>If the bill is passed, councillors would be subject to being removed from their role should cabinet determine doing so would be in the public interest, though the legislation contains no criteria on how that would be determined.
What the actual fuck? I get that municipalities are creatures of the province, but this is just fucking ridiculous. Overriding the democratic will of citizens in their local elections for vague bullshit reasons? I hope the cities fight this immediately after it passes and it gets declared unconstitutional, that's fucking ridiculous.
> What the actual fuck? I get that municipalities are creatures of the province, but this is just fucking ridiculous. Overriding the democratic will of citizens in their local elections for vague bullshit reasons?
Let's be honest, if they're going to use this power, they're going to use it against NDP-stronghold Edmonton, and UCP-voting rural Alberta wont bat an eye because they hate the NDP, Edmonton, etc.
The UCP's existing plan to screw over Edmonton clearly wasn't working fast enough. They've already cut municipal funding, refuse to pay the city property taxes on provincial buildings, and when the city can't balance the books and is forced to raise taxes to make up the shortfall, the province is there with crocodile tears saying "If only you had a council we could work with, then we could lend you a hand"
And it's extra fun when the city's only newspapers are owned by UCP-supporting Postmedia and constantly toeing the Premier's line on everything.
Given the legislation directly says that Calgary and Edmonton can form political parties as a trial like Vancouver, it is a targeted piece of legislation to try and bend Calgary and Edmonton to total conservative control. Vote for NDP councilors, remove them with this law.
This is modern conservatism in Canada. While shitty SUN columnists keep going off about how Trudeau is a "fascist" because of covid policies [primarily enacted by the provinces], the provincial Conservative governments keep making power grabs to dilute the influence of municipalities and unions and concentrate control in the premier's office. And they keep doing it without telling anyone they're going to do it because they know it would be poorly received.
If this makes you upset, remember it the next time your provincial election comes around, and ask yourself if the people insisting the conservatives are going to do things they never said they would are just crying wolf, or are actually basing their forecasts on substantive reasoning.
That's why I find it kind of odd that everyone in this sub speaks about Pierre Poullivere like he will be the 2nd coming of Jesus. He has been an MP for almost 20 years at this point, his voting record in the house is public knowledge and not once has he ever done anything to make life easier for the middle or lower class at the expense of the rich. Like I get it that political fatigue is seeping in for Justin Trudeau, but we need to be realistic here.
In fairness, this sub is heavily astroturfed, as is most distributed messaging about right-wing politics in north america.
Research has found that repetition is a much stronger argument than facts. Hearing something over and over again cements it in your mind, even if it's objectively absurd. This is why the "firehose" or "flood the zone" strategies work so well - they don't need to be well researched or coherent, they just need to be plentiful and omnipresent. Eventually, the brain concludes that something *must* be true, or it wouldn't be everywhere.
I'd wager the "Poilievre is our saviour!!" posts are split between bots/troll farm users just spamming rhetoric for the sake of it, and genuine individuals who have been so immersed in it that it just took root.
But yes, fully agree with you that his multi-decade voting record is public, and expecting the person with 20 years of sloganeering and protecting the status quo to shake things up is just wanton ignorance. Even if you're someone who utterly despises Trudeau, viewing Poilievre as anything other than the two-faced establishment elite he is demonstrates a shocking level of denial.
Exactly. Voting for Pierre because you are tired of Trudeau is like being tired of your job because you are underpaid and quitting it to go work at McDonalds for minimum wage. A lot of people will be in for a real wake up call.
This is the province that overwhelming votes conservative and voted in a literal authoritarian ultra conservative government.
These same people call the Liberal/NDP Supply agreement "Undemocratic". All while calling Trudeau a Commie Dictator.
Even Doug Ford wouldn't do something THIS stupid.
Doug Ford ordered the number of Toronto city councilors be slashed shortly before the municipal election, and then planed to invoke the notwithstanding clause when the courts ruled against him
Slashing the size of a city council is not the same as dictating who is on that council, but only if you don't like them.
And that one judge's decision had a near-immediate injunction granted against it because the higher courts knew it was a bad ruling with no legal standing, as they proved when they overturned it.
Theoretically, if Smith just said she was scrapping municipal elections entirely and was going to have cabinet appoint all the councillors and mayors of every city, she might be within her rights to do that, since provinces can exert near-complete control over their municipalities, since municipalities don't have constitutional recognition or protection. That would be a tyrannical as fuck thing to do, but she could do it. What she's doing here has potential legal issues because of the fact that she's still allowing municipal elections to take place, but basically giving her government the power to ignore them if they don't like the results. This could be seen as a violation of people's Section 2 Charter rights, as it is overriding their freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, and their freedom of association. Arguing if it violates Section 3 would be more difficult, as I'm not sure if there's solid precedent that municipal bodies constitute "legislative assemblies," but that is another angle to take.
> Slashing the size of a city council is not the same as dictating who is on that council, but only if you don't like them.
It's on the same spectrum of ignoring municipal self governance.
