News Photo Collin Gallant
City councillors Darren HIrsch and Allison Knodel take part in debate on a rezoning issue during Monday's city council meeting.
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Local governments in southeast Alberta are “eager to tap into the region’s potential”, according to consultants who helped develop a new partnership that will seek out defence and agri-food spending, Medicine Hat city council heard on Monday.
Last spring, Deloitte Business Advisory was hired to flesh out a framework and objectives of a combined economic development effort to draw new business and bolster business activity in the Medicine Hat region, including rural counties and towns.
Paul Blais, of Deloitte, provided an overview of their findings after seven months of meetings with a multi-jurisdictional steering committee and local industry.
The goal was to examine a current “web” of economic development groups and determine gaps.
“This (study) is meant to find projects that will be of high impact and may need” help from government activity and support, said Blais, referring to.
As it is today, the region is marked by a generally older population, declining housing and lower employment figures generally, with public sector positions forecast to lead growth, he said.
“Without intervention, employment will not recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2031,” said Blais.
“The project is meant to help grow prosperity in the region.”
Coun. Robert Dumanowski said new reports about federal investments at CFB Suffield points to opportunity, while agricultural processing is a long-hoped-for addition to the area.
“It’s a good conversation and to some extent it’s a reimagining of historic efforts that we’ve seen before,” he said.
Couns. Shila Sharps and Alison Van Dyke questioned how results would be evaluated, and how the plan could be kept on track considering regular changes on councils.
In 2014, the City left the Economic Development Alliance of Southeast Alberta to start the city-focused Invest Medicine Hat. Last year, a reconfigured Medicine Hat Economic Development was tasked to examine a wider, regional strategy with aid of grants.
The new effort aims to align activities among the partners – Medicine Hat, Cypress County, Town of Redcliff, County of Forty Mile, Town of Bow Island, and Village of Foremost – and help drive industry-led development proposals.
Other councils heard the presentation recently, with Medicine Hat’s delayed from last month.
Three priority sectors are to “propel expansion” of aerospace and defence industries, attract value-added agri-food processors and boost regional tourism offerings.
It would also advocate for infrastructure funding for drought mitigation, transpiration and broadband projects, and promote the region via traditional and social media.
Medicine Hat’s funding share would potentially be about $22,000 per year, about one third of the plan’s budget.
Deloitte expects that $60,000 in annual funding from the municipal partners would be matched by equal provincial funds and $120,000 from the federal government to cover cost.
Major project spending would total about $250,000 per year for the first three years of the five-year strategy that estimates $900,000 in total project spending by 2029.
It proposes 17 action items over the next four years, including developing a “Protein Supercluster” designation to attract bean and lentil processing, work to promote the southeast as the provincial hub for drone and defence development, promoting culinary tourism tours, and promoting programs and supports for industry and job seekers.
Projects in 2025 would include a study into aerospace investment barriers ($75,000) and developing an agri-food strategy ($100,000), along with lesser cost promotional programs and industry outreach.
