Half of B.C. first responders who file mental-health claims don’t receive the help they’ve requested

Lorimer Shenher was a Vancouver cop for 24 years before finally leaving the force with a PTSD diagnosis. He warns many B.C. first responders aren't receiving the help with mental health that they need, in part because of a difficult claims process at WorkSafeBC.
Lorimer Shenher was a Vancouver cop for 24 years before finally leaving the force with a PTSD diagnosis. He warns many B.C. first responders aren’t receiving the help with mental health that they need, in part because of a difficult claims process at WorkSafeBC.

Lorimer Shenher estimates that less than five percent of B.C. first responders who need help with mental health ever ask for it. That’s only a guess, he said in a telephone interview. But it’s an educated one.

Shenher was an officer with the Vancouver Police Department for 24 years, before leaving the force with a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2013. He’s also the author of That Lonely Section of Hell, a book about the investigation of women missing from the Downtown Eastside and the prosecution of serial killer Robert Pickton. The book recounts Shenher’s lead role in that investigation, and the debilitating toll it took on his mental health.

In a telephone interview, he discussed the challenges that B.C.’s first responders—firefighters, police officers, and paramedics—can encounter on their way to getting help with conditions such as PTSD.

 Shenher argued that because relatively few first responders who ask for help, WorkSafeBC should make it as easy as possible for them to receive it.

“I think there are much higher percentages of people in those professions that need help that aren’t asking for it,” he said. “When they do finally acknowledge to themselves that they are struggling, it takes a huge amount of courage and faith to put a claim into WorkSafe.”

Yet roughly half of B.C. first responders who do file a mental-health claim with WorkSafeBC do not receive the assistance they are looking for.

According to WorkSafeBC data first reported on by the Tyee and updated for the Straight, for the period July 2012 to December 2015, only 51 percent of 277 B.C. first responders who filed a mental-health claim saw their case approved. (These statistics exclude the RCMP and Transit Police.)

In a telephone interview, Jennifer Leyen, director of special care services for WorkSafeBC, emphasized those numbers do not mean 49 percent of claims were rejected.

She supplied a statistical breakdown showing that of 136 first responders’ mental-health claims not approved, 15 percent were stamped “no adjudication required”, which means that paperwork was only filed for “informational purposes” and did not include a claim for health-care costs or lost wages. Another 32 percent of disallowed claims were suspended, meaning the applicant dropped out of the claims process before a resolution was reached.

Leyen also emphasized that the acceptance rate for mental-health claims filed by first responders was significantly higher than that of all mental-health claims. That number was just 26 percent.

“We accept a significantly higher percentage of first-responder claims than we do any other employer group,” Leyen said. “It is double.”

But she conceded WorkSafeBC accepts a smaller percentage of mental-health claims than it does of the claims it receives as a whole (the bulk of which involve physical injuries). According to Leyen, the acceptance rate for all WorkSafeBC claims hovers around 91 or 92 percent.

“Because the mental-health legislation is very specific about what gets accepted under this part of our legislation, there is much more adjudication required,” she explained. “And we do have a higher disallow rate.”

Leyen noted that changes enacted in July 2012 broadened the scope of mental-health claims deemed eligible for WorkSafeBC compensation. Whereas the rules once said an individual had to be on the scene of a traumatic event—a car accident, for example—now they also cover mental-health challenges that can result from what WorkSafeBC calls “work-place stressors”.

Shenher benefited directly from that legislative change. His claim was initially rejected on the grounds he had not spent time on the farm where Pickton took his victims. It was only accepted by WorkSafeBC when it was reviewed again under the revised legislation.

“I understand how difficult it is to get your head around how PTSD manifests itself,” he said. “It is really weird, the things you can do, the things that you can’t do, the things that trigger you, and the things that are okay. It’s different for everybody.”

At the same time, Shenher questioned whether there’s a need for an arduous review process of mental-health claims. He suggested there’s already such a degree of stigma around mental health, especially in the tradition-bound environment of a police department, that only people with a very pressing need for help ask for it.

Shane Simpson, NDP MLA for Vancouver-Hastings, worked with first responders to draft a private member’s bill that would see WorkSafeBC handle first responders’ mental-health claims with a “presumptive” approach.

“For somebody who was diagnosed with that [PTSD] who is a first responder, the claim would be accepted immediately, without any further processes, unless there was a glaring reason to review it,” Simpson explained in a telephone interview.

He said he introduced that bill last March, but, without government support, he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere.

Simpson maintains that a presumptive approach to mental-health claims is important because a mental-health challenge is very different from a physical injury. He said a condition like PTSD can make the WorksafeBC claims process seem especially daunting, hence the organization’s high percentage of suspended mental-health claims.

“One of the challenges with PTSD is, it’s an area where, because of people’s health condition, they get frustrated,” he said. “And numbers of them don’t follow through to the end of that [WorkSafeBC] process, because of their level of depression.”

The Tyee’s May 20 article presents the stories of several first responders who struggled with long and difficult processes of filing mental-health claims with WorkSafeBC. Shenher recalled how hard the process was for him before his claim was finally accepted in 2012.

“And when you get denied—” Shenher paused. “It’s devastating.”

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This article was originally published at Straight.com on May 25, 2016.

Second Generation health care puts a squeeze on space in the Downtown Eastside

The Portland Hotel Society's Coco Culbertson is concerned about changes to health-care in the Downtown Eastside coming at the expense of non-medical programs that are often preferred by clients distrustful of larger institutions. Travis Lupick photo.
The Portland Hotel Society’s Coco Culbertson is concerned about changes to health-care in the Downtown Eastside coming at the expense of non-medical programs that are often preferred by clients distrustful of larger institutions. Travis Lupick photo.

David Ogilvie has created artwork since his childhood, but it wasn’t until he was 66 years old that he sold his first drawing. At a café on Main Street, the artist gave credit to Gallery Gachet, a space on Cordova Street near Columbia.

“The modest success that I’ve gained has been at least partly due to them,” Ogilvie said. He recounted that in 2015, Gallery Gachet gave him his first proper exhibition and, soon after, the Capilano Review made an offer for a series of his work.

Ogilvie said it can be hard to explain the difference this made in his life, and similarly difficult to explain the health benefits that Gallery Gachet provides to the Downtown Eastside. But he argued that its impact on mental health in the community is significant.

“Without Gallery Gachet, I don’t think I would have gotten this far,” he said. “I might not have made it at all.”

For 22 years, the gallery has operated with support from the provincial health ministry. But in September 2015, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), the regional care provider in charge of that money, eliminated Gallery Gachet’s $132,000 in annual funding.

