Exhibition to get infusion of new provincial dollars

By Lethbridge Herald on April 25, 2025.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge and District Agriculture Exhibition is among seven regional agricultural societies that will be sharing  in more than $7.4 million of provincial funding.

The funding, which was announced Thursday afternoon in Medicine Hat, includes $4.03 million in one-time supports to be distributed among those seven ag societies to help them manage their cost pressures and allow future planning, which includes more sustainable operational models.

In December, Lethbridge city council, during a marathon meeting, voted  6-2 to keep the Exhibition operational, and voted against a 2.24 per  cent property tax increase on top of the already scheduled 5.1 per  cent hike for this year to pay for operating costs.

Council instead went with an option that will delay additional tax  hikes until 2027 when residents will be facing another 1.4 per cent increase.

This option requires the allocation of $2.6 million of one-time funding which limits future budgets and allocates $1.5 million of contingency funding – which reduces financial flexibility and also contravenes City fiscal practices by using one-time revenues for ongoing costs.

At that meeting, council also passed a motion to refinance the debt related to the construction of the Agri-food Hub & Trade Centre to save $15 million in interest during the next 10 years. This was recommended by Mathews to council acting as Economic and Finance SPC.

New provincial funding also includes a one-time investment of $2.87 million to “support business transformation projects and funding set aside for a third-party consultant to help with those efforts.”

The money comes on top of the annual $2.8 million funding for the seven ag societies through the Agricultural Societies Grant Program.

In a media statement, City Manager Lloyd Brierley thanked the government for its support.

“Ag societies benefit the communities they serve, enhancing the quality of life for Albertans, while supporting the critical role agriculture plays in our economy. This strong support from our  provincial government allows LDE to improve and evolve, while  supporting the programming needed to cultivate the agriculture community,” Brierley said. “It’s this partnership that will help to make us successful  and sustainable for another 100 years.” 

Provincial ag societies host more than 39,000 events and activities each year. Aside from Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, the others are in  Lloydminster, Olds, Camrose, Grande Prairie and Red Deer.

Each society annually gets funding of $398,853, which includes a base grant of $298,853 and an operating grant of $100,000 to support agricultural event days.

According to Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation RJ Sigurdson, “it’s hard to overstate the impact regional agricultural societies have on rural Alberta. From event organizing to infrastructure upkeep,  they energize folks and bring communities together. This funding will ensure our regional agriculture societies are able to keep up their  good work and continue to be pillars of their communities.”

The LDE’s financial problems came to the attention of city council in March of 2023 when its then-CEO Mike Warkentin came to an SPC requesting more than $4.6 million to demolish the three old pavilions on site. Warkentin told the SPC that the original cost of the new trade centre had escalated millions of dollars over its projected  budget.

At that meeting, Warkentin said the LDE was forecasting a loss for 2023 and was working to mitigate it. In November of 2023, when he returned to council asking for the City to immediately take possession of the pavilions and give it emergency financial assistance, he said  the Exhibition expected to lose money for three to four years. 

The hub was built in part with $27.8 million from the province of Alberta and $25 million from the City of Lethbridge. The City also backstopped a loan to the Exhibition of nearly $18 million while Lethbridge County contributed $2 million to the project.

A third-party review of the LDE, conducted by Deloitte Canda LLP snd was made public in November, painted a sordid picture of expenses by Warkentin and the board that were non-compliant with policy, additional costs and strategic planning that wasn’t sufficient to support the major investment in the LDE, and the total absence of a project charter. 

The review was a key element  in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the City of Lethbridge and LDE. That MOU included the City agreeing to fund the LDE’s operations in 2024 and taking over governance of the organization.

The 268,000-square-foot Agri-food Hub and Trade Centre, which opened in summer of 2023, cost $70 million with funding from the provincial and federal governments, the City of Lethbridge and Lethbridge County. Within a short time of it opening, financial problems were being experienced and by late fall of 2023, it was on the verge of shutting its doors.

Deloitte’s team spent five months reviewing background documentation during its review.