Vancouver’s 2022 council flipped right on fear of the unhoused.

Evidence

One year later, the diagonal lines met again, reaching further this time—and closer to home. In October 2022, Vancouver had municipal elections and the city council, long in the hands of green-tinged, centrist progressives, suddenly flipped right, and with a nasty edge. Vancouver is the third most expensive city in North America, ahead of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is also at the epicenter of the poisoned drug crisis. Rather than proposing solutions to the housing and drug emergencies, the winning slate of candidates riled up fear of the city’s unhoused and mentally ill, while promising to hire a hundred more police officers. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 628

Categorization

• SHARE: Concrete instance of electoral fear-mongering over housing and drug crises in one of North America’s most expensive cities.