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Bob Mackin 

A receiver is being appointed after two companies involved in the delayed development of a ski and snowboard resort near Squamish defaulted on loans. 

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Walker heard the petition from Aquilini Development LP (ADLP), Garibaldi Resort Management Co. Ltd. (GRMC), and 1413994 B.C. Ltd. on Dec. 4 in Vancouver. They applied for appointment of Ernst and Young to manage Garibaldi at Squamish LP (GAS LP) and Garibaldi at Squamish Inc. (GAS Inc.).

Artist’s conception of the delayed ski resort on Brohm Ridge near Squamish (Garibaldi at Squamish)

Walker said he was “satisfied the order should go,” and set Jan. 15 as the next court date. 

The petition was filed Sept. 22, almost two months after the lawyers for the petitioners demanded immediate payment of the $65 million owing as of May 31, including interest and legal costs. 

“GAS has failed or neglected to pay the amount demanded (or any part thereof) to the petitioners,” said the petition.

GAS Inc. incorporated in late 2001 to develop the Garibaldi at Squamish resort on unceded Squamish Nation land on Brohm Ridge, 13 kilometres north of Squamish. In 2007, GAS signed a memorandum of understanding with the Squamish Nation. 

The project is a partnership between Vancouver’s Aquilini and Gaglardi families, whose private companies own the Vancouver Canucks (Aquilini Investment Group) and Dallas Stars (Northland Properties). When the province granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate (EAC) in 2016, Garibaldi at Squamish was estimated to cost $3.5 billion.

The certificate was extended in 2021 with a Jan. 26, 2026 deadline to begin substantial construction. The 20-year project foresees building 5,000 residential, commercial and hotel units.  

“However no construction has been commenced and many of the conditions to the EAC remain outstanding,” the court petition said. “GAS and the project generate no income and are entirely dependent on third party funding.”

Under an October 2018 agreement, GAS Inc. assigned and transferred all of its interest in the project to GAS LP. In a credit agreement from January of that year, GAS Inc. issued debentures to lenders ADLP and GRMC for $2.28 million and $14.49 million, the amounts advanced by the respective entities, with a Dec. 31, 2021 maturity date. 

But, in June 2022, funds advanced by Luigi Aquilini under the first debenture had been exhausted and GAS LP issued a second debenture to Aquilini with a Dec. 31, 2024 maturity.

“GAS LP failed to repay the principal sums under the 2021 debentures together with all accrued and unpaid interest then outstanding and the other obligations then outstanding, on the 2021 maturity date. This failure constitutes an event of default under the debentures and the [general security agreement],” the petition said. 

Last May 2, Aquilini assigned all of his interest in the 2024 debentures to an affiliate of his, 1413994 BC Ltd. Then, on Aug. 3, lawyers for the petitioners demanded the immediate payment of $64.89 million.

“As of Sept. 21, 2023, there were no other security interests registered against the personal property of GAS. GAS owns no land,” the petition said.

Vicki Tickle, lawyer for the petitioners, told the court that GAS LP is now indebted to the petitioners for approximately $70 million, including interest. 

“The nature of the project and the lack of consensus regarding its ongoing development, and the funding thereof, requires the appointment of a receiver,” Tickle said. 

The 10-member GAS Inc. board includes one of Luigi Aquilini’s three sons, Roberto Aquilini, and senior Aquilini vice-presidents Jim Chu and Bill Aujla. Chu is a former chief of the Vancouver Police and Aujla former general manager of real estate at Vancouver city hall. 

From Northland Properties, chair Bob Gaglardi and corporate lawyers Stephen Jackson and Rob Toor. 

The most-recent entry on Garibaldi at Squamish’s website is a fall 2023 newsletter that said the project team has been working on plans for the highway interchange and main access road up to the main village. Engineering firm WSP came up with an alternative route to “steer clear of the Brohm River completely,” the newsletter said.

The website also said the project aims for a fall 2028 opening.

