Orge, Kaleb

By Scott Schmidt on September 29, 2025.

News profile

1. What are your thoughts on city ownership of Saamis Solar, and what direction would you want to see council take with ownership of renewables?

As I said in the Chamber of Commerce forum, I’m pretty much agnostic and ambivalent toward how Medicine Hat’s power utility generates energy as long as it’s able to support itself financially.

I don’t care if the dragon that keeps us cool in summer and brings us gold in winter keeps breathing fire, has a nuclear heart or wings of solar so long as that dragon is big enough and healthy enough to fly on its own.

As far as I’m aware, COMCO is in the process of double-checking the numbers for the Saamis Solar project as we speak because its been a few years since the city bought the project and the situation on the ground is different. I’m going to need to see those numbers come back before I make a final decision. I want to pay extra attention to The Hat’s level of exposure to shifts in Federal or Provincial mood when it comes to things like carbon credits and incentives. 

2. What are your thoughts on the future of the energy division, specifically the concept of turning it into a municipally controlled corporation?

I’m not much of a fan of selling, privatizing, or turning the energy division into an MCC. What’s been badly needed is nine Councillors with the guts to do both jobs separately and at the same time. The Board of a Power Company needs to make decisions for the good of the business and a City Council needs to look after its citizens. Council needs to get out of Energy Division’s way and let the dragon eat.

3. How would you look to balance taxation with the operation costs of running a city, as well as the services provided to residents?

In 2025, the City has a budget deficit of $11.1 million. That’s being paid for through savings, the sale of assets and investments and the issuance of new municipal debt. The current plan is to spend 15% of our total available reserves by 2035. Before the Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum, I asked the city finance department how long it would take to burn through all our reserves if we froze property tax increases indefinitely. Here’s what came back to me on October 2:

“Medicine Hat has approximately $35 million in operating reserves available to cover operating shortfalls. If there are no property tax increases, no service reductions, and no dividend transfers from energy, these reserves would be depleted in about two years. This estimate assumes we do not draw from other reserves such as capital, abandonment, energy transition, or the endowment fund.”

I don’t want to cut services. Councillor Darren Hirsh is a professional banker and he’s been trimming the fat for three terms in office. I’m pretty sure if nine rookies get in there, we’re more likely to take the entire leg than the last bit of booty.  

The long term fix is to grow the city’s population and to build enough homes so that everybody who’s been forced to move back in with family can afford to live on their own again. That will broaden the tax base and help everybody. But that won’t show up on the books for at least a decade. In the meantime, Medicine Hat is paying higher costs due to inflation just like everybody else and we’re going to need even more money to help keep the over 11,000 kids in this city who’ve eaten from the food bank in the last year with a roof over their head. 

4. How would you approach economic development and any need to incentivize business to come to Medicine Hat?
There are at least 3 candidates for Council out of the 39 running in this election who came to Medicine Hat in order to start their own businesses. I know we need a big employer to come to the city, but in turn a big employer needs a big workforce. It’s a chicken/egg problem that a stand-up comedian like me knows better than to even attempt to solve. My focus is on “housing first” for the simple fact that if people move here, they’re going to want stuff. And that means that means more customers for local businesses and more jobs at those businesses because of the extra customers. It’s not another big, cornerstone-type employer but it’s something we can count on until we can steal a factory from another city like we did the Goodyear plant.

5. With the proposed north-side location for a permanent homeless shelter off the table following public concerns, what do you think are the essential priorities that a shelter location must provide?
Pretty sure I answered this one already, but when I talked to a few of the folks living in Veterans’ Memorial Park, they told me they needed water, food, electricity, a way to stay dry, a way to stay warm, and either the offices they need to get to for appointments or reliable transportation to those appointments. Without ID, you’re practically not a person. Without a working phone, nobody can reach you and you can’t keep track of appointments and court dates. Bikes greatly expand the distance you can travel in a timely manner. To hear one guy named Patrick tell it, the way the city was shutting down outlets one by one, the way the sprinklers turned on at 4 am, and the way some members of the police seem to take joy in rousting up the campsites every morning made him feel like the deer in the city get better treatment. I’m pretty sure the first thing we need to do is step back and look at how and why the Hat’s unhoused are settling where they’re settling and realize that it’s human beings doing it for human reasons.

6. A lot of focus during this election campaign has been on property taxes in Medicine Hat, though a majority of residents do not own property. What can or should the city be doing to ease cost-of-living issues for those who do not own property, such as renters?
I’m a renter myself, so I suppose the coy answer would be “whatever it takes.” But the serious answer is recognizing that renters pay property tax through their rent as well as utilities. In my own case, the thing barring me from owning property isn’t the size of my down deposit or my ability to pay my $1000 per month rent, its that my monthly income isn’t high enough for the bank to approve the loan even though the math shows I’d have more money in my pocket if I were paying a mortgage rather than renting. And that’s not even counting the fact that I’d be building my own equity rather than someone else’s.
Unfortunately, the Hat can’t fix overheated housing prices all by itself. Alberta could raise the minimum wage, And Ottawa’s let the problem of low interest rates and compounding inflation moulder for so long that if they took steps to correct the problem too fast, cities all over the country would get slapped with falling tax revenue because of the falling home values. All a city can do is help people who have roofs over their heads keep them and keep enough services going to stay a place worth living in.

7. What are your thoughts on proposed recreational facilities such as the Southside Outdoor Aquatics Centre and Brier Run Sports Field? How much focus would you want the city to put toward adding recreational facilities?

Watching from the gallery, I was against the Southside Rec Center when it was first proposed. The idea of creating one centralized facility to replace several smaller neighbourhood facilities reeked of putting all our eggs into one basket because some politicians felt the lustful allure of cutting a novelty ribbon with comically oversized scissors. Centralization has some long-term benefits in terms of ongoing costs and economies of scale, but having multiple facilities allows for greater redundancy, and provides an ability to defer some projects or scale back without having to do costly and time-consuming redesigns should the political or financial landscape change over the next several years.  
Our rec facilities are essential to making the city a place worth living in. Putting off the projects already set in motion will only incur more wasted time and cost. To a large degree, many things will just be cheaper in the long run to see all the way through. That said, we’ve got an $11 million hole in the budget to start closing. I’d be very reluctant to put more on our plate before the budget is back in the black and we’re putting money in the reserves again.

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