City Notebook: Ready or not, here comes another trip to the polls

By COLLIN GALLANT on April 29, 2023.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for… no, not plus-20 weather, but rather the 2023 provincial election.

Barring the unexpected, the campaign should begin Monday. That’s despite several years worth of evidence that says maybe we should hedge our bets.

Really the whole hoopla seems to have been ongoing since Jason Kenney’s leadership review last spring.

Hatters who went to the polls in November will again go on May 29, according to the plan.

This may well be why upwards of 10 press releases per day this week were unleashed by the UCP-led provincial government, all touting some measure in the vast Alberta budget.

An agreement for a new NHL arena in Calgary was the headline item, of course, and brings a sense of nostalgia in Medicine Hat. Unless the whole thing pancakes (arena deals often do), the Calgary Flames will get to play in an “event centre” in a few years time, with the city and team putting up the funds for the rink, and the province paying for related civic infrastructure. It will also apparently pay to demolish the Olympic Saddledome (where does the time go?).

Of course, Edmonton doesn’t need a new arena, but it does have one that needs to be torn down. So does Medicine Hat, for that matter.

Election notes

Local NDP supporters were dealt a blow as party leader Rachel Notley had to cancel a Tuesday night rally in the Hat due to a case of COVID-19. The illness was announced at the Alberta Federation of Labour Conference a week earlier.

Can we all agree that COVID is, at best, a real bummer?

Party fundraising totals suggest there’s a tsunami of advertising coming our way.

On the other hand, the Government of Alberta will essentially go dark through the election period, so if you wanted any official answers, I hope you got them last week.

Two in the Hall

Vicki Hall, who cut her reporting teeth at the Medicine Hat News in the 1990s, will become the first women inducted to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, it was announced in March. She joins News columnist Graham Kelly in the media wing next September.

Hall wore a lot of hats here before going on to cover the CFL and teams in Calgary and Edmonton specifically for big city dailies there. She was president of the writers association and now teaches journalism.

Another inductee is Lloyd Fairbanks, who played 17 years in the CFL before coaching his hometown Raymond Comets.

Also from afar

Of local interest to those plotting out new recreation facilities in the Hat: Lloydminster, Saskatchewan and Ottawa have announced a three-way funding deal to build a $56-million, three-rink sports centre in the Border City.

That’s a little less than the Hat paid for Co-op Place (nee the Event Centre) eight years ago, at the time a mind-blowing, largest-ever-and-since city construction project.

From the Inbox

– Toastmasters International officials will visit clubs in the region to coincide with a regional spring conference in Lethbridge this weekend. It’s no small beer – there are 1,500 members in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

– Utility rates are out on Monday with the initial look at natural gas in the $2.50 range… that’s 2016 pricing!

A look ahead

Council will decide property tax rates Monday, debating whether they should shift more of the burden to residential property taxpayers this year. Tune in on Shaw Cable 10 or the city’s YouTube Channel.

The first crop report of the season is due May 5.

100 years ago

Burning oil storage tanks created a landscape of destruction across Medicine Hat’s industrial estate, the News reported on April 25, 1923, causing a $275,000 loss of the Imperial Oil and Prairie City Oil companies.

“Between the two tanks are the blackened ruins of the companies’ warehouses,” wrote the News.

Firefighters ran 2,600 feet of hose to contain a blaze near Second Avenue and the Seven Person Creek, but alas, could only wait and watch the fuel burn off. Eyewitnesses reported one flaming barrel shooting 150 feet in the air before landing on the railroad tracks.

Also that week, a front picture photo featured Prince Albert, the second son of King George and his bride to be, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at their nuptials at Westminster Abbey.

“The romance of the Royal wedding stirred the hearts of the British Empire,” read the headline. The couple would ascend the throne if anything “untoward were to befall the Prince of Wales,” the article noted.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com.