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Bob Mackin  A receiver is being appointed after

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Bob Mackin

An employee of Capilano Suspension Bridge is in critical condition after being struck by a vehicle in a crosswalk on Dec. 1. 

A staff memo said that the driver ran a red light on Capilano Road. The employee was taken to hospital and remains there with family.

“While we don’t know any further details at this time, we have heard that the driver is cooperating with the North Vancouver RCMP’s investigation,” wrote Stacey Chala, the Capilano Suspension Bridge’s director of communications and events. “The safety of our team members is our number one priority. We are offering our thoughts and prayers to our team member and their family during this very difficult time.”

The age of the victim was not included in the memo. A person not authorized to speak to the media said that the incident happened after 8:30 p.m. as the victim was walking east across Capilano Road toward the administration office. The victim is a teenager who landed at least 25 feet from the location of the collision. Staff trained in first aid rushed to the scene before paramedics arrived. 

Management arranged for trauma counsellors to be on-site and by phone through the employee assistance program.   

The tourist attraction is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily through Jan. 21 for its Canyon Lights Christmas display.

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Bob Mackin An employee of Capilano Suspension Bridge

Business, Miscellany, News, Opinion

For the week of Dec. 3, 2023:

Want to go to space? Even to spend a few minutes, it’ll cost you upwards of $250,000. 

What if I said you could experience the next best thing for fifty bucks at a train station in Vancouver? 

I’m not pulling your leg. 

The “Space Explorers: The Infinite” virtual reality exhibit is playing at the Rocky Mountaineer Station until mid-January. 

Director Felix Lajeunesse is Bob Mackin’s guest on this edition of thePodcast. 

Plus, headlines from the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Northwest.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts.

Have you missed an edition of theBreaker.news Podcast? Go to the archive.

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For the week of Dec. 3, 2023: Want

Business, News

Bob Mackin

One of the three people hurt in a Granville Station escalator pileup Sept. 29 was a 71-year-old woman who suffered head, shoulder and knee injuries. 

That is according to a SkyTrain attendant’s incident report, obtained under the freedom of information law. 

The second and third persons “did not wish to wait for medical attendant and exited the station after giving their account of the occurrence and contact information,” said the report by attendant Greg Thomas.

Granville SkyTrain Station escalators (TransLink/Buzzer)

A SkyTrain engineering assets technical investigation report said that Granville escalator number three had a “runaway condition where the handrail was stopped but the steps kept speeding down with passengers on the escalator. Many passengers fell on and at the bottom of the escalator.”

A timeline said the problem began at 2:54 p.m. when the escalator briefly sped up, causing passengers to run or jump off when they reached the bottom. 

Two minutes later, it appeared to speed up with medium passenger loading and slow down when passengers exited the escalator. The cycle repeated at 2:57 p.m. and 2:58 p.m.

At 3 p.m., the steps started to briefly speed up and the handrail appeared to be going slower or at normal speed. Again, passengers were running and jumping off when they reached the bottom.

At 3:01 p.m., however, it sped up again. “The handrail stops but the steps appear to be speeding out of control.”

A customer pressed the emergency stop at the top, but passengers continued to go down the now-stopped escalator at 3:02 p.m. 

“With 16 passengers on the escalator, it starts to move very fast down and dumps all the passengers in a pile at the bottom,” the report said. 

“Customer that pressed the [emergency] stop is now keeping passengers from getting on the escalator and used a nearby sandwich board to block the top of the escalator.”

At 3:05 p.m., a SkyTrain attendant arrived and barricaded the top and bottom of the escalator and began taking witness statements. A service request was made to escalator contractor Kone at 3:15 p.m. A Kone technician arrived at 6 p.m.

Kone later sent a service operations technical support team from the U.S. to “bolster the efforts” of Kone’s local team. 

The initial visual inspections of the drive revealed no irregularities, but a detailed disassembly was undertaken for a closer look from Oct. 6-10 and a new drive assembly installed Oct. 13. The old one was handed over Oct. 18 to testing and engineering consultant Acuren to determine the root cause. 

