The Town of Okotoks as a corporation, has been recognized over the years with many awards & achievements and we are bursting with pride! Our excellence in municipal leadership and sustainability practices, both in Canada and abroad have set the standard for many municipalities in Alberta and throughout North America.
Below is a listing of many of our achievements and awards over the past few years.
Okotoks Town Council and administration are pleased to announce that the Okotoks On-Demand Transit program has been awarded the prestigious Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence in the Service Delivery Innovation category.
“Receiving this award reinforces and recognizes the hard work and commitment that went into creating an innovative initiative; the first curb-to-curb on-demand shared public transit service of its kind in Canada,” said Deputy Mayor Florence Christophers.
“On behalf of Okotoks Town Council and administration, I’d like to congratulate everyone involved in the Okotoks On-Demand Transit program on winning this significant award. I commend you on your efforts and am so thrilled for your success. I also offer congratulations to the other winning municipalities: the City of Medicine Hat, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and the Towns of Devon and Bruderheim,” said Christophers.
Since 2002, the Minister’s Awards for Municipal Excellence program has encouraged municipalities to share their successes by recognizing accomplishments in the provision of municipal services in Alberta. Each year, municipalities, whether individually or in partnership with other organizations, highlight promising initiatives, new and unique approaches to issues, streamlined processes for existing practices and creative community partnerships. To learn more about the awards and this year’s winners, visit https://www.alberta.ca/ministers-awards-for-municipal-excellence.aspx.
The Okotoks Transit service aligns with Council’s commitment to provide residents with sustainable, flexible transportation options, and increases the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions.
The service, which launched on December 2, 2019 and operates Monday through Saturday from 6am to 11:30pm, has significantly improved the everyday lives of residents Okotoks.The program provides a customer-first service, increasing the ability for residents to move more freely around town, including youth, seniors, those with differing abilities, as well as residents who prefer not to use personal vehicles. It is also more cost-effective for a smaller town than a traditional fixed-route system. To date, the service has completed over 52,000 passenger trips at a consistently high service rating of over 96 percent.
The Town is deeply committed to ensuring the transit program’s continued success. To accommodate demand, a fifth vehicle is expected later this year. Finally, our goal, as part of the Town’s Environmental Master Plan, is to grow local access to transit and increase transit trips by 25 percent by 2033. For more information about Okotoks Transit, visit www.okotokstransit.ca.
Okotoks received national recognition for its Natural Asset Inventory from the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators (CAMA). The Town was presented with the 2021 CAMA Environment Award, in the 20,001 to 100,000 population category. In 2020, driven by a commitment to protect the region’s natural assets, a cross-functional project was initiated to compile an inventory of these assets within the town boundaries. This is the first integrated inventory and valuation of Natural and Semi-Natural Assets in Alberta.
This ground-breaking data will be used to develop a strategy for natural resource management that will help reduce Okotoks’ ecological footprint, enhance environmental protection, support public health and safety, and improve operating costs and efficiencies that align with Okotoks’ community values. This inventory and valuation of the ecosystem will be incorporated into planning and future development. Incorporating natural assets into its asset inventory will enable the Town to determine the true value of undeveloped land, which includes the natural services it provides prior to development.
The Town of Okotoks’ annual financial report for the year ended December 31, 2019 was awarded the Canadian Award for Financial Reporting by Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA). The Canadian Award for Financial Reporting program was established to encourage municipal governments throughout Canada to publish high quality financial reports and to provide peer recognition and technical guidance for officials preparing these reports.
In order to be awarded a Canadian Award for Financial Reporting, a government unit must publish an easily readable and efficiently organized annual financial report, whose contents conform to program standards. Such reports should go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles and demonstrate an effort to clearly communicate the municipal government’s financial picture, enhance an understanding of financial reporting by municipal governments, and address user needs.
A Canadian Award for Financial Reporting is valid for a period of one year only. We believe our 2020 reporting continues to conform to the Canadian Award for Financial Reporting program requirements, and we will be submitting it to GFOA to determine its eligibility for another award.
The 2019 Annual Report was the recipient of a Platinum Marcom Award for Government Annual Report writing, which was announced in November 2020.
In what could be deemed the year of the video due to the nature of COVID, The Town of Okotoks received recognition for several of its videos and/or video series from the AVA Digital Awards.
Between March and December, the Town produced more than 100 videos of virtual events, activities, and programs to continue delivering quality content and connecting the community as the Town shifted to the new reality presented by the pandemic.
The business park virtual tour achieved the highest honour – a platinum award.
We also received three gold awards for:
AVA Digital Awards is an international competition that recognizes excellence by creative professionals responsible for the planning, concept, direction, design, and production of digital communication. All work is evaluated solely on its own quality, creativity, and resourcefulness.
