City of Barrie backs down on plan to ban giving food to homeless people on its property
CBC
The city of Barrie, Ont., has backed away from proposed bylaws that would have made it illegal to distribute food, literature, clothes, tents and tarps to unhoused people on public property.
At a meeting on Wednesday night, council decided unanimously to refer bylaws 67 and 68 back to staff. The matter is expected to return to a general committee meeting later this year.
"There should be zero fear out there that a bylaw officer or a peace officer is going to come and ask you not to give water to someone who needs it," Mayor Alex Nuttall told council chambers.
Coun. Jim Harris, who represents Ward 8, said the intent of the bylaws was not to prevent people from helping unhoused people.
"Charitable acts of kindness, giving, are central to our community and we do not want to punish that. That's not the intent," Harris said.
"There's no interest in stopping people from being kind, from giving a bottle of water on a hot day, a coffee on cold winter evening," he added.
"We heard you, we understand you and we agree with you."
Coun. Bryn Hamilton, who represents Ward 10, said Barrie has a homelessness crisis and "everybody" has a role to play.
"We welcome your feedback," she said.
The proposed bylaws have sparked controversy in Barrie for weeks. Several people in council chambers held up homemade placards on Wednesday to protest the proposed bylaws.
"We support the unhoused," read one. "Fight poverty, not the poor," read another.
Barrie grandmother Christine Nayler, along with other housing advocates, erected tents outside city hall this week to draw attention to the proposed bylaws. Nayler previously told CBC Toronto the rules would have made serving unhoused neighbours next to impossible for her organization and others like it.
Earlier, in a news release, Nuttall said the city no longer needed the proposed bylaws after a community not-for-profit organization, Busby Centre, decided to relocate its daily outreach program away from the Barrie waterfront. The centre aims to improve conditions for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
According to the city, the intent of the bylaws was to stop organizations like the centre from handing out food and supplies along the Barrie waterfront and instead move their outreach to private property.
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.
The Liberal government and the NDP have agreed to introduce a two-month GST vacation on certain items before the holiday season, Radio-Canada has learned.
Veterinarians are warning Londoners to make sure their dogs are vaccinated and keeping clean after a deadly virus outbreak was declared in London this week.