WRONGFUL EVICTION/PENTICTON

January 29, 2012 It was a phone call between two strangers but as I dialed the phone number I was confident my call would be welcomed. I saw a news story on television the night before. A single mom living in BC Housing evicted over a neighbours smoking. The smoke filtering into her children’s rooms had a definite effect on them. Doctors’ letters acknowledged this fact. Her complaint to the other tenant first, then to the landlord. The landlord then served an eviction notice. She was thinking, and rightly so, that the Residential Tenancy Branch would not uphold the eviction. She was wrong! The eviction ordered as a result of what was termed harassment of the other tenant. Liz Bourassa maintains this is not true. I offered my support and promised that I would do whatever I could to help right this wrong. My strategy is simple, a letter writing campaign to the MLA for Penticton, Premier Clark, Penticton Newspaper the Herald, my facebook wall asking that others flood BC Housing with letters of support for Liz Bourassa. In addition to this send letters to MLA’s, the Premiers office and anyone else who will listen. After an hour and a half on the phone I was able to understand that her attempts to resolve the situation fell on many deaf ears! I wasn’t surprised. I’ve heard it many times over the years. The absurdity was plain and simple. At a time when the Provincial government has spent 3 million dollars on a stop smoking campaign funded through health care how could this happen? The goal of this campaign is to prevent our health care dollars from needlessly being wasted as a result of smoking. I am quite puzzled by the irony of the situation. I f the government wants to spend your tax dollars on this then why has a government agency been allowed to ignore the rights of a person to not be exposed to this harmful toxin and all the health implications that it may present? Please join me in helping to get the attention of the government to re-visit this eviction and stop what is not only morally wrong but ethically wrong. The MLA for Pentiction is Bill Barisoff email to www.bc.gov.ca and follow the links to the MLA listings or email premier@gov.bc.ca. Liz has nowhere to move to and February 1st is a few days away. If you’d like to send an email of support direct to Liz Bourassa you can send it to: lizbourassa@hotmail.com Make a difference in someone’s life…be there…you and I can make a difference! Teal Quin legislativepoverty@gmail.com