Canada:
Clearing the poor off the streets

Bertolt Brecht said it best: "The powerful of the earth create the poor 
but cannot bear to look at them."

In Tsarist Russia, the poor were hidden out of sight when the Tsarina rode 
by in her sleigh, lest the sight of them spoil her mood. The destitute and 
the homeless were one of the first targeted groups of undesirables in 
Hitler's Germany.

The Nazis justified raids against beggars in 1933 as needed to "present an 
image of a `cleaner' Germany to foreigners and to help channel charitable 
donations into worthwhile causes" (In the Racial State: Germany, by 
Michael Burleigh).

In Brazil today, shopkeepers and business people pay off-duty police and 
other death squad members to kill homeless street kids whose presence is 
deemed to be off-putting to shoppers.

It has become commonplace now for cities staging Olympic, Commonwealth or 
similar international sporting events to round up the homeless, the beggars 
and the very poor generally and to ship them off to some other city so they 
will not "inhibit" tourism.

They did it for the Atlanta Olympics. They did it for the Commonwealth 
Games in Canada. We can confidently expect the NSW Government to try to 
take similar steps in Sydney for next year's Olympic Games.

In Canada, the economic cleansing of the city streets has now become an 
annual spring event. The chosen method, as evidenced by recently passed by-
laws in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria (the capital of British Columbia), 
is to outlaw "panhandling" or the cadging of money from passers-by.

In the city of Victoria, a new law makes it illegal for poor people to ask 
for a handout within six metres of ATMs, bus stops, banks, liquor stores 
and parking ticket dispensers. On the spot fines of $5-$10 will be issued 
for those caught besmirching the city's image in this way.

"Panhandling" is a symptom of the failure of capitalism to provide for 
everybody. For those with no income and no hope of work, asking strangers 
for money is their only way of obtaining the necessities of life.

Business, which cannot provide jobs for those who need them and is 
ultimately responsible for so many people being thrown onto the economic 
scrapheap, is only interested in maintaining its own profit levels and the 
lifestyles of its owners and shareholders.

Predictably, business interests in Victoria City claim that beggars will 
"threaten tourism dollars".

At a council meeting last month, representatives from Tourism Victoria 
[Canada] and the Business Improvement Association stated repeatedly that 
there had been an 81 percent increase in complaints to the police about 
panhandlers in the past year.

Anti-poverty activists pointed out that these complaints could stem from a 
small number of individuals or businesses, and that the police themselves 
admit that the rise could be due to increased media coverage of the issue.

Opponents of increased harassment of the poor in Canada comprise a wide 
variety of groups including students, street youth, anti-poverty 
organisations, disability groups and members of the religious community.

Together Against Poverty Society coordinator Jacquie Ackerly, recently 
elected president of the National Anti-Poverty Organisation (NAPO), 
emphasises that people should not have their human rights removed just 
because they are poor.

NAPO has challenged the Winnipeg and Vancouver laws in court under the 
Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is expected to do the same for the 
Victoria by-law.

* * *

Adapted from an article in People's Voice (Canada)