A meeting between School District 57 and Ness Lake Bible Camp was "promising and positive" said the school board chair but the camp's administration is keeping quiet on the scope of its new policies as they get finalized.
Tony Cable received an update from the school district's inclusivity committee on Tuesday about the Monday meeting with officials from One Hope Canada Ministries - the organization which runs the camp.
"I think the thing that came through loud and clear was that Ness Lake had a real desire to be cooperative and work with the school district and come up with something that would work," Cable said.
One Hope Canada Ministries, flew in a representative to take part, sharing two confidential drafts, including the new discrimination and harassment prevention policy.
Spokesman Chandler Epp said the camp is now working on revisions after the inclusivity committee's input and would not comment on any details.
"They're still in flux," said Epp, adding the policies will be made public at an upcoming board meeting, but didn't know when.
"I'd rather not say something that could change tomorrow as we're working through everything with our team."
Epp said the camp is confident it can work within the school district's guidelines, but couldn't say if the cases that prompted community push-back could happen again.
"As far as we're concerned the policies we're adopting will fully align with the school district's nondiscrimination policies," he said.
"As far as we know there's never been an instance of discrimination at the camp and now we're working to improve our policies so that remains the case moving forward."
Not quite. If Ness Lake Bible Camp weren't a religious organization, the refusal to allow a person to speak on gender or removal as a volunteer for expressed support of LGBTQ rights would be against the law as discrimination under the B.C. Human Rights Code, but religious organizations are granted certain exemptions.
Epp couldn't say whether - if in its dealings with secular organizations like the school district or Rotary - its policies would forego those exemptions.
In the past, two policies have proved problematic: the camp's statement of affirmation, a code of conduct that says employees must "avoid conduct that is unethical or immoral and to avoid behaviour that is contrary to biblical principles," including "premarital, extramarital, or homosexual relationships;" and its rental agreement, which says teaching materials or activities can't conflict with One Hope's faith.
Most of the work has been done on the discrimination at the statement of faith, rather than the rental agreement, Epp said.
For the time being the district still won't book the facilities.
The district does "a considerable amount of business" with the camp through fall and spring trips, hall and gym bookings and end-of-year events and more, Cable said.
"The district will not change its direction to not use Ness Lake until we see the final revised documents and then we can go from there," said Cable.
"We have to make sure any LGBT students and also staff feel comfortable going out there."
But after the report from the inclusivity committee, Cable said it's heading in the right direction.
"(The inclusivity committee was) pleasantly surprised at Ness Lake's willingness to make changes and very pleased with the attitude and just the cooperative nature," said Cable, adding the camp has nice facilities and a good location for schools to access.
"We'd like to use it if we can resolve this issue."
