Alberta’s Municipal Referendum - A Cautious Approach
That sigh of relief you heard across Alberta recently was from municipalities. On June 4th, the Government of Alberta tabled its proposed question for Albertans to vote on during the municipal elections in October. For those of you grammatically inclined, who pondered Elk versus Elks, you’ll have noticed ‘question’ not ‘questions’. It appears that the United Conservatives have chartered a more cautious journey into the October municipal vote by focusing on the single issue of equalization unfairness for Alberta.
It didn’t always appear that the United Conservatives were risk-averse when potential ballot questions were first floated for consideration. UCP MLAs, including the Premier, have publicly mused about a party-approach to municipal elections and a variety of ballot questions for Albertans to ponder. It may seem like a debate society had spilled over into what are often barely contested elections, but the UCP’s entertainment of a variety of ballot questions had a significant impact on local governance in Alberta before the ballot topics were finalized.
The potential for referendum questions to inject some volatility and excitement into usually tame elections created even more volatility. As the ability to register for the fall elections emerged, elected officials across Alberta began to seek new opportunities. The then Mayor of Grande Prairie resigned, becoming a CAO. Other mayors and councillors across Alberta decided not to seek re-election including the mayors in Edmonton and Calgary. Taking a break from public life is a normal choice come election time, but there was a lot of speculation that more politicians than usual were looking to spend time with their families come November and the cause being specific to the UCP’s potential referendum questions.
What issues up for debate could have made so many think twice about public life? The UCP’s response to the last federal election, a Trudeau Liberal re-election, led to the Fair Deal Panel and serious consideration of, among other things, an Alberta Provincial Police and Alberta Pension Plan. The anger of the populist in right in Alberta was funnelled to the Fair Deal panel. The fact that the hot button issues like pension and police have not progressed has been a source of frustration and one reason among many that the Wildrose Independence Party is momentarily considered the third party in Alberta politics.
Originally, the thinking was that this cluster of populist right issues could drive people to the municipal polls and realign municipal councils in the UCP’s favour. This group of voters, some of them new to municipal voting, could have realigned the municipal voter universe and their elected councils. A provincial police and pension plan are concerns for the populist right but for many others across the political spectrum, it is politically mixed or worse, a losing proposition. There would have been a real chance of some of the proposed referendum questions being seen as losses for the UCP and its leader, Premier Jason Kenney.
Premier Jason Kenney finds himself in an interesting political situation in 2021, likely unforeseen in 2020. He’s now situationally, a political centrist. For a variety of reasons, the Wildrose Independence Party is rising in public opinion polling and those polls now place the NDP in government if an election were held today. Since the travel controversies that kicked off Alberta’s politics in 2021, you’ve seen a more conciliatory UCP. Alberta’s Health Minister apologized for the way that negotiations unravelled with physicians. Long-standing controversies like the issue of coal mining in southern Alberta and the potential management and ownership of Alberta’s parks were quickly ended without formal government action. The recent posting of an RFP for drone monitoring of Alberta’s parklands was removed the day it was posted. The UCP’s approach as of late can be described as downright cautious and cautious governments do not drive a wild bunch of voters to the polls.
What to make of this new cautious approach to the fall referendum questions? The UCP are treading lightly on the populist right terrain. If there ever was a desire to drive voters to the polls in October, there is a lot of thought going into which voters and the consequences of losing any questions. This is why it makes solid sense that the UCP want to focus on equalisation, a safe question in Alberta at the best of times. They will want to have the issue top of mind when a potential fall federal election is held. All this being said, given that many municipal politicians quit before the ballot questions were even finalized and that the memories of many in politics is short, it leaves the cynical among us wondering if this was the plan all along.