The cut was the first of many moves VCH has begun as part of its “Second Generation” strategy for health care in the Downtown Eastside. The plan is described by VCH as no less than a “system transformation”. As the name Second Generation suggests, it represents the most significant revision of health care in the Downtown Eastside since VCH’s inception in 2001.

Already five years in the making, Second Generation entered an implementation phase last February. That is scheduled to continue through to October, with an official launch planned for the following month.

What’s at stake is almost $60 million that VCH spends every year on the health of Vancouver’s most marginalized residents, those of the Downtown Eastside.

A September 3 VCH media release lists a host of new mental-health and addictions services planned as part of Second Generation. That document and related materials describe a renewed emphasis on clinical services and integrated care delivered with a low-barriers approach that is heavy on peer involvement. The release warns that programs not falling within this focus on clinical applications may be discontinued.

“VCH contracts without a clear health mandate or those offering stand-alone services without formal connections to health care services may not be renewed,” it reads.

Critics of the plan argue that such a tight focus on medical and psychiatric programs will come at the expense of services that, though less formal, are no less beneficial.

Ted Bruce was interim executive director of the Portland Hotel Society for 14 months before he retired in August 2015.

“There is a need for clinical services but there is also a need to balance the clinical services we provide with some of those other, softer, support systems, which are just as important,” he told the Straight.

Portland operates Insite, North America’s first supervised-injection facility, plus 19 social-housing projects throughout the Downtown Eastside.

“What’s important to any population—and, particularly, these folks—is social inclusion, the ability to build community amongst themselves, and the ability to support each other,” Bruce explained. “The kind of programming that has long-term vision—of not just a clinical service but services that build inclusiveness and community—it’s a very important. But that’s often what is not happening when there is an emphasis only on the clinical.”

Bruce stopped short of direct criticism of Second Generation but added: “There are some things that VCH needs to think long and hard about.”

VCH’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Patricia Daly, is quoted in the September release acknowledging that the transition may encounter resistance.

“This is just the beginning of a long-term strategy for change in the Downtown Eastside that will evolve over time,” she said. “We know not everyone will agree with the changes being made, but as health care providers we know that services in the Downtown Eastside can be improved”.

Three organizations lost in the shuffle

Gallery Gachet was the first nonprofit to lose funding.

On April 7, VCH announced that a second organization would be dropped in the shuffle: the Drug User Resource Centre (DURC), a drop-in across the street from Oppenheimer Park that the Portland Hotel Society has run since 2003. DURC previously received $634,000 a year from VCH.

On May 13, in an email to the Straight, VCH named a third: ARA Mental Health, which offers advocacy services for people with mental-health challenges in a building at Pender and Beatty streets. The organization, founded in 1996, has received about $220,000 in annual government funding the past few years.

VCH has extended support to both DURC and ARA to continue operating while they seek new sources of funding, but only through to the end of this summer.

To be sure, VCH services in the Downtown Eastside are expanding by a number of measures. The clearest of these is funding. VCH has said it is increasing what it spends in the neighbourhood by $4 million a year, bringing the annual total to $59 million. There are also extended service hours coming to a number of existing clinics and an entirely new addictions-treatment centre tentatively planned for Powell Street.

Of course, Gallery Gachet’s take on Second Generation focuses on the money it lost to allow for those programs to expand.

“The pattern that I would say seems to be becoming clear,” said Cecily Nicholson, the organization’s financial administrator, “is that there is a lack of attention to preventative means, social, and tertiary services—services that are not directly clinical but are also completely necessary.”

She described Ogilvie’s story as typical of the gallery’s membership, many of whom struggle with mental-health challenges.

“Like the fellow who just brought in his sculpture last week,” Nicholson said. “These are people who are isolated in SROs—very poor housing conditions—but with wall-to-wall art in their rooms. And they have not been able to share it. That is a common narrative.”

She warned that as VCH moves to fill gaps in its system, it is this population that’s at risk of falling through new cracks that open up.

A state of extreme anxiety

For this article, the Straight spoke with some two dozen people employed by VCH-funded nonprofits and the clients for whom those organizations provide care.

Several people who have spoken to the Straight on a regular basis in the past refused to go on the record for an interview about Second Generation. They cited fears of placing funding in jeopardy. Some pointed to nondisclosure agreements that are now routinely built into contracts with VCH and even applications for VCH contracts.

Those and other conversations revealed a community in a state of extreme anxiety for the changes that are coming.

Coco Culbertson is in charge of housing, community, and peer development for the Portland Hotel Society, one of the few nonprofits that was willing to comment on the record for this story.

She noted that it is still early days in the rollout of Second Generation, and she stressed that service providers don’t yet fully understand how the plan will change health care in the Downtown Eastside.

“It remains to be seen,” she said. “And I think it’s important we stay in discussion with VCH.”

At the same time, Culbertson expressed concern for a focus on clinical services coming at the expense of community programs that she maintained—although perhaps not involving a psychiatrist in a lab coat—do improve people’s health.

“From the PHS Community Services Society’s perspective, nonclinical, nonmedicalized, and noninstitutional approaches to care are at the heart of what we do and why we’ve been successful in engaging thousands of people every day in the Downtown Eastside,” Culbertson said. “I would hope that VCH will continue to value those interventions.”

Marion Allaart is executive director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (Vandu), a nonprofit founded in 1998 that was instrumental in the fight for Insite. Asked about Second Generation, Allaart’s response was representative of other nonprofit employees who only spoke off the record.

“We’ve been expecting them to come for us for a long time,” Allaart told the Straight.

Service improvements throughout the community

VCH’s mental-health and addictions programs in the Downtown Eastside are overseen by Andrew MacFarlane, operations director of community health services (inner city–east). In a wide-ranging interview at VCH headquarters at West 6th Avenue and Cambie Street, he began by outlining the problems that VCH aims to address with Second Generation.

“We’ve, historically, not been great about being low-barrier and accessible for vulnerable people,” MacFarlane said. “Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. doesn’t work for a lot of people that have chaos in their lives.”

To that end, MacFarlane said, VCH is extending service hours and expanding programs at three existing clinics: at 59 West Pender Street, 569 Powell Street, and 330 Heatley Street.

At those locations, he said, doors will soon be open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

A second complaint VCH heard in its consultation phase for Second Generation was of a system heavily burdened by its complicated structure, where services are isolated from one another in ways that prevent many mentally ill people from receiving care.

“We had programs that were really siloed,” MacFarlane said. “If you saw a mental-health clinician somewhere, then you had to walk somewhere else to a primary-care doctor, who may or may not be in the loop on what is happening with your mental-health treatment.”

To address that problem, new “integrated health-care teams” will deploy at those three locations and others to offer more holistic care, he continued.

