Vancouver’s Yes In My Backyard movement – which is pushing for more condos to be built in the city – is in turmoil after a prominent member’s tweets mocking South and East Asian people and encouraging female politicians to commit suicide surfaced.
A twitter account with the handle @MonitorYvr started sharing screenshots of tweets by vocal YIMBY advocate Greg Andrews on Sunday.
“I’d say young South Asian males actually beat out old Asian ladies as being ignorant drivers,” Andrews – who uses the Twitter handle @gregeh – says in one tweet.
Andrews also appears to have been penalized by twitter numerous times for violating twitter “rules against promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm” and also for Violating twitter rules “against abuse and harassment”.
Twitter has taken down a number of tweets where Andrews is asking people to kill themselves, including the one where Andrews asked a female politician to kill herself in a fire.
Andrews had previously come under fire over a series of tweets targeting another female politician serving in the Vancouver Park Board which culminated in the politician seeking police protection.
This is not the first time Vancouver’s YIMBY movement has faced allegations of racism.
During the 2018 municipal elections, a YIMBY blogger asked voters to reject a South Asian candidate because “you can take a save out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of a savage”.
It later emerged that Ken Paquette – a director of the not-for-profit Kettle Society and a vocal YIMBY advocate – had privately told the blogger to reword the comments because the target of racism “will make himself a victim and run with it”.
Many directors of Vancouver’s prominent YIMBY organization Abundant Housing Vancouver also shared the blog post.
They later claimed that it was a conspiracy by the group’s opponents to make the group look bad.
“Just to get it off my chest, I’m 100% now this was indeed a false flag,” AHV director Owen Brady tweeted. “If you’re not leaning this way already, you might want to assess your own biases.”
Last year, another YIMBY blogger Smart Living VanCity came out as an alt-right white supramecist.
“The racist ‘smartliving’ account seems to be gone,” Brady, who had been following the blogger on twitter said. “I condemn them anyway and if they live here I hope they’re leaving.”
A number of YIMBY advocates, including Andrews, has since turned their Twitter timelines private since @MonitorYvr started tweeting out.
Help is available
Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566 (Phone) | 45645 (Text) | crisisservicescanada.ca (Chat)
In Quebec (French): Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)
Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (Phone), Live Chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.ca
Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre
