City to move forward with community surveys in February
By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on December 12, 2025.
newsdesk@medicinehatnews.com To help provide councillors more data and information moving forward, the city confirmed it will conduct another round of telephone interviews in February. During a corporate services committee meeting held Thursday morning, staff informed members that Ipsos, a market research company, will reach out to 400 random Hatters to gather information that could be helpful in future decision making. The city has since 2022 conducted two surveys with random citizens covering a wide range of topics and issues affecting the community, such as satisfaction with garbage and recycling services, and typically takes about 20 minutes to complete. Results of the survey are benchmarked against other municipalities’ previous surveys and repeats every two years. Because the city uses the data as a benchmark, questions for the survey remain the same. “When we are doing our comparison to see, have we improved, have we maybe gotten worse, that’s where we want that consistency from year to year,” said Lola Barta, interim managing director and CFO. According to staff, the survey is conducted with 400 random citizens of Medicine Hat, which is considered the scientific representative sample size for as large as Medicine Hat. Surveys will be conducted throughout the month of February, and staff say the market research company will require about a month to compile all the information before it will be ready to present to council, likely in April. The survey is also opened up to the rest of the community online, however those results are reported separately. In 2022, 298 residents participated in the community surveys online, and in 2024, 509 residents took the online survey in addition to the 400 random phone surveys. Additionally on Thursday, members of the Corporate Services Committee appointed Coun. Brian Varga as representative for Labour Relations Matters. Varga will chair the city’s grievance committee and facilitate meetings at the final internal step of the grievance procedure in four of the city’s six collective agreements, and will act as the interface between administration and council, explained Barta. 13-12
