Boarded up windows aren't too difficult to find in downtown Prince George, as business owners across the province continue to raise concerns surrounding crime and public safety.

By Tommy Osborne

Save our Streets

Canadians paying hundreds of dollars a year in “theft tax”

Mar 12, 2026 | 4:28 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – According to a report from the Save our Streets Organization, Canadians are paying an annual “theft tax” of $590 due to retail theft, violence, and vandalism. The organization’s Co-founder Jess Ketchum says this is because damages and costs incurred through theft often have to get passed down to the consumer in order to keep a business profitable.

“The Retail Council of Canada has estimated that to recover that you would need to have additional revenue of over $36 billion. And that doesn’t even include $1 billion in lost taxation revenue. Retailers are also spending a lot of additional money on security, and it’s estimated again by the Retail Council that’s about $2 billion a year. We use the $590 figure, but the Retail Council would tell you that it’s even more than that when you take into consideration the lost revenue to the government, which also cost the taxpayer,” Ketchum said.

Save our Streets says organized crime is playing a bigger role than you may think in retail theft, as Ketchum explains there is often a system in place to recruit individuals.

“You have organized crime groups who are going out enticing local people, many of them suffering from addiction and mental illnesses, to go and do the crimes on their behalf. So they’re going to the stores, and that’s why you get people going into stores or walking out with shopping carts full of high-end, high-class products,” Ketchum said.

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“These people are going and doing those crimes, bringing it back, providing the goods to the people they’re reporting to, the organized crime, who then have the job of fencing that on to the end user,” he continued.

In Prince George, downtown business owner John Zukowski says the last couple of weeks have been quieter on the crime front, but unfortunately years of public disorder have conditioned Prince George businesses to be on consistent high-alert.

“It’s one of those things of when it’s quiet, we really get worried, because that usually means a shoe is going to fall and something outrageous is going to happen,” Zukowski said.

While Zukowski says things have been quieter, he added that recent months have been “more of the same,” adding “we haven’t seen a dramatic change in anything.” One of his biggest recent concerns has to do with the ongoing toxic drug crisis, especially considering recent alerts from Northern Health.

“The sirens are prolific. Every day there’s sirens, especially around the time cheques come out,” Zukowski said.

In a recent Save Our Streets Survey, 87% said addiction and mental illnesses contribute significantly to crime and public safety issues, so Ketchum says addressing this must be a top priority.

“You would remove so much of the crime and violence and public disorder that we see on the streets of Prince George today, if you were able to take that component, that segment of the criminal activity, the people that are committing these crimes, off the street. And that means getting them into proper treatment and recovery, and we don’t have those facilities available as we need them,” Ketchum says.

Another priority for Ketchum is repeat offenders, specifically when it comes to repeat offenders of what may be considered minor crimes. He wants theft over $5,000 to be accumulative, so that the total amount of goods stolen could beat the threshold needed for charges.

“All of a sudden, there’s greater opportunity for incarceration, or attention on that individual who’s created all those crimes,” Ketchum said.

“We also believe that people should be encouraged to go into treatment and recovery, and maybe we use a tool where they can avoid going into jail if they go into treatment and recovery. We think that’s a reasonable thing to ask government and provide one route to not only help these people get into recovery, but to stop the crime that we see on the streets,” Ketchum continued.

Save Our Streets is a coalition of 120-plus community and business organizations representing British Columbia businesses all across the province.