To the editor,
In the article “City pushed ‘way beyond our capacity,” Boshcoff alleges that we supply free drugs to anyone who wants them, attracting “hundreds of thousands” of people to Thunder Bay each summer, making us into a “party town” where the influx of drug users throw free tents in the river, toss away free sleeping bags, and “eat up every resource.”
Unsurprisingly, this is the paranoid fantasy of a mayor who would rather broadcast his ignorance than speak to his unhoused constituents. Some of the comments were retracted the following day, although of course retractions rarely have the reach of the original statement.
Boshcoff is not interested in the truth, about the evidence on what actually reduces property crime and homelessness, he is instead propelled by emotions in a way that presents simple solutions as “complex”.
Safe supply, for example, is reliably shown to save cities money on emergency room visits, reduce overdose deaths, and lower property crime. In the same way as alcohol prohibition in the 1920s led to massive profits for criminal organizations and deaths from improperly brewed moonshine, a lack of safe supply funds gangs in our city and kills dozens by overdose in Thunder Bay each year.
Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, killed because our mayor is more worried about us becoming a “party town” than evidence-based policy. If Boshcoff really cared about our first responders, he would champion safe supply and safe injection sites, and save our paramedics and firefighters from the desperate and traumatic experience of trying to resurrect overdose victims.
Boshcoff, both in his original comments and his letter retracting some of them, continues to stress the idea that “there is not one particular demographic” who are unhoused or reliant on illicit substances. With regards to Thunder Bay, Boshcoff is ignorant or willfully disregarding the reality of homelessness in our city. Neither of these possibilities gives me confidence in our mayor.
In 2021, despite being 13 per cent of the city population, 70 per cent of the unhoused population was Indigenous. More than half report a mental health issue, and 45 per cent spent time in foster care.
Why, even in his retraction, does mayor Boshcoff refuse to acknowledge that the unhoused overwhelmingly come from disadvantaged populations?
In the mayoral debates, Boshcoff quoted from Matthew 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you”. His recent comments show not only does Boshcoff believe that poverty is inevitable, but that he is committed to never allowing this to change. Boshcoff champions the police and power of prisons. It cost our country $314 per day per prisoner as of 2018, but it seems like he would rather taxpayers foot the bill to lock up drug users than search for any other solution.
It is time to reject the emotionally informed musings of our mayor; instead, we must take a hard look at what has actually made a difference in other cities, and find out how to apply these strategies to our own.
Andrew Wilson