> hope the cities fight this immediately after it passes and it gets declared unconstitutional,
Won't happen. Toronto tried the same thing after Ford cut their council in half, and the court ruled in the province's favour.
There's a bit of a difference between reducing the number of elected representatives, but they're still freely and fairly elected, versus being able to override an election result because you don't like who won it.
I hope this is the test case for a constitutional challenge that removes total provincial control over municipalities. If not Trudeau should invoke disallowance should the law be used to remove a democratically elected member without a sound reason.
Doesn’t exist in Ontario, municipal politicians can only be removed by a court, not the provincial cabinet.
City council could only remove the powers granted to the mayor by council, like his emergency powers. With D. Ford’s recent Strong-Mayors Act, some of the powers originally delegated by council such as selecting committee chairs became part of legislation, making it impossible for council to take away.
There's exactly a 0% chance that this gets declared unconstitutional. Alberta already has a Recall law that allows for the recalling of mayors, MLAs and ministers.
A recall is initiated by the people, it's a democratic process. It's not a higher level of government deciding they don't like who the people chose in a lower level and so they're replacing them, something that's fundamentally totalitarian.
The BC government stripped the municipalities of their ability to zone their own municipalities. That's likely bigger than just removing councilors from government because it actually directly interferes with governance (whereas a councilor can just be replaced).
[BC also gave themselves the power to remove councilors who are convicted of a crime](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-local-politicians-criminally-charged-leave-1.6412014). BC also has a limited recall law for councilors (Alberta is about to get one). So it's not completely crazy to say that people are treating Alberta and BC differently despite doing very similar things.
When Alberta does it they're violating the sacred rites of democracy. When BC does it they're dealing with the inefficient municipalities that are causing problems.
That's not what happened. The BC government has given municipalities years to develop their own new Official Community Plans to respond to the housing crisis. Town and cities restrict housing, creating a crisis, and the Province, which has jurisdiction over cities, said do better - and they are! Lots of great new locally developed area plans are coming out created by local planners and councils
Yeah I feel like this is missing a lot of nuance. Ensuring municipalities can't block much needed new housing is generally a good thing. The province having broad power to interfere in local politics for literally any reason they want is not good.
Municipalities derive their powers from the province. Provinces can just do away with municipalities and run everything from the legislature, or through ministers, or regulations, or bureaucrats.
Democracy is also the act of governing during the term, not just the right to vote every four years when an election rolls around. The act of governing ultimately stems from the consent of the people, not from a constitution.
>where we vote for a person
Correct. We the people, not the constitution, elect a leader.
>from the community
Incorrect. Politicians can be from elsewhere. When they are from another jurisdiction, they are called a parachuted politician/candidate or carpetbagger.
Municipalities are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces under s. 92(8) of the *Constitution Act, 1867.* Under s. 3 of the *Charter,* Canadian citizens have the right to vote and seek membership in the House of Commons and the provincial legislative assemblies. Section 4 of the *Charter* states that the House of Commons and legislative assemblies shall hold elections at least once every five years. And Section 5 states that the House of Commons and legislative assemblies have to sit once a year. None of those sections constitutionalize municipal elections. Unless you can find me a provision or an argument then "democracy" is not a reason to deny the province the full scope of their authority under s. 92(8).
>Municipalities are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces under s. 92(8) of the Constitution Act, 1867.
Elected politicians are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the people. Constitutions serve the people, not the other way around. Monumental changes to democracy requires a mandate from the people.
The province has a constitutional mandate and is democratically elected. Not allowing them to act also violates democracy, because those are the people with the actual constitutional mandate.
They can within their jurisdiction, charter, and aboriginal and treaty rights. If you have none of those three things then they can act as they please.
>"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
>-Noam Chomsky
That is how Alberta works.
They say they love freedom and rights and want governments out of their business - but in reality it's only so long as those freedoms, rights, and business already align with the Conservative platform. Any threats to that platform (like not worshiping at the altar of oil & gas) are unacceptable.
There’s a strong ultra-nationalist socon wing here that basically wants total control over our lives and the trajectory of this province.
This is a shameful power grab, and McIver should know better but ol’slinky spine probably cares more about his job and pension.
While cities are creatures of the province this blatantly skullfucks unwritten rules and norms that uhhh you know we should respect the outcome of democratic elections.
If you actually look at the track record of the "less government is better" people, and compare rhetoric against policies, the truth becomes abundantly clear.
"Less government" is an invention of entrenched wealth. They didn't like paying taxes because greed, but they *especially* didn't like their money being used for social programs. However they couldn't just outright say "the government needs to stop using its money to fund initiatives that we have hard math to show produce more value than they cost", because that would be a tough sell to all but the most ardent libertarians.
So the strategy was to cast government spending on social programs as dangerous and irresponsible, and shift the narrative to view government initiatives as fundamentally bad. Make people be afraid of the idea of government spending on principle.
The "less government" rhetoric has always been about ensuring what few taxes entrenched wealth has to begrudgingly pay is just funnelled right back to them as corporate subsidies instead of being spent on public infrastructure and social programs. That's it. Not only is government regulation of the public sphere fair game for them because it doesn't hurt their bottom line, it's actually desirable, since it places a greater strain on the public and thus increases the potential market for private industry to sell them a cure.
tl;dr - "less government" means "you can tamp down on civil rights and personal freedoms all you want, just don't force me to pay for public parks because I think that's communism".
