Vows to end encampments

UPDATE: 2:30 p.m.

Conservative Party of BC leader John Rustad stood across the street from Kelowna's city-sanctioned homeless encampment Saturday and vowed to "end tent cities" across B.C.

The appearance was the third campaign stop in the Okanagan this weekend, after speaking on child care in Kelowna Friday and on wildfires in Vernon on Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon's stop took place on Weddell Place, across the street from the Rail Trail where dozens of people continue to live in tents. Rustad announced that if elected, his government would “end tent cities once and for all.”

“Under a Conservative government, no tent city will be allowed to stand. Illegal encampments will be cleared, and those living in them will be provided with safe, supportive housing,” the Conservative Party of BC said in a press release.

When asked where the current residents of Kelowna's encampment will go, Rustad said “obviously there are more facilities that need to be built out in terms of this.”

He added that under his government, there will be “zero tolerance” for drug use at supportive housing developments.

Rustad did not provide any details about how many new supportive housing developments will need to be built to “end tent cities” or what that will cost.

“It's going to take some time to be able to do that, but it's a major step to be able to say, we are going to bring this to an end and we're going to treat it like the crisis it is and deal with it,” he said.

Despite using Kelowna's Rail Trail encampment as a backdrop for his campaign speech, Rustad said he hadn't spoken with anyone living there about what brought them there.

“I have spoken with many people who actually just recently have lived in tents, have lived on the streets and have been in the process of recovery and are still recovering,” Rustad said.

“We've got two candidates who are running for us who are recovering addicts, and they have lived on the streets, they've gone through that. So I'm drawing on those sort of knowledge in terms of it to try and create the path going forward.”

In addition to building more supportive housing, Rustad also committed to more addiction treatment services, with a plan to introduce involuntary care for some people. Last month, Eby announced a similar plan for those suffering from addiction, mental health struggles and brain injury.

“We also recognize that it's not just about people are homeless, or people who are addicted or people with mental health; there's a combination of things that are happening. We need to do what we can for each of those groups, it's not a one-size-fits-all, in order of being able to solve these things,” Rustad said.

“We need to make sure that we have options. Where we have people with addictions, we need to make sure that we provide the opportunity for people to get clean through detox, and then to have the opportunity for supportive housing that is drug-free.

"That's a key in my opinion, these facilities that we build need to be drug free, and zero-tolerance for drugs as well as for crime. We need to make sure that as we build these, as we put housing in and they're available, that they're in appropriate places within communities.”

In addition to a number of supportive housing developments that have gone up in Kelowna in recent years, the City of Kelowna and the provincial government have opened 120 units of temporary housing to get people off the street, with the goal of eliminating the need for the Rail Trail encampment.

The 60-unit STEP Place tiny homes development was opened near the Rail Trail back in January, while 60 more units at the Trailside Transitional Housing was opened in May at 2740 Highway 97. Another 60 unit-project is in the works at 3199 Appaloosa Rd.

ORIGINAL: 12:45 p.m.

Leader of the Conservative Party of BC John Rustad is making another campaign announcement in Kelowna Saturday afternoon.

Following his childcare campaign announcement Friday, Rustad is appearing at Weddell Place in Kelowna's North End at 1 p.m. Saturday to make another announcement.

While the topic of the announcement was not disclosed prior, the Conservative party texted locals on Friday that they planned to “remove tent cities from Kelowna,” and Saturday's announcement is taking place near the city-approved encampment along Kelowna's Rail Trail.

Earlier Saturday, Rustad appeared in Vernon to announce a “new approach to wildfire management” if his party forms government.

He criticized the BC NDP government's focus on fighting fires rather than preventing them.

“We need to stop being reactive and start being proactive in managing our forests,” Rustad said in a statement.

Although he provided few details about what his approach would look like other than “investing in forest management and new technologies to reduce wildfire risks before they start” and reviewing B.C.'s current approach to landscape and wildfire management.

Both Rustad and BC NDP leader David Eby are in the Okanagan this weekend, with Eby making a healthcare announcement in Vernon earlier in the day.