“We have a model that we’re implementing that is about having one care team that is really interdisciplinary with a single care coordinator at the centre of it,” MacFarlane said. “Each client will have a designated care coordinator, which will provide a single point of contact for other care providers and agencies.”

Second Generation will also bring a whole new point of access to the Downtown Eastside: the Railtown Centre for Addictions (a working title that could change). VCH declined to reveal a location for the building but multiple sources told the Straight it will likely open on Powell Street east of Oppenheimer Park. VCH will run the centre itself (as opposed to contracting it to a nonprofit). It is scheduled to open this fall.

MacFarlane described the Railtown Centre as a low-barriers medical hub for people with addiction issues.

“This includes an interdisciplinary team, an on-site physician, pharmacist, nurses, and evidence-based psychosocial supports such as social workers, counsellors, peers, and financial workers,” he said.

He noted it will also involve a drop-in component that, crucially, will allow people to connect with addictions services without having to make an appointment or work their way up a wait list.

Through all of that, MacFarlane maintained that harm-reduction programs such as needle exchanges will continue to be a “core competency” of VCH’s work in the Downtown Eastside.

He said that Insite, the city’s only low-barrier supervised-injection facility, has already seen its hours shifted to open earlier in the morning. MacFarlane added that VCH also hopes to soon see supervised injection occur at additional locations. “We are actively pursuing approval to go ahead with that,” he said.

Feedback falling on deaf ears?

For Second Generation, VCH conducted an extensive consultation process that lasted longer than two years.

It commissioned three lengthy papers that presented Downtown Eastside residents’ views on what they want for the community. Today, VCH points to those documents as evidence the Second Generation rollout is following the advice of the people it serves.

At the daily street market on the unit block of East Hastings Street, the Straight asked one of those papers’ authors, Ann Livingston, if Second Generation’s implementation fits with the community feedback she presented in her report.

“Hell, no,” she replied. “I don’t think they’ve looked at it at all.”

Livingston, a cofounder of Vandu, argued that Gallery Gachet and DURC, though not perfect, made people feel welcome and a part of decisions related to their care.

“The things that make the most difference in people’s lives is being welcomed, having autonomy, and having power,” Livingston explained. “Trauma-informed services should be accessible. People should feel welcome. They shouldn’t have to buzz to get in; they shouldn’t have to be a client; they shouldn’t have to give their name….That’s a model for trauma-informed services. But that seems to have been dropped.”

Support for change

Livingston and other Downtown Eastside residents interviewed for this story also raised serious questions about the first big winner in the funding shuffle that’s come with Second Generation: Lookout Emergency Aid Society. She criticized the group’s record on harm reduction in Surrey, where it previously operated as Keys Housing and Health Solutions under the direction of Fraser Health Authority. Livingston took issue with restrictive hours for harm-reduction programs and a past requirement for needle exchange to happen on a one-for-one basis (since abolished).

When DURC lost $634,000 in annual funding from VCH, Lookout gained about $200,000 to allow it to extend hours and expand services at a drop-in centre called LivingRoom, located on Powell Street just east of Oppenheimer Park.

In a telephone interview, Lookout’s executive director, Shayne Williams, defended the organization’s harm-reduction services in both Surrey and Vancouver. He said harm reduction will also be a big part of expanded programs at LivingRoom, though he added it was too early to say exactly what shape those will take.

Williams did, however, note the new LivingRoom will fit with VCH’s stated emphasis on clinical applications. “It certainly won’t be hardcore clinical,” he said. “But the focus will be to be proactive. To help folks get connections to care, to VCH services, to other, more clinical services, and to be that kind of entry point for folks.”

Stephen Finlay is executive director of ARA Mental Health. Despite VCH eliminating funding for his organization, he was largely supportive of Second Generation.

“For many years, everybody has complained—and rightly so—that clients get shuffled from door to door,” he began. “Vancouver Coastal Health listened to that. And they are trying to set up this service so that there is less of that.”

Discussing cuts to his organizations and others like Gallery Gachet and DURC, Finlay alluded to an issue larger than VCH. He pointed out that the health-care provider no longer receives annual budget increases like it once did.

Budgetary constraints

A review of VCH’s annual reports shows Finlay is correct.

In 2009, the B.C. Ministry of Health gave VCH a seven-percent increase to its total operating budget. Since then, there’s been a downward trend in the amount of annual increases. In 2010 and 2011, the increase was three percent each year, then four percent in 2012, two percent in 2013, and three percent in 2014. Then, in 2015, provincial contributions to VCH were reduced by one percent from the previous year.

Since 2010, the change in ministry funding for VCH has averaged plus–two percent per year, barely keeping up with inflation, let alone costs associated with new technologies and aging baby boomers.

Asked if this situation has put a squeeze on services in the Downtown Eastside, VCH’s director of strategy deployment, Natasha Golbeck, remained upbeat.

“We’re always challenged in health care to do more with less and to be increasingly efficient and thoughtful about where we spend resources,” she said. “We are not doing more with less; we’re doing more with more.”

Pressed on whether or not VCH is preparing to eliminate funding for other programs beyond Gallery Gachet, DURC, and ARA Mental Health, Golbeck responded: “The things that are going to be lost have already been lost. At this point, we have made the reallocations that we’ve needed to make.”

The Ministry of Health did not make a representative available for an interview. Quoted in a VCH media release, minister Terry Lake threw his weight behind the Second Generation.

“Change is never easy, but we know it’s desperately needed in the Downtown Eastside,” he said. “Many residents increasingly struggle with chronic conditions and changing addiction issues, but a lack of integration between health services creates barriers to accessing treatment. I applaud Vancouver Coastal Health for making the changes needed to improve patient care in this neighbourhood.”

Losing space

DURC, expected to close by the end of the summer, is a low-barriers community centre that serves as a safe space for alcoholics and people addicted to hard drugs, including stimulants such as methamphetamine and crack cocaine. It offers laundry and showers plus harm-reduction services such as a crack-pipe vending machine and a managed-alcohol program that lets severe alcoholics brew their own beer.

Each Friday afternoon, the managed-alcohol program convenes at DURC for a regular meeting called the “Drinkers Lounge”. What’s said there is usually confidential (as with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings), but the group permitted the Straight to attend on April 29 on the condition that names be withheld.

Participants explained how the program saves people from drinking Listerine and hand sanitizer across the street in Oppenheimer Park. The homebrew they make at DURC is safer, and the Friday meetings allow DURC to connect members to health services, including detox and rehab.

The April 29 meeting began with a roll call of the 35 people in attendance. Next there was a round of happy birthdays, followed by a reading of the group’s rules and mandate. To conclude the meeting’s opening, people were asked to stand for a moment of silence and invited to recite the names of friends or family who had recently passed away or gone missing. One by one, 16 names were called out.

Moving to an open discussion, the topic of the day was DURC’s pending closure and VCH’s reallocation of funds to the Lookout drop-in centre called LivingRoom.

“Where are we going to go?” asked a man in the back. “The City of Vancouver doesn’t want us on the streets around here. They don’t want us in the park. They’re doing this to get rid of us.”

Liz Evans founded the Portland Hotel Society in 1993 and served on the organization’s executive management team for 20 years before she resigned in 2014. She declined to speak specifically on Second Generation, but expressed concern for marginalized people losing the spaces where they feel comfortable.

“If you’re living in a tiny SRO room, 120 square feet, where all you have that’s yours is a sink and a fridge, then having a café to sit in is meaningful,” she said. “And it just feels like space is being lost.”

On May 6, the Portland Hotel Society’s interim executive director abruptly stepped down. Pending the appointment of a new leader, Coco Culbertson is acting as a spokesperson for the organization.

She voiced concerns about the pace with which the Downtown Eastside is changing but maintained that it has learned to take care of itself.

“This community has always had a strong voice when it gets together,” Culbertson said.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on May 21, 2016.

Timeline of transit police shooting fits troubling pattern of fatal encounters with B.C. police

An independent body has found transit police should be cleared of any wrongdoing in the December 2014 fatal shooting of a 23-year-old First Nations man named Naverone Woods.
An independent body has found transit police should be cleared of any wrongdoing in the December 2014 fatal shooting of a 23-year-old First Nations man named Naverone Woods.

Today (May 16) new details were released about the death of Naverone Woods, a 23-year-old First Nations man who was shot and killed by transit police in December 2014.

A report by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. (IIOBC)—which cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing—includes a time line for the shooting. It notes that one of the first officers on the scene at a Safeway in Surrey fired the shots that killed Woods within 60 seconds of their arrival.

At 8:03 a.m., Woods entered the Safeway, according to the report. At 8:07 a.m., 911 received a call wherein Woods was reported to be stabbing himself with a knife.

Two minutes later, at 8:09 a.m., two transit police officers arrived and entered the Safeway. That same minute, two shots were fired and Woods was on the ground.

He was pronounced dead at Royal Columbia Hospital at 9:27 a.m.

Helen Slinger is a Vancouver-based documentarian whose recent film Hold Your Fire focused on police shootings involving a person experiencing a mental-health crisis. She told the Straight that the time line of the Woods shooting resembles many cases she reviewed for her film.

“It is very much a pattern,” Slinger said in a telephone interview. “Police are going in too fast, too hard.”

In researching Hold Your Fire, Slinger and fellow journalist  Yvette Brend read hundreds of coroner reports from across Canada. In B.C. alone, they found that between the years 2004 and 2014, 28 people were shot and killed by police or RCMP while experiencing a mental-health crisis.

“After two years of research it took to do that documentary, it was the one thing that finally, really jumped out at me,” she said. “That in so many of these high-profile police shootings of persons in mental distress…police just do not take the time to back up.”

High-profile cases

Stringer listed off a number of fatal police shootings that she described as similar to the Woods case in that officers fired their weapons within less than three minutes of their first encounter with their suspect.

In November 2014, Vancouver police officers shot and killed Phuong Na (Tony) Du less than two minutes after they arrived to apprehend him at the intersection of Knight Street and East 41st Avenue.

In July 2013, Toronto police shot and killed 18-year-old Sammy Yatim within one minute of the first officer arriving on the scene.

In August 2007, a Vancouver animator named Paul Boyd was shot by police on Granville Street. Less than three minutes had passed since the first officer had intervened.

In 2004, Christopher Reid was shot by Toronto police, also within three minutes of their arrival.

Slinger also mentioned Robert Dziekański, who, although not shot with a gun, died after RCMP repeatedly tasered him almost immediately after meeting Dziekański at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.

The pattern Slinger says she’s noticed in coroner reports from across Canada mirrors findings of the Straight’s own analysis for British Columbia.

In February 2015, the Straight published a review of more than 120 coroner reports that dated from 2007 to 2014. During that period, there were 99 incidents where someonedied during an interaction with police.

An update the Straight published in December 2015 looked specifically at deaths involving firearms. It revealed an increase in those incidents. And, echoing Slinger’s findings, the Straight’s investigation revealed that the first few minutes or even seconds of an encounter often meant the difference between life and death.

Difficult circumstances

The IIOBC’s report on Woods describes difficult circumstances for the first transit police officers who arrive at the Surrey Safeway that morning.

Multiple eyewitnesses are quoted there describing the young man as holding two knives, failing to respond when people tried to intervene, and repeatedly inflicting harm on himself.

Those anecdotes support one another in stating that police repeatedly shouted warnings before any shots were fired. “Drop the knife,”, “Get down,” and “We’ll shoot,” people heard the officers say.

The witnesses are also in agreement that Woods “lunged” or was “moving towards” the officers when they met him just inside the store’s entrance.

A Safeway security guard told IIOBC investigators he estimated the length of time officers had their guns drawn before firing was between 10 and 12 seconds.

Transit police spokesperson Anne Drennan told the Straight she couldn’t comment on specifics pending the completion of investigations by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner and the B.C. Coroners Service.

But Drennan emphasized that transit police officers receive the same basic training as every police and RCMP officer in B.C. She emphasized that this includes instructions on mental health and the appropriate use of force.

“Since January 2012, the province of B.C. sets binding standards to ensure that B.C. police officers are trained to use crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques,” she said.

The province requires that officers receive a refresher on those topics every three years. The IIOBC report confirms that both officers involved received that training in July 2014.

A larger problem

Doug King is a Pivot Legal Society lawyer who keeps a close eye on police-involved deaths. He told the Straight the fact that the IIOBC cleared the officers of any wrongdoing is actually indicative of a larger problem.

“We know that this is the legal standard, currently,” King explained. “That if you’ve got someone who’s presenting with an edged weapon and they are physically advancing on an officer, the legal test is, basically, that at that point lethal force is justified.”

King asked why the officers were not equipped with alternative weapons that could have been used without killing Woods. He noted the IIOBC’s report concludes with the same question.

Like Slinger, King told the Straight that details in the IIOBC’s report fit a pattern.

“I would say it’s almost déjà vu,” he said. “We see these cases where the officers are not able to contain the individual until the appropriate resources arrive.”

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on May 16, 2016.

Health Canada proposes regulation change to permit prescription heroin for severe addicts

At Crosstown Clinic in the Downtown Eastside, Dr. Scott MacDonald oversees patients with severe addictions who are given prescription heroin and hydromorphone to stabilize their lives. Travis Lupick photo.
At Crosstown Clinic in the Downtown Eastside, Dr. Scott MacDonald oversees patients with severe addictions who are given prescription heroin and hydromorphone to stabilize their lives. Travis Lupick photo.

