A coalition of advocacy organizations is taking a previously proposed Barrie bylaw amendment to the United Nations as an example of a policy that criminalizes homelessness in Canada.
In May and June, the city north of Toronto proposed and then walked back two bylaw amendments that would have made it illegal for people and charitable groups to distribute food, literature, clothes, tents and tarps to unhoused people on public property.
The proposal was sent back to staff for review in June but was discussed again at a community safety committee meeting on Tuesday. A date for another council vote on the bylaw has yet to be set.
After Tuesday’s meeting, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and Pivot Legal society sent the proposed bylaw amendments to the UN’s rapporteurs on the right to adequate housing and extreme poverty. The intergovernmental agency has put out a call for laws impacting unhoused people for a report on decriminalizing homelessness, with a submission deadline of early October.
Targeting vulnerable populations with laws intended to make their lives specifically worse is obviously bad. You shouldn’t even need a story to understand that that’s bad. So you’re giving off the strong impression that your actual problem here is that anyone is questioning the targeting of homeless people with the law.
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It’s a feeling I have. We are in a lemmy forum and not a moderated debate stage so I’m not sure why you think calling logical fallacy is going to separate me from my intuition.
What does a moderated debate have to do with anything? It is a fallacy because it is nonsensical. Even if what you say is true (sadly, you got it wrong, but that’s par for the course), it changes absolutely nothing about the conversation. It is equivalent to you adding “And the sky is blue!”
You can say it if you want. It’s just not clear what value you think it adds. It indicates absolutely nothing.
I’m just noting the impression that you’re giving me. That you are pro targeting vulnerable populations with the law.
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It suggests the kind of values you have and, in turn, how much value I ought to give your input.
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Absolutely the topic stands alone. What the city of Barrie is getting up to is reprehensible and what the group sending the complaint is doing is fine. I wasn’t really discussing those terms because I don’t consider your original complaint to be particularly worthwhile and my main goal was sussing out why you were making it.
As noted by that sentence. Well, I’ve made my decision on why I think you were making that argument and now I’ve said it.