Sunshine, lakes, golf and wine.
Ask any Western Canadian what the Okanagan is best known for, and most answers will be those four topics.
However, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre sent out a tweet on Tuesday morning that compared part of the region’s largest city, and its homeless problem, to a third-world country.
“These images are not from a faraway third-world country,” said Poilievre. “This is Kelowna.
“After eight years of Trudeau and the NDP.”
The tweet included a 57-second video, taken along the Okanagan Rail Trail in Kelowna’s north end, featuring scores of homeless people living in tents.
Poilievre didn’t record the video; rather, it came from a TikTok account that has just 11 videos, all of homeless people presumably in Kelowna.
Of the account’s first 10 videos, they had views ranging from 972 to 5,700. The last video, though, had 167,000 views on Tuesday afternoon.
Poilievre’s tweet was published on Tuesday morning. By 3 p.m., it had been retweeted nearly 2,500 times and had 8,100 likes. It also had scores upon scores of wildly ranging comments.
In an email from the Opposition Leader’s Office, Global News was told that “Mr. Poilievre and Canada’s common-sense Conservatives have championed bringing home our loved ones drug-free and ending the out-of-control crime wave after eight years of catch and release bail reforms under Justin Trudeau.”
The City of Kelowna called the social-media post disappointing and unfair.
“This is an issue that cities across Canada are experiencing and it fails to show the incredible work that’s being done behind the scenes,” said Darren Caul, community safety director at the City of Kelowna.
The post has sparked conversation online about the current state of homelessness in the city. However, one community advocate has mixed feelings about how Poilievre’s platform was used.
“I don’t like vulnerable people being used as props and that’s what it was,” said Heather Friesen.
“All levels of government need to stop just pointing fingers and bashing each other. And come to the table and start having true conversations about how we can address some of the real issues.”
Many organizations across the city have increased their support for the unhoused population. However, the number continues to rise. Kelowna’s Gospel Mission says at this time last year it served 90 people, this year it’s jumped to over 200.
“We can look at things like housing unaffordability is a huge cause, especially in this region. We can look at the rise of just people experiencing huge barriers to their mental well-being and then the supports that go along with that are not keeping up with that demand,” said director of emergency services Amber Webster.
City staff say affordable housing and homelessness are two main priorities and tweets like this take away not only from the work being done, but the beauty of the city.
“As a world-class city, with its beaches, wineries events, and recreational activities all that more than two million people come to our region to experience every year,” said Caul.
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