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Candlelight vigil held for AMBER Alert program a Blairmore victims critical tool for RCMP
Don JOHNSTON www.donjohnstonliberal.ca Authorized by official agent for Don Johnston
TERRY FOX RUN
By Katie Smith Free Press Staff
T 35th annual event Page 13 ELK VALLEY
Close to 150 residents gathered at Rotary Park last week to show their respect for Terry Blanchette and his two-year-old daughter, Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette. Photo by K. Smith By Katie Smith Free Press Staff
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he community of Fernie gathered last week at Rotary Park to show its support to the families, friends and neighbours of the murdered father and daughter from Blairmore. Terry Blanchette, 27, and two-year-old Hailey DunbarBlanchette were killed last week, shattering the small, close-knit Alberta community. Fernie resident Chris Inglis helped organize a local candlelight vigil, showing solidarity and support from one small community to another. “The community was grieving, our neighbours to the east, and I knew somehow we had to get together to share our emotions and our grief and our anger,” he said, adding he saw on social media people wanted to have some sort of gathering. “I just kind of grabbed the bull by the horns and organized it.”
Despite having only a halfday to get the word out, close to 150 people were in attendance, young and old. Inglis said small communities rally together, something not as often seen in big cities. “We as small communities know each other, pass each other on the street, so when something like this happens so close to home, it affects everybody.” Rev. Jane Clarke from the Fernie Knox United Church offered a few words to the victims and those impacted by the tragedy. “We’re gathered to remember Terry and Hailey; to remember them with love and compassion and hopefully not with anger in our hearts,” she said, adding it’s natural to feel angry over something so senseless and sad. “But I ask that we don’t allow ourselves to feel the anger, if we can, let it be overcome by love and support and compassion.” Clarke also asked the crowd
to show its support and compassion to Hailey’s mom, Cheyenne Dunbar and her family, as well as Terry’s family. “May we surround them with our love and light.” A moment of silence followed as supporters huddled together with their heads down and candles burning. Sparwood residents also showed their support with a candlelight vigil held on Sept. 19. Earlier that day, roughly 200 bikers gathered in Longview, Alta. and rode 130 kilometres down the Cowboy Trail to the Crowsnest Pass in honour of Terry and Hailey. There is also an online fundraising campaign set up to raise money to pay for funeral costs. So far, more than $24,000 has been raised. To make a donation, visit Gofundme.com and search The Hailey and Terry Funeral Fund.
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here has been a lot of talk in the public and in the media as of late about the AMBER Alert program. An America’s Missing Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) Alert is issued when a child abduction situation meets the established criteria to seek the public’s help to locate a missing child. Following the kidnapping of a Sparwood boy in 2011 (who was subsequently found alive a few days later), incumbent Conservative MP David Wilks raised the issue in the House of Commons about making the AMBER Alert program a nationwide initiative. Wilks said there was an opportunity to look at a national program which could potentially be run by the RCMP, that if an alert was issued anywhere in Canada it would automatically be dispersed to the rest of the country immediately. The notion, however, was rejected. “The argument was that if a child goes missing in New Brunswick, why turn it on in British Columbia? Awnd my argument back was, why not?” The challenge, he said, is that an AMBER Alert is turned on by the province in jurisdiction. “At the end of the day, if you could turn it on and it’s on in all 10 provinces and three territories, regardless of where the child goes missing, that would solve a lot of the problems that do come about because of jurisdiction.” Cpl. Janelle Shoihet, media relations officer with the RCMP, said the most recent AMBER Alert issued for two-year-old Hailey DunbarBlanchette, whose body was later discovered in a rural area of Blairmore, Alta., was reported in the media as being delayed in jurisdictions outside of Alberta. This, Shoihet said, isn’t accurate. Shoihet explained that an alert in one province would be independent of any other AMBER Alert. “When B.C. RCMP becomes aware of an AMBER Alert in a neighbouring jurisdiction, an assessment is made to determine whether the AMBER Alert meets the B.C. criteria and whether it should be activated here. If it does, a B.C. AMBER Alert is issued.” Continued on page 3
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