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Alternative solutions
Recommendation 18:
Create a Provincial Court resource outlining “harm reduction services,” including a definition of:
- “drug paraphernalia” as harm reduction equipment;
- “Safe Consumption Sites” and “Overdose Prevention Sites”;
- needle exchange;
- opioid substitution treatment; and v. low-barrier health services.
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Recommendation 9:
Commit to using non-incarceration and alternative measures especially for minor offenses committed by Indigenous women. Governments must also provide sufficient and stable funding to Indigenous communities and organizations to provide alternatives to incarceration including community-based rehabilitation, diversion, community courts, and restorative justice methods geared towards Indigenous women.
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Recommendation 17:
Chinatown Economic Revitalization Plan and Chinatown Neighbourhood Plan
In the Memorandum issued on June 22, 2018 from General Manager of Planning, Urban Design & Sustainability, Gil Kelley, to Mayor and Council, an update was provided as to the status of implementation of the Economic Revitalization Strategy Actions in the Chinatown Neighbourhood Plan and Economic Revitalization Strategy (2012). While it was recognized that “many actions were completed or are underway,” there are key actions that have yet to be implemented that would support and alleviate some of the challenges identified within our research.
Specifically for Chinatown’s food retail environment, we recommend refinement of several of the strategic actions:
In the Memorandum issued on June 22, 2018 from General Manager of Planning, Urban Design & Sustainability, Gil Kelley, to Mayor and Council, an update was provided as to the status of implementation of the Economic Revitalization Strategy Actions in the Chinatown Neighbourhood Plan and Economic Revitalization Strategy (2012). While it was recognized that “many actions were completed or are underway,” there are key actions that have yet to be implemented that would support and alleviate some of the challenges identified within our research.
Specifically for Chinatown’s food retail environment, we recommend refinement of several of the strategic actions:
- “Tenant recruitment strategy” could benefit from selective recruitment of businesses that would contribute to the Chinatown character that many of our business interviewees and consumers have identified as ideal additions to the neighbourhood. These were often described as “Chinese businesses” but further work would need to be completed to assess neighbourhood fit in regards to socio-economics and accessibility of these business.
- “Tenant retention strategy.” As with the experience of the BIA, the “lack of succession planning makes retention challenging.” Due to the contributions that traditional businesses make to the neighbourhood character, through intangible values with the social and cultural connections they hold, we recommend that a working group be formed to come up with options that the City, other levels of government, as well as other stakeholders can implement to assist with succession planning of these businesses. Namely, to explore how traditional businesses can succeed in becoming community- and membership- owned entities. Applying cooperative values can serve the community/membership as well as democratizing ownership and economics of the business.
- “Tourism and Marketing Strategy.” More specifically for Chinatown’s Marketing Strategy, we recommend actions including measures to build social and cultural relationships between traditional and non-traditional businesses. As our research has shown, there are missed intra-neighbourhood economic opportunities due to parallel and segregated economic and social systems. Marketing opportunities within the neighbourhood to businesses across cultural lines would contribute to neighbourhood connectivity. The external aspects of the Tourism and Marketing Strategy would also benefit from a more socially cohesive business environment in Chinatown.
- From our findings, there is also a desire from business operators for further “clean-up of public spaces with local business”. Current actions are not satisfactory based on our interview findings. This ongoing challenge can be attributed to larger systemic issues. We stress that ‘clean-up’ does not mean increasing police presence in the neighbourhood.
- Include a Community Economic Development strategy that is based entirely from a culturally and community specific lens. This recommendation includes legitimizing and uplifting the survival economy, informal economy, and other systems that have been pushed to the margins, with measures to increase opportunities for more equitable and inclusive employment.
While housing was not specifically researched for this report, housing has significant impacts on neighbourhood food retail and social environment. Market-based development in Chinatown and its surrounding areas have created and reinforced actors in parallel systems, economically and socially, for both businesses and consumers. These systems draw out the social distance between community members and limits the potential of socially cohesive communities to thrive. It is recommended that housing be addressed with culturally specific needs in mind, including culturally specific seniors housing. Development guidelines such as frontage, use, size of retail units, and other zoning and permitting should be explored as ways to direct the types of businesses and ownership that will end up occupying retail spaces in the neighbourhood.
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- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Alternative solutions ,
- Classism ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Economic inequality ,
- Food insecurity ,
- Housing and homelessness ,
- Policing and the criminal justice system ,
- Poverty and economic inequality ,
- Public services ,
- Racism ,
- Tenancy rights ,
- Workers’ rights
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Recommendation 34:
We call upon the governments of Canada, the provinces, and territories to undertake reforms to the criminal justice system to better address the needs of offenders with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), including:
- Providing increased community resources and powers for courts to ensure that FASD is properly diagnosed, and that appropriate community supports are in place for those with FASD.
- Enacting statutory exemptions from mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for offenders affected by FASD.
- Providing community, correctional, and parole resources to maximize the ability of people with FASD to live in the community.
- Adopting appropriate evaluation mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of such programs and ensure community safety.
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Recommendation 6:
A Provincial Policy on police attendance at overdoses which includes:
- a directive not to attend at drug overdose calls, except where requested by Emergency Health Services—usually in the event of a fatality or threats to public safety; and
- a clear statement that the role of law enforcement at the scene of a drug overdose is to deliver first aid if they are the only responders available, or to protect the safety of Emergency Health Services and members of the public, not to investigate the individuals or circumstances at the scene unless police determine that there is an urgent public safety concern, for example, if violence is occurring at the scene.
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Recommendation 5:
A Provincial Policy on harm reduction which should include:
- a directive to deprioritize simple possession of controlled substances and an overview of the harms of confiscating substances (including alcohol) from people with addictions and limited resources;
- a directive to never confiscate new or used syringes, naloxone, and other harm reduction and overdose prevention supplies;
- a statement that harm reduction supplies, whether new or used, are not a basis for search or investigation; and
- a directive that local police forces work with service providers to develop bubble zones around safe consumption sites, overdose prevention sites, and other harm reduction sites, taking into consideration policing practices that may deter access including visible presence, arrests in close proximity, undercover operations in and near, and surveillance of people using the service.
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Recommendation 4:
A Provincial Policy governing police interactions with intoxicated persons, in partnership with people who use drugs and people living with alcoholism, and fund the implementation of the Policy. This Policy should make it clear that:
- police interventions with a person who is intoxicated must be minimally impairing on liberty and officers must make the security of the person (health) the paramount consideration in determining whether to apprehend an individual;
- city cells are not the appropriate place to bring an intoxicated person for their own safety or other therapeutic reasons. Alternatives to detention including, but not limited to, sobering centres, hospitals, and other community-based options must be made available; and
- where an intoxicated person must be brought into cells, their health care needs shall be paramount and health care visits will be mandatory.
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Recommendation 37:
Assess time extension requests with a trauma-informed lens and consider any circumstances Indigenous applicants raise tied to Indigenous traditions or ways of approaching conflict (such as attempts at relationship repair or restoration).
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Recommendation 31:
Include Indigenous dispute resolution models, mediators and peacemakers in BCHRT mediation or settlement discussions. Consider use of co-mediation or joint processes involving Indigenous Peoples.
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