‘We can be better,’ Notley says after school protest

Premier Rachel Notley says protests by anti-immigration groups outside of a Red Deer high school this week were “difficult to watch” but not reflective of Alberta.

More than a dozen people showed up at Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School Tuesday, including an anti-Muslim group called Worldwide Coalition Against Islam and the Soldiers of Odin.

They claimed Syrian immigrants who went to the high school had whipped other students at the school and escaped discipline.

But school officials and the RCMP said four Canadian students and four Syrian students who had been involved in a fight had all been suspended for a week from school. In a Facebook post, Notley said “every child in our province deserves to feel safe and welcome in their school.

“Yesterday, that wasn’t the case, but we can learn from this and we can be better to one another,” she wrote.

Notley praised the RCMP officers who guarded the school, as well as students who had stood up to the protesters. Police said the original altercation was a typical schoolyard fight but the situation had been inflamed by social media posts making false allegations.

“We are Albertans,” wrote Notley. “We are neighbours. We are friends. We look out for one another. No lie or act of hate is ever going to change that.”

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said the events in Red Deer were a “disappointment.”

“This is a situation that we can’t allow to happen in Alberta, the fact that some people would consider intolerance to be acceptable is just not acceptable,” he told reporters at the legislature Wednesday.

Notley said more than three months ago that her NDP government planned new initiatives to combat racism and discrimination.

However, no action has been forthcoming yet. The premier’s press secretary, Cheryl Oates, said earlier this month there was nothing to announce yet.