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Originally Posted by Prairiedawg
I've often wondered why some municipalities change to have city status but other municipalities don't. I thought maybe city status added additional taxes to residents that is normally paid by Province, such as to have a city police force instead of RCMP covering community but I'm not sure. Just curious, does Fort Mac have a town police force?
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Fort Mac is RCMP. As for it not being a city, I suspect it has to do with property taxes in regards to the oilsands development. It was a city unit it merged with Independent District 146 in 1996 to form the MD of Wood Buffalo. Now the oilsands, development, work camps, etc all are under the same municipal jurisdiction.
The same applies with Sherwood Park. Refinery Row and the surrounding heavy industrial is in Stathcona County, and Sherwood Park is able to benefit from the commercial/industrial tax base by being a hamlet (officially an "Urban Service Area") that's part of Strathcona. One only has to look at nearby St. Albert to see the challenges of being a city with it being almost
all residential and retail-commercial.
I do wonder if Wood Buffalo or Strathcona could become cities? Under relatively recent amalgamations, Ottawa and Halfax both have huge rural areas the would be comparable to Alberta's specialized municipalities.