Both the City of Prince George and Tourism Prince George are looking to incorporate recommendations from a provincial inquiry into the tragic Lapu Lapu Day attack in Vancouver back in April.
On April 26, a motorist drove into a crowd of people at the Filipino community event, killing 11 people.
In the wake of that event, the province commissioned former BC Supreme Court chief justice Christopher Hinkson to create a report on improving safety for community events going forward.
Published on June 26, the report proposed six major recommendations:
- All public events in BC, regardless of size, should be supported by a risk assessment
- Jurisdictional oversight should be clarified for event hosting
- A centralized hub should be created to provide training and resources to help with event safety planning
- The province should consider targeted assistance to help with the safety and security costs of community events
- Better collaboration is needed with emergency services to address safety considerations
- The province should collect information and feedback after events to identify areas for improvement
Speaking to The Citizen on Friday, July 18, the City of Prince George’s manager of event services, Debbie Heywood, said the city had already started to review its event safety policies after the attack and before the study was launched.
“It was just such a tragic event and just to see how close in proximity it was to us and the things that we were coming up with for the summer events, a lot more outdoor events, we really needed to start wrapping our minds around it,” Heywood said.
That work included working with the Prince George RCMP, Prince George Fire Rescue, the city’s transportation department and bylaw services to create a checklist or template for safety at city-run events that can also be shared with organizers who host events at civic parks or facilities.
While Heywood said the city has always done risk assessments for events, the April tragedy made it open its mind about other possibilities.
Once the report was issued, Heywood said it reassured city staff that they were on the right track with because it drew from similar references and templates they had come across.
Getting a centralized hub for event safety resources, she said, would be “amazing.”
“The more similar centralized information that we can provide to organizers that are doing the same things in different communities across the province, we can just learn more from each other,” Heywood said.
Sometimes, she said, they have to point out risks and mitigating factors that event organizers haven’t considered and this might take some of the burden off the city’s plate to educate people on the topic.
The previous Saturday, some of the new considerations were put into action as the downtown events for the annual pride parade, the 2025 Special Olympics BC Summer Games, the Nanguz ‘An container market and Community Arts Days were all held at once.
While one event might not have necessitated turning the Dominion Street and Seventh Avenue into a four-way stop instead of a signalled intersection, the combination of all three at once led the city to put that in action with so many people in a small area.
“The biggest one was the transportation piece,” Heywood said of the report’s findings. “Having so many people in that smaller area and how we can keep everyone safe.”
Heywood said the group planning the transportation of Special Olympics athletes and the organizers of the pride parade worked together to make sure they didn’t get in each other’s way.
As well, the city, Tourism Prince George and the Two Rivers Gallery all co-ordinated their security efforts and contributed to the costs.
Going forward, Heywood said the city wants to meet with a few different groups to show off their safety checklist and whether it meets their needs.
Tourism Prince George director of business and destination development Carmen Herman told the Citizen in an interview the same day that the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy really hit home as she used to live in the area the event is held in.
While the organization has safety planning procedures in place for events like the Nanguz ‘An container market, she said there’s always an opportunity to improve and re-evaluate them.
Like Heywood, she said she would also be interested in a centralized hub for safety planning training and resources, especially for organizing groups with fewer resources who could use a template to follow so they don’t miss any important details.
She also said that funding to help with security costs for events would be a great help for Prince George’s smaller and volunteer-run organizations looking to run groups out of passion.
“Security costs are expensive,” Herman said.
“For many groups that we talk to that want to put on events that we support, we often get approached for our thoughts on security costs and if we can help offset it. Frankly, putting on events are really expensive so if you have these extra safety precautions that are very important, then your event becomes more expense and that might result in a group deciding it’s not the best fit for them.”
As the Lapu Lapu Day attack involved a vehicle, much of the report focuses on addressing the threat posed to events by vehicles.
“One consistent theme from the commission’s consultations with expert event planners and safety professionals is that vehicles and pedestrians should not mix, and every effort must be made to avoid moving traffic in areas where pedestrians are located,” the report said.
Herman pointed to the bike valet program Tourism PG partnered with Downtown Prince George on where people attending downtown events can get to the area on their bicycle and then have it kept safe until they’re ready to go as one example of reducing vehicular traffic around events.
“Continuing to look at initiatives like that are really important to Tourism Prince George, better transit options in terms of biking and walkability is really important to us.”
In the future, Herman said the report being released is a good opportunity for Tourism PG to build stronger partnerships in the city and collaborate on safety.
“Basically, the goal is to ensure our events remain welcoming, inclusive and safe for everybody,” she said.
Reached by email, Downtown Prince George executive director Chrisie Berry said they didn’t have any comment on the report at this time except that going forward, they will use vehicles in addition to regular road barricades to block of traffic when possible at their events going forward.
