Calgary Minute: Fluoride Delay, ENMAX Dividend, and Permanent Resident Voting

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• The Executive Committee will meet on Tuesday at 9:30 am. The Committee will discuss an updated policy for naming and sponsorship of City assets. Councillors Walcott, Wong, Dhaliwal, Mian, and Penner will bring forward a Notice of Motion regarding extending municipal voting rights to permanent residents. The Motion also requests that Council support a resolution on this issue at the next annual Alberta Municipalities conference. The Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ric McIver, has already rejected the idea.
  
  
• The Audit Committee will meet on Thursday at 9:30 am. No agenda is available for this meeting yet. There are also two meeting cancellations. The Infrastructure and Planning Committee, originally scheduled for Wednesday, and the Ward Boundary Commission meeting, originally scheduled for Friday, have been moved to May 15th and June 14th, respectively.
  
  
• Calgary Parking and the City of Calgary are cautioning residents about scam text messages requesting parking ticket payments, emphasizing that they never use texts for such purposes, and clarifying that legitimate parking violations are issued only via physical mail or directly on the vehicle's windshield. They advise against responding to these texts or clicking on any links included in them and individuals who receive these scam messages are urged to report them to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. [Editor: Does anyone actually do this? I'd be spending my entire day reporting text messages if I did!]

Last Week In Calgary:

• Calgary's plan to reintroduce fluoride into its drinking water supply has been delayed due to extended infrastructure upgrade timelines at the water treatment plant. The project began in 2023 and completion was initially set for June 2024, but the City is now aiming for completion by 2025. As of July 2023, costs for reintroducing fluoride include $28.1 million for infrastructure upgrades, $864,000 annually for operations, and between $100,000 and $200,000 annually for maintenance. Fluoride's reintroduction was approved in 2021 following a plebiscite during the municipal election that year.
  
  
• ENMAX announced a $95 million dividend payment to its sole shareholder (the City of Calgary) from its 2023 operations, as detailed in its annual financial statement. This record dividend surpasses the previous year's $82 million payment. ENMAX reported a significant increase in earnings, rising from $737 million to $829 million, attributed to improved transmission and distribution margins and higher electricity prices in Alberta. Of the total dividend, $57 million will be put toward the City's operating budget, and discussions are expected about allocating the remainder to address inflationary pressures on existing capital projects rather than putting the rest of the money into the legacy parks fund, as has occurred in the past.
  
  
• The Alberta government announced new contracts for private ambulance services in Calgary and Edmonton. In Calgary, a contract was awarded to Guardian Ambulance Ltd. to facilitate the transfer of non-emergency patients between healthcare facilities within the city, addressing the high volume of non-urgent transfers that occur annually. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said that this initiative aims to ensure ample availability of ambulances and paramedics for responding to emergency calls in Calgary and surrounding areas. This contract will introduce 19 new EMS resources to Calgary, with implementation starting in June and July, and full operation expected later this year.

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