Last Week’s Tri-City News Online poll question:
“Should Police be empowered to take homeless people to shelters in extreme weather conditions?”
Police need no empowerment to take people to shelters. They can already do so, when people are willing to go. The proposed new empowerment is for them to be able to do so forcibly. And, as some strange solace, we’ve been offered “but they wouldn’t have to go inside, or stay.”
The forcible nature of this proposal, overriding an individual’s own wishes, is the problem, and what makes this proposal contentious. Failing to incorporate that most significant detail, I’m sorry to say, makes the question pointless, at least as regards the current BC Government proposal.
