MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) officials have updated council on the progress of resolutions put forward by Mountain View County calling for provincial government action.
The update came during the recent, regularly scheduled council meeting, with RMA district 2 director Amber Link and RMA executive director Gerald Rhodes appearing as a delegation.
The RMA represents 69 municipalities including Mountain View and Red Deer counties. It advocates on behalf of its membership with the provincial government.
Amber Link said, “We are very grateful for the resolutions Mountain View County has brought forward through the RMA and received support from all of our members across the province. These resolutions do form the foundation for the advocacy that our board undertakes and are critical to understanding what the issues are that you are facing.”
Approved at the RMA fall convention, the three resolutions deal with the reclamation of renewable energy projects, veterinary education, and the need to balance renewable resource development and the protection of agricultural lands.
One resolution forward by the county calls on the provincial government to “immediately expand the number of seats available to train Combined Laboratory and X-Ray Technologist (CLXT) for rural Alberta by increasing the number of seats for CLXT training at NAIT by 20 seats and explore means by which an additional twenty seat capacity can be created at NAIT or another Alberta Institution.”
Link said, “When we reviewed the response that we received from the ministry, we did assign a status of Intent Not Met. We are pleased to hear that additional funding has been allocated to the programs such as nursing and laboratory professionals which we know impact health care in rural Alberta.
“However we would like more information on how these seats are being allocated to each program and to what extent they are expanding these to rural Alberta. We will continue to advocate on that.”
Another resolution calls on the provincial government to “implement a mandated collection of adequate securities for future reclamation of renewable energy projects on private lands, either by requiring renewable energy project proponents to post a reclamation surety bond as a condition of any renewable energy project approvals or by other means.”
As well, another resolution calls on the government to “work collaboratively on policy that will find a balance between the development of renewable energy and protection of valuable agriculture lands.”
On both resolutions the RMA assigned status of Intent Not Met, she said.
“There is an important component of the projects around reclamation ad the boarder public interest,” she said. “There are so many angles and so many complexities around this that we do try to take a balanced approach. We don’t want to see us ending up in the same situation that we are with abandoned oil and gas wells.”
Another resolution put forward by Mountain View County calls on the provincial government to “improve veterinary education opportunities and officially support the development of new programs at the University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine Faculty” and to “examine and implement best practices to conduct outreach to recruit veterinary students and retain veterinary professionals who will work and reside in rural Alberta.”
Link said the RMA has assigned a status of Accepted in Principle to that resolution.
“That was based on because the government of Alberta’s response indicated several initiatives that support the intent of the resolution,” she said. “This work is still underway and there is definitely still more work to be done and that is why we have that Accepted in Principle (status).”
The complete RMA delegation presentation can be found on the county’s website.
Council accepted the RMA presentation as information.
