Halifax's Grand Parade, the traditional site of the Royal Canadian Legion's Remembrance Day ceremony, on Nov. 7.The Globe and Mail
Halifax’s historic military parade square is usually filled with thousands of people on Remembrance Day. The public gathering place in the heart of the city is host to the Royal Canadian Legion’s flagship service, where members from the largest military base in the country have assembled for decades, and veterans and dignitaries have laid rows of ribboned wreaths around the nearly century-old cenotaph.
But this year, amid a worsening housing crisis here and across the country, only tents will encircle the cenotaph at Grand Parade this Saturday.
The Royal Canadian Legion is relocating its official Remembrance Day ceremony in Halifax to prevent disrupting the growing encampment of unhoused people living in tents in the square.
Grand Parade is one of several public parks and green spaces the city of Halifax recently designated for tent encampments amid a dramatic increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness and sleeping rough.
It was a difficult decision to relocate the city’s ceremony and combine it with a service in Dartmouth, said Craig Hood, executive director of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Nova Scotia-Nunavut Command. But, he added, it was made to respect the dignity of the people living in tents who find themselves without a home.
“We’re not going to disturb or uproot people that found themselves in hard times amidst a national housing crisis,” Mr. Hood said in an interview.
“We find ourselves in unprecedented times and sometimes we need to adjust what are typically our norms to accommodate things.”
A designated tent site for those experiencing homelessness near the cenotaph in Grand Parade on Nov. 7. The Royal Canadian Legion is relocating its official Remembrance Day service to prevent disrupting the encampment of unhoused people living in tents in the square.The Globe and Mail
At one end of Grand Parade is City Hall and at the other end is St. Paul’s Anglican Church, the oldest standing Protestant church in Canada – both National Historic Sites. In the centre is the war memorial built in 1929 to commemorate those who died during the First World War.
Nova Scotia has a long military history, with the capital city serving as a naval base and a strategic port for overseas troops during the First and Second World Wars. The city is also home to Canadian Forces Base Halifax, the largest military base in the country, with 7,500 military members.
As long as he can remember, Mayor Mike Savage said the official Remembrance Day ceremony has been held at the cenotaph in the downtown square, but he said he supports the legion’s decision to move it. “It’s a shame that it’s not going to be here at Grand Parade,” he said. “It’s a historic place and it’s a place where people should be able to come and meet and greet each other.”
But at the same time, he said, encampments should not be hidden out of sight. “These are not unpatriotic Canadians. These are not people who don’t care. They’re just folks who don’t have a place to live. I would like to see Grand Parade clear of tents but it should only happen once people have a better place to live.”
Canada urgently needs to increase housing supply and transitional supports for veterans, report says
Angela Deal, 41, has been living in a tent in the downtown square for the past seven weeks, after losing her Halifax-area apartment.
“I’ve had a really hard time through the shelter system and I’ve had a really hard time finding affordable housing,” she said through the opening of her tent next to the cenotaph. “I never imagined it would be this hard.”
For the first time in her life, she is sleeping rough, staying warm by using a small heater, three sleeping bags and a protective tarp. She spends her days trying to survive, finding somewhere to brush her teeth, reaching out to social workers and navigating how to qualify for a housing subsidy. “It’s sad. Someone like me shouldn’t be in this position,” she said.
Mr. Savage called for the province, which is responsible for housing, to open a winter shelter in downtown Halifax where more than 50 people are living in tents in Victoria Park and Grand Parade.
But the province says the recently announced winter shelter across the harbour in north Dartmouth is intended to serve the entire municipality, in addition to 194 other existing shelter beds.
Contractors remove a tent deemed abandoned and its contents at the cenotaph site.The Globe and Mail
Expected to open “in the next week or so,” the new shelter can double its capacity based on community need and extreme weather, and is accessible via multiple transit routes, said Department of Community Services spokesperson Christina Deveau. The province is also planning to build 100 pallet shelters – small prefabricated homes – as temporary housing for people sleeping rough though there is no timeline yet on when they will be available.
“We believe that this shelter space will help meet the needs of the community in conjunction with the pallet shelters,” Ms. Deveau wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Savage said he hopes other coming public events at Grand Parade, including the Christmas tree lighting concert on Nov. 25 and the Menorah lighting and celebration of Hanukkah on Dec. 7, will still be able to go ahead this year.