Cold Lake city council isn't impressed with the lack of rural representation on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Western Economics Solutions Task Force (WEST).
According to Andrew Serba, general manager of strategic initiatives, the task force was the FCM's way of "working on solutions to the prolonged economic downturn and an increasing feeling of isolation in the west, especially... the lack of representation in the current minority government."
Council discussed the list of members on the task force during their corporate priorities meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19.
"My only comment about this, is I don't know the background of some of the people on this, but from a Cold Lake and northeast Alberta perspective, the lack of representation is somewhat shocking, and the lack of representation from small municipalities," noted Coun. Chris Vining. "It's all cities and large groups. I don't doubt their intent with this, I have a little doubt with their voice or their understanding."
In total, there are 19 people listed on the task force, including the president and vice-president of the FCM.
"They want to control the message, they want to make sure whatever message comes out of this doesn't piss off too many of their members that aren't part of this group," Vining stated. "I wish them all the best, and I wish they succeed, but if they fail, I hope they fail fast and let's get on with it."
Other names that made the list are City of Edmonton Mayor Don Iverson, who is also the Big City Mayors' Caucus chair, and the mayors of Saskatoon, Regina, Calgary, and Winnipeg.
Coun. Bob Buckle agreed with Vining's sentiments.
"There's too much large urban, a lot of these large urbans are progressive centres that aren't really attached to the oil and gas industry... When you look at the isolation of the west... I don't see how they're going to achieve their objective."
