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Councilor Westerlund elected as Vice President of AAMDC

Nov 17, 2017 | 10:44 AM

A Brazeau County Council member has been elected the new Vice President of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts & Counties (AAMDC) at it’s fall convention in Edmonton. 

Councilor Kara Westerlund was elected on Thursday after beating out two other nominees. She called the win a huge honor and with it brings a large task at hand.

“It’s an extremely big honor and privilige to be elected. I have a huge task ahead working with MLA’s to ministers right up to the Premier and being a direct line to our communities for the provincial government,” Westerlund said.

She says her background as a third term councilor, being raised on a farm and owning and operating an oil field company mirrored pressing issues in rural Alberta, and spoke to a lot of the membership.

Many of the issues that were shared by the 69 members of the AAMDC that Westerlund will be representing were agricultural and oil and gas based. She says Bill 6 is something that is not well received and should be scrapped.

“Bill 6 is a huge issue right across the province, it’s a feeling right across that farmers feel like they are not being listened to,” said Westerlund. “It’s ambitious, but I hope we can get ride of it. I feel it’s not for Alberta and not what the farmers want.”

The oil and gas side of the discussion revolved around getting Albertan’s back to work and pipelines built.

“We want Alberta oil, we should be proud of what we have here. We need to get people back to work in that industry,” Westerlund said.

The growing of hemp and production of products made from the plant were also mentioned, with Brazeau County being a leader in that field. Westerlund says it’s more prominent amongst municipalities and counties in central Alberta, and is being pushed on southern and northern regions of the province to get involved. 

First elected to Brazeau County Council in 2010, Westerlund has been a part of numerous committees including the counties Agricultural Board and Brazeau Seniors Foundation. Over the past two years she has also been involved with the AAMDC as the president for the zone Brazeau County falls in.