Summer dispatch: Could Prince George have a Calgary-style water shortage? And some thoughts on shoplifting and homeless camp fires

Plus: Urban reserve, Montreal police make an arrest in town, and other items to catch up on

Happy summer solstice, everyone!

As I said, while I am taking a break from daily newsletters, I did not commit to there being no newsletters until the fall. And there’s been enough happening that I wanted to check in. Here goes!

What’s going on with the fires in Moccasin Flats?

Over the course of just two weeks, there were seven structure fires in Moccasin Flats that completely decimated the shelters they burned, which included some of the tiny homes that had been built by volunteers over the winter. Given that for years we have been hearing from officials the warnings that homeless encampments are prone to fires as people use heating or cooking devices in tents or shelters they aren’t meant for, I think you could be forgiven for assuming that, while sad, there is not much more to be said on this topic. But to his credit, fire chief Cliff Warner did draw attention to the fact that there may be more to the situation in a series of interviews with local media, starting with, I believe, the Prince George Citizen:

“It’s certainly an odd number of units (being burnt) in a short period of time,” said Prince George Fire Rescue Chief Cliff Warner. “It would seem there’s something odd going on, for sure.”

Working off of interviews conducted by my colleague Nicole Oud, I reported a little more deeply on this for CBC:

Over the course of two weeks, from May 27 to June 10, seven shelters were destroyed in five separate fires in the Moccasin Flats homeless encampment, according to city records.

One fire was caused by an "improperly installed heating device," during that time, said Fire Chief Cliff Warner.

But in the seven other cases, "the damage was such that they [the shelters] were mostly destroyed," he said, making it "difficult to even determine where they started."

Though there isn't enough evidence to classify the fires as having been deliberately set, Warner noted the intensity and frequency of the fires is something he would consider "abnormal" and inconsistent with what would be expected if the causes were simply heating or cooking fires getting out of control.

"It's almost a fire every second day, give or take," he said.

Phillip Fredriksson, a volunteer who helped build some of the shelters that have since been destroyed, was more blunt about the situation, basing his beliefs on conversations he said he'd had with people living in the camp: "These aren't accidental," he said.

"People are taking advantage of other people in vulnerable positions."

The fire chief said he has received "anecdotal" information suggesting the fires were deliberately set, "but unless we can prove it unequivocally, we will never go down that path."

However, Warner said that the scale of and damage from the fires was beyond what would be consistent with fires started by shelter residents for heating or cooking.

"The rate at which the fires spread [and] the way they're burning is odd," he said.

While Warner isn’t committing to arson — there simply isn’t enough information for him to draw that conclusion — he is also pointedly not ruling it out, either. He says there isn’t really the ability to investigate based on the extent of the burns and the nature of where the fires are happening, and RCMP say they aren’t looking into anything, either, though they didn’t give any reason (however, I will posit that generally police won’t launch an arson investigation without supporting evidence from fire officials). And it may well be that there is simply nothing to do about this, but that still doesn’t sit quite right with councillor Trudy Klassen, in the same article:

"If this was happening in any other neighbourhood, we would almost be in an emergency situation," she said.

"I don't think any area of our city, regardless of the type of housing people are living in, should have people living in fear, and I'm afraid it's kind of devolved into that kind of situation."

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A Montreal murder suspect is arrested by Montreal police in a Prince George motel

I always forget that police from other jurisdictions are actually able to make arrests in Prince George — usually it’s someone from one of the Lower Mainland police forces doing it, if it does happen — so somewhat surprising to learn that the Service de police de la ville de Montréal were in town carrying out a raid the Econolodge on Victoria and 9th, with the support of RCMP, in a pretty high profile murder case:

Christopher Shawn Jean Vilsaint, a.k.a. Dirty S, died after being shot several times while walking to a recording studio on May 14, according to Radio-Canada. The 27-year-old was known to police for being associated with street gangs.

Suspects quickly fled in a vehicle before police arrived, according to the Service de police de la ville de Montréal (SPVM).

