'Unexpected': Edmonton's regional board loses provincial funding, future uncertain

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The Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board (EMRB) will no longer receive its $1 million funding contribution from the Alberta government starting next year.

“The news was sudden. It was unexpected,” said EMRB chair Allan Gamble in an interview with Postmedia Monday.

On Friday, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver told the board that the Alberta government would no longer provide provincial funding for the group starting in the 2025 budget. The news comes shortly after Calgary heard that its own metropolitan regional board would also be losing its funding from the province.

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McIver also informed the EMRB that along with axing provincial funding, membership would be voluntary as opposed to mandatory moving forward.

The EMRB is a co-operative group of 13 municipalities surrounding Edmonton that collaborate to ensure broad benefits to the region. The board is comprised of Parkland Country, Spruce Grove, Beaumont, Devon, Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, Leduc County, Morinville, St. Albert, Stony Plain, Strathcona County, and Sturgeon County.

EMRB’s budget for 2021-22 to 2023-24 shows a yearly decline in the Alberta government’s funding contributions to the board, which were distributed under the Alberta Community Partnership (ACP) grant. EMRB documents show the Alberta government reduced its contributions to the EMRB by $250,000 in 2021-22 and by $500,000 in 2022-23, bringing the total for the ACP grant to $1 million annually.

“When the metropolitan region boards were established, they were always intended to be self-funding and that is why funding has always been single year,” said Minister McIver in an emailed statement.

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‘The death of this organization’: Knack

Edmonton Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack said cutting funding for the EMRB is one of the most harmful decisions the Alberta government can make for municipalities, saying the province is overstepping its jurisdiction.

“This is a group that constantly says they do not want federal overreach into provincial affairs and then subsequently goes out of their way to do provincial overreach into the affairs of municipalities,” Knack said Friday, adding the decision doesn’t bode well for the organization’s future.

“We know this is essentially the death of this organization. I think it would be such a loss.”

Gamble said “given the suddenness of this decision,” the EMRB will “take a few days to meet and discuss a plan for the future.”

Gamble said despite the province’s mandate, the municipality co-operation was primarily spurred by its benefits to the region.

“We work together not because the provincial government mandated us to do so but because we understand the immense value of our work and how critical it is to the region’s future,” said Gamble.

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Knack highlighted the role the EMRB played over the past few years, pointing to the regional growth plan, passed last term. By working together on land use and service planning, Knack said the region saved 250 quarter sections for premium agricultural farmland and more than $5 billion in infrastructure costs that would have been incurred as a region if those lands were developed.

Province’s intent?

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said he “couldn’t imagine why” the Alberta government is disrupting the work of the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) and EMRB, expressing his concerns about what it would mean for future planning in both cities should both boards fold.

“These are statutory bodies that have statutory regional plans. In other words, for any developer to get plans in these areas, they have to be approved by the regional board. So what’s the government’s intent here? Are they getting rid of all regional planning? Are they dumping all regional plans in the bin?” said Nenshi.

“If you eliminate all regional planning, it means you’ve got the Wild West in planning. And when you’re in a housing crisis, that’s the worst possible thing you can do because you can’t plan where to put the houses where the infrastructure already exists, where transit is already in place.”

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Knack said at a time when other regional entities haven’t been successful, the EMRB has been a “shining example” of regional collaboration.

“They have been working together on economic development, on so many areas showing why there is value in municipalities coming together to work together, to support one another,” he said, adding what happens in Edmonton impacts the region and vice versa.

It has shown “how we can all come together and, even with our differences, find ways to move forward and recognize that when we’re working together, we’re going to be a much more successful region than if we kept trying to go it each alone.”

As an example of the co-operative economic development, the EMRB established Edmonton Global in 2018 to promote the Edmonton metropolitan region’s business and investment opportunities to the world. It’s run independently from the board.

However, Edmonton Global has recently had its own troubles as the group narrowly avoided losing St. Albert as a member for a second time.

Gamble said the 13 member municipalities are committed to moving forward together and will continue to collaborate as one to develop “co-ordinated approaches to transportation, infrastructure, agricultural lands, municipal services, the environment, and more.

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“Given this, our partnership with the government of Alberta has provided great value to both the region and the province, so we’re remaining committed to working with them to find a new way forward,” said Gamble.

McIver expressed optimism that CMRB and EMRB members might continue working together in the future.

“The boards have worked hard. We are hopeful that they will choose to continue to work together to responsibly plan and manage development. Our government is open to suggestions on how each board can work collaboratively. We look forward to their ideas as we move forward.”

— With files from Lauren Boothby, Matthew Black, and Cindy Tran

zdelaney@postmedia.com

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