BARRHEAD – Following a presentation by representatives of a local Victim Services Unit (VSU) that provides service to the municipality, Woodlands County councillors passed a motion at their Sept. 14 meeting to forward a letter to Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Tyler Shandro urging him to re-evaluate the proposed Victim Services overhaul.
Councillors also passed a motion to have county administration draft a resolution for the next Zone 3 meeting of the Rural Municipalities Association (RMA), with the intention of having that resolution eventually voted on at the fall general assembly.
Tina Prodaniuk, program manager for the Eager Tower Victim Services Unit based in Whitecourt, said that in 2019 and 2020, a review of Victim Services programming carried out by MLAs Angela Pitt and Nathan Neudorf resulted in changes to the Victims of Crime Fund.
As a result, the money in the fund was used instead to pay for drug courts, Crown prosecutors and ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams).
“That basically ate up a lot of the funds that were accumulating for the Victim of Crime Fund,” Prodaniuk said.
In the meantime, the Eagle Tower VSU has had its provincial funding capped at the same amount since 2008 – a total of $150,000. Eagle Tower has had to conduct fundraising and rely on grants from organizations like Woodlands County in order to offer services beyond the bare minimum.
“The province basically covers our wages, and anything beyond that is fundraised dollars,” she said.
Prodaniuk also noted that the province defunded the Alberta Police Base Victim Service Association, which was the collective provincial voice for VSUs throughout Alberta.
In July, Shandro announced the Victims of Crime Fund would no longer be used to fund safety initiatives, but he also announced a major redesign to the Victim Services model.
As part of this redesign, the volunteer boards for 62 police-based Victim Services units would be dissolved and placed under the governance of four regional boards, which would roughly align with RCMP districts.
Prodaniuk said they will be in a district with 17 VSUs governed by one board. Any paid Victim Services staff working for Eagle Tower or another VSU will be allowed to apply for a paid position with that board.
Changing the redesign
Prodaniuk acknowledged there were issues with the old VSU model and there were some units that weren’t working that well, but the redesign paints Victims Services with too broad of a brush.
To lump all of the VSUs into one big area and have them represented by one board means that the local VSU will be left out of a lot of important conversations.
Based on a recent meeting with West Yellowhead MLA Martin Long, Prodaniuk suggested instead aligning the regional boards to 14 Crown prosecution areas, which would put Eagle Tower in an office with Grande Caches, Hinton and Jasper. That would allow for some local representation on a governing board, she said.
Another issue they have with the redesign is that the province isn’t making any major changes until 2024.
“There’s a lot of time that Victim Services Units will be sitting in limbo, wondering what is going to be happening,” she said, noting some VSU boards are already shutting down, which is going to leave RCMP members to take care of victims of crime in those communities.
Eagle Tower VSU board chair Darlene Chartrand added another concern they have with the redesign is that the province wants to focus solely on victims of crime and not provide assistance to Albertans who suffer other tragedies, such as losing a family member in a vehicle accident.
Chartrand pointed out that in the last five months, they’ve dealt with four deaths that would not fall within the parameters of what this new program would cover.
She also expressed a fear that the redesign would result in a loss of “ground zero services,” meaning that if an incident occurred in the Whitecourt area, “we’re going to be waiting on someone from Grande Prairie to come here, and that person from Grande Prairie doesn’t really know the layout of this community.”
Chartrand stressed the need for Woodlands County to really emphasize their fear over the loss of Victim Services at the level it is right now.
“If the new program rolls out as they propose, I really honestly believe that Victim Services in our community will basically be abolished. It will be gone.”
Chartrand added that this change is coming at a time when a lot of mental health issues are bubbling to the surface, suggesting that what the province is proposing is going to worsen those issues.
Council reaction
Coun. Jeremy Wilhelm asked if there has been any discussion about increasing the funding for Victim Services, and if the province recognized that local VSUs do a lot of fundraising to provide a breadth of services.
Prodaniuk replied that the government has told them there will be no fundraising done under the new VSU model, but also no increases in funding.
Coun. Bruce Prestidge, who sits on the Eagle Tower board, said he brought up the Victim Services redesign at the last Zone 3 meeting of the RMA. The president was not aware of what the province is planning, but he is very passionate about Victim Services.
“I think you’ll see the RMA start to push on this too,” Prestidge said.
Prestidge added that he was also concerned about the same scope of services not being available, as the province was focused only on victims of crime and not assisting with, say, death notifications to families.
“The help that this group gives you is unbelievable. It would be a shame to see that expire,” Prestidge said.
Reeve John Burrows echoed what Chartrand said about issues around mental health being at an all-time limit right now.
Noting that a community is more than just a line on a map, he added that he could not think of a better example of a group of people that care about their community than those who work for Victim Services.
“I think you’re really going to lose a lot by going to more of a regional model,” he said.
