ROB MURRAY: Running for re-election for Canmore council, Jeff Hilstad joins me on the show. Telll us a little bit about yourself and some of the things you’ve learned from your last four years on council.

JEFF HILSTAD: My name is Jeff Hilstad. I was born and raised here in Canmore. I’m married to my wife, Megan, and we have three kids. I was elected to council back in 2017. The last four years have been interesting. You read a lot. I had a few weekends where I spent probably 20 hours just reading.

RM: Why are you running for re-election?

JH: Canmore is my home. I want to help guide it and shape it to a place that we can all be proud of. I enjoy the knowledge that I get being at the meetings and reading the agenda packages. I have a much greater depth of knowledge now, knowing how the town actually functions and runs. I’m passionate about our community and I like to serve. If anyone watched any of the forums, one of my closing lines is generally my phone number. I don’t mind if people give me a call and want to chat, even if it’s just to vent.

RM: Looking back on the last four years on council, is there a particular issue or decision that you’re proud of or really happy about? Conversely, in hindsight, is there something that you wish had gone differently?

JH: You’ll torture yourself if you focus on the things that maybe should have went a little differently. I know there were some but there’s nothing that comes top of mind for that aspect.

In these past four years we’ve done a lot with climate change. We’ve had the Climate Action Plan in place for before I was on council and we’ve done updates to it. Where a lot of the communities were declaring climate emergencies to implement a plan like that…we already had one. I’m proud of that. We’ve done so much over these last four years, it’s really hard to pick out a few.

RM: Going into the next four years, what’s a big issue that you’re really keyed in on right now, and maybe some ideas you have around it?

JH: We’ve always struggled with affordability in our town, so that’s always something that I hope will be at the forefront of any council. We’re going to have to just keep eating away at it slowly. There’s no magic bullet for it. CCH (Canmore Community Housing) has a couple of land banks that eventually, down the road, we’re hoping to develop, but there are a lot of things that need to be done. There are flood mitigations. There’s still some time before those are going to happen. We offer a lot of great affordability programs, and it’s one of those things that I hope to see continued support for. We’re not the federal government and we’re not the provincial government. There are certain things that they need to step up to the plate and help us with. We had some traction going before the pandemic with the provincial government on some initiatives like social housing and those fell to the wayside because of COVID, so I’m hoping those types of things will come back into play. It’s always going to be an issue with affordability in Canmore because everyone wants to be here. It’s our biggest blessing and our greatest curse. We saw during the pandemic that a lot of people were able to pick up from where they were and move here because they could do their job from home. It’s just compounded the issues we have, so it’s trying to bridge that gap and find new solutions.

RM: Throughout the last four years, how have you stayed connected with the community and engaged with people?

JH: I’m lucky that I get to work outside most of the time. I’m up on a roof, so I get to talk with homeowners. I get to connect with people that way. I’m always open for people to contact me. If people have issues they can call me. That’s the awesomeness of living in Canmore. We’re growing, but we’re still at that point where you can call your councillor. It’s just making myself available so if people want, they can talk.

RM: What’s another part of your platform you might want to chat about today that we haven’t really touched on yet?

JH: Responsible development. I really feel we need to develop in a manner that respects the environment, helps our social wellbeing, and is fiscally sustainable. We live in a beautiful place and we want to keep it that way, but we also have to realize that there are ASPs out there that have approval, so something’s going to happen eventually. If they want to change their ASPs, it’s about working with them and trying to do it the best way possible that touches on environment, social wellbeing, and is fiscally sustainable. Does it help our tax split? We’ve always had a very high residential to commercial tax split because we have a lot of residential and not as much commercial as we would like.

We unfortunately don’t have the tools to force any affordable housing. We can only do so much. It’s a bit of a give and take. We’ve done things in the past with the Land Use Bylaw to allow accessory dwelling units in all residential neighborhoods. Hopefully we’ll see more use of that to help increase the supply of affordable living spaces.

My other thing would be a fiscal responsibility. Nobody wants a 20% tax increase. Tax increases are somewhat inevitable because the cost of things goes up. Canmore is growing. Once we get past 15,000 people, which will most likely happened after this past census, that means that our tax split for police services is going to go up. We have to absorb that tax hit, and we’ve been doing things strategically over the time of our council and previous councils of putting money aside in a tax stabilization reserve to help decrease that. We’re trying to keep taxes at a reasonable level, and I want us to continue to see that happen now and into the future.

RM: How can people find out more information about you?

JH:  My website, and/or they can call me at (403) 678-7734.

RM: Why should people vote for you for re-election?

JH:  I would hope people would vote for me because I put the time and the effort in my come to all council meetings. I do my due diligence. I read every agenda package. I read all the information that I need to read. I really like to get to the heart of the matters and come up with solutions to the issues that our community is facing. I put a lot of effort behind this and I want to continue to do that. I’m there for the people of Canmore. I want to guide us into the future because this is my home, and it’s my kids’ home. Canmore is a great place to live and I want it to continue to be that way for them. I just love our town and I’d be honored if people will choose to support me yet again on October 18th.

Filed under: Canmore, Municipal Election