During a recent council meeting Councillor Allan Vinni had some aggressive questions for the industry relations manager over the reliability of the methods used for population growth predictions. During the meeting Vinni repeatedly questioned Dennis Vroom and demanded the reasoning for another forecast update to the council from the industry. Councillor Vinni questioned Vroom for around 10 minutes, calling oil prices used for the future population growth predictions for the region random variables that should not be included or used to predict future population growth. Some on the council were not happy with the grilling that Vinni gave to Vroom, including Fort McMurray Mayor Melissa Blake. Several times Mayor Blake tried to interrupt and it was obvious that she was not happy with the aggressive tone or the questions that Councillor Vinni had.

Many believe that Councillor Allan Vinni had a valid point during the meeting, and that since oil prices change all the time any population growth predictions made based on this variable are not reliable because these predictions could change in minutes or hours. Once Vanni started the questions Blake tried to intervene, commenting “Coun. Vinni, is there any chance you can’t make your point without dragging him…” Councillor Vinni interrupted her and stated “I’m asking him serious questions. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t make them stupid questions!” Vanni even stated that the changes in the predictions were caused by changes in oil prices, stating “Why are we updating the forecast right now? What has changed? Why? Why have they changed? OK, you don’t know. I’ll tell you – the oil price has changed.” At this point Mayor Blake spoke up and said “May I suggest you’ve made your point?”