With the Y2K scare gone, the millennium started on a sour note. A former St. Albert priest pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl from 1983 to 1984. Father Richard Wolak, 64 and living in Saskatchewan at the time, checked into a facility for clergy with “sexual adjustment problems” and received a conditional sentence of two years less a day.
The RCMP busted a major grow operation in Grandin Village consisting of 80 plants, arresting a 45-year-old man. It was the second pot bust in six months. That same month, Peter Adrzan Callow, 66, was fined $15,000 for failing to file tax returns for 1996 and 1997. Callow fought the charge with the argument that, because the Income Tax Act just says a ‘person’ needs to pay taxes and does not say anything about a ‘natural person,’ the act didn’t apply to him. The courts disagreed.
The Catholic school division made headlines when it was revealed a student who sexually assaulted another was still attending classes with the victim. The school suspended him for two weeks, but after Education Minister Lyle Oberg intervened, the student was expelled. A former deputy assistant minister was called in to investigate the board.
Profiles Public Art Gallery was evicted from Grandin mall after its lease expired. Across town, the Grey Nuns announced they were handing control of Youville Home over to Caritas Health as the younger nuns showed little interest or experience in administrative matters.
But on the bright side, the province announced that St. Albert’s own, Lois Hole, a past Sturgeon and Protestant board trustee, University of Alberta chancellor and founder of Hole’s Greenhouses & Gardens, would become Alberta’s next lieutenant governor.
January of 2001 brought more questionable antics on the part of government as St. Albert federal bureaucrat Pierre Vincent was informed by Natural Resources Canada that he could be fired unless he pledged allegiance to the queen, something he had never done since joining the public service in 1996 but was required to do under the Public Service Employment Act. As a francophone, Vincent said the oath went against his beliefs and took the matter to federal court. City council also raised the ire of residents when it proposed closing Grosvenor pool and several outdoor rinks to give homeowners a four per cent tax cut. Within weeks, the mayor and council backtracked on the idea, pledging more public consultation.
The following January found the RCMP investigating the St. Albert Minor Hockey Association for misappropriation of funds to the tune of $6,000. President Neil McInnes had resigned in December, before the investigation began. And on Jan. 30, after pushing the city to annex Sturgeon County land and surrendering its space at St. Albert Centre, Walmart opened in the city’s north end.
By January 2003, all eyes were on the Sturgeon River as an unknown substance was found in the water, spreading from Meadowview Drive to Big Lake. Early tests revealed an unusually high content of saline and Environment Canada started investigating.
2004 started with tragedy. No more than two hours into the new year, an altercation ensued at a house party in Sturgeon County that left Kane Vervoort, 17, of High Level dead from stab wounds and a St. Albert man in custody on charges of second-degree murder. While originally charged as an adult and named in press releases, it was later revealed the accused, Andrew Mair, turned 18 on Jan. 1. According to the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, anyone who commits an offence on his or her 18th birthday must be charged as a youth. After two hearings, a judge ruled that Mair was a youth, must be charged as one and the press could no longer name him. It was the first such ruling under the new act.
St. Albert council elicited more public outrage when it proposed a sweeping smoking ban that would eliminate smoking from all public places. Health advocates were pleased. Bingo hall owners were not. Over the course of two nights, 50 speakers addressed council.
Tragically the next year, Lois Hole succumbed to cancer. Her memorial service, held at the Winspear Centre, was broadcast live on TV. The Protestant district announced it would name the next school it built in her honour.
January 2006 saw the country in the throes of a federal election with John Williams easily winning a fifth term in office, but not without some drama as NDP candidate Mike Melymick was taken away from St. Albert’s forum in an ambulance after experiencing chest pain. Melymick was released from hospital the next day. Thieu Kham Tran went on trial for stabbing Paul Kane janitor An Quoc Tran to death after finding Quoc Tran in bed with his estranged wife. Later that same month, the RCMP reported that Michael Feist, a driver with Roger’s Towing in St. Albert, was missing, his vehicle found abandoned on Highway 43. He has not yet been found.
On the civic front, 2007 was acrimonious at best as Edmonton walked away from the Alberta Capital Region Alliance (ACRA). Paul Chalifoux hosted a meeting of mayors from 22 of the 23 municipalities at the Kinsmen Korral, only to have the mayors of Sturgeon, Strathcona and Parkland counties walk out early. The next year saw St. Albert still coping with the announced $2.2-million deficit at Servus Credit Union Place. The news led to repeated reviews, a citizens’ task force and the resignation of the facility director. Despite the fiscal oversight in one area, council spent $1.3 million in cash and land so the Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI) could buy a new building in Campbell Park.
But buildings, according to tourism guru Roger Brooks, were part of the problem in making St. Albert a tourist attraction. The ‘Dr. Phil’ of marketing lambasted the city’s downtown in 2009 for being too drab and not lively enough while suggesting numerous brands the city could use to market itself, such as being a “gardening capital.”
While Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert MLA Doug Horner was named deputy premier in 2010, all the focus was on the upcoming Winter Olympics. St. Albert daughter Meghan Mikkelson returned home with the Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team to double up on the St. Albert midget AAA Raiders 4-2, while residents lined the streets to watch the Olympic torch, bound for Vancouver, travel the length of St. Albert Trail with a short stop at St. Albert Place.
And as for 2011? You’re holding that history in your hands right now.
