Alberta urban leaders meet to discuss U.S. tariffs impact

Alberta municipal leaders are gathering in Edmonton this week, with the impact of U.S. tariffs in communities top of mind.

Leaders from communities across the province are gathering in Edmonton onThursday to share their insights on how to govern and to discuss how the U.S. tariffs on Canadian products will impact communities.

The spring municipal leaders' caucus is a part of a two-day gathering hosted by Alberta Municipalities, which represents and advocates for urban locales to the provincial and federal governments.

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“As things change and continue to change, it just brings that uncertainty a little bit more, so we want to learn as much as we can,” Tyler Gandam, the president of Alberta Municipalities said Wednesday.

“We want to see the impact to our municipalities and then again for our residents and business owners, so we’re waiting like everybody else on what we can do to mitigate that.”

Premier Danielle Smith, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver and Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi will address the urban leaders on Thursday at Edmonton’s Westin Hotel.

McIver told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday the province is going to ask municipalities “to be part of the solution” when it comes to mitigating pressure that may come from tariffs.

“As a government, we are going to emphasize buying Canadian, and even more than that, buying Alberta when we can,” he said.

“We’re going to encourage – we are already – we’ll continue to encourage municipalities to buy Canadian and buy Alberta when they can.”

On Wednesday, representatives talked about how local governments can deal with social media in politics and how councils handle harassment.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Galen McDougall and Silvana Benolich