Amy Hamm: Poverty pimps explode at John Rustad for wanting to address homelessness

British Columbia’s provincial election campaign is not even a week old and already getting nasty.  

Conservative Party of B.C. leader John Rustad didn’t even have to open his mouth on the campaign trail before accusations began to fly. At his first presser, held at Vancouver’s oceanfront Crab Park, Rustad was admonished for allegedly using homeless people as election props. His crime: one of our province’s many tent encampments could be seen approximately 100 metres behind him while he spoke. Not a single homeless person was visible. 

Standing alongside his wife at a podium adorned with a “Common Sense Change” sign, Rustad addressed a small crowd on writ day. “Behind me: the beautiful scenery, the industrial activity that’s happening, or the tents — and the drugs and the addictions that are going on. It is a stark contrast between what we’re trying to do for the people in British Columbia, and where we see hope for our future, and to the David Eby and Justin Trudeau approach, which has led to so many issues and challenges across this province… people in this province cannot afford to live here,” Rustad said Saturday.  

Cue the outrage. University of British Columbia law professor Margot Young, for instance, launched a volley of adjectives at Rustad: “appalling,” “cruel,” “misleading,” “dog-whistling,” “dishonourable.” She accused him of “political profiteering.” She was one of many to do so. To an uninformed observer, the backlash wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s dishonourable for a politician to not want drug addicted homeless persons sleeping in tents on our beaches? It’s appalling for our potential premier to want to lift our most downtrodden from their miserable lives on the streets? Sure thing. 

Such indignation could only make sense in the minds of harm reduction activists, who can better be described as poverty pimps: persons whose paycheques — and often entire sense of self-worth — are dependent upon a highly-solvent ecosystem of social support services, which in turn are dependent upon having a robust population of sick, addicted, and homeless (or nearly homeless) citizens to use those services. They have a vested interest in our inhumane status quo; as such, they do not tolerate those who challenge their narrative of “compassion” and “empowerment.” 

It is difficult to get a clear picture of the amount of cash flowing into Vancouver’s social programs, and particularly into the Downtown Eastside (DTES), the epicentre of the province’s addiction and homelessness crisis. There is no doubt, however, that 100s of millions are thrown at the problem — while the problem is only getting worse. A 2022 consulting firm report commissioned by the Vancouver Police Department — which received heavy scrutiny from activists — suggested that the amount spent is $14 million CAD per day, or $5 billion per year. And yet we have a growing homeless population and a worsening opioid overdose crisis. Money is plainly not what is hindering our progress. Activists are. 

Poverty pimps make good money while their clients die, often slowly.  

I used to do outreach nursing in Vancouver’s DTES. I left for a multitude of reasons, among them a repulsion towards the enabling behaviours that I saw among care providers and support workers of every organization. From a nurse who delivered beer to the bedside of an alcoholic client, to the clients who would threaten that if their opioid prescription wasn’t immediately filled, they’d go and buy their drugs on the street — and blame the nurse for wasting their money — it felt difficult to offer care within a system that felt designed to keep people unwell.  

Examples are everywhere: I witnessed a group of health care professionals excitedly discuss which drug-addicted client to offer up for an interview in a pro harm-reduction documentary, which one jokingly referred to as “needle porn.” They wanted a slick talker who could entertain, and who might praise the DTES support services. Agencies once dedicated to assisting women to exit prostitution have, in recent years, turned their focus to “reducing harms” and “empowering sex workers.” Misery has become a sustainable lifestyle under the wealthy harm-reduction czars in our province.  

A regular pastime of harm reduction advocates — when they’re not busy patting themselves on the back for their virtue — is to accuse those who point to their failures of being reprehensible, and of instrumentalizing human suffering. That is textbook projection.  

Addressing the repugnant state of B.C.’s drug and homelessness problem is not vote fodder or outrage bait for politicians willing to question our current state of affairs. It is both necessary and moral. We are failing our most vulnerable, and etching a black mark against our name. We have to change course.  

John Rustad is not “using” homeless persons — the poverty pimps are. They don’t want you to look, in case you actually see. 

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