Downtown Prince George

By Cheryl Jahn

Williams Lake

Williams Lake Council motion set aside

Mar 31, 2026 | 3:59 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – A Williams Lake City Councillor is fed up with all the crime in his community.

“There have been buildings that have been burnt down in Williams Lake, close to $5 to $8 million worth of businesses that have burnt down. We had Markey Mechanical burn down. We had a building with a warehouse burned down. There were five businesses inside that that burned down. They actually burned the back of the Hamilton, which is the old homeless shelter, down. And then they tried to burn down a telephone pole here about a week ago. They tried to burn down the gazebo in the park. They tried to burn our washrooms down at our parks,” said Councillor Scott Nelson.

That’s just a portion of the laundry list of businesses in Williams Lake he says have been impacted by trouble-makers. It prompted him to put forward a three-part motion that, in a nutshell reads:

“Be it resolved that Council endorse, support, advocate and enforce that public safety of Williams Lake is the top priority by enforcing the following policy initiatives:

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“That, for any homeless prolific offending persons who wreak havoc on our community streets or persons with mental illness who continue to wreak havoc on our community, it is the policy of Council that these individuals be required to wear GPS or that jail time be sought and/or that these individuals be provided appropriate wraparound services in a community where these services are provided;

“Furthermore that any homeless prolific offending person or persons with mental illness wreaking havoc on the streets of Williams Lake who have more than three charges be offered, encouraged and persuaded to accept a one-way bus ticket (as well as $100 for meals) to a space available in elsewhere in the Province of BC, Alberta or Alaska with the appropriate wraparound services.”

For an area MP, Williams Lake is not alone.

“I think it speaks to the desperation of Mayor and Council in Williams Lake,” says Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty. “Let’s look at even our own community of Prince George and the millions and millions of dollars that businesses have lost.”

The motion didn’t get off the table in Williams Lake though Doherty represents a number of smaller communities in his riding and says the impacts are acutely felt.

“We all know somebody that has had a business that is closed down due to fire. We see it more because it’s harder to hide than in those larger cities.”

“Ninety-nine per cent of the communities across the province are feeling exactly the same pain and pressure the province of BC,” says Nelson. “It’s hell out there for us right now because the province simply continues to download and download and download onto communities without giving us the real resources, the real people, to help solve these problems. And it’s just created absolute chaos.”

However, there was one area of consensus around the Williams Lake Council Chamber.

“We did come to unanimity to sit down and discuss this with Interior Health,” says Nelson. “What action plans, they’ve got in place that are going to deal with individuals that have got additional problems. So the full wraparound services are important. As a council we have taken the position that we would support, we would invest, we would do whatever we needed to do to try and ensure that we had 24/7 wraparound services here in Williams Lake.”