Regional approach seen as key at this year’s AUMA
Posted By By Hamish MacLean hamish@ canmoreleader.com
Posted 2 months ago
By Hamish MacLean
hamish@
canmoreleader.com
Early this month Canmore officials were in Calgary for the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association convention where the municipalities advocacy group voted on its top priorities, elected a new president and gathered to call on the province to assure the security of its multibillion-dollar funding program for sustainable initiatives.
But at least one Canmore councillor, said afterwards that the convention had much greater value also. Coun. André Gareau emphasized the access to provincial officials and the growing clout municipalities seem to have in the province and said that he's seeing that while Canmore still has its own, unique issues, the issues faced by municipalities across the provinces often intersect. And that municipalities can expect to face issues together in the future.
"I've been noticing more and more over the years how so many communities struggle with working regionally — how difficult that can be sometimes," Gareau said. "But when it does work, it certainly does pay off. And as the province wants to be more efficient, that's obviously something the province is going to be pushing for."
Canmore is looked at as a community that is "looking forward," Gareau said. Others were asking Canmore councillors, he said, about the Town's housing initiatives. They asked about Canmore's Sustainability Screening Report process. But others do see Canmore as having their own issues and problems. Other attendees wondered about the percentage of second-home owners, for example, he said. And he said that as always Canmore made an effort to speak to as many people as possible to put forward the town council's collective view that with regard to the education tax "we are basically discriminated against" because of the high assessment value of homes in the Bow Valley.
There was still a sense of the growing realization of the importance of the new regional partnerships, such as Canmore's membership in the Calgary Regional Partnership, he said. And the advocacy priorities voted upon, with provincial cutbacks, partnership with the province, provincial policy impacting municipalities, property assessment and water conservation (as the top five) suggest a fairly cohesive approach to some of the larger issues facing municipalities these days.
A highlight for Gareau were the keynote addresses to begin and end the convention. A bit of a change of pace from the more formal opening statements he'd heard at previous AUMA meetings, W. Brett Wilson, a business veteran and co-host of CBC's Dragons' Den, spoke about the importance of allowing yourself time to spend time with loved ones. And Cassie Campbell, Canadian women's hockey icon and CBC hockey analyst as the closing keynote speaker focused on rebounding back from adversity, Gareau said, highlighting a message from her closing talk.
"It was an interesting thing about how to work on council as a team when you're facing adversity," he said. "I thought it was a nice way to finish off actually, because I knew we were going back to some tricky decisions."
"It's one of these things that remind us that we argue strongly for our different points of view during council debates, but once a council decision is made, I think it's a responsibility to support the council decision as a council decision," he said.
Consultations with provincial officials were encouraging as well, he said. Minister of municipal affairs Ray Danyluk's message at the convention was that there are no planned major cutbacks to Municipal Sustainability Initiative funds, Gareau said. But the minister did say that if a rebound doesn't happen as quickly as some hope, it might be a year or two before municipalities receive their final installments. (Canmore councillors also attended an address from premier Ed Stelmach who provided a consistent message with respect to MSI funding adding further reassurance, he said.)
Gareau also attended an educational session on bio-energy, discussing the potential for turning composting materials into energy. (There are strides being made he said, but the progress on that front is slow.) A group to study the use of Low Speed Vehicles such as those in Quebec was raised as an issue. Measures to encourage women to participate in politics (currently only 20 per cent of municipal politicians are women) were also among those issues addressed.
Town of Canmore CAO Don Kochan, Mayor Ron Casey and all of council attended the AUMA meeting this year, Julie Snyder, the executive office administrator for the Town of Canmore wrote in an email. The total cost for the Town was $11,000.