Canadian doctors could soon be allowed to offer patients prescription heroin as a method of treatment for a severe addiction to opioids.

Today (May 13), Health Canada proposed a regulatory change that would let doctors apply for special access to the drug, also called diacetylmorphine, and offer it to patients as they see fit.

“A significant body of scientific evidence supports the medical use of diacetylmorphine, also known as pharmaceutical-grade heroin, for the treatment of chronic relapsing opioid dependence,” reads a Health Canada media release.

Since December 2014, a small group of specific patients has hadaccess to prescription heroin at a clinic called Crosstown in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Three times a day, 110 patients can visit the clinic at set times and receive an intravenous dose of heroin under the supervision of nurses. The treatment is paid for by taxpayers and operates under Providence Health Care, the regional authority that also runs St. Paul’s Hospital.

The 110 people are only allowed access to the drug via a court injunction. They are previous participants in a clinical trial. Upon that study’s conclusion, they were essentially grandfathered into the program pending the resolution of a legal challenge.

If the proposed regulatory changes pass, it would eliminate the need for that legal challenge and open the door for people outside of the group of Crosstown patients to gain access to prescription heroin via their doctors.

A consultation period of 30 days is now underway.

Dr. Scott MacDonald is the lead physician at Crosstown Clinic who oversees the heroin maintenance program there.

“This is good news,” he said in a telephone interview. “There are going to be more people having access to diacetylmorphine as a safe, effective, and cost effective treatment.”

MacDonald however added the proposed regulations are only a “good first step”. He noted the bureaucratic requirements for a doctor to prescribe heroin would remain arduous.

The idea behind heroin maintenance is harm reduction, MacDonald explained.

He pointed to studies that show patients enrolled in a heroin-maintenance program will have less negative interactions with police, greater access to medical treatment, and a new degree of stability that can help them improve other areas of their lives, such as housing and family relations.

“These people are involved in a chaotic lifestyle and an illicit drug trade that supports organized crime and general chaos for the community,” he said. “It is important that we engage everybody in care that is using illicit opioids. We need all the tools in the tool kit, whether that is methadone, suboxone, hydromorphone for some, and diacetylmorphine or prescription heroin for the small number of people that need that.”

The treatment is only recommended for chronic addicts who have previously failed with traditional forms of rehabilitation such as abstinence and methadone.

For the 110 patients receiving prescription heroin at Crosstown, the average number of years they have been addicted to opioids is 26.6 years. The average number of times they have failed with a traditional treatment is 11.4.

MacDonald estimated that if heroin maintenance could be administered without bureaucratic restrictions, the number of Vancouver residents for which the treatment would be appropriate would not exceed 500.

The court challenge was launched in March 2014 when Providence Health Care and five long-time heroin addicts filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government in an effort to secure diacetylmorphine as a legal means of managing addiction.

That action was in response to a regulatory change that former health minister Rona Ambrose enacted in October 2013. That month, she closed what she described as a “loophole”, barring clinicians from applying for special access to administer drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy (MDMA).

Canadian doctors had never prescribed those drugs on a regular basis. But at that time, Vancouver’s heroin-maintenance program at Crosstown was gaining attention. Doctors were also beginning to write diacetylmorphine prescriptions for patients who had cycled out of the academic trial, and moving to make the treatment available to addicts who were not enrolled in earlier studies.

Doug King is a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, the group representing the five plaintiffs in their lawsuit against the federal government. In a telephone interview, he said the regulatory change could lead the group to drop its court action.

“We’re happy,” he told the Straight. “We expect we’ll get the change in regulations that we are asking for in our lawsuit, and that will, essentially, be a victory for us.

“The point of the lawsuit was to nullify the regulation change that was made by the Conservative government and bring it back to the way it was,” King continued. “And that is essentially what they are doing here.”

Libby Davies was the member of parliament representing Vancouver East from 1997 to 2015. During those years, she repeatedly called for the government to legalize heroin as a means of reducing overdose deaths and improving the lives of addicts.

In a telephone interview, Davies placed the benefits of prescription heroin in the context of recent deaths attributed to fentanyl. She noted that drug, which is often sold as heroin but is much more dangerous, is killing an average of 64 British Columbians every month this year.

“People don’t know what they are taking,” she told the Straight. “So to have a prescribed program where people are in the health-care system, to me, that is the critical thing.”

B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake voiced his support for Crosstown’s heroin-maintenance program in a release back in October 2013.

“We have to think outside of the box sometimes,” he said. “I know that the thought of using heroin as a treatment is scary, but I think we have to take the emotion out of it and let science inform the discussion.”

Health Canada’s May 13 release notes prescription heroin has been available in other jurisdictions for some time, including Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on May 13, 2016.

B.C. RCMP officers at centre of sharp rise in fatal police shootings

The family of Naverone Woods, a 23-year-old First Nations man who was fatally shot by transit police, is still waiting for answers about why guns were used.
The family of Naverone Woods, a 23-year-old First Nations man who was fatally shot by transit police, is still waiting for answers about why guns were used.

December 28 marks one year having passed since the death of Naverone Woods, a 23-year-old First Nations man who was shot and killed by transit police at a grocery store in Surrey.

On the phone from Hazelton, B.C., one of two Interior towns where Woods grew up, sister-in-law Tracey Woods said the family is still waiting for answers.

“We just want to have some kind of closure,” she explained. “And to know that there was an investigation done, that this case wasn’t just pushed aside.”

Tracey, whom a neighbour described as “like a stepmother” to Naverone, said she has questions about what efforts were made to deescalate the situation before force was deemed necessary, and why guns were used at all.

“We always compare it to a big grizzly bear that they will shoot, put to sleep, and relocate,” she continued. “How come they couldn’t use a Taser or something rather than drawing their weapons?”

Woods was the eighth British Columbian to die in a police-involved incident in 2014, according to a database maintained by the Georgia Straight. So far in 2015, that number stands at 11, the most for any year since 2009.

Last February, the Straight reported that a stark pattern emerged from an analysis of dozens of deaths involving B.C. authorities dating back to 2007: of 99 police-involved deaths investigated by the B.C. Coroners Service or scheduled for investigation, 90 percent involved a mental-health component, substance abuse, or both.

Now a review of that database updated for 2015 reveals another pattern: as deaths have increased, so has the frequency with which guns were involved in those incidents.

In 2015, there were seven fatal police shootings in B.C. That was up from five the previous year, two in 2013, four in 2012, five in 2011, three in 2010, and seven in 2009.

