Nov 28th Update - Rural Municipalities of Alberta Fall Convention Highlights from Premier Notley, Environment Minister Phillips, Finance Minister Ceci and Amanda Lindhout

Note: If your are receiving this in your email and the video below does not show up, click the headline above it to be taken to the website to view it.

Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) Fall Convention Highlights

Last week Council was up in Edmonton for the RMA Fall Convention.  It is a time when we get together with all 69 rural municipalities across the province to discuss issues and potential solutions.

Premier Notley (@:27)

Discussed how the price differential is costing Albertans $80 million/day.  Announced $1 Billion that is going into petrochemical upgrading.

Shannon Phillips - Minister of Environment and Parks (@1:42)

Announced $200 million from the Carbon Tax over the next 20 years is to be allocated to support locally generated renewable energy projects.

Joe Ceci - Minister of Finance on the 2019 Budget (@2:27)

Shared that the estimated deficit of the 2019 Budget is proposed to be only $8.6 billion and stressed how they still planned on having a balanced budget by 2023.  It is better than the $10.8 billion deficit but sure has a long ways to go to get to balanced.

RMA Member Resolutions (@3:00)

The resolutions session is where the member municipalities are able to put resolutions forward to have the RMA work with and lobby the provincial government on certain items.  There were 24 resolutions this year.  I won't go through all of them but will provide a few highlights below.  I discuss them further in the video above. 

If you would like to see them all and the details of each, you can get them by clicking HERE:

• 3-18F and 4-18F Federal and Provincial Funding of Municipal Broadband Projects (@3:40)
• 8-18F Restricting the Consumption of Cannabis based on Regulations for Liquor Consumption (@5:00) 
• 11-18F Rural Municipalities of Alberta Represents Municipalities on Water Act Approvals (@5:24)
• 24-18F Review of Education Funding Formula (@5:48)

Amanda Lindhout - Keynote Speaker - Journalist Kidnapped in Somalia and held captive for over 460 days WATCH THIS! (@6:24)

Amanda shared her incredibly inspiring story and message for all of us and provided some extremely pertinent and powerful perspective that is important for all of us to hear! 

Be sure to watch this portion of the video above! 

For more information on her story, visit http://amandalindhout.com/.




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