St. Albert will not join the other five Edmonton Global member municipalities in their mass exodus.
City councillors voted 5-2 to defeat a motion to give the required two years’ notice that the city intends to leave the regional economic development body. Only Coun. Natalie Joly and Coun. Sheena Hughes voted in favour.
In late 2023, Strathcona County, Sturgeon County, Fort Saskatchewan, Devon, and Parkland County councils each unanimously voted to begin their own withdrawal processes.
That would leave nine municipalities including St. Albert and Edmonton itself funding Edmonton Global (EG). It’s possible that St. Albert’s share of the pie will grow, as it has by a factor of 10 since its inception in 2017.
That year, St. Albert paid in $23,829 to the $500,000 portion of the EG budget that member municipalities pay into. There were 17 partners then. This year, the EG member fund is $5 million and St. Albert’s EG dues payment was north of $240,000. It could increase another $50,000 in 2025.
“St. Albert would become the second largest contributor to Edmonton Global” after the exodus, according to a city staff report. “As a result, St. Albert’s annual Shareholder fees are expected to increase approximately 23 per cent, from $240,000 annually to close to $295,000 annually.”
The vote is a shift from the last time the question of leaving EG came before city council. In 2021, Biermanski voted with Hughes to give departure notice. On Tuesday, Biermanski had questions for EG board members who attended the meeting but voted with the bloc against leaving.
There was disagreement on city council over whether communications with member cities and towns, a well-documented source of tension, had improved since.
Councillors who chose to stay including Mike Killick and Ken MacKay pointed to the irony that leaving EG would create in the wake of them approving the servicing of the Lakeview Business District just weeks ago.
Frank Mannarino, EG board member, had opened his presentation to council with the dangling of an $800-million, 300-acre development promising on the order of 3,000 permanent new jobs. He said St. Albert was one of three finalists for this investment, which would find its home in Lakeview.
Killick said economic development takes time, and that he was heartened not by the promise of those maybe-jobs, but of the EG track record, which according to Mannarino has yielded $4.8 billion in investment and more than 5,000 new jobs in the region as a result of 47 EG “activities.”
Mayor Cathy Heron was one of more than 40 Albertans who went on an EG trade mission to Ottawa at the start of October and according to Mannarino she and others met with officials with the embassies of South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. She said such missions, which are open to councillors, too, are examples of the reach that EG has.
“You should experience those before” deciding EG isn’t worth it, she said.
With the defeat of her motion clearly on the horizon, Joly said in closing that she had achieved her goal of sending a message to EG to do better regardless.
“I think we all know a well-functioning Edmonton Global would be unstoppable.”