A Call For Accountability for Vancouver

Vancouver Has Missed the Mark: A Call for Accountability 💔🥺

Mark Carney, David Eby, Ken Sim — where is the logic? How can you sit comfortably in your offices while human lives are being lost, seniors sleep in shelters, and thousands of people are forced onto the streets? You have responsibilities. You hold positions of power. And yet, homelessness, addiction, and toxic drug deaths continue to rise unabated.

Vancouver is in crisis. Transit cops, VPD officers, and even RCMP are expected to manage mental health crises, addiction, homelessness, domestic disputes, and child or elder care with only six to twelve months of training. Meanwhile, professions historically dominated by women — teaching, nursing, social work, caregiving, cooking — require years of rigorous education. Teachers train for four to five years, nurses and social workers for two to four, doctors for seven or more, and chefs/caregivers for two years or more.

The irony is glaring. Male-dominated “tough” roles get short training, while female-dominated “nurturing” roles require far more experience — yet both involve human lives and safety. And the stakes could not be higher.

Political leadership has only worsened the situation. Mayor Ken Sim promised 100 new nurses and doctors, yet those promises remain largely unmet. Billions are poured into policing while police boast of drug busts and photo ops. Seniors, Indigenous people, and marginalized communities continue to suffer.

Meanwhile, the distractions abound: Parks Board skirmishes, FIFA excitement, flashy announcements — all while the real crisis escalates. This is classic misdirection: wave the hand at spectacle while lives hang in the balance.

Consider the facts:

• Metro Vancouver’s 2025 regional count found 5,232 people experiencing homelessness — a 9 % increase in two years.
• Seniors (55+) now comprise 22 % of the unhoused population, and Indigenous people are overrepresented at roughly 34 % of those without housing.
• In British Columbia in 2024, 1,749 deaths from unregulated drug toxicity occurred in the first nine months. Total overdose deaths for 2024 reached approximately 2,253, and overdose/poisoning calls numbered 40,543, about 111 per day.
• First Nations people experienced toxic drug poisoning at rates 6.7 times higher than other BC residents.

And yet people steal bus rides like they once stole bread — acts of survival criminalized by a system that fails to protect them. Seniors flood shelters in record numbers, Indigenous and marginalized communities are neglected, and greedy developers push ridiculous condo projects that will destroy affordability and accelerate social collapse.

Mark Carney, David Eby, Ken Sim — Vancouver is screaming for leadership. Vancouver Coastal Health, the Physicians Association, the education system, and architects and developers — you all need to back off from self-interest and take responsibility. Stop prioritizing profit and optics over human life.

The danger of undertrained officers is clear: if a chef trains two years to safely cook meals, how can someone trained six months manage a human crisis without causing harm? Would you trust a six-month-trained officer to teach, counsel, or protect children, elders, or people experiencing trauma? Yet these officers are given immense power — power over communities that have already suffered trauma, poverty, and oppression.

We need real investment in healthcare, social services, and meaningful housing solutions, not just policing. We need officers and transit security trained in empathy, social work, and crisis intervention, not just law enforcement. And we need political accountability from those who continue to let people suffer while comfortable in their offices.

Vancouver has missed the mark. Authority, money, and political theatre flourish while human suffering escalates. Mark Carney, David Eby, Ken Sim — take responsibility. Stop letting greedy architects and developers destroy our city. Step up, make the hard choices, and protect the lives you are sworn to serve.

Until that happens, Vancouver will remain a city where human lives are collateral damage — and we are all paying the price.