Organizing community & resisting violence against drug users in the Cowichan Valley
Report back from a community event.
This winter the Cowichan Valley’s only overnight emergency warming centre is a small ‘portable’ surrounded by temporary fencing located in the back gravel parking lot of a shuttered hotel on the highway.
Last year it was in the community centre, and the year before that it was in a church basement.
Perceived issues of safety and “street disorder” in the area are cited each time by municipal leaders as they force the location to change.
The local overdose prevention site was also forced to relocate, and is currently under pressure to move again. Unhoused individuals are also displaced daily by bylaw officers and RCMP. And the result of this type of displacement is quite literally death.
Displacement and its related, premature death in the Cowichan Valley did not just appear overnight, they are the results of generations of colonial land grabs, capitalist greed, oppressive racist drug policy and forever increasing police and state power. Despite clear root causes, we see many in the community promote downstream “solutions” that are not based in evidence and rely on punitive responses to issues of homelessness, drug use, and poverty. This has been seen throughout the development of the local “Safer Community Plan” which has focused heavily on policing, bylaw and private security.
Last month, in response to these crises, a group of community members gathered to build power and connection at an event called, “Community Organizing Against Displacement and Death”.
A panel of speakers discussed issues related to the toxic drug crisis, displacement, state violence, and the political climate in the Cowichan Valley and beyond.
The room of more than 30 people – primarily drug users and/or community organizers – stayed wrapt for the duration of the multi-hour presentation, often chiming in with personal experience, questions and clarification about the local context.
Speakers included Tyson Singh Kelsall, a PhD candidate and member of Police Oversight With Evidence and Research (P.O.W.E.R), Corey Ranger, the president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, Molly Beatrice, a member of Stop the Sweeps Vancouver and P.O.W.E.R and Zoe Kaur, also a member of Stop the Sweeps.
The speakers presented complex analyses of broad systemic issues that often reached a global scale, yet each and every point was relevant for those in attendance and to everyone in this valley. Tyson Singh’s presentation brought forward the reality and consequences of drug prohibition, the history of racist drug policy, colonialism, carceral systems and ballooning police budgets. These realities are easily seen locally; from the drastically disproportionate numbers of Indigenous Peoples in the valley who are unhoused to the visible and continual churn of displacement by bylaw, to the hundreds of local people killed by toxic drugs. From 2014 to October 2024 1,152 people have been killed by toxic drugs in the Central Vancouver Island region alone.
Continual carceral responses to social crises are seen in the rising North Cowichan police budget which has prompted panic even from the mayor – a growing trend in municipalities across Canada as the police defund community infrastructure.
Currently, North Cowichan is paying off their portion of a $48 million dollar loan for the new 50,000 sq ft cop shop, and will soon be paying for body cams for all officers (at $3000/yr per officer), as well as contributing increasing amounts to the “Island Major Crimes Unit.”
Displacement was a central theme of the event.
From experience in the community, we know that people are regularly forced by police and bylaw to pack up essentials, such as life-saving shelters, and many areas previously used to wait out the daytime hours between the opening and closing of services are now fenced off. People with nowhere to go are forced to exist 24/7 in full view of passersby. Community members are then again punished and excluded, by police, bylaw, and the general public, for being visible.
One of the most worrisome local developments in response to the increasing visibility of people experiencing the brunt of state violence is the so-called “Safer Community Plan” which has lumped “crime, safety, and homelessness” into one category and encouraged the idea that “our” safety is threatened by drug users and unhoused people. This rhetoric has been weaponized by local groups like Canadian Citizens Against Crime and Public Drug Use who organized a rally last spring in downtown Duncan, which involved signs that stated things like, “Jail More.”
In reality, it is the safety of drug users and unhoused people that is under attack.
We know that locally, from the constant and specific reports of drive by violence enacted by vigilantes, displacement by public and private law enforcement, and the yearly struggle to find a location for the warming centre, which in practice means fall and winter weeks go by with no emergency shelter available.
Two speakers touched on elements of “elite capture” and the risks of accepting funding from the state and even from non-profits. Community Action Teams and other organizing groups all over the province gather vibrant, well-spoken community leaders and work hard to implement programs and establish networks of support. This work is consistently stifled by the state at time, though, particularly when the important work starts turning into an effective movement.
This was seen when community groups were threatened with losing their funding if they publicly showed support for the phenomenally successful work of the Drug Users Liberation Front (DULF) – whose community-led compassion club has been the most beneficial single intervention into the toxic drug emergency since it was declared. Directives are commonly sent from the government to these groups with implicit threats of funding loss, and additionally there are often local players within groups who serve to silence the voices of members with direct lived/living experience. As the speakers noted: “the revolution will not be funded.”
Nurse Corey Ranger, a local, who also spoke at the recent “Better Together” event, presented a compelling and troubling analysis of how government officials, policies, and media dehumanize people who use drugs and contribute to a “moral panic” that positions drug users and unhoused people as dangerous. Corey connected this to the current phenomenon, seen locally, of panic around trans people existing in public, accessing healthcare and even using bathrooms. Attendees contributed personal stories about the deadly impacts perpetuated by this moral panic within their own communities, including rapidly increasing vigilante violence, and the strain on crucial harm reduction services. The presentation clearly showed that laws and policy surrounding drug use, sheltering and public space are predominantly about social control.
Molly and Zoe, who both have extensive experience working with tent city encampments, drug user unions and law enforcement documentation brought stories of resistance from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and beyond. They noted that the slogan “displacement equals death” is not a metaphor: it’s a fact. The state blocks access to numerous life saving services– particularly during a toxic drug crisis – by dismantling encampments. Police and bylaw destroy tent cities in the name of control and “safety” and this leads directly to death by exposure, illness, and using toxic drugs in isolation. We know that community members in the Cowichan Valley die unnecessarily of exposure every year. Molly and Zoe invited the room to start thinking about ways of coming together to organize against displacement and to keep each other safe. The importance of continuing to connect and build power as communities through networks of care and mutual aid was emphasized. We were encouraged to pursue connections and recognize the state's attempt to divide us. We heard about the common tactic of the state targeting leaders (especially Indigenous women) and effective movements. Molly and Zoe presented strategies from tent city organizing in a straightforward and achievable way.
The issues we face here in the Cowichan Valley are a microcosm of the struggles faced by people across the country and even across the globe. This community’s struggles are not isolated and they cannot be understood nor solved in isolation. It will only be disentanglement from carceral systems, Indigenous-led initiatives, an immediate end to all displacement and substantial investment in community-led harm reduction services that will save lives and heal our community.