A challenge to candidates regarding the city’s reliance on one industry

By Letter to the Editor on October 11, 2017.

After attending last week’s mayoral debate, I was astounded at what I consider the total lack of any leadership of the candidates. What I did witness was the incumbent being condescending to the other members of the panel and everyone else stuck on bringing back the dividend.

I must speak out about this since I believe the worst course we could be on is to keep and invest further into our utilities.

The responsibility of a city government is to provide services not to invest in business. At one time when no one else would provide the utility service it was right for the city to provide them but now we are investing in a declining business with a not very bright future. The talk of now going after helium which is currently in ample supply is a risky venture that if the mayor and council feel is a good investment should feel free to invest as much of their personal money as they wish but the city should not be exposed for this type of business decision. My belief is the utility assets should be sold-off and the profit go into a fund that is invested in more current and stable investments where we could expect a balanced return.

I would like to challenge any of the candidates to at least question why we are still so heavily exposed to one industry when we have all the advantages to tap into new technology. Medicine Hat I feel is in a unique position to attract more tech companies to Medicine Hat.

I know of two companies that operate worldwide out of Medicine Hat but both are seldom discussed.