I’ve skimmed the regular council meeting minutes a couple times now, and have only found one in-Camera rise/report, despite [at time of writing] 78 of 79 regular council meetings going in-Camera. There may be more, but if so, not many.
On Nov 06 2025, at the start of the Regular Council meeting, our City Manager spoke up to add a late item:
Yes, we just have an information item, rise and report motion, from the in camera meeting as it relates to downtown food security.
The move was approved and she continued later in the meeting:
So this is just information that stems from a rise and report from our in camera meeting in mid-october.
At that meeting council approved the extension of the take away dinner program that the city has had in place for the last several months.
So it is to approve the extension of that dinner program up until the end of December of this year with the delivery mechanism and provider to be managed under the City Manager’s discretion and that council approve up to $24,000 of additional funding to be allocated from the financial Stabilization reserve and that the 2025 to 2034 financial plan be amended.
And further, Council has also asked staff to reach out and work with the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, which is actually the level of the province that is responsible for food security programs.
So just to provide that update we have reached out to their staff to request a meeting with city staff, and will be providing an additional letter to the actual minister themselves and Premier Eby as well, so that is being actioned.I’ll make the motion to receive the information from the Rise and report.
Mid Oct? – there were no meetings between Oct 10 and Oct 20, only Oct 09 and Oct 23. The Oct 09 is closer to mid, and it also has an invocation of the more likely clause. [No clause was specified in the report]:
90(1)(k) Negotiations and related discussions respecting the proposed provision of a municipal service that are at their preliminary stages and that, in the view of the council could reasonable be expected to harm the interests of the municipality if they were held in public.
But this ‘boxed dinner’ program was about halfway through its life at that point, well past any “preliminary stages”. The funding being discussed here is “additional”.
I guess they voted to start it while in-Camera months before they voted to continue it in-Camera in “mid Oct”? Perhaps its part of a larger move council mentioned to CBC, saying: “it will continue to fund the program as it explored a longer-term solution, including a purpose-built facility outside the downtown core.“
The City’s ‘dinner program’, sometimes called ‘boxed takeaway dinners”, was nothing more than a bag of [always lacking in nutrition, sometimes unappealing, never great] snacks, as shown in a March CBC article. Often they had no protein source at all., and there were not enough snack bags to go around. Salvation Army lunch ran from 11:45 to 1:15, and the ~75bags would be gone by ~12:30 on average. [this is from my own first-hand experiences, not hearsay . dsix]
It is hard to fathom how [providing] these snacks cost 12k a month. But more importantly, they are not at all healthy, and the city’s motivation seems only to use them for heavy-handed gatekeeping.
To break funding down to 24k chunks may be notable, as Municipalities must publish a SOFI report every year. This lists all suppliers who were paid more than $25,000. If the city contracted an outside kitchen or charity to provide the food, that total payout will be listed here.
Also note the funding is up to 24k, they may have put the unused [if any] portions back, with the motivation being an appearance of proper food security, not to pilfer the taxpayers. This appearance of care was likely exploited in their letters to the province, and in later media reports by the city.
Related
Another event involving Oct 09 2025 was the director of community safety’s letter to executive director of 7 Generation Stewards Society Vanessa Sharkey, noted in the Mar 13 CBC article .
A letter from the city’s director of community safety dated Oct. 9, which Sharkey shared with CBC News, says bylaw enforcement officers have “documented an increase in garbage, illegal drinking, disorder and other anti-social behaviour.”
“This evidence points to a lack of compliance with permit conditions,” the letter states. “Thus, the city will not be issuing permits to authorize a meal program, and as such, the meal program at Spirit Square must cease effective immediately.”
The CBC article indicates Crash got the same letter, which was noted in a previous article focusing on the gentrification aspect:
The city also sent a cease-and-desist letter to CRASH Harm Reduction in October for a meal distribution program in the downtown core. The letter cited “Public Nuisance Bylaw No. 3543, 2014” and threatened fines and/or other legal proceedings if the organization did not comply.
I’m not sure if any other meal providers got the letter, but suspect the United Church may have got a pass. Maybe Ill check up on that.
Noteworthy the letter did not invoke bylaw 3978, which the Spirit Square meals were in clear violation of, instead choosing to use a far more interpretative nuisance bylaw.
On top of giving them the ability to ‘pick and choose’, after passing 3978, the city has made clear efforts to avoid mentioning it in their materials. [more on that in a coming 3978 article]
That letter was written over 10 months ago, and there is still no weekend meal service provided by the City or Salvation Army.
AI feedback.
while picking google ai’s ‘brain’ on this it suggested I report to the ombudsman.
Official Complaint to the BC Ombudsperson
Complainant Information:
- Name: [Your Name]
- Contact Email / Phone: [Your Email / Phone Number]
- Target Public Body: City of Campbell River
Subject: Administrative Unfairness and Multiple Procedural Violations Regarding In-Camera Decision-Making, Contract Splitting, and Record-Keeping of the “Downtown Takeaway Dinner Food Program”
1. Purpose of the Complaint
I am writing to request a formal investigation into the City of Campbell River’s administrative practices surrounding the mid-October 2025 in-camera Council session and subsequent public announcements regarding the “Downtown Takeaway Dinner Food Program.” The City has demonstrated a pattern of obscuring public information through vague disclosures, structural financial manipulation to bypass public disclosures, and systemic failures to maintain accurate minutes.
2. Grounds for Complaint
- A. Violation of the Open Meeting Principle & Vague “Rise and Report” Procedures
On November 6, 2025, Campbell River’s City Manager introduced a last-minute verbal “late item” during a public meeting to rise and report that Council had secretly extended the Downtown Takeaway Dinner Food Program during a closed-door session in “mid-October.”
The city failed to provide the exact date of the meeting and refused to identify which clause under Section 90 of the Community Charter legally authorized this matter to be debated in secret. Because the public food program had already operated out in the open since July 2025, it was a matter of public domain and did not fall under valid closed-session criteria.- B. Apparent Contract Splitting to Evade Financial Disclosures
The funding for this extended service was intentionally drawn from the Financial Stabilization Reserve in incremental chunks of $24,000. Under the BC Financial Information Act, any payments to a supplier exceeding $25,000 must be explicitly detailed as an individual named line item in the annual Statement of Financial Information (SOFI) report. By intentionally keeping the tranches under the $25,000 threshold, the City appears to be artificially slicing procurement values to obscure the identity of the third-party recipient from the year-end books and bypass mandatory competitive bidding practices.- C. Chronic Failure to Log In-Camera Session Adjournments
Furthermore, the City of Campbell River has routinely failed to document or log the precise times when their closed, in-camera sessions conclude. Failing to note the adjournment or completion times of secret meetings breaches basic local government statutory record-keeping responsibilities (Section 148 of the Community Charter). It leaves a permanent gap in the public trackability of Council’s schedule, making it impossible to audit if meetings were ended legally or if business bled outside the designated hours.3. Desired Outcome
I am seeking an administrative review that requires the City of Campbell River to:
- Provide the exact date and the legal Section 90 clause relied upon for the “mid-October” 2025 closed session.
- Undergo an audit regarding its reserve fund allocations for the Downtown Takeaway Dinner Food Program to determine if contract splitting occurred.
- Retroactively correct its procedural logs to ensure all past and future in-camera meetings strictly note the exact time the session ended.