The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary board is puzzled by the response from the provincial government to concerns over an encampment in the Pend d’Oreille where three people have died in fires this year.
In May, the RDKB asked the province to remove the encampment, which they believed to be on Crown land. An RV fire on April 19 claimed one life, followed by another fire on May 12 that killed two more people. No information on the victms has been released.
The government response, dated July 20, came from transportation minister Mike Farnworth and said addressing homlessness is a “shared responsibility, requiring partnership from all levels of government.”
He pointed to the province’s plan to address homelessness released in 2023 and to work being done in Cranbrook to create temporary housing. Farnworth added: “It is the responsibility of landowners to make land use decisions, including the decision to bring an encampment to a close.”
None of which satisfied RDKB directors, who found the letter disappointing and believe Farnworth must have misunderstood their request.
Beaver Valley director Ali Grieve, in whose area the encampment lies, said in an interview that she agrees addressing homelessness requires buy-in from local government around land use planning and policy. But she added that the regional district doesn’t have the money to be principal funders of housing.
As for Farnworth’s statement about landowners deciding whether to allow encampments, Grieve said: “This encampment is on Crown land. The province is the landowner. So we’re now asking the province to bring this encampment to a close.”
Grieve said she isn’t sure whether Farnworth was suggesting the Crown does not own the land or if he didn’t realize that it is the owner, although she suspects it’s the latter. (Although the RDKB’s first letter to the province included a map of the property, it didn’t explicity state who owned it.)
The board agreed to write back to clarify the matter.
“It’s ultimately about safety,” Grieve said. “There’s no cell service in the area. Emergency response is difficult and we’ve already seen tragic loss of life. There’s also an ongoing wildfire risk and the encampment is located near the hydroelectric infrastructure of the Seven Mile dam. So we don’t want to see any more tragedies. We’re asking the province to take responsibility for the land it owns.”
Grieve said BC Hydro told her it has started a pilot project where they are using sensors to detect any fire activity in the area. Grieve applauded the idea and said it would “certainly be part of a solution and being proactive and protecting people, the area, and infrastructure.”
