Amanda Burrows
People deserve to feel safe. Full stop.
But policing alone will not solve complex problems. Real safety comes from housing people, lowering costs, ensuring food access, expanding voluntary treatment, and providing real mental health supports.
Leadership means acting on evidence — not fear — and investing in what actually makes communities safer.
A Public Health Approach to the Overdose Crisis
Vancouver’s Four Pillars approach — prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement — was designed to save lives. It was evidence-based and non-partisan.
The problem isn’t harm reduction. The problem is that prevention and treatment were never fully built. Today, too many people are dying because there are bottlenecks into care.
Cities have real levers: land, capital funding, zoning, approvals, and convening power. While treatment is primarily provincial, cities can remove barriers and create capacity.
What I will do as mayor
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invest in prevention through youth programs, libraries, community centres, arts, food access, housing stability, and Indigenous-led healing
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commit city land and capital funding to open new detox, treatment, and recovery beds
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fast-track approvals for care facilities
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convene partners with clear targets and public accountability
Alternatives to Emergency Response
Too many mental-health and substance-use calls are still answered by police when no crime has occurred. This escalates situations and pulls police away from the work they are needed to do.
Across BC, community-led crisis response teams resolve nearly 99% of calls without police involvement, with less trauma and lower costs.
Vancouver should have this system city-wide.
What I will do as mayor
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launch a community-led mental-health crisis response program
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prioritize city funding to pilot it
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secure provincial funding to scale it city-wide
Safety requires leadership
Public safety isn’t about slogans. It’s about responsibility.
Leadership means choosing what works, funding it properly, and being accountable for results.
That’s how we build a city where people are safer — because we invest in prevention, care, and community.
"The four pillars were always a non-partisan initiative, and unfortunately over the years we haven't used all four. Vancouver has always taken leadership on this issue, and we need to get back to saving lives, not politicising the solutions. When we address all the social determinants of health we make our communities healthier and safer for everyone – a plan everyone should support.”
-- Guy Felicella, harm reduction advocate and addiction educator
Media coverage:
Daily Hive: Amanda Burrows says Vancouver residents 'feel less safe' under Ken Sim