Jess Ketchum once helped save the streets of Quesnel. Now he’s helping to save the streets of the entire province.
In Ketchum’s youth, he was part of a throng of drag racers who would drop the hammer on public roadways. It was highly unsafe and utterly illegal, but the RCMP of the day discovered in him the fledgling diplomatic skills that would come to define his life. He helped negotiate not leniency after arrests, but a legal place where they could ply their passion for cars. The Quesnel Drag Racing Association was formed, and revs to this day.
Over the years, Ketchum has been a central figure in many key organizations around the area.
He worked for the Cariboo Tourism Association.
He and now-mayor Ron Paull founded Billy Barker Days at the urging of then-mayor Ceal Tingley.
Local MLA and cabinet minister Alex Fraser eventually convinced Ketchum (who initially declined) to become his Legislative advisor.
He was hired by Jimmy Pattison to be a communications leader for the Expo 86 mega-event in Vancouver.
After that, Ketchum had his pick of the bluest-chip clients in the province for the relatively new profession of communications specialist.
One of his clients was the vaunted Council of Forest Industries.
He helped found the Rocky Mountaineer rail tourism company that connects to Quesnel.
But his first and friendliest client, when he hung out his own shingle, was a little forestry firm called West Fraser Timber, operated by Hank Ketcham of Quesnel. (Note the spelling difference - a Cariboo coincidence.)
“Hank was a friend long before we left Quesnel. I met him - we were just young guys - on the ski hill at Troll Mountain. We became very good friends,” said Ketchum.
So, the communications godfather of B.C. was in a very strong position of experience when the CEO of London Drugs, Clint Mahlman, talked with him about how to somehow push back against the epic levels his stores were suffering from shoplifting, staff confrontation, vandalism and threat of violence.
Ketchum had just battled through three years of cancer (squamous cell carcinoma, specifically) and together with his wife Ramona embarked on a fundraising campaign for cancer research that has so far drawn in $1.6-million for the BC Cancer Foundation, on whose board he sat long before his own tilt with it.
So, all combined, Ketchum was in a fighting mood and perhaps at the full height of his diplomatic powers. Together with the likes of Save-On-Foods, the Surrey Board of Trade, Lulu Lemon, Aritzia, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, and many others in the who’s who of B.C. retail co-founded the Save Our Streets (SOS) Coalition. It now stands at more than 60 members and it was only born in October with 30.
Their message is not anti-government or cynical with partisanship. The problems they wish to address are rooted in a collection of factors that superseded any political stripe. In fact, he remembers pushing for it when he was part of the inner conversations with the Gordon Campbell-led BC Liberal mandate in the early 2000s.
He vividly remembers a close, powerful friend balking at the chance to do something about the early but distinct signs of the gathering street storm.
“I’d pick him up at the helijet and drive him up to his office and talk about the issues of the day. We did that pretty frequently,” Ketchum said. “One day, it was welfare Wednesday, and instead of the usual route, I went back east and up to Hastings and towards downtown, pulled over and stopped in front of the Carnegie Centre (corner of Hastings and Main Streets)”
The undisclosed official became visibly bothered by the route choice. That was about 20 years ago and already,“it was bedlam, down there, just a horror show,” said Ketchum. “I said to him, look, you’re a person of influence because you (have a position of substantial power), and I’m a person of influence because I know you. What the hell are we doing? How can we allow this to go on? Look around you. These people are sick, they are in danger, they’re being preyed on by drug dealers, and why aren’t we addressing this head on?”
Factors compounded on factors, and today the businesses of almost any town are facing distinct dangers to bottom line and staff safety. The ultimate sadness, said Ketchum, is saving our streets is not about any corporation repelling a security inconvenience. These problems are only besetting businesses because there are waves of people in health crises who are only acting on the impulses of their addictions and illnesses.
The coalition members want their problems solved by solving the problems of their fellow community members suffering in pain and trauma.
It was 2000 when Vancouver mayor Philip Owen introduced the Four Pillars project, Ketchum remembered.
“The four pillars were: treatment, prevention, enforcement and harm reduction, and things were bad enough back then that Philip and company proposed this plan. Over the next 10 years, there were about 200 deaths a year.
“In 2016, our provincial government, because of the number of overdose deaths, declared a public health emergency because there were 922 deaths that year. I don’t know about you, but emergency means emergency: the building’s on fire. And yet, this past year, 2023, there will be over 2,300 people lose their lives because of overdose deaths in B.C. What the hell are we doing?”
A provincial response is needed, said Ketchum, which is why the Save Our Streets Coalition is catching on with members all over B.C. who aren’t strong enough of voice, by themselves, but as a group they have clout.
“In B.C. there were, last year, 46 drug deaths per 100,000 people. There were 59 drug deaths per 100,000 population in northern B.C. So this is not an urban problem; it is a rural problem as well, and very, very serious.”
Any business, agency, municipality, First Nation, or other body with a stake in helping the population’s most vulnerable and alienated people can join the Save Our Streets Coalition. Their website is at saveourstreets.ca.
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