A new proposed bill from the Province of Alberta giving itself the right to fire councillors and overturn bylaws at a local level has stirred up controversy among municipal leaders across the province.
Bill 20 has been described as a “huge overstep” by Alberta Municipalities, citing the lack of consultation with community leaders and saying it “appears to fundamentally redraw the blueprint” for local democracy in the province.
The Alberta government says the changes included in Bill 20 serve as a way to protect elections and ensure accountability from local leaders, and will “only be considered at last resort.”
Vice President of Cities Under 500,000 for Alberta Municipalities and Grande Prairie City Councillor Dylan Bressey spoke personally on the matter, expressing his disappointment in the continued “lack of acknowledgment” from the province when it comes to local governance.
“I’m incredibly disappointed to see them bringing union and corporate donations into municipal elections, and this party politics I think is about injecting even more money into local races,” he says. “This government doesn’t appear to see municipal governments as a legitimate, fully-elected, order of government, they’re increasingly seeing us as a wing of the provincial government which is not how I think local voters feel.”
According to Bressey, the changes included in Bill 20 only serve to hamper the relationship between municipalities and the provincial government, especially with the introduction of political parties being permitted to run in municipal elections.
“Increasingly I’m hearing mayors and councils across the province tell me they get the impression that their relationship with the province is fundamentally broken and I don’t think this is going to fix that relationship,” he says. “The thing about municipal governments is we’re not partisan players who are out to push specific ideologies, we just want what’s pragmatically best for our communities.”
Additionally, Bressey says that the changes introduced in Bill 20 are simply unwanted by Albertan voters. Bressey cites the numerous public consultations the province conducted with residents saying- “They refused to release the results of that consultation because it didn’t go the way they wanted.”
In response, ABMunis conducted their own series of public consultations in 2023, and Bressey says the results showed that Albertans are not interested in partisan politics being introduced at a local level.
“They found that Albertans simply don’t support this, this is not on board with what municipalities are seeing as needs in their community, it’s not on board with what Albertans are saying they want to see in their local councils,” he says. “They’re trying to make municipal governance hyper-political, which it’s not, the vast majority of municipal politicians aren’t full-time politicians most of them in Alberta are practically volunteers in small communities, they’re not interested in this party stuff, all they want is good water, wastewater, police, fire services, recreation opportunities in their communities.”
Bressey adds that while ABMunis sees the proposed changes as another strain on the relationship between the province and its cities and towns, the door is far from closed to open up further engagement and consultation with municipal leaders to ensure any changes that affect local governance are properly discussed with the people most affected.
“We’re happy to collaborate with them if they want to collaborate with us, sadly with this bill coming out with so many changes that received absolutely no consultation, it doesn’t seem that they want to work with their dually elected local governments,” he says. “There are actually some good changes in this bill, but they’re not going to have the full, positive impact they could because there’s no consultation with the actual municipal employees and councillors who know what’s actually needed to make these really land positively in the community.”
In the coming days, ABMunis says they will be working to voice their disappointment with the proposed changes and sit down with the province to collaborate; however, Bressey and his organization maintain that the ball is in the province’s court.