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Rimbey Victim Services bids farewell to community after 21 years of service

Alberta government terminates funding to all RCMP based Victim Service Units in the province.
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One of the past charity check stops held by Rimbey Victim Services, one of the many contributions they made to the community, (Photo by Leah Bousfield/Rimbey Review)

Rimbey Victim Services is bidding farewell after serving the Rimbey Community, Rimbey RCMP and its many community partners over the past 21 years.

"It's a huge blow. I'm still not sure why the province cancelled it," said Rimbey Mayor Rick Pankiw.

Reeve of Ponoka County Paul McLauchlin was also very upset with the closure of services, calling it a horrible approach to solving problems.

The Alberta Government terminated funding to all of the RCMP based Victim Services Units throughout the province, and is adapting a new model, which saw a slew of changes effective Oct. 1.

"It's really a model where they're wanting to centralize services and have more control... Who's going to suffer from this? Rural Albertans, people that are victims of crime, people that are having the worst time of their day," said McLauchlin.

The recent termination of Rimbey Victim Services came as no shock to Kristine Stebanuk, who was the Program Manager with Rimbey Victim Services.

Stebanuk thought the changes to the Victim Service Units throughout the province would include the already in place staff, which it didn't.

"We had to reapply for jobs, our own jobs, like submit resumes and cover letters and interview for those positions, which we thought we would just be kind of grandfathered in, but we weren't," she said.

The Government broke the province into four zones, mirroring the RCMP zone structure. Each zone now has a board of directors and large administrative team, with the main hub of the Central Zone being located in Leduc.

"That's who's covering Central Alberta, but it's not going to be a community-based board anymore. They now have zone boards," said Stebanuk, adding that the hours are also cut back significantly, with Rimbey being cut back to half time hours, which used to house a full time staff.

"I don't know what the new zone looks like as far as call outs or as far as helping people after hours."

The transition of Victim Service Units started back in April, and slowly started transitioning other units over time.

"We were hoping that we could stop the changes and we wouldn't have to go through the transition," said Stebanuk.

McLauchlin, who is also the president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, took attempts, highlighting what a mistake the closure was to the government, looking at alternatives.

"In no way did they ever provide any rationale for centralizing Rimbey services. Rimbey services were delivered phenomenally. We had great support from the court and fantastic relationships with the RCMP...

"We're going to see a decrease in the successful persecution of folks that are actually undertaking crime because those services are transferred."

As of Oct. 1 Rimbey is without anyone in the building, leaving many questions still being asked.

Rimbey Victim Services took pride in the community, taking part in a number of engagements including parades, barbecues, food bank drives, Cram a Cruiser, charity checkstops and many more.

"I think Victim Services has played a giant role, not only in our town, but in the community and in the county. They're there for people when they need them. Us losing our victim services just downloads more on our police officers and puts them in a role where they can be used, I believe, better elsewhere," said Pankiw.

"We had the most caring, accountable people to our local community. They knew how to assist people that were victims of crime, they assisted people that had tragedy come into the community and into their life, they gave their heart and soul for years and quite honestly, they got completely mistreated and they were never recognized for what they've done," added McLauchlin.

"It's heartbreaking, and I think that it's going to be small rural communities who are going to be affected the most with this, because we were so involved in the community, not just with serving our victims, but also with other things, and being part of the community and being part of getting to know the different community agencies and getting to know the people in the community," said Stebanuk.

She also believes that service delivery is not going to be as high or as much as it was when they were there, not just Rimbey but all Victim Service Units.

McLauchlin wants to really thank these individuals. "They're amazing human beings and I sure hope they land on their feet, because our community owes them a debt of gratitude."