Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers recently spent some time advocating for local issues on the east coast as part of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) board of directors meetings in St. John’s, N.L.
The meetings took place throughout the week of March 3 and varied in topics.
Read more: Five games enough for Lloyd, Vermilion
“I have the pleasure of representing and being one of four representatives from the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA),” said Aalbers, noting the FCM board meets a couple of times a year, both in person and virtually.
He says that when he works with FCM, he carries the voices of members from Saskatchewan.
“The responsibility is to carry the voices of all our members, from villages to cities to northern Saskatchewan communities,” said Aalbers. “It’s a great opportunity to carry that voice of Saskatchewan, but also the unique voice of being a border city.”
He explained being a border city also means Lloyd has some common issues with other Alberta municipalities.
“I attended a couple of different meetings,” he said. “One is called rural forum. The rural forum helps address issues that you wouldn’t have in downtown Toronto or Ottawa. Often, we talk about the challenge of distance and transportation, as well as infrastructure.”
He says that while transportation and infrastructure might be common issues shared by small and big cities, for rural and smaller municipalities, they’re more unique.
“You don’t have bus routes running between communities,” said Aalbers.
The second meeting he attended was a committee of the whole, where they discussed various resolutions coming forward across Canada.
In a different meeting, they discussed how to improve conventions to draw bigger attendance.
“Another meeting I attended was how do we make our conventions better,” Aalbers said, pointing to smaller municipalities generally not wanting to travel or attend FCM convention. “For our neighbouring communities, from Marshall, Lashburn, Maidstone, Kitscoty, Paradise Valley and Marwayne, how do we make that as attractive for those individuals who are on council (to attend).”
The final meeting was their board of directors meeting.
“It was our last day there to address those issues of resolutions that made it through,” he said.
During that final meeting, various reports were presented.
“I had the pleasure of reporting for the finance, infrastructure and transportation committee that I’m the vice-chair of,” said Aalbers.
The focus during the time in St. John’s was around issues that have been plaguing municipalities for some time, such as the ever-growing infrastructure gap.
“It’s the same story over and over again. We see a federal government that is very focused — laser-focused — on housing,” said Aalbers. “I think what FCM continues to do is remind the federal government that before you build houses (or) any other infrastructure, municipalities have to have the ability to supply clean drinking water, take away the wastewater and still get a road to get you there. Then you add the fire department to ensure there’s fire services and protection there.”
Growing infrastructure demands are something Lloydminster is no stranger to.
“We’re also dealing with dated infrastructure and, as we continue to grow, there will be future demands,” he said. “We’ve addressed our wastewater, but the next item you’ve heard through council is our water system.”
Trade was another topic FCM tackled, highlighting the struggle of local businesses facing growing global uncertainty.
“Raising the concerns from local,” said Aalbers. “Canola was definitely a huge issue, how it impacted our local producers, which have a direct impact on our community.”
He talked about the impacts tariffs have on various industries, such as forestry.
“When jobs (are lost), when businesses are idled or completely lost, those are major issues,” he said. “Again, helping our provincial and federal elected officials understand that those impacts are felt right here and right now.”
While in Newfoundland, Aalbers noted a large federal issue the East Coast city is dealing with — not much different than the federal problems Lloydminster faces.
“We’ve had sandwich gate and we are still dealing with a number of federal issues,” he said. “St. John’s, N.L., still does not have the ability to dump snow off their streets into the harbour. They have to take it to a location and truck it so it can melt.”
FCM serves as a national voice for municipalities and boasts over 2,000 members, representing more than 90 per cent of the Canadian population.
Read more: Library launches new artist-in-residence program
