EDMONTON – The new president of Alberta’s rural municipalities association moved from Calgary back to the family farm in southern Alberta because of his love of rural Alberta.
“I’m passionate about rural Alberta,” said Don Johnson, who moved back to the farm in 1990.
He said his family had an “itch” to return home to Barnwell, near Taber.
“I was born there. You got that dirt under your nails you can’t get rid of,” said Johnson, who grows sugar beets, dry beans, grain and grass.
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On a stressful day he and his daughter play tag on horseback in the stubble field.
Johnson was elected president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties at its annual meeting. He took over from Jack Hayden of Stettler.
Group experience
Johnson, a former administrator with Mount Royal College and a chair with the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, said he is a team player.
He wants to build a stronger partnership with urban municipalities to strengthen communities.
A former president of the Family and Community Support Services Association of Alberta, which is in charge of family support services, he said he took the organization from one that was failing to one that is listened to by government.
Johnson said he believes in the need for regionalization to help rural communities work together and survive.
– MACARTHUR
Camrose bureau
news
EDMONTON – The outgoing president of Alberta’s rural municipalities association said after six years on the job, lack of money is still the number one issue facing rural Alberta.
“We were in real trouble financially when I first started. Now the province is in much better shape, they’re going to burn the mortgage; unfortunately there’s still a mortgage on rural infrastructure,” said Jack Hayden, outgoing president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties.
When Hayden was elected president in 1998, Alberta was in the middle of cost cutting in an attempt to get spending in line with revenue. Grants to municipalities for road repair, bridge building and local project funding were slashed and municipalities were forced to put infrastructure projects on hold. In most municipalities up to 70 percent of budgets are dedicated to infrastructure.
“There were a lot of sacrifices made in the early 1990s and we haven’t recovered from the sacrifices made at that time,” he said.
“We’re wearing out our infrastructure faster than we’re repairing or replacing it.”
Hayden’s organization recently passed a resolution to adopt a Canada West Foundation report on the need to reinvest in infrastructure.
While federal and provincial governments were making cuts to balance budgets, the infrastructure debt was building. The report estimated that $23 billion in infrastructure projects across the country were shelved and warned the province must reinvest in infrastructure if Alberta is to attract investment.
Hayden said there’s a huge problem in rural communities unable to provide safe drinking water or deal with waste water. Sixty boil water warnings are issued each day during the summer in Alberta.
“We don’t need a Walkerton in Alberta,” Hayden said.
“We need safe drinking water. We need to look after our waste water.”
Hayden said government now seems to recognize the need for more infrastructure reinvestment. The key to that money is predictability. Municipalities need to have long-term predictable funding, not yearly grants that can be cancelled at a whim.
Prime minister Paul Martin has appointed Hayden to sit on an external advisory committee on how to create sustainable communities in the future for rural Canada.
“Rural Albertans need to be at the table to help with that advice,” Hayden said.
