To know the true nature of a society, it’s not enough to point to its achievements, as leaders like to do. We also need to look at its shortcomings. What do we see, then, when we look at the drug ghetto of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and similar enclaves in other urban centers? We see the dirty underside of our economic and social culture, the reverse of the image we would like to cherish of a humane, prosperous, and egalitarian society. We see our failure to honor family and community life or to protect children; we see our refusal to grant justice to Native peoples; and we see our
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