Since the news came out about Prince George coming out on top of the list of the most dangerous city in Canada, I've have been, like most of the residents in our city, baffled, annoyed and frustrated. News like this punches us in our collective guts. Being labelled the most dangerous city in Canada brings a lot of unwelcome attention to our little Northern Capital.
What are we going to do about it?
An earlier draft of my column had a number of comparisons between Victoria and Prince George, two cities that I have lived in the longest. I had a number of examples about how safe that I've felt here in Prince George, more so than when I lived in Victoria. I worked in the downtown core in both cities and I saw much more upsetting and frightening things while working in Victoria. I was angry and outraged at the label that Maclean's gave us.
Mostly, I was just sad.
I had my husband, who was born and lived in Surrey for most of his life, read through my column to give me some feedback. When he finished, he looked at me and said: "Who gives a shit about what they think about our city?"
Ping!
I had an Oprah moment.
Why do we care?
We live here.
We know what it's like to live here.
And we like it here.
We are all aware of the problems in our city. We are not dumb. We are not perfect. We need to fix up downtown, help our neighbours, stop stealing from each other and beating each other up. We'd also like some better shopping and we'd like less snow, please.
As a community, we get caught up worrying about how the rest of B.C. and Canada see us. If Prince George was a person, we'd be the equivalent of a pre-teen girl with self-esteem issues. If we (Prince George) were on Oprah, she'd quote Eleanor Roosevelt to us: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
As a community, we're particularly sensitive to outside criticism. Most of us who moved away and then moved back home, have to constantly justify to others about our choice. If it's hard to get our friends and family to understand why we live in Prince George, how are we going to get national media to give us a fair shake? Coincidentally, this was the first time that my husband referred to Prince George as our city rather than yelling at the latest snowfall: "Why do people live here!?"
Truthfully, the funniest thing that I heard about this whole danger debacle was on a CBC interview on the day the list was released. There is a discrepancy between the numbers that Maclean's got from Statistics Canada and the numbers that Stats Canada got from the RCMP regarding the murder rate in Prince George. Stats Canada got the number wrong.
Am I the only one who thinks that's funny? Recording statistics is their only job. But I digress...
So I'm thumbing my nose at you Maclean's magazine (and Statistics Canada).
So there.
I don't care what you think.
Get to know us first before you judge us.
We like it here just fine.
