ATHABASCA — Athabasca University (AU), rural broadband issues, COVID, pipelines and more were the topics of discussion at the May 19 weekly Rotary Club of Athabasca lunchtime meeting with guest, Lakeland MP Shannon Stubbs.
It was a wide-ranging discussion where Stubbs spoke on her role as Shadow Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as well as the work a local ad-hoc committee has been doing to encourage AU to keep staff in Athabasca.
“I will share with the Minister of Advanced Education (Demetrios Nicolaides) that I think that he needs to figure out a way to ensure that there is local representation on boards of governors in post-secondary institutions in rural and smaller communities,” said Stubbs.
She said she thinks it is necessary now more than ever for governments to find ways to support rural jobs, facilities and organizations and said her office prioritizes service to her constituents.
“My constituency office did end up closing doors to walk in traffic, but my staff never stopped coming to work,” she said. “We know that there was just a crucial need for residents continuing to be able to have service and be able to have people that they could call when seeking help and requiring any assistance.”
Stubbs noted in the first three months of the pandemic her office fielded over 750 calls and 4,200 e-mails helping connect constituents with government assistance and programs. They also assisted 33 Lakeland residents who were trapped abroad at the beginning of the pandemic.
She also commended the service club for adapting to meet the needs of the time and said the pandemic has not slowed her down either.
“The parliamentary work has remained constant, but it's a little bit weird now how we do it. We do have a rotation for in-person house duty, because they're trying to keep the numbers low and keep distance between all of us,” she said. "But that doesn't mean that we're not present in Ottawa, that we're not participating in Parliament – we are, and so I continue to participate in all sessions virtually and then I participate in committee virtually as well.”
Stubbs said she has been pushing to prioritize rural connectivity and rural broadband Internet access saying the last year has highlighted the need for Canada to ensure there is sufficient high-speed connectivity to rural and remote regions.
“There has certainly been more than once over the last year-and-a-half, when I have either been in the middle of speaking in the House of Commons, giving a speech or asking questions and getting that notice up on my screen blinking that my bandwidth is low, or my Internet connection is unstable and crossing my fingers that it will be able to get me through,” said Stubbs.
Rotarian John Ollerenshaw wondered if with the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline if there was any desire to increase upgrader capacity and building a pipeline to eastern Canada.
“I think the previous provincial government and the current provincial government are working in a variety of different ways around this issue of incentivizing more value-added upgrading and refining development,” said Stubbs. “There are some challenges there, as you've probably seen with North West (Sturgeon) Upgrader itself in terms of its delays being on schedule and the public costs. But I certainly do hear from people that they want governments to figure out ways to increase that capacity.”
Rotary member Natasha Kapitaniuk asked if Stubbs had any suggestions for things service clubs could do in the community to have more of an impact.
“I am concerned about impacts on mental health, and impacts on family breakdowns which statistically in overall national numbers have spiked in a serious way over the past year and a half,” said Stubbs. “I could see probably a role for service clubs and volunteer clubs taking a focus on those kinds of issues in terms of partnering with … frontline mental health support services, and also support for families in the cases of either family breakdowns or domestic violence situations.”
Brian Scott, who was an RCMP officer for 35 years brought forward concerns about victim-shaming in the courts and leniency when sentencing, creating a revolving door for criminals and Stubbs agreed, noting a backlog of cases means some get dismissed before even seeing a courtroom.
“I think that you are completely correct about the constant challenge that you have in the judicial system and that it is exactly part of the revolving door of repeat offenders because you constantly have these decisions being made where people are getting maybe the least possible sentence, or just off completely in technicalities, or in some cases charges that never get pursued because of backlogs in the system,” she said.
