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<\/a><\/p>\nOne lucky Tyee reader will get to choose from six great reads for kids and teens.<\/p>\n
The plebiscite<\/a>, which will appear on the municipal election ballot, will centre on whether the city should ask the province to \u201cconvert portions of the old St. Paul\u2019s Hospital, or another similar site, into a secure medical facility that provides acute voluntary and 100-plus involuntary care beds for individuals posing a serious risk to themselves or others due to severe substance use and mental health disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n Allam told The Tyee the facility would amount to a \u201cmental health prison<\/a>\u201d and is asking Vancouverites to vote no for three main reasons.<\/p>\n First, because it\u2019s non-binding, so putting it on the ballot was a waste of money, he said.<\/p>\n Adding two plebiscite questions to the ballot will cost the city about $500,000, an ABC Vancouver spokesperson told The Tyee. ABC has the majority of seats on city council and voted to put the plebiscite on the ballot.<\/p>\n Second, Allam said, opening a facility such as this falls under provincial, not municipal, jurisdiction, and putting people who use drugs in an involuntary care facility would be illegal. <\/p>\n And third, because it would cost an enormous amount of money to renovate the building so it could offer involuntary care, which he said would be better spent revitalizing the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
When the province sold St. Paul\u2019s Hospital to Concord Pacific in 2020<\/a> for nearly $1 billion, the idea was that a new development would revitalize the edge of Davie Village and the edge of the downtown business district, Allam said. <\/p>\n Putting in a \u201cprison\u201d would be a missed opportunity for the neighbourhood and would offer a \u201cbailout\u201d to the developer now that the market has bottomed out, he added.<\/p>\n ABC Coun. Lisa Dominato said she is \u201cshocked\u201d to hear Allam call the site a potential bailout. <\/p>\n \u201cThe whole focus of this is about getting the services we need,\u201d she said, adding Vancouverites can clearly see people\u2019s needs are not being met around the city.<\/p>\n Dominato said she has been \u201cconsistently hearing for the course of this term\u201d that the public is concerned about street disorder and people who are \u201cclearly suffering and severely unwell.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cFrom my perspective, that gives us a clear mandate to be seeking help from the province and advocating for the necessary resources,\u201d she told The Tyee.<\/p>\n When asked why a plebiscite is needed, Dominato said a yes vote would provide a \u201cclear endorsement\u201d to take to the province to advocate for more health-care resources.<\/p>\n While health care falls under provincial jurisdiction, Dominato said there\u2019s still a role to play for municipalities in advocating for more resources. She said this advocacy would be similar to when mayors decry local emergency department closures.<\/p>\n St. Paul\u2019s Hospital seemed like a \u201cnatural\u201d location to propose for the facility because it is a medical facility that is about to be emptied, and \u201cthere\u2019s willing partners there with the owners of the property,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She added she is not aware of any other site that is being considered for the hypothetical new facility at this time. <\/p>\n During the last municipal election, ABC said it would hire 100 cops and 100 nurses<\/a> if elected. One year after the election, 100 cops had been hired but only 9.5 full-time equivalent nursing positions had been filled, mainly because health care falls outside of the city\u2019s jurisdiction. <\/p>\n Dominato said that over the last four years the city has been working closely with Vancouver Coastal Health to integrate mental health professionals into dispatch and police response. Last year these programs diverted 2,500 people towards health services instead of police response, she said. <\/p>\n The rules of involuntary care<\/p>\n For someone to qualify for involuntary detention, they must be in a mental state of impairment that makes them unable to interact with the environment or to seek care, thereby putting themselves or others at risk, or be at risk of deteriorating if they leave care, according to B.C.\u2019s Mental Health Act.<\/p>\n If someone meets these criteria and is detained, they still have the right to say what treatment they receive<\/a>. <\/p>\n The Mental Health Act does not apply to someone simply because they use drugs, Dr. Daniel Vigo, B.C.\u2019s chief scientific adviser for psychiatry, toxic drugs and concurrent disorders, previously told<\/a> The Tyee.<\/p>\n Someone who is in psychosis because of their drug use could be held, but only until they came out of psychosis, he said. The patient would then be given the option to remain in voluntary care or be free to leave, even if it meant they would do drugs again, Vigo said.<\/p>\n Therefore, it would not be legal to detain someone in an involuntary care facility \u201cdue to severe substance use\u201d as the plebiscite question suggests, Allam said.<\/p>\n The Tyee asked Dominato how the proposed 100 involuntary care beds would help people who use drugs, given how the Mental Health Act does not apply to people who use drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a medical expert, a practitioner or a lawyer,\u201d Dominato said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe system does address these issues when someone poses a harm to themselves or harm to others,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n When asked if ABC consulted with a lawyer or mental health practitioner about the phrasing of the plebiscite, Dominato said she could not \u201cspeak to the crafting of the question.\u201d <\/p>\n Dominato also said she did not know that people held involuntarily under the Mental Health Act have the right to decline treatment they do not want. <\/p>\n
