BCCLA and Pivot Legal intervened!

On July 30th, the Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association have finally intervened by sending a letter to the Victoria city council, warning them of legal jeopardy over its latest amendment to the Parks Relocation Bylaw which closed both Vic West Park and Irving Park to overnight sheltering by unhoused people.

The letter goes as follows:

"Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association have connected with advocates on the ground concerning the Amendments. Based on the feedback we received, it is clear that the Amendments will cause significant harm to Victoria’s most marginalized community members, particularly given the City’s lack of adequate housing and safe, legal, indoor places to use drugs. Also evident is the complete lack of engagement during Council’s legislative process with people sheltering outside in your community."

The legal advocates' main argument is that whittling down the list of parks available to sheltering runs afoul of the Bamberger precedent, in which the Vancouver Park Board was overruled by closing one park to sheltering too many, thus infringing upon the unhoused residents' Charter rights:

"While a City has some authority to restrict locations for sheltering outdoors, it is decidedly not a City’s legal prerogative to remove nearly all spaces accessible to the local homeless population, as the City of Victoria has done. The list of prohibited sheltering spaces demonstrates that the City is moving to prohibit sheltering in nearly all parks in the district, and the few remaining parks are significantly further from the resources unhoused people rely upon to survive. In Bamberger v. Vancouver (Board of Parks and Recreation) , 2022 BCSC 49, the Supreme Court of B.C. stopped the Vancouver Park Board from shutting a third park to overnight sheltering near the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The Honourable Justice Kirchner cautioned that “Simply assuming that those sheltering in CRAB Park [tent city] can find “another place to go” fails to accord the necessary priority to their s. 7 rights and ensure minimal impairment of those rights.”"

While the city later proceeded to fence off Vic West Park, the residents of Irving Park have decided to stand their ground after one of their number hung himself to a tree in desperation.

An excerpt of the letter was published by the Victoria News.