It’s a wait-and-see approach for the City of Nanaimo’s legal counsel and fire department following a court ruling that didn’t go the way they hoped it would.
Earlier this week the Supreme Court of B.C. ruled against the City of Nanaimo, denying a request for enforcement of a provincial fire safety order that has been ignored by occupants at Discontent City.
In his ruling, Justice Ronald Skolrood decided a police enforcement order allowing individuals to be arrested for having tarps or tents too close together was “excessive.”
Skolrood explained the rationale for his ruling by saying that while a fire order must be complied with, a police order was premature given the fact that the final status of Discontent City has yet to be determined. He was also critical of the city for not doing a better job to help the occupants of Discontent City comply with the fire safety order.
However, Skolrood did note that a failure to comply with the fire safety order would be a factor in his upcoming ruling on the city’s statutory injunction case against Discontent City.
Speaking to the News Bulletin, Jarrett Plonka, one of the city’s lawyers, said he couldn’t comment specifically on the ruling, adding that it’s a waiting game now. He said the court’s decision to weigh the occupants’ ability to comply with a fire safety order in his overall decision on the status of illegal encampment is not uncommon in these types of cases.
“What Justice Skolrood is aware of is that his order is not being followed, but that hasn’t changed, that has always in been the case,” he said, later adding “if the judge is going to factor anything, it would have to be dealt with as new evidence before the court. We would have to follow a process to get that evidence before the court.”
Plonka said he isn’t sure when Skolrood will make a ruling on Discontent City, but that legal counsel will find out before the decision is made public.
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Meanwhile, Karen Fry, the city’s fire chief and director of public safety, said Skolrood’s ruling caught her by surprise.
“We were expecting to get some assistance and really in the end there are a lot of vulnerable people down there and sometimes they might not necessarily be aware of what the fire safety issues are even though we try to communicate that as best as possible to them,” she said.
Fry, who was in the courtroom when the ruling was made, said Skolrood’s comments that the city isn’t doing enough to work with the occupants at Discontent City are misguided. She said the city has provided toilets, garbage, fencing and other materials to the occupants.
“I think the judge maybe didn’t have all the information or realize what we’ve been doing as far as providing safety,” she said. “We are working and continuing to work with representatives from B.C. Housing and we’ve been doing [that] for several weeks.”
B.C. Housing is also working on short- and long-term solutions according to Fry, who said she couldn’t comment specifically on what those solutions are, as they fall outside her department. However, Fry said the city is working with a contractor affiliated with B.C. Housing in an effort to have some of garbage and junk removed from Discontent City.
“I believe they are working on areas for disposal of cigarette butts because we know most of these individuals, or a lot of these individuals do smoke, so having a safe place to discard their smoking material is key,” she said.
Following Skolrood’s ruling, many of the same occupants who were not in compliance with the fire safety order before haven’t bothered to comply since, according to Fry.
“There are still people living in the bushes, there are still people [who] have large areas of combustible materials within their tents,” she said.
While the city continues to regularly engage with the occupants, Fry said the activists and organizers of Discontent City appear to have no interest in helping any of the occupants comply with the fire safety order.
“You can’t just rely on the activists to do it because I don’t see them down there helping them [the occupants] out and helping them be compliant,” she said.
Fry said the city will not provide tents, tarps or other camping-related equipment to the individuals at Discontent City.
“I will tell you, based on my conversations with B.C. Ambulance, nobody has been taken away by ambulance for heat exhaustion down there, mostly it is drug overdoses or assaults,” she said.
Fry also said the city is focused on helping other homeless individuals outside of Discontent City, but that the illegal camp has consumed the majority of staff’s time and is “hampering” efforts to help other people experiencing homelessness.
“It is taking hundreds of hours and even taking us away from doing fire department business and the other community safety events that we want to be working on in our city,” she said.
Noah Ross, lawyer representing some advocates and occupants at Discontent City, told the media earlier this week that occupants are doing what they can to comply with the order without jeopardizing their own safety.
“There have been a number of people working on [complying with the order] but some people are slower to get the message about that than others…” he said.”It will become easier to comply with it when there are alternatives to the tarps; things that will keep people protected from the elements.”
nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com
