ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Telling the Story of Our Community Through an Economic Lens

One significant task from the M.D.’s 2023 Business and Industry Growth Strategy is creating the M.D.’s community profile to help attract new people and businesses to our area.

What is a community profile? It is a snapshot of information, resources, and trends within a community that establishes the context for decision making specific to personal re-location or business retention, expansion, and attraction.

Developing a community profile involves identifying community assets and attitudes, locating notable features in the community, and assessing social and economic conditions and trends in the region that have a bearing on personal and business projects.

This profile is an asset when we talk about successful economic development.

A community profile highlights what makes our municipality stand out. It provides valuable economic and demographic data to businesses and site selectors and makes it easy for residents and businesses to find and monitor trends.

This regularly updated document connects investors with important municipal publications such as Land Use Bylaws, Municipal Development Plans, Area Structure Plans, aerial photos, and other major documents.

Location advisors and corporate executives ask different questions at different stages of their business site selection process while compiling research, comparing locations, and creating short lists. A community profile can help a site selector manage this process and keep your community engaged in the investment process.

A strong concise profile will summarize local social and economic characteristics including population, property, and housing data. This is useful for understanding growth trends, while economic data provides insight into how the local or regional economy may be affected by a potential project. It will also showcase notable features and resources, businesses, activity centers, community facilities and services, and cultural and aesthetic resources.

All the key points researched, collected, and presented make up a community profile. When the right information is gathered and packaged properly it can and will create a unique image of the M.D. that makes investors want to call this place — our community — home.

For more information on Economic Development in the M.D., visit bit.ly/MDECDEV or call the Economic Development Specialist, Scott Kovatch at 780-826-3171

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE M.D.

The Cold Lake Oil Sands area is the second largest oil reserve in Alberta. The region, at its peak, produces over 500,000 barrels of oil. Imperial Oil’s project in the north portion of the M.D. is Canada’s largest in-situ oil sands operation, producing approximately 5% of all crude oil in Canada. The M.D. has over 17,000 oil/gas wells, which adds to the overall production.