CANMORE – A pair of agreements between the Town of Canmore and the MD of Bighorn has been finalized.
A six-month extension of the first response fire agreement and a 10-year renewal of the business registry licensing agreement were both approved Tuesday (Feb. 1) by Canmore council.
The six-month extension for the first response fire agreement, from June 30 to Dec. 31 2022, was approved to allow the Town of Canmore to hire a new CAO in the coming months.
“With a new CAO coming on, and because of the negotiations, this gives an opportunity for the new CAO to get a foundation for him or her and then dive into the negotiations rather than try and squeeze them in before there’s a change in people sitting around the table,” said Mayor Sean Krausert.
A report to council stated both parties agree that the current agreement is serving their communities well and that a renegotiation of terms should wait until a new CAO is hired by the Town of Canmore.
Canmore Fire-Rescue and Exshaw Fire-Rescue often work with one another on calls between the two communities and respond to incidents on the Trans-Canada Highway.
If an extension wasn’t made, the staff report highlighted that the two parties would invoice one another, but that “it is not an efficient use of resources and would cause confusion and uncertainty for all stakeholders.”
According to the staff report, the MD of Bighorn paid fees of $115,737 in 2021 on a model that’s based on full cost recovery.
“With the advent of the new fire hall coming online, with some of the budget discussions we’ve had this year with moving towards four full-time firefighters and a hall in the next five-year period, there are going to be some significant cost impacts to our overall fire service delivery and, thereby, the percentage of costs we would request from the MD of Bighorn, so that requires some negotiation to happen over the next six months,” said Lisa de Soto, the Town’s outgoing CAO.
The existing agreement was signed in 2017 on a five-year term.
“The continuity of service is important and it makes sense to wait until there’s a new CAO to negotiate the terms with the new cost that we will be incurring as a municipality with the new fire hall coming on,” said Coun. Joanna McCallum.
The business registry licensing agreement between the Town of Canmore and the MD of Bighorn, first created in 2012, was renewed for an additional 10 years.
A staff report to council noted the inter-municipal committee met in January to discuss the renewal. The agreement has Bighorn businesses listed as resident businesses as opposed to non-resident businesses – which are higher – when paying licensing fees to the Town.
“This approach would see many local trades and contractors who have their corporate addresses in the MD of Bighorn pay higher licence fees, and may encourage the MD of Bighorn to implement a similar licensing approach for Canmore-based businesses operating in the MD,” the report stated.
de Soto told council the MD of Bighorn could easily flip the process and begin charging out-of-rate prices to Canmore businesses.
“That was one of the concerns when we first initiated this process, that if we were to charge their businesses an out-of-town rate, then they could flip that and institute their own business licence and charge Town of Canmore business owners who are conducting business in the MD of Bighorn the same out-of-town rate,” she said.
Canmore council also approved an additional capital project in 2022 for a full-scale emergency management field exercise as part of the Town of Canmore's wildfire mitigation strategy.
Canmore Fire-Rescue was approved for $30,000 with the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta in December and needed the council sign-off.
The staff report highlighted the field exercise will be a continuation of the one held last November, with the Town’s emergency coordination centre and incident command post being active.
“FireSmart certainly provides a variety of benefits to our town and we often think of it as thinning, but it also means exercises, preparation, home preparation and making sure each of us individually look at our homes that they are FireSmart,” Krasuert said.
