The Page is still scratching its head over one item at the “lightning tour” by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week.
The item happened at the High Prairie portion, and just happened to tie in to what was already written before the tour, for this week’s editorial opinion.
Let your humble correspondent explain.
Smith, speaking to the enthusiastic crowd in High Prairie June 19, listed 19 items of legislation her government had passed or was working on. Roads, health care, tax cuts were just a few of the items. Not once, unless we missed it, was anything close to crime even mentioned. That was at first. Pretty well the closest she came to talking about crime was saying people needing attention to overcome addictions would be ordered into care if that was needed.
It was only when questions were taken did rural crime, and crime in general, become a topic.
That opened the doors to the politicians, as if they were just waiting for somebody to drop that shoe. In no order, including comments from the audience, out came talk about empty jails. Not enough law enforcement officers. Grande Prairie’s move, supported by the Province, to their own city cop system. Slow response times. Never a cop when you needed one. Police ordered to not use government vehicles. And more.
As our editorial says in this week’s newspaper, crime and justice just does not seem to be a hot topic item for politicians.
But after that door was opened at the High Prairie meeting, the politicians had lots to say!
This reminds us of earlier meetings in High Prairie, and in Peace River all about crime which so far, seem to have produced little results from local politicians or caught any attention in Edmonton.
So, what the heck does it take to get politicians, both local, provincial and federal, to understand people are right now fed up with losing our streets and now our farms and homes to both petty and major crime? Fed up. Disgusted. Mad as hell. Full stop.
As has already happened in Alberta, could easily happen again, and was asked in High Prairie, “Do we have to take up arms ourselves before something changes?”
To that question, there was quite a bit of clapping and cheering. Not so much for any real answer, which actually did not come.
Some oldies but goodies from previous columns:
“Canadians are weird. They look to Ottawa for the cure when Ottawa is, in fact, the disease.”
“A backward country is one where old ladies walk along the streets at night. Parents don’t warn their kids about talking to strangers. Backward is one where criminals stand in fear of the authorities.”
“A progressive nation is one where the authorities and the general public which elects those authorities stand in fear of the criminals.”
“People who are picked up every time when they fall down develop this peculiar habit of falling down.”
“Reading the papers, I notice all the excuses trotted out by, or on behalf of criminals. He had no father. (Neither did I.) He grew up in poverty. (So did I.) He hadn’t much schooling. (Neither did I.) Toronto, for example, is one place full of people who had far worse childhoods than I did – hunger, war, concentration camps, torture. They have every excuse to rape, steal and kill, but they don’t. It seems to me we will never get the crime rate down until we stop thinking of people who rape and rob and murder as social problems and start thinking of them as rapists, robbers and murderers.” – columnist Richard Needham, from around 1965-75.
As of today, Wednesday, June 25, we are now four days worth of days getting shorter. Notice any difference?
At The Page, we did!
Just kidding. That was last week, two days before the 21st at 50 a.m., when we saw it was darker than usual.
But then we woke up a bit more and realized it was just rain clouds.
There have been a few tent caterpillars seen around the region. Plus, a few trees here and there have had their top leafs chomped off. For ourselves, we’ve seen a few climbing up the walls of our garage.
One of our neighbours predicts, in her wisdom, next year will probably be bad in many parts.
It’s been quite a few years since our part of the Peace Country had an outbreak that stripped hectares of trees.
And about 60 years since a really bad outbreak. Are we due?
“I had a message pop up on a website this morning. Something about cookies. Which one was it? Uh, let me think a bit. Okay, maybe Betty Crockers?” – Grandma Smithers
“I’ve been trying to explain to your grandmother that just because she has online banking, does not mean she can click a button to make ten-dollar bills pop out of the dvd slot.” – Grandpa Jonesy