ABSTRACT
The response of Cochrane’s Town Council to the request to not approve Bylaw 24/2024, the Municipal Development Plan as is on Third Reading at its March 10th meeting, was anticipated as providing an indication of whether Cochrane’s Town Council was willing to act in the interest of its citizens and focus on local priorities or, rather, act in the interest of the globalist agenda by approving the flawed MDP as is. The answer was the latter with the final vote being four in favour, Mayor Genung together with Councillors Susan Flowers, Tara McFadden, and Alex Reed, and two against, Councillors Morgan Nagel and Patrick Wilson.
Seeing the Administration desperately striving to stave off any modification to the MDP revealed once again, as per the Second Reading, that the Administration was the primary influencer and architect of the new MDP, this high-level planning document which will have long-term consequences for how Cochrane will develop going forward. Thereby, the document could well be called the “Cochrane Administration’s Municipal Development Plan”. Disappointingly, this episode revealed that the majority of the members of the existing elected Town Council are inclined to defer to the wishes of the unelected Administration.
FULL BLOG
The response of Cochrane’s Town Council to the request to not approve Bylaw 24/2024, the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) as is on Third Reading at its March 10th meeting, was expected to reveal whether Cochrane’s Town Council was willing to act in the interest of its citizens and focus on local priorities or, rather, act in the interest of the globalist agenda by approving the MDP as is. The answer was the latter with the final vote being four in favour, Mayor Genung together with Councillors Susan Flowers, Tara McFadden, and Alex Reed, and two against, Councillors Morgan Nagel and Patrick Wilson. Councillor Marni Fedeyko had recused herself from participating in the debate as she was absent from the public hearing for Bylaw 24/2024 that took place on November 25, 2024.
The Third Reading, giving final approval to the town’s new Municipal Development Plan, also known as Envision Cochrane 2050, was revealing in many respects.
While normally third reading’s proceed with no debate, in this case, concerns were raised by Councillors Morgan Nagel and Patrick Wilson, which coincided with some of the concerns raised by Dog With A Bone with the request to Council not to approve Bylaw 24/2024 as is. The entire debate lasted about 36 minutes, occurring between 1:07:15 and 1:42:45 minutes in the video for the meeting.
Councillor Nagel referred to the many references to the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) and the CMRB’s Growth Plan found in the MDP as now being irrelevant since the discontinuation of the CMRB’s operations, and, thereby, should be expunged from the document before approval. His other objection was to the apparent emphasis on high density housing in the MDP. The debate related to Councillor Wilson’s concerns took up 14 minutes of time between1:09:26 and 1:23:28 minutes in the video for the meeting.
The debate related to Councillor Patrick Wilson”s concerns took up about five minutes of time between 1:24:01 and 1:28:50 minutes in the video for the meeting. He objected to the inclusion of the reference to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as found in the MDP. Remarkably the mayor (at 1:27:14 minutes) incorrectly had the understanding that climate change verbiage had been removed from the document at Second Reading prior to being sent to the CMRB, revealing his rather shallow understanding of the content of the MDP. He was corrected by Mr. Krysinki that the verbiage removed was in relation to “infills”. With the Administration during the course of the meeting dismissing the importance and influence of the CMRB’s Growth Plan on shaping the town’s MDP, Councillor Wilson should have brought to their attention, for example, that the Growth Plan on page 67 required that the “Municipal Development Plans shall address Climate Change resiliency, which will include: (a) a commitment to reduce municipal greenhouse gas emissions”.
Mr. Krysinki (at 1:27:36 minutes in the video for the meeting), in response to Councillor Wilson’s request to have the climate change verbiage removed, made a remarkable explanation for why verbiage about climate change needed to be retained, namely, that such language was needed to secure grant applications, a departure from his previous explanation during Second Reading that such language was needed to assure compliance with the CMRB’s Growth Plan and approval of the MDP by the CMRB. Mr. Krysinki’s explanation also revealed how this agenda is driven by external funding.
