Alberta municipalities cool toward provincial ministers amid cuts, election changes
CBC
Premier Danielle Smith faced more than 1,000 mayors, councillors and municipal officials — many frustrated with her government's recent legislation, at the Alberta Municipalities fall conference in Red Deer on Thursday.
Smith and Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver received a polite, yet tepid, reaction from the crowd to their speeches.
Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam said his members, which come from the 265 cities, towns and villages that represent 85 per cent of Albertans, are frustrated with measures in Bill 18 and Bill 20 — two controversial bills passed by Smith and her United Conservative government in the spring, as well as cuts to funding.
The measures include allowing political parties to run candidates in municipal elections in Edmonton and Calgary, a ban on the use of vote counting machines in municipal elections and a prohibition on municipalities entering into funding agreements with the federal government without provincial consent.
The changes caught many municipal leaders off-guard.
Then there are the funding issues. Municipalities are angry the province refuses to pay one hundred per cent of the grants it submits in lieu of property taxes on municipal buildings.
The grants were cut nearly in half by former premier Jason Kenney in 2019 and 2020.
Gandam said the province is giving municipalities $722 million in infrastructure grants each year in the Local Government Fiscal Framework.
"It's a start, but another $1 billion a year of funding is needed," he said. "We believe more needs to be done to address Alberta's $30 billion and growing infrastructure deficit."
Delegates' frustrations with the provincial government were echoed in some of the resolutions passed at the convention. A resolution calling for a reversal of the ban on vote counting machines was passed by 85 per cent of delegates.
"What we have heard is that people want to go back to counting ballots the old-fashioned way by paper," she said.
Gandam said he hasn't heard about any problems from member municipalities and the public.
"I would be really interested in hearing where that request is coming from because we're not hearing it as elected officials," he said.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said it will cost municipalities more to hand count ballots and delay the results. He said Smith is banning the machines based on misinformation from American conspiracy theorists.
