Municipalities across Alberta are taking another shot at regulations in sports like boxing and mixed martial arts.
A resolution tabled by the City of Red Deer ahead of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association’s convention calls on the Notley government to create a unified sanctioning body to oversee combative sports province-wide.
Edmonton mayor Don Iveson and Red Deer’s Tara Veer have written Culture and Tourism Minister Ricardo Miranda giving a heads-up that the AUMA resolution is coming. A similar motion three years ago tabled by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo got enough support from AUMA delegates but was never acted on by the province.
Steve Phipps, who chairs the Edmonton Combative Sports Commission, anticipates this vote will pass as well.
“My gut feeling is, if it passed three years ago, I don’t think anything has changed that would cause it not to pass this time,” he said in an interview.
“What the province will do when the AUMA approaches them with it, I have no idea. I don’t know where this ranks in their priorities because I’ve never had any direct feedback from them.”
Both Edmonton and Calgary have municipal commissions, as do mid-sized cities such as Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Cold Lake and Penhold. Phipps said this model creates various regulations that aren’t uniform across the province.
READ MORE: Death of Edmonton boxer shines light on lack of provincial body overseeing combative sports
“There’s no advantage to having a patchwork system of regulatory standards when it comes to competitor safety,” he said.
Phipps anticipates the independent review of boxer Tim Hague’s death will address the idea of the Notley government creating a province-wide regulatory body. That will add some support to the Red Deer sponsored AUMA resolution. The report from MNP LLP, which is doing the investigation from the June event, will be released in December.
“Perhaps with this many parties seeking the same thing, the province will be more amenable than it was several years ago,” Phipps wrote in a follow-up email.
Phipps told Edmonton city council during its budget deliberations one year ago that the fees collected at major events could cover the entire budget for a year.
On Friday, he said that turned out to be the case with this summer’s UFC card at Rogers Place. However, he also said that he didn’t know if one sold-out major card could cover the budget of a provincial body.
AUMA meets in Calgary Nov. 22 to 24.
Request from Mayors Don Iveson and Tara Veer to establish a Provincial Combative Sports Commission
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