Letter: Election candidates need to focus more on future of city’s environment

By Letter to the Editor on October 7, 2025.

Dear editor,

To assure Medicine Hat’s natural areas remain healthy and beautiful it is important that city council use Medicine Hat’s Environmental Framework, approved in mid 2024, to guide its decisions.

It is meant to be a guide for decisions about development, both economic and new recreational development, so they will not harm the city’s natural resources – the river, the grasslands, the tree canopy.

These gifts of nature make the city a healthy attractive place to live and a pleasant destination for visitors. In Medicine Hat we are fortunate to live with beautiful skies, wild places, trails and opportunities to go outside and enjoy them. We want these opportunities maintained for us and for future residents and it’s important we, and our local government, accept responsibility for maintaining Medicine Hat’s environment.

Unfortunately, until now, I have heard little from the candidates in the local municipal election about their commitment to maintaining and preserving Medicine Hat’s environment, including its still-remaining natural areas.

However, my hope is we will hear soon that, if elected, they are committed to using the Environmental Framework to guide the city’s actions, so we will continue to have a pleasant and healthful place in which to live and work.

Sheila McLeod

Medicine Hat

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