The Town of Bonnyville has paused its participation in the Rural Renewal Stream for 2026 after receiving a substantially reduced provincial allocation.

Chief Administrative Officer Quinton Winfield told council the Town received its allocation numbers on Feb. 4 — numbers that cannot be publicly disclosed — and that they were “substantially lower than we expected.”

The challenge, Winfield explained, is that the Town had already issued more than 80 endorsement letters in January.

“With the allocated numbers provided, we’ve already spent for the 26 year,” he said.

The province has set a total of 1,000 allocations across Alberta for 2026. Municipalities are not permitted to exceed their assigned number, and the province does not disclose what neighbouring communities received.

Winfield recommended pausing rather than cancelling the program.

“We don’t really want to give up our allocation numbers prematurely,” he said. “If we give it up we won’t be able to get back in the program. We’ll be basically locked out.”

He also noted that cancelling outright could negatively affect individuals who have already received endorsement letters.

“The last thing I think that the municipality wants to do is go back on all of the letters that they have provided out… where they would become rendered useless,” he said.

Council agreed.

“I wouldn’t want to see us and our staff putting in a whole bunch of work for something that is going to be completely out of our control,” one councillor said.

A motion was passed to pause the Rural Renewal Stream for 2026, with administration directed to provide updates should provincial policy change.

Entrepreneurial applicants setting up businesses are still eligible, as that stream does not count toward the allocation cap.

For now, new worker allocations are effectively closed in Bonnyville for 2026.