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Here’s the headline from a CBC news story of May 22:
Region of Waterloo can’t remove residents of Kitchener encampment, court rules
The region wants to use the land on which the encampment sits to build a transit hub. I hate transit hubs. I do.
But I am writing this article to tell you about the reason for this ruling. I quote from the CBC:
In his 88-page decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael R. Gibson says the encampment is currently the only place in the region where people experiencing homelessness can legally set up a tent or structure and it acts a refuge of last resort.
“No one should romanticize or be starry-eyed about the encampment. It is a miserable and desperate place,” Gibson said.
“But it represents the only remaining safety valve for the region’s homeless as a refuge of last resort.”
I wonder how the judge knows that last sentence to be true? More basically, what does that last sentence even mean? If those folks had been evicted, you can bet that every one of them would have gone somewhere else. That, of course, is another real problem, the fact that if you do push squatters off a piece of land they just go find another one.
Here’s another quote from the article:
The region previously tried to clear people from living on the site in 2022. In January 2023, a Kitchener judge ruled the region couldn’t evict people from the site unless they gave them another place to live.
And there is the heart of the matter. It is fundamentally the responsibility of government (which means you and me, kids) to provide these people with a place to live. Why? Not because that is what Jesus would do, although that is sortof what I was taught. No, this all goes back to PET’s damnable Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It includes statements like
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
So. What is security of the person? What does that right actually grant to a Canadian? Well, whatever a judge decides it means, and in this case the judge determined that it means Canadians have a right to have a place to live. Um….provided by who or what, exactly? Well, by default, you and I. If some government is responsible for this, then it’s taxpayers who are on the hook.
Let us have a look at the closest thing to this idea in the US Bill of Rights. It is the 6th article:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note that it states what Americans have the right to specifically. Namely, to be free of having their person, house, papers or effects unreasonably searched or seized. There is plenty of ambiguity in that ‘unreasonable’ adjective (although there is some detail provided on that, too), but the important point is that it lays out what government cannot do. It does not require the government to provide any American with anything.
Canada is teeming with ‘property is theft’ folks, and I am going to write a longer piece about private property soon, but here I will just note the following implication of this judge’s ruling. It suggests that if you or I or anyone decide to throw it all in, give up our jobs and stop working so hard, if we set up a tent somewhere – even on someone’s lawn – then we cannot be evicted unless the government can show there is someplace else we could go.
Wait, wait, you say. No one with a decent job and any income would just shuck that off and go live in a tent in a park somewhere.
No, likely not. But everything happens at the margin. There are people who are not doing well in life. They may be trying, but they are unable to generate much income for themselves and maybe for a family. It is sad, but it is true. They are living a life just at the margin of getting by. Those marginal people, realizing that if they pitch a tent somewhere their fellow citizens must then provide them with a spot and maybe more, then maybe they will. And there are always marginal people like that.
No doubt plenty of the folks at this Kitchener encampment have drug or mental problems or both. It is indeed our joint fault that there is nowhere for them to go and get help. But saying the government has to provide them with a spot to live, rather than a chance at help and treatment, just makes matters worse – for them and the rest of us.
A quote from the article about something else the judge said:
He added the region could ask people to move if they provided an alternative legal encampment site or a tenting protocol, similar to the cities of London and Thunder Bay.
What the hell is a tenting protocol, and does my city have one?
I looked. It definitely has a ‘Health and Homelessness Response Community Encampment Plan’. It is long, and it is scary. I should have guessed.
It includes this section:
The following outlines the rights-based approach to supporting encampments:
And here are the things included in that ‘outline’.
Access to safe and clean drinking water
Access to hygiene and sanitation facilities
Resources and support to ensure fire safety
Waste management systems
Social supports and services
Resources to support harm reduction
Resources that support food and food safety
The Plan gives details under each of these, here is part of what is under the last one.
Encampments are often more susceptible to foodborne illnesses due to a lack of storage, cooling appliances, improperly cooked foods, and limited or no access to clean water.
Okay, so….what is to be done about that? Here is the only thing the Plan says:
One of the best ways to prevent the spread of illness is to provide resources that enable the encampment to implement food safety measurements.
Food safety measurements? What does that mean? To provide encampments with meat thermometers? Bacteria testing equipment? I am betting the bozos who wrote this meant ‘measures’, but lacked the knowledge of English to get it right.
If you are skeptical of the notion that the Waterloo region judge’s ruling is an invitation to go off the grid and live rough, do note that London says if you do that and move to an encampment they will be obliged to provide all those things above for you. Clean water and toilets and waste disposal and oh so many things.
If I decide you want to build a new house on a piece of land in London, you gotta pay for all that. Not at an encampment.
London’s plan is 41 pages. I will likely write more about it in due course, but you get the drift. Canadian judges have been interpreting the Charter to mean governments must provide you with material resources, starting with a place to live. Many Canadian politicians are keen to do that. With your money.
What could possibly go wrong?