The Operations Administration and Fleet buildings received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certification. The certification, from the Canada Green Building Council, comes after several years of working toward achieving the status. Green buildings create a healthier environment for occupants through better indoor air quality, less harmful products, and more natural daylight. They also reduce waste, conserve energy, decrease water consumption and drive innovation.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has ranked Okotoks as the second most fiscally responsible Alberta municipality in real operating spending between 2007 and 2017. Okotoks was one of only three exceptions where spending remained sustainable and balanced with population growth. Okotoks experienced a 6.3 percent growth in real operating spending per capita from 2007 to 2017 and an operating spending per capita of $1591 in 2017, which is second only to Cochrane in being fiscally responsible. The Alberta Municipal Spending Watch Report, produced by the CFIB, analyzed operating spending of Alberta municipalities with populations greater than 25,000 in 2017. The results indicated that municipal operating spending within the majority of communities was more than double the rate of population growth during the 10 years.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has ranked Okotoks as the second most fiscally responsible Alberta municipality in real operating spending between 2006-2016. This is particularly impressive as this represents a period when our community was experiencing significant population growth with increased pressure to provide municipal services.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has selected Okotoks’ Living Soils Filtration Project as one of the nine recipients for its 2018 Sustainable Communities Award. The award showcases the most nnovative environmental initiatives in communities of all sizes across Canada.
The Growing Greener Together Guide is a publication used by our Conservation Educators to help our community live in balance with nature, and is filled with practical information, resources and tips on local actions that can positively impact neighbours, the river, our community and our plant.
The Growing Greener Together Guide won a Gold MarCom Award in 2018 in the category of Informational Publication and is presented to those entries judged to exceed the high standards of the industry norm.
There were more than 6500 entries from 18 countries with only 24% of all entries in all categories receiving the Gold Award. MarCom Awards recognize outstanding achievement by creative professionals in concept, direction, design and production of marketing and communications materials and programs.
The Town of Okotoks has been awarded the Growing Rural Tourism Champion Award recognizing its collaboration with rural tourism partners and for providing partners promotional and training opportunities.
The award also recognized the Town for its ‘innovation through adaptation.’ Its summertime tourism campaign Let Your Summer Unfold in Okotoks had incredible interest after a portion of the C-train advertisement highlighting a ‘number of things to do’ in Okotoks went viral.
Economic Development Specialist, Alexandra Ross said, “this award demonstrates that Okotoks has truly displayed a commitment to supporting rural tourism by working closely with our partners and by sharing learning and marketing opportunities.”
The Town of Okotoks was awarded a Gold Hermes Creative Award for the outstanding design of its 2015 Community Annual Report.
Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional materials and programs, and emerging technologies.
The Town of Okotoks and its economic development team were recognized by Economic Developers Alberta (EDA) for their contribution to the profession as well as for the outstanding design of their Visitor & Activity Guide (in medium community/regions). This distinction was awarded in two categories: the Business and Investment Attraction award and the Alex Metcalfe Award, which recognizes the "best of the best" community project for the Business and Investment Attraction category.
The Town of Okotoks was recognized by Laserfiche for their outstanding use of enterprise content management (ECM) to improve productivity, innovate processes and achieve exceptional business results. The Town of Okotoks transferred 125,000 documents into Laserfiche software and automated all records management processes, saving both money and time. Bylaws, agendas and meetings are now readily available to the public with Web Access.
In February 2015, Okotoks was honored with an excellence in municipal sustainable development award within the water category for our Water Conservation, Efficiency and Productivity Programs.
EDAC is Canada’s national association of economic development professionals, representing every province and territory across Canada. The association offers the marketing awards competition as an opportunity to exchange and review promotional and marketing material produced by municipalities across the country.
Okotoks as a community was ranked by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) in their 2015 Entrepreneurial Communities Report.
We ranked as the 4th most Entrepreneurial City in the country for the Smaller Cities Category which is defined as communities with population between 25,000-149,999. This is very big news as we are ahead this year of places like Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, & Leamington Ontario.
In addition, overall between the Major Cities and Smaller Cities categories Okotoks placed 6th most entrepreneurial city in all of Canada and the “Calgary Periphery” placed 1st in the country. We have moved up substantially in the rankings from 25th place last year in 2014!
The Entrepreneurial City rankings aim to assess the degree to which municipalities have enabled entrepreneurs and small businesses to start, grow and prosper.
The survey, in honour of the CFIB’s annual small business week, ranks municipalities in Canada based on 14 indicators, including the number of self-employed people per total employed, business establishments per capita, business property tax rates and overall optimism.
The Town of Okotoks received its first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certification in 2015 for the Southridge Emergency Services Building accreditation process completed in 2014. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a rating system that is recognized as the international mark of excellence for green building in 150 countries.