Meanwhile, the other two escalators continued to operate “smoothly based on ongoing visual assessments.” 

TransLink said Dec. 7 that repair costs are covered by Kone. 

“Following repairs, the Granville Station escalator was put back in service on Oct. 27. The cause of the incident is still being determined by the manufacturer and Technical Safety BC.”

In July 2020, TransLink finished a $14.52 million project to replace the Granville Station escalators. The “big three” escalators, the longest in Metro Vancouver, are 35 metres long each, with 500 steps.

Granville Station was the start of a 13-station program to replace 37 Expo Line and West Coast Express escalators that are more than 30 years old. Last year, TransLink began to replace five escalators at Burrard Station in a project that is scheduled to be completed in spring 2024.

In its 2022 statement of financial information, TransLink reported paying escalator and elevator company Kone Inc. $6.65 million. The B.C. Rapid Transit Co. (BCRTC) rail division paid $1.3 million.

According to the TransLink website, the new escalators are supposed to provide smoother operation and braking for passenger safety, a variable speed option to save energy, LED step lighting and improved accessibility for maintenance so as to reduce downtime.

TransLink’s safety report does not separate onboard and off-board injuries. The customer injury rate on the Expo and Millennium lines have fluctuated above and below the rate of one customer injury claim per million boardings since 2018.

Granville Station had 4.8 million boardings in 2022 and was the fifth busiest station of the year. TransLink reported 83 million riders in 2022 on the two lines. In 2019, before the pandemic, it was 115 million.

On Sept. 27, just two days before the Granville Station escalator incident, BCRTC president Sany Zein reported to the TransLink board meeting that during the second quarter of 2023, there were 27 incidents reported by customers. Over half were slips, trips and falls on “elevating devices.”

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Bob Mackin One of the three people hurt

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Bob Mackin

Vancouver city hall is in the market for another cloud-based mobile parking app. 

“The city is currently under contract with one service provider,” said the request for proposals (RFP), in reference to Volkswagen Group-owned PayByPhone. “The intent of this RFP is to secure additional service providers who can provide users of city on-street pay parking with multiple mobile payment options including credit debit and e-wallet.”

Vancouver parking meter (Mackin)

Bidding closes for the Nov. 8 call on Dec. 13. City hall wants to do a contract for the same term length as the one with PayByPhone: five years plus up to five one-year options. 

In March 2017, the city’s bid committee chose to renew PayByPhone’s contract at an estimated cost of $5.4 million plus taxes for the initial five-year term. 

PassportParking Inc., Parkmobile LLC and Precise ParkLink Inc. were the other bidders.

The city estimates annual volumes of 17 million mobile parking transactions via app and 330,000 via telephone-based interactive voice response software. 

Bidding documents say the city is looking for a provider with versatility, that can offer “stop functionality to end a parking session or any other functionality in the solution that could modify an active parking session.” PayByPhone users can only enter their desired parking duration and add extensions. 

The city has 20,000 metered parking spaces and zones under varying regulations and rates based on geography and time slots. It is projecting $78.4 million in parking revenue in 2024’s draft budget, of which $61.7 million is for on-street parking. 

Data published under the RFP said there were 16.25 million mobile transactions in 2022, below the 2019, pre-pandemic figure of 17.1 million. Last year’s $39.53 million gross from the mobile app was slightly ahead of the 2019 total of $39.28 million. From all sources, however, 2022’s $49.79 million was 15% less than 2019’s $59.06 million. 

Working from home took a major bite out of the city’s total parking revenue in 2020, when it plummeted to $38.64 million, including $28.18 million via app.

The recovery continues. For the first five months of 2023, the city brought in $21.34 million, including $17.36 million by mobile app.

Volkswagen Group subsidiary Volkswagen Financial Services AG acquired Yaletown-based PayByPhone Technologies Inc. in 2016. City of Vancouver paid PayByPhone $2.31 million in 2022, according to the latest statement of financial information.

The company told customers last May that it would charge them 15 cents every time they receive a text message about their parking purchase at City of Vancouver-metered spots. 

