Some St. Albert city councillors are left questioning the sustainability of Edmonton Global, after more than a third of the member municipalities have voted to start the two-year withdrawal process.
Edmonton Global is a municipally funded economic development and investment attraction company representing 14 municipalities in the Edmonton area. Last month, the councils of Strathcona County, Sturgeon County, Fort Saskatchewan, Devon, and Parkland County all unanimously voted to start the withdrawal process.
Coun. Ken MacKay said if the five municipalities don't change their minds over the next two years, or if other municipalities also vote to leave, he thinks Edmonton Global's “structure may not hold.”
“If [municipalities] keep dropping out, the structure doesn't really hold for me,” he said. “I don't know if there's a willingness for St. Albert to remain involved if it continues to shrink.”
Edmonton Global is a municipally funded economic development and investment attraction company representing 14 municipalities in the Edmonton area. Last month, the councils of Strathcona County, Sturgeon County, Fort Saskatchewan, Devon, and Parkland County all unanimously voted to start the withdrawal process.
MacKay said he was caught off guard by some of the municipalities voting to start the withdrawal process, especially Strathcona County and Fort Saskatchewan, who he thought were benefactors of Edmonton Global's work.
“For some of these communities, there's a cost benefit,” MacKay said. “Yes, the annual fees are expensive, but the return on investment for some of these communities is quite high. I don't know whether we could say the same thing.”
Coun. Wes Brodhead said he thinks Edmonton Global needs to do a better job of calculating and explaining the impact of its work.
“I suspect that Edmonton Global needs to sharpen their value proposition for the region,” Brodhead said. “If they sharpen their pencils there and they're better able to articulate what a regional collaborative economic development entity would bring to the region, as well as to Edmonton, then I think it will survive.”
“If they are unable to do that, then I think it's going to be a bit of a struggle.”
Brodhead also said if the five municipalities that voted to leave do drop out, he expects Edmonton Global's mandate to stay the same, although the scope of its work may change.
“I don't know that the ability to continue to do work is particularly compromised,” he said. “If they don't want to reduce the scope, then of course, there would be an increased [financial] ask across the remaining participating partners.”
“I think it would be difficult to be asking for more without a demonstrable increase in benefits to the remaining partners.”
St. Albert will contribute nearly $245,000 to Edmonton Global in 2024, which increases the city's overall contribution since the company's establishment in 2017 to just shy of $1.1 million.
Two councillors want to withdraw
Both Coun. Shelley Biermanski and Coun. Sheena Hughes told the Gazette they would be in favour of St. Albert withdrawing from Edmonton Global as well.
In December 2021, Hughes brought forward a motion to have St. Albert initiate the withdrawal process, but the motion failed with only herself and Biermanski in favour.
“The concern that I have with Edmonton Global is ... the less people that are there, the more it costs the individuals that are left behind,” Biermanski said, meaning she expects St. Albert's annual financial contribution to the company to increase if the five municipalities actually withdraw.
“What I've heard from different groups in meetings and such is that people wanted to see direct results from Edmonton Global,” she said. “Right now, we have kind of a climate where we have Edmonton Global working on things, we have the province working on things, we have economic development and specific cities doing their own recruitment, and a lot of times several groups are taking credit for the same project.”
“We haven't really seen much of anything for St. Albert.”
Hughes said she thinks St. Albert needs to start the two-year withdrawal process now as a risk-management strategy in the event the city's financial contribution increases.
“Regardless if you think it's a great idea or not to be part of this organization, if half of the shareholders two years from now do continue on their current plan to withdraw, that will leave the remaining in a very difficult financial situation,” she said.
“Right now, there's nothing that Edmonton Global could do to change the position they're in.”
Hughes also pointed out that if St. Albert city council was to vote to withdraw from Edmonton Global now, the two-year notice period wouldn't be over until after the next municipal election in 2025.
“We need to do this to give the next council that opportunity to have that discussion,” she said. “We can hope for the best, or we can ensure that we have insurance.”
Representatives of Edmonton Global plan to meet with its member municipalities over the next few months, including St. Albert on Feb. 6, after more than a third of them voted to start the two-year withdrawal process.
Strathcona County Mayor Rod Frank said at the time the county council's decision was aimed at trimming municipal spending. The county also voted to use reserve funds to cover the county's financial contributions — about $500,000 per year — to Edmonton Global for the next two years, rather than accounting for the contribution through property taxes. The other four municipalities that voted to leave did not pass a similar motion.
“Historically, they've been an opportunity to present updates on Edmonton Global’s work and outcomes specific to each municipality and give individual councils a chance to ask questions in a one-on-one setting,” said the company's senior manager of communications, Sherri Bouslama, about the upcoming meetings with municipal councils.
Besides the upcoming presentations, Edmonton Global is also hosting a shareholders meeting on Jan. 25, which St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron will be attending.
Heron declined an interview about the situation until after the shareholder meeting, but said last month she thought regional economic development is a long-term project and Edmonton Global has done a good job of “propelling the region onto different international and national stages.”
Bouslama said the Jan. 25 meeting will be an opportunity for political leaders to “discuss a path forward for regional collaboration in economic development.”
