'Realist' Fort McMurray councillor worries the city's future looks bleak
Fort McMurray will rebuild, but one local councillor is asking people to inject a dose of reality about what comes next.
I don't think anyone in this country is sitting around the kitchen table saying 'I think we should move to Fort McMurray.'- Al Vinni
Al Vinni is a councillor for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo. He tells As It Happens host Carol Off that the double whammy of slumping oil prices and now the wildfires that have destroyed parts of the town may make re-building Fort McMurray challenging.
"We're not immediately going to become bigger and better, we will remain what we are—that is a community that is strong and supports everybody," says Vinni. He adds, "I don't think we need to focus on how big we are going to be—just what we are going to do to make Fort McMurray work again."
"Can we count on everyone coming back to sign on for a 5-10 year project to get our town back to what it was?" asks Councilor Al Vinni. "That's asking a lot of people that maybe weren't fully committed to start with."
Vinni is referring to many of the 54,000 oil workers that fly in for their job and then fly back out during their off-time. He cites a census that says the average person in Fort McMurray has been there less than 3 years. When the census was taken 15 years ago, the result was the same — the average person had lived there only 3 years.
Officials announced Monday that 85% of the critical infrastructure of Fort McMurray was left unscathed after the "ocean of fire" forced the evacuation of the town's 80,000 residents.
"I don't think we can say that everyone is going to come back. I've already heard from a number of people that have already made plans to move on," says Vinni.
Even though most of the oil infrastructure was left untouched, getting things back to "normal" could take weeks or months. Power lines, pipelines and other infrastructure will need to be inspected and if necessary, repaired. Housing will have to be rebuilt. This uncertainty makes Vinni wonder if oil workers, already feeling the heat of a market downturn, will simply move on.
"How do you ask people to come back and live in a community where they don't have a job and they're waiting a year or two for their housing to be rebuilt?"
He also wonders why any Canadians would plan to move their family to the community.
"I have a law office, I just think of the realtors. I don't think anyone in this country is sitting around the kitchen table saying 'I think we should move to Fort McMurray.' I don't think that conversation is happening," Vinni says.
To hear more, take a listen to our full interview with Al Vinni.