Dear editor:
Having read recent complaints about West Vancouver's decision to not ask for home addresses at council meetings, all of them seem to come from the naïve perspective of people whose participation in politics has been limited to voting in elections and maybe trying to fight improved bus service.
The reality is that there's no reason to want someone's home address as opposed to just which municipality they live in which is strong enough to warrant the dangers inherent to releasing that kind of personal information.
The concern here isn't that, for example, opponents of a bus or whatever might send people rude letters in the mail - with the likes of Facebook, harassment doesn't really require anything beyond a person's full name. The major concern here, in fact, is the sorts of political opponents that people might make outside of the microcosm of municipal planning discourse.
Even just participating in anti-racism protests, publicly supporting immigrants and refugees, advocating for better housing for homeless people, or protesting against reactionary ideologues are enough to get people on the radar of "alt-right" university clubs and fascist biker gangs - groups which, unlike self-identified "concerned citizens" in West Vancouver, are entirely willing to intimidate people in person.
This threat especially applies to women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ people, who are often the targets of direct physical violence by far-right people who they have the audacity to disagree with. When people don't want to disclose their addresses, it's because they're worried about being the victim of arson, assault, or murder, not some strongly worded letters from people who never go anywhere east of Granville Street.
For people who don't actually have skin in the game when it comes to politics, period - people whose wealth and influence shelters them from ever facing actual violence from their political adversaries; people who will never experience consequences from legislation and policy beyond perhaps paying more tax or making less profit - these concerns might seem alien. It's understandable that a procedural change, such as rescinding the requirement that people state addresses at council meetings, might seem unnecessary and worrisome to them. However, what do you gain from having their entire address beyond just their municipality of residence?
And besides, if the district can't actually verify people's addresses, what's to stop them from simply lying?
This change by the district, while long overdue, is an extremely welcome one.
Matt Rowan
West Vancouver
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