Help defend the Charter Rights of members of Occupy Saskatoon and support the effort to find housing for homeless residents of the camp.

At about 7:00am on Sunday, November 13, the Occupy Saskatoon Camp at Gabriel Dumont Park was approached by representatives from the Saskatoon Police and the City of Saskatoon to serve a legal eviction order to our members. The eviction order cites the Recreation Facilities and Parks Usage Bylaw 7767 which prohibits the erection of structures in public parks as well as sleeping in a public park.



I consider this action to be an affront to the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which supersedes all municipal bylaws. Additionally, the eviction order is counterproductive to the ongoing efforts of Occupy Saskatoon, in conjunction with the Salvation Army, to find stable housing for the members of our camp who are without homes. At this point in time, there have been no written offers outlining specific housing alternatives for people to move into for the duration of the winter.

I understand, through Occupy Saskatoon's conversations with the City of Saskatoon, that there are concerns about the health and safety of the campers in Gabriel Dumont Park given the cold weather. On Friday, November 11, Occupy Saskatoon erected a common tent at the site, which is now being heated and where campers can gather and stay warm. Members of Occupy Saskatoon believe that through this and other measures to winterize the camp, that the safety and well being of those staying overnight is increasingly in hand.



I want to draw the attention of decision-makers at the City of Saskatoon to a recently-published report that they commissioned by Insightrix Research entitled “The Saskatoon Housing and Homelessness Plan (2011-2014)” - http://bit.ly/n26yW8 - which indicates that shelters in this city are operating at an average of 120-130% capacity. For this and a variety of other reasons outlined in the report, many homeless members of the community, within our camp and beyond, either cannot access temporary shelter and housing or find the shelter options so unappealing and inadequate to their needs, that they choose to spend their nights out in the cold instead. This is unacceptable.

Occupy Saskatoon has not created the housing crisis in Saskatoon. Instead, we are helping to find and advocating for solutions to a situation that has been created by years of inadequate policy, neglect and criminalization of society’s most vulnerable people by all levels of government. This lack of policy has gone hand-in-hand with the massive transfer of wealth from 99% of the population to the wealthiest 1%, which makes finding solutions to this and a multitude of other social problems more difficult. Rather than spending its time evicting people peacefully occupying parks, I suggest that the City spend its time and resources working with the Provincial Government and local stakeholders to find immediate solutions to the shortage of emergency shelter beds and long-term housing solutions including the recommendations of the Housing and Homelessness Plan to implement a “Housing First” strategy.I support Occupy Saskatoon's commitment to maintaining and peacefully defending their camp until at least such time as housing solutions can be found that meet the needs of their members without homes.