Having reviewed the contents of the MDP document submitted to Council for Second Reading, it was apparent from that review, as described in my delegation during the Public Hearing on November 25, 2024, that the document was essentially envisioning the UN’s Agenda 20230 and largely doing so in disguise.
Having witnessed the debate that took place during Second Reading of Bylaw 24/2024 on December 9, 2024, given the Administration’s active participation in the debate and pushback to any change to its contents, especially with the reference to “climate change” and “infills” led one to conclude that the MDP was largely crafted by the town’s Administration. Given the same kind of active participation by the Administration in the debate in the Third Reading, leads one to conclude that this MDP can be called the “Administration’s MDP”, which is why it was so vigorously defended by the Administration.
For example, when Councillor Nagel gave his case for removing references to the debunked Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) from the MDP and expressed concern about the MDP leading to an increase in density in part as a requirement of the CMRB’s Growth Plan, besides Mr. Krysinski, both Drew Hyndman (at 1:16:27 minutes in the video for the meeting) and CAO Mike Derricott (at 1:17:48 1:20:27, and 1:23:03 minutes in the video), members of the Administration’s Senior Leadership Team, jumped into the fray to vigorously argue for the MDP to be adopted as is. The reader is encouraged to watch those portions of the video to get an understanding of how vigorously the senior management got involved in the debate to dismiss any objections to the MDP document as is. Another point, while councillors are allowed to speak when acknowledged by the Mayor as Chair, members of Administration’s senior management team just jumped into the debate without having been requested to speak.
To no surprise, Councillor Flowers (1:28:50 minutes in the video) indicated that she was not in favour of changing anything. Councillor McFadden (1:29:27 minutes in the video) likewise, and again to no surprise, supported approving the MDP as is.
In the debate on Third Reading a common argument put forward by several members of Council, (Councillor Reed and Councillor McFadden), and, more often, by members of the Administration (Mark Krysinski, Drew Hyndman, and CAO Mike Derricott) as to why the document should be accepted “as is”, was its supposed public acceptance during the “extensive public engagement” process.
Accordingly, in the presentation of Bylaw 24/2024 by Mr. Mark Krysinski, Director, Community Growth, preceding Third Reading (from 59:45 to 1:07:15 minutes in the video for the meeting), it comes as no surprise that he took pains to emphasize the “high levels of public engagement”, describing the MDP that was generated as “clearly a document that was inspired, guided and shaped by the people of Cochrane” and that the “majority of the document was aligned with the feedback…received from the public”. Expressing the view that he thought that the average Cochrane resident overwhelmingly does not want to squeeze more homes into space in Cochrane, Councillor Nagel then pressed Mr. Krysinski to provide any quantifiable evidence as to how often Cochrane residents said they wanted greater density in Cochrane, as Councillor Nagel sad that he would bet that it’s near zero if not below 10%-15%. Mr. Krysinski replied that he was unable to provide any such evidence. When Mr. Krysinki mentioned that the greatest concern from the public engagement was “maintaining a small town feel”, Councillor Nagel responded that such a desire supported his argument for lower density to maintain such a small town feel.
While there may have been 45,000 engagement touch points with the community, if in those touch points the community was not asked, and I have no recall of that in the surveys I completed, as to whether they would agree with higher density or placing an emphasis on fighting climate change, then one cannot use those touch points as evidence in support of such initiatives.