In collaboration with Upanup Studios, the Town of Okotoks was awarded silver recognition in the general Website/Government category at the 2015 W3 Awards for the outstanding design of their government website. The W3 Awards honors creative excellence on the web, and recognizes the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning sites, videos and marketing programs.
The Town of Okotoks was awarded joint gold recognition with Upanup Studios in the Government category at the 2015 AVA Digital Awards for the exceptional user experience and design of their website.AVA Digital Awards is an international competition that recognizes excellence by creative professionals responsible for the planning, concept, direction, design and production of digital communication.
The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program recognizing big ideas in marketing and communications. Founded two decades ago, The Communicator Awards receive over 6,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world.
The Town of Okotoks was jointly honored with Upanup Studios at the Communicator Awards for the excellent design of their website and its ability to support and help citizens, distribute important documents and forms, and provide a link to government services and organizations.
In 2013, the Town Of Okotoks Communications business centre, won a Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) Gold Award of Excellence in the Government Relations category for the My Okotoks – Water & Growth Public Consultation project. The project was an extensive consultation and education process that was designed to inform residents of the water and growth options as well as for the Town to gather feedback from citizens. The CPRS awards recognize and reward outstanding public relations programs and projects from across the country.
Communications also received a Golden Quill Merit Award was also received from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in the Government Communications Programs category for the My Okotoks – Water & Growth Public Consultation project. The IABC Golden Quill Awards recognize and award excellence in strategic communications worldwide, making it the only awards program that honours the dedication, innovations and passion of communicators on a global scale.
In 2013, after 6 years of operation, the Drake Landing Solar Community reached a new world record by providing 98% of the 52 homes’ space heating needs with solar thermal energy!
The Drake Landing Company was recognized by Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, for receiving the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) Award. The SHS recognizes leaders who have significant achievements in solar thermal market development, reducing market barriers, and the demonstration of large-scale projects.
The innovative Drake Landing Solar Community represents the sustainable vision of Okotoks, achieving substantial energy and greenhouse gas reduction while providing an innovative and environmentally friendly housing option for our residents.
The Town of Okotoks works in partnership with Natural Resources Canada, Sterling Homes, United Communities and ATCO Gas on this unique solar energy demonstration project.
The Okotoks Museum and Archives (OMA) won a Leadership Award from the Alberta Museums Association (AMA) for its work in Education. The AMA Leadership Awards are grounded in the belief that excellence, innovation, and creativity form the foundation of outstanding museums. Award categories recognize the exceptional work and innovative thinking in the museum community that contribute to the social, cultural, and educational fabric of Alberta. Award recipients take the lead in creating value, accessibility, and relevance in their communities. Cultural and Historical Services offers a variety of educational programs and exhibits throughout the year which explore history in creative ways.
The Town was presented with a Communities Choosewell Award. The award recognized the Town of Okotoks for reducing barriers to healthy living.
The Town of Okotoks Economic Development team won an Economic Developers of Alberta award for the 2012 Okotoks Visitor Guide. The award is given out annually by the Economic Developers Association of Alberta (EDA). The Okotoks Visitor Guide features information on amenities, services and activities in the Okotoks area, which is widely distributed throughout the region.
Okotoks was awarded with a Certificate of Merit from the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators for its innovative water management plan that has allowed Okotoks to achieve one of the lowest water consumption rates per capita in Canada, while experiencing population growth.
Okotoks was awarded the renowned Energy Globe World Award for sustainability. The award was for the Drake Landing Solar Community, which utilizes state of the art heating technology used to store solar energy underground that is later used to heat homes in the winter. The winners are selected by a panel including members from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, World Bank and the European Renewable Energy Council.
Okotoks was awarded the Municipal Award for Municipal Excellence in the Innovation category recognizing the Town’s Water Management Plan.
To promote and encourage construction of environmentally friendly sustainable buildings and sites within the Town’s future multi-residential dwelling units, commercial, industrial and institutional developments, a green building incentive rebate program was created. The program offers a percentage rebate to a project’s building permit fee when levels of LEED® certification are achieved.
Okotoks is a Canadian leader in integrated resource management.
Official grand opening of the Drake Landing Solar Community – 52 homes that generate space heating needs from solar power.
Drake Landing Solar Community won an Emerald Award for Climate Change from the Alberta Emerald Foundation
Drake Landing Solar Community won a Gold Award from the International Awards for Livable Communities program endorsed by the United Nations
The LivCom Awards were launched in 1997 and is the World’s only Awards Competition focusing on International Best Practice regarding the management of the local environment. The objective of LivCom is to develop and share International Best Practice, with the further objective of improving the quality of life of individual citizens through the creation of ‘liveable communities’. The Town of Okotoks was a recipient of this award in Spain in 2005.