Mayor Melissa Blake speaks to MyMcMurray about the issue she took with statements coming from top Edmonton officials.
[audio:https://www.mymcmurray.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/sites/11/2015/10/mayor-for-web.mp3]Mayor Melissa Blake said former Fort McMurrayites are not to blame for rising crime rates in Edmonton, contrary to remarks being made by that city’s mayor and police chief.
This after comments earlier in the week that saw both officials blame Edmonton’s recent spike in crime on the downturn saying it was sending unemployed oilsands workers down to Edmonton who were adding to the rate of crime.
“It is quite inappropriate for people in other communities to put the blame on any other when they’ve got policing matters, I mean it’s a shared responsibility for protective services, and to point your fingers at somebody else as being the cause is really an unfortunate thing” Mayor Blake told MyMcMurray.
“But, for Wood Buffalo and Fort McMurray this isn’t the first time the police chief in Edmonton has made comments that diminish or are derogatory towards our region,” she said.
Blake said she originally dealt with the comments by letter in January and followed that up with conversations with Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht and Mayor Don Iveson and was assured these kinds of comments wouldn’t be made again.
“Here we are months later and I’m having the same problem and, for me, it’s just unacceptable and I wanted to make sure they knew that,” she said.
So, this time, instead of writing a letter Blake made sure to speak to the same media outlets to whom the top officials were speaking.
The Canadian Press reported that earlier this week, Knecht said a spike in crime could be linked to a downturn in the oilpatch and Iveson said the downturn in the economy means Edmonton ends up policing “northern Alberta’s problem children.”
She said there is simply no foundation for the comments that it is unemployed people from the oilsands region causing the issue. In fact, she said, there are many people she speaks to who are staying in Fort McMurray trying to wait out the downturn because they believe in the future of the community and of the industry.
“In this case I really think people are trying their best to recover and that they’re not out creating the kinds of problems that Edmonton is expressing. I think that’s deplorable,” she said.
Blake said she would welcome an apology for the “unjust” remarks.
