Alberta's Voice in FCM

This is disappointing news to me: Bonnyville will be leaving the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). More information can be found here.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has provided a strong voice for municipalities into the federal government. The thought of it losing Albertan influence scares me.

In a perfect world, I think municipal political leaders should largely stay out of publicly advocating for non-municipal issues. We should be focused on the needs of our local communities. And we should be ready to advocate for our communities to senior governments, no matter what parties control them.

However, there are many municipal leaders that disagree with me. And some are providing effective opposition to our energy industry. These can't be the only municipal voices that get heard. Alberta's municipal leaders also need to make their voices heard. And taking part in FCM is a crucial part of having our say.

Here's a worthwhile post made by the President of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association in response to some municipalities boycotting last year's FCM conference:

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I attended the last FCM conference. I went largely to vote on board and executive members, and on the resolutions that form FCM's advocacy work. Elected officials from resource communities need to ensure that FCM doesn't take positions contrary to the needs of our residents. Voting is the most important tool we have to do that.

However, I also went to FCM to take part in less formal conversations.

Here was one of them:

Grande Prairie has joined something called the Resource Communities Coalition of Canada. This was an organisation created to allow municipal voices to be heard on issues impacting resource development. It took out a tradeshow booth at FCM, and I volunteered to be in this booth one day.

Three Councillors from a BC community came to the booth to talk pipelines. Their Council had taken actions to oppose them. But they were willing to learn more. So we got talking. It turned out: they vastly misunderstood our energy industry. They thought resource extraction was devastating our environment. And they thought it was being run by uncaring corporations who were taking our wealth out of Canada.

So I told them the story of Seven Generations Energy. This is a company that picked a name based on the call by our indigenous neighbours to think of distant generations. It's doing some of the most environmentally responsible resource extraction in the world. And it has greatly enhanced our local community through its business and charitable investments. Without this company and others like it: our community would not be in a good place.

These Councillors were willing to listen to another Councillor talk about his community. And I think our conversation was important. Respectful person-to-person and professional-to-professional discussions is how minds get changed.

Most Canadians want the same thing: strong communities, thriving economies, healthy environment, and resilient people. We just fundamentally disagree on how to get these things. We need to have more, not less, honest conversations about how to best build this Country. And I think municipal politicians are well positioned to have those conversations. We don't help our communities by refusing to have a seat at the national table.

Thanks for reading!

-Dylan