Vancouver parking meters are in effect seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Spots downtown can cost as much as $9 an hour during daytime, according to VanMap. A parking violation ticket costs $77, discounted by 40% if paid within two weeks.

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Bob Mackin Vancouver city hall is in the

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Bob Mackin 

The company operating one of the Washington State cancer clinics under contract by the B.C. government must refund millions of dollars to thousands of low income patients. 

On May 15, NDP Minister of Health Adrian Dix announced that B.C. Cancer Agency had outsourced a limited number of breast and prostate radiation treatments to two clinics in Bellingham — PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center and Bellingham Radiation Oncology (BRO) at North Cascade Cancer Center —  because B.C. hospitals could not keep up with demand.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham (PeaceHealth)

PeaceHealth is headquartered in Vancouver, Wash. and operates five Western Washington hospitals. On Nov. 20, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced PeaceHealth would pay $4.2 million in direct refunds to more than 4,500 patients and up to $9.2 million to as many as 11,000 patients under a claims process. 

PeaceHealth settled, without admitting wrongdoing, after Ferguson alleged PeaceHealth broke state consumer laws “by failing to screen patients for charity care eligibility prior to attempting to collect payment, failing to meaningfully disclose the availability of charity care, and collecting payment from patients who it knew were likely charity care eligible without disclosing their eligibility.”

The B.C. Cancer contract with PeaceHealth, obtained under B.C.’s freedom of information law, calls for PeaceHealth to treat up to 50 B.C. Cancer-referred patients per week, but it does not specify Bellingham or St. Joseph.

“B.C. Cancer agrees that it will select patients with either no significant underlying health conditions or medically stable co-morbidities,” states the contract with PeaceHealth.

For BRO, the cap is 15 patients per week.

However, according to documents released by the BC United opposition, only 275 patients had completed radiation therapy in the U.S. by Nov. 10 (222 for breast cancer and 53 for prostate cancer) after 533 were deemed eligible and agreeable for treatment in the U.S. 

The “Out of Country Radiation Therapy Daily Report” said that 755 of the 1,288 patients who were screened had failed. The leading reasons for screening failure were wanting Canadian treatment (249), refusal of U.S. treatment (164) and not clinically suitable (163). Fifty-three patients had no travel documents and five were not Canadian citizens.

“An average of 12 patients a week have been treated in the United States,” said BC United leader Kevin Falcon in Question Period on Nov. 28. “It’s not even close to the over 50 patients per week that the NDP contracted with U.S. hospitals for.”

“We wanted to have that capacity, and patients in the hundreds have gone to the United States and got that treatment,” said Health Minister Adrian Dix. “It just shows our determination to act in every element of cancer care.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix (left) and B.C. Cancer Agency head Kim Chi (Flickr/BC Gov)

How much did B.C. Cancer agree to pay for each treatment? 

That is a secret, because the prices were censored from both contracts. 

The Ministry of Health and B.C. Cancer have not responded to questions about the contracts, including the total amounts paid so far.

Payment, however, is required in U.S. dollars within 30 working days of each invoice. 

The contracts also require the two clinics review a patient referral request on the same day a referral is made and at all times within 48 hours from the time a referral is made. 

B.C. Cancer committed to obtain consent from each patient prior to sending medical records. Both clinics agreed to ensure all physicians providing medical treatment maintain federal and state licensing and certification. They both agreed to maintain CAD$3 million commercial liability and CAD$5 million professional liability insurance and to indemnify, defend and hold harmless B.C. Cancer against any claims and judgments for liability and negligence. 

The two-year contracts will not automatically renew and either party may terminate with or without cause, and without penalty or premium, with 30-days prior written notice. If the agreement is breached and the breach remains uncured, the written notice period is 15 days. 

The clinics also agreed to comply with all applicable privacy laws and promptly notify B.C. Cancer no later than five days after discovery of any security incident or breach of unsecured personal health information. They also agreed to co-operate with B.C. Cancer and provide necessary assistance. 

