A central Alberta mayor is being slammed online for her “vile” comments about dealing with feral cats on rural properties during a city committee meeting earlier this week.
During a discussion about animal licensing on Tuesday, Gale Katchur, mayor of Fort Saskatchewan, suggested it would be “interesting” if residents could deal with feral cats “by themselves.”
In the clip, the mayor recalls the “old days on the farm” when people “threw (cats) in a bag and threw them in the river or they just put them on the exhaust pipes.”
“I grew up on a farm. I know what happened back then, and there wasn’t emotion tied to it,” Katchur said.
“For all the city people, that’s the reality of living on a farm.”
Here is the mayor of Fort Saskatchewan advocating for people to deal with feral cats themselves, then laughing about throwing them into the river in bags or putting them on exhaust pipes
byu/j1ggy inalberta
The clip was swiftly uploaded online, where it racked up thousands of views and garnered hundreds of comments from unimpressed Albertans.
A thread posted to r/Alberta on Reddit saw more than 500 users chime in, calling her remarks everything from “psychotic” to “vile.”
In a statement issued Thursday morning, mayor Katchur said that she “sincerely apologizes” for her comments, adding that they “did not reflect the values of compassion, respect, and care that we, as a community, hold dear.”
“Our community deserves leadership that reflects these principles, and I am committed to learning from this experience,” Katchur said.
“Moving forward, I will ensure that my comments and our approach to managing animal populations reflect our community’s dedication to humane and responsible practices.”
Fort Saskatchewan is 25 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.