GRANDE CACHE FEELS NDP ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

Town officials say economic struggles are being ignored by provincial government

GRANDE CACHE After being hit by one economic punch after another and watching hundreds of residents leave for good, the town of Grande Cache might suffer another indignity — being downgraded to a hamlet as part of the Municipal District of Greenview.

The provincial government has yet to make a decision on the future of the community (pop: 4,000) that has been walloped by its dependence on a trifecta of troubled economic industries — oil, forestry and coal.

Residents such as the town’s deputy mayor, Mary Nelson, are afraid more bad news is on the way.

“I feel like we’re maybe at a fork,” said Nelson. “I see it either as Grande Cache being able to grow and prosper and build to become its own entity and be a viable town to live in, or I see Grande Cache diminishing and becoming a hamlet with minimal services and amenities.”

Nelson said the economically-troubled town has been reaching out to the provincial government for help — but has been largely ignored. The last cabinet minister to visit was Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous in 2015.

“I don’t feel they’ve been supportive during low-commodity times to ensure that our population is able to work,” she said.

What’s particularly irritating for the town council is that after making numerous requests to have government ministers visit their town, they have to instead drive 41/2 hours to Edmonton to speak with ministers.

And even then, they have had to browbeat some into a meeting.

Nelson said at the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association convention last October, she publicly demanded a meeting with Transportation Minister Brian Mason to discuss improving Highway 40, the one road into and out of Grande Cache.

“I told him at the microphone, ‘We’ve been trying to get a meeting with you since the election to no avail. How do we get one? And how do we get a highway that’s safe and adequate for our industry and to promote diversification up here.’ ”

An hour later, she got her meeting and Nelson said she felt a bit more optimistic after Mason assured her the province wants to improve the serpentine twolane highway.

But Nelson is still unconvinced the NDP government is doing all it can to help the community as it suffers one hit after another. The town’s largest employer, Grande Cache Coal, was shut down in 2015, taking with it 400 jobs.

The oil industry has been hit by low prices and forestry is under attack by a softwood lumber dispute with the U.S.

The town’s largest employer nowadays is a federal medium security prison with about 300 employees. But the lease on the building runs out in 2020 and there’s no guarantee it will stay open.

Grande Cache is nestled in a scenic spot in the Rocky Mountain foothills and residents would like to boost the local tourism industry, but that would require government help, such as improving Highway 40.

The news has been so relentlessly bad the past few years that some people here are looking for something to blame besides low commodity prices.

Highway maintenance worker Dan Thibert, for example, blames Premier Rachel Notley.

“She’s the one that knocked this town down, right?” he said, more by way of accusation than question. “She took away our jobs.”

He blames Notley for shutting down the coal mine.

But Notley and her phase-out of coal had nothing to do with the closure.

For one, the mine produced metallurgical coal used to make steel in Asia, not coal to be burned in power plants in Alberta. For another, the decision to close the plant was based on low world prices for metallurgical coal.

When I explain this to Thibert, he is not convinced. He said “everybody” will be glad to see the NDP defeated next election. The anger at the NDP seems to be more emotional than rational.

The unemployment rate has risen but it’s difficult to judge exactly how high because people looking for work often simply leave.

One resident, who would only give her name as Linda, used to work at the coal mine, as did her husband. He now works seven days on, seven days off in British Columbia as a heavy-duty mechanic. Her five adult children have all had to leave to find work elsewhere.

She blames the NDP for the town’s ills. When I explain the culprit is world commodity prices, she simply shrugged. She and her husband are in the process of moving away.

Nelson isn’t blaming the NDP for the town’s economic crisis. She blames the government for being missing in action.

She said she has grown so frustrated that she understands why Albertans would support a merger between the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives to form a new conservative party to defeat the NDP next election.

It’s a common refrain from local politicians I met last week while gauging rural Albertan’s feelings in the lead up to the merger vote July 22.

For its part, the government has promised to do better.

“We would like to get out in rural areas more and we will be doing that,” said Notley’s press secretary, Cheryl Oates.

With that in mind, the government has scheduled Municipal Affairs Minister Shaye Anderson to visit Grande Cache in August.