Alta. plans rural development meetings

The Alberta government wants to hear from rural leaders about how to best promote economic recovery and development following what has been the province’s worst downturn in nearly a century.

More than 20 online meetings will be held from late October to December targeting more than 900 different stakeholders and organizations, said Associate Minister of Rural Economic Development Nate Horner.

The meetings are expected to involve community leaders, chambers of commerce members, as well as leaders from Indigenous- and Metis-owned businesses.

Horner said “the goal is just to make sure that Alberta’s economic recovery is felt in rural Alberta, so it’s pretty exciting.”

An online survey will be provided for people who cannot attend the meetings.

As an associate minister, Horner said he works with Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation Doug Schweitzer. Public input gathered during the initiative may be summed up in “some kind of report” or document, said Horner.

“I just don’t know what exactly that’s going to look like yet.”

Alberta lacked a rural development minister for almost 10 years until Horner was appointed on July 8. The provincial government wants to ensure that the tools to attract investment will work for rural Alberta, “so that that’s why we think it’s important to start with this major consultation.”

Although the initiative is a politically safe move by the provincial government, it should generally be viewed positively, said Lars Hallstrom, director of the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy at the University of Lethbridge.

However, expectations need to be tempered with “some skepticism given the history of provincial governments in the last few decades in terms of actually delivering on rural economic development in terms of economic diversification, economic growth, labour retention (and) different types of capital attraction,” he said.

Despite being based on the work of a task force that also sought input from hundreds of people, the Rural Economic Development Action Plan released in 2014 by the final Progressive Conservative government “never really resulted in much in the way of action,” said Hallstrom.

Part of the problem is that each Alberta government keeps returning “to the same playbook, which is finding an anchor industry or corporation,” often from outside the province. As a result, the focus becomes ensuring that the “right players are kept happy” to attract investment, he said.

The resulting economic development projects not only often tie rural Albertans to boom and bust cycles, they can come with significant environmental costs, he said, pointing to the history of coal mining in the province.

“Those kinds of dependencies don’t actually really build sustainability and resilience over the long term. They can actually make it worse.”

There needs to be a better understanding of the barriers to rural innovation, “whether they’re regulatory or social or financial,” said Paul McLauchlin, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta. “How can we make a clear path to allow (people) to get to work and get things done?”

He praised Horner’s appointment to the provincial cabinet, along with the Alberta government’s recent broadband initiative. It will provide up to $150 million to expand or upgrade internet access for rural, remote and Indigenous communities, helping promote economic diversification.

However, Alberta’s rural municipalities announced in February they were collectively owed $245 million in unpaid property taxes from oil and gas companies. Such municipalities are responsible for the rural roads and bridges relied on by producers to get their goods to market.

RMA has asked for legislative changes to give municipalities the legal means to recover what they are owed. Government house leader Jason Nixon said during an online news conference Oct. 25 that a bill will be introduced by Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver “focused on tools to recollect overdue taxes owed by well sites. He’ll have more to say specifically on that bill in the coming days.”

McLauchlin said municipalities also need to diversify their tax bases to reduce their reliance on oil and gas. However, Alberta traditionally hasn’t done a good job promoting things such as value-added agriculture, he said.

“And I think that in order for us to become resilient, whether it’s resilient to climate change or resilient to the global economic market, I think we’re finding that we need to become more self-reliant … and make sure that we’ve got export trade that’s value-added, not shipping (raw commodities) to another country.”

It will likely involve better integrating different parts of the rural economy, he said. He pointed to how planners are increasingly considering how to use everything from geothermal and renewable energy to waste heat from oil and gas production to help drive other sectors such as value-added agriculture as part of rural industrial parks.

Such initiatives could also include providing wastewater to areas where water is limited, he said. “And nothing becomes waste anymore, but you’re actually looking at it as a circular system.”

Contact doug.ferguson@producer.com