Six of those seven shootings in 2015 involved the RCMP. That compares to two during each of the years 2014, 2013, and 2012, and four in 2011, three in 2010, and five in 2009. Fatal RCMP shootings were geographically dispersed across the province. One exception is Surrey, where RCMP officers have shot and killed seven people since 2009.

Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said that, to an extent, the data simply speaks for itself.

“These numbers suggest a doubling of police-involved deaths in the last three years in B.C.,” Paterson told the Straight. “The number of people shot and killed by the RCMP have risen to the highest level in over 10 years. While these numbers don’t allow us to draw a conclusion as to why this is happening, they raise an alarm and require us to ask hard questions.”

The B.C. RCMP and the B.C. Ministry of Justice refused to grant interviews.

Steve Schnitzer is the police-academy director for the Justice Institute of B.C. He called attention to courses that focus on crisis intervention and deescalation tactics and how best to respond to emergencies involving a mental-health component. Those lessons were made mandatory in 2012 following the 2007 death of Robert Dziekański at Vancouver International Airport and the subsequent Braidwood Commission of Inquiry.

“That is a policing standard now,” Schnitzer emphasized. “It [training] changed significantly after the Braidwood commission report came out.”

Statistics compiled by the coroner’s service suggest that there is still room for improvement. According to the organization’s annual report for 2010, just 40 percent of coroner’s recommendations related to police-involved deaths were adopted by the agencies involved in those incidents (2010 being the most recent year for which such statistics were included).

Doug King, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, said there is one factor that can make all the difference in how a police encounter plays out: time.

“There is a huge correlation—based on our work and what we see—with police-involved shootings and first responders,” he said.

King explained that when police officers fire their guns, the weapon is almost always discharged by an officer who was first on the scene and during the first few minutes of a confrontation.

“To me, that indicates there needs to be better training and a greater emphasis on what someone can do to contain an individual until help can arrive,” King said.

The death of Naverone Woods remains under investigation by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C., a public body created in 2012 to examine police incidents involving death or serious harm. Once that review is complete, the case will likely proceed to the coroner’s service.

King said that investigation is one of three he’ll be watching in 2016.

The second, he continued, is that of Phuong Na (Tony) Du, who was killed by Vancouver police at the corner of Knight Street and East 41st Avenue in November 2014. The third is Hudson Brooks, a 20-year-old male who was shot by Surrey RCMP in July 2015.

“These three shootings are all really problematic, from what we’ve heard, and really beg explanations,” King said.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 23, 2015.

Undocumented immigrants raise alarm as border cops appear to up enforcement towards year’s end

No One is Illegal organizer Harsha Walia is calling attention to a noticeable increase in calls for assistance the organization has received from undocumented immigrants. Harsha Walia photo.
No One is Illegal organizer Harsha Walia is calling attention to a noticeable increase in calls for assistance the organization has received from undocumented immigrants. Harsha Walia photo.

A sizable community of Metro Vancouver residents is on alert this holiday season, fearing raids by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

In a telephone interview, Harsha Walia, an organizer with No One Is Illegal (NOII), reported that the organization has seen a sharp spike in calls from undocumented immigrants asking for assistance.

“We usually get three to five calls a week, and the last month we got probably close to double,” she said. “We are getting more calls from people who are in detention, more calls from people who had just been visited at their homes or workplaces with deportation orders.”

Walia added that NOII observed a similar increase in calls last year and in 2013 at this time. She said that has her wondering if CBSA intensifies enforcement activities toward the end of each year in an effort to meet quotas for deportation orders.

“We aren’t trying to be alarmist, but we want people to know that this is going on,” she said.

CBSA refused requests for an interview. The CBSA annual report for 2013-14 only quantifies immigration-enforcement actions as a percentage. It states that of foreign nationals identified as inadmissible, 15 percent were removed from the country (exceeding the 12-percent “target”). CBSA also failed to supply more meaningful numbers despite the Straight repeatedly requesting that information since November 26.

According to Byron Cruz, an organizer with the group Sanctuary Health, there are between 3,000 and 5,000 undocumented immigrants from Latin America living in Metro Vancouver.

Cruz said he has observed the same increase in CBSA enforcement noticed by NOII.

“I have been putting things on Facebook, telling people in Spanish: ‘Be careful if you go to the hospital; this can happen to you,’ ” he continued. “So we are making people aware of this.”

On December 9, the Straight reported that during the past two years, Fraser Health’s 12 Lower Mainland hospitals collectively referred about 500 patients to CBSA.

Cruz said that has undocumented immigrants struggling to access health-care services because of fears that a trip to the hospital can end with them being deported. He noted there is a high degree of public support for Syrian refugees and suggested that undocumented immigrants from Latin America aren’t so different.

“Most of them come from situations or from states in Mexico where the war on drugs has hit those provinces,” he explained. “The drug cartels in Mexico are worse than ISIS.”

Cruz recounted a recent trip to Guatemala where he heard stories similar to those of life under ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, Islamic State, and Daesh.

“Guys are beheading people, playing soccer with their heads,” he said. “People who are undocumented are afraid to go back to Mexico or to go back to Guatemala. It is a life-or-death situation there as well.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada before the end of the year, plus another 15,000 by the end of February 2016. In 2014, Canada accepted 665 refugees from Haiti, 655 from Colombia, 625 from Mexico, 190 from El Salvador, 165 from Honduras, and 105 from Guatemala.

Refugees admitted from Syria in 2014 numbered 1,290. That was up from 145 the previous year and 85 in 2012.

Daniel Tseghay is an advocate for refugees from the East African nation of Eritrea. He argued that undocumented immigrants are a symptom of larger problems with Canada’s system for processing refugees. Tseghay explained that many Latin Americans who enter B.C. under the temporary-foreign-workers program fear returning to their home country but do not have a legal route to remain in Canada.

“Their conditions are, to me, fundamentally the same as those of refugees,” Tseghay said. “Refugees and undocumented immigrants are not just fleeing the same things, but they are forced to flee sometimes in the same ways and forced to remain under the radar because of Canada’s border system.”

Vision Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs recently gave the Straight an update on the implementation of so-called sanctuary city policies designed to ensure that undocumented immigrants can access municipal services. He said staff have produced a draft document he hopes will go before council in the first half of 2016.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 16, 2015.

FOI response suggests B.C. Premier Christy Clark has basically stopped sending emails

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B.C. premier Christy Clark has essentially stopped using email, a response to a freedom-of-information (FOI) request suggests. Either that or she has been sending emails and then deleting them.

If the latter is true, it would contradict an order Clark gave in response to a scathing report on government record-keeping that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C. (OIPC) released on October 22.

