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When news that a series of downtown Prince George businesses were damaged by a fire broke on social media this week, a number of commenters felt they knew the cause.
“Why is our city allowing more people to be dropped in Prince George?” one person wrote on Facebook.
“They were paid to come here and be dropped off from the city of Vancouver,” said another.
The belief that unhoused people are receiving money and being bussed out of Vancouver to other B.C. communities before the 2026 FIFA World Cup has taken such a hold in Prince George that the city and multiple councillors have officially come forward to dispel the rumour.
“The claim that there’s a coordinated movement of individuals, by the busload, to this community is not something we have evidence to support,” the city’s director of administrative services, Eric Depenau, said in an interview with CBC News.
Depenau didn’t deny that there are people in the community that come from other places, but said there are a variety of factors, including access to services and the regional hospital.
“Canadian citizens have mobility rights, they have freedom of movement and under the Charter, it’s not illegal for folks to move from one location to another,” he said. “We see folks here for all sorts of reasons.”
But despite attempts to temper rumours of a coordinated plan taking place, the belief persists.
Instances of paid relocation
Marc Sinclair, an instructor in criminology and sociology at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George says the city is not unique in this regard, with similar stories popping up across Canada for decades.
“I think it’s likely giving an outlet for people to express their discontent with government and homeless people in general,” he said.
Lending credence to the stories, he said, is the fact there have been occasions where such efforts, or something like them, have taken place.
One such example is when two men from Saskatchewan were given one-way tickets to Vancouver in 2016.
Another was “Project Going Home,” a Toronto program that in 1999 gave unhoused people the means to return to home communities.
And perhaps the best known story is that of then Alberta premier Ralph Klein covering the travel expenses for unemployed people seeking to leave the province — with many making their way to the Lower Mainland.
But none of these programs quite match the story that often pops up: busloads of people being dropped off in the night. Sinclair said he has seen nothing happening in Prince George that leads him to believe it is taking place.
Vancouver’s World Cup human rights plan
In its statement released through city councillors, the City of Prince George acknowledged the existence of such programs but also clarified it is not taking part in any such partnerships.
And, it said, other cities are hearing similar claims from their citizens, without evidence.
“The City of Vancouver has stated plainly on their public webpage that they are committed to upholding human rights and have no plans to displace or relocate people experiencing homelessness due to FIFA World Cup 2026 Host City requirements,” the statement reads.
Hosting the FIFA World Cup will cost Canadian taxpayers just over $1 billion, a Parliamentary Budget Officer report says. Roughly half of that money will come from Ottawa, with the rest coming from other levels of government.
In fact, the Vancouver Host Committee for the FIFA World Cup has shared a human rights plan outlining how it will balance the needs of unhoused people against security measures being put in place for the tournament, though it has been criticized for lacking clear metrics or targets to ensure no one is displaced.
An updated plan is expected to be released Monday.
Housing challenges
Still, there is no denying that Prince George is facing challenges.
The city houses a regional correctional centre, and groups that work with those released from the facility say there is difficulty getting people back to their home communities.
Prince George has also been a recipient of evacuees during wildfire events, some of whom then choose to stay.
And the city’s most recent point-in-time homeless count report observed that people living outdoors has become increasingly visible over the past decade, leading to greater level of public discourse around the issue.
But that same report, released in 2024, indicates that nearly half of those identified as unhoused have either always lived in Prince George or have been in the city for more than 10 years.
Of those who came from elsewhere, the majority were from northern B.C and just 11 per cent were from the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island.
Also significant is the fact that 75 per cent identified as Indigenous, in a city where only about 14 per cent of the wider population identifies as such.
Those factors have alarmed some residents, including Sinclair, who said he’s observing an increasingly hostile attitude towards unhoused people leading to a stronger “us versus them” mentality and may be a factor in the desire to believe the problem is coming from elsewhere.
“Sociologically, we would call it a moral panic,” he said.
“I just see the feelings towards homeless folks being intensified. So that’ll be our challenge is to address that.”
