MCMC chair Mayor Jeff Genung believes the mid-sized cities have successfully met their goal of being respected and heard by provincial government officials.
That includes establishing a strong rapport with Premier Danielle Smith.
Just last week during an MCMC meeting in St. Albert, they had an hour of her time. Genung says she's always engaging when discussing issues with municipal leaders.
"I appreciate the dialogue," says Genung. "It's not one-sided, it's a give-and-take kind of conversation. She appears to be genuinely interested in our opinions and ideas on things, so we gave her a few things that she said she would take away and work on."
Genung says they continue to encourage the premier to use the 24 municipalities represented in the caucus as pilot communities for new initiatives, new funding opportunities, or taxation ideas.
He stresses the municipalities aren't looking for hand-outs, but rather partnerships.
"We understand that there's only one taxpayer in the province, and when we ask for more money, that puts pressure on all of us," he says.
Municipal Affairs minister Ric McIver, Searle Turton, minister of Children and Family Services, and Leduc-Beaumont MLA Brandon Lunty attended the St. Albert meeting. Besides the premier, Devin Dreeshan, Transportation and Economic Corridors, joined them online.
Genung believes the approach they have taken has made it easier to make headway with the provincial government and has helped to encourage the ministers to attend their meetings.
"We've taken a largely different stance in trying to ask questions of the province and not come out poking them in the eye before we ask them the reasoning behind some of the changes that they've put forward. That approach has worked. We've gotten into the rooms."
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For example, some aspects of amendments to the Municipal Government Act and Local Authorities Election Act were contentious with the municipalities.
"We had some feedback that we were giving on the regulations but saw it basically go nowhere. So as a group, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about it because I think the sentiment around the table was they're not listening anyway. They didn't seem to be wanting to move away from their position, so it was futile to try and convince them otherwise."
The MCMC, though, will continue to pursue other issues impacting the mid-sized cities.
"The mayors remain focused that this is a group that we can really leverage and put our weight behind," he says. "As our combined voices of 24 communities, we seem to be able to get the attention of the premier and the provincial decision-makers, and we're going to continue to beat that drum, be respectful, and ask the hard questions of the province and see if we can't get more out of the relationship."