CANMORE – When asked what the priorities for the Town of Canmore will be for the coming four years, all members of council offered the same answer following their election victories.
Affordability.
While there will undoubtedly dozens of issues to be tackle as priorities, councillors are unanimous in addressing the affordability concerns expressed by many residents while they were campaigning.
“It has been an issue for a long time, but I think COVID sped it up and it has become more acute,” Coun. Tanya Foubert said. “I think people feel an urgency on that issue.”
Anyone who has travelled Alberta knows living in the Bow Valley comes at a premium.
From gas, the price of food, rent or the cost to purchase a home, the cost to live in the valley has pushed many people out of the region.
Whether it has led to a move east or further west, many residents have felt priced out of the community and have seen people reluctantly leave for more affordable communities.
“I think the town spoke very loudly with what they want us to tackle,” Coun. Wade Graham said.
“There’s a constant talk of the cost to live here and it’s pushing people out and the shrinking lower middle class on how hard it is to make it here. We really have to address that.”
But as a council, what can they do to assist with affordability?
The Town of Canmore already offers programs to help people who qualify and have assistance for everyday residents.
Roam Transit is free within the town and the affordability assistance program was created by the past council in 2017. It offers fee assistance for recreation, food supports and Family and Community Support Services.
Most notably, perpetually affordable housing through Canmore Community Housing has brought forward opportunities for some residents to purchase homes they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.
The previous council also approved giving people the choice to construct secondary suites – often referred to as granny suites – that are designed to provide additional rental units and assist homeowners with extra sources of income.
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, which advocates for municipalities at the provincial and federal level, gives a series of strategies to support helping housing affordability. From recommendations on planning, encouraging infill, using density bonuses and redeveloping underused land, the Town of Canmore notably follows them in attempting to address housing affordability.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities offer highly sought after funds to retrofit existing affordable housing to more energy efficient, but every Canadian municipality wants a piece of the $300 million fund.
However, for each step forward a municipality takes in attempting to improve the lives of residents, there can be a step back.
The living wage across the country, but particularly in the Bow Valley has only continued to climb.
The newly created Alberta Living Wage Network (ALWN) released figures for its 2021 living wages, with Canmore finishing at $37.40 an hour – the highest of the 12 municipalities on the list – for an annual household income of about $136,000.
It was a significant jump from the living wage in 2020 of $30.97 per hour for each parent in a two-parent, two-child household.
The formula in calculating a living wage is determined through the Canadian Living Wage Framework, which has a methodology that assumes adults are working full-time of at least 35 hours a week. It considers the cost of food, clothing, housing, childcare, transit, education and some unexpected costs.
A living wage is determined by the amount of hourly pay needed to sustain a modest standard of living. It includes potential government transfers to a family’s income once taxes are considered.
For a single adult, the Town of Canmore website lists they would need $23.70 an hour for an annual income of about $43,200.
The ALWN is comprised of 10 municipalities and nine social services organizations
“Today, about 400,000 Albertans live in low income and of those, about 60 per cent are considered the working poor,” said Franco Savoia, the chair of the Alberta Living Wage Council in a press release. “These Albertans often have to work multiple jobs just to get by. … Living wages help lift up these individuals and are a necessary component to resilient cities and the economy.”
Affordability, however, isn’t solely a Canmore issue but one being faced across the country and around the world.
The topic was a major issue during the recent federal election, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities pushing for $7 billion to help urban and rural areas create up to 24,000 permanent affordable housing units.
The ask was a seven-fold increase from the Liberal governments' rapid housing program in 2020 that dolled out about $1 billion during a six-month period. The demand for the program was intense, with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. running the initiative, having to turn down more than it approved.
Other municipalities have attempted to get creative in helping residents.
In British Columbia, the City of Langford launched a program last month that offers up to five per cent of a down payment for those who qualify in purchasing a home for the first time. Rather than come from taxpayers, the program taps into fees collected from developers when they build in the community.
The Attainable Homeownership Program is aiming to help up to 250 buyers attempting to purchase homes that are $450,000 or less. The city has a roughly $3 million fund to run the program.
In addition to the affordability concerns, the first initial task of council will be finalizing the budget, with talks beginning Thursday (Nov. 4).
Once the budget is passed, a new CAO will need to be hired as longtime top administrator Lisa de Soto is retiring at the end of the year.
The position of the CAO is among the most important in a municipality. It oversees the day-to-day operations and acts as the senior administrator in working with council to achieve their short and long-term plans.
The relationship between the CAO and council can often be a balancing act in helping council take its ideas or residents' concerns and applying them within the legislated means of the Municipal Government Act.
Other issues will be examining how Canmore will grow and what development should look like in the future. The public hearings for the Three Sisters Village and Smith Creek area structure plans showed many residents had concerns over the way Canmore would look in the coming generation.
However, with the Town of Canmore and Three Sisters Mountain Village in the legal process of the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, it could be years before council could act on a vision.
“Until those challenges are complete and done, this council will have uncertainty on an issue our community would really like to have certainty on as well as Three Sisters,” Foubert said. “We’re stuck in an uncertain process that will likely take two to three years on an issue that drove a lot of the turnout this election. How we handle that will be frustrating for people because it’ll be glacial slow.”
The calls for a new Municipal Development Plan (MDP) by some residents is easier said than done. Any fresh vision would take an entire council term and likely upwards of a decade to implement. Mining the Future being completed in 2006 but the MDP not being fully approved until 2016 and amended again in 2020.
The matters revolving around climate change will only be amplified, so too will handling the challenges that come with tourism.
The Bow Valley has long been a leader in the country when it comes to climate change. From emphasizing public transit, installation of solar panels and the Town of Canmore’s climate action plan aim to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and declaration of a climate emergency to bring greater awareness to the issue.
“Everything has to have an eye on climate,” Graham said. “If we lose that, we lose the heart of this town.”
The discussion of tourism in the community has also evolved over the years, with a greater acceptance by residents that Canmore is a tourism-based town.
Unlike Banff, who accepted their role of tourism being its main employment sector, at times Canmore is still at odds with the industry and the level of tourism that comes each winter and summer.
The next four years will also see a significant amount of time in recovering COVID-19.
Canmore saw significant economic impact from the pandemic, with tourism much lower than in prior years. Tourism Canmore Kananaskis is estimating it will be 2023 or 2024 when the community sees a return to the 2019 numbers.
“It’s very top of mind for a lot of people,” Coun. Jeff Hilstad said.
The Tourism Taskforce established in 2020 completed its initial work and a roundtable will likely be created in the coming months to address the worries of residents, many of whom voiced concerns of being pushed out of enjoying the community.
Four-term councillor Joanna McCallum also expressed a wish to get the Bow Valley human wildlife coexistence roundtable running. It was created in 2017 to respond to a growing number of encounters between humans and wildlife.
It has fallen by the wayside in the last two years, largely due to COVID-19, but involved people locally, regionally, provincially and nationally in creating plans to better cohabit the lands with the wildlife of the valley.
“It needs to get fired up again,” McCallum said.
It’s unlikely that all issues will be fixed, and possible some may take a step back, but the next four years are crucial in defining the next generation for both the Town and for Canmore residents.
“Affordability, traffic congestion, bikes came up a lot on the campaign trail, land planning with Three Sisters is on a lot of people’s mind,” Mayor Sean Krausert said shortly after finding out he had been elected. “Everything we do has to be seen through the lens of climate change and making sure we’re good stewards of the lands.”
