City councillor Rick Orr at the launch of the Community Alcohol Strategy. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
Aboriginal Prince Albert residents are wondering why local and provincial First Nations groups aren’t adding their input into the community’s alcohol strategy.
City Councillor Rick Orr is a part of the strategy’s guiding committee, and says attendees at this week’s alcohol strategy consultations expressed interest in seeing FSIN, PAGC and other First Nations leadership involved.
“Our problem was figuring out how to get the leaders to really sit down because they’re busy people; they have a lot of things on their plate and they get a lot of requests. One of the recommendations was, from the people that were there, was that we just have to keep on them and asking them to sit down,” Orr said.
Overall, the two meetings were poorly attended. About 15 new faces joined to weigh in on the alcohol strategy, something that Orr calls “disappointing.”
Orr is taking that as a sign that his group needs to take a different approach to getting people involved in changing Prince Albert’s attitude towards liquor.
“My recommendation to the steering committee is that we’re going to have to reach out more to the community and hold meetings possibly with interest groups,” he said.
Even though Prince Albert now has two community consultation meetings on its alcohol strategy under its belt, those guiding the process say they’ve only just begun.
Orr expects the committee will move ahead with a community action plan this fall.
At the end of the day though, the committee won’t be taking the actions – it will rely on existing groups in Prince Albert to carry it out.