By Kellah Lavoie

PA one of Canada’s safest communities

Oct 8, 2010 | 6:50 AM

Prince Albert is a safe community.
“People think of safety in terms of crime prevention and they think of safety in terms of their home, but when we look at other organizations provincially, say in Saskatchewan for example we partner with them as well and focus on injury prevention and how can we make sure our community is safe in every day activity both at work at home and in our community,” said Lyle Karasiuk, chairman of Prince Albert Safe Communities, said the group is about making Prince Albert a safe place to live.
Prince Albert is one of three communities in Saskatchewan and 35 in Canada to have the title.
The city took the designation four years ago and in its most recent Safe Communities report, the numbers show it is doing better than the rest of the country in several categories. Out of a total 50 points, Prince Albert reached 41.5, the rest of the country averaged 36.2.
“We do a community inventory so we look at all the programs we hear about, see about or know about and say ‘OK, how are they affecting our city and what differences are they making?’”
The group works in three main categories – intentional injuries, such as stepping off a curb without looking both ways, seniors fall preventions and youth who do potentially risky activities.
“You know they want to go out, they want to try something new. They want to go out and snowboard they want to go out and skateboard,” Karasiuk said about youth.
He does not want to discourage youth from enjoying themselves, but to do it in a safe way. He said something as simple of making sure they put on their seat belt when driving or wearing a helmet when snowboarding.
Safe Communities runs off a very limited budget, most of which comes from community partners. In 2009, the group had less than $5,000 to work with, Karasiuk said.
With such a limited budget, Karasiuk is ecstatic with how they did in the last annual report.
“It makes us feel fantastic when we look at what we do with our volunteer board, our leadership table made up of our member agencies, small group of people who all in their everyday lives have very busy activities,” he said.
While Karasiuk is happy with how things are going, he said over time they will get even better. He said safe practices will be passed on by generation and something as simple as wearing a helmet while riding a bike will never get a second though.
“Over time we start to see more and more people in our community as we look around learning the messages,” Karasiuk said.
klavoie@rawlco.com