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By Aaron Schulze

Kamloops Social Issue Divide

‘If we wait… nothing will happen’: Kamloops council split on addressing social issues

Feb 10, 2021 | 3:24 PM

KAMLOOPS – The final item before Kamloops City Council adjourned its meeting took the spotlight.

A notice of motion aiming to address homeless, drug addiction, and mental health issues brought forth by Councillors Dale Bass, Sadie Hunter, and Kathy Sinclair was narrowly defeated 5-4 after an hour of discussion.

The motion would have allowed council to authorize the city to study the possibility of building a day lodge in a core area and increase storage space and hours at the city building on Victoria Street West, along with determining a way to complete a study on Kamloops’ underlying roots to its social issues and figure out why some people living on the streets choose not to access services.

Councillor Bass was disappointed but not surprised the motion was defeated.

“We keep doing the same thing all the time,” Bass said. “From our point of view, while it’s having an impact, it’s not working fast enough. We decided we had to throw some things out there that might be unique. The greatest concern was the imposition on staff because they’re working flat out right now. We recognized that but we saw this as a priority. I guess some of the other councillors didn’t quite see it the same way as we did.”

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Others, including Mayor Ken Christian, expressed while they want to address all of the social issues relating to homelessness, addiction, and mental health, the city can’t shoulder the entire responsibility.

Bass said she understood the possibility of the B.C. Government downloading more of the challenges onto the city would be unfair, and that council has done good work to address some of the problems during its term. But she felt the City might have to bite the bullet down the road.

“We’re the ones living in the community and hearing our constituents about being afraid to go shopping or when a stranger walks down their streets,” she said. “If we have to take that initiative we can complain about it, but we should still do it. It makes me really angry that we use these excuses. That doesn’t get those people who slept in minus 20 weather into a house or get them fed.”

“If we wait for the province to do something, nothing will happen. Lobbying is wonderful and it’d be nice to have some money, but none of us want to sit down and wait for the province to discover there’s a problem that isn’t just in Vancouver or Victoria.”

Bass said it was nice for council to have a lengthy discussion on the social issues, but added that it was just talk at the end of the meeting. She said she and Hunter and Sinclair are continuing discussions on what they’ll bring forth to council to address social issues in what should be an interesting stretch of upcoming weeks.

“I’m expecting to see some surprised councillors when we finally decide what we’re going to do,” she said. “One of our colleagues on council has joined in the conversation; he has had some second thoughts about his vote.”

‘Not a solution that any one entity can solve’

Mayor Christian applauded the three councillors for bringing forward an item that represented the city’s frustrations, but felt council thought the motion tried to encompass too much of the task. He believes the motion’s details will require more research and better costing before it gets council’s support.

“We’re looking at more bite-size pieces of this,” Christian said. “It’s a question of jurisdiction and the actual answer is that it’s everybody’s jurisdiction. How much you’re going to contribute of the Kamloops taxpayers’ allotment towards this problem, versus how much is it a provincial responsibility for housing and how much is a federal responsibility for policing. The people who are losing out are those that are on the street with severe mental health and addiction problems.”

Christian said the motion’s failure should not equate to the solution of the social issues. He said the City has partnered in housing projects, revamped its bylaw services to be more compassionate, announced more treatment beds in Kamloops, provided storage facilities and public washrooms, and opened Memorial Arena for emergency shelter space.

The big asks beyond what the city can do is looking at complex care facilities and other mental health supports like another Car 40 mental health unit. Christian said that requires provincial support.

“This is not a solution that any one entity can solve,” he said. “Issues related to the Criminal Code of Canada and decriminalization of personal drug use is a federal matter. Housing is a provincial matter. Mental health issues are something that’s handled by the health authority. We don’t staff the city with mental health social workers and professionals like that, we need the support from those other agencies to get to the root of this problem.”

Christian believes Kamloops is positioned to make an impact with its lobbying, with himself on the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus, Councillor Arjun Singh with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Councillor Hunter with the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and Councillor Bill Sarai with the Southern Interior Local Government Association.

The next Kamloops city council meeting is slated for Feb. 23 at 1:30 p.m. with a public hearing at 7 p.m.