City Hall facing public trust issues (again) over Invest MH

By COLLIN GALLANT on July 17, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

The headline story of the week is obviously the move to move Invest Medicine Hat back into the private sector, bringing up many issues for folks.

Several of whom called the News with questions and opinions about it, but little appetite to have their names attached.

It’s a common occurrence that even the upper-ups in this community fear some sort of reprisal from City Hall, which, honestly appears to have done nothing but approve development projects left and right over the last few years.

But it’s also common for Hatters to hold a healthy mistrust of government, and in another way that is no doubt overshadowing the Invest happenings.

The general feeling is obviously not enough, and not enough light shone on the potential contracting out, or the happenings at the Invest offices, now located in a former bank branch on Fourth Street.

It’s been less than two years, including 15 months of pandemic uncertainty, since it moved inside city hall, but the age-old questions for economic developers are cropping up.

Who benefits, how do we know, what’s happening, what are you doing – all seemingly reasonable questions.

Hatters also have a hard time swallowing grand visions presented in plans, such as the current Waterfront District, which elicits a Little Kelowna on the Prairies sort of vibe.

Sure, there are always complainers and naysayers, but has city brass done itself any favours here?

It moved economic development – always a bit of dance between what’s private and what’s public – directly under the office of city manager Bob Nicolay, and outside the council committee system.

Has there been a good enough public shaming over the grinding inaction of Aurora Cannabis, or the complete pause (as far as we can tell) of the Folium Biosciences processing plant?

Asked for facts or commentary on the economic outlook for the city, citizens are presented a sales pitch when they were led to believe the sales pitch would be directed at out-of-town companies and investors.

The old Economic Development Association of Southeast Alberta fell to a grim fate when, for right or wrong, when it couldn’t answer the supposedly reasonable questions of its worth, how many jobs it attracted, and so on.

Is that what’s at work here?

The fine print

If you’d clipped and saved the News from about 11 months ago you wouldn’t have been surprised by the revelation that Albertans will see additions to their gas and power bills go up slightly to pay for the province’s three-month deferral program in the spring of 2020.

If you recall, the province required utility companies to defer bills and halt shutoffs for those who didn’t pay bills during the calamitous start of the pandemic.

At the same time, it provided companies bridge financing at zero per cent.

Well, one year later, some of those deferred accounts are now considered bad debt and require a rate rider added to all power and gas bills to make up the difference to utility companies. (Relax, Hatters, the city utility company chose to forego the loans and therefore local customers won’t see the charge.)

But that will add “less than a dollar” to bills elsewhere in Alberta, according to the associate minister of Natural Gas and Electricity, for each of the next few months.

Albertans were generally enraged by this news on Friday. Whatever happened to we’re all in this together?

A look ahead

Medicine Hat council takes a previously scheduled summer break from meetings this week, but Cypress council on Tuesday will debate a motion to declare an agricultural state of emergency related to drought and accessing government aid.

100 years ago

A surprise win for the leaderless United Farmers of Alberta in the 1921 provincial election left the question OF who would be premier, the News reported on July 20, 1921.

The UFA ended the 16-year Liberal party rule by winning 38 seats to the Liberals’ 15 (the News had boldly predicted a 35-seat majority for the Grits.)

Movement leader Henry Wise Wood refused to be premier stating he objected to the trappings of holding power, which would ultimately corrupt the UFA’s founding principles. One potential leader, Percival Baker, was badly injured chopping down a tree on his Kapok farm before the election and died in hospital the day after voting.

Wise Wood had told a Medicine Hat audience weeks earlier that “Farmers may not be ready to take over government, but they are going to do it anyway.”

In Medicine Hat, where the two top vote-getters earned seats, Perren Baker (UFA) led William Johnson (Dominion Labour). Both were elected.

Liberal Leader Chas. Stewart had been in Medicine Hat at a mass rally on July 15, and promised “a square deal for Medicine Hat” as Calgary companies proposed piping natural gas from the region.

Two acres of land near Riverside School were to become a $10,000 “Riverside Nurseries” greenhouse in the fall thanks to out-of-town investors.

The Canadian National Railway announced it would not provide women-only smoking cars on its trains.

In the sporting arena, Medicine Hat boy Billy Mulholland pitched his second no-hitter of his vagabond season, tossing a gem for Macleod over Cardston. The travelling southpaw previously allowed no hits as Vauxhall pitcher when that team hosted Taber.

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

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