Prefacing his statement with his own beliefs that all humans should be treated fairly and equally, a Lac La Biche County councillor has apologized to a number of residents in a community inside his electoral ward for unwarranted attention in the midst of a racially-charged event.
A social media posting on a community crime watch page two weeks ago about a suspicious person on a Hylo-area woman's property described the person as being native. Subsequent posts contained graphic and violent comments about dealing with criminals. The link between the man's description and the violent comments created a racial backlash that has resulted in outrage towards racial injustice and also death threats and the firing of one man from his municipal role as the Hylo Fire Department's fire chief.
Lac La Biche County councillor George L'Heureux used the last minutes of this afternoon's public session of the regular council meeting to offer his apologies to people who he says have been rolled into a heated debate centering on racial intolerance — just because they live in the same rural area where the initial comments originated.
"There were residents there with no affiliation who had death threats, who had to shut down their business pages, their websites, because they were getting harassed with nothing to do with the incident," said L'Heureux, commenting on an agenda item he added to Tuesday's regular council meeting, and explaining that provincial news coverage of the incident, including images broadcast from the community, helped to paint the wrong overall picture, and detracted from the actual issue. "Some words that were spoken, triggered that ... That flash of the Hylo sign by Global news, put everyone there into that category."
L'Heureux carefully chose the words of his apology.
"Personally, I would like to extend my apologies of the people of Ward 2 by the situation that went on," said L'Heureux.
The apology was followed by several seconds of silence from the rest of council members around the council table.
No further action from council was added before the meeting was moved to a private session.
In a story published in the current edition of the Lakeland This Week newspaper, Lac La Biche County Mayor Omer Moghrabi acknowledged that he had received calls and emails from Hylo residents requesting an apology, but said from the municipal standpoint, the issue was being addressed from an overall standpoint and not relating to any one particular area.
More letters
Earlier in Tuesday's council meeting, L'Heureux did question why several pieces of correspondence written to him from residents about the recent issue were not included in the council's overall correspondence package. He was told that since the letters were addressed to him specifically, they fell outside the municipality's procedural bylaw for public discussion.
Lac La Biche County councillor Charlyn Moore questioned whether those letters were "fit for public viewing" as it was not clear that the letter-writers wanted them aired publicly. Moore and council agreed that municipal administrators would respond to the letter-writers to examine if further action was required.
Municipal officials and leaders from Indigenous communities across the region — including Beaver Lake Cree Nation Chief Germain Anderson whose letter encouraging further regional dialogue, was included in Tuesday's correspondence list to council — have planned meetings in the coming weeks to discuss cultural issues and crime.