On Wednesday, CBC News was on scene as several police vehicles surrounded a motel in Prince George and arrested a man in connection with Vilsaint's death. 

The 31-year-old suspect will be sent to Montreal in the coming days to be charged with first-degree murder, according to police.

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Grocery store demand

Last week, the new Buy-Low foods opened in Parkwood Mall, bringing a grocery store back to a part of town that threatened to be something of a food desert, as I reported way back in 2021. This is where the people least likely to be able to afford a Costco membership or have a car to get themselves to Wal-Mart are likely to live, and there were long lines the day the store opened, as documented here and reported by many on social media.

And then, a few days after the opening, RCMP put out this release:

On Friday, June 14, 2024, Prince George RCMP responded to a report of shoplifting at a grocery store on the 1600-block of 15 Avenue, just 40 minutes after the grocery store opened its doors for the first time.

Over the next three days, police officers responded to twelve reports of shoplifting at the retail location, involving a total of thirteen people and representing just over $450 in stolen merchandise.

While most of the thefts were for small dollar value items, several people attempted to steal larger amounts of merchandise and were arrested by police. Two people were arrested and released on Undertakings with conditions not to return to the store and one person was held in custody until he could attend court. Charges of possession of a weapon, theft under $5000 and fail to comply with a release order have been approved in that particular investigation, states Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, Media Relations Officer for the Prince George RCMP.

Prince George RCMP officers will continue to support the efforts of the loss prevention officers as they work to curb incidents of theft at the new store.

Many of the suspects identified were previously known to police.

And look, I am not defending shoplifting. I do not know the circumstances or reasons for any of these attempted thefts. But I think it is worth being straightforward about this, too: This is downtown, which is one of the most low-income parts of town, and also the one with the most visible signs of poverty, alongside some of the highest rates of reported crime. These attempted thefts at a grocery store come as food bank use in the city has doubled. I’m not faulting the police for doing the job of stopping people from stealing, nor am I defending the specifics of any attempted shoplifters — I have no idea that they were trying to steal a loaf of bread to feed their family, as the parable goes. BUT I think we need to be able to hold these things in our head together, the ever-rising cost of living, and the demand for food that people cannot otherwise afford, along with the stories of food theft and ask ourselves whether the latter can truly be tackled without addressing the former, much the same way we need to ask whether we can stop fires at homeless camps without addressing the underlying reasons homeless camps exist in the first place. It’s difficult, but it needs to be done if we truly care about this stuff, I think.

Also, this is as good a place as any to make note of this report from Global: 12-year-old Indigenous girls handcuffed in Prince George over box of crackers.

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Prince George ready to convert part of downtown into reserve land

Another story from me for CBC News:

The city of Prince George, B.C. is supporting a proposal to convert a portion of its downtown core into urban reserve land under the ownership of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation.

On the evening of June 12, council voted 7-1 to write a letter of support for the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation's proposal to Indigenous Services Canada.

If the bid is successful, two locations will become reserve land — the Nation's administration office on Brunswick Street and the Uda Dune Baiyoh, or  House of Ancestors conference centre and parking lot on Vancouver Street, as well as the adjacent parking lot, covering a total of 6,150 square metres.

It would make Prince George — located roughly 500 kilometres straight north of Vancouver  —  the latest in a series of more than 120 municipalities across Canada, including Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Fort St. John, to embrace the concept of urban reserves as a way of moving forward in their relationship with local First Nations.

The article goes on to cite several past stories of urban reserves being built elsewhere in Canada — this is by no means a new or untested concept.

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Is Prince George at-risk of a Calgary-style water shortage

In case you missed it, Calgary has declared a state of local emergency after a water main broke, leading to weeks (and possibly months!) of water shortages and rationing in the city.

As a person who has a huge amount of interest in municipal infrastructure this is what people mean when they say local government is the most important level of government! This is why city planners are always warning about the need to pay attention to the boring stuff going on underground. And it’s why I’ve been wondering — could it happen here? After all, we’ve had our own infrastructure issues over the years with warnings about the need to replace aging pipes and such.

