Vancouver Drug Users Fight Poverty Tourism by Gawking at Yuppies

Hey, look over here—it's the Downtown Eastside, "widely considered the worst neighbourhood in Canada" if you read the Toronto Star.

It turns out there is a poor person or two living here capable of reading and speaking and walking—not just dancing and watching a reflection in a window, humming music nobody else can hear. Which, again, is what you may think poor people are totally like, if you read the Star's review of a Downtown Eastside walking tour.

It seems that a few of them weren't impressed by the newspaper's cute invitation to tourists: "look an invisible person in the eye" for the totally reasonable price of $185. (This bit of poetry comes from a reporter "hosted by Tourism Vancouver and its partners" by the way.)

In response, a group of local drug users staged their own little walking tour yesterday afternoon, getting a real close look at one of the neighbourhood's most notorious invasive species: rich pricks.

This wasn't like the "socially responsible" tour featured in the Star, where a guide warns of shocking alcoholism and sadness. Nor did the drug users give away "meal tokens" to their wealthy neighbours, as if feeding ducks in a pond (though good idea maybe next time).

The tour circled around a few blocks until some guy on a condo balcony gave them the finger and told them to fuck off. They chanted "Downtown Eastside is not a safari, drive away in your Ferrari."

There's no happy ending here, only a hot-faced response to shitty poverty tourism. We should know that gawking at poor people is a bad look; apparently some of us needed a reminder that, yes, poor people can look back.

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