The province’s appointment of a special consultant to advise on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has prompted backlash from the Official Opposition and questions from the city’s mayor.
As Global News first reported Monday, the province has retained former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Bryant on a six-month contract worth $150,000 plus expenses to review Downtown Eastside (DTES) programs and future policy.
Bryant left his role as the CEO of Legal Aid B.C. last year and previously spent a decade in Ontario politics.
During question period at the B.C. legislature, the Conservatives demanded to know why the money was being spent, and why the province made no public announcement about the appointment — despite Bryant’s contract starting in February.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense — the fact is this is a $150,000 contract for six months of work that we are just finding out about because the news is reporting on it,” South Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford told Global News after a fiery exchange in the house.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad said the appointment suggested the NDP was out of ideas on how to tackle problems in the DTES.
“They thought they had all the answers — we have seen the situation continually worsen, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s addictions, whether it’s crime of very serious natures, there are so many things going wrong,” he said.
“So for them to have a consultant that’s going to come and say, what we ran on in the election does that make sense — what are these guys doing? They had eight years. We know what the problems are.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Sheila Malcolmson, whose Social Development and Poverty Reduction ministry Bryant is contracted to, couldn’t answer exactly who in the government had hired Bryant.
She did, however, take responsibility for the appointment not being publicized.
“Honestly, a communication problem between me and the Premier’s Office that it didn’t get announced earlier,” she said. “But his work has been very public as far as the people he is working with in the DTES.”
Malcolmson said he was contracted to provide an “outside view” on systemic challenges in the neighbourhood and whether existing programs are “speaking well with each other.”
“His legal background, his working in the civil liberties association, his political work as a minister of multiple files, and I would say what a lot of us are thinking about is his own personal struggles with addiction, his own recovery journey, brings a very different perspective from what we have around the cabinet table,” she said.
In 2009, Bryant was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death after an incident that left Toronto bike courier Darcy Sheppard with a fatal head injury, but was never prosecuted after the charges were withdrawn.
He later wrote a book about the experience and his own battle with alcoholism.
In a Monday interview, Bryant said he had met with officials in the ministries of health, housing, public safety, social development and Dr. Daniel Vigo, B.C.’s chief scientific adviser on toxic drugs and psychiatry, along with “over 100 people in the Downtown Eastside with lived experience.”
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim told Global News on Tuesday that the city had been informed of Bryant’s appointment after the fact, but had not been consulted.
“If you want to solve a problem in the Downtown Eastside, I think it would be really helpful if you consulted with, and I mean this in the most respectful way, the biggest stakeholder,” Sim said.
“We have Vancouver Fire and Rescue, the Vancouver Police Department, our engineering crews, arts, culture and community services, the businesses down there, the list goes on and on.”
He said he has not spoken personally with Bryant and that he wasn’t aware of “very many meaningful conversations” the consultant has had with the city.
He said Vancouver has been clear about its priorities for the beleaguered neighbourhood, including fixing the housing stock, cracking down on crime and involuntary treatment for people with serious mental health and addiction problems.
“The province said they were going to take over the Downtown Eastside and make it better,” Sim said.
“We’re all for that. We’re excited about it, and we are a very willing and able partner. Absolutely we want to have conversations.”
Tslei-Waututh First Nation elected chief Jen Thomas, meanwhile, said she’d spoken with Bryant but that they hadn’t been able to coordinate a time to meet.
Thomas said she feared the focus on Bryant’s appointment risked overshadowing the goal of improving conditions in the Downtown Eastside.
“What concerns me is that people focus on the salary, when we should all be focused on improving the Downtown Eastside — that’s the goal,” she said.
“If people are really concerned about the DTES we all need to work together, not criticize and put people down.”
Thomas said improving lives in the Downtown Eastside will require looking beyond surface-level issues like homelessness and addiction and at the underlying problems — like Indigenous youth who have aged out of care and end up in the neighbourhood because they have no connections to their familial communities.
“If he really listens to the Indigenous people, which I hope he will, I think we can get somewhere,” she said.
“Lets treat them like humans and find out what is going on in their lives and how to improve their lives.”
Bryant is contracted to provide a report for the province by late summer.
— with files from Rumina Daya