Newly elected RMA president feels frank conversation with provincial government is needed

Kara Westerlund, newly elected president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about her new role and the challenges facing RMA members.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: What motivated your pursuit of the role of president?

Kara Westerlund: I think the timing was perfect. I've been vice-president for the last seven years and I've worked with both Al Kemmere from Mountain View County, he was the prior president, to Paul McLauchlin.

Paul was stepping back this fall and I thought that the timing was right and the opportunity presented itself, so I put my name forward.

MH: Has there been a drop in RMA opposition to ditching the mounties for a provincial police service?

KW: From the rural side, it's not what we're hearing at all. We just came out of our convention, obviously, we spent four days together with the 69 rural municipalities. There was a little bit of chatter about it but for the most part, we're going to stand strong and fast with what our members are asking, and they're not interested in the provincial police force.

MH: Police funding certainly generated chatter at convention, including a resolution about making ratepayers aware of how much of their taxes are paid to the Alberta government for policing.

What prompted that push around transparency?

KW: We do have a few municipalities out there that have been breaking off the police funding on the property taxes when they go out.

We are into, I believe, five or six years now where rural municipalities are starting to pay for policing so we were trying to educate our members, and obviously our residents, on what portion of their property taxes go to pay for policing.

MH: Why would that be an issue, though, in the first place? If policing is a significant cost, what would keep municipalities from being clear with the residents about how their tax dollars are being spent?

KW: It's something new for us. Obviously, we haven't been paying for a number of years, and now we are paying for it. When this first came out, it was a laddered approach to how much the rurals were going to pay.

The other issue that we're facing is, we were promised a number of police officers and those numbers haven't come to fruition quite yet. I believe we're just over the halfway mark for the extra boots on the ground that we were promised, and I know with that comes its complications.

Talking directly with the RCMP, they're like any provincial or any police force across the province, across this country, and across North America, they're having issues with recruitment.

So it's interesting because I've been a part of this process all along and we said that when the promise was made, if we started paying, we were going to see more boots on the ground.

That was the first question I had, ‘How are you going to get the recruits,’ and ‘How are you going to get them through fast enough?’ And obviously, here we are, and we're still waiting to see those results.

MH: Your predecessor, Paul McLauchlin, he put a focus at the fall convention on financial hurdles, driving home the message the municipalities could go bankrupt in five to 10 years if things don't change. What's your read on the temperature in the room and how your member municipalities feel about the road forward?

KW: It's going to be definitely a challenging road forward. I always say it, the analogy is, it's a death by 1,000 cuts.

So I've been on council now for 14 years, as well as being on the RMA board for the last seven years, and I can't pinpoint exactly what's going to be the tipping point.

It is discussion that we're having around the board table. We're doing a deep dive into some of the municipal finances across this province, especially on the rural side, and we're seeing that. We're seeing the struggle is real.

You have the unpaid oil and gas tax, on top of dealing with the mature asset strategy, as well as the Asset Management Review happening.

Any of the cuts that you've seen that were promised to the oil and gas companies during COVID and in the downturn in the economy, that was done on the backs of residents, and especially those in rural Alberta.

A large amount of rural municipalities, the tax base for them is oil and gas, but at the same time, oil and gas are also the significant cause to a lot of our infrastructure issues too.

MH: How do you, as the new president, plan to approach dialogue with the Smith government around all of these issues: affordability, financial, state of member municipalities, funding for critical infrastructure?

KW: I think it's going to start with sitting down at the table and having a frank conversation about the direction that the provincial government is taking, where they're going, and where they see we fit into that.

We're dealing with rural municipalities facing bankruptcy, and it's something that we've never faced since I've been around and for generations.

There is legislation and a process forward for urbans to dissolve and become a part of a rural municipality but there is no path forward for a rural dissolving and what that's going to look like.