Talk:Larry Campbell
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Description of Campbell's political position was too biased. Removed description of these positions as "socialist". Calling left-wingers "socialist" is a rhetorical device in Canadian politics, and not a description of reality. The centrist-left wing division between Campbell and his council is left in, however.--Simon.Pole 23:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
As the current Mayor of Vancouver, Larry Campbell is accorded the style 'His Worship'. As a Senator of Canada, he is accorded the title "Honourable". Therefore, AndyL, as both a current mayor and current senator, he is 'His Worship the Honourable Senator Larry Campbell" User:Eddo
Please look at articles for other current mayors and Senators. According styles outside of royalty is unencyclopedic.03:12, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] NPOV dispute - The need to try a safe injection site
I'm concerned about the named section being unencyclopedic and have labelled it as such. Here are my concerns/observations:
- I see potentially POV wording used, such as "fast achieving international fame as a trouble spot", "had no proven success", "bane on all Vancouver councils", "redevelopment is universally seen as necessary", etc.
- The name of the section itself "The need to try..." seems to assume a need which is POV
- I wonder if the section is actually on-topic, or perhaps just too detailed, for an article about Larry Campbell
Thoughts? --Ds13 21:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you are saying. I am also concerned about the style of this section. The section is incoherent. It describes social housing which is not the title of the section and the start of the section is a list of bullet points with no introduction.
The one point I disagree with you is that it is too detailed for this article. I don't think so. This is a key part of Larry Campbell's term as mayor. However the writing in this section has to be improved and made NPOV. --Srasku 07:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The section is massively POV and poorly written as per Ds13. I would rather see it taken out at this time and moved to the talk page to be cleaned up; the section does not belong on the page in its current state. As I see it, the rewrite should keep in mind that:
- Deaths from injection drug use in the area had increased greatly from a decade previously; also, drug use was no longer seen as just a Downtown Eastside problem.
- Vince Cain, who was chief coroner before Campbell took over, had recommnded the idea in the early 90s based on experience in countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands. So this wasn't a new idea, nor was it Larry Campbell's. Eventually it got incorporated into the city's four-pillar drug strategy.
- Philip Owen had come around to supporting a site, which left him at odds with some in his party. Campbell was clear in supporting the site while his rival Jennifer Clarke was not.
- The SIS itself was only one part of the four-pillar strategy, though it received by far the most attention and generated the most controversy.
You can find studies put out by the folks running the site that deaths and side-effects of drug use are down. Not an independent source, but better than the unsounced opinion that currently sits on the page.
But keep in mind that there were other things at play in 2002: the bitter feelings over Philip Owen being pushed aside, aftereffects of the 2001 transit strike, the NPA having been in power for 9 years, No Fun City, Campbell making COPE seem more moderate, and so on. I'd say the SIS deserves a paragraph at best.
There are other long-standing bits of POV in the article -- shots at his Senate appointment, and misrepresenting Campbell's Olympic position to name two. (The article's description of his Olympice stance more accurately describes Jim Green's position; Campbell had always spoken in support of the bid.) It does need a bit of cleanup. Ianking 04:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Party Affiliations
Removed party affiliations in the succession box to conform to the usage in all other articles on Vancouver mayors. If they are edited back in, they should be edited back in on those other articles, as well. ~~Fishhead64, 06:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] NPOV
The need to try a safe injection site refers to "hobos". This term is seldom used in press or political statements regarding homelessness in Vancouver. The idea that the problem has not been studied sufficiently worldwide or locally to posit no possible reasonable cause for poverty and displacement is laughable. The attention given to drug issues in this article should give a general understanding to the lay reader of the causes of homelessness in the city.
[edit] Text of "The need to try a safe-injection site"
- The east-Hastings (downtown eastside) proposed location of the site was originally the centre of the city but fast achieving international fame as a trouble spot
- All other approaches to the problem over a period of 40 years, from either a social justice or law-enforcement point of view had had no proven success
- Larry Campbell both a former policeman and former Coroner
- The previous mayor, Philip Owen, had visited many cities in Europe with similar problems and concluded that this approach was suited to Vancouver
A bane on all Vancouver councils in recent years has been the fate of the former Woodwards department store building, now a boarded up heritage building. Its redevelopment is universally seen as necessary before the decaying part of city it occupies, located between the current downtown core and the downtown eastside, can be more generally redeveloped and prevent the world from seeing an urban dystopian landscape when the Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver in 2010.
While it was a minority on council, COPE councillors had always put pressure on Vancouver council to insist that the building be redeveloped as social housing. Various deals to redevelop the building over the past 10 years have stumbled on this point.
Similarly, a high profile earlier social housing experiment, Vancouver's False Creek development, requires extension to accommodate the 2010 Olympic Village, and social activists are afraid that the resulting housing complex will make the entire region out of the price range of elderly and other disadvantaged people for whom the False Creek development was originally created 30 years ago.
- I'm moving the tag to the article with the assumption this issue is still open. Edit summary: 'moving pov tag to article (easier for readers to figure out where issue is, and if it is pov, they should have to come to Talk to find out)' Antonrojo 02:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Senate reform
An anonymous user has removed the sentence that noted the critcism by many politicians of the Canadian Senate as an elitist, undemocratic institution. The user noted that that This article is not about Senate reform, and is quite right. However, the contraversy about the senate is fundemental to understanding why Campbell was critised for accepting the appointment-- not just because he said he was not a politician, but because he always presented himself as a populist, a democrat and a "regular joe" and the Senate (in the West especially) is seen as the opposite of those things. I think it would be worth putting a mention back in, maybe with a link to the full senate reform article.