City Notebook: Hopefully not just Leduc
By Collin Galllant on February 16, 2019.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant There were likely some sighs in economic development circles of Medicine Hat this week when Aurora Cananbis announced a major expansion in Leduc to build a logistics facility and “new product” development and manufacturing space. Those products are consumption (i.e. non-smoked cannabis offerings such as drinks, cookies and capsules) which are being studied by Ottawa and are predicted to be the second wave of development in the sectors. That locale is near the company’s Aurora Sky growing facility and the Edmonton International Airport, and, as well, the company is developing a research relationship with the University of Alberta, just a ways up the highway. It kind of makes sense. The great hope in Medicine Hat is that the company will add more value-added production here, as it hold options on adjacent land. Such a window is not entirely closed however, and there’s really no breakdown yet about what operations will take place in Medicine Hat. The probabilities, though are fairly hard to predict with confidence due to the sheer volume of irons Aurora has in the fire. Promoted as a highly integrated company looking to corner large portions of the rapidly emerging sector, it takes a plumber to draw out the various interests and partnerships of Aurora. Also, for the record, there’s no affiliation between the Edmonton-based company and Colorado-based hemp oil producer Folium Biosciences, which is also setting up a 250-man operation in the Box Springs Business Park. Hatters afar A legendary Canadian radio D.J. who got his start in Medicine Hat will be honoured with a lifetime achievement award at this year’s JUNO awards next month. Duff Roman, who was born David Mostoway in Swift Current in 1939, will be honoured for his work to promote Canadian artists and of the industry work in March. He was known as Digger Dave on the radio dial in the Hat when he got his start as a 16-year-old announcer in 1955. He changed his professional name in 1960 partly at the suggestion of his boss at the time, Jack Kent Cooke. Roman now lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake,. Ont. Sunny days are here This week Cypress County’s planning commission approved the first utility-scale solar facility within its boundaries with the Suffield Solar farm. That body includes public member Nigel Pimblett, a retired electrical engineer who spent much of his career with City of Medicine Hat’s utility department. He recalled hearing about solar panel proposals decades ago. “It was always so uneconomical,” said Pimplett. “You knew it would happen at some point but you never knew when. “It’s a huge positive for the county.” A look ahead City council will sit Tuesday to accommodate the Family Day weekend. The year-end report of Invest Medicine Hat will be presented Wednesday to a city committee. 100 years ago A complaint by a war widow that Germans were allowed space in the local market garden was responded to with a flurry of letters to the News in February 1919. “The people in the market are not Germans, for a start,” read one. “They are Russians, and for another thing, if not for these people, you would have starved long ago.” In Calgary, Col. Robert Belcher dropped dead of an apparent hear attack in the Palliser Hotel. The director of the federal military bureau in Calgary had been part of the original march west of the NWMP. Numbers furnished by the U.S. Consulate showed one-quarter million Americans had emigrated to Alberta since a land rush began in 1905. Health authorities spelled out that whiskey was not an approved treatment for influenza. On the women’s page, “When stone-age man invented clay it was probably thought he had done something to be proud of, forgetting that dishwashing was the unwritten clause in the curse of Eve.” Western Canada imported 2 million tons of coal from Pennsylvania in 1917 – a year when Alberta miners averaged two days work per week. The revelation followed and analysis hat freight rates from Edmonton to Winnipeg were higher than from the eastern U.S. to the Manitoba capital. In regional news, Lethbridge would be the home of the Mounties’ Southern Alberta division, to be known as “K’ division, Taber area farmers called for new irrigation works and the home of a strike leader in Butte, Mont. was dynamited in escalation of labour unrest. 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 31-30
