Expansion 'highlights ongoing commitment to creating a safer shopping environment for all'
Workers at Shoppers Drug Mart in British Columbia will soon don body cameras, according to a report.
“This expansion to Victoria highlights our ongoing commitment to creating a safer shopping environment for all,” said Dean Henrico, a senior vice-president for Shoppers Drug Mart’s parent company, Loblaws.
This comes as the pilot body cameras program has resulted in a “significant” reduction in violent incidents at stores where they have been implemented, said the official in a Vancouver Sun report.
The program will be in place at Shoppers Drug Mart – located in Victoria, B.C. – starting next month, according to the report.
Despite good intentions in having workers wear body cameras, it has its downsides, according to two experts.
By September 2024, managers and security at two stores in Saskatchewan – Confederation Superstore and Shoppers Drug Mart on 22nd Street – started wearing the equipment.
"Violent encounters at retail locations across the country have increased dramatically in recent years," Loblaw Companies said about the decision to use bodycams, according to a previous CBC report.
Employees have already donned the equipment at Real Canadian Superstore, located in the Confederation neighbourhood at 411 Confederation Drive, and the adjacent Shoppers Drug Mart, according to CBC.
Two Loblaws stores in Calgary also have staff wearing body cameras, said Global News.
Loblaws said it is bringing body-worn cameras to locations across Western Canada and Ontario to address a “notable rise” in violent incidents at its stores, according to the Vancouver Sun report.
According to Statistics Canada (StatCan), the severity index for violent crime in Victoria dropped by 9.4% from 90.75 in 2022 to 74.06 in 2023.
“The city’s crime severity index — which measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime — is still lower than what it was from 1998 to 2008, even accounting for a rise in reports of crimes such as intimate-partner violence, harassment and fraud,” reported the Vancouver Sun.
On the national level, however, the violent crime severity index increased from 99.06 in 2022 to 99.45 in 2023, according to StatCan’s data.
In December 2024, Walmart said it is also pilot testing the use of body cameras in some outlets in a bid to protect customer-facing teams from harassment, according to a CNBC report.
