The Daily Hive is reporting that "A former Vancouver mayoral candidate is running in the Vancouver-Strathcona riding for the BC NDP. Amanda Burrows, a renter, prominent social justice advocate, and the executive director of the First United Church in the Downtown Eastside, has pivoted to provincial politics."
"Earlier this year, Burrows ran and lost against William Azaroff for the OneCity mayoral candidate seat. (And just a few weeks ago, Azaroff stepped down to clear the path for Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry.)"
"In Burrows’ run in Vancouver politics, she promised city-run grocery stores, a home retrofit program, and harm reduction." Heavy sigh. First let me say, without having met her, I'm sure Amanda is a wonderful person who means well and has a sincere desire to help the less fortunate.
I am very familiar with the work that First United does which is in the epicenter of the DTES drug exploitation and violence. I say exploitation because we all know how the predatory drug dealers brutalize addicts for drug debts. We also know that the drug addicts prey on women in the DTES and victimize them.
Women's rights means protection from the sexual violence of predatory drug addicts and dealers. Women would be regularly raped in those tents that took over Oppenheimer park. We used to regularly volunteer in the DTES handing out warm clothes and food in the beginning of winter.
In the later years we started bringing young women with the young men along with female youth leaders. I remember on one occasion handing out food and clothes at Pidgeon corner, one woman from the street took one of our female youth leaders aside and told her, we can't go to Pidgeon corner any more. It's not safe. We meaning women who live in the DTES. She told her they would be sexually assaulted there. So where are the woman's rights in that?
I remember one woman from the DTES told me one time she was being stalked by a predatory male who wanted to assault her. She said she used to run outside the police station because it had a camera out front. Then they closed public access to that station and took down the cameras making it even more unsafe for women. So if we really do care about the less fortunate, we would want to protect them from this predatory violence and exploitation.
Notice that Amanda said harm reduction. She didn't even mention the Four Pillars. Remember them? Harm reduction was only one of the Four Pillars. Extremists threw away the other three pillars and turned Harm Reduction into harm promotion which drastically increases crime and violence.
I'm certainly not going to hate on Amanda because as I said I believe she is a good person who sincerely means well. I think she's been brainwashed by extremists who don't. We don't help addicts by promoting addiction. That is not in their best interest. We don't protect the vulnerable by exposing them to more violence. I stopped volunteering in the DTES because what we are doing there is wrong. Everyone who hasn't been brainwashed can see it.
