Photos: City and County of Grande Prairie

By Shaun Penner

ICF Negotiations

City, County of Grande Prairie heading to arbitration to finalize collaboration framework

Oct 20, 2020 | 1:10 PM

The City and County of Grande Prairie are heading to arbitration to hash out the final details of the Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework (ICF) between the two municipalities.

The City notified the County of plans to move forward to arbitration to conclude the legislated requirement of an ICF agreement, which needs to be completed by April of 2021.

The City says that the two municipalities have been in discussions for nearly three-and-a-half years on the ICF, which includes a year-and-a-half of negotiations and eight sessions of mediation, which were started back in March of this year.

“The City and County have really engaged in a good faith effort over the last three-plus years to try to identify ways to better serve our residents,” said City Mayor Bill Given.

“While we were able to make progress on some minor, but beneficial issues, it was really clear as we proceeded over the last couple of meetings, over the last couple of months, that there was some fundamental issues that the City and County really just were not going to agree on.”

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This decision by the City comes as a surprise to County Reeve Leanne Beaupre, as she says she felt the mediation process was going quite well, and is disappointed to learn of the City’s decision to head to arbitration.

“A service delivery framework that best serves the people who live and work in the City and the County should be built by those people, not imposed by an outside body,” said Beaupre.

“We believe that such a framework – one created by local government with the needs of local citizens in mind – is in the best interests of both municipalities.”

Under the province’s Municipal Government Act, neighbouring municipalities are required to create an ICF. Originally, all ICF’s were to be completed by April 1 of this year, but because of COVID-19 restrictions, that deadline was pushed to April of 2021.

The intention of these agreements is to create a document that details what and how services are funded and delivered with municipalities that share a border.

Though neither party divulged exactly what those outstanding issues are, Given says with the new deadline fast approaching, and after over three years and around $500,000 in provincial funding spent on the process, he would like to have the negotiations come to a close.

He adds that the City acknowledges there are “fundamental differences” with the County in key areas that are unlikely to be worked out between the two parties before April.

“I think (City) Council believed that the best way to resolve that, and maintain the relationship between the two municipalities, was to have it resolved quickly,” said Given. “Rather than continuing to what was getting to be a frustrating process, where we could see there were these elephants in the room.”

Beaupre, though, doesn’t feel that the relationship between the two will return to “normal” following this process, as she stressed her desire to work out any outstanding issues between themselves, and not through a neutral third party.

“In a situation where you can work it out between the two of you, it usually ends in a better relationship between the two of you, because in most situations where something is imposed on you, I don’t believe either party is a winner.”

However, Beaupre does add that she and the County are willing to move forward.

“We truly respect the City’s decision. Their council made the decision they thought was best for their municipality, and we’ll proceed to what was legislated.”