Plecas Jumps To The Front Of The Homeless Parade

By Mike Archer. It is heartwarming to see one of the world’s most behind-the-curve criminologist/politicians – Abbotsford MLA and BC’s Junior Crime Fighter Darryl Plecas – jumping to the front of the homeless parade in Abbotsford by hosting a public forum at UFV Friday.

Plecas made a name for himself in police and municipal circles by writing favourable opinions about the idea that cities and cops could ignore the fundamental requirement in Canadian jurisprudence that police acquire a search warrant before forcing their way into private property by masquerading as electrical inspectors and, as they did in Mission, leaving a $5,200 invoice behind whether they found anything criminal going on or not.

Municipalities like Mission and Surrey have certainly regretted following that advice. In Abbotsford, we decided to send Darryl off to make laws in Victoria.

Having leant the merest whiff of academic legitimacy to his otherwise Neanderthal views on police activities, law enforcement and legislative power, Plecas might be expected to reflect on the possibility that his support for the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) and the RCMP, while being funded by the police as an RCMP Chair of Criminology, might have had something to do with the current state of crisis in which the City of Abbotsford and the APD find themselves with respect to the homeless, the poor and the drug addicted in our community.

Darryl is among those still waging the failed drug war and probably picked a good time to leave what passes for academia in his department lest any real academics show up.

The growing number of lawsuits and civil rights complaints facing the City and its police force is witness to a decade’s worth of misguided, ultra vires and unconstitutional actions on the part of politicians like Plecas, Abbotsford/Mission MLA Simon Gibson and city councilors in Abbotsford who supported and continue to defend Abbotsford’s Anti-Harm Reduction Bylaw.

And so; suddenly, after Abbotsford Today reveals to the world the kind of public policy decisions being made in Abbotsford – Abbotsford Spreads Chicken Manure In City To Rid Itself Of The Homeless – and the resulting firestorm of bad publicity and additional lawsuits, lo and behold Darryl Plecas feels the urge to hold a public forum over at UFV and invite some of his political friends to be on a panel to discuss the Abbotsford Community Services (ACS) and the City of Abbotsford’s ham-fisted attempt to build a Supportive Housing Project in the Abbotsford Downtown Business Association’s (ADBA) protected zoning area where they were promised none would be built.

Is there no parade in front of which you won’t jump and lead past the finishing stand Darryl?
And, by the way … it is getting tiring to keep bringing this up but, as long as we keep having these nice, catered affairs to discuss what we’re going to do about the poor, the homeless and the drug addicted, wouldn’t it be nice to invite one or more of them to sit on the panel?

Maybe you could send a car over to pick up a card-carrying member of the homeless community from Jubilee Park where the Abbotsford Drug War Survivors (DWS) are currently protesting Abbotsford’s complete abandonment on some of its citizen’s civil rights.

I’m sure one of them would be pleased to join all the Toffs who will be there to represent Abbotsford’s ruling class and discuss just what we’re going to do about all these sordid poor people.