The BRO contract was signed April 12 by Dr. Alexei Polishchuk, whose bio said he grew up in Vancouver, was educated at Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania and joined BRO in 2016. 

It is not unusual for a government body to claim disclosure of a contract will harm the government financially and damage a third-party’s interests. But multiple rulings by adjudicators from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) have upheld the public’s right to know and required full disclosure of contracts negotiated between private entities and public bodies. 

In 2017, the OIPC ordered Provincial Health Services Authority to release its contract with medical waste collector Stericyle. That was three years after the OIPC ordered Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to release its contract with hospital catering company Compass Group. 

Despite Dix announcing the program to send cancer patients across the border, the Ministry of Health refused to release copies of the contracts after payment of the $10 non-refundable application fees last May. 

Instead of simply transferring the requests to B.C. Cancer, it told a reporter to make new applications and pay the $10 fees again to Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), which finally released copies on Nov. 24. 

PHSA is a Ministry subsidiary that relied on the Ministry, other health authorities, government reporting entities and the Medical Services Plan for $4.2 billion of its $4.6 billion in revenue last year. 

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Bob Mackin  The company operating one of the

Business, News

Bob Mackin

One of the dozens of presale condo buyers whose contract was terminated by a developer in 2019 testified Nov. 27 in B.C. Supreme Court that she cannot spend as much time taking care of her mother and aunt as she had planned. 

Angela Tsang is one of 37 plaintiffs in the breach of contract trial against Anderson Square Holdings Ltd., and its directors, Keung Sun Sunny Ho and Jia An Jeremy Liang.

Anderson Square’s Alfa in Richmond (Anderson Square)

Tsang was the first witness in the scheduled 19-day trial in Vancouver before Justice Kevin Loo. She testified that she agreed in December 2018 to pay a deposit on the $552,000 unit in the planned 15-storey Alfa (now known as Prima) at 8151 Anderson Road in Richmond city centre.

Tsang, a registered nurse, said she had discovered the project sales centre after a meal with her mother. She found the price and location were ideal, close to her mother and aunt and with parks nearby to walk her dog. 

“Given my work, it’s very chaotic, very physically demanding, and I work really long hours so I needed a really quiet place that I can unwind and keep peaceful,” Tsang said in court. “It was one of the few places that I found in that area that was affordable. Everything else that I looked at was smaller square footage, it wasn’t an open concept. It was about $150,000 more usually and it wasn’t even brand new.” 

But, in July 2019, the developer cancelled the contracts, claiming it was facing “serious and significant circumstances” beyond its control that made it no longer economical to continue. 

After the 2019 cancellation, Tsang consulted her real estate agent and a lawyer. She eventually bought in Delta, which means she must endure Massey Tunnel traffic jams and higher fuel costs to commute to work and to visit her mother and aunt.

“I lost a lot of sleep and I ended up having to change all my plans and I needed to find a place, so I ended up purchasing my new place in Delta, in May of 2020, and moved in in August of 2020,” Tsang testified.

Wes McMillan, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the court that Anderson Square made efforts in 2016 and 2017 to obtain financing from the Canadian Western Bank, the Laurentian Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and G&F Financial. But McMillan said efforts to obtain financing from those lenders ceased no later than January 2018.

By the time it decided to terminate the contracts, Anderson Square had obtained $40 million to $50 million via companies owned by Liang’s father.

“Put simply the evidence will show that the reasons given for terminating the presale contracts were at best misleading, and at worst fully untrue,” McMillan said.. 

McMillan said the defendants pointed to rising construction costs as a basis for terminating the contracts, but had paid out $16.6 million to Scott Construction under a $37.8 million fixed price contract. 

“The evidence will show that financing was not a concern,” McMillan said.

Under a separate action, Scott Construction is suing Anderson Square for $4.6 million.

In May 2022, the plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought an injunction to allow Anderson Square to complete and sell the project but prevent distribution of profits until 30 days after the final judgment of the case.

During that case, the court heard that presale purchasers had received an aggregate $1.944 million in deposit refunds in August 2021. 

