Vancouver Activists Remember Tracey Morrison As A Woman Who Refused To Accept The Status Quo

The Downtown Eastside is in mourning after Tracey Morrison passed away on Friday (July 15).

The Ojibwe woman was president of the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (WAHRS) and an active member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). Since 2012, she was also increasingly involved in housing issues. She represented WAHRS on a city planning committee and, especially in recent years, became a vocal advocate for tenants’ rights for residents living in the Downtown Eastside’s shabby SRO hotels.

Jean Swanson, a friend of Morrison’s and a 2016 recipient of the Order of Canada, told the Straight that Morrison positioned her very existence as a challenge to prejudices and inequalities that remain inherent in society and the status quo.

“She always introduced herself by saying, ‘I am an Indigenous woman and I am poor and I am a drug user’,” Swanson told the Straight. “Right there, she listed four categories of discrimination. And often, governments don’t do what should be done to people because someone is a women or because they are Indigenous or because they are poor or because they are a user. They are considered undeserving. And Tracey was right there, with her brilliant, bright personality, saying, ‘Here I am. I am a living, wonderful human being, and you need to treat me right.’

“She really tackled the idea of governments treating people as lesser-than because of various issues,” Swanson continued.

“The lesson from her is, if we can stop discriminating against people, we will eliminate the rationale for government inequality.”

bit.ly/2trMavt via @georgiastraight