Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Daily Herald

Council did not act on any of the four options presented them for changing the newly built median strip on 15th Street that cuts off access to some businesses on the south side of the road.

Instead, they instructed staff to come back with a fifth option of having a design that includes an opening in front of 463-15th Street East for the next regular council meeting on September 27.

Two of the four options presented by staff were very costly and Director Wes Hicks said he recommended leaving the street as is until staff can see how the traffic flows.

“Option one is to do a total re-build of the roadway we have just created. There’s a dollar value there which is rather large,” Hicks said in reference to the estimated $320,000 cost.

“It would require removing most of the medians we’ve created in the middle and repaving the crown of the road,” he said. They would also have to change the traffic lights and said the it created a higher potential for accidents.

The second option would have involved leaving the traffic lights as they are now, but mean redoing all the medians and opening the median for the centre left hand turn lane while also redoing a large portion of the newly paved street.

Option 2 had the highest potential accident locations and the second highest cost.

The third option was to add an additional u-turn between Fourth and Fifth Avenue at a spot that is currently set for landscaping. This also would mean re-milling and re-paving a section of the street.

The third option was unattractive because of the $50,000 price tag and also a higher potential for accidents than the fourth option, which was to leave the road as it has been built now.

Keeping the existing design  and giving the public the chance to drive the slip lanes and use the u-turn to access the businesses would also give staff time to further review the design of the street and analyze the 2022 traffic data, Hicks said.

The u-turn is similar to the one on Sixth Avenue East near Carlton Comprehensive Schools, but includes room for two vehicles in the turning area.

During the discussion, several councillors acknowledged that not listening to Hick’s advice when they first planned the project had created the current issues. Council did not approve option four on Monday, which Hicks had recommended.

Dr. Java is one of nine businesses affected by the decision. Owners Chad and Brandy Mogg said as a business they preferred Options one or two, but suggested removing a nearby chuck of concrete as a completely different plan.

Chad Mogg said that cutting a piece of concrete to the east of their parking lot would open up a portion of roadway and would allow access to all businesses that have been impacted. It would allow people driving driving from east to west on 15th Street to access their business.

Brandy Mogg said she thought the u-turn lane would only hold two vehicles and that having vehicles cross three lanes of traffic would lead to accidents.

“The u-turn lane does not resolve the issue that anyone leaving any of the nine business cannot turn westward, they have to turn east,” she said. “There isn’t a way for them to turn around and go back the other way.”

She acknowledged the cost of Options one and two but said those plans worked best for their business.

Mayor Greg Dionne made the motion to have public works monitor the area’s traffic flow for six months and report back to council.

The motion also stated that Public Works should meet with the owner of the Shell gas station to see if they can “assist them to allow traffic to flow between the car wash and the building to the south,” with council even being willing to put a layer of pavement down to help make the idea more attractive.

The motion was defeated.

After more discussion, Councillor Zurakowski moved that administration come back with a design that reflects an opening in front of 463 – 15th Street East for the next regular council meeting in several weeks.

Staff will have several weeks to create a fifth option and include a price for council to decide on at their Sept. 27 meeting.

Local Journalism Initiative

Each member of Prince Albert City Council was given a locally designed orange shirt from the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre on Monday.

The shirt has a design created by Ailah Carpenter, “a very well thought out young lady,” said Janet Carriere, co-chair of the Prince Albert Urban Indigenous Coalition in her presentation to council on Sept. 13.

“On the back are the words that I think always need to be there. We must never, never forget,” Carriere said. “I want to thank you all towards working towards reconciliation. I know it means something different to each and every one of us.”

“To me we’ll never reach reconciliation until we reach a place of equality. So that means a lot of work. We’re all going to have to do a lot of work to keep moving forward in a positive way,” she stated.

Carriere expressed some trepidation about the change of Orange Shirt Day to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the first one is to be marked this Sept. 30.

“My fear is that we’ll forget what that day is meant to be and that people will stay home and do nothing,” she said.

She will be asking council to support an event on the day to make sure it is acknowledged for what it is supposed to be – a day to remember – and not let people downplay the events that led up to it as she feels has happened to Remembrance Day.

