Yellowknife needs to spend more money mapping out the city’s economic future beyond diamond mining, a new councillor says.
Rob Warburton said on Monday the newly approved 2023 budget “missed the mark” in not adding more money for programs that would grow and diversify Yellowknife’s economy.
“We’re spending almost as much on a new surface in the fieldhouse as we are on the entire economic development department of the city,” said Warburton, who led the city’s chamber of commerce before being elected to council in October.
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Yellowknife’s draft 2023 budget allocated $347,000 for the activity of economic development amid broader spending of $1.7 million on the economic development and strategy department as a whole, including $1 million on wages and benefits for six staff – three of which are jobs directly related to the city’s economy. (The others are a communications advisor and two…