BC Green party calls for consumer coolness toward Pattison companies over potential ICE deal

“I hope that Jim Pattison feels the heat from his consumer base and cuts his ties with ICE,” Emily Lowan tells Capital Daily. The Virginia warehouse ICE wants to buy. Photo: The Jim Pattison Group

The head of the BC Greens is calling on British Columbians to boycott The Jim Pattison Group because it appears to be in the midst of striking a real estate deal with US Homeland Security to sell a building it owns in Virginia to be used as a “processing facility” for ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“To my understanding, ‘processing’ means that there will be human beings rounded up and processed in that very large facility,” Emily Lowan, the newly installed leader of BC’s Green Party, told Capital Daily.

“It's time that we hold corporations in Canada accountable to sever their ties with ICE and Trump's presidency.”

Five days ago, the government of Hanover, Va.—a county of 117K people located 150 km south of Washington, DC—posted on its Facebook page that it had “received a letter from the US Department of Homeland Security confirming its intent to purchase and operate a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in a warehouse located on Lakeridge Parkway.”

The post said the county did not initiate the project, that it had 30 days to respond to the letter, and that its board of supervisors would consider its next steps at its regularly scheduled meeting tomorrow.

According to the Canadian Press, property records show Jim Pattison Developments, the Vancouver-based company’s real estate arm, bought the 550K-square-foot building in 2022 for C$10.4M, and following upgrades, it may be worth close to $69M.

Capital Daily’s calls and emails to The Pattison Group were not returned in time to be included in this story.

Lowan came across the information and posted about it on social media, Bluesky, where she encouraged people to “Tell [Premier David] Eby to shut down the deal.”

Her posts appeared following the shooting death on Saturday of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, on a Minneapolis street. Pretti was shot multiple times by ICE agents. He is the second American citizen to be brazenly killed during protests in Minnesota. On Jan. 7, Renée Nicole Good, also 37, was shot and killed as she appeared to be attempting to drive her vehicle out of a protest area.

“You know, as we see these horrors unfold, I think it behooves us to be good neighbours and show our solidarity across borders,” Lowan said.

Calls for boycott

She said if people are upset by what is happening in the US, they should make their point by not buying from Jim Pattison companies—including its media and marketing division, its car dealerships, and its grocery store chains. Through its food group, Pattison owns Save-on-Foods, Quality Foods, Western Foods, and Everything Wine, among other outlets.

“I hope that Jim Pattison feels the heat from his consumer base and cuts his ties with ICE,” Lowan said.

Lowan said her online postings received more than 1M views, and a common concern she’s heard is that some people would find it a challenge not going to a Pattison grocery store.

“People were saying they don't have any other choice in their community—Jim Pattison owns all the grocery stores where they live,” she told Capital Daily.

Some people have few shopping choices

Lowan said that raises a separate, concerning issue about food prices and who controls them.

“I think this is an issue where, you know, one billionaire owns our food supply, they control the market, they extort working people, and then they go and use those record profits to buy up even more of our lives, as evidenced [by] this, this warehouse deal.”

According to IBISWorld, a provider of industry market research, there are more than 1,700 registered grocery-related businesses in BC, but the Big 5—Sobeys, Metro, Loblaw, Costco, and Walmart—control three-quarters of the Canadian market. Pattison stores were reported to hold about 3% of the national share and are very popular in BC.

People love Save-on-Foods

A Canadian Grocer article published last May said an Ipsos poll found Save-on-Foods to be BC’s most loved brand.

Lowan, a Victorian who became the first Canadian born in the 2000s to head a major political party when she won the leadership of the BC Green party last September, said the Greens have a practical solution to the concentration of grocery food purveyors: public grocery stores.

“We can build a public option for groceries that would help undercut these monopolies, strengthen local agriculture, provide good-paying jobs, and make our lives more affordable.”

CP also reported that US procurement records indicate another Vancouver-based company is involved with the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE: HootSuite is contracted to provide social media services, the national newswire said.