Lawyers for the Edmonton police and the city of Edmonton on one side and the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights on the other reached a deal last night that lightly taps the brakes on pre-Christmas sweeps to bust up eight homeless encampments in the city’s downtown core.
Some Christmas clearances are expected to go ahead, though, possibly as early as Thursday.
But Court of King’s Bench Justice Kent Davidson granted an interim injunction based on the agreement that places a few conditions on the police – among them a degree of due process in the form of 48 hours’ notice if a camp is about to be broken up, assurances there are enough shelter spaces for camp residents before a roust proceeds, and no camp closings in extreme cold weather.
The interim injunction is to remain in force until January 11, when the advocacy for the unhoused coalition is scheduled to be back in court seeking a permanent injunction against encampment removals until a court can hear its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city’s policies for closing down the tent encampments.
After the deal was reached, Edmonton lawyer Avnish Nanda thanked those who spoke out public against the mass-clearance campaign. “The thousands of you who sent emails to elected officials, made calls, and shared concerns online have shifted the narrative and parameters on how the City approaches the unhoused,” he said in a tweet yesterday evening.
“Emergency injunctions are not easy things to bring forward, and even harder to obtain,” he said in related tweets. “While the decision we received today wasn’t what we fully asked for, it’s a step forward in recognizing the rights and dignity of the unhoused and propels us on the path towards our main injunction hearing on January 11, 2024.”
“The Coalition extends its heartfelt gratitude to social agencies, community organizations, outreach workers, and allies who have quickly come together to collaborate and provide tremendous support to the unhoused community over the weekend,” the group said on social media, urging supporters to continue to press the Edmonton Police Service and City Council to end mass displacements.
Meanwhile, the same day, the United Conservative Party (UCP) was announcing plans to introduce new regulations that will make a response to the housing crisis in Alberta just a little bit harder.
It takes a certain amount of brass to present such policies as a way “to remove barriers to attainable and affordable housing,” but that is what the UCP government, which surely knows no shame, did in announcing that changes will be made by cabinet to the province’s city charter regulations.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver claimed in a press release that the changes “will help limit the potential for cost increases to new housing.”
In reality, two of the three changes are obviously intended to increase the profitability of the province’s powerful sprawl cabal, the development companies who maximize their profits by emphasizing building expensive suburban single-family houses and dump the costs of sprawling development on municipalities and their taxpayers.
By reducing the ability of municipalities to charge developers for part of the cost of servicing new areas, the first of the three changes, the government will ensure more money goes into the pockets of developers and must be paid by municipalities and their taxpayers.
Similarly, eliminating inclusionary housing provisions that let municipalities require developers to fund affordable housing when building more profitable types of housing, will enhance developer profits at the expense of affordability. McIver’s release, however, claims it will “help limit the potential for cost increases to new housing.”
On the contrary, said Ward papastew City Councillor Michhael Janz, “the UCP are just worried about their wealthy donors, not the public interest.”
Neither of these policies were magic bullets that could solve the housing crisis, Janz, noted, but it’s “totally tone deaf” to remove them in the midst of a national housing crisis the symptoms of which are obvious in the streets of downtown Edmonton.
The third change, ending the ability of municipalities to make bylaws about energy efficiency and heat retention, will “ensure there is one uniform building code standard across Alberta,” the government said in its press release.
That may be so, but the motivation is obviously quite different. As long as the UCP is in power, no Alberta municipality will be permitted to do anything that might put a brake on the oil and gas industry!
Seriously, can you imagine what might happen to fossil gas sales if municipalities required home builders to install heat pumps instead of gas furnaces?
Reports cast light on premier’s apparent interference in AHS
Despite the repeated claims of UCP politicians and spokespersons that Alberta Health Services (AHS) does its own hiring and firing, recent news stories have cast light on just how deep into AHS operations the government is prepared to reach.
Yesterday morning, The Globe and Mail reported how an AHS vice-president quit his job in June to protest the way Premier Danielle Smith appeared to personally overrule a decision by then AHS Administrator John Cowell to allow former Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw to be hired by the agency’s Indigenous Wellness Core.
Dr. Hinshaw had been fired as CMOH five weeks after Smith, a frequent critic of measures to control the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, was sworn in as premier.
Yesterday afternoon, Smith insisted to reporters at a news conference that Dr. Cowell made the call, which seems pretty unlikely since just days before he’d approved the decision to hire Dr. Hinshaw.
Both the Globe and the CBC revealed yesterday that Alberta Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler quietly opened an inquiry into the premier’s apparent interference in the matter months ago.
“The situation around Hinshaw’s second firing raises many important questions about public administration,” Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt observed yesterday on social media. “This goes well beyond Hinshaw the person and are about the principles of a democracy.”
“Do we want a situation where the Premier has a veto over all hiring/firing in the public sector?” asked professor Bratt in a series of tweets. “Not just at the top (which are explicitly political appointments), but throughout the system. Hinshaw’s second firing was from a part-time position, multiple rungs from the top.”
He suggested the premier’s interference amounted to “essentially, blackballing someone from working in their field in the province of Alberta?”
The Smith Government’s standing committee on legislative officers decided in November that Trussler, who last May found that Smith broke Legislature ethics rules, will not have her term renewed. Her current contract expires in May 2024.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
