Laura Track, a lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society, has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal from the United Native Nations and Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). She sat down with Am Johal at Grandview Park in Vancouver to talk about private security and human rights.

Am Johal:You recently filed a complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Commission around the Downtown Ambassadors Program. This has been an ongoing issue âe” the establishment of concepts and positions, set down in law, or utilized in forms of coercion, which de facto criminalize the homeless. Can you explain the context?

Laura Track: The complaint is against the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and Geoff Plant in his capacity as Civil City Commissioner. The complaint arises out of reports PIVOT, UNN and VANDU have heard from their constituents regarding their treatment by private security guards in Vancouverâe(TM)s public spaces. People report being told to move along when theyâe(TM)re sitting or lying down on sidewalks or in alleys or parks, being told that theyâe(TM)re banned from certain parts of the city, being followed and stared at by security guards, and being prevented from looking for recyclables in garbage bins.

This kind of behaviour by private security guards restricts peopleâe(TM)s access to public places. Certainly a business owner may have legitimate concerns about individuals blocking access to the business or engaging in illegal activities in front of a store, and our complaint is not targeted at these kinds of activities. However, preventing people from simply sitting, sleeping, and panhandling represents a diminishment of public space.

Significantly, these actions also have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal people and people struggling with addictions and mental health issues. For those reasons, our complaint alleges that the actions of the Downtown Ambassadors are a violation of human rights. We hope the Tribunal will clarify the rules of what is and is not acceptable for private security guards when theyâe(TM)re interacting with people in public areas.

There have been a series of things written internationally around the idea of the âeoeRight to the City,âe a recalibration of the daily uses of public space. It reforms the basis in which they work and function. It was only in the last three months, on Commercial Drive, that the police would start to ticket homeless people before the shops would open. There is a balance of interests required and a kind of selective enforcement that exists. What can be done about it?

Ticketing homeless people is an issue that really boggles my mind. How people are expected to come up with a $75 fine for the âeoecrimeâe of being homeless is totally beyond me.

In Oppenheimer Park we saw the same thing happen âe” the police would begin their ticketing and park cleanups at about 5 a.m. or so, just before rush hour traffic would begin flowing by. It makes it seem like itâe(TM)s more the visibility of homelessness thatâe(TM)s important to our policy makers, rather than the morally outrageous situation of thousands of people being forced to sleep outside because they have nowhere else to be.

The situation with the Downtown Ambassadors and the Business Improvement Associations highlights the question of who gets to set the terms of how public space is managed. Itâe(TM)s really about who we want to make our policies. Itâe(TM)s one thing when the police are enforcing laws – at least the police are somewhat accountable to the public in the sense that there is a Police Board with the Mayor as its Chair, and he can be made to answer politically for the policeâe(TM)s actions. But with the Downtown Ambassadors, their mandate is set by private businesses. I think that as a society we need to recognize the fact that weâe(TM)re coming to a place where business is setting the terms of engagement in public spaces, and question what we as citizens think about that.

With the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics, the entire downtown core could be left with closed circuit television cameras without any democratic debate around whether we want them or not. What is your view of this upcoming expansion that bypasses any legitimate consultation processes?

I understand that cameras installed for the Sydney Olympics have remained in place after the Games, and I would be deeply troubled if the same were to occur in Vancouver. One justification for leaving cameras in place, or of installing them in the first place, is that they prevent and reduce crime. However, results from Britainâe(TM)s experiment with CCTV show that crime there has not been reduced since the introduction of cameras.

As with the creep of private security guards into our public sphere, which has happened largely without public debate due, I think, to a lack of information, Iâe(TM)m very concerned by encroachments on privacy that occur without a full and informed public dialogue. People impacted by these measures need to have an opportunity to be heard, and in order to participate in consultation they need good information. I think weâe(TM)re seeing a lack of both with respect to these issues.

I think the concept of democratic debate, which you raise in your question, is a unifying theme in all of this. When poor and homeless people are targeted by private security for being in public space, and when homeless people are ticketed for sleeping in public areas when they have no other alternatives, their ability to access the public sphere, already seriously hampered by poverty, is further restricted.

For a population as marginalized as Vancouverâe(TM)s homeless, sometimes their very presence in a park or sidewalk is really the only means of public expression they have. And they convey a message that is very threatening to our notion of Canada as a civilized and inclusive society. Having to confront the moral outrage of homelessness and poverty makes some people very uncomfortable, and we see that backlash all the time.

A lot of people are very sympathetic to a vague notion of the âeoehomelessness problem,âe but when theyâe(TM)re actually impacted by it, by being asked for change every couple of blocks on their way to work, or seeing tent cities sprouting up in their neighbourhood parks, their sympathy disappears. But our discomfort with the reality of homelessness in Canada cannot be an excuse for discrimination and human rights violations like the ones we see being perpetrated by the Downtown Ambassadors.

Am Johal

Am Johal

Am Johal is an independent Vancouver writer whose work has appeared in Seven Oaks Magazine, ZNet, Georgia Straight, Electronic Intifada, Arena Magazine, Inter Press Service, Worldpress.org, rabble.ca...