Council was told security hired to prevent encampments wouldn’t make arrests. One councillor is questioning why city documents say otherwise.
One of the two remaining councillors, Lisa Thompson, whose ward includes a large encampment, said she wasn’t surprised the city had allowed the encampment to stay through an injunction, because city officials were aware of the issues at the site.
She said she wasn’t sure why the police service couldn’t have handled the issue before they were forced to, but said she did know the service was overwhelmed.
“If a person is camping in an area for over a week, the city doesn’t deal with it,” she said. “I don’t understand why they would wait until they had no choice.”
Councillor Mary Margaret Oliver said she was concerned the city shouldn’t have allowed the site to remain.
“We’re not in a place where we can just let that take place,” she said. “This is our city. It is our city that we are going to be dealing with. There should have been a process. We should have allowed the municipality to deal with that aspect of it.”
Coun. Sarah Doucette, who has been outspoken in expressing concerns about the encampment, said she was not surprised the city decided to seek an injunction.
“I’m concerned about it,” she said. “You have a camp and people are using it as a shelter and they are living in a makeshift camp without a permit.”
The city is allowing up to 150 people to camp in tents at the site at the corner of Yonge Street and Eglinton Road West for up to five days at a time, and up to 150 people to use the tent site as a shelter. Mayor John Tory said in September he favoured letting people park in the area, to keep people off Yonge and Finch, but said the city was considering options to discourage camping in the area.
City manager Peter Wallace has said the city will not take action to ticket