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Tent city rife with criminality, Saanich lawyer tells court

Saanich’s tent city was portrayed in court Wednesday as a threatening environment, rife with criminality.
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Saanich’s tent city was portrayed in court Wednesday as a threatening environment, rife with criminality.

Saanich’s tent city was portrayed in court Wednesday as a threatening environment, rife with criminality.

Jeff Locke, the lawyer representing the municipality, told the court that police believe there’s a bicycle “chop shop” operating in the encampment at Regina Park, that a man living in the neighbourhood received death threats and that a violent member of the Norteno gang is staying there.

Justice Ward Branch is hearing the application by Saanich and the province for an immediate injunction to remove 115 people from the tent city.

Saanich wants the campers out of the park for two to three weeks to allow the district to remove hazardous materials, mow the lawn, prune shrubs and put down eight to 10 inches of wood chips. Meanwhile, the campers can take temporary shelter in any one of 102 of Saanich’s 171 parks.

Locke told Branch he should have no confidence in Chrissy Brett’s leadership of the tent city.

Brett has been confrontational and is unwilling to encourage other campers to comply with fire orders, Locke said. Brett has interfered with police officers and fire officials trying to carry out their duties, and was arrested after blasting an airhorn in the ear of a firefighter.

When fire officers asked people to stop smoking in their tents, he said, Brett told them that the residents of Camp Namegans — as residents call the tent city — could do whatever they wanted within their homes.

Court heard that on July 4, Saanich Deputy Fire Chief Brock Henson asked one of the residents to put out his lit cigarette. The man did so, but Brett took it, lit it and smoked it in front of Henson.

On another occasion, a fire officer asked Brett to move her electrical generator away from her tent. Instead, she moved it inside her tent, Locke said.

The wilful acts of non-compliance and the increase in propane cylinders and jerry cans of fuel have increased the risk to first responders, Locke said. On Aug. 10, the fire department changed its procedures and now considers any zipped tents or tarped areas to be fuel storage areas. “For operational safety, firefighters may not be able to rescue people trapped by fire in Regina Park and may fight the fire from the perimeter of the property,” Locke said.

The company contracted to service the porta-potties has also changed its procedures. On June 29, an employee was shoved, intimidated and harassed while cleaning the toilets, and the company will no longer go to the tent city unless accompanied by police, Locke said.

Police have seen used needles strewn around the camp. There’s garbage and cigarette butts and, despite the porta-potties, buckets of urine and feces.

Brett has told police there are two to three non-fatal overdoses each week at the camp. Police have found stolen property, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl on people leaving the tent city.

Locke said police saw Brett and Norteno gang member Jason Sheena acting in an intimidating manner, brandishing a metal pole and yelling at a woman to leave the camp.

One resident of a nearby house has been threatened with violence three times, Locke said. On one occasion, as the resident was trying to get the licence plate number of a U-Haul van that was unloading furniture next to the tent city, a camper approached him and repeatedly said: “I’ll kill you.”

Another time, a camper approached the man and said: “If you’re going to keep complaining about us, the complaint department is hanging from a tree.” The camper pointed at a noose hanging in the encampment with the sign “Complaints Department.”

On July 19, a tent-city resident pulled out a knife as he left Save-on-Foods groceries with stolen merchandise. Police have also noticed bicycles in various stages of assembly, freshly painted bicycle frames and components and tools in tents.

Outside the hearing, Brett said she doesn’t think she’s a bad leader. “We respect any person that comes into our Indigenous territory that we’ve reclaimed … and have invited community-based police officers and fire officials to come in and have a more community-based mindset with their enforcement clauses,” she said.

“I think it is incumbent upon us to try to send an olive branch out to an inspector that doesn’t believe that there’s a process for us to live in harmony within the rest of Saanich.”

Brett said she would continue to work to improve fire safety.

She denied there is a bicycle chop shop at the enclosure, saying: “There are people who work on their bikes. There are people who have been donated bikes from other places. … They are always a work in progress.”

She acknowledged Sheena is at the camp, but called him “a homeless person, deserving of support the same as anyone else.”

ldickson@timescolonist.com