The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Clarence Pettersen is on his second dream job. He landed his first decades ago when he became a teacher. Then, after retiring from the Flin Flon School Division, he embarked on a goal he had set a quarter-century earlier. And that ambition was realized nearly a year ago, in October 2011, when Pettersen was elected MLA of the vast Flin Flon constituency. With nearly 60 per cent of the vote, the Flin Flon native came into office with a strong mandate and high expectations. The Reminder sat down with Pettersen, a New Democrat, last week for an in-depth one-on-one interview. * * * REMINDER: What kind of reaction have you received since you said you'd support the City of Flin Flon in annexing cottage subdivisions should the municipality go that route? PETTERSEN: Well it's hard when you say, 'Do I support?' I want to see a fair agreement. I mean, the city is looking at ways to bring in people just outside of Flin Flon, bring in Flin Flonners, because I consider them Flin Flonners and most of the people out there consider themselves Flin Flonners. REMINDER: If that's the case, why is there so much opposition? PETTERSEN: Well is there? REMINDER: The cottage associations have said so. PETTERSEN: I know, but there's a lot of people that are also for becoming a part of Flin Flon. Like, we are a community and some people have this sense of community that, 'Geez, I work at (Hudbay) or I work at the hospital or I work in the school division. Of course I'm a member of a community.' And what we're looking at is looking at a fair agreement. I know (Mayor) George (Fontaine) and council have come out and said that, said that 'You know what, we want to have an agreement that both sides can be happy with.' So they're looking at, you know, I don't what the plan of the city is in the future, but my job as being the representative of both sides here is to make sure that there's a fair agreement for everybody. REMINDER: You had also said if the city does pursue annexation, you would back them on that. PETTERSEN: I said I would work with them, but only _ REMINDER: Or 'work towards that', you said _ PETTERSEN: _ for a fair agreement for everybody. You know, what does annexation mean? Does it mean just literally taking over? And I'm representing both sides and I want to see a fair agreement for both sides... So I'm going to work with both sides. I said I'd work with the city, I will. I said I'd work with the cabin owners, I will. REMINDER: So if the city can't receive the income it wants without annexation and it applies to the province to annex and have those cottage properties become part of Flin Flon, where do stand in that scenario? PETTERSEN: Well it'd be a long process. I work with George closely, with the city. I've had many cabin owners get a hold of me and talk to me and my job is just to facilitate, I guess, people that the city could talk to about that. And the premier knows all about it and like I say, this is unique, so we want to find a fair agreement that everybody can sit down and be happy with. See 'Most...' on Pg. 3 Continued from Pg. 1 Now it's going to be hard. I think most people that talk to me thought that their lease agreement that they pay to the government should go to the city. Now the question is, if that goes to the city, what does the city provide? Is that fair? But I mean there's a lot of things to look at. It's not that easy just to say, 'We're gonna annex. Here's the (boundary) line and you pay.' It won't be that easy and so the best thing that can happen is by working together with the cottage associations and with the City of Flin Flon. REMINDER: So just to be clear, if somebody asks you, 'What is your position on the city potentially annexing cottage subdivisions?', do you say you're against or you're for it? PETTERSEN: I say I'm for it but it has to be a fair agreement. It has to be fair for both sides. It has to be fair. Like, the city, I can understand why they're doing it, but I can also understand why the cabin association doesn't want it. They've had it good for so many years, 'let's continue on.' Well, I think what's happening is that the community is now asking everybody to come together and help each other out because we are a community, and if you live 10 miles out or if you live right here in downtown, I think we are part of that community. REMINDER: What does Flin Flon _ the community, not the riding _ need the most? PETTERSEN: What do they need the most? Well if we had other economic development. I mean if we could find another mine, if we could find another industry, that would help because, you know, our population is still going down and I'm very close with the school (division) because I worked in it and it would be nice to see the school population going up. So that would be important. What Flin Flon needs is some of our recreational facilities _ like the pool and that have to be upgraded. If we are a community that wants to draw people here from Toronto to work, from Winnipeg to work, from wherever, we've got to have a community that's vibrant, that has some of the facilities that they have in the city. Some of our facilities are getting older and they have to be fixed up or torn down and rebuilt. REMINDER: Do you feel that Flin Flon gets its fair share from the province compared to The Pas and Thompson? That's kind of an ongoing theme. PETTERSEN: That's my fight, yeah. I want to see more. I'm a strong voice down south. (Premier Greg) Selinger's been up here many times. They understand we always use that competition between Thompson and The Pas, and sometimes you shake your head. But I mean, my job is to work hard to make sure that we are represented down there and try and get as much as we can. We need more jobs up here, whether it's government jobs or something new, some new economic development or mines or whatever. REMINDER: In terms of the health care concerns that we've had in Flin Flon, are those resolved in your mind? PETTERSEN: I'm really happy the way we're moving, the direction we're moving in there. With health care, it's always ongoing, as you know. I think (Northern RHA CEO) Helga Bryant has done a great job. I think if you go into the (NRHA Medical) Clinic _ I've been in there quite a few times myself _ it's bright, it's airy, it's being used. There's more visits to the clinic than ever before. I think the atmosphere, which was very important, has changed quite a bit in (the hospital) and I'm just really pleased the way things are going. I'm also pleased that our government's going to spend, what is it, $15 million or whatever, on redoing the emergency room and we've had a meeting already about (it), they're bringingin the engineers to see what's going to happen, what it's going to do. So I think that's good. Personally, I want to see more things there. I'd love to see a CT scan for everybody, but especially for stroke victims. I think we're moving in the right direction. It (the new Northern RHA) is bigger, of course, with Thompson and The Pas. We've got good board members and this was really important to me, that we've got good representatives on the board and I think we're moving in the right direction. REMINDER: Is there such a need to keep expanding Manitoba Hydro? Can we not just say, 'Our focus is Manitoba. We're not going to go with these billion-dollar projects'? And instead of worrying about exporting power outside the province, why can't we just focus on Manitoba and low rates? PETTERSEN: I don't think you can be so narrow-minded. I mean, we're investing in Manitoba (for) the future, so our children have something there. I mean, there's potential here and it's renewable energy and I think it's good that we're investing. It creates jobs, jobs in the North, jobs in the South. It's our economic stimulus. REMINDER: Do you think hydro rates would go up as much as they are if we just didn't keep expanding Hydro all the time? PETTERSEN: I mean, we'd have to see. I mean, we have the lowest rates, what more do you want? We have the lowest rates and we passed in legislation we want to keep that. And furthermore, we have the lowest rates and we're investing in Manitoba. We're not building anywhere else in Canada. We're building in Manitoba and we're creating jobs. (The second part of this interview will appear Wednesday).
