Editorial

Lady with a whole lot of class

The Canadian Alliance party will suffer a huge blow next time Canadians go to the polls –no matter who they’ve got running for them.
Party Matriarch Deborah Grey, the lady who ushered the party to Ottawa, has announced she won’t be running next time around. And Canadians everywhere will be losing a politician with a difference.
She always shot straight from the lip, and we’re certain the party’s first-ever Member of Parliament will be sorely missed.
It’s somehow ironic that Grey was party leader Stephen Harper’s first introduction to the party as his ‘boss’ when she first hit the Ottawa scene.
A neophyte politic, he was the motorcycle Momma’s executive assistant. And we’re just as sure she was a great teacher for the man who would become her boss.
“Deb just seemed to have had enough of it,” said co-worker Athabasca MP Dave Chatters last week. And while we can’t dispute the statement, we’d like to see Grey given her due before she leaves the Hill.
Of course Harper had to relegate her to the backbenches after she and a handful of cohorts returned from their short flirtation with the federal Tories. But she’s been there long enough. And even though Grey says she doesn’t mind sitting at the back of the class (except for the fact that her red ensembles often clash with the drapes at the outer ring of the House) we think it’s time the lady with the lust for life should be returned to the Opposition’s front row.
Anyone who’s heard her speak knows the lady with the golden tongue delivers her words straight from the heart. And she has simply truckloads of knowledge, good ideas and class.
We’ll certainly miss her witticisms and sharp tongue. But most of all we’ll miss the person, Deb Grey – a woman with great convictions, but an almost non-political personality.

No drop in the bucket
Water, weir, silt and sand. Those were some of the important subjects covered at public meetings in Slave Lake, Faust and High Prairie last week. The meetings are part of a huge study being undertaken by the province and feds at the behest of the Municipality of Lesser Slave River.
The municipality is tired of waiting for the former June rains, and when those don’t happen, scrambling for permission to put siphons in the river to bring enough water into the Lesser Slave River to satisfy the needs of industry at Mitsue Industrial Park.
It’s happened a couple of times. But as we advance through this who-know-how-many-years drought, we realize the potential water shortage is getting more and more common. And industrial users at the Park need some sort of assurance that they won’t be left literally high and dry when the water quits running over the weir.
Those businesses contribute a substantial portion of the M.D.’s annual budget. And they – in no small part — help line the province’s pockets too. And through their employees, the companies also contribute to the Town of Slave Lake’s financial well-being. In fact, residents along the lake are putting bread on their respective tables thanks to their jobs at the Park.
Bottom line, we really can’t wait until 2006, or 2007 for a decision on how we’ll address the problems in the lake and river.
Industry and the municipalities need answers – and action. Preferably sooner than later. Because they cannot make plans without assurances their water supply will continue. Call us paranoid, but if Lesser Slave Lake somehow becomes the water ‘source’ for Alberta, we could all be in deep trouble.