Prince George RCMP Superintendent Darin Rappel presented the RCMP's 2024 year in review to City Council

By Tommy Osborne

City Council Recap

City Council recap: RCMP year in review, more seniors housing on the way

Jan 13, 2025 | 10:37 PM

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PRINCE GEORGE – The first Prince George City Council meeting of 2025 saw several topics discussed, with the most prominent topic being the Prince George RCMP’s 2024 year in review.

Prince George RCMP Superintendent Darin Rappel discussed a wide variety of topics, with a breakdown of statistics being a big focus. While it’s not easy to speculate on why the numbers were the way they were in 2024, Rappel pointed to several promising stats like the file count steadily declining since 2021 and property offences seeing declines in 2024 compared to 2023. However, other stats, like the amount of charges forwarded to the Crown, and the prisoner count, saw notable increases in 2024 compared to 2023. While Rappel did not point to one specific conclusion, several City Councillors brought up the belief that the rise in both the prisoner count and charges speaks to the Crown letting repeat offenders be released too easily.

Involuntary care and mental health supports was another notable topic brought up during Rappel’s presentation, and Rappel pointed to several notable successes the RCMP has seen, such as HealthIM, a digital public safety system designed to support individuals suffering from mental health and substance abuse challenges in acute crisi. Rappel says this has seen great success across several levels of first responders, and it’s been so well received in Prince George that there are plans to expand across the rest of the province. As for involuntary care, Rappel said it could be a potential solution to getting people the care they need, as he has seen may instances of people who are frequently arrested, released, and arrested again, who he believes don’t belong in a prison cell. Rather, he says there are many cases like this where he believes these people would benefit from involuntary care.

Also discussed was a significant development change, as planned student housing on Ospika Boulevard has been allowed to change its plans to become seniors housing instead. There were several reasons behind why Council allowed the developers to change their plans, but among them was:

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City Council Recap

City Council recap: RCMP year in review, more seniors housing on the way

10h ago

• Housing reports show seniors housing is only growing in need, so this would address a key need.
• UNBC has plans to already address student housing.
• The plans as presented make sense financially for the City.
• Changes to how many international students are allowed in the country make student housing less of a need compared to before.

While this topic has come up in years past, with the City declining the developers’ request to switch from student to seniors housing twice in 2023, City Council said it was impressed with the level of work the developers did to bring forward a plan that makes sense for both the developers and the City, as well as the level of community engagement.

Other topics discussed included the formation of a committee to move forward with the City’s newly introduced Citizen Recognition Award program, as well as plans to send Mayor Simon Yu to Taipei, Taiwan to attend the Smart City Summit & Expo.

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