Province steps back from enacting shelter criteria legislation

PRINCE GEORGE — The provincial government is backtracking, at least for now, on enacting shelter criteria legislation when local government seek injunctions for decampment.

Bill 45, which received Royal Assent last fall, amended the Community Charter to require local governments who seek injunctions for removing encampments to ensure there is reasonably available shelter to a certain standard. Now the provincial government is hitting the pause button on this Bill 45, writing in a letter to local governments that the amendments will not be brought into force at this time.

In it’s letter to local governments, the province says that the amendments didn’t provide enough clarity for a common understanding of reasonably available shelter. UBCM said that the likely result of the legislation would be an increasing number of encampments in B.C.’s communities, despite the government saying when the bill was introduced, that encampment are not safe and suitable housing.