“I feel a lot of people on November 11 just stay home and have a holiday. They don’t truly honour the veterans that gave their lives for our country. So I think we need to try to keep this day alive,” Carriere said.

One sleeve of the shirt has the print of the Friendship Centre’s logo and the other has the City of Prince Albert’s logo. They are available for purchase at the Friendship Centre, which sells them at cost and earns no profit from them.

“Flying Back Home is a design for Orange Shirt Day, which shares a message of hope in four parts,” explained Carpenter about her design. “One is hope in the form of strength, shown with eagle feathers; One is hope in endless purpose, represented with the stars; One is hope following change, represented in the life cycle of a butterfly; And one is hope in the form of future generations, presented in the children who stand united.”

“This design is for everyone that’s been impacted by residential schools. With every step we make to honour lost loved ones, we are bringing our ancestor’s home.”

City of Prince Albert employees will have Sept. 30 as a paid holiday following a decision by council to formally recognized the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a newly formed federal holiday.

Council voted in favour of the motion during their Sept. 7 regular meeting but several councillors expressed reservation that some would not use the day as it was intended.

“I am going to support the motion but I’m going to support with hesitation,” Councillor Blake Edwards said. “I have spoken to a few Indigenous leaders who don’t support the holiday. They don’t support it because it’s going to lose its true value.”

He said he doesn’t feel he deserves to have the day as a holiday. While recognising the need to acknowledge the harm done, Edwards worried people will not use the day for its intended purpose.

“Do I deserve a holiday because of the harm that was caused? I don’t think I do,” Edwards said.

It was an issue acknowledged by other councillors, but some took a more hopeful view.

“Change is a process. It takes time. The first Family Day in February I slept in and took the day off. But organizations took that and developed programs and activities around Family Day,” said Councillor Dennis Ogrodnick. “I think eventually it will come to mean truth and reconciliation. We will have programming and remembrances and commemoration on why we decided as a society that this is a day to sit back and reflect and acknowledge the pain and suffering that has occurred.”

Mayor Greg Dionne said he also was hesitant but would support the motion and did so wearing a shirt given to him the Metîs leaders several days before.

“I told them I would wear it with pride while I cast my vote,” said Dionne.

He also said he told them why he disagreed with the holiday, for similar reasons to Edwards.

He thought that the change would stop some of the momentum growing over Orange Shirt Day ceremonies.

“We all knew what Orange Shirt Day was and it was growing. Every year we had more people wearing orange shirts and we had schools involved. We have to educate our young. If the schools get this as a holiday, we’ve lost our school connection that day,” said Dionne.

Now that there is a holiday, people need to work even harder to mark the day, he said.

“We’re really going to have to work hard on what the day actually is and what we should remember and assist in any way we can our First Nations people to get the message across and inspire reconciliation and what it could be.”

Councillor Tony Head said he has heard much different viewpoints.

“I think people are supporting this, especially in my circle. A lot of friends and family have reached out and it is something we’ll get used to,” he stated.

He said that a lot of schools still acknowledge the meaning behind a holiday.

“I take faith that this will be something more and people will understand exactly what truth and reconciliation is based on this day given a day off and an ability to reflect,” Head said.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation became a new statutory holiday for federally regulated workers in the public and private sector following the passage of legislation by the Government of Canada earlier this year.

The day was established in response to the 80th call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action.

There were four residential schools that operated in Prince Albert with the first opened in 1879 and the last closing in 1997.

Around the country, unmarked graves at residential schools have raised awareness about the conditions at residential schools and their impacts on survivors.

The City of Prince Albert said it will continue to work with community partners on a number of initiatives through the Municipal Cultural Action Plan to champion and implement the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and to celebrate, support and promote Prince Albert’s rich Indigenous history and make-up.

The City was encouraging people to still wear orange on September 30 as a way to honour the experiences of Indian Residential School survivors.

The Prince Albert Urban Indigenous Coalition (PAUIC) will be hosting a one-hour education session on September 30, on the topic of residential schools in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day.

The pre-recorded session is being designed to create awareness and understanding of the truth of residential schools and the impacts they have had on Indigenous people.

The session is about one hour and will be available on the PAUIC website as well as on social media at the start of the day on September 30.

Subscribe or watch the City’s events calendar www.paevents.ca for further details when available.

—with files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald