UCP Leadership Contestants Weak on Municipal Policy
Municipal politicians from across the province are in Calgary this week and will be meeting to discuss issues and attend education sessions at the annual Alberta Municipalities convention. A major topic for discussion will, of course, be the UCP leadership race currently underway. And one can only imagine the main theme of those discussions will be the lack of municipal policy ideas from any of the leadership camps.
To date, leadership hopefuls have only broached municipal issues by way of talking about the Alberta Provincial Police force - and they barely gave that any airtime to begin with. Travis Toews, Danielle Smith, Leela Aheer, and Todd Loewen are all in support of some level of Provincial Police, where Rajan Sawhney and Rebecca Schulz came out against implementing such a force.
Alberta Municipalities has sent out a survey to the leadership contestants to attempt to find out some information about their visions for the future of municipalities. Topics included in the survey related to the Alberta Provincial Police Service, Mental Health and Addictions, Transitioning out of Provincial Systems, Strengthening Regional Collaboration, Municipal Finances and Viability, Housing, Transportation, Downloading of Costs and Responsibilities, and Fostering a Positive Relationship. Unfortunately, only Leela Aheer, Rebecca Schulz, and Danielle Smith bothered to reply.
Nor do any of the candidates have any policy or platform promises relating to municipalities on their websites. Maybe most appropriate, is Brian Jean’s “Community Autonomy” policy page that leads to a “404 – Page not found” error.
Municipalities have had a bit of a strained relationship with the current government, seeing three Ministers in as many years and publicly stating that the relationship was “broken”. It is difficult to work with the province when they tend to view municipal leaders as problematic junior politicians. It is further complicated by the nature of the relationship whereby municipalities are subject to the whims of the provincial treasurer as it relates to funding.
Municipalities are the level of government closest to the people and provide day-to-day essential services and infrastructure. They provide these services primarily through property taxes, but also through government grants. The funding for municipalities has been drastically reduced over the last two years in addition to the downloading of responsibility of the province onto our municipal governments. This has resulted in difficult financial situations for many of our local communities.
Municipalities are also battling increased costs due to inflation, deteriorating infrastructure, delinquent taxes from oil and gas companies, and increases to provincial property tax requisitions.
While these are all funding issues, municipalities are also wanting to move their communities forward by providing economic opportunities for their residents in addition to increasing their service levels to provide a safe, affordable place to raise a family.
Ideally, we all want to hear from the leadership candidates on their vision for the future of our province. We want to know what they are going to implement to make Alberta the best place to work, live, and play. A big part of that work is carried out by municipal government, and it would make sense to give some airtime for how that relationship is going to work.
The big funding envelope to replace the current Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) formula - the Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF) - is also currently being developed in consultation with municipalities. This is a major project that will influence municipal revenues for years to come, and yet, the candidates are silent on this issue. Municipalities want to know if the next premier is going to honor the existing negotiations or change the process halfway through to some other format.
Municipal leaders have questions for the next Premier and unfortunately, they haven’t been getting any answers.
As it happens, the leadership candidates have been invited to speak at the Alberta Municipalities convention this week and will be able to provide remarks and answer some questions from the audience. This is in addition to the annual Ministers forums, and speeches from the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. It will be a unique opportunity for the attendees of the Alberta Municipalities conference to hold the leadership contestants’ feet to the fire.
Hopefully the next premier will take the opportunity to talk about their vision for the future and how the provincial government can work with municipalities to move forward together for the benefit of the entire province.
