Conklin, Wood Buffalo

The Conklin community is celebrating the start of a new multiplex, and the ground breaking for the project happened recently. On Monday the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo broke ground so that constuction on the Conklin multiplex could begin. Right now things are only in the design stage, and the project will go out for tender sometime in 2015. The multiplex will include recreational facilities for residents, and it will also provide local services such as the bylaw offices of RMWB and the RCMP. According to Conklin Resource Development Advisory Committee executive director Jeffrey O’Donnell “(It)was a great day for Conklin, and we really congratulate Wood Buffalo council on their forward thinking on this project. That’s so important to the community because the community currently provides a really wide range of social services…Having a multiplex there, we’re able to actually align all of these services and strategically being able to deliver them over one roof.”

Wood Buffalo and Conklin will both benefit from the new multiplex, and currently community services are operated from numerous locations. O’Donnell explained “They’re either too small or there’s not enough space. The Metis local doesn’t have an office, the CRDAC is being run out of a lodge. All of our services are spread out all throughout the community, so we need that essential point to deliver.” He continued by saying “The big question seems to be, is it worth it?. When you develop individuals as a whole in a positive environment, the society and the community generally benefits immensely, weighted against negative social interventions. What the idea was at the time was that Fort McMurray had more capacity to deliver programs and services… (and) 19 years after the fact some of these things are actually coming to life. We’re just super excited to see the dirt move.”