City keeping partnership with PEP

By COLLIN GALLANT on December 10, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

The City of Medicine Hat is re-engaging with a regional economic development group, while another regional tourism effort has gone out of business.

The Palliser Economic Partnership (also known as PEP) aims to promote business opportunities in the southeast and promote co-operation between member municipalities, while the Canadian Badlands Tourism Association did much the same to draw in visitors.

Membership in both were set to be cancelled by the City of Medicine Hat as part of cost-cutting efforts announced late in 2020.

Now, fees have been reworked with PEP, which is now part of Medicine Hat’s key hydrogen hub development strategy, while the Badlands is disbanded on its own after other partners dropped out.

Officials with Invest Medicine Hat told the News on Thursday that PEP is a valuable partner in the hydrogen plans and other economic endeavours.

“We believe this is a strong partnership and we look forward to continuing to work with our regional economic partners, including PEP,” said Invest interim head Eric Van Enk.

Couns. Cassi Hider and Shila Sharps will be the city’s representatives to PEP, it was announced in council this week.

Both were elected in October to their first term and told council they were excited to get down to work.

Hider was named as the Badlands rep during an organizational meeting on Nov. 1 – two months after the group disbanded – something administrators now say was an oversight.

Previously, former councillor Brian Varga was active in the Badlands effort, even serving as president at one time, while former councillor Jim Turner sat on the PEP board of directors.

Budget documents in late 2020 stated that ending memberships in the two groups was said to save $100,000 in total. Van Enk said the PEP fees paid by the city have been greatly reduced. Medicine Hat is largest member by population and therefore paid the largest portion of the per-capita-based fees in the past.

Bolstering relationships with other municipalities in the vicinity might be a key requirement of the city’s success in luring hydrogen sector investment.

City officials, as well as industry watchers, have said creating local demand may first come from the public sector through fleet and utility operations.

“This highly collaborative regional initiative is complimentary to national and provincial hydrogen and natural gas strategies,” said Jon Sookocheff, an Invest MH official and the city’s administrative liaison to PEP. “The work we are doing today will set the stage for the long-term build-out of a regional hydrogen economy.”

Beyond its inclusion in the hydrogen effort, PEP has launched a program to advocate for renewable energy development in its region. It also provides export readiness support to companies in the trading region.

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