Community leaders say if people living in the bush don’t get housing and mental health support soon, it could happen again. “At the moment, it can happen again,” said peer support worker Kelly Morris. “It probably is. We just don’t hear it.” The community has been on edge, Morris says, since the three bodies were found Nov. 1, 2020, in the Whiskey Creek off-road area off Melrose Forest Service Road in rural Qualicum Beach. Kelly Morris says she’s trying to help people living “roughly” in the bush on the island’s highways from coastal communities that offer no shelters and long waits for drug treatment. (CHECK TV) Two of the bodies were inside a burned-out travel trailer. A fourth person was also injured. The RCMP has not provided any updates on its investigation or the names of the victims in two years. According to Sgt. Chris Manseau, the homicides remain under investigation by the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crimes Unit. At the time of the murders, Oceanside RCMP had said in a news release that investigators believed the crime was “an isolated incident between parties who were well known to each other” and that there was no ongoing danger to the public. Two of the bodies at the Whiskey Creek crime scene were found inside a burned trailer. (Czech News) Leanne Salter is the director of Electoral Area F in the Regional District of Nanaimo, which includes the off-road area where the bodies were found. He estimates about 40 people still live in bush camps in the Parksville-Qualicum area. “We have people living hard in many areas and certainly in my area,” he said. Morris, who works at Ocean Place in Parksville, says these encampments are rampant with crime and violence. “Out there, all bets are off,” he told CBC News. “It gives predators a way in because you’re out in the bush or no one can hear or see what’s going on.” Morris and Salter both say there is a desperate need for housing and mental health support, but nothing is available in the area.
Land intended for agriculture
Salter has a solution she believes could reduce the number of people living out of sight in the bush: allowing RVs to camp on former parcels of farmland. “How many RVs can you put on this land to have somewhere to live and not live in the bush?” About 20 percent of the land within Constituency F is designated as an Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), meaning it is a provincial zone where agriculture is encouraged and non-agricultural uses are restricted. A burned trailer near Whiskey Creek where two bodies were found in the area of a gravel pit. (CHECK TV) Salter says that these days, much of that land is empty. CBC News reached out to the provincial Department of Agriculture to ask if it would consider allowing ALR land to be used for non-agricultural uses, such as RVs. The ministry did not respond in time for publication. According to Salter, some landowners have allowed RVs on their property for years, including one property near where the Whiskey Creek homicides occurred that was home to six or seven RVs. “They had their own septic field. They had clean water,” he said. But the occupants of the RV were forced to leave after the improper use of the ALR was observed. “Where are they going? Because there’s nowhere for them to go. Maybe the bush,” Salter said. “That’s the cycle we’re in here.” He says if RVs were allowed to park on that land, it would increase security because the county would know who lived where as part of the rezoning process in order to provide utilities to the RVs.
