The Twitterverse was filled with heated exchanges between the Non-Partisan Association and Vision Vancouver Thursday after a controversial tweet made by the NPA about the Downtown Eastside.
On Wednesday night, the NPA tweeted: “Neighborhood of pimps, dealers, needles and violence —would you want your daughter here?”
The debate centred around a new supportive-housing development for teenage aboriginal girls that will be built in the DTES.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs said while he welcomes a debate about the project’s location, the approach the NPA took reflected a “divisive and negative attitude.”
Vision also called on NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton to apologize to DTES residents.
But NPA city council candidate Mike Klassen admitted they made a mistake by not putting quotation marks on some of the words, and pointed out it was a direct quote from a Vancouver Courier column critical of the project.
“It is a very concerning project,” he said. “We think the Downtown Eastside is a neighbourhood whose challenges have really been front and centre in a lot of people’s minds for a generation.”
There’s no need to apologize, he added, because it was a just a big misunderstanding.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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