Cities Gather in Red Deer for MCMC Summit
Mayors from 25 of Alberta’s largest mid-sized cities gathered in Red Deer last week for the Alberta Mid-Sized Cities Mayors’ Caucus Summit.
The backdrop for this year’s summit was growth — and the infrastructure funding needed to support it.
Those are issues being felt by municipalities of all sizes and in communities across every region of Alberta, as cities and towns work to keep pace with growing populations, increasing demands on infrastructure, and the need for affordable services and housing.
Representatives from both the provincial and federal governments were also on hand to speak directly with mayors, councillors and municipal leaders from across Alberta.
We caught up with several of the mayors attending this year’s summit on the opening day.
For the City of Lethbridge, Mayor Blaine Hyggen said many of the issues being discussed in the opening sessions were directly relevant to his community.
Lethbridge has experienced its own growth and, along with that growth, has faced ongoing challenges around infrastructure funding and affordability over the past year since the 2025 municipal election.
We also spoke with the City of Chestermere’s Mayor Shannon Dean about why it was important for Chestermere to have a seat at the table with other members of the Mid-Sized Cities Mayors’ Caucus.
For Mayor Dean, the summit was an opportunity to discuss issues that are particularly important to a rapidly growing community — including growth, infrastructure and funding from both the federal and provincial governments.
He also talked about how some of the challenges Chestermere is experiencing are being reflected in communities across Alberta, and in some cases, across Canada.
For the City of Cold Lake, Mayor Bob Mattice said attending the Mid-Sized Cities Mayors’ Caucus was an important opportunity to connect with municipal leaders from across the province.
Having been elected mayor in 2025, he said it was a pleasure to meet and work alongside mayors who were also newly elected, as well as those returning for another term.
He also expressed optimism about working collaboratively with mayors from across Alberta to address issues that matter not only to Cold Lake, but to communities throughout the province.
Alberta Municipalities President and City of Grande Prairie Councillor Dylan Bressey was also in attendance.
We spoke with President Bressey about the importance of representing the concerns of the municipal leaders gathered at the summit, and how those conversations look from two different perspectives. As president of Alberta Municipalities, he has a province-wide view of the challenges facing municipalities.
But as a councillor in Grande Prairie, one of Alberta’s fastest-growing cities, he is also seeing firsthand the pressures that growth is placing on local infrastructure and municipal services.
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