CHARBONNEAU – I wanted Kamloops on the map but not like this

WHEN I MOVED HERE, Kamloops was dimly noticed by national media. When noticed at all, we were a “blue collar town,” “400 km west of Vancouver.”

It seemed to me that if we wanted to be on the map nationally, we needed the presence of a national broadcaster.

We didn’t even have a CBC radio studio. Prince George and Kelowna had CBC studios since 1988. Kamloops was an obvious omission.

With that omission in mind, I helped form a lobby group in 2006 “Save Our CBC Kamloops (SOCK).” It had popular support in Kamloops.

We had the backing from then Mayor Terry Lake and MP for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Betty Hinton. Coun. Arjun Singh wrote us:

“Coun. John O’Fee moved that we write a letter expressing our concern about of the diminishment of CBC service in Kamloops. And this was unanimously supported.”

Michael Crawford, then candidate for the NDP, wrote to us:

“If Betty Hinton is supporting the CBC, it will be a first for her and possibly for the Conservative party.”

There are more such comments on the SOCK website.

Our lobbying paid off and, in 2012, CBC bigwigs gathered in Kamloops. Locals, including myself, were invited to discuss the proposed station.

When it came my turn, I said that the studio was needed to increase awareness of Kamloops nationally. News stories from here would place Kamloops on the map. I added that a recent CBC news report concerning Barrière placed the town “north of Kelowna.”

It was like Kamloops didn’t exist in the public broadcaster’s view.

CBC finally opened a radio studio here in 2012 and Canadians finally had some idea of who and where we are.

Unfortunately, the image of Kamloops has been negative recently.

In May 2021, when archaeologists detected what they believed to be 215 unmarked indigenous graves at the old residential school in Kamloops, the news was widely reported in the U.S. and Europe.

Google Trends shown that searches for “unmarked graves in Canada” peaked in that year.

But at least we were becoming well known. I noticed that national media stopped referring to us as city “400 km west of Vancouver,” and sometimes referred to us as “Kamloops, B.C.” or even just “Kamloops.”

However, our reputation as the place where unmarked indigenous graves were found was short-lived. Then we became “the city at highest risk of wildfires in all of Canada.”

I found this claim to be bizarre. Cities and towns at highest risk are those surrounded by forests. Jasper didn’t even make it in the top 20 of places at risk, despite the tragic fact that it was.

Now our reputation as being the city at highest risk of wildfires has been replaced as the “crime capital of Canada,” surpassing even Kelowna.

A number of reasons for our new claim to fame have been cited, none which I find to be very convincing.

Despite public perception, crime rates actually went down. Kamloops had a 4 per cent decrease, Penticton had a 7.09 per cent decrease, and Kelowna had the most significant decrease of 12 per cent.

What next? The Bingo capital of Canada?

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.