I and my family have camped for years, sometimes in provincial campsites, sometimes in minimal forest-service campsites and sometimes just in the bush.
One rule we followed without exception was that before we left, we cleaned up after ourselves: no garbage, campfires extinguished and a “once around” the camp to ensure it was left exactly as we would like to find it when we arrived. Nobody had to “remediate” our campsite at taxpayers’ expense.
Yes, I am empathetic to homelessness and as a foster parent, I have opened my home to many kids in need of a safe place to live. However, I’m getting tired of hearing all the rhetoric about “discrimination” from people who think it is their God-given right to squat and leave a mess for other people to clean up, without regard to the rights of everybody else in the community.
Adding insult to injury, some of the tent-city residents even defended the “footprint” (mess) they leave behind. You want my vote to allocate my tax dollars for more social housing? Then clean up after yourself.
Peter M. Clarke
Victoria
