BY-ELECTION – McQuarrie: Homeless wrongly targeted on shopping cart issue

Candidates in the Sept. 30 Kamloops civic by-election are invited to make submissions to ArmchairMayor.ca on their platforms, biographical information, contact information or specific issues. Please keep them to 550 words or less. The following comes via a press release from mayoral candidate Bill McQuarrie.

Kamloops mayoral candidate Bill McQuarrie says the City appears to be targeting the wrong people when it comes to theft of shopping carts.

McQuarrie said in a media release today (Sept. 20, 2017) that he came across dozens of shopping carts in front of the TRU Residence & Conference Centre on Tuesday night.

McQuarrie said they “appear to be left there after students use them to get their groceries back to the Residence.”

He continued in his press release:

“The number of carts at just this one student location suggests the City has been picking on the wrong people when it comes to the ‘theft’ of shopping carts. It’s easy to blame the homeless. They can’t defend themselves and are an easy target for misdirected and over zealous enforcement policies.”

McQuarrie said he feels this should be a learning moment for the City and suggested a more compassionate and helpful mode is needed in dealing with homeless.

“Why don’t we do as some other cities do and simply provide those in need with their own cart?”

“We could ask grocery stores to provide us with out-o-f-service carts, then look for volunteer organizations willing to restore these carts. Make them more maneuverable by adding slightly larger wheels, paint them so everyone knows they haven’t been stolen, add a locking system and maybe add some form of personal ID for the owner.

“We blamed the homeless for a problem of which they only played a very minor role and maybe it’s time we apologized, showed some compassion and gave them legal ownership of their own personal cart.”