Alberta Municipalities says it hasn’t been asked for bill input
The umbrella organization for Alberta’s municipalities says it hasn’t been contacted by the province despite a promise to consult before amending a bill that grants Premier Danielle Smith’s government sweeping authority to fire councillors and cancel bylaws.
The turnaround time for consultation appears to be tight.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver promised consultations on Thursday, and on Friday morning Smith said the amendments will be introduced as early as next week.
Tyler Gandam, the head of Alberta Municipalities, said in a statement Friday, “We are not aware of any broad consultation between municipal leaders and the provincial government.”
Alberta Municipalities represents towns, cities and villages comprising about 85 per cent of the provincial population.
McIver’s office, when asked for comment Friday on the state of consultations, told The Canadian Press the minister has been speaking with stakeholders since tabling the bill, but did not respond to specific questions.
“Municipal Affairs will continue to work with stakeholders through the summer to develop regulations for Bill 20,” said Heather Jenkins, McIver’s press secretary.
The bill, proposed last week, has met with a torrent of criticism from municipal leaders. They call it a dramatic and undemocratic overreach of power.
The legislation gives cabinet the right to fire a councillor if it deems it in the “public interest.”
Alberta Municipalities said the government’s acknowledgment that the bill needs fixing is a good start, but much more needs to be done.
The Rural Municipalities of Alberta organization says if those new powers remain in the bill, there need to be tight restrictions on how and when they are employed.
McIver announced Thursday that amendments were coming while also promising the new powers would only be used as a last resort.
“We will be working with municipalities to propose amendments to the legislation and clarify that this would only be used in very limited circumstances,” McIver said at the time.
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated announcement in Calgary on Friday, Smith said changes to the bill will be put in front of the legislature as early as next week.
Asked why amendments were needed at all, Smith replied, “We were asked by the various municipal associations if we could just be more clear about what those terms would be.”
Kyle Kasawski, Opposition Alberta New Democrat critic for municipal affairs, said the bill must be withdrawn.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen is calling a Thursday workshop with representatives from Alberta’s mid-sized cities a success.
The inter-governmental workshop was staged to discuss challenges faced by communities in Alberta, as well as solutions that are being developed.
About 70 people roughly a dozen communities attended either in person at City Hall or online and plans are in the works to hold such workshops on a quarterly basis, said the mayor on Friday.
“We want to continue share our successes and the lack thereof at times, too,” he added.
The three-hour workshop was held the day before the two-day Alberta Association of Police Governance Conference & Annual General Meeting which continues today.
The event gave communities a chance to discuss similar issues and different strategies to address problems.
Among presentations were ones the City’s encampment strategies and other matters. And communities such as Wood Buffalo addressed some of the strategies they were implementing, added the mayor.
“It was way, way bigger than we ever thought it would,” said Hyggen
But not only were mutual and different challenges discussed, but solutions as well so communities could learn from each other and not re-invent the wheel, the mayor noted.
“Everybody shares similar problems and it’s how do you deal with them?,” said the mayor.
The response was good from other governments, he said.
A representative from Red Deer sent a message to Hyggen Friday saying “kudos to you and the team for bringing this forward. I think we had five councillors on board last night and I know they’ll be chattering all morning …and how we move forward.” The representative said Red Deer is facing challenges getting people downtown there and “we’ll certainly take a page from your book.”
Hyggen said organizers weren’t sure how many people would attend “but we just got inundated.”
At a recent meeting of the Downtown Lawlessness Task Force, councillor John Middleton-Hope who came up with the idea for the workshop said purpose of the workshop was to gain an understanding of the challenges faced by Alberta’s mid-sized cities and potential solutions.
Municipalities that were invited have more than 50,000 residents, their total population of these communities being about 700,000.
Councillor John Middleton-Hope, who came up with the idea for the workshop, said Friday all communities which attended are tackling the same issues to varying degrees from the opioid crisis to encampments, property damage to rising crime rates.
Event two smaller communities, Lloydminster and Wetaskiwin, whose mayor Tyler Gandam is also president of Alberta Municipalities, were represented.