“I’ve told everyone at the political level, ministers, political staff, even if it’s clearly a transitory document that you are required by law to delete—I want you to keep it,” Clarksaid on October 23.

Yet an FOI request for all emails Clark sent from October 19 to 22 and from October 26 to 29 turned up just one document.

“Can you send me a copy of that note you typed us for me recently and stuck in my book?” the sender wrote to communications coordinator Chelsea Dolan. (The sender’s name is redacted but it can be assumed it was Clark, given the parameters of the FOI request.)

The Straight previously reported that a request for Clark’s emails from a two-week period in December 2014 produced no records.

The premier’s office did not grant an interview.

The request for Clark’s October correspondence was filed by the NDP. David Eby, New Democrat MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, told the Straight the lack of records the request produced is noteworthy because it shows that Clark’s email habits did not change despite her instructing staff to retain their communications.

“It is hard for me to imagine how you could be the premier and have one email over two weeks,” Eby said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me and strongly suggests she is either deleting her own emails or she is not using email to avoid creating records that could be FOI’d.”

The OIPC’s October 22 report details how employees in the premier’s office plus staff at two ministries had “triple deleted” emails, taking extra steps to expunge records from computers. In addition, the OIPC has accused one employee with the Ministry of Transportation of giving false testimony about the practice while he was under oath. That case has been forwarded to the RCMP.

Clark has repeatedly claimed that email is not her preferred means of communication and said she conducts government business face to face.

The premier tapped former B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis to instruct the government on how it should implement recommendations outlined in the OIPC’s October 22 report. As the Straight went to press, Loukidelis was scheduled to present his findings on December 16. (Update: Loukidelis’s report can be found here.)

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 16, 2015.

Living nightmare for transgender inmate at all-male prison

On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.
On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.

Nastasia Laura Bilyk calls it a living nightmare.

A transgender inmate, who identifies as a woman, is doing time in the all-male Mountain Institution, a federal prison located on the outskirts of Metro Vancouver.

Now, she has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in hopes of changing things for herself and for all transgender inmates. She wants to force federal prison officials to recognize the gender she identifies with and treat her accordingly.

In Bilyk’s affidavit, filed with her complaint, she describes her life.

She says she is kept in solitary confinement for her own protection. While at the federal Ferndale Institution in B.C. she was repeatedly raped, the affidavit says. Bilyk did not identify any assailants to prison authorities but she was moved to a treatment centre, and then to Mountain Institution where she received counselling, the affidavit says.

And even in isolation, Bilyk is not safe. In the affidavit she recounts a three-week stretch when she only showered twice because the ward lacked privacy and forced her to bathe with men nearby.

On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.

Worse than the harassment, fear, and threats of physical violence, the affidavit continues, is the pain Bilyk feels when someone fails to acknowledge her as a woman.

“Now, staff usually use female pronouns, but sometimes I am still referred to as a man,” it reads. “It makes me want to cry and scream.”

Those conditions amount to “discrimination”, claims the complaint filed with the commission on December 4. That document argues the country’s federal prison system, Correctional Service Canada (CSC), “fails to accommodate transgender prisoners”.

The complaint was filed by Jen Metcalfe, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS). “The only remedy that we will be looking for is policy reform,” she said.

The policy in question is correctional services directive 800-5, which states that transgender inmates in a pre-op phase of treatment will be held in a facility based on an individual’s physical attributes.

In an email response, a correctional services spokesperson would not comment on Bilyk’s complaint.

“The Correctional Service of Canada cannot accommodate your request for an interview. As this complaint is currently being processed it would be inappropriate for CSC to comment at this time,” Avely Serin wrote.

A growing number of provinces are changing their policies for inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the condition where someone’s emotional and psychological identity is the opposite to their biological sex.

In January, Ontario’s provincial prison system became the first in Canada to make it official policy to place pre-op transgender inmates in facilities based on their gender identities.

On Nov. 15, B.C. became the second.

Now, representatives for the governments of Alberta and the Yukon Territories say their correctional systems are revising policies for transgender inmates to follow Ontario’s lead.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission will now consider whether Bilyk’s complaint should be sent to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

If the complaint is deemed valid, it will be forwarded to the tribunal for a hearing and a final determination. Correctional services officials will be able to challenge the complaint.

If the rights commission decides in Bilyk’s favour, it would put pressure on federal prisons across the country to change.

In B.C., Bianca Sawyer was the first person transferred from a male to female facility under B.C.’s revised policy. In an interview at Alouette Correctional Centre, a provincial prison for women, she explained the relief she felt upon arriving there.

“It was a calming euphoria,” she said. Sawyer contrasted that feeling to years spent in prisons where she was constantly surrounded by male prisoners.

Sawyer is in jail for six counts breach of probation, possession of stolen property under $5,000, and uttering a forged document. She was previously convicted for committing 10 bank robberies.

She recounted strip searches conducted by male guards, the fear she felt showering in a room full of men who knew she identified as a woman, and constant verbal abuse from both inmates and prison staff.

Sawyer, who with Metcalfe’s help played an instrumental role in B.C. Corrections revising its policies, went on to recount worse stories about two transgender inmates she knew during four years she spent at Mountain Institution.

“They were made to give lap dances and sexual acts for people’s birthdays,” Sawyer began. She recalled inmates standing in line waiting for oral sex. Sawyer noted there was usually something traded in exchange, such as a food item. But she emphasized that doesn’t mean the act was consensual.

“There was nothing that they could really do,” Sawyer explained. “I mean, they could go cry to the guards, but where are they really going to go?”

Sawyer said a transfer to a federal facility remains her greatest fear. “I don’t want to be treated like they were,” she added.

It’s unknown how many transgender inmates there are in federal facilities and provincial prisons across the country.

In response to requests for numbers sent to each prison authority in Canada, most jurisdictions sent emails saying they did not keep track (B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec) or that they held no transgender inmates.

In Ontario, 63 inmates identified themselves as transgender during intakes between April 2014 and March 2015. On Nov. 14, there were 12 transgender inmates in the province’s custody. Alberta reported it held 16 transgender prisoners as of Nov. 27. Saskatchewan said it presently has one.

Corrections Canada said it could not provide a number. Metcalfe says she has worked with eight transgender inmates in federal custody.

This article originally appeared in print in the Toronto Star and online at TheStar.com on December 14, 2015.

Metro Vancouver hospitals refer hundreds of immigration cases to border police

Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.
Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.

Byron Cruz has encountered the sorts of situations that arise when someone is afraid a trip to a hospital could end with them being deported from the country.

He once helped a man injured on a construction site connect with a veterinarian who stitched closed a deep cut, for example. And Cruz says it’s common for pregnant women to seek his network’s help for deliveries.

