#sam sullivan

BC Liberal candidate Sam Sullivan is facing calls to “resign” for misrepresenting the views of a harm reduction activist in a recent BC Liberal campaign video.

Sullivan, a former Vancouver mayor, recently released a two minute video accusing the BC NDP government of making his Vancouver-False Creek riding “less safe” after a safe injection site was opened in an upscale urban neighbourhood.

“Our neighbourhoods are less safe after the NDP government moved untreated, unsupported people with addictions into nearby hotels and community centres,” the BC Liberal candidate wrote on Facebook.

The ad quotes Garth Mullins, a local harm-reduction activist who recently resigned from a provincial overdose committee over the BC government’s handling of the province’s ongoing overdose crisis.

“I am not going to stand at an open hole digging a grave with John Horgan,” Mullins is quoted in Sullivan’s attack ad.

But Mullins says the BC Liberal candidate didn’t bother asking for permission to use his quote, particularly given his words were used out-of-context in a video attacking overdose prevention sites and demonizing members of his own community.

“Without my permission, my quote is being weaponized in a Sam Sullivan / BC Liberal campaign ad against (Overdose Prevention Sites),” Mullins tweeted.

“I am sure as f—k not gonna vote for the BC Liberals,” Mullins added.

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CASSIE: How are we going to do that? You're hurt. Evan is—

BEN: This isn't about him. Well, I guess it is to you—

CASSIE: He's the reason you're alive right now to bitch, Parish.

BEN: I'm not bitching.

CASSIE: Yes, you are. You're bitching like a junior miss beauty queen.

BC Liberal housing critic Sam Sullivan added to the growing list of reasons why a BC Liberal government would be bad for renters by confirming his opposition to rent controls. Removing rent controls would lead to unlimited rent increases.

Speaking in the house on Monday morning, MLA Sullivan railed against the NDP’s move to cap 2019 rent increases at the rate of inflation instead of allowing the 4.5% hike set to occur under the formula left by the BC Liberals. During his speech, Sullivan called rent increase caps “unbelievable” and “chaos” for the rental market:

“I am almost speechless after hearing my friend from the West End just give me his theories on the economics of rental housing. A few months ago he sent the market of rental housing into chaos after announcing that he would be imposing rent controls. Rent controls!” (HANSARD, March 25)

Sullivan went on to argue for an unrestricted “supply and demand” system for determining rents, lamenting that rent controls “interfere artificially” in that.

But the types of regulations that Sullivan opposes have been in place in BC for years and exist in many jurisdictions. His comments are a departure from past BC Liberal policy and suggest the Andrew Wilkinson-led BC Liberals would make life even harder for renters.

Sullivan’s comments come weeks after BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson was criticized for dismissing renting as “a wacky time of life” and “part of growing up and getting better.”

BC NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert: