From Patient Dumping to Decriminalization: The Road to Prince George’s New Involuntary Care Facility
The current crisis on BC streets didn’t happen by accident. It is the direct result of a multi-decade, bipartisan policy failure. But a massive provincial pivot is officially underway.
Here is how we got here, and why the recent announcement at the old youth detention center is a historic turning point for Northern BC.
The Timeline: How a Broken System Collided with Reality
- 2012: The BC Liberals Shut Down Riverview
- The BC Liberal government officially closed Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital. The promise was that funding would follow psychiatric patients into ground-level, community care. The promise was broken. Thousands were left without long-term psychiatric beds, effectively dumping vulnerable people onto the streets.
- The BC Liberal government officially closed Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital. The promise was that funding would follow psychiatric patients into ground-level, community care. The promise was broken. Thousands were left without long-term psychiatric beds, effectively dumping vulnerable people onto the streets.
- 2016: The System Fractures
- With zero provincial infrastructure to catch them, those suffering from severe mental illness and addiction fell through the cracks. The streets became the new psychiatric wards, heavily concentrated in municipal centers and fueling a skyrocketing homelessness crisis.
- With zero provincial infrastructure to catch them, those suffering from severe mental illness and addiction fell through the cracks. The streets became the new psychiatric wards, heavily concentrated in municipal centers and fueling a skyrocketing homelessness crisis.
- 2023: The BC NDP’s Decriminalization Experiment
- In January 2023, the BC NDP implemented a federal pilot project to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard street drugs. Without the promised ground-level treatment beds or involuntary stabilization infrastructure in place, this policy triggered a worst-case scenario: open drug use exploded, overloading first responders, hospitals, and local communities.
- In January 2023, the BC NDP implemented a federal pilot project to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard street drugs. Without the promised ground-level treatment beds or involuntary stabilization infrastructure in place, this policy triggered a worst-case scenario: open drug use exploded, overloading first responders, hospitals, and local communities.
- 2024–2025: The Political U-Turn
- Facing massive public backlash, the NDP government rolled back major portions of decriminalization and appointed a Chief Scientific Adviser to aggressively re-evaluate the province’s failing mental health approach. The realization set in: voluntary-only care was not saving lives.
- Facing massive public backlash, the NDP government rolled back major portions of decriminalization and appointed a Chief Scientific Adviser to aggressively re-evaluate the province’s failing mental health approach. The realization set in: voluntary-only care was not saving lives.
- Today (July 2026): The Prince George Pivot
- In a massive policy shift away from the legacy of the last 15 years, Premier David Eby officially confirmed that the old Prince George Youth Custody Centre on Gunn Road will be redeveloped into a secure, 72-bed involuntary care facility. Backed by a $92 million budget, construction begins this September.
The Takeaway
It took a decade of the BC Liberals shutting down facilities, followed by years of the NDP pursuing flawed street-level drug policies, to bring BC to its knees.
The announcement in Prince George is an admission that the old ways completely failed. By converting a former youth jail into a secure, regional psychiatric hub, Northern BC is finally getting the specialized, involuntary care infrastructure needed to take the most vulnerable off the streets and get them real medical help.
A Crucial First Step for Prince George
Will this single initiative solve all of Prince George’s problems? Of course not. But it is the essential start of a course to solve them.
Addressing these complex challenges requires moving one step at a time, one phase at a time. The local facility slated to open is a foundational brick in the large wall of things we need to do. Crucially, this facility is designed to grow and develop, allowing us to actively get people off the streets and into the real medical help and treatment they need.
We have to start somewhere, and this is that critical first step.