104 Business View - January 2015
making it work. We’re not about the red tape. We’re
about working with the business to cut through the red
tape and get well-established. Businesses know that
if they’re trying to get established here or they want to
expand, the county will work with them and support
them to make them successful. And they also know
that they’re valued.”
Ebel and members of the county’s council try to meet
and get to know the management teams of each local
business early in the process, which makes it easier to
handle any subsequent issues and iron out any poten-
tial kinks toward further expansion. Other infrastruc-
ture benefits, he said, include the county’s surplus of
reasonably priced available land, a favorable tax rate
compared to larger urban jurisdictions and convenient
highway, rail and air access to transport supplies and
get products to market.
Inbound inquiries make up the majority of develop-
ment-centric traffic now, Ebel said, though he and his
colleagues are on the cusp of employing a more proac-
tive strategy to sell Lethbridge elsewhere.
“The county’s main economic sector is agriculture, no
question about that, but we’re kind of looking down
the road and asking what does the future hold and
what are some high-value, high-tech benefits that can
come from agriculture,” he said. “We are very keenly
working on developing our bio-industrial sector. We
have some companies operating here that are work-
ing in that, but we are going to be actively pursuing
that. We have more zoned industrial commercial land
coming online here, so we have a place to put these
companies and we’re planning the proper support for
them.
“We don’t want to be looking past or taking for granted
what we already have while we’re casting around for
new business. In that way, it’s like a marriage, there’s
a lot of hard work that goes into it.”
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Lethbridge County
WHAT:
County of 10,061 residents (at the time
of the 2011 federal census) that was created in
1964 from the official amalgamation of the Mu-
nicipal District of Lethbridge No. 25 and the Le-
thbridge School Division No. 7; formal name was
changed from County of Lethbridge to Lethbridge
County in 2013
WHERE:
SouthernAlberta, about 215kilometers
southof Calgary and100kilometers northof theU.S.
border withMontana
WEBSITE
:
INFRASTRUCTURE
