Copper theft in Prince George is not a petty nuisance. It’s an expensive and dangerous crime that has cut off 911 access, disrupted businesses, isolated seniors and costs taxpayers.
This summer, Telus reported a 68 per cent increase in copper cable thefts across Canada. In one week, four thefts in Prince George and the surrounding area knocked out landlines and disrupted wireless services.
These are not victimless crimes. They compromise public safety and erode trust in basic services.
Back in February, thieves ripped copper wiring from city streetlights, sticking taxpayers with a $25,000 repair bill.
Despite a decade of laws, the implementation of tracking programs, and supposed coordination between recyclers and police, the crime is surging. Copper wiring can be sold for quick cash and those responsible know they can get away with it.
The Metal Recycling Act, introduced in 2012, was supposed to make it nearly impossible to profit from stolen copper. Sellers must provide ID. Large payouts must be electronic. Vehicles and licence plates are logged.
Yet despite all this, copper is still disappearing. Why? Because determined thieves will always find a buyer, and because the crime is profitable and the consequences minimal.
In court, copper theft is treated like shoplifting.
That’s absurd.
A crime that risks lives, cuts emergency services, and drains public coffers should carry penalties that reflect the scale of the damage. Instead, offenders are cycling in and out of the system while residents pick up the tab.
Local MLA Rosalyn Bird bluntly explained why the system looks the other way: many offenders are marginalized. They are struggling with addiction, mental illness or poverty.
Bird suggested the Crown is reluctant to prosecute because these are not the “right” kind of defendants. That may be a harsh observation, but it rings true. When punishment for stripping critical infrastructure amounts to little more than a charge equivalent to stealing a bike or goods from a store, the message is clear — copper theft is not serious.
That is an abdication of responsibility. The RCMP say thefts come in waves, that thieves eventually cool off or move on. That is not a strategy. That is complacency.
Even Telus executives warn the punishment does not fit the crime. Anne Martin, vice-president of network engineering and operations, pointed out that copper theft often disrupts hospital systems, alarms, and emergency communications.
BC Attorney General Niki Sharma must act. Stronger laws are needed to make copper theft a high-stakes offence, with penalties that match the public safety threat and the damage done.
Offenders should not be sent on their way without serious consequences, marginalized, addicted or not.
Crown counsel must be directed to pursue these cases aggressively, not pass them off as small-scale property crime. Our police need the resources and mandate to go after both thieves and the buyers fuelling the black market.
Community vigilance matters, as Bird points out. But residents cannot be expected to hold the line while the justice system shrugs. Right now, copper theft is a crime with steady profit and almost no risk. That equation has to be flipped.
Until the attorney general and the RCMP decide copper theft is a priority, Prince George will remain a target, and the rest of us will keep paying higher prices and higher taxes for a crime no one seems willing to stop.
