MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY – The county's agricultural service board (ASB) would like to work closely with the municipality on key issues facing the district, officials said.
During the board’s recent regularly scheduled meeting, held by teleconference, members received a report on some of the issues that would lend themselves to joint advocacy by the board and county.
“Administration’s recommendation that in order to capitalize on council’s lobbying efforts and to ensure consistency with the overall direction of the organization, that the ASB refer items of interest to council through motion for their consideration,” administration said in a briefing note to the board.
“The typical practice is that council will then request for administration to develop applicable background and correspondence to support that item of interest in collaboration with the intergovernmental communications committee.”
Over the past year, issues of joint interest identified include the following (quoted from report):
• Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency announcement of their decision to cancel registration of two per cent liquid strychnine concentrate (LSC) product for control of Richardson’s ground squirrels. Sales of two per cent LSC will end in March 2022 and the last date it can be legally used will be March 4, 2023.
• Agricultural service board will see a decrease in provincial grant funding by $3.19 million, which could equate to a reduction of about $46,000 in legislative stream funding for every ASB in the province.
Other issues include Alberta Agriculture and Forest budget cuts, and changes to the Ag-Info Centre.
Board members passed a motion to receive the report as information on joint advocacy of issues of mutual concern with Mountain View County council.
