A Kamloops City Councillor is planning to put forward a notice of motion next week calling for changes to the city’s thresholds when extreme weather shelters are operated.
Dale Bass says the current -10 C threshold in Kamloops is far too low, and not in line with a number of other municipalities on the coast, where the threshold is between 0 C and 2 C.
“I don’t know whether its the government that thinks that people down in Vancouver feel the cold faster than we do up here, but I just think we should have some equality in the trigger temperatures,” Bass said on NL Newsday.
“The motion would be to lobby the government to change it from -10 C to 0 C.”
Bass says the 0 C threshold would also put the province in line with recommendations from the BC Centre for Disease Control.
“The Centre for Disease Control notes that the number of deaths and illnesses from hypothermia have been increasing over the last couple of years, particularly in the Interior Health Authority area, which is us of course,” she said.
“It might reduce some of the cases that are going to the ER. It might reduce some potential deaths. We did have a death recently. It has not been attributed to the cold right now, but you wonder.”
The only extreme weather shelter in Kamloops, located at the Alliance Church on the North Shore, operates when temperatures in Kamloops are at or below -10 C, or if there is at least five centimeters of snow on the ground. Other shelters like the Yacht Club and Stuart Wood operate through the winter months, but they’re often over capacity.
Bass’ notice of motion comes as Glenn Hilke, the Operator of The Loop on Tranquille Road took aim at the City and the Provincial Government, saying neither one was prepared for the cold snap last week.
Hilke has also been a vocal critic of the current thresholds, telling Radio NL on numerous occasions that it needs to be changed.
“The SPCA recommends that we never take out animals outside when the temperature dips below 0 C because it can be harmful to them but we let people stay out there,” Bass added. “I don’t understand the logic behind it at all.”
“We can’t really change it, all we can do is lobby. The motion as I’ve got it written now is to lobby the government and to also pass it on to the Southern Interior [Local Government] Association. It is another body which can lobby the province.”
If the notice of motion is presented on Jan. 23 as planned, it is expected to be debated by Kamloops City Council during their Feb. 6 meeting.
Asked if the City could operate extreme weather shelters outside of the current temperature thresholds, Bass said it was possible, but cautioned it would likely come at a cost to local taxpayers.
“In order to get funding for the shelters, we have to follow the provincial government’s protocols,” Bass said. “If we were to do it ourselves, I think we’d have to be paying for it. I’m not certain what it would cost but that is a whole other issue completely, and maybe that will come forward if the motion is passed, and we start to get some dialogue with the provincial government.”
“But I can’t be the only person in the Interior who is right now sitting around thinking ‘we’re killing people.’ I’m hoping that other councils and the province will see this and maybe support it and maybe we can possibly get things changed.”
“I recognize there are fallouts from that. We will not have enough shelter beds perhaps. We may not have the capacity to staff them but we can’t leave people outside in temperatures that you and I won’t go out in,” Bass added.
