Vancouver rundown for Friday, February 20th,
2026. The B .C. Human Rights Tribunal has ordered
former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld
to pay $750 ,000 in a longstanding hate speech
complaint. Neufeld has been ordered to compensate
LGBTQ plus teachers for his public attacks on
gender identity education, something which the
tribunal says created a poisoned work environment.
The Chilliwack Teachers Association, along with
the BCTF, filed a complaint back in 2017. Other
news, contract negotiations continue despite
the BC Paramedics Union reaching that 97 % strike
mandate. The union says it hoped to announce
a tentative agreement at a noon -hour news conference
on Thursday. but a collective agreement has not
been reached. Essential service levels have been
set if strike action does go ahead. Well -known
community organizer and housing advocate Peter
Waldkirch plans to seek a one -city Vancouver
party nomination so he can run for Vancouver
City Council. Waldkirch says he wants to break
the status quo by focusing on growth and affordability.
The party is expected to announce its civic slate
in May. A snowmobiler has died in an avalanche
near Fernie in the Elk Valley. Search and Rescue
recovered the man's body on Wednesday, a day
after the avalanche. RCMP say the snowmobiler
was equipped with all the right gear. The forecast
calling for mainly cloudy skies on Friday, windy
at times, cloudy for Saturday, a few showers
on Sunday. For all the details on these local
Vancouver area stories along with those links