Badlands leave bad taste

Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter

 

Many town councillors were not happy, on Dec. 3, to see representatives of the Canadian Badlands (CB) before them once again to pitch the benefits of being a Badlands member.
Brad Tucker, executive director for CB, said the vision is to “elevate southern Alberta to the point of being an iconic tourist destination, for it to stand alongside the Canadian Rockies. This is a realistic vision, and we’re seeing more interest all the time from international and national visitors in the many tourism assets of this region.”
He spoke of how Strathmore is a key community, something that has been brought up by every representative over the years. Tucker also mentioned the conference that CB is planning to hold in Strathmore in March. It will attract 250 delegates from across Alberta, and the direct economic impact would be an average spending of $217 per person, approximately $163,000 coming into town, said Tucker.
The CB plan on hiring local caterers, local entertainment, facility rentals, pre-event at a restaurant in town, and the hotel rooms, but the conference can only be held in Strathmore if the town remains a member of the CB.
“The direct and indirect benefits of this conference have to come to a community that is a member and that is supporting us,” said Tucker.
Councillor Bob Sobol said this is the third time a CB representative has come before council, and the pitch has almost been the same word-for-word.
“What I am interested in is what have you done for us and from what I can see the answer is nothing and that bothers me because I was in this exact same position a year ago and two years ago where we had all these ideas of what we were going to do… absolutely nothing has happened, it gets a little frustrating,” said Sobol.
He knows the CB have had issues and some unfortunate situations, but said as a councillor he questions if he even wants to partner with them because whatever they have said they will do still hasn’t been done.
Councillor Rocky Blokland said this council and previous council are not left with a very good feeling when it comes to the CB and what they’re proposing, since nothing has been seen to date.
Councillor Pat Fule said that the past council felt there were many things that could be done for Strathmore, but they weren’t seeing anything tangible come from what CB was proposing. In 2013 it was up in the air as to whether or not the town would stay a member until Fule met with Cindy Amos, former executive director, over lunch and her passion won him over, and had him convincing council to give it another shot.
“I think in the last year we’re still kind of wondering what it is exactly that has happened, or has been done concretely that would show us that we’re doing well being a part of Badlands,” said Fule.
Simple things like seeing CB signs with Strathmore listed on it would go a long way to appeasing some of council, as would being able to find links to Strathmore on the CB website.
Tucker said at the time the signage was made Strathmore was not a member. A single panel to replace would be more than $1,000, and would be a massive hit to their budget to replace all of them. He also said there have been issues with the website that are being worked out, and agreed that they can do a better job at facilitating the flow of information. Tucker suggested that council give very specific direction on what they want to have happen.
“When it comes to tourism development it’s very unique for each community and it needs to be a solution that is grown from the grassroots of your community,” said Tucker.
“I don’t agree, what we have been told in the past is that you folks are going to come and talk to us and we’re going to work on a plan together, and that includes putting our name on a map, putting our name on a website. These are not complicated things, we want to know that we’re part of the Badlands, we’ve been paying dollars for this, we want to know what the result is,” said Sobol.
It was decided, mainly due to the upcoming conference, that council would remain a CB member for one more year. The cost of the membership is .50 cents per capita, with a three per cent cost of living levy applied.
“I’ll reluctantly support this … but I’m really hoping we’ll see something come out of it other than the conference,” said Blokland.
“I’m very disappointed in the lack of action that’s taken place and I do hope that this year is going to be different, I’m very hopeful,” said Sobol.