This paper summarizes the preliminary findings of a study on the enforcement of the Prince George Safe Streets Bylaw, covering a period of 44 months from January 1, 2022, to September 1, 2025.
Executive Summary
- While some progress has been made since 2022—with minor reductions in moving people out of the area, the seizure and destruction of personal belongings and shelter, and the use of prejudicial language by bylaw officers in handling complaints—currently, the Safe Streets Bylaw is still recklessly enforced against unhoused people based on their social and economic status.
- Enforcement of the Safe Streets Bylaw is driven by a customer service model, where complaints are not vetted or triaged; thus, the majority people encountered by bylaw officers as they respond to complaints are coercively displaced from public spaces, even if they are compliant or have not committed a bylaw offence.
- The open drug use section of the Safe Streets Bylaw is dubiously enacted and a public health hazard, particularly given BC’s ongoing Public Health Emergency related to drug market toxicity. The city should put an immediate moratorium on its enforcement and consult immediately with the health board and/or Medical Health Officer, per its legal obligations under the Community Charter, Public Health Regulations, and Public Health Act.
- Enforcement of the Safe Streets Bylaw pertaining to reports about squatter-fires is confusing and inconsistent, raising critical questions—especially with the risk that first responders to potentially dangerous fires are not being notified, as they should be.
- Increasingly, bylaw enforcement has little to no connection to social-service, frontline, or outreach services or agencies during encounters and sometimes deprives street-involved people of critical first-responder aid.