SELF-PORTRAIT — Turner Valley Coun. Barry Williamson holds up a portrait he made with clay, complete with a soul patch under his lip. Williamson was competing in the Clay Olympics, which pitted the artistic capabilities of three members of the Turner Valley town council against three counterparts from Black Diamond town council. The event was hosted by Terra Cotta Gallery on June 27 in Black Diamond as a fundraiser for the Sheep River Library. photo by Tamara Neely

New citizen to celebrate Canada Day

By Stacey Mastel
Staff Reporter

Monica Arkangelo and her son Johnson Kisanga show off her certificate after a ceremony in which Arkangelo was granted Canadian Citizenship. photo by Stacey Mastel

For one foothills resident Canada Day will mean revisiting painful memories of a life without freedom in Sudan and hopeful thoughts of a future as a free Canadian citizen.
Monica Arkangelo left Sudan with her husband 10 years ago in hopes of more freedom and better health care and education for their children. She now lives in the foothills and became a Canadian citizen in January.
“Me and my husband had a lot of problems with the government,” Arkangelo said of Sudan. “We chose Canada because we thought it would be good for our family.”
Arkangelo spent 10 years in Calgary and all three of her children were born here, however, her husband passed away last year. Arkangelo then decided to get her citizenship so she could go to school and work.
“I want to be Canadian. I need to feel free everywhere, it was hard to feel free in Sudan,” Arkangelo said. “It is a big country and there is a lot of trouble because of religion and government.”
Arkangelo said it was hard at first to move to Canada due to the language barrier, but when she started having her children she got to know the language.
“I am happy and we can have a chance to do better,” Arkangelo said.
Arkangelo had to earn her citizenship before she could go to school and she is now required to work and support her family. Her children are currently 10, seven and two years old.
“There are lots of reasons why we chose Canada, the health care and the education is good for the kids,” Arkangelo said. “You also do not feel alone, there are always people around you that will help you however they can.”
Arkangelo recently moved to High River but has been working with the Foothills Community Immigrant Services to get her citizenship.
Arkangelo said she is excited for her first Canada Day as a Canadian citizen and as soon as she is settled in her new home she will start taking English as a second language (ESL) classes before moving on to nursing.
“I am going to go to school and take ESL and see if I can take nursing courses and work like a Canadian,” Arkangelo said.
She said she also hopes to be able to help her children with their homework.
The process to become a Canadian citizen starts with an application form sent to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The application can take six months or longer to process. After which applicants must study, take a test and attend a citizenship ceremony.
“People are sometimes scared to take the test but it is not bad,” said Janet Bimo the immigration and host coordinator at Foothills Community Immigration Services.
Since she started her job a year and a half ago, Bimo has seen four people become citizens and one who just needs to write the test.
She said many people are living in the area without becoming a Canadian citizen because they are nervous to take the test mainly because of the language barrier.
The test and study book is given in English so Bimo will sit with people to fill out the application and work with them to build up their confidence.
Other services Foothills Community Immigration Services provides are to find families who will host immigrants just moving to the area.
“It is a program that is new to the area. It is good because they have someone who knows about Canada that can help them out,” Bimo said.
She said the host program often results in long-lasting friendships and they are always looking for volunteers.
Bimo said immigrants to the foothills area are from all over the world rather than a majority from one specific country.
According to 2006 community profiles given by Statistics Canada Okotoks had 1,500 immigrants, 740 of which were not yet Canadian citizens.
As part of Okotoks’ Canada Day celebrations today (Wednesday) there will be a Canadian Citizenship Reaffirmation Ceremony at the Okotoks Recreation Centre with Macleod MP Ted Menzies and Okotoks Mayor Bill McAlpine.
Canada festivities will be at the rec centre from noon to 4 p.m. rain or shine. There will also be fireworks at Seaman Stadium after the Dawgs game at 10 p.m.
smastel@okotoks.greatwest.ca

City status once again discussed

By Don Patterson
Staff Reporter

To be a city or not to be, that is a question now starting to run through the mind of Okotoks Mayor Bill McAlpine.
McAlpine said it may be time to take another look at whether or not the town should become a city now that Okotoks’ population has officially passed the 21,000 mark.
The results of the 2009 municipal census reveal the Town’s population is 21,690, an increase of 8.4 per cent over 2008 meaning Okotoks officially passed the 20,000 mark this year.
McAlpine said Okotoks could become a city whenever it wants, but it would have to look at the pros and cons of the decision, something that has already been done twice in the past.
Based on the previous studies, McAlpine doesn’t see any compelling reasons one way or the other – but he believes the Town should take another look at the issue.
“It seems to me there are no financial benefits either way, it’s just a status thing in my mind,” he said. “Although, I have had someone tell me it gives you a little more clout when you’re knocking on the legislature doors.”
Nancy Weigel, Town communications manager, said the results of the studies weren’t conclusive one way or another. She said they showed both benefits and drawbacks to the move.
She said a 2002 study reported that there would be positive benefits for management of roadways in town, but this would be overshadowed by a higher financial burden for road maintenance. She also said residents were not as supportive of city status as they were for remaining a town.
“I do recall for certain that it was a give and take. There weren’t any compelling reasons to go one way or another. It was always a trade-off and it was always a moving target, because every year (provincial) grants are changing,” she said.
The impact of the higher population on grant funding, much of which is tied to a community’s population, also varies.
Weigel said many of these grants are changing on a year-to-year basis, which makes it difficult to judge benefits as populations change. Regardless of whether or not Okotoks is a city or town, council will have to deal with changes to its grants because of its growing population.
One example is the Alberta Municipal Water and Waste Water Partnership, which pays a higher share of the final price tag for capital projects in smaller communities (up to 75 per cent for towns less than 1,000 people). Okotoks is now only eligible to have one-quarter of a project’s costs paid through the program.
The growing population also puts the town closer to the limits of its current water supply, which McAlpine said is currently sitting somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people.
He said the Town is working on finding new solutions to expand Okotoks’ water supply.
“We’re working extremely hard at trying to resolve some of those, whether it be in the aquifer or reservoirs. Administration is pursuing that on an everyday basis,” said McAlpine.
He said the Town’s aggressive water conservation policies have helped to stretch the current water supply.
The Town went to great lengths to collect census data this year, making as many as three visits to homes that didn’t initially respond in attempts to collect data. It also found the on-line and phone-in options were popular with 1,200 respondents using the internet and 700 using the phone. Only 47 occupied homes were not counted in the survey.
The census results also showed 7,977 occupied dwellings, with an average of 2.7 people per home. At the time of the count, there were 511 homes under construction or vacant and 791 empty residential lots.
dpatterson@okotoks.greatwest.ca

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