Renovating the old St. Paul\u2019s<\/p>\n Converting the old St. Paul\u2019s Hospital into an involuntary care facility would likely cost \u201chundreds of millions\u201d and comes with several major hurdles, Allam said.<\/p>\n The building is old, is not seismically sound, has asbestos in the walls and is not set up to offer patients individualized care in their own room, he said.<\/p>\n The site would also need to be rezoned because it is currently designated as a treatment facility, which, according to the city\u2019s bylaws, is different from a detention facility, The Tyee previously reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n A city can advocate for the services it needs and then it is up to the province to provide funding for capital and operating expenses, Dominato said.<\/p>\n A six-pillar approach<\/p>\n The current provincial goal is to get someone into a detox bed within 48 hours of them saying they want to try treatment, but the province currently falls \u201cdramatically short\u201d of being able to offer that, or does not have treatment beds available once someone gets through detox, Allam said.<\/p>\n This is leading to a \u201ctremendous\u201d number of people who want to access voluntary treatment but can\u2019t, he added. Allam said he would advocate for the province to open more voluntary treatment services.<\/p>\n Allam said his party is proposing the city revamp its four-pillar drug strategy<\/a>, which focuses on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement to address substance use. <\/p>\n The four-pillar approach was introduced in 2001. It needs an overhaul because the city has been focusing only on enforcement and harm reduction, Allam said. If elected, he said, he would introduce a new six-pillar approach, adding the pillars of housing and youth mental health, within his first 100 days in office. <\/p>\n The Vancouver Liberals are also proposing<\/a> to build a meth response program for the city and to end homeless encampments by offering everyone stable housing and the supports they need. <\/p>\n Allam said he would reverse the ABC party\u2019s freeze on building supportive housing<\/a>. <\/p>\n The freeze has set supportive-housing projects back by a generation because the pipeline of projects in the works was given a hard stop, he said. <\/p>\n That\u2019s significant because people who need supportive housing often have complex health needs that require hospital care, he said, adding that the city has several hospitals and not nearly enough supportive housing.<\/p>\n Dominato said ABC has been calling for an action plan to convert single-room occupancy units to apartment units with individual bathrooms, kitchens and living spaces.<\/p>\n However, \u201cwe need to recognize that housing alone is not a solution to certain issues,\u201d she said, adding that providing supports to help people access treatment and recovery is also needed.<\/p>\n ABC\u2019s website<\/a> says its platform will address public safety and street disorder by banning drug use in public spaces; giving police tools to seize drugs; advocating for 100-plus involuntary care beds in Vancouver; mandating that provincial drug consumption sites be located away from schools and parks; and requiring public housing providers to implement a \u201cgood neighbour agreement.\u201d <\/p>\n It is currently illegal<\/a> under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to possess any amount of unregulated drugs in B.C. or anywhere else in Canada. B.C. ran a decriminalization pilot project that allowed people to carry small amounts of drugs, but that pilot project ended Jan. 31, 2026. <\/p>\n The police already have the authority to seize illegal drugs.<\/p>\n Eight of the nine<\/a> overdose prevention sites in Vancouver are located in the Downtown Eastside, with the ninth at Commercial Drive and Broadway. The province opens these sites where there is already a high rate of overdose and overdose fatalities, which is why it was trying to open a site at 900 Helmcken St.<\/a>, in the neighbourhood with the second-highest overdose fatality rate in the region. <\/p>\n Under ABC, Vancouver\u2019s homeless count has increased by 12 per cent and overdose prevention sites have been shut down or prevented from opening, which creates barriers to people stabilizing their lives, Allam said. Stability through housing and employment can often be people\u2019s first step towards treatment, he added.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam is asking Vancouverites to vote no on Oct. 17 when asked if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[296948,318280,318281,318279,49,48,318282,318283,318284,26234,84,392,274885,258204,1058,41975,21329,55],"class_list":["post-926145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-abc-vancouver","tag-bc-decriminalization","tag-bc-involuntary-care","tag-bc-mental-health-act","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-concord-pacific","tag-controlled-drugs-and-substances-act","tag-daniel-vigo","tag-healing","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-kareem-allam","tag-lisa-dominato","tag-medicine","tag-sickness","tag-st-paul","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}