Scattered throughout Saskatoon’s downtown core are stickers that aptly read, “Don Atchison: for a drug and gay free Saskatoon.” These unofficial stickers are somehow more honest than anything I’ve seen come out of the mayor’s office.

The stickers were first noticed in mid-December and have since been removed by the city as they appear, seeing as the stickers have no connection with the mayor’s office despite featuring the City of Saskatoon logo.

I would love to sport my best necktie and enter Atchison’s office, along with the creator of this ingenious new sticker campaign, to discuss LBGTQ folks, drug addicts and weed. I feel as though the exchange would be enlightening for several reasons.

Throughout his time as mayor, Atchison has never made an appearance at the Saskatoon Pride Parade, often citing scheduling conflicts — or the possibility of scheduling conflicts down the road — as the reason.

When probed last summer on the reasoning for his repeated absences, Atchison told Global News, “I don’t understand the big concern over all of this, because I think we all belong to one race, and that’s the human race.” This could almost be considered sweet, if it wasn’t such an irrelevant sentiment.

That said, as a member of Saskatoon’s LGBTQ community, my concerns were not relieved by his presumably well-intentioned shrug-off. Atchison’s actions and response provide little reason to assume that what the stickers suggest is wrong.

The corner of 2nd Avenue and 22nd Street in Saskatoon once housed a McDonald’s restaurant that doubly served as a gathering place for some of the city’s homeless or otherwise poverty-stricken population.

Deemed less than desirable by area merchants — and perhaps coincidentally a block or so away from Atch & Co Menswear, the Atchison family business on 21st Street — in May 2013, Saskatoon City Council proposed that the benches out front be removed, “in hopes of discouraging loitering.”

While the benches remained, in August 2013 the restaurant’s owner elected to have his business torn down. They paved a building that once provided reprieve from Saskatoon’s bitter-cold winters for people who desperately needed it, and put up a parking lot. It should be noted, however, that the public seemed to support this destruction.

Cut to the present and public opinion has shifted in several key areas. Although Canadians have elected a Liberal government into power, I write this while sitting in my Saskatoon riding that is still a Conservative stronghold.

The Liberal Party is vocally in favour of legalizing marijuana, planning to regulate its growth, content and distribution and tax it, which could arguably bring in a phenomenal amount of much-needed federal revenue. But we can’t have that now, can we?

Despite the potential for federal legality of marijuana dispensaries, and their already longstanding prominence and usefulness in cities such as Vancouver, B.C., Saskatoon Police Service famously and embarrassingly busted the local Compassion Club and arrested its staff.

Police Chief Clive Weighill admitted to the Star Phoenix on Dec. 29, 2015 that they have no regrets over the closure. It appears our police will not back down without a fight.

As with many issues in our city’s east-west divide — homelessness and inflated drug charges being no exception — police targeting individuals with real or perceived minor drug offences is of course also racialized to an extent. Another gem this past year is that of the SPS’s carding practices.

Saskatoon police officers have been known to stop Aboriginal people on the street and demand to see their identification. A YouTube video containing raw footage of such an incident in Saskatoon, which at the time of print has garnered over 80,000 views, drove this point home quite poignantly in the spring of 2015.

When mayor Atchison and other city officials seem to want a drug and gay free Saskatoon, it raises an important question — can we continue to tolerate this leadership?

It is critical that we ask this question and others like it as we enter yet another election cycle with Atchison.

The  sticker campaign is a brilliant way of ensuring that these questions get asked. I would love to see them mass-produced and sold in local stores — I’d take several copies.

So, to the creator or creators of the stickers — well done.

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Patty Hails

Graphic: Jeremy Britz / Graphics Editor