Affidavit

In 2008, Jamie Hilder, a Vancouver, BC, artist and critic was trained as a "Downtown Ambassador" by Genesis Security, a firm hired by that city's downtown merchants to make downtown public space more accommodating for their commercial needs. Hilder soon quit the program and kept his uniform so that he could assist people downtown in ways more to his liking, giving tourists information that the Business Improvement Association wouldn't want them to have: histories of illegal evictions, spectacularized aboriginalities, and civic policies aimed at removing visible poverty from the downtown core. He was arrested during his performance, and was later called as an expert witness when Pivot Legal Society, United Native Nations, and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users filed a Human Rights Tribunal complaint against Genesis and the Downtown Ambassadors. This is his affidavit.