Mayor Kevin Zahara and a few members of Edson town council attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Conference in Calgary from June 6 to 9, where they were joined by other municipal leaders to have conversations around difficulties being faced by municipalities across the country.
Mayor Zahara says one of his focuses during the conference was attracting doctors and other healthcare professionals to Edson, a challenge being faced by other municipalities across the country.
“I had some really good conversations with other municipal leaders,” says Zahara. “In particular around doctor shortages in their communities and some of the challenges that they were having with healthcare. We were able to share some details of Edson’s strategy and some of the things we’ve done including owning the building the medical clinic is in and the doctor’s house as well, which is helping with recruitment and our partnership as well with some of the organizations in trying to recruit doctors to our community.”
Councilor Greg Pasychny also attended the conference and noted the increased amount of security at this year’s conference.
“I’ve never been at an FCM where we had as much security presence as we had this time,” notes Pasychny. “Armed police officers everywhere, security guards everywhere. The last event of the evening is a dinner and there were guards in the room. I’ve never seen that before.”
Councilor Pasychny also mentioned how many of the other municipal leaders at the event are not seeking re-election due to concerns around security and harassment.
“I don’t think there was an area in the country that wasn’t experiencing a fear of not getting people to run for municipal government because of the targeting and the tax they are taking from people publicly,” says Pasychny.
Councillor Gean Chouinard also attended the conference and echoed Councillor Pasychny’s thoughts on harassment concerns leading to municipal leaders choosing not to seek re-election.
“It was surprising the amount of security everywhere.” says Chouinard. “I spent some time the one evening with the Mayor [of Calgary] and about five or six of her councillors and you feel sorry for these people when they tell you stories that happened,” he continues. “I ran across a lot of councilors that are coming up for re-election and its shocking the amount that said, ‘I’m not putting up with this anymore.’”
Councillor Ed Moore also attended and says he took advantage of the networking opportunities provided by the conference which puts struggles faced by municipalities across the country into perspective.
“It was a great conference and what I liked best about it was the networking of course,” explains Moore. “Meeting people from all across Canada, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, what I found is Canadians do have their differences, but when you go to this conference you find out that basically all councils have the same problems. The homelessness, the mental health difficulties in the community, so many similarities.”
The next Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference will take place in Ottawa in 2025.
