Newly minted Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths has an interesting perspective on his new job. In fact, he literally wrote a book on it.
Griffiths, who was also a contender for the Progressive Conservative leadership, is co-author of the book 13 Ways to Kill Your Community, which was an extension of work he did on a rural development strategy shortly after he was first elected as an MLA.
The fatal missteps include failing to co-operate, failing to engage young people and seniors, not allowing competition and refusing to consider new ideas.
Griffiths said while the book certainly informs his thinking, it is more about the approach community residents take and less about government policy.
“The book didn’t say the ministry needs to do this and municipalities need to do that, it was mostly anecdotal stories about attitudes,” he said. “There is nothing more that guarantees our success or failure than attitudes.”
Griffiths said when new premier Alison Redford offered him the cabinet post she made it clear she thought it would give him an opportunity to move on some of his ideas.
“The premier said, ‘You wrote a book about it and you talked during the leadership campaign about building stronger communities and municipal affairs is probably the best place to start doing that,’” said Griffiths.
Griffiths said he does believe a lot of the change needed to improve communities is about ideas and attitudes and not always about money.
“A lot of people think that the first solution to a problem is money and usually I believe it is the last step,” he said. “Maybe, there is some way to back up and have the discussion about how to build stronger communities before the discussion about money.”
Despite that, Griffiths said he doesn’t plan on changing the province’s municipal sustainability initiative (MSI). The program is a ten-year grant program that began in 2007 and was set to provide a total of $11.3 billion, mostly for capital projects.
“MSI has done a lot of great things around the province,” he said. “I think it is time to start talking about what we are going to do after MSI is done, whether there will be a MSI two or some other kind of arrangement, the discussion has to start now.”
Griffiths said he sees value in communities working together and will continue to push that in his new role.
“Not co-operating can cause some serious harm to a community’s viability and if not co-operating means an inefficient use of tax dollars, well there is only one taxpayer in this province.”
St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, who praised Redford for her cabinet, which includes two local MLAs, said he is familiar with Griffiths’ 13 ways and agrees with the arguments.
Crouse said based on what he has seen he believes Griffiths will back the co-operative work the Edmonton region is doing.
“My guess is he is going to be very supportive of the Capital Region Board and what we are doing.”
He said Griffiths will have to take a big provincial view and his decisions won’t have as much of a local impact.
“It is so provincial wide that I don’t think there will be a big influence on St. Albert.”
