A proposed provincial law that would give police the right to force homeless people into shelters during bad weather has angered civil libertarians, who claim the move is a back-door bid to clean up Vancouver's streets in time for the Olympics.Backdoor bid? Why not a front-door bid? Not a huge fan of Olympic funding myself, there's probably nothing too wrong about sending crazy homeless people into shelters.
While civil libertarians may be able to raise a stink, "homeless advocates" should be keeping their mouth shut: they just today were protesting at the Alberta Legislature that we do more to provide for the homeless. Well, guess what? We are. If there are homeless on the streets of Edmonton and Vancouver who refuse to use the shelters, then the cities should be selling the shelter (a la Calgary) to private developers and kicking the homeless back out onto the streets they seem to love so much.
