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Highway 40X ring road, electricity pricing among council advocacy priorities

Addressing High electricity distribution causes, and gaining traction on the final leg of the ring road linking Highway 40 with Highway 43 are among the top advocacy priorities for Grande Prairie city councillors in 2022.

Mayor Jackie Clayton says the priorities, while not set in stone, reflect current and future challenges within the community.

“Every year council has a full conversation after hearing from community stakeholders and identifying what’s happening in the region, and we identify areas we want to focus on,” she says. “They’re not necessarily strategic priorities or initiatives, they’re truly areas where we are advocating other levels of government.”

She says the goal of the priorities is to continue to improve Grande Prairie and the services offered to residents not only in the municipality but across the region. She adds when it comes to things like electricity and natural gas distribution costs, it can make the difference in attracting people to the region, or not.

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“Some of the priorities are city focus, and some are [a] regional focus, we like to identify these key areas, and in turn update them on a regular basis, as we get some small wins and things come to fruition from working with levels of government,”

“It’s not the individual pricing, it’s the distribution pricing that is significant, and we like to work with ATCO and the provincial government to sort of equalize it, so other municipalities are paying less on distribution just because they’re located closer to the big centres.”

Other areas of advocacy discussion include seniors home care, the proposed provincial police force, and rent subsidy funding.

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