While the city’s mayor said some of the highlights of 2025 might not be “shiny,” they are things that will make a positive impact for Lethbridge residents.
City of Lethbridge Mayor Blaine Hyggen said a key highlight for the past year was the expansion of the city’s water and wastewater treatment facilities. Hyggen said expanding those facilities opens the opportunity to invite businesses to the region because the infrastructure will be in place.
“Yes, not really exciting, but I will say this: it’s something that we needed. We were sitting at almost 100 per cent capacity in both our water and our wastewater,” Hyggen said. “When someone comes knocking on the door for Lethbridge, we don’t want to turn them away because we don’t have that infrastructure in place. That was important because we want to be able to expand business and industry.”
Hyggen added that by expanding business and industry in the city it will positively affect residential taxes by offsetting some of the costs and helping reduce the residential tax rate.
Work towards Southern Alberta’s Cardiac Centre of Excellence is something Hyggen said he is proud of from the past year. In 2025 the Bringing Hearts Home campaign kicked off in partnership with the Chinook Regional Hospital Foundation. Throughout the year there were a number of fundraising initiatives, including a gala event in February and a golf tournament. The campaign’s goal is to reach $30 million.
“We thought that $30 million, it’s a big number, but it’s a number that we thought would be attainable and there’s been some incredible donors in and around Lethbridge that have really surprised us,” he said. “I think we’re close to $20 million of that $30 million with a year to go and just what we’re able to see there is it shows the province that we’re putting money in that game. Let’s put it that way.”
The Lethbridge mayor said looking forward one of his biggest concerns for the cardiac facility is the timeline for how long it is expected to take to build. He said the predicted timeline is four to five years, whereas they would like to see a shorter schedule.
“That’s a conversation we’ll continue to have, is the timelines that we want to work on.”
He credits Dr. Sayeh Zielke for her drive to address cardiac care in southern Alberta, where heart disease is a leading cause of death. Hyggen said the wheels for the initiative started more than a decade ago when she moved to Lethbridge.
“I remember having a meeting and we talked about this and, you know, things just take a long time, so it kind of drizzled away and then finally we picked this back up a few years ago and just decided, you know, we need to push this.”
“We saw the death rates in Alberta for cardiac disease right here in southern Alberta and so we knew something had to be done.”
He said that Bringing Hearts Home fundraising efforts will continue in the new year, with the goal being to reach $30 million by winter of 2027.
This past year also saw strides when it came to the Lethbridge Trade and Convention Centre and Excite Lethbridge. In 2025 a municipally controlled corporation was set up, separating the business portion and the agriculture portion of the previous organisation. Hyggen said positive outcomes have been seen for the organisation.
“I’ll say that it’s not making money and I just want to make sure that I put out there that in my opinion it is just losing less,” he said. “We’re going to continue to find revenues to offset some of those expenses.”
He added that when he said “it’s not making money,” there are a number of these sorts of facilities that do not make money but are a service to the community, with other examples being city-run pools, other recreation facilities and the city’s trail system.
“They cost money, but they bring an element of community to a city.”
Looking towards 2026, Hyggen said council will be taking what they heard from residents on the campaign trail into next year’s conversations and decisions.
“We’ve heard loud and clear that hold the line, hold the line. I want you to focus on needs and not wants right now.”
“I know over the years and during other terms that I’ve been on we’ve funded the exhibition — we’ve had a lot of really bright shiny cool things — and this year here I think you’re going to see it’s going to be tighter. It’s going to be holding that line, life-cycling some of the infrastructure that we currently have and keeping them so that they’re operating well and finding other ways to reduce expenses within the city.”
Hyggen said councillors heard loud and clear from the community that they don’t want tax increases, so in the next year he expects it to be a little quieter.
As well, in 2026 council will be going into budget deliberations, which he said he is looking forward to doing with the new council.
“They are absolutely amazing and the ones that I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to serve with previously as well, but councillor Rufa Doria, councillor Al Bieber and councillor Ryan Wolfe are absolutely focused and have amazing questions.”
He said throughout the orientation process that council has been going through since being sworn into office, the three new councillors have had the same focus as the returning councillors: figuring out how to keep taxation at a sustainable amount so that the community does not feel additional pressures, along with increasing inflation.
