Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers will be vying for a seat on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) board of directors.
Lloydminster council discussed the recommendation to endorse Aalbers to stand for election at the Feb. 3 meeting.
Coun. Jason Whiting said having the mayor at the table would help bring light to issues Western Canada is facing.
“By having a voice at the table, that’ll help encourage things pertinent to us. We don’t necessarily have to accept all the initiatives that come out of FCM,” he said.
Lloydminster city manager, Dion Pollard, gave some insight into what the group has to offer the city.
“There’s lots of items that, although we don’t always align with eastern Canada, there’s lots we do align with Eastern Canada on that we do advocate for and the board advocates for,” said Pollard. “I’ve got a few of them that I’ve looked at, for example doubling the gas tax, that’s always a big one that we receive our federal funding (from) each year and the FCM board played a large role in advocating for and getting the gas tax doubled. That was funding for municipalities that go to fund our street improvement program.”
Administration clarified the gas tax is nearly $3 million dollars a year, and on years when it’s doubled, the city will get nearly $6 million to help improve streets.
He says the work the group does goes beyond just the gas tax.
“Homelessness, RCMP recruitment, tax credit for firefighters, transit funding, all those different things are what the board has advocated or initiatives they’ve taken on,” said Pollard. “It is big-picture thinking, Mayor Aalbers is very well respected in both provinces.”
Pollard says they already budget for one trip to Ottawa per year for meetings, which costs between $2,000 to $2,500. The additional cost to the city would be adding a second meeting.
Coun. Justin Vance said it’s important to have someone with a Western viewpoint at the table.
“Being at the centrepiece of the FCM would be quite crucial to getting our point across and getting our views out here in the west to our friends out east,” he said. “The FCM isn’t going anywhere if we choose to go on it or not. I would feel more comfortable to have a Western world view at the helm of a federation rather than that of a one-sided viewpoint.”
Vance voiced his concern on not having someone at the table when FCM discusses things like climate change and sustainability.
The discussion around the table continued on the issue of how to ensure a Western view is represented at the meeting.
“The sentiment I see is the West is under-represented in terms of a lot of the ideology and thinking and decision making. My concern is, how do we ensure our voice as a Western municipality is heard. If you’re not at the table you don’t get heard. It’s that simple,” said Coun. Michael Diachuk.
“I don’t know a lot about Eastern Canada and here I am saying they know nothing about us, but there are some things I think are so important to us I.E., our livelihood in our community is so dependent on oil and gas, it’s important for us to have the mayor present around supporting that industry and energy around that table because there’s people that don’t have a clue.”
He says the city shouldn’t sit back and complain but rather take action.
“If we want to sit back and complain we can do that. Or we can get somebody at the table to begin to share our views. I think this option is important for us to have those views for the reasons we have listed. I’d rather prefer that than some sort of sit back and complain,” said Diachuk.
While some were supportive of the idea of Aalbers running for election, Coun. Jim Taylor had a different view on the topic.
“I just want to say that I’m not fully supportive of him taking this role, yet. Maybe in a few years it’ll change my mind but as of right now, I think there’s better opportunities in our local provinces that this money could be spent to,” said Taylor.
Deputy Mayor David Lopez wants to see Aalbers take on a more senior role with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA).
“I feel like we could get more advocation through Mayor Aalbers being somewhere in SUMA in a higher position than in FCM where we’re a seat of 2,000,” he said.
Pollard clarified the mayor never expressed intentions to not be a part of SUMA.
“I don’t think he has intentions of not running for the chair of mayors caucus to do both, I think he can do both. Mayor Aalbers is very good with his time,” he said. “He hasn’t indicated to me he plans to step away from those key positions at SUMA that you’re talking about or not attending the mayors caucus in Alberta. I assume he’s still gonna do all of that.”
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