Finance committee  Yes, and I'll give you a specific example. The town of Daysland is a small town in central Alberta. They have a detachment that is in another municipality and has the RCMP coverage for their area. I believe they have five officers allocated in their budget. Two to three are on ma

Finance committee  Well, actually, the changes to the Alberta Municipal Government Act are going to help that, for sure. Obviously, it does depend on local councils. I think what's happening with yours is the exception, not the rule. One thing we're seeing is a lot more focus on intra-municipal c

Finance committee  Absolutely. I appreciate that, and I will start off by just saying that it's interesting, because although we are the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, the majority of our members are rural. One of the gaps is the definition of what “rural” means. According to the Federat

Finance committee  Absolutely. The agreement was only signed a couple of weeks ago, so the complete construction season, in my opinion, has been missed for Alberta for 2016. We are also still awaiting word on the previous infrastructure funding. The construction season for phase one of this new inf

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I want to say that we are very supportive, obviously, of the platform projects that you guys have put through with increasing infrastructure funding. The current federal Minister of Infrastructure is a former vice-president of AUMA, so obviously we ha

Finance committee  Thank you for the opportunity to present to your committee. My name is Lisa Holmes. I am the current mayor of the Town of Morinville, Alberta, and the president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association. I'm joined by our CEO, Sue Bohaichuk. The Alberta Urban Municipaliti

Finance committee  That's no problem. I do speak quickly. The Government of Canada's budget is of significant interest to our organization in terms of the budget's impact at a local level. Canada is facing challenging economic times. Alberta is particularly vulnerable, given our natural resource