Town council had planned to donate a dollar for every Bonnyville resident to Envision Edmonton, a total of $6,470, until Edmonton city council pulled the plug on organizers' goal of a plebiscite, where Edmonton residents would have voted on whether to close the city centre airport.
Town council's decision, in response to a letter from Envision Edmonton's chairman Charles Allard, came a day before the campaign received the setback on Wednesday. The donation would have paid for advertising leading up to the October plebiscite encouraging voters to vote to keep the downtown airport open.
Allard, who is also Super Channel's chairman and CEO, wrote to Bonnyville town council requesting money for the campaign on Aug. 26.
Town CAO Mark Power told council at its meeting last week the time increase for a medevac flight to Edmonton International compared to City Centre Airport would be significantly higher. Located around 30 km outside of the city, medevac flights to the International require a helicopter or ground ambulance transport, increasing the time of a patient's transport to the hospital.
“For people living out in this area, that's a huge concern,” he said, adding that the town would like the downtown airport to be open to passenger traffic as well.
Due to the news that the debate will not be resolved by plebiscite, the decision will go back to council for reconsideration.
“The issue hasn't gone away just because they decided not to hold a plebiscite,” said Power after the meeting. He said he'd like the donation to still be made to the campaign, but with a different focus.
After delivering over 92,000 signatures on a petition to city council, Envision Edmonton hoped to force a plebiscite. In reviewing the petition, the city excluded over 14,000 signatures, bringing the number of signatures below the required amount to force a plebiscite. Reasons included inaccurate addresses, duplicate entries, and invalid date of signature.
Envision Edmonton's website called the city's response a “slap” to the over 100,000 people who signed the petition, nearly 7,000 of whom were disqualified by Envision Edmonton's internal audit before submitting to council.
“We find it a little difficult to believe that so many Edmontonians don't know where they live. It seems a little far-fetched,” said campaign manager Nathan Black. He said the city would not provide Envision Edmonton with the list of names they took off the petition, meaning they have to “take their word for it, that what they've done is appropriate.”
Black said the airport debate would still be put to a vote, but in the civic election rather than a plebiscite. An Edmonton mayoral candidate and several council candidates have come out in support of the campaign.
Premier Ed Stelmach recently said the airport would not close until he was convinced closure would not adversely affect medevac services. Stelmach commissioned Dr. John Cowell of the Health Quality Council of Alberta to study the impact of the airport closure on provincial Medevac services.
Envision Edmonton had presented Stelmach with a petition of 20,000 signatures of people in rural areas to keep the airport open, including Bonnyville Mayor Ernie Isley.
Stelmach's intervention came in after Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith spoke in favour of the campaign and signed the petition.
While in Bonnyville last week, Smith commented that her party believed the airport debate was not just a local issue.
“We thought this was an important enough provincial issue that it was important for provincial politicians to weigh in on,” she said, noting that MLAs from each party signed the petition.
“I think that it's a great disappointment that city council didn't look at the overwhelming amount of support there was from Edmontonians for having a direct say on this issue and chose to refuse the request to have a plebiscite,” she said.
She said as the “gateway to the north,” Edmonton needs the transportation infrastructure to facilitate commuter traffic. The airport debate also factors in on the health care front, a provincial issue, she said. She added that because the issue went to plebiscites twice before leading to the airport remaining open, another plebiscite should determine if it closes.
Proponents of closing the airport say that doing so would open up a massive tract of land for development downtown, offering a unique opportunity to the city to build a green residential and commercial area.
