Some Whitehorse NGOs 'very pleased' with court decision striking down SCAN Act evictions

Some Whitehorse community organizations are hailing a recent court decision striking down short-notice evictions under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act as a victory for vulnerable and marginalized people in the territory.

Yukon Supreme Court Chief Justice Suzanne Duncan ruled in a 75-page decision last week that section 3(2) of the act, often referred to as "SCAN," was unconstitutional. The section allowed for evictions to take place with five days' notice, something Duncan found could cause extreme distress to the level that it amounted to a violation of the Charter right to security of the person.

"We're very pleased to see this ruling I think we all want to live in safe and inclusive communities and SCAN was not creating safety," Blood Ties Four Directions executive director Jill Aalhus said in an interview with CBC News.

"We saw that it was causing harm to individuals and pushing people into homelessness and sort of perpetuating a cycle that was really harmful for the full community."

Blood Ties was one of four organizations that filed affidavits in support of a legal challenge of SCAN evictions that Whitehorse woman Celia Wright brought forward in December 2020 after being the subject of one herself.

The SCAN Act allows for people with concerns about the impact of illicit activities on community safety and enjoyment, including drug trafficking, bootlegging and child sexual exploitation, to complain to a government-operated unit that can then investigate the complaints and attempt to resolve the situations.

The unit is separate from police and the criminal justice system.

SCAN investigators served Wright with a five-day eviction notice on Dec. 9, 2020, after complaints about drug activity at her rental property in Whitehorse's Cowley Creek subdivision. The eviction applied not just to Wright who, along with her spouse, had been arrested on drug trafficking charges earlier that year but the entire property, on which Wright's eight children, the youngest of whom was 15 months old at the time, and her elderly mother-in-law also lived.

Aalhus said Blood Ties had often heard from clients who lost housing in a similar fashion, where, for example, they were evicted under SCAN because they were roommates with someone accused of illicit activity despite not being involved in the activity themselves.

"We've seen that lead to many people spiraling into more chaotic or problematic substance use, increased risk of overdose, more violence that they're victims of [It has] really negative impacts on mental and physical health and on relationships and connections to supports," she said.

'We are very relieved and excited'

The Yukon Status of Women Council (YSWC), Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition, and Safe at Home Society also provided affidavits speaking out against SCAN evictions and their impacts.

YSWC executive director Rae Lamache said she was happy to hear about the decision.

"We are very relieved and excited," she said.

"We know that it's going to have a significant impact for the women in the Yukon who have had this leveraged to get them to be evicted from their homes with only five days notice, often with their families as well."

Lamache said women doing sex work were particularly affected as "prostitution" is one of the activities the SCAN unit can investigate, despite selling sex being legal in Canada.

"It does feel like this is one more important step on the road towards decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work in the territory," Lamache said.

While both Lamache and Aalhus described the decision as a positive step, they also said a host of other changes are still needed to truly improve community safety, including increasing safe and affordable housing options, improving access to health care, and shifts in drug policy.

Expedite SCAN review, MLAs say

Meanwhile, leaders of the Yukon's opposition parties both said the decision underlined the need for the territorial government to expedite its review of the SCAN Act, which began last year.

Yukon Party MLA and justice critic Brad Cathers said the act has proven to be a valuable tool for "combating illegal activities in Yukon communities" particularly, drug-dealing and that he believed there was urgency to ensure it "remains fair, legal, keeps community safe and reflects the current challenges."

"It's vitally important that law enforcement have the appropriate set of legal tools to go after those drug dealers, to shut down their operations," he said.

NDPLeader Kate White also emphasized the need for the SCAN review.

"With this recent court decision, I think Yukon has a lot of thinking to do about what the future looks like," she said.

Justice department spokesperson Francis Lefebvre wrote in an email Tuesday that the review was ongoing, and that the government was "reviewing the court's decision in detail." He also said that no SCAN evictions had taken place since Wright's case in 2020.

Ten Yukon First Nations have SCAN agreements in place with the Yukon government, including Kwanlin Dn First Nation. The First Nation's justice director Terri Cairns told CBC News that the striking of the eviction section doesn't affect Kwanlin Dn's "overall partnership" with the SCAN unit or "the work we do."