Council hopeful promises focus on economic growth, low taxes

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on September 27, 2025.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

Retired after 29 years of business experience, council candidate Mark Albrecht is ready to commit his time to the city.

While Albrecht has wanted to get into municipal politics for many years, he had felt he would be unable to devote as much time as he would like to the position while also running his business. Now that he’s retired and that obstacle has been removed, he’s eager to put in the work.

“Now I feel that I would actually dedicate myself as a full-time councillor, actually, because that would be my only real focus, other than family,” said Albrecht.

With nearly three decades of marketing, interpersonal management and budgeting under his belt, he feels he could easily bring these skills to help get council into a favourable position.

Albrecht’s largest focus for his campaign thus far has been fiscal responsibility, but he also feels a major priority should be placed on how council is able to interact and collaborate moving forward.

“My first goal, if elected, is to actually restore some harmony between city management and the council itself, so we can actually work and collaborate together as a team,” said Albrecht. “After that, priority two is keeping property taxes low.”

One way council can accomplish the latter, he says, is trying to minimize expenses through streamlining. He suggested ensuring the city is staffed efficiently, both within departments and between departments, as a step worth taking, as well as focusing on maintaining the infrastructure present already over any major capital projects in terms of amenities.

But the other side of the coin is to broaden the tax base, says Albrecht. In his mind, the way to do that is by having people dedicating more of their time to attracting and retaining those developments.

“I actually couldn’t believe this, but the City of Medicine Hat does not have an economic development committee. I would really like to see the formation and implementation of one,” said Albrecht. “The city’s been largely stagnant the last 10 years; I think in order to kickstart this off, we need people dedicating some of their time and their focus to economic development.”

Albrecht says he supports the city keeping utilities as a publicly owned resource.

“I’ve lived here all my life. I really got to experience the Medicine Hat advantage when I started my businesses in the late 90s,” said Albrecht. “Medicine Hat was the fifth largest city, I do believe, in Alberta at the time, now we’ve slipped to No. 10. We used to have the lowest property taxes in the province. I think it’s time to actually work at fixing some of these things.”

Albrecht is committed to, if elected, treat the position like a full-time job. He is prepared to be hands on and present in the community, ready to metaphorically put on his boots and hard hat and ensure he understands what the departments and residents need.

He has already been on a strong door-knocking campaign since he initially announced and expects to continue with that as the election approaches, focusing on the south end of the city in the next week. Those interested in learning more about his platform are encouraged to seek him out on Facebook or the campaign website he anticipates will be running in the coming days.

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