Elected officials, expert slam Vancouver police report as a 'sensational,' 'useless,' 'mess'

Just hours after Vancouver police struggled to defend a controversial study they commissioned at taxpayer expense, high-profile critics and experts dismissed the report as sloppy with little-to-no value to policymakers or the public.

Just hours after Vancouver police struggled to defend a controversial study they commissioned at taxpayer expense, high-profile critics and experts dismissed the eye-popping figures and conclusions as sloppy with little value to policymakers or the public.

The Vancouver Police Department paid $149,000 to Alberta-based HelpSeeker Technologies to conduct a report into the city’s “social safety net.” It concluded the city sees approximately $5 billion per year in government and charitable support.

On its Twitter account, the force layered slick graphics with the jaw-dropping numbers on top of gritty black and white images from the Downtown Eastside – focusing on that neighbourhood even though $2 billion of the money is distributed by senior governments to people all over Vancouver in the form of Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, child tax credits and other direct payments.

The balance is made up of government funding and charities providing everything from immigrant settlement services to shopping assistance for seniors to drug rehab facilities.

HelpSeeker co-founder Alina Turner explained the company used publicly available information and Canada Revenue Agency data to compile the statistic, complaining repeatedly about gaps in information that meant they “missed a whole bunch of stuff.” Her report acknowledges “it is not known how large the social safety net truly is at this time because of data availability limitations.”

By early afternoon, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth had sent a scathing statement to journalists, insisting that no one had asked the province for any information and denouncing the report as “spreading sensationalized and misleading numbers.”

Vancouver’s mayor, who’s only been on the job a few days and campaigned heavily on his support for increased policing resources dismissed the document.