Woman dies, watchdog notified after police shooting in Surrey, B.C.

VANCOUVER – Current support services for severely mentally ill and drug addicted people aren’t working for hundreds of British Columbians, and “secure” involuntary care sites around the province are a new tool to help them, B.C. Premier David Eby says.

In a speech to local politicians from cities around the province on Thursday, Eby said public safety is a priority especially in downtown cores, where many people are seen “visibly” struggling with addictions.

“There are two goals that we’re trying to address here,” Eby told the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in Vancouver. “One is to make sure that the people who are struggling in our community so visibly, whether they’re just lying face down on a sidewalk or whether they’re yelling and screaming and causing fear and confusion and concern in the community, that they are safe, that they are looked after and they are supported with the care that they need.”

Eby said the other goal, “which is just as critical,” is ensuring that residents feel safe in their downtown communities.

“This initiative will help us get there,” Eby said.

He said he’s already heard from representatives of communities who want a “secure” site to offer involuntary care in their cities.

He welcomed their interest because people undergoing forced treatment need to “stay closer to home” and maintain community connections, he said.

Speaking with reporters after his speech, Eby said that 250 more RCMP officers have been added around the province in smaller communities that have been historically understaffed as complaints grow from business owners about vandalism and street disorder.

He said policing is only part of the solution, and needs to be paired with social supports, mental-health resources and housing to “address the issues that we face.”

The premier said the first sites to offer the involuntary treatment include the Surrey pretrial centre and the Alouette Correctional Centre, while other buildings identified will require “minor renovations.”

Eby said the province has opened treatment beds and introduced a phone line to help people connect with services, but the current system doesn’t work for everyone.

“There’s a group of people that are not succeeding,” he said. “When they’re in social housing, they’re assaulting staff and their neighbours. They’re starting fires. When they’re in hospital, they’re using drugs in the hospital bed.”

“What we have in place isn’t working for this group,” he added.

Eby said there are “unfortunately hundreds” of British Columbians in need of “intense care” in secure sites that they can’t “just walk out of.”

The province will “ensure that it’s dignified,” and he said those receiving care at the Surrey Pretrial Centre have already been sent to jail, without being offered treatment, “they’re going to be released back in their community, probably in worse shape than they went in.”

“It is not simple,” Eby said. “This is a very challenging group to house, and we have not been successful to date.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

LANGLEY, B.C. – Police in Langley, B.C., say one person is dead in a crash between a car and a motorcycle on Highway 1 that shut down the route for hours.

Mounties say their initial investigation indicates both vehicles were travelling east when they collided shortly before 4:20 a.m. near 240 Street on the highway.

The motorcycle rider died from their injuries.

Highway 1 was closed for a long stretch through Langley for about 11 hours while police investigated.

RCMP say their integrated collision analysis reconstruction team went to the scene.

The Mounties are asking anyone who witnessed the crash or who may have dash-camera footage from the area to call them.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

WINNIPEG – A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada.

“It really is that simple,” said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg.

“The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”

The argument is being used to help force the provincial government to conduct an environmental assessment of how Manitoba Hydro regulates lake levels for power generation. Those licences come up for renewal in August 2026, and the chiefs argue that the process under which those licences were granted was outdated and inadequate.

They quote Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission, which said in 2015 that the licences were granted on the basis of poor science, poor consultation and poor public accountability.

Meanwhile, the statement of claim says “the (plaintiffs) describe the lake’s current state as being so sick that she is dying.”

It describes a long list of symptoms.

Fish species have disappeared, declined, migrated or become sick and inedible, the lawsuit says. Birds and wildlife including muskrat, beavers, duck, geese, eagles and gulls are vanishing from the lake’s wetlands.

Foods and traditional medicines — weekay, bulrush, cattail, sturgeon and wild rice — are getting harder to find, the document says, and algae blooms and E. coli bacteria levels have increased.

Invasive species including zebra mussels and spiny water fleas are now common, the document says.

“In Anishinaabemowin, the (plaintiffs) refer to the water in Lake Winnipeg as moowaakamiim (the water is full of feces) or wiinaagamin (the water is polluted, dirty and full of garbage),” the lawsuit says.

It blames many of the problems on Manitoba Hydro’s management of the lake waters to prevent it flushing itself clean every year.

“She is unable to go through her natural cleansing cycle and becomes stagnant and struggles to sustain other beings like animals, birds, fish, plants and people,” the document says.

The defendants, Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government, have not filed statements of defence. Both declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Daniels said it makes sense to consider the vast lake — one of the world’s largest — as alive.

“We’re living in an era of reconciliation, there’s huge changes in the mindsets of regular Canadians and science has caught up a lot in understanding. It’s not a huge stretch to understand the lake as a living entity.”

The idea has been around in western science since the 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis, which remains highly disputed, proposed the Earth is a single organism with its own feedback loops that regulate conditions and keep them favourable to life.

The courts already recognize non-human entities such as corporations as persons.

Personhood has also been claimed for two Canadian rivers.

Quebec’s Innu First Nation have claimed that status for the Magpie River, and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta is seeking standing for the Athabasca River in regulatory hearings. The Magpie’s status hasn’t been tested in court and Alberta’s energy regulator has yet to rule on the Athabasca.

Matt Hulse, a lawyer who argued the Athabasca River should be treated as a person, noted the Manitoba lawsuit quotes the use of “everyone” in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“The term ‘everyone’ isn’t defined, which could help (the chiefs),” he said.

But the Charter typically focuses on individual rights, Hulse added.

“What they’re asking for is substantive rights to be given to a lake. What does ‘liberty’ mean to a lake?

“Those kinds of cases require a bit of a paradigm shift. I think the Southern Chiefs Organization will face an uphill battle.”

Hulse said the Manitoba case goes further than any he’s aware of in seeking legal rights for a specific environment.

Daniels said he believes the courts and Canadians are ready to recognize humans are not separate from the world in which they live and that the law should recognize that.

“We need to understand our lakes and our environment as something we have to live in cohesion with.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton