Invest Medicine Hat becomes new city department

“We’ve had so much success and momentum with Invest Medicine Hat,” said Mayor Ted Clugston on Tuesday. “There have been some changes in personnel, but some of the key partners are still there. We wanted to make sure that we had some continuity with Invest Medicine Hat.”

Invest Medicine Hat were contracted by the city in 2015 to promote Medicine Hat to businesses. The contract was renewed for another two years in 2017, and was set to expire later this year.

Clugston says having a more defined partnership between the city and Invest Medicine Hat could have benefits for both organizations. He notes the two entities have already worked together to help land deals, with the city helping answer technical questions.

Clugston also praised the organization Invest Medicine Hat for its work over the past four years to land new businesses, citing Folium Biosciences and Aurora Cannabis.

“I don’t think anybody can deny that over 1,000 new jobs is not a success in four years,” he said.

Clugston says while there will still be attempts to attract new businesses to Medicine Hat, one of the main focuses going forward is retaining workers at companies already in the city.

“We’ve been talking a lot about business retention, expansion and workplace development,” he said. “We’re hopefully going to have a lot of new jobs here, and that could have some stresses on some of the other employers in the city, and there may be a lot of employee migration between different businesses. We’re going to look at the companies that are still here and hope that they stay here. The best source of growth is to have the companies that are already here growing, versus trying to attract new. “

According to the city, the change will take effect September 1.

by Charles Lefebvre

Invest Medicine Hat becomes new city department

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