When the 2010 Winter Olympic Games get underway, the Campbell administration won't just be showcasing Beautiful British Columbia.
It will also be showcasing government programs that have been "undertaken to address the issue of homelessness" in Vancouver's "colourful" Downtown Eastside.
This, according to a concept paper prepared by the Crown corporation responsible for housing the province's most vulnerable citizens.
The paper, dated Oct. 1, 2009 and obtained by Public Eye via a freedom of information request, proposes setting up an information centre for that very purpose.
The reason: the issue of homelessness is of "particular interest to the media in every Olympic Host-City."
And that means the "City of Vancouver - with its colourful Downtown Eastside - will be a draw for international visitors, especially the media."
So, rather than trying to "hide the issue of homelessness" like other host cities, "the Province and the City will be transparent - not just with our successes but also, how we are dealing with some of the challenges."
But despite that promised transparency, BC Housing blacked-out the majority of the paper before releasing it to Public Eye.
Blacked-out sections include those detailing the centre's objectives, location, special features and pretty much anything else you'd want to know about it - all because the Crown corporation claims that information would reveal government "policy advice or recommendations."
Nor was the BC Housing much more forthcoming when contacted directly.
A spokesperson said: "No decision has been made yet on whether the information centre will be established."
But the spokesperson refused to provide further details or comment on the appropriateness of describing the Downtown Eastside as "colourful."
Provincial New Democrat housing and social development critic Shane Simpson, however, didn't hold back.
"For anybody who knows the Downtown Eastside, they would know it's a probably disrespectful comment to suggest it's 'colourful,'" he said. "I think it almost seems to be an effort to diminish the seriousness of the problem [of homelessness] by using the term 'colourful.'"
As for the centre itself, Simpson said the proposal "smacks of a government that's looking for damage control strategies to deal with what has been a failed program around homelessness and dealing with the challenges around the Downtown Eastside."
All-points bulletin?
Some RCMP officers may have been surprised to hear the province's gaming minister say there was dissatisfaction with the outcomes of the province's anti-illegal gaming team.
After all, that's not the reason they were given for its disbandment.
Last month, Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman told Public Eye the government-funded RCMP team wasn't shut down because of funding pressures.
Instead, he said the team was shut down because it hadn't prepared a business plan and the government wasn't "getting the results we wanted."
But in March, the RCMP's criminal operations branch cited urgent "funding pressures, criminal enterprise activity and/or other operational and investigative priorities" as the reasons for that shutdown, which took place on April 1.
This, according to a message sent to officers in British Columbia and obtained via a freedom of information request.
That's consistent with what a RCMP spokesperson earlier told Public Eye.
And it seems to support former unit commander Fred Pinnock's statement that illegal gaming was pushed to the backseat because of a need to focus on other enforcement priorities.
In an exclusive interview, Pinnock said those priorities included criminal activities that would "keep [the RCMP] positioned to ensure the renewal" of their provincial policing contract in 2012, such as gang violence.
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye (publiceyeonline.com). He can be reached at [email protected].
