under the wear and tear of hosting the local prostitution stroll.
I’m still fuming over the Canadian Labour Congress’s dismissal of this issue as one that its members are too “divided” on for the congress to take action. I would have thought workers’ rights trumped moral judgment. Who are we to judge how someone earns a living - especially when our own brothers, sons, friends and lovers are the buyers?
Our paralysis is tragic. Conditions are worsening, and all we do is continue to dither over whose ideology has it right. Unbearable.
April 20, 2007
It’s no surprise that federal Justice minister Rob Nicholson is against decriminalizing prostitution. A party with Alliance roots just isn’t going to see its way clear to taking action on the issues of the sex trade.
But it’s still pretty galling to have to read Nicholson’s comments on the matter. Decriminalizing prostitution would lead to the exploitation of women, says Nicholson, and therefore can’t be tolerated.
Nice theory. But what he’s actually saying is that he upholds the status quo.
In other words, the tens of thousands of Canadian women and men who work in the sex trade will just have to figure a way out of it, because the government isn’t prepared to do a damn thing about their working conditions. The killings and disappearances of hundreds of sex workers will continue unabated, because nothing is going to change.
I just don’t get it. The sex trade exists because the men of our communities buy sex. There’s a demand, therefore there’s a supply. That’s how a free market works, as Nicholson well knows.
So even if Nicholson’s dream came true to end the steady flow of Canadians of all ages into the sex trade, not even 24 hours would go by before someone had hooked into a new supply of sex workers from some distant land where people needed money. Got to feed that demand.
The sex trade is on our streets, and in our newspapers, phone books and magazines. It’s on our televisions. It’s in our DVD players. Aside from drugs, sex is just about the most readily available service in any city - and on sale around the clock to boot.
Not only that, but it’s the one service that unites the world. Communist-controlled, dictatorship, capitalist, military-led, profoundly religious - whatever the form of government, sex is always for sale somewhere in the country.
Sex is also common tourist fare. I visited Cuba years ago and saw grandpas from Toronto and Montreal buying young girls for as litle as $5 US. More recently, I had the distinct displeasure during a trip to Prague of being seated for a restaurant meal next to three American sex tourists engaged in a loud and loathsome conversation about the night before. Here in Victoria, workers plan for the tourist season.
So what could possibly be our rationale for shutting out the workers?
Why is their workplace unregulated and without oversight? Why do we even have such a thing as outdoor sex workers? Why do the workers live in shame and profound stigma, judged at every juncture of their lives, while their buyers enjoy ease of service and complete anonymity?
And why do we carry on in this foolish charade about how we’re going to address prostitution in Canada by “focusing on reducing its prevalence?” Give me a break, Minister Nicholson. Just say it straight up: You’ve got no intention of doing anything about Canada’s sex trade.
Reducing the prevalence of prostitution is likely an impossible goal even in an ideal world unless all efforts were focused on reducing demand. But that goal is even farther out of reach in a time when governments are also slashing social supports on all fronts.
Children in particular drift into the sex trade because there’s no support system around them - in their home, at their school or in whatever recreational activities they might have been doing had they ever b een connected to them. Outdoor sex work is also primarily an issue of social disadvantage, along with whatever it is that sends men to prowl the streets for sex and violence.
Nicholson’s comments are particularly nervy given that his party has often led the charge around social-spending cuts. I’d sure like to hear his theories on how our country will reduce the prevalence of sex workers while actively priming the pump for more disadvantage.
And what the heck is wrong with the rest of us? There isn’t a single other mainstream service whose workers face the same kind of routine danger - all due to a lack of workplace regulation and oversight. With a workforce that’s at least 90 per cent female, it would be tough to find a more pressing women’s issue.
Yet time and again, the decades-old debate fizzles out with pious musings about the need to prevent exploitation and violence against women. And nothing changes.
We pay a terrible price on a number of fronts. Children continue to suffer in an industry that we completely ignore. Adult Canadians labour in profoundly unsafe conditions. Neighbourhoods break down under the wear and tear of hosting the local prostitution stroll.
