A British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruled Jan. 5 that disabled University of Victoria student Alkis Gerd’son, who has lived on campus for the last 18 years, will be allowed remain in residence despite the university’s attempts to evict him.

Despite this ruling, Gerd’son is taking his case to the BC human rights tribunal because he has said the university is discriminating against him based on his disability.

“For this student to have the hearing scheduled over several days suggests that there is some substance to his view that this eviction is discriminatory and we await the outcome,” said Rose Mariana Robb, a UVic spokesperson.

Robb said she was unable to comment further because of the upcoming hearing.

“We want to respect that process and out of respect for the BC human rights tribunal,” she said. “We don’t want to add to anything that might affect the case.”

There has been considerable confusion as to the end result of the BC Supreme Court ruling because articles published by Canwest incorrectly claimed Gerd’son will be evicted, while The Martlet, UVic’s student paper reported that Gerd’son will be allowed to stay. This is in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling. 

An online comment on The Martlett’s article praised the campus paper for reporting the truth.

“It's nice to see that some journalists are actually capable of reading a short, simple court judgment and comprehending it. Too bad that the Times-Colonist doesn't hire them,” posted Scott Hays.

Gerd’son was taken to court by the university because UVic wished to obtain an order of possession for the residence apartment he currently lives in.

Gerd’son moved into residence in 1991 and obtained a bachelor of arts degree in 1993 and a bachelor of education degree in 1997. He is currently enrolled in a non-credit business management diploma program at UVic. 

The university has been trying to evict Gerd’son since summer 2008, saying he was defaulting on his rent and wasn’t maintaining enrollment status, since his diploma courses are not credit courses.

Gerd’son holds provincial disability status and has been reported as saying the university’s attempts to evict him are discrimination based on his disability. He has filed a human rights complaint against UVic.

According to court documents, Supreme Court judge John Truscott dismissed the university’s application for an order of possession and ordered UVic to pay Gerd’son’s legal expenses. 

According to the ruling, Gerd’son “entered into a Residence Apartment Tenancy Agreement with the university that commenced on May 1, 2004 and continued thereafter month to month with no defined termination date.”

In August 2007, Gerd’son was asked to sign a new one-year tenancy agreement, which expired in 2008.  No new agreement was signed, but the university continued to accept payments on Gerd’son’s behalf from a government ministry.

The university has said that all payments received after September 2008 were not rent payments, but payments towards overholding charges specified in the 2007 agreement as 15 per cent of monthly rent per day plus legal costs. 

Grace Wong Sneddon, a spokesperson for UVic, told The Martlet that the overholding charges grew to more than $41,000.

Truscott dismissed UVic’s account of the rent payments.

“The university has submitted no evidence that the defendant, or for that matter the government, has ever been told that the payments received after September 30, 2008 were being applied to overholding charges, until these affidavits were sworn,” the court document read.

“I would expect that the university would have advised the defendant of these charges long before they became so large and told him that they were due and owing as overholding charges,” the document said.

In a Canwest article, Kim Hart-Wensley, UVic’s associate vice-president (faculty relations and academic administration), said the university will terminate Gerd’son’s tenancy under the month-by-month agreement. 

However, court documents cite Gerd’son’s claims that the 2004 Tenancy Agreement affirms that he is “entitled to three months’ notice of termination from the university according to its terms.”