In 2003, I was hired by Professor Stan Drabek to work on a report for the Federation of Calgary Communities. We looked at “community councils” in Portland, OR, Aukland, NZ, and Tokyo, JP, explaining how these might work in Calgary, devolving some local matters to community councils that wished to form within a larger municipal entity.
It went nowhere.
The City of Calgary considered it a threat to the centralized authority and control they exercised over what once were flourishing and unique communities.
I remain thankful for the independence of Vulcan County, the Town of Vulcan, and the five villages. Bureaucratic behemoths do not serve the public good. The dollars are much harder to follow and local connection is lost.
One of the great struggles we face is building political consensus that respects:
– the importance of “limited local government,” and
– the collaborative frameworks that make smaller government viable.
If you haven’t seen the report put out in July by Lt. Col. David Redman and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, please check it out.
Lt. Col. Redman is a decorated soldier who was the Alberta’s first Director of Emergency Management. He set up our program of emergency management and has written a lengthy indictment of how our response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been handled.
It is my view that the Redman report clearly outlines what went wrong and how we, be it the provincial government itself or municipalities pressuring the provincial government, can rectify such a poor response to this crisis.
If you were infuriated by the recent “emergency alert” that was put out to Albertans (the jarring ring tone over your phone!), you will appreciate that doing so was an exercise in fear mongering. It was an abuse of a system intended to alert us to an IMMEDIATE threat to life and property, be it wildfires, tornadoes or even kidnappings.
A lot has transpired since March of 2020. I think we all are perfectly aware that the province is in a state of emergency. Fear mongering is what Redman calls an “unconscionable tool to use” in emergency management.
Local government in Alberta is subject to the Emergency Management Act, having direct access to the Alberta Emergency Alert system. We work directly with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
Given my time in municipal government, I am well-versed in the regular training that is required of municipalities and can participate effectively in council discussions about emergencies.
Pandemics are contemplated in the provincial emergency management plan. This should have triggered a State of Emergency under the Emergency Management Act, not a Public Health Emergency under the Public Health Act.
Local government is ideally positioned to seek accountability for how the pandemic has been managed. Everything the province expects of us, they themselves did not do!
As the administrator for the Village of Arrowwood (since 2014) and the Village of Milo (from 2012 until 2018), I have enjoyed good working relationships with other municipal leaders in the region.
I also worked directly on the Intermunicipal Development Plan (IDP) for the Village of Arrowwood and Vulcan County.
There are common planning principles and joint strategies across all IDPs in Vulcan County.
Through the policy framework set out in these agreements, we have a starting point to work on:
– “Joint Development Initiatives,”
– “Community Growth Initiatives,”
– fair and reasonable cost and revenue sharing for joint services, and
– work collectively in lobbying the province to fund improving the transportation linkages identified by statutory plan as a priority.
Vulcan County has significant liabilities given its massive network of roads and bridges. Especially bridges!
These roads exist as the transportation arteries of our communities.
The maintenance and improvement of this road network remains a cornerstone of economic development and community growth in our region.
The video below is a great abbreviated overview of emergency response planning and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Local government has the means and the moral authority to follow up on the Redman Report from July and demand a course correction. Our communities, local economy, and ratepayers have suffered avoidable injury as a direct result of incompetent emergency management and fear mongering.
Everything that the province expects of local government they themselves did not do by enacting the wrong state of emergency, not following our emergency response plan, and handing over our response to Alberta Health Services.
It’s time for Alberta municipalities to assert their authority.