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Bob Mackin One of the dozens of presale

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For the week of Nov. 26, 2023:

After October 7, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, pro-Palestine protests across North America and Europe have not only called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group. They have also called for the end of Israel.

Who are the organizers and who funds them?

That’s what host Bob Mackin asked Gerald Steinberg, the Jerusalem political science professor and founder of NGO Monitor.

Steinberg keeps an eye on hundreds of human rights charities, big and small, around the world, focusing on those that seek to delegitimize Israel. One of them is the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, operated by a Vancouver-based couple.

The rise of online influencers on popular social media platforms and electronic banking and cryptocurrency have made it easier for charities with political goals to raise money faster than ever. But it is also just as easy for a charity to keep its revenue and expenses secret.

“Banks are regulated, everywhere in the world, every democratic country, every country, to examine that they’re not doing things that are immoral, illegal,” Steinberg  said. “There are ethics, there are processes. In the NGO world, there is none of this.”

Listen to Bob Mackin’s interview with Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor.

Plus, headlines from the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Northwest.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts.

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For the week of Nov. 26, 2023: After

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Elections BC has given the green light to the 30th recall petition in B.C. history. 

On Nov. 24, it announced proponent Gurdeep Jassal of Surrey will need signatures of at least 11,811 voters between Nov. 30 and Jan. 29 to unseat NDP Surrey-Green Timbers MLA Rachna Singh.

NDP MLA Rachna Singh and Seattle socialist councillor Khama Sawant (X/Singh)

The “RecallRachna.ca” website includes a statement critical of Singh for allowing the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in B.C. classrooms. 

“Education Minister Rachna Singh has been approached via email and phone calls to her office by various people and organizations, but there simply has been no response,” the website states. “This isn’t acceptable. Education minister must be accountable to parents as is the intent of the education in British Columbia.”

The Recall and Initiative Act states that any registered voter can pay $50 and provide a statement of 200 words or less explaining the reasons why the MLA should be ousted. Once approved, registered canvassers must collect signatures from at least 40% of registered voters who were also registered to vote in the riding’s previous election. 

In 2020, Singh beat BC Liberal challenger Dilraj Atwal by 8,171 to 5,540 votes. 

The recall petition’s financial agent is Amrit Singh Birring, who finished sixth last year for the Surrey mayoralty, with 2,270 votes. Birring ran in 2021’s federal election for the People’s Party of Canada in Fleetwood-Port Kells. His 1,284 votes were more than 20,000 less than victorious incumbent Ken Hardie of the Liberal Party. 

Elections BC set $31,633.94 as the spending limit for both the petitioner and Singh, should she want to run a counter-campaign.

It is the third recall petition of 2023, after petitions against BC United MLA Dan Davies (Peace River-North) and NDP Premier David Eby (Vancouver-Point Grey) both failed. 

The campaign to unseat Davies received only 485 of the required 10,487 signatures in April. Eby opponents needed 16,449 signatures, but garnered only 2,737 by the March deadline.  

Recall petitions have officially failed all 29 times since the NDP government of Premier Mike Harcourt passed the direct democracy law in February 1995. 

Prince George North NDP MLA Paul Ramsey, the Minister of Education, Skills and Training, was the first recall target in 1997. The petition fell 585 signatures shy of forcing Ramsey out of of office and triggering a by-election. 

Petition organizer Pertti Harkonen cried foul after forensic accountant Ron Parks delivered a report that found Ramsey’s anti-recall campaign overspent by $3,288 and benefitted from union-funded phone canvassers. 

The 1998 petition to recall Parksville-Qualicum BC Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma needed 17,020 signatures, but ended up with 24,530. However, the official count was never completed because Reitsma resigned instead of becoming the first recalled MLA in B.C. history.

The Parksville Qualicum Beach News had caught Reitsma writing letters to the editor in praise of himself, under the pseudonym “Warren Betanko.” 

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Bob Mackin Elections BC has given the green

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Bob Mackin

As the nights grow longer and colder, the B.C. government has lost track of how many people are living homeless at a rest stop off Highway 1 in Abbotsford. 

