Vancouver activist, Jamie Lee Hamilton, dies at 64

Longtime MP Libby Davies, a friend of Hamilton’s, says it’s a “sad day” to know she’s no longer with us. “She’s just been like an icon in our city,” Davies tells NEWS 1130. “I’ve known her for, wow, gosh, probably close to 40 years, and I think what it really so important about Jamie Lee is that she never gave up on her advocacy for people, even during really tough times, when it wasn’t popular to advocate for the rights of sex workers in the Downtown Eastside or in the West End when she was fighting against the injunction that was taken out in the 1980s. I mean she goes so far back.” Davies remembers a moment in 1998, when Hamilton dumped garbage bags full of high heeled shoes on the steps of city hall representing the sex workers believed to have been missing from the downtown Eastside. It was part of an effort to get politicians to recognize there was a serial killer — a theory that ultimately came true in the following years with the conviction of Robert Pickton.