“My number works as a 911 number for undocumented people,” he said, interviewed at his office in the Downtown Eastside. “We never announced our services, but my number has been given to people as the number they can call. That is very scary, because 911 is for emergencies.”

Cruz is an organizer with Sanctuary Health, a group that promises people can access care without fear of any complication that might arise from their immigration status.

He said that recent months have seen Metro Vancouver’s community of undocumented immigrants—which he estimated numbers between 3,000 and 5,000—grow increasingly reliant on such services that exist outside the province’s health-care system. A troubling statistic obtained from Fraser Health, which operates 12 hospitals throughout the Lower Mainland, may reveal why.

From January 2014 to October 2015, Fraser Health referred approximately 500 patients to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), the federal police force tasked with immigration enforcement.

“When we learned this, we were very shocked,” Cruz said. “This has to be taken very seriously.”

The issue of CBSA referrals gained widespread attention in 2014 when it was reported that the previous year transit police forwarded 328 incidents to CBSA. Those calls resulted in 62 investigations and at least one death: in December 2013, Lucia Vega Jiménez committed suicide while in CBSA custody after transit police arrested her for fare evasion.

Since then, the City of Vancouver has worked to designate itself a “sanctuary city”, where undocumented immigrants can access municipal services regardless of their status. But the rest of the region has not shown the same enthusiasm for such policies.

In a telephone interview, Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma confirmed that 500 calls to CBSA was an “approximation” for the period January 1, 2015, to October 7, 2015.

Juma claimed that Fraser Health does not know how many of those referrals resulted in CBSA launching an investigation, nor could she say how many ended in deportation. “Once the information goes to CBSA, what they do with it they don’t report back to us,” she said.

CBSA refused repeated requests for an interview. A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Health told the Straight the province does not have a policy on immigration referrals and leaves those decisions to each service provider.

According to Juma, Fraser Health primarily contacts CBSA for billing purposes. She explained that nonresidents are charged different rates from residents and sometimes a call to CBSA is required to confirm a patient’s status. However, a Fraser Health policy document obtained by the Straight states that both physicians and nurses have “responsibilities” to attempt to see a nonresident discharged back to their home country.

Juma maintained that those sections are written to mean staff should ensure a nonresident will have access to health services after they leave Canada.

“We are not in the business of dealing with immigration issues,” she said. “When somebody needs emergency care and they come to us, we will take care of them.”

Juma added Fraser Health is open to revising guidelines for dealings with CBSA to harmonize its policies with providers across the region. “I think that would go a long way in relieving people’s concerns about coming to get health-care services,” she said.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Providence Health Care, which operate Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, said they could not supply numbers for CBSA referrals by deadline.

Juan Solorzano, VCH executive director of population health, told the Straight VCH now requires that a patient give their permission before a call is made to CBSA. He noted they can refuse, in which case, if residency status cannot be confirmed for billing purposes, the patient will be charged the higher rates of a nonresident.

“That policy was updated in August 2015,” Solorzano said. “We will no longer call the border services agency without consent from the client.”

Regarding the 328 cases transit police sent CBSA in 2013, Anne Drennan, a spokesperson for the force, told the Straight her organization has implemented similar reforms. She revealed that in 2014, there were only 48 referrals. And so far in 2015, transit police have called CBSA just 18 times.

“We had no interaction with CBSA in November,” she said. “What changed was the policy. We no longer ask people about their status in the country.”

City councillor Geoff Meggs delivered an update on Vancouver’s efforts to become a sanctuary city. He reported that a draft document is essentially finished and expected to begin circulating among advisory councils before the end of the year. From there, he said, he hopes it will go before city council during the first half of 2016.

Meggs acknowledged that immigration is primarily a federal issue and so the city’s authority on such policies is limited. But he added that Vancouver is acting where it can.

“Immigration and residency status is not relevant to us,” he said. “So you are safe to do business with us.”

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 9, 2015.

Airbnb could be taking 2,400 units out of Vancouver housing stock, study finds

Applying filters to data presented by the Inside Airbnb website shows a large number of Vancouver listings are for an entire place that is also available for more than 90 days of the year. That suggests some of these 2,408 units may not have full-time residents and are essentially operating as hotels.
Applying filters to data presented by the Inside Airbnb website shows a large number of Vancouver listings are for an entire place that is also available for more than 90 days of the year. That suggests some of these 2,408 units may not have full-time residents and are essentially operating as hotels.

Fresh data about Airbnb rentals in Vancouver suggests a growing number of the city’s couches, spare rooms, and entire homes and apartments are up for rent via the popular mobile app.

According to online information obtained on December 3, there were 4,728 Airbnb listings for the city.

Of those, 3,179, or 67 percent, were for an entire place; 1,399, or 30 percent, were for a private room; and 150, or three percent, were for a shared room.

The data was collected and made available by Inside Airbnb, a website run by New York–based photojournalist Murray Cox. He describes the project as an “independent, non-commercial set of tools and data that allows you to explore how Airbnb is really being used in cities around the world”.

Cox’s study also found that of those 3,179 Vancouver listings for an entire place, 76 percent or 2,408 units fall into a “high availability” category, meaning they are available to rent for more than 90 days per year.

“Entire homes or apartments highly available year-round for tourists probably don’t have the owner present, could be illegal, and, more importantly, are displacing residents,” the website states.

In April 2015, the vacancy rate for the Vancouver region (as opposed to the city) was 1.4 percent, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corperationdown. That’s down from 1.8 percent the previous year.

Cox’s look at Vancouver was constructed with the help of Karen Sawatzky, an SFU master’s student who published similar information last summer. In a telephone interview, she cautioned that there are differences in how the two packages were assembled and presented. But Sawatzky said even a rough comparison makes clear that more Vancouver residents are renting spaces on Airbnb.

Her data was captured on June 1, 2015. It showed 3,473 Airbnb listings for Vancouver, 2,466 of which were for an entire dwelling.

Sawatzky noted June is typically a busy month for the tourism industry, whereas December is not. She said the increase in the number of listings heading into the winter months raises questions about whether Airbnb is seasonal or becoming a more permanent way for people to make money by renting rooms year-round.

NPA city councillor Melissa De Genova told the Straight she requested that city staff review the Airbnb issue last summer and is waiting to hear back.

“We have to look at our existing rental stock and how Airbnb is affecting that,” De Genova said. “If those properties are coming off the market because it is more lucrative for the owner to rent them as an Airbnb to tourists, we certainly have to look at that.”

De Genova emphasized that the so-called sharing economy has developed as an important new sector and one that provides services many people enjoy. She said she doesn’t believe Airbnb should be banned from Vancouver and recommended the city accommodate and regulate Airbnb in ways that minimize impacts on renters and communities.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 9, 2015.