I’m still fuming over the Canadian Labour Congress’s dismissal of this issue as one that its members are too “divided” on for the congress to take action. I would have thought workers’ rights trumped moral judgment. Who are we to judge how someone earns a living - especially when our own brothers, sons, friends and lovers are the buyers?
Our paralysis is tragic. Conditions are worsening, and all we do is continue to dither over whose ideology has it right. Unbearable.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Letter from Prague
April 13, 2007
His name is Alin. I’ll likely never know much more than that about him.
I had come to Prague on holiday, initially without much thought of seeing how the other side lives in that beautiful city. But having heard news of a refitted barge Prague was testing as a shelter for homeless people, I grew curious to see it for myself during my visit to the city last week.
My partner and I first spotted the barge while on a boat tour along the Vltava River, which winds through the centre of Prague.
It matched the photo from an on-line Czech story about the project that I’d asked our bemused hotel clerk to print out for me, and bore the same name: Hermes. Docked in the river below a massive metronome the city had installed to replace a statue of Stalin, I figured the barge wouldn’t be too hard to find again on foot.
The big ship had something of a foreboding look to it when I made my way there a couple days later, as did the man on deck who gestured at me to leave as I made my way down the gangplank. I retreated to the street, eventually spotting Alin as he approached the barge.
Wearing the demeanor and the faded tattoos of someone who’d had a hard life, he seemed like the kind of fellow who might know a thing or two about a barge for the homeless. Neither of us could speak each other’s language, but we managed to settle into something of a conversation.
I pointed to the barge and asked if he slept there. Yes, but he didn’t want the man who had scared me off to see that I was talking to him. Yes, he’d be happy to pose for a picture, but not here. We walked out of sight of the man who Alin nervously called the “chef.”
I asked Alin how many people slept aboard the barge, counting on my fingers to convey my meaning. He pulled out an alarm clock from his backpack and slowly pointed to one number and then another: 68.
I learned later that the barge can actually hold 250 men and women. It opened as a shelter in February, after city council spent the equivalent of $1.3 million to refit the ship, which once travelled the waters between Prague and Hamburg.
People like Alin can sleep there for 20 korunas a night - about $1. On a balmy spring night, with a vast park just a couple staircases away across the street, maybe that fee gets in the way of a full house.
Or maybe it has more to do with the non-stop clatter of the high-speed motorway running alongside the river where the Hermes docks, or the pounding jackhammers from the bridge being renovated directly above. Alin shrugs, and I take his meaning: Nothing wrong with a bed on the barge, but nothing particularly right about it, either.
In Prague, some 6,000 to 10,000 people live homeless, left behind these past 18 years during the city’s massive post-Communist transformation.
Unlike Victoria, Prague still has some bad parts of town where it can hide its growing number of lost souls, out of sight of the international tourists who now flood its vibrant streets by the thousands. Had I not gone looking for the barge, the only visible evidence of social ills would have been a handful of prostrate beggars in the city’s Old Town and the occasional staggering, stumbling street drunk outside a Metro station.
But flourishing economies in cities like Prague, Berlin and London are fuelling the same kind of phenomenal real-estate growth that our region has seen. With even the slummiest of neighbourhoods now facing development pressures, homelessness won’t be invisible anywhere for much longer. Europe alone has more than 2.7 million people living homeless.
Alin and I could talk of none of this, of course. Enthusiastic gestures and pointing only get you so far. So once we’d walked far enough to avoid being seen by the man on the barge, Alin cheerfully posed for a picture, then scratched his palm in a last gesture that I clearly understood: Money, please.
I dug out some korunas, the equivalent of $10 or so. In exchange, he loaded me up with goods from his backpack - stolen, I suppose - that he indicated were for my children and husband.
An electronic sudoku game. A package of modelling clay. A wooden bird with a broken tail. A child’s jacket. A whiskey flask, whisper of spirits still intact. The broken alarm clock he and I had employed in our communications. I resisted all of it, but saw quickly that he interpreted my refusal as an insult.
My own backpack now bulging, we said our goodbyes, and I headed back to the shops at the heart of the city. Alin’s gifts in my pack triggered the anti-shoplifting devices in every store I tried to go in.
An apologetic young Czech security guard at the Bata store finally asked to empty my bag, then repacked it without a word and sent me on my way.
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