Downturn a chance to address Fort McMurray's infrastructure deficit

Dave and Iris Kirschner dedicated their lives to making Fort McMurray a better place, but their beloved city couldn't support them when they needed it most.

They started their trucking company the day they moved to Fort McMurray in 1978. They helped found the food bank and the city's first homeless shelter. He's a former councillor, and she was a school trustee.

They spent years fighting for the city's first continuing care centre, which still hasn't been built. But when Dave was diagnosed in 2011 with a deteriorating neurological condition, the Kirschners were forced to leave behind their home, their children and grandchildren, so he could get the care he needed.

"We never thought it would affect us," said Iris, seated next to her husband in his room at the Touchmark long-term care facility in Edmonton, down the road from her bungalow. "We were doing it because we knew there was a need."

That facility they fought for is now on track to be built in the heart of the city, after a provincial announcement in November put an end to debate about location.

The current economic slowdown is seen by many, including the Kirschners, as a time of opportunity for the community.

"Now we can get to our priorities and maybe look at more of our needs than the wants," said Iris. "Because I think this is when we can get things done."

Councillor, business owner and mother of three Colleen Tatum describes herself as a unicorn, because, unlike so many in Fort McMurray, she was actually born and raised there.

While she's fiercely proud of her city, she is also blunt about what it lacks.

"We still need more services here," said Tatum, noting the city doesn't yet have a Costco. "Even though there's 70,000 people, give or take, that are still living in the community, if you want to go buy a pair of winter boots it just might not be possible."

In a region where the province controls the release of public land, Wood Buffalo is short on affordable housing, she said. The city hasn't had a helipad since 2007. And with 120 babies born each month, it can be hard to find a reasonably priced day care or an obstetrician, since there are only three in the city.

'it's chaotic'

Tatum recalled waits of up to eight hours when she was last pregnant, while her obstetrician scrambled back and forth from the hospital for births and emergencies, still determined to see all of his patients long after the receptionist went home.

"That makes it so hard to live here," said Tatum, adding that in a city with such a huge shadow population, infrastructure spending should not be based on the population. "We can't attract people because it's chaotic."

Ultimately, Tatum said the municipality needs both the provincial and federal governments "to really help us create a long-term plan of what are we doing here, and how do we achieve it."

If progress on the long-term facility is a sign of things to come, the outlook appears to be a positive one.

"I think now we are at the best place ever, because we have all our levels of government actually working together, which is amazing because we haven't heard that ever before," said Iris.

"Now we just have to get it done in these next four years. We really have to look at working together, getting the plan, deciding what needs to be done there and agreeing that somebody is going to lead this and all of us get behind them."

andrea.huncar@cbc.ca

@andreahuncar