Abbotsford/Victoria – (Conservative Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman is calling out the NDP’s poorly planned approach, which gave residents zero notice and zero support during the necessary shutdown of the Cole Road rest stop.
“The NDP didn’t give these seniors and low-income residents so much as a knock on the door,” said Banman. “They woke up to locked bathrooms, no water, no power, no garbage disposal, and no plan. Residents now say they have no choice but to dump sewage into a fish-bearing stream because the government abruptly locked the sanitary dump without warning.”
Banman added that the NDP is showing blatant double standards: “If this were a homeless encampment of tents, BC Housing would be working to place people. I’ve called around, and in this situation, zero effort has been made.”
Banman said the NDP created the conditions for this crisis. “I’ve warned this government that no one should be living like this, but they haven’t enforced any rules,” he said. “Through misplaced compassion, they’ve allowed people to set up RVs never designed to be lived in 24/7. It’s dangerous, unsanitary, and unsafe.”
Banman said the zero-notice shutdown is reckless and incompetent. “You don’t just decide to shut a site down with zero notice, that’s insane behaviour,” he said. “You send people out, give them a timeline, and if they can’t find somewhere else, you help them find something suitable. That’s basic competence.”
He emphasized the broader failure: “The NDP has had eight years to come up with a real housing plan. Instead, they’ve failed everyone.”
Banman issued a final warning: “Before raw sewage ends up in the creek and we’re facing an environmental disaster, what is this government’s plan?”
