The Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) Better Together town hall came to Okotoks on Thursday (Sept. 18) evening.
The discussion gave residents a chance to vote on the topics that matter the most to them.
“These are not serial monologues where people get the mic and speak their piece and sit down,” Naheed Nenshi, Alberta NDP Leader, said. “We're asking people to talk to their neighbours.”
Common topics throughout the town halls include health care, education, jobs, the cost of living, and pensions.
“It was important for me to come to Okotoks to talk to the people here in Southern Alberta about their feelings about the situation,” Nenshi said.
Following the discussion, Nenshi is hopeful to reinvigorate community engagement and Southern Albertans' interest in being involved in positive change in their communities.
“What I'm really hoping to do is reinvigorate that spirit of civic engagement and community dialogue,” Nenshi said.
A challenge Nenshi is hearing in small communities is that residents feel like they are being taken for granted.
“A community like Okotoks is a place where we see a lot of the problems of the province really come to bear, fast population growth, no schools, no family doctors, and long waits for medical conditions,” he said. “There's a real opportunity for us to have a new conversation there.”