Lethbridge Minute: Blockade Ends, Strike Continues, and a New City Manager

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

This Week In Lethbridge:

• There are two meetings scheduled this week starting with a meeting of the Governance Standing Policy Committee at 1:30 pm on Thursday. At this meeting, Council is set to discuss a proposed amendment to the City Manager Bylaw regarding found and unclaimed money. The proposed amendment raises the threshold of found funds delegated to the City Manager for disposal to $5,000.
  
  
• On Friday, there will be a Special City Council Meeting at 1:00 pm. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can say about this meeting other than it will be held in-camera.
  
  
• Students who paid full tuition for a semester that has all but come to a halt are asking questions about a potential refund in the wake of the ongoing strike at the University of Lethbridge. In a statement to the Lethbridge Herald, the university said their top priority is to “negotiate a collective agreement that gets our students back to class without adding to their financial burden and protects the future of our university". Students can’t afford to give the university any money for free, yet there they are, out of pocket thousands of dollars for a semester that will likely never materialize.

Last Week In Lethbridge:

• On Tuesday, City Council appointed Lloyd Brierley as its new City Manager. Brierley signed a five-year contract with the City of Lethbridge and comes to the position with previous experience as the City’s Director of Infrastructure Services. Lethbridge’s City Manager position seems to come with a very high turnover rate, so we wish Mr. Brierley all the best.
  
  
• After more than two weeks of closures, the blockade at the Coutts border has officially come to an end. Protestors originally blocked the highway near Coutts, gathering near the town of Milk River to protest vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions. The protest came to an end following the RCMP seizure of a cache of weapons and the arrest of 13 people, though the RCMP said these people were not actually protestors and had infiltrated the protest.
  
  
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a massive act of government overreach, invoked the Emergencies Act in order to deal with border blockades and a demonstration against COVID-19 mandates in downtown Ottawa. While the protest has certainly disrupted the lives of those who reside in downtown Ottawa, the Emergencies Act was an extreme response. This marked the first time in history the Act has been invoked. Its predecessor, the War Measures Act, was used by Pierre Elliott Trudeau to deal with the FLQ crisis after over 200 bombs had been set off and the Deputy Premier of Quebec had been kidnapped and murdered.

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