As the Government of Alberta paid advertisement in the image just to the left suggests, sometimes we forget that Fort McMurray is more than just oilsands and industry. The Executive Director of the Fort McMurray Family Crisis Centre is going through a three-week hunger strike to raise awareness about the need for a new women’s shelter in her community.
Mary-Ellen Proctor is starting a 21-day fast — the number of days that women can stay at the shelter before they are reassessed, she said. The FCS has an emergency shelter but lacks resources in the community to allow the women to stay longer than three weeks. Last year, they had to turn away 400 women because there wasn’t enough enough, Proctor said.
Currently, they are housing three women, who have been staying for seven months. “It’s similar to like being in jail. It’s a terrible place to be,” Proctor said.
The new shelter project is set to cost $50 million, out of which $15 million needs to be fundraised. The rest will come through government grants. The society is in the infant stages of getting funding from government. Read more…
To donate to the Fort McMurray Family Crisis Centre, call 780-750-2530.
6 replies on “hunger strike for fort mcmurray women’s shelter.”
Dave, while I applaud your sentiment here please remember it is ‘tar sands’ and not ‘oil sands’. The industry doesn’t get to manipulate the truth.
Jymn, what an asinine comment. Dave’s trying to do a good thing for a good cause in my hometown and you call him on petroleum nomenclature?
And, just because you need some correction, it IS oil sands. They make oil from what’s in the ground up there, and it comes out of the sand – pretty straightforward. Tarsands is an antiquated term coined back in the day when they DID use tar from the oilsands to patch roofs and canoes. And even then it wasn’t correct since the chemical composition of tar doesn’t match what’s in the ground up there. But I digress…
There are thousands of posts on thousands of blogs where you can trot out the Greenpeace agenda ad nauseum. How about, for this one, we stick to helping people in need.
What Blake said.
Jymn,
It isn’t “tarsands” to anyone who doesn’t have their head up their ass. That’s because “Tar” isn’t some made up descriptor word. It’s an actual material and certain isn’t the stuff in the ground around Fort Mac. If accuracy is your aim, then feel free to refer to it as bituminious sands.
I think it is shameful that Mary-Ellen Proctor,a woman so obviously and selflessly doing what she can to help women and children in family distress, feels she must go to this extreme to raise awareness about this dire situation. Her frustration with the system must be overwhelming. It is clear there is an immediate need for the infusion of significant resources into the Shelter.I for one will be making a donation. I hope other individuals, organizations (particularly those corporations and other entities operating in the oilsands) and governments will step up. I am deeply concerned about the effect of this hunger strike on Ms. Proctor’s health. I wish her a speedy recovery and for a better future for the Shelter. People working in situations like this are truly the saints among us.
Why are we spending so much on activities like this? Clearly our tax dollars are better spent elsewhere. They should look to private charity, unlike the big government PC’s. Time for Wildrose.