A prominent local recovery advocate says he no longer wants the ceremonial honour presented to him by Vancouver’s mayor after he says Ken Sim revealed his “ignorance.”
Sim proclaimed May 29, 2024, as ‘Guy Felicella Day’ in Vancouver, rewarding Felicella’s work advocating for harm reduction and recovery for families facing addiction to illicit drugs.
“As much as that proclamation meant to me then, I don’t want it anymore,” said Felicella Wednesday.
“Mayor Sim and his ABC majority have demonstrated that they do not understand what it takes to recover from toxic illicit drugs, or the work required to save lives. That proclamation is not worth the paper it’s printed on. That’s why I’ll be returning it to City Hall.”
Felicella says his decision is in response to a media event Sim held Tuesday, announcing an “urgent” motion to block a proposed overdose prevention site at 900 Helmcken Street.
The mayor said he would direct city staff at Tuesday’s council meeting to “use all tools available” — which include permitting, licensing, servicing, and legal settlements — to prevent the opening of the site.
As well, he says the motion isn’t intended to only apply to one particular site.
“I’m giving notice that I’ll be bringing forward an urgent motion to council to explore every available tool available to us to pause or prevent the opening of this site or any site like it until a more comprehensive plan is in place,” he said.
“That includes reviewing permitting, business licensing, and past agreements, and ensuring that any proposal moving forward includes meaningful consultation, a clear public safety strategy, defined recovery pathways, and transparent accountability measures.”
During Tuesday evening’s Vancouver City Council meeting, councillors approved the mayor’s motion.
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According to the City of Vancouver’s voting record, all ABC Party councillors voted in favour of the motion, while the opposition voted unanimously against it.
On Monday, Vancouver Coastal Health announced it had secured 900 Helmcken as its new permanent location for the site. It said in a statement that the Thomus Donaghy Overdose Prevention Site will be operated by social services provider RainCity Housing. In the release, it said overdose prevention is evidence-based and can reduce risks of death while connecting people to necessary supports.
Felicella says it would be the third location for an OPS in the neighbourhood, and “the third time the mayor has argued it isn’t needed despite the area having the second-highest rate of overdose deaths in the city and ranking among the top five in the province.”
He decried Sim’s claims that the OPSs are “failed experiments,” and that they make local hospital staff uncomfortable, and Coun. Lenny Zhou’s claims about a lack of investments in recovery treatment in the city.
Felicella tells 1130 NewsRadio that Sim is “spewing a bunch of misinformation, politicalizing the crisis, and creating more division” among Vancouverites.
He says two of Sim’s arguments were particularly egregious.
“One, there’s no evidence that those sites increase crime in the area. Two, that they’re a failed experiment, when there’s decades of research done on supervised consumption sites and how vital they are in saving lives.”
Felicella says the ABC Party doesn’t grasp that addiction is a chronic condition, and it’s wrong to blame harm reduction efforts for the challenges brought on by organized crime groups.
“They’re really going after a health approach. We’re just trying to reduce the amount of deaths and help connect people to treatment and recovery. And for anybody to be against that, to me, it’s just they obviously don’t understand it — or they’re using it as a political wedge issue.”
He says his award evidently “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” and he intends to drop it off at City Hall on Thursday.
“I don’t need an award to go out and do the work that I do anyway.”
1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the mayor’s office for comment. On the topic of the OPS, 1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the Ministry of Health and Vancouver Coastal Health for more information.
—With files from Raynaldo Suarez and Emma Crawford.