Vancouver’s Yes In My Backyard movement – which is pushing for real estate developers to be given a blank slate to build for-profit housing all over the city – is once again coming under fire after a vocal member verbally assaulted a female volunteer of a civic party that publicly said “no” to real estate industry donations.

Greg Andrews sent a series of expletive laden messages to TEAM volunteer Linsea O’Shea after falsely accusing her of “stealing” the table allocated to the Vote Socialist party.

“You should be more sorry that you support a shitty, lying nimby party and the worst possible councillor,” vocal YIMBY advocate Andrews told O’Shea in a private message.

“I’m happy to move the tent and help you move yours,” O’Shea responded to Andrews. “I would like to fix my mistake please”

But after Vote Socialist party’s council candidate Sean Orr pointed out that Greg Andrews is not part of the party and that TEAM had indeed not “stolen” their table, Andrews resorted to verbally assaulting the volunteer.

“I’m not part of Vote Socialist and I’m not at the event, someone pointed it out to me in a group chat,” Andrews told the volunteer. “So just.. Go f*ck yourself and f*ck Hardwick”

TEAM, who’s mayoral candidate is incumbent councillor Colleen Hardwick, has declared that the party would not be accepting donations from the real estate industry.

Both the incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together and his main rival Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver have accepted donations from major players in the real estate industry.

Mayor Stewart and Forward Together have been in damage limitation mode after homeless writer Stanley Q. Woodvine found a spreadsheet listing 26 “captains” – developers and senior corporate executives who were each tasked with raising tens of thousands of dollars for the party’s campaign.

Forward Together supporters have been engaged in an intense social media campaign to defend the incumbent mayor and his team while ratcheting up the rhetoric against Stewart’s rivals since the so-called “Captain Gate” scandal became public.

When it comes to violence and abuse, this is not Greg Andrews’s first rodeo.

“Just gas this room,” Andrews Tweeted earlier this year while his account was protected. “Problem solved”

Given the violent nature of Andrews’s threats, ThinkPol has decided not to identify the group he targeted.

Andrew has a long history of open racism and encouraging women, especially women in politics, to kill themselves.

“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 twotter 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.

Despite Andrews’s history of violence, racism, and misogyny, he’s followed by a number of local politicians and YIMBY activists.

His followers include Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle, YIMBY group Abundant Housing Vancouver directors Jennifer Bradshaw and Owen Brady.

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 savage 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 “make it sound less racist”.

Many directors and founders of 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,” 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

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