“I won’t move along.”

by Kristen Woodruff,

Good evening,

The City of Victoria’s lawyers requested a meeting with Madam Justice Ross a few days ago, because they wanted her to amend her ruling (which struck down, let’s not forget, the city’s bylaws preventing homeless people from erecting temporary shelters for themselves) to read that the city’s blanket prohibition on the erection of temporary shelters was unconstitutional only as it pertains to night-time shelters. That is, they wanted her to amend her ruling in order to make the City’s bylaw enforcement policy restricting tenting to the hours between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. legal. They met with Justice Ross yesterday, along with and she refused their request. The ruling stands as it was written and the city’s bylaw enforcement policy really really doesn’t seem to be of any force and effect.

Meanwhile, the police continue to wake people up at the crack of dawn and force them to, yet again, move along–in defiance of the B.C. Supreme Court ruling, and to the continued detriment of every homeless person’s health and sanity. This madness has gone on too long.

I’ll be setting up again at Centennial Square tonight, sometime after 9 p.m. I will enjoy my constitutional right not to pack up my house before the sun rises on a Sunday morning. Should the city send in their troupes in an effort to cajole me into moving along, I will peacefully stay where I am. I may even light a candle.

I welcome company, food, tea, music, and other support.

peace,

Kristen Woodruff.

P.S. Some notes on “what I am asking of the city”:

All I ask of the city is that they hold an open, publicized consultation with representatives from the large group of Victorians who are sleeping outside, in which we determine, together, how to interpret Justice Ross’s ruling in a way that serves the highest good of all parties involved. I am not here to take over the parks or to cause a public disturbance. I am here because this country’s ever-growing homeless population are our very own refugees and we deserve what refugees in even the most impoverished war torn countries get—the right to erect simple, temporary shelters. The B.C. Supreme Court agrees, but the City of Victoria doesn’t.

I want to support Dean Fortin and the rest of city council in their position as rulers of this city–by “support” I mean honouring the authority they have as our elected representatives. I really do. But I cannot support their presumption that it is O.K. to enforce the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. restriction on tenting in parks; I cannot support their decision to contravene the Supreme Court’s decision. At this stage the support I can offer to City Council is to invite them, once again, to TALK TO US about how we can all live together—and to make this talk a public event; i.e. widely publicized in the media.

As it stands, the mayor and city council are ignoring our invitation to dialogue, and are subjecting us to illegal laws–and by “us” I don’t just mean myself and the others arrested in association with past Tent City events. I mean all of the people in Victoria–and indeed across Canada—who, every morning, are asked, in contravention of their constitutional right to shelter, to pack up and move along.

The average homeless person in Victoria, and indeed across Canada, is made a refugee a hundred times over every week—asked to move along and move along and move along again, hauling their belongings (the ones the the police don’t take) with them every where they go. I won’t move along, and I hope by not moving along the City of Victoria will be inspired to stop forcing everyone else to move along.

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