Elected officials in the Foothills are concerned with Bill 20 and its implications.
Introduced by the Government of Alberta on April 25, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act brings forward major changes to municipal governance — including giving the provincial government increased control over elected officials and introducing political parties at the municipal level.
Diamond Valley Mayor Barry Crane said municipal governments benefit from not being run by political parties, and by changing that the government is setting a dangerous precedent.
"I think when you bring it down to this level, that's the beauty of being a representative of your community with no ties to any party — I know that I'm going to have a conversation where at least I can believe I'm going to be heard fairly," he said.
"If a party is running and they get in power, and a community ran on a different party platform, there's no possible way they can feel that they're going to get the exact same treatment by the upper level of government."
He added that, given Alberta's traditionally conservative political atmosphere, municipal governments may be forced to adopt conservative governments in a bid for better treatment by the Province.
"That's the beauty of the system we presently have — no matter who wins, NDP, Liberals or the Conservatives — I, as a mayor of a small town, I'm going to do whatever it takes to deal with whatever party's in power to get funding, to get grants, to work in partnerships and collaboration with whoever is in power.
"If you take politics on a municipal level, and one community runs on a bit of a liberal platform, but the conservatives win, well, good luck. You're in conservative country. You're not going to get near the attention that a community who ran under a conservative platform does."
More red tape and government control
"I don't think that provincial politics belongs at a municipal level at all," said Crane. "Municipal politics is about representing your community to the best of the ability of those that are voted in. It's their job to represent that community's interest in dealing with the province.
"What I see here, and not that change is bad, but it's very, very scary when a provincial body is coming in with the ability to overrule municipal bylaws. To me, that's that's a no go zone. To be able to have that power and eliminate the local representation, I find that a bit over the top."
Foothills County Reeve Delilah Miller has similar concerns.
"It's just more red tape, more rules and regulations," she said. "We're so overburdened as municipalities with regulations, we're already regulated in a very large scope.
"How much overreach does this government want? Because in my view, it's another form of overreach and not getting out of the way to let municipalities do what they do best, which is work for their local residents."
She believes that many of Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver's statements are flawed.
"I'd sure be interested in having a higher level conversation with Minister McIver," said Miller. "They're taking away the ability to have a scrutineer or agent at the polling station for elected officials, so I don't know what their reasoning for that is.
"If they want to be transparent about government and take away electronic voting, vote-counting devices, then taking away scrutineers at the polls leaves me a bit concerned."
While she has concerns with many of the bill's proposed amendments, she said some are a step in the right direction when it comes to transparency.
"I believe some of their intents are good around donations and that sort of thing, having to divulge where your donations are coming from, if it's a union or another special interest group.
"And having parameters around background checks for elected officials before they run, I think that's an important component, but the rest gives me concern because it's a fine line on democracy."
Vast majority of officials disagree with municipal parties
Miller echoed Crane's statement that allowing parties to run in municipal elections is a poor decision.
"The Alberta Municipal Affairs and the [Rural Municipalities of Alberta] have voted against these political parties," she said," and we were pretty clear when the province sent out a survey to ask for everybody's opinion that this wasn't a favourable step to go in that direction."
She added that over 80 per cent of those surveyed were against municipal parties.
"For instance, in Foothills County, we have seven councillors with seven divisions, and the residents in each division right now are allowed to vote for the person they want," Miller said.
"If you had several people in a division running and one of them was part of a party that you liked but the others weren't, but you liked that other person better. well, do you hold your nose and vote for the party or do you keep voting for the person?"
The municipal party policy will initially be "a pilot project for Edmonton and Calgary," according to a Government of Alberta news release.
"It's not happening yet in the municipalities outside of the two major cities," said Miller. "But I would think, from talking to my colleagues, that there's going to be a lot of push back if they try to introduce that."
