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By Alessia Proietti

Mid-sized Cities Mayors Caucus

Red Deer city council endorses grant application to support mid-sized cities reach full potential

May 16, 2023 | 8:52 AM

Red Deer city council has endorsed a grant application that aims to support mid-sized cities in the province reach their full potential.

At their meeting on Monday, the Mid-sized Cities Mayors Caucus (MCMC) sought council endorsement as a member municipality to enhance their application’s likelihood of success.

Led by the Town of Cochrane, the application to the Government of Alberta is for the Alberta Community Partnership– Special Initiatives Grant totalling $396,000. The MCMC says the grant would put into action their project titled “Unlocking the Full Potential of Alberta’s Mid-sized Cities Initiative”.

The MCMC represents 24 urban centres, nearly 35 provincial constituencies, of approximately one million people. The purpose of the MCMC, they say, is to strengthen the position of Alberta’s mid-sized cities as an important voice within the provincial framework and find collaborative ways to address matters that directly impact mid-sized cities.

The initiative intends to support this purpose in four phases:

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1. Fiscal Sustainability

2. Economic Impact

3. Mapping the Road Ahead

4. Developing a Common Dashboard

The MCMC says the phases will collect data on many fronts, including revenue and spending, impacts of funding arrangements and growth potential forecasts, develop opportunities to reduce red tape, maximize provincial-municipal relations, and create a common dashboard of socio-economic indicators to measure the progress of mid-sized communities.

In the long-term, they say the project seeks to establish a dashboard to better inform municipal-provincial policy decisions and create a model for large-scale collaboration among communities beyond geographical boundaries.

Various municipalities have already endorsed the application including the City of Grande Prairie, Town of Canmore and Town of Spruce Grove, among others.

Rather than budgetary, the MCMC says the endorsement requires a time commitment of approximately 30 staff hours to provide in-kind support by collecting and providing data through participation in project workshops, interviews, and sessions.

They say any associated project oversight expense by the MCMC Executive will be covered by existing financial contributions that member municipalities make to the MCMC, currently $2,000 per year. Following the MCMC Spring Caucus this March, that fee will increase to $5,000 per year in 2024 to hire a staff member to support administrative functions, website development, and increased advocacy efforts and hosting allowances.

The City says the grant has no stated maximum funding amount, specific deadline or requirement for matching municipal funds. Each grant application is reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

As the most populous member of MCMC, the group says the City of Red Deer is influential in championing the causes that disproportionally affect mid-sized cities.

Councillor Vesna Higham said that while they are a mid-sized city, they are facing big-city problems like homelessness, lack of affordable housing, drug addiction and policing policy.

“The fact that not one single mid-sized city, not just in Alberta but in Canada, has received federal housing funding under that Rapid Housing Initiative program, I think that sharply brings into focus the need, the critical need, for mid-sized cities to collaborate and to come together as a unified group to bring these needs, interests and local issues to the attention of provincial and federal counterparts,” she said.

Councillor Victor Doerksen, however, questioned what the purpose of the MCMC was when the City is also part of Alberta Municipalities, which aims to advocate for mid-sized city issues. He cautioned that mid-sized cities may fall through the cracks of bureaucracy if part of too many varying committees with overlapping goals.

If approved, the MCMC says the results of the project would be shared at their meetings in July and in the Fall of 2023.

READ: Mid-sized Cities Mayors’ Caucus wants answers from and better relationship with province