Just as wildflowers are in full bloom and the sun lingers longer each day, a sense of optimism has taken over the fresh St. Albert air.
A local team of citizens – including CEOs, social advocates and business experts – has begun the important work of getting St. Albert back on its feet to face whatever the local “new normal” will look like.
Although Alberta is still relaunching from the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Albert’s 10-member COVID-19 recovery task force had their inaugural meeting May 25. The team is made up of seven public members, along with Mayor Cathy Heron as chair and councillors Jacquie Hansen and Ken MacKay.
Task force member Alan Thom, associate partner with Ernst & Young, described the sense around the task force table as being a lot of optimism and a sense of renewal.
“I think it's a good time to start because I think the trend is moving in a positive direction,” he said. “There's some optimism, some exuberance around getting back out and getting life back to normal.”
City council voted to form the task force April 20, and since then they advertised for its public positions and interviewed applicants. More than 40 people applied.
Members of the group will be tasked with consulting on the city’s concept recovery plan and rolling out actionables in both the social and economic realms.
Most of the seven members – save for two – come from more of an economic background. Strong social advocate Sandyne Beach-McCutcheon and Nick Parkinson, who is CEO and president of the YMCA northern Alberta, will bring expertise on the social side of recovery.
The other public members include business coach Dan Holman, Alberta Forest Products Association CEO Jason Krips, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce CEO and president Jennifer McCurdy, Melcor Developments vice president of community development Sue Monson and Thom.
Mayor Cathy Heron said there were not as many applications from social advocates as council would have liked to see. However, during the task force’s first meeting May 25, she reminded members they are there to “represent your entire community,” not just their respective industries.
She said in an interview her vision of a task force comprised of local experts has “100 per cent” been realized in this group of people.
Introductions
As CEO of Canadian Retail Solutions, Dan Holman has over 25 years working in the retail and service industries.
“This is the community that our business resides in, and I feel like I have an obligation to be a voice for those clients,” he said, adding he can apply that knowledge to other segments of the community.
Holman also serves as the Sturgeon Community Hospital Foundation board chair.
Holman said consumers have shifted their buying habits and there has been a large push to e-commerce which has had a “significant consequence for physical stores.”
“We still need to bring people back to our brick and mortar locations, we need to bring them back to our physical locations and find a pathway clear, you know, to open up those lanes of traffic again,” he said.
A lawyer by education with over six years sitting as a provincial deputy minister in areas of economic development, trade and tourism, along with agriculture and forestry, Jason Krips said he is able to bring a business lens to the task force from a government perspective.
Krips said the task force will have to break down its desired outcomes into short, medium and long-term targets.
Through the pandemic, he noticed one industry that has done “exceedingly well”: artificial intelligence machine learning. St. Albert should work to attract more business in this area, he said.
And to St. Albert’s benefit, the key part to having a thriving technology sector is having a highly skilled workforce.
“That's something St. Albert is absolutely known for, whether you look at the Hole's family or other really institutional families within St. Albert, they really have an entrepreneurial drive to them,” he said. “I think we need to make sure that we're sparking that entrepreneurial spirit or continuing to support it and cultivate it.”
As a real estate developer and Urban Development Institute board member, Sue Monson brings a wealth of experience from the development sector.
Monson said St. Albert would be “smart” and “ahead of the game” if recovery activities involved investments that spur a cascade of other investments. Often communities speak about shovel-ready projects, and Monson said even if a project is “shovel-ready”, she wants to make sure those projects are “shovel-worthy.”
“I want to be able to focus on bringing projects forward, that will not just end once that initial investment is made into the project, but that will spur additional investment from other aspects of the community in the private sector,” she said.
Nick Parkinson brings 31 years of senior leadership and non-profit experience, with that work involving contact with various levels of government.
As one of the task force’s main voices on social advocacy, Parkinson acknowledged the pandemic has had a huge impact on residents' physical and mental wellbeing.
He saw the traumatic effect mass disasters can have on people, when Fort McMurray’s YMCA reopened following the 2016 wildfires. In the beginning, on particularly foggy days, Parkinson said he noticed staff members would be triggered with traumatic memories.
It was critical for people to get back to a sense of normalcy, and Parkinson said part of the task force’s work will have to include reducing the social isolation people have experienced through quarantine.
He added he is worried about a yawning wealth gap coming out of the pandemic, and expects there will be a growing population of vulnerable people needing help.
Thom said a big part of local recovery efforts will need to include creating comfort for people to go out into public again and be part of the community.
“I don't think it should be the new normal – my personal opinion is people need to try and recover as much of the previous way as possible,” Thom said.
McCutcheon, who has significant experience working with local non-profits, and McCurdy did not respond to a request for interview before publishing time.
