Unhoused woman sues city over impounded property
53 police-involved deaths this year. Feds buried safe supply report. BC's top Mountie out over allegations. Vancouver's $400,000+ ballot questions.
Earlier this summer, we brought you a photo essay and interviews from a bylaw street sweep on Victoria’s 900-block of Pandora Ave, thanks to De Facto photojournalist Mike Graeme.
Recently, I saw first-hand how such daily sweeps — to enforce daytime-camping bylaws — impact unhoused people where I live in Vancouver.
Last month, an Oppenheimer Park resident invited me to observe just after dawn. Every morning, park rangers warn park residents to pack their possessions or have them seized.
Of the eight tents in the park that morning — and with rain looming in the day’s forecast — park rangers confiscated one of the tents not taken down in time.
“Do you find joy in stealing people’s homes?!” one unhoused park resident shouted, as they broke down its poles and dumped it in a city truck.
“It sucks, because that’s your tent,” said park resident Harley, who recounted that over a dozen of his dwellings were previously impounded — only a couple of which he recovered.
Others in the park have had less luck with their confiscated possessions. “They don’t have anything else,” Harley told me.
Another Oppenheimer resident told me, “Nothing ever gets returned here.”
Last month, bylaw sweeps were the subject of a case before the province’s Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT).
An unhoused woman sued the City of Victoria in small claims court over 28 confiscated items.
Tammy Lynn Cardinal said the items the city took and never returned to her in May 2024 were worth nearly $7,500 and included a prized diamond, a cellphone, power banks, her stove, and $670 in cash.
But on July 29, the CRT ruled against her, saying she’d failed to prove she owned her possessions with “receipts or pictures” and did not prove that the city employees "acted unreasonably or unlawfully” by seizing her property from Victoria West Park.
“I sympathize with Ms. Cardinal that she likely lost most of her possessions in the bylaw enforcement,” wrote tribunal member Jeffrey Drozdiak. “I also recognize that Ms. Cardinal likely finds the city’s bylaws significantly unfair.”
But he said she should instead have “challenged the validity of these bylaws in the BC Supreme Court,” not through a compensation claim.
“There is simply no evidence before me that the city failed to follow its bylaws.”
Cardinal was represented at the CRT by Red Cedar Advocacy lawyer and former Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt, author of the newly released book Protest, Property Rights, and the Law in British Columbia.
At the time the items were taken, the city was also in the process of banning overnight camping from Victoria West Park entirely.
That ban took effect in August 2024, and some unhoused residents sued in response. The BC Supreme Court determined in June that the move was within city authority but could still be challenged constitutionally.
De Facto has an impending series of articles investigating bylaw street sweeps in both Victoria and Vancouver — using technology made possible thanks to our community of Defactors, the 122 subscribers who have stepped up with a donation. As always, thank you!
—David, De Facto
Ex Facto
Stories we're reading on drug use, policing, migrant rights, and other subjects we cover.
Health Canada buried expert reviews on safe supply
The Expert Advisory Group (EAG) report provided frameworks for delivering safe supply through both prescription and non-medicalized (e.g. compassion clubs) models. But amid a push against safe supply by right-wing politicians, certain news articles, and for-profit medical interests in the sector, the report's release was delayed for years after its June 2023 completion.
The Fifth Estate covered these politicized delays last fall:
Now internal ministry communications, obtained after 18 months by Euan Thomson of Drug Data Decoded, shed more light on how the EAG lost priority as the political heat rose and a new minister entered. Eventually only a “low-profile wrap-up” was planned, and members of the expert panel who followed up to request the report's release were denied.
Officials also planned to avoid commenting on the reports by saying they were part of court evidence in the DULF founders' trial.
Euan Thomson
53+ police-involved deaths in Canada so far this year
July was one of the deadliest months in the past decade with 14 deaths by police gunfire, in police custody, or during a police deployment. The Media Co-op’s Jeff Shantz monitored official reports from across the country and lists each incident here:
That total through July is already outdated; police-involved deaths in the past week have resulted from a fall in Scarborough and a gunfight in Calgary.
Police-involved deaths have risen substantially in Canada since 2000.
Vancouver council approves election plebiscite on public drug use and involuntary facility
Ken Sim’s ABC party majority approved the non-binding ballot questions after 3 opposing councillors walked out, calling it unnecessary political theatre and a “$500,000 get-out-the-vote strategy” that targets some of the city’s most vulnerable.
Voters would be asked if they support:
- unspecified bylaw changes against public use of illicit drugs
- council formally petitioning the province to build 100+ involuntary, and some voluntary, treatment beds at the former St. Paul’s Hospital
Cheryl Chan
Migrant workers displaced by Okanagan fires face bureaucratic hurdles
It's too early in the season for these workers to have enough hours for employment insurance, Raul Gatica of Dignidad Migrante Society told the Canadian Press. They also haven't met BC’s 3-month wait period for health coverage or a services card, said Ingrid Mendez of the Migrant Workers Centre BC. Both advocates want those thresholds lowered. [CP]
We spoke to both organizations in May for our feature on the conditions migrant workers are facing:
De Facto Journalism Co-op
More news:
- BC’s top RCMP officer relieved of duties over unspecified allegations from 2016-18. [CP]
- Manitoba's first safe consumption site opens, managed by the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre of Winnipeg.
- Police never told public about G7 bomb scare at Calgary airport, reveal Department of National Defence docs obtained by The Maple.
- Ex-RCMP officer alleges Longueuil Police racially profiled him, filing formal human-rights and police-ethics complaints. [CityNews Montreal]
Happening this week:
- Mandatory Coroner's inquest begins for the 2021 police killing of Tla-o-qui-aht man Julian Jones near Tofino. [Stream]
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