Prince George gets a passport office and some bad legal advice
All the snow is gone and the skies are grey. Let's read city emails and talk Plaid Friday
Hello! I am officially miserable! I don’t know exactly when the Vancouverification of our winters started but I hate it! Do not tell me about how you don’t have to shovel rain, I would rather have something I can ski and snowshoe and frolic in while occassionally shoveling then deal with all of this! Fortunately there are lots of interesting things to talk about in today’s newsletter including some things that should make us less miserable! And also one thing to make us angry! Let’s go!
A passport office is finally coming to Prince George
Holy cow!
Passport office opening in Prince George in April
So back in the day, the local MPs got a fair amount of mileage out of helping people out with passport applications. The problem being that the closest place to apply in person used to be Vancouver — I personally had the experience of having to take a one-day trip there in order to get my passport on time.
But lately lineups and delays at passport offices have been a bit of a problem, you may have heard, and Taylor Bachrach — an NDP MP who doesn’t actually represent Prince George but instead neighbouring northwest cities like Smithers and Prince Rupert — has been pushing for a Prince George office to open in order to take some of the pressure off of the Vancouver location, as well as the people from his riding who were traveling down to Vancouver to try and get set up only to meet with these delays. There were also some people from the Vancouver area wondering if they could maybe come up to Prince George to get a passport in order to avoid those delays.
And soon, they’ll be able to! Minister Karina Gould of the Liberals tells the Citizen this was always the plan so not sure how much Bachrach’s advocacy impacted things, gets but it is interesting that in a riding consistently represented by the Conservatives, it was a Liberal government and an NDP critic who will be able to take the most credit for this change.
The city’s bad legal advice that led to them illegally destroying homeless shelters
Also in the Citizen, the first of a three-part series examining the city’s decision to destroy part of the homeless camp known as Mocassin Flats has been published.
First, some background, since I reported on this story a lot:
Last summer, homeless camps were built in the city as people sought permanent places to set up rather than have to move every day;
The city filed a court injunction for permission to shut these down;
The judge said ‘no,’ because the city couldn’t provide evidence there were enough shelter or housing units available for the people in the camps to live, so the camp would be allowed to stand until the city could change the court’s mind;
The city went ahead and destroyed part of the camp anyways, claiming that they were only destroying shelters that had been abandoned;
People who had been living in those shelters said otherwise and signed court affadavits testifying that they had, in fact, been living in some of those shelters and had had their belongings destroyed;
Another judge told the city it had clearly violated the previous judge’s orders;
The city apologized.
It was step four that I could never understand. I’m no lawyer, but I could not figure out how the city could read the judgement from their first case and come to believe that destroying shelters wouldn’t be a direct violation of that order. I even asked them directly and was just told they had consulted with B.C. Housing and believed people had left. Which wasn’t an answer! I got some snarky Twitter responses about it, too, and B.C. Housing made it pretty clear they weren’t the ones who thought it was a good idea to destroy shelters.
Anyways, since no one would actually answer the questions about this move, the Prince George Citizen filed a Freedom of Infomation request to find out what the actual line of communication was here (a Freedom of Infomation request, or FOI, is a tool members of the public have to access emails and other communications between public bodies. It is a pain to file them and takes time but gives us insight into decision when politicians and bureaucrats aren’t willing to share information. Support the media who takes the time to do this).
And — it doesn’t look great! Basically, B.C. Housing mentioned in an email that they thought some of the shelters were abandoned and the city took off running with the idea they could get rid of them.
“We followed up with our legal counsel regarding BC Housing’s proposal to begin transitioning individuals from the Lower Patricia encampment to the Knights Inn, on a zone by zone basis. It appears that we have some latitude to move forward with that approach,” [Chris] Bone [the city’s senior manager of strategic initiatives] wrote.
“Just for clarity, BC housing did not put forward a proposal, (I) was only asking a question, we are looking at as many ideas as possible for a safe and orderly transition from the encampment this is only one idea,” [Malachy] Tohill, [northern B.C. regional director of operations for BC Housing] responded by email… the following morning.
“Thanks Malachy,” Bone responded, 10 minutes later. “The ‘idea’ was a good one that was well received on our end! There is interest in moving forward.”
Pretty soon afterward, heavy equipment was demolishing people’s belongings.
Will anyone be accountable? Is whoever provided this legal council still giving the city advice? I don’t know but I look forward to part two of this series which promises to “examine the city’s response to the public backlash over the demolition of the camp.”
OK time for a palette cleanser. Here’s what else is in the news before we get to something that made me question reality yesterday.
The city of Prince George says the hostile architecture noted in yesterday’s newsletter does not actually belong to them.
The spread of bird flu means there could well be a turkey shortage this Christmas, according to Homesteader Meats.
The growing Ukrainian community in Prince George, including more than 100 recent refugees, are set to mark the Holdomor on Saturday.
The city of Quesnel has rescinded its mandatory vaccine policy.
It’s not Prince George news but if you need a laugh check out the fugitive cows of Quebec and the escaped ostriches of Alberta (I’ve watched the ostrich video so many times.
A few weeks back, I was served a TikTok video from the local Nova Voce choir in which one person sang and everyone lip-synched and you had to guess the singer. I guess that formula has done pretty well for them since that particular video has amassed over 8 million views and the group is well on its way to becoming genuinely TikTok famous with, as of this writing, nearly 100,000 followers. CBC Daybreak North did a little documentary about them.
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So wait, do you know what Plaid Friday is?
OK so yesterday I mentioned that today is Plaid Friday. And then at work I brought it up in a couple of meetings with people from Vancouver and they looked at me with blank stares. I explained what it was and they had never heard of it and I started to wonder if it was a Prince George-specific event. I was pretty sure it wasn’t but as more and more people said they’d never heard of it my reality started to crumble.
Fortunately, Google was there to help. It turns out Plaid Friday was created in Oakland, California, in 2009 as an alternative to Black Friday, encouraging shoppers to buy from indie businesses rather than big box stores. Downtown Prince George was a relatively early adopter, holding its first event in 2016 and now making it a big ol’ event with contests, treasure hunts and a Christmas tree lightup. It’s also celebrated in Stevenston, Washington and Strasburg, North Virginia. It’s a weirdly broad yet local thing, skipping big cities for the most part in favour of smaller ones. Today I learned.
Alright, that’s it for this week! Here’s a good dog picture:
I'm so excited for Nova Voce. They are an extremely talented group of singers and PG is so fortunate to have the talents of Director, Robin Norman. If you haven't heard them perform the Grinch during the Festival of Trees, I highly recommend it 😂