People camped on the grounds of the Victoria courthouse have five days to comply with a fire safety order or the B.C. government will head back to court to try to get them removed, Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Thursday.
The Office of the Fire Commissioner inspected the encampment May 5 and ordered the property’s owner, the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services, to fix multiple safety hazards by May 25.
“If [the campers] fail to comply with that, I don’t think we have any choice but to go to court, and with all the other information we’re compiling about who’s there, the crime stats, all of that stuff,” Coleman said.
The fire order states that the camp is in such a “state of disrepair” that a fire “might spread rapidly to endanger life or other property.”
The order highlights concerns about open fires, spacing between structures, the use of flammable tarpaulins, inadequate exits, people cooking too close to combustibles and “excessive storage of combustibles.”
If the campers fail to obey, Coleman said it’s unlikely the province will wait until a court hearing for a permanent injunction in September.
“If it’s not complied with, we have no choice,” he said. “We would immediately go to court.”
Stephen Portman of the Together Against Poverty Society said that would be a “bad route” for the province to take.
“The pragmatic approach here would be to work with the residents of the tent city to address these safety concerns,” he said.
Portman said there has been considerable progress made at the camp in recent weeks. “You hear all the media and it sounds like it’s descended into the worst dystopic novel you’ve ever read, when really there’s been a lot of positive moves in terms of safety. There’s been fire extinguishers that are installed on the grounds now. There’s gravel pathways . . . so that there’s access and egress at all four corners of the camp.”
Tent city residents are working with the Portland Housing Society to address concerns about the lack of spacing between tents, Portman said.
Still, Coleman said he remains concerns about other issues at the encampment, including a spike in crime in the neighborhood.
He said government officials have a range of housing options for people at the site and continue to offer those options every day.
“You can’t make them go, so you need an injunction to say they have to clear the property,” he said. “The frustration is I need the legal standing to be able to go any further and right now we’re watching this to ... see if by end of next week whether we have compliance.”