The following from Mr. Krysinski’s slide presentation summarizes the engagement approach for the MDP, EC2050:
Noteworthy that the engagement is weighted so that each of public, Council and Administration are allotted equally weighting in the pie chart. In my view, the unelected Administration should be looked upon as the executive branch which executes the policies and decisions made by the elected mayor and council. So one can ask why the unelected Administration is given any such weighting and “needs” in determining the content of a policy decision such as the town’s new Municipal Development Plan. Given the active participation of the Administrative staff in the debate relating to the Third Reading of MDP, which is clearly evident from watching the debate, then that pie chart can more accurately be represented as follows:
As I see the unelected Administration as being responsible for the execution of public affairs as distinguished from policymaking, which should be the responsibility of the elected Council, I see this as an inversion of the power structure. Accordingly, the new Municipal Development Plan can appropriately be called the “Cochrane Administration’s Municipal Development Plan”. Disappointingly, this episode revealed that the majority of the members of the existing elected Town Council are inclined to defer to the wishes of the unelected Administration.
Acceptance of Inclusion of References to the Now Disbanded CMRB and the CMRB’s Growth Plan Creates a Nonsensical Document
During the meeting, the Administration downplayed the importance of the CMRB’s Regional Growth Plan in shaping the town’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP), despite the MDP document, for example, declaring on page 17 that the “Envision Cochrane 2050 has been carefully developed to ensure its compliance with the Growth Plan”.
The Administration was so determined to have the MDP approved that evening as is, without any change, that they even argued for the approval of a highly-flawed document given its frequent inclusion of references to the now defunct CMRB and the CRMB’s Regional Growth Plan, which had been pointed out in an email sent to the Council prior to the Third Reading meeting. No big deal said the mayor and Administration as the mess can be tidied up in the future through amendments. Meanwhile, with the disbandment of the CMRB and repeal of the Growth Plan, the document, adopted as is, requires, as per Section 5.3.14 on page 144, that the MDP is to, “Ensure Envision Cochrane 2050 and future statutory plans, policies and guidelines align with the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board’s Growth Plan”.
Role of the Media
In its report, “Public Hearing on How Cochrane Will Grow Sparsely Attended”, on the statutory public hearing for the town’s draft Municipal Development Plan (MDP) on November 25, 2204, the Cochrane Eagle decided to frame the sparse attendance as indicating a strong endorsement of the plan by the Cochrane community. I was the unnamed “lone speaker” and have reported on my presentation at the public hearing in a separate DWAB blog post, “Envision Cochrane 2050 or the UN’s Agenda 2030 in Disguise“. The Cochrane Eagle article chose not to mention the issues of concern I had raised at the public hearing, namely, climate change and infills. While the article appeared in the paper version of the Cochrane Eagle, curiously while the Cochrane Eagle normally posts a digital version of their articles, no such version can be found by a Google search.
Council’s second reading for Bylaw 24/2024, the Town’s new Municipal Development Plan (MDP), branded as Envision Cochrane 2050, which took place on December 9th, 2024, unexpectedly turned out to be a rather interesting and revealing meeting. Of interest was that some of the Council members picked up some of the concerns with respect to the references to “climate change” and “infill” in the MDP that I had raised at the public hearing for the MDP on November 25th, and provided some push back on these items much to the chagrin of the town Administration, who presumably had hoped for prompt unanimous approval. Ultimately, after following several procedural irregularities, Bylaw 24/2024 passed with little meaningful change. However, seeing the Administration desperately striving to stave off any modification to the MDP revealed that the Administration was the primary influencer and architect of the new MDP, this high-level planning document which will have long-term consequences for how Cochrane will develop going forward. Despite its importance in shaping Cochrane’s future, the local media, be it the Cochrane Eagle or Cochrane Now, chose to ignore reporting on this Council meeting.
Coming to the next step in the MDP’s approval process, Third Reading, on March 10, 2025, despite the vigorous debate that took place, once again the local media, be it the Cochrane Eagle or Cochrane Now, has chosen to ignore reporting on this Council meeting.
The absence of reporting on the MDP process of approval, makes one suspect that that was purposeful in order to keep the residents of Cochrane in the dark as to what is contained in the MDP, especially the reference to “infills” and addressing “climate change”, not to distract from the narrative of there supposedly being a strong endorsement of the plan by the Cochrane community.