Understanding the Provincial Priorities Act

On April 10th, the Government of Alberta formally introduced Bill 18, the Provincial Priorities Act. Before the proposed legislation made its way to the assembly floor that day, we had released an article trying to make sense of why the provincial government wanted to move in this direction.

You can read that article here or by visiting AlbertaCounselNews.com.

In that article, we wrote that “the number one question that will persist is how will municipal finances be affected.” Since the bill was released, we are finding that there are still more questions that need answers before understanding the full impact of Bill 18.

What Does Bill 18 Look Like?

While the true impact of this proposed legislation cannot be known until the regulations have been drafted, we can look at the bill as written to get a sense of what the province intends to do.

Section 2(1) outlines the general scope of this bill, saying “no provincial entity, by itself or with any other entity, may enter into, amend, extend or renew an intergovernmental agreement without obtaining prior approval in accordance with a process established in the regulations.”

Here, there are two important definitions to keep in mind: “provincial entity” and “intergovernmental agreement”. Also important to note is the definition of “federal entity”.

The latter is rather simple. Bill 18 defines intergovernmental agreements as a deal where one of the parties is a provincial entity and one of the other parties is a federal entity.

A “federal entity” is classified as being one of the following:

·         The Crown in right of Canada

·         A Minister of the Crown in right of Canada

·         A federal Crown corporation

·         A federal agency

·         An agency, board, commission, corporation, council or other body for which a majority of members/directors are appointed or employed by the federal government or public service. Also included are those that have “a periodic financial or other report of its activities is required by law to be tabled in the Parliament of Canada.”

A “provincial entity” is defined as:

·         A public agency as defined in the Alberta Public Agencies Governance Act

·         a Crown-controlled organization as defined in the Financial Administration Act

·         a public post-secondary institution as defined in the Post-secondary Learning Act

·         a board as defined in the Education Act

·         a regional health authority established under the Regional Health Authorities Act and any subsidiary of a regional health authority

·         Covenant Health and any subsidiary of Covenant Health

·         a municipal authority as defined in the Municipal Government Act

·         a management body as defined in the Alberta Housing Act

·         any other entity or class of entity designated as a provincial entity in accordance with the regulations.

The bill also gives the provincial government the authority to impose terms and conditions on the approval of any intergovernmental agreements with provincial entities.

Again, it is critical to clarify that the full scope of this bill cannot be understood until the regulations are in place as there are provisions for exceptions that will likely be included. However, one thing that is abundantly clear from reading the legislation is that more than just municipalities need to be aware of the impacts the Provincial Priorities Act may have on their respective organizations.

For example, we know that school boards, post-secondaries, and health authorities will be captured in the legislation; however, we do not yet know what will be designated as a provincial entity pursuant to regulations. For that reason, it will be important for a wide swath of organizations (such as non-profits) to pay attention to Bill 18 as it proceeds through debate and regulatory drafting.

Alberta Counsel will be hosting a free webinar on Bill 18 on April 23 at Noon. You can sign up to watch it live by visiting https://www.albertacounsel.com/provincial_priorities_act.

What Are People Saying About Bill 18?

Now that the Provincial Priorities Act has been in the news cycle for a couple of weeks, various organizations have offered their preliminary thoughts on how the bill reads.

The day after the bill was released, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) issued a statement raising concerns. “The requirement for provincial approval of all funding agreements reduces municipal autonomy, increases red tape, and could delay or even exclude Alberta municipalities from receiving federal funding support for local events and projects.”

President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Alberta Bill Flanagan also shared his thoughts on behalf of his post-secondary. He shared concerns about his concerns about the impacts this bill may have on academic freedom, but also indicated that “working closely with our colleagues in the Alberta Post-Secondary Network, we will propose targeted exemptions for the post-secondary sector in Alberta that will ensure that our sector has fair and ready access to federal research funding with a minimum of red tape and in a manner consistent with the university’s commitment to academic freedom.”

In defence of Bill 18, Minister of Municipal Affairs outlined the need that this legislation meets, saying “not only does Alberta not receive its per capita share of federal taxpayer dollars, the money we do receive is often directed towards initiatives that don’t align with Albertan’s priorities.”

The Federal Response

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his thoughts on a question related to provincial governments requesting that funding come without conditions attached and accusing the federal government of overreach.

“But in areas like the housing crisis, there are certain provinces that are upset… because we’re signing deals with big cities.” 

While the question was not directly related to Bill 18, there was one part of his response that was directly applicable to Alberta’s newly proposed legislation.

“I am unabashed in saying that I am ambitious to solve problems for Canadians right across the country… and places where they want to block the kinds of investments that are going to help Canadians, I’m just going to try and figure out ways to help Canadians directly as necessary.”

“I'd always rather work with provinces, but if we have to, I will go around them and be there for Canadians.”