Happily, the good folks at the Current had an interview about exactly what went wrong in Calgary and whether other cities could be impacted. As summarized in this article:

In an interview with CBC Radio's The Current on Tuesday, Bell explained the Bearspaw south feeder main is a prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP), which is a composite pipe material made primarily out of concrete.

"Most of our pipes were made of a single material, like cast iron, or steel, or maybe slightly reinforced concrete up until about World War II when we needed steel for the war effort," said Bell. 

To explain the layers of this PCCP, he says concrete is first cast with a thin steel cylinder inside of it, and that steel cylinder exists as a membrane to keep the water inside the the pipe. Then, it's wrapped with incredibly high-strength steel wires, which Bell says is "about four to five times stronger than the steel can that's on the inside of it."

It's those steel wires that determine the structural capacity of the pipe.

"Those steel wires over time developed some metallurgical problems, and in particular, the pipes manufactured from about 1960 to 1980 have a greater amount of problems than the other pipes outside of that [time period]."

So what happened with those pipes?

Bell says some parameters were changed in the manufacturing process around that time that made the pipes "less robust."

"Now what we're dealing with is these pipes are 40 to 50 years old, they're maturing and they're interacting with the environment, they're deteriorating and they're having problems," he said.

"It's not uncommon for this era of pipe."

That time period of 1960 to 1980 kind of sent alarm bells off in my head, since that’s when much of our city growth also took place (though it was also pretty robust from 1940 to 1960). Fortunately, though, it looks like we’re in the clear. I found a 2014 report on the city’s water services that included a helpful breakdown of the material used to make all our pipes and PCCP does not appear on the list:

Which doesn’t mean we’re completely in the clear — the report notes that much of our existing infrastructure is — or was, at the time it was written a decade ago — nearing its end-of-life with a cost of millions to replace. I am aware some of that work is going on though I haven’t looked in detail to determine if it’s being done at the same rate as recommended in order to avoid problems. Still! This is at least part of the reason we have higher taxes, there’s kilometers and kilometers of pipe that needs to be replaced.

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Here’s some photos I took

Shirt is at Homework. The little OH guy is popping up everywhere.

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News roundup:

• B.C. Government Defends Deals to Buy Prince George Hotels.

• Reports from the trial of two Prince George Mounties accused of obstruction of justice: Judge rules for the prosecution on a key piece of evidence; ‘I Didn’t Want to Get Arrested’ witness testifies.

• Jail time for former Elizabeth Fry manager guilty of $240K fraud.

• Ribbon cut on women’s transitional housing project 20 years in the making.

• City of PG asking for public feedback on future of University Heights park.

• Feasibility of new pathway to be looked at along Highway 97 in Hart area of PG.

• City to undergo review of parking downtown and near UHNBC.

• Lheidli T'enneh musician records children's songs in her ancestral languages.

• Language is the core of Lheidli T'enneh culture, says Chief Dolleen Logan.

• Rain helps ease drought.

• The College Heights dog park is open.

• RCMP seek suspect in Vanderhoof Pride vandalism.

• Local student's essay to hang at National War Museum.

• Reflecting on winter duck feeding at Cottonwood Island Park.

• Cirque du Soleil is coming to Prince George (again).

• 375 km walk for MMIW nearing its halfway point.

• Music and more for National Indigenous Peoples Day this Friday.

• Little Prince, Roll A Dome, Farmers' Market, Hart Ski Hill, and CN Rail yard raised as possibilities for Prince George heritage registry.

• PGSS class celebrates 50th reunion. Also, honouring the Willow River Eight.

• ‘Our Blood Counts’ project aims to bring blood donor centre back to Northern B.C.

• Enbridge proposes natural gas expansion work within Regional District of Fraser Fort-George.

• Community-led search underway for missing Jack Family.

• Acoustic pop duo LooPS at Deadfall Brewing June 27.

• New Crones single, with a show coming up on July 11.

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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.