Community Safety Amendment Act could help Triangle Park residents
Council, residents to ask Solicitor General to enact the 2019 Act
Fort St. John City Council has been working with city staff, and residents of the Triangle Park area of the city, looking for ways to alleviate the situation in the formerly quiet, residential area.
Councillor Gord Klassen has taken the bull by the horns and delved into researching legislation, looking for a solution to the crime wave, which centers around one residence on 112 Avenue. Things came to a head in the neighbourhood early in the morning on November 2, when shots were fired from the residence into a neighbouring home while the family slept. The residents woke to find head-height bullet holes in their kitchen.
Klassen’s research led him to the Community Safety Act, which became the Community Safety Amendment Act in October 2019, he told council during Monday’s regular meeting.
It’s interesting, he said, how applicable it is to Fort St. John’s situation. The Act, he said, “states very clearly that this bill establishes a mechanism for addressing problem properties in communities and neighbourhoods.”
The Act is designed to address situations where actions “adversely affect the health, safety, or security of one or more persons in the community or neighbourhood or interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of one or more of the properties in the community or neighbourhood. Legislation creates a civil remedy solution to address properties where specified criminal and nuisance activities are taking place that negatively affect a community, including requiring someone to vacate a property, prohibiting an individual from entering or occupying a property and/or terminating a lease agreement.”
This piece of legislation would be ideal to address the situation Fort St. John is facing. However, despite being given royal assent on October 31, 2019, the Community Safety Amendment Act was never brought into force as planned in 2020. This was an amendment of the previous Community Safety Act which was created in 2013.
Klassen confirmed last week at a UBCM board meeting, that this legislation has never been enacted. “Meaning that it’s not in force. No explanation has been given for that, no formal explanation at least from the Province,” he said.
He suggested council write a letter to the “Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General expressing our disappointment that this legislation is in place but not enacted, and pointing out how valuable this mechanism, this tool, would have been to the safety of our community if it were actually in force, and encouraging the Province to actually enact and enforce this Community Safety Amendment Act.”
Councillor Byron Stewart added that it would helpful if the residents of the Triangle Park area, who have been impacted, wrote letters to the Minister and Solicitor General as well. The city could provide them with a template to make the process faster.
“I think that’s good,” said Klassen. “Both to give the residents something they can do and show the Province that these are real people who are impacted and would be helped by that legislation.”
Mayor Lilia Hansen agreed, adding that she feels it would be much more impactful if the government could hear how the residents’ lives “have been impacted by the crime, the fear.”