Big changes coming to city politics
Bill gives Alberta cabinet power to remove councillors, revise bylaws
A new Alberta government bill seeks to give cabinet new powers to compel councils to amend or repeal municipal bylaws and remove councillors, while also allowing party affiliations to be listed on municipal election ballots.
The changes are among many that will be introduced through Bill 20: the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 which was tabled in the legislature on Thursday. It proposes significant amendments to both the Local Authorities Election Act (LAEA) and the Municipal Government Act.
If the bill is passed, councillors would be subject to being removed from their role should cabinet determine doing so would be in the public interest, though the legislation contains no criteria on how that would be determined.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver defended the legislation, calling it “a natural evolution” and telling reporters Thursday that removing councillors would be determined on a “case-by-case basis,” albeit without initial public scrutiny due to cabinet confidentiality conventions.
“Because the number and variation of circumstances that could crop up are so wide ... it would be almost impossible to actually enumerate all the things so it's in the public interest,” he said.
“The greatest guardrail of all is the public pressure.”
Currently, the minister can only remove a sitting councillor under very specific circumstances via the municipal inspection process.
The bill would also permit cabinet to amend or repeal a bylaw, something McIver insisted would be a “last resort.”
“We don't want to intervene in municipal matters,” he said, listing the City of Edmonton's 2021 masking bylaw that the province later legislated against as an example of the kind of legislation the province would seek to change.
Existing rules allow cabinet to only intervene with respect to a land use bylaw or statutory plan.
Opposition municipal affairs critic Kyle Kasawski called the bill “a massive overreach” by the government.
“To have a minister describe that it's time for a local councillor to go or local mayor to go is very inappropriate,” he said.
“We need councillors and mayors that know they can do their job and don't have to be worried about oversight or overreach from a provincial government who wants to put them in line.”
PARTIES COMING TO EDMONTON, CALGARY DESPITE LACK OF SUPPORT
The bill also takes steps to permit party affiliations to be listed on municipal election ballots in the province's two largest cities despite a lack of apparent support for the idea.
The current legislation as written only allows for the names of candidates to appear on ballots, though it also does not preclude candidates from forming parties or slates.
McIver said that adding rules around local parties formalizes partisan leanings among councillors that he believes are already apparent.
“Political affiliations, real or perceived, seem to shine through on a regular basis,” he said, adding that local parties would be restricted from having any formal connection with federal or provincial parties.
The government says regulating local political parties will be a fouryear pilot project that will apply to only Edmonton and Calgary for the next round of municipal elections in October 2025.
McIver couldn't point to specific metrics on what would indicate success of that pilot project, but said public feedback will play a significant role.
“We'll measure what happens and what happens will tell us what we measure.”
The government says it's still working through if candidates without a party affiliation will have the word “independent” next to their name or if there would simply be a blank space after their name on the ballot.
The proposed change comes contrary to the government's own engagement survey on adding parties to the local level, the results of which were obtained by Postmedia and showed upwards of 70 per cent of respondents were opposed to the idea.
ABMunis, an organization representing 265 municipalities across Alberta, has also repeatedly spoken out against the plan.
“I've heard both sides,” McIver said in acknowledging the negative feedback. “Seventy per cent of the public don't want political parties and over 98 per cent of municipalities won't have one.”
The populations of Calgary and Edmonton comprise a little over half of Alberta's total population.
Municipal-level political parties exist in parts of British Columbia and Quebec. Edmonton last had a municipal election involving parties in 1983, where five of the 12 council seats went to members of three different parties.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said Thursday the province is focused on issues that aren't priorities for Edmontonians and fears parties at city hall will make local politics more tribal, divisive, and toxic.
“Council members changing their mind in the middle of the debate and being persuaded by good ideas and good arguments from their colleagues,” he said of the non-partisan status quo.
“That doesn't happen in a party system. In a party system people vote as a block.”
UNION AND CORPORATE DONATIONS COMING BACK
The new legislation also overhauls rules around campaign financing and the administration of municipal elections.
It reintroduces donations to candidates from unions and corporations and caps them at $5,000 per municipality after such donations were banned during the 2021 campaign.
Contributions to issues-based third-party advertisers will also be capped at $5,000. And, the new bill plans to reduce the current donation limit for individuals, unions, and corporations from the existing $30,000 per election period down to $5,000.
Municipalities would also no longer be able to prepare a voters list and instead must create a permanent register of electors with Elections Alberta.
The use of special ballots would be expanded and electronic tabulators for counting the results would be banned.
McIver couldn't point to any recent issues with electronic tabulators, adding that while he didn't personally care if they were used, he had heard from Albertans concerned with the integrity of the machines.
“I trust that some people don't trust them,” he said. “It overrides any concerns about convenience.”
The bill also updates some provisions around the recall process, and shifts the burden of reviewing recall petitions from a municipality's chief administrative officer (CAO) to the minister.
It comes after municipalities warned McIver that the existing arrangement left CAOs in the untenable position of having to potentially decide if one or several of their bosses gets fired.
“It's not fair to them and we're going to fix it,” McIver said.