An April 25 “decision briefing note” to NDP Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming about the Bradner Rest Area said it was occupied with “15 to 20 permanent residents.”

Bradner Rest Area in 2022 (B.C. Government/FOI)

Asked about the present state of the site, Fleming’s representatives did not respond and the Ministry of Housing referred a reporter to BC Housing. 

“It’s not known the exact count of individuals at this site given that individuals are transitory,” said BC Housing spokesman Tim Chamberlin. “There are approximately 30 vehicles at the site. Currently, most individuals at this site are not interested in connecting with outreach and services.”

That briefing note, obtained under the freedom of information law, was finally disclosed on Tuesday, five months after the original request for briefing notes and reports held by Fleming and senior ministry management and highways operations officials.  

Chamberlin said outreach workers, including staff from the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, visit multiple times weekly to conduct welfare checks and refer people to health care, income assistance and shelters.  

The April briefing note to Fleming was headlined “decision briefing note” and contained three options. The options are not visible and it is unclear what, if any, decision was made. The document was heavily censored because the government feared releasing information about advice and recommendations, security, intergovernmental relations and government finances.

The rest stop, opened in the early 1990s on the westbound side of the Trans-Canada, between the Mt. Lehman and 264th Street Interchanges, has 80 passenger vehicle stalls, 17 spots for commercial vehicles, buses and vehicles with trailers, 14 picnic tables and 12 bear-proof trashcans, plus heated and plumbed washrooms and a sani-dump.

“Over the last couple years, the rest area has seen an increase in overnight campers that has formed into an encampment,” said the briefing note. “Currently, the rest area is occupied with 15 to 20 permanent residents living in recreational vehicles, trailers, campers, passenger vehicles, tents, and/or wooden structures. The encampment has resulted in travellers and commercial vehicle drivers not being able to find suitable space to rest due to occupation by transient peoples.”

The briefing note said the ministry’s maintenance contractor has “on occasion refused to attend the site due to aggressive behaviour from residents.” When the rest area is cleared, the same individuals return and resume their encampment within a couple of days. 

“Additionally, the ministry has received numerous complaints regarding motorist safety, access impairment by commercial and private users, damage to infrastructure, and aggressive behaviour of the residents. The site is often littered with hazardous waste and the contractor is having difficulty keeping the site clean and ensuring that the washroom facilities are safe for users.”

Bradner Rest Area in 2022 (B.C. Government/FOI)

The Bradner Rest Area was one of four area homeless camps on government land, according to an Oct. 5, 2022 briefing note. Fifty-eight people were living near Highway 1 and Sumas Way at the Lonzo Road camp in nine motor homes, three vans, two cars and a truck, 21 tents, seven permanent structures and a tent trailer. 

“It’s understood there are few (if any) alternative locations in the Abbotsford area for the individuals to move,” the briefing note said. 

Last June, the Lonzo Road site was cleared and fenced to make way for a temporary 50-bed shelter. The Ministry of Housing budgeted $4 million for the facility, to be operated by the Lookout Housing and Health Society. Remaining residents were offered housing. 

Chamberlin said there are now more than 70 supportive units in Abbotsford and nearly 200 shelter spaces. 

A month after the documents were requested in June, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure demanded a $45 payment over and above the $10 application fee. It claimed the time to search records would be 30 minutes more than the three free hours granted under the law. The ministry also claimed it would need a full-hour to prepare the records for release. 

Over the summer, the ministry took two time extensions, one of which was approved by the Information and Privacy Commissioner, which is not legally required to consult with the applicant. 

Ideally, the government should respond with records in 30 business days or less. The freedom of information law, however, contains numerous loopholes for delays that favour the government and its desire to manage its image. 

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Bob Mackin As the nights grow longer and

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About Us

theBreaker.news and theBreaker.news Podcast: your source for news, opinion and analysis about British Columbia issues, institutions and influencers.

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theBreaker is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and published by Bob Mackin.
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