Regina mayor says Maclean's articles one-sided

Mayor Pat Fiacco of Regina predicted in advance that a just-published follow-up article by Maclean's magazine on the troubled North Central neighbourhood (characterizing it as the country's worst neighbourhood) wouldn't help matters.

"I said 'Don't expect anything better,' he said Thursday. "And that's exactly what we got: Nothing better ... Again, no one is disputing the challenges that North Central is facing. But I need them to explain to me why they chose not to print the positive statements that those people living in that neighbourhood made."

According to an article in the Regina Leader Post, the follow-up article, by Colin Campbell, didn't defuse the anger over the original article about crime and drugs in the neighbourhood, written a couple of weeks ago by Jonathan Gatehouse.

"It is one of those things where they've decided once again to only report one side," Fiacco said. "They talked to so many people at that North Central Family Centre (meeting), giving their side of the story, and he didn't record one bit of it in that article. Not one."

Campbell disagreed.

"I wrote everything that the mayor told me (about) when I was there," he said. "I heard about, like I said, the boxing program, the running program, the community centre, the 43 new homes that have been built -- which by the way many are still empty for various reasons.

"On the other hand, in the three days I spent there, I talked to probably more people who were upset with what's happened in their neighbourhood and who took real issue with their civic leaders saying that a lot of improvements have been made, because in their opinion, they haven't been made, enough things haven't been done to try and fix the problem there."