To Protect Workers and Visitors, Stanley Park Preservation Society Demands That the City of Vancouver Meet the Provincial Standard of Care

The City of Vancouver and its contractor Blackwell Consulting Ltd. have been conducting tree risk and fire prevention operations in Stanley Park since fall of 2023, resulting in the removal of 11,016 trees. So far, the operations have affected approximately 58% of the 263 hectares of native forest in Stanley Park.

Unless the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia by Stanley Park Preservation Society is successful, another logging operation to remove trees in the remaining 42% of the Stanley Park native tree forest is imminent. We are awaiting the decision of Justice Jasvinder S. Basran, who heard our case on November 8 through November 10, 2025 in Vancouver.

If there are further tree removals, Stanley Park Preservation Society will continue to demand that the Park Board, City of Vancouver, and their contractors comply with the provincial standard of practice and provincial standard of care in conducting forestry operations.

The WorkSafe BC Guidelines to Part 26 of the British Columbia Occupational Health and Safety Regulation state that falling trees in connection with fire prevention activities constitutes tree harvesting and is therefore forestry operations.

The WorkSafe BC Guidelines to Part 26 of the British Columbia Occupational Health and Safety Regulation also state that where there are wildland fire safety operations or forestry operations in parks and recreation areas, “only a person who has completed the Wildlife Dangerous Tree Assessor's Course, administered by the Wildlife Tree Committee (WTC), can complete a risk assessment and make recommendations for managing dangerous trees.” (The Wildlife Dangerous Tree Assessor's Course has been renamed the Wildlife Hazardous Tree Assessor's Course, or “WHTAC”)

City of Vancouver Associate Director of Urban Forestry Joe McLeod suggested at the  July 21, 2025 Park Board Committee meeting (9:45PM) that WHTAC is correct for Stanley Park. McLeod stated that WHTAC is consistently employed in industrial forestry applications where helicopters are used because the prop wash from a helicopter flying overhead can cause trees to fail unexpectedly impacting workers. Indeed, the Stanley Park tree removal projects have entailed helicopter operations on steep, unstable terrain.

The Province of British Columbia issued an advisory in July, 2009 stating that in forestry operations, the standard of practice and standard of care requires that the following steps be “diligently applied” before workers commence activities and/or treatments:

1. Determine the level of ground disturbance/worker exposure.
2. Conduct a site assessment overview.
3. Conduct tree assessments.
4. Make the appropriate safety decision (Safe or Dangerous).
5. Provide documentation and communicate safety procedures.

The advisory further states that the documentation must include the following, at minimum:

1. Assessor’s name.
2. Date and location of field assessment.
3. Level of disturbance/type of work activity (include wind speed limits, weather constraints).
4. Marking procedures (i.e., flagging or paint colors, tags) used for assessed trees, assessed areas and no-work zones.
5. Locations of assessed trees and areas where assessments were completed.
6. Locations of no-work zones.
7. Use field cards if necessary to provide documentation on individual tree assessments.

The above standards were reaffirmed in a December 2024 provincial memorandum. The memo further states that a reassessment is required when there have been site altering events or “too much time has elapsed.”

The removal of 11,000 trees is obviously site altering. Further, the original Stanley Park tree risk Assessment, in addition to having not been performed by WHTAC certified assessors as required, is two- and one-half years old and therefore too much time has elapsed. In the absence of an updated assessment, it cannot be reasonably known how the passage of time has affected the remaining trees.

Therefore, for the above reasons, Stanley Park Preservation Society demands that the Park Board, City of Vancouver, and their contractors conduct an updated assessment of Stanley Park using WHTAC certified assessors and WTC assessment protocols, which meets at least the minimum provincial standards detailed above, before any additional tree removals are allowed to proceed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four citizens of Vancouver and the Stanley Park Preservation Society appeared before the Supreme Court of British Columbia on November 5 - 7, 2025 to help preserve Stanley Park by blocking further unnecessary and destructive logging.

We are in need of financial support to help pay our substantial legal bills. Please consider assisting us.

Donating on this change.org page helps promote the partition but funds cannot be used for our legal costs.

Please consider helping us pay our legal costs by donating here!

Assertions and characterizations made in this document are the opinions of the authors.