50 search results for
Pivot Legal Society
Recommendation 30:
The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs must immediately improve the number and accessibility of shelter options to ensure that everyone in BC always has access to a physical location where they can sleep, store belongings, and attend to personal care and hygiene in safety and without threat of displacement or sanctions. To do so they must:
- work in partnership with BC Housing to reinstate nightly turn-away counts at shelters and use data to ensure that there are adequate shelter beds to address the level of need in each municipality;
- with the exception of temporary Extreme Weather Response shelters, recognize that overnight-only shelters are untenable for residents and provide funding to expand shelter hours; and
- provide shelter residents an accessible and independent complaint process.
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Recommendation 10:
The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs (MHMA) must make a province-wide commitment to supporting homeless people to maintain their belongings and to ensuring that homeless people have access to services without fear of losing their possessions. The MHMA must partner with local governments in collaboration with groups of people with lived experience, to train local bylaw officers:
- to recognize and respect the belongings of homeless people; and
- to work effectively with people experiencing homelessness to clean up or discard belongings where there is a pressing public safety, access, or environmental need to do so.
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Recommendation 4:
The Legal Services Society of BC must provide legal support for appeals where a person has been denied income assistance or disability assistance.
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Recommendation 29:
The Legal Services Society of BC must provide legal support for appeals where a person has been denied income assistance or disability assistance.
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Recommendation 12:
The Government of Canada must amend the Criminal Code to prevent the use and prosecution of discriminatory or destructive behavioural conditions of interim release and sentencing, specifically:
- legislate that conditions imposed on interim release be reasonable and proportionate to the nature and seriousness of the alleged offence and the circumstances of the accused;
- define “drug paraphernalia” as harm reduction medical equipment and prohibit the imposition of conditions that would interfere with the ability to access or possess harm reduction equipment;
- prior to imposing an abstinence condition, require that courts consider a person’s dependence on drugs or alcohol. Abstinence conditions shall not be imposed on people living with addictions, except where doing so is necessary to protect the safety of a victim, witness, or the public, and harm-reduction measures shall be preferred over abstinence;
- limit “red zone” conditions to situations where there is a substantial likelihood that, if released without a red zone, the accused will commit an offence involving violence or serious harm within the red zone and ensure that any red zone is tailored to the alleged offence, the principles of judicial interim release or probation, and circumstances of the individual;
- remove paragraph 504(2.1) (g), the power for police to impose “abstinence” conditions; and
- eliminate criminal sanctions for non-violent breaches of behavioural conditions.
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Recommendation 9:
The Director of Police Services must work with the Independent Investigations Office and the Coroners Service to audit deaths and serious injuries in city cells in BC over the past 10 years, including an analysis of race, disability, housing status, and gender, and, make the findings and recommendations for reform publicly available.
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Recommendation 26:
Reviewing the processes that are currently in place for reporting “welfare fraud” to provide greater accountability and ensure that people receiving income assistance are not denied survival income without due process.
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Recommendation 1:
Pursuant to section 56(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the City of Vancouver should apply to the federal Minister of Health for an exemption that applies to all people in the City of Vancouver against section 4(1) of the CDSA, on the basis that it is necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest.
In order to address the totality of overdose deaths in Vancouver, the exemption should apply broadly in terms of population, geography, and drug. The exemption should apply:
Support for a broad exemption is also provided by the extent of contamination in Vancouver’s street drug supply. In 2018, approximately 88% of tested street drug samples marketed as opioids tested positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl was found in samples believed to be depressants and stimulants alike. Street drugs themselves are constantly changing, and a static narcotic schedule (like the CDSA) is bound to be eclipsed by the reality of new compounds being formulated and used over time. Decriminalizing the possession of some drugs and not others, or some people and not others, would be arbitrary and illogical during a time when the risks are extreme for anyone who relies on an (ever-evolving) street market, however infrequently.
In order to address the totality of overdose deaths in Vancouver, the exemption should apply broadly in terms of population, geography, and drug. The exemption should apply:
- To any person who possesses drugs for personal use while in Vancouver and;
- In all instances meeting the offence criteria for simple possession, regardless of the substance in question.
Support for a broad exemption is also provided by the extent of contamination in Vancouver’s street drug supply. In 2018, approximately 88% of tested street drug samples marketed as opioids tested positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl was found in samples believed to be depressants and stimulants alike. Street drugs themselves are constantly changing, and a static narcotic schedule (like the CDSA) is bound to be eclipsed by the reality of new compounds being formulated and used over time. Decriminalizing the possession of some drugs and not others, or some people and not others, would be arbitrary and illogical during a time when the risks are extreme for anyone who relies on an (ever-evolving) street market, however infrequently.
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Recommendation 2:
Provide and make available to directly-impacted groups and organizations the expenditures associated with this Decriminalizing Poverty Motion, and future related work, supported with transparent reporting, including line item details.
Joint Open Letter on Decriminalizing Poverty
Group/author:
Battered Women’s Support Services, BC Association of People on Methadone, BC Civil Liberties Association, Black Lives Matter – Vancouver, Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity, Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War, Defund 604 Network, Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, Hogan’s Alley Society, Metro Vancouver Consortium, Overdose Prevention Society, PACE Society, Pivot Legal Society, Restoring Collective, Sanctuary Health, SWAN Vancouver, Tenant Overdose Response Organizers, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, WePress, WISH Drop-In Centre Society
Battered Women’s Support Services, BC Association of People on Methadone, BC Civil Liberties Association, Black Lives Matter – Vancouver, Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity, Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War, Defund 604 Network, Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, Hogan’s Alley Society, Metro Vancouver Consortium, Overdose Prevention Society, PACE Society, Pivot Legal Society, Restoring Collective, Sanctuary Health, SWAN Vancouver, Tenant Overdose Response Organizers, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, WePress, WISH Drop-In Centre Society
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2021
2021
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Recommendation 19:
Police Services must create a provincial practice direction for police officers upon release of an accused, adopting the following recommendations of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association:
- police should make increased use of their power to release and ensure that any conditions imposed are constitutional and legally permissible under the Criminal Code.
- individuals released from police custody should be proactively informed of the procedures that can be used to vary police-imposed conditions under the Criminal Code; and
- police should release individuals under the most minimally restricting conditions available in the circumstance, taking into consideration an individual’s need to access shelter, social services, health care, and community, as well as the possible disability status of the individual, including addiction.
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