Council was told security hired to prevent encampments wouldn’t make arrests. One councillor is questioning why city documents say otherwise.
Councillor Gord Perks said he’s asking questions about the council’s policies and procedures.
“I’m going to have to dig in and do some investigations to see if that’s true or not,” Perks said.
The council has refused the media requests to comment on that allegation.
Meanwhile, the city is continuing to demolish the tents of the campers, despite the camp’s claim of a law enforcement agency refusing to make arrests.
“We’re still here,” a camp resident said in an interview with CBC News outside the camp on Friday night.
“They said they weren’t going to enforce the law. If they’re not going to enforce the law, what do they do? They let it stand.”
CBC News has reviewed a public document that says Camping was on the city’s watch list but no action was taken to take it down.
That document was released in response to a freedom of information request from CBC News.
Campers told CBC News they are angry about the city’s refusal to follow the law and remove their tent city but they are sticking to what they claim is the only way out of their situation: a hunger strike.
Campers were offered meals of donated food Thursday night and were refused. Their leader, Amisha Patel, was quoted in the press by CBC News Saturday as saying they are refusing to accept food at that time because food will only make things worse.
The city is refusing to give details or make public its policies and procedures relating to encampments.
The council also refused to respond to a question at the press conference Friday on why the council says security hired to prevent the camps would not make arrests.
Some councillors have also refused to tell City News what police policies and procedures they will be following when dealing with the camps.
“I want to make sure we’re being transparent and following the law,” Coun. Michael Walters said.
Councillor John Filion said there were “some concerns” about the security.
He also did not want to discuss details about what the security guards were asked to do, nor did he indicate when the city should have acted.
“We’re going to have to do some investigations to see what happened,” Filion said.
He didn’t
