It’s a good thing the UCP government has decided to amend Bill 20, the legislation to allow the provincial cabinet to dissolve municipal councils, fire individual mayors and councillors, amend local bylaws or even strike down bylaws altogether.
Who wanted this bill in the first place?
There was no groundswell of discontent with local councils that had voters demanding provincial intervention in their city, town or village governments.
I am furious with Edmonton city council over how badly it runs this city, especially its recently (unanimously) approved 8.9 per cent property tax hike. But never once did the thought pop into my head, “Gee, it would be so much better if the provincial government stepped in and removed Edmonton’s council from office.”
It’s a rarity, but I actually agree with Mayor Amarjeet Sohi on the legislation that now seems to be on its way out before it was even implemented. Sohi called Bill 20 “an attack on local democracy.”
And it is.
Local electors vote in their municipal councils. Councillors’ mandates and legitimacy to govern derive from the people who put then in office. Therefore, it is up to their voters, and only their voters, to remove the scoundrels, the fraudsters and the incompetent from office. No one, not even the provincial government should override that, unless the politicians in question are charged with crimes.
The irony is, the current Municipal Government Act already gives the provincial government authority to remove mayors and councillors deemed to be in conflict of interest or acting corruptly. And the Smith government used that power just last December to dismiss the mayor and three councillors in the Calgary suburb of Chestermere after a municipal inspection found that city was managed in “an irregular, improper and improvident manner.”
It’s the same with the province giving itself the power to overturn municipal bylaws, which was also in the original version of Bill 20.
Huh!? Who asked for that? Once again, there seems to have been no widespread call this kind of meddling. The ideas seems to have sprung up out of nowhere from the heads of provincial politicians or bureaucrats.
Under Canada’s constitution, the federal government retains the power of “disallowance.” Ottawa can strike down any provincial law it disagrees with. The last time it did so was in 1943 to block an Alberta law that would have prohibited the sale of land to Hutterites and other “illegal aliens.” But disallowance is still on the books.
A couple years back, the possibility of disallowance was being kicked around by the Trudeau government to block Premier Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act. The UCP government was properly enraged.
How could the UCP not see the power they were giving themselves over local laws in Bill 20 was equally outrageous to the feds’ power of disallowance over provincial legislation?
I know that constitutionally, municipalities are creatures of the provinces in a way provinces are not subservient to the federal government. Still, once municipal councils are elected by their citizens, municipal governments develop a legitimacy not covered strictly in the constitution.
Thankfully, the UCP appear set to take their own disallowance power out of the amended Bill 20 and pare back their power to remove elected local officials.
The Smith government should try to remember Alberta’s old PC government used to see rural councillors as their farm team, encouraging promising councillors, reeves and mayors to consider moving up to provincial politics.
However, if the UCP simply can’t stop themselves from meddling in local politics, then they should at least limit themselves to killing Calgary city council’s foolish idea of letting permanent residents (not just citizens) vote in local elections.
Disallow that.
GUNTER: UCP right to backpedal on Bill 20
20
12
04.05.2024
It’s a good thing the UCP government has decided to amend Bill 20, the legislation to allow the provincial cabinet to dissolve municipal councils, fire individual mayors and councillors, amend local bylaws or even strike down bylaws altogether.
Who wanted this bill in the first place?
There was no groundswell of discontent with local councils that had voters demanding provincial intervention in their city, town or village governments.
I am furious with Edmonton city council over how badly it runs this city, especially its recently (unanimously) approved 8.9 per cent property tax hike. But never once did the thought pop into my head, “Gee, it would be so much better if the provincial government stepped in and removed Edmonton’s council from office.”
It’s a rarity, but I actually agree with Mayor Amarjeet Sohi on the legislation that now seems to be on its way out before it was even implemented. Sohi called Bill 20 “an attack on local........
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