Speech From the Throne

I'm just reading through the provincial Speech from the Throne. I'd encourage you to read or watch it for yourself by clicking here.

My thoughts from a specifically municipal and/or Grande Prairie perspective:

THE GOOD

  • Red Tape reduction is still a priority. This could be a help for the City. As we seek to be more efficient without compromising services, some provincial red tape does get in the way.

  • A promise of significant investment in infrastructure. I look forward to seeing what it means for municipalities. Canada wide, municipalities own over 60% of public infrastructure (more in Alberta) while collecting less than 10% of taxes. So we need investment from senior levels of government.

  • Fast credential recognition for newcomers. As a region that struggles to attract labour, this is so important for us.

  • A promise to renew mental health and addictions strategies. This is one of the biggest and most costly challenges the City faces. Anything that can be done to help people and communities is great.

THE BAD

  • Recall election for municipal and school board officials. Other than the worry that the City might have to bear costs for school board recalls, I don't have huge concerns about this from a Grande Prairie perspective- I welcome being more accountable. But this could be VERY tricky for small municipalities- their administration may not have the resources to properly supervise a recall or hold a by election, and their threshold for numbers of signatures might be troublingly small. This could be good, bad, or neutral depending on the specifics.

  • An indication that the government is prepared invest directly in industry. Again, whether this is good or bad will depend on how it is carried out. However, I know many of our employees will be worried that this means the pensions are at risk. This could impact their moral, or mean we need to pay more to attract quality people. That worries me.

THE UGLY

  • A continued direction of adding senate nominations and referendums to the next municipal elections. This will give the public and media less ability to hold municipal officials (like me) accountable due to taking attention away from local issues. Local elections should remain local. More on this in my blog post about our last Council Meeting.

Dylan BresseyprovinceComment