A Big Welcome To Curtis Sliwa!

Today Vancouver was visited by the founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa. As expected, the powers at be told him that they weren't welcome. This is so disheartening that I felt compelled to send him this e-mail:

Dear Curtis,

Welcome to Vancouver! My strong sense is that the majority of Vancouver citizens very much welcome you and the Guardian angels. I could have written the script of the negative reception you received from the police bureaucracy and certain government "elites". Please ignore them. As long as they're shuffling paper and driving around in their cars, they think they're doing a good job. Meanwhile crime has grown dramatically worse here year after year after year.

Vancouver recently gained the infamous title as the Property Crime Capital of North America. Rather than do something tangible about it, instead we get quoted endless statistics about how crime is apparently going down. And our police chief is occupying his time playing practical jokes on civil servants at city hall. As your colleague, John Batchelor might say, "Rome is burning but the powers at be have covered their eyes & ears and continued on as usual."

I live in the supposedly nice neighbourhood of South Granville, next door to the wealthiest neighbourhood of Shaughnessy. Yet on a regular basis there are open drug transactions in my alley, as well as junkies shooting up heroin from time to time. When I started seeing this, I contacted the police, offering them license plate numbers that I had collected. They weren't interested. When others have had their homes broken into, they had to beg the police to come over and investigate the crime.

But yet the powers at be have the audacity to say that the Guardian Angels aren't needed. Denial is clearly more than just a river in Egypt!

Welcome to Vancouver, Guardian Angels. May you stay here for a long time to come. We desperately need your help!