Experts from a wide range of fields including the courts, police, mental health and addictions, and housing will meet in Vancouver Jan. 23 to discuss ways to improve public safety in communities across B.C. 

Save Our Streets, a coalition of 120-plus community and business organizations is organizing the event at Simon Fraser University's Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. Organizers say the event is sold out, but are offering a live-stream. In less than two years, the volunteer organization founded in October 2023 has emerged as one of the most visible advocacy groups for public safety.

The day-long event features five panels featuring a who's-who of experts. Scheduled panelists include former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal and B.C. Crown Counsel Association President Adam Dalrymple; the police chiefs of Vancouver and 性视界传媒, as well as the head of the B.C. RCMP; and top medical professionals, including a senior figure from the Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction, a facility often cited for its exemplary recovery model. 

Conservative Party of B.C. Leader John Rustad and Marshall Smith, a political consultant and former chief of staff to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith are scheduled to deliver keynote lectures. Terry Yung, B.C.'s minister of state for community safety and integrated services and a former senior officer with the Vancouver Police Department, will speak for the provincial government. Other panelists of note include current Nanaimo Mayor former NDP MLA Leonard Krog, and Christina Cook, senior policy lawyer with the BC First Nations Justice Council.

Moderators include top media personalities such as Global's Jas Johal and Richard Zussman, as well as former B.C. finance minister Carole Taylor. 

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Public safety with its related issues of mental health and addictions ranked among the key issues during the past provincial campaign. Jess Ketchum, SOS's co-founder, said the event will offer new insights, pointing to the Red Fish Healing Centre as a model worth replicating across B.C. and the personal story of Marshall Smith.

According to a biography from organizers, Smith fell into the "depths of addiction" and lived "in and out of dumpsters in Vancouver鈥檚 Downtown Eastside" after having worked for former B.C. cabinet minister Lorne Mayencourt. But he recovered to become Danielle Smith's chief of staff and "the architect" of Alberta's "new recovery-focused system." 

"I have known Marshall a long time...and he is coming loaded with some results that I think people haven't seen before," Ketchum said. 

Ketchum, however, stressed that the organization aims to be non-partisan.

"We don't have a political agenda," he said. "We have an agenda to encourage whoever is in government to do things."

Ketchum said he and SOS co-founder Clint Mahlman, president and chief executive officer of London Drugs, met with Premier David Eby, three cabinet ministers and staff following the election, after Eby had reached out.  While that meeting was "relatively short," Ketchum also described it as a "very good, respectful conversation."

Ketchum also praised  actions he has seen from government since the election, pointing to the appointments of Yung and Public Safety Minister Garry Begg, another former police officer, to their respective posts. 

"Before we met with the premier, (Yung) had actually reached out to me and we had a very good conversation about some of the issues and what had to be done," Ketchum said. "So when you look at those two ministerial appointments, plus you have on the Conservative Elenore Sturko (another former police officer), we have some folks with some knowledge about what actually happens on the front line and that's going to be very valuable good forward."

Next week's day-long discussion can also be read as a next step in the evolution of SOS as an organization, a point Ketchum doesn't dispute.

"I think it certainly does provide us with greater credibility, I think if people see that list of participants, they know this is serious. They know that the people that are putting this together are serious. We actually want to see things improve." 

Of note is the location of the facility. Its circular interior design aims to encourage dialogue, but its location in downtown Vancouver also places it near the Downtown Eastside, synonymous with the intersecting problems of homelessness, the opioid crisis, mental health and addiction and public safety.

But Ketchum noted that public safety is not just a big city issue. Smaller communities are also dealing with these concerns. He pointed the prominent presence of rural British Columbians among his group's leadership group. Ketchum himself has deep personal roots in Quesnel. 

"One of the foundational building blocks of (SOS) is a belief that we will only see solutions implemented by government if they see the impact beyond the DTES," he said in a later email. "Encouraging support and engagement of people from outside the (Lower Mainland) is critical."