I have been a newspaper reporter and columnist in Ontario for nearly 20 years and I’ve never heard any quite like the story coming out of Abbotsford about the city spreading chicken manure around a homeless camp.
I understand that similar tactics were used to disperse vagrants and drifters during the Great Depression, as well as jailing them, transporting them out of down and dumping them in remote locales, even beating and shooting them.
City staff have now and forever branded Abbotsford as a callous and heartless community, and certainly one I would never care to visit. My advice to you is to immediately repair the damage by investing new funds in services for the homeless, otherwise this incident will forever be a stain of infamy on your city.
Rob O’Flanagan
Guelph, Ontario
