Regina's wounded civic pride doesn't change facts of Maclean's article, columnist says

The Regina Leader Post's political columnist, Murray Mandryk, in a January 24 column, essentially accepts that much of what Maclean's magazine's Jonathan Gatehouse reported about the beleagured North Central neighbourhood is true. [See earlier post]

Mandryk criticizes the hyperbole of some of the writing and presentation ("Canada's worst neighbourhood") and digs back to make the point that Gatehouse has been wrong before (a glowing piece on former premier Roy Romanow's 1999 election campaign that missed that it was leading to minority government).

But the column is much more critical of those, including Mayor Pat Fiacco, who deny the problems exist or claim it's not as bad as Maclean's makes out.

"...all the wounded civic pride in the world can't gloss over the other numbers that Maclean's uses to make its case for North Central as the nation's worst neighbourhood. It notes that local food banks deal with more than 3,600 requests a month and that the local health authority distributed 1.8 million needles last year which gives the 153-block area "more IV drug users per capita than on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside."

"Moreover, observations in the article about 11- and 12-year-old girls working the stroll and the "high rate of break and enters, car thefts, street robberies and violent assaults placing Regina at the top of Canada's urban crime rankings for nine of the past 10 years" shouldn't come as a shock to Reginans. Nor is it likely the first time we've heard a community leader like North CentralCommunity Association president Brenda Mercer describe her neighbourhood as "a Third World country."

"So why are we so defensive when the same criticism shows up in the national media?

"Isn't the last two weeks of small-town reaction to the Maclean's piece far more embarrassing to Regina than the original article, itself? Wouldn't we all feel better if Fiacco simply acknowledged the reality and said more needs to be done?

"Sometimes reporters do get it wrong. Gatehouse didn't. I wish the same could be said for our politicians."