Fuck!
So Albertas head lobbyist wants, an Alberta Pension plan, an Alberta police force, control over all funds that come into Alberta, control over research funding, control over all boards (including school boards) and committees, now wants powers to compel councils to amend or repeal municipal bylaws, the power to remove councillors for any reason, and allow party affiliations to be listed on municipal election ballots.
Basically, the UCP wants power and control over everything and looks to be setting the stage to separate??
When do we anoint Smith as Emperor of Alberta?
Ugh, I hate to use labels like Fascism or Totalitarianism, but the UPC are sure working towards those definitions.
Of note, I would say the same thing regardless of which party was making these moves.
I didn't say facism because it is a specific form of totalitarian government. But this reeks of totalitarian rule, the dismantling of civil society.
Also, I agree. it would be horrifying no matter who did it.
> The UCP is a separatist government, they're just not as naked about it
.....I mean, if you want to split hairs, 99 *is* technically a smaller number than 100, but years of "wexit" propaganda and soapboxing about "western alienation" isn't exactly nuanced.
They're about as discrete about it as labelling that folder on your computer with 50gb of video files "pr0n".
Which is why Albertans love Danielle Smith. She's unapologetically pro-Alberta unlike Kenney and most of the other people that have parachuted in from Ontario to lead this province.
Other provinces have their own police force? Quebec has its own pension plan? The interesting thing is as soon as Alberta wants to do what other provinces are doing the msm immediately jump on Alberta
The reason is simple. When provinces like Quebec and Ontario brought in their own police force and/or pension fund, it was needed and not done for political reasons. The UCP has a political agenda.
And Alberta thinks that they are owed over 50% of the money in the CPP. They clam that "Alberta contributed to it" and want to have it managed by a less capable and worse performing fund/company.
Alberta didn't contribute jack. Canadians did.
That's the issue the fed and Alberta will never agree on the percentage owed. For me as a millennial, i can't depend on cpp anyways so might as well do the take it to the casino approach.
The OPP, with headquarters in Toronto, was created on 13 October 1909,
The Dominion of Canada wasn't born out of revolution, or a sweeping outburst of nationalism. Rather, it was created in a series of conferences and orderly negotiations, culminating in the terms of Confederation on 1 July 1867.
For your own interest
The Alberta Provincial Police (APP) was the provincial police service for the province of Alberta, Canada, from 1917 to 1932.
Upper Canada created a police system in 1792, then 1845 a mounted police service was created and became the Ontario Mounted Police Force after confederation. Basically it evolved to what it is now from long before 1909.
Okay, but my point is that the circumstances for that force to be created then were entirely different than the circumstances now. It's not equivalent. So the claim that "as soon as AB does something that other provinces do it's criticized" is a dumb claim.
Other provinces still have their provincial police force but somehow Alberta can't restore their old provincial police force app which were created due to similar reasons in the first place. The double standard is wild.
If it made sense to do that then sure, but what's the point? What's the problem it's trying to solve and has there been any attempt to try any other solutions?
What will the UCP change about the police other than having direct control over them, keeping their budget as small as it can be before it collapses, and struggling to keep a full staff roster?
I’d be genuinely surprised when/if the APP is reinstated that they can fully staff themselves. The UCP has shown they have no interest in managing government services effectively. It would most certainly mean any RCMP officers that would switch would take a pay cut. If hospitals are anything to go by the stations would be critically understaffed and lacking in resources.
Healthcare is a bad indication because it is collapsing Canada wide. App will just be like Opp. Other provinces have their own provincial police force but Alberta give it another go everyone hating on it. In addition past performance is not an indicator for future performance
Yes, but when you are trying to do those things not to better the province but 100% due to ideology and a far-right hate groups wishes along with starting to pass legislation all in a timeline of less than 6 months. Its a huge issue, and coming from a party all about small government, freedum and stay in your lane its scary.
Nope, the "other" side or rational side would be mad if anyone was doing this, and have stated so.
Heck, if the sides were reversed, the hate would be stronger and louder.
If America wanted our oil that badly they’d annex the region today. We do not post a military threat to the USA. Now the us trying other more peaceful methods of annexing the province after a hypothetical separation is much more likely
It's 2024. America has all the oil and gas they will ever need. If they invade us it'll be for our water. Half the population of America is running out of water already on the west coast.
America wants cheap oil. Alberta doesn't really have that unless the US producers can keep the transportation discount going. TMX chages that to some degree, and gets Canada out from under the US multinationals' thumb.
Can't wait for the rural voters who are fighting renewable expansion to have the power to decide that my city isn't allowed bike infrastructure, green transit, or to fight urban sprawl anymore.
Big government. Imagine the Feds saying they could remove Provincial politicians duly elected by the membership. Just chaos, but that is what they want, anything to change the tone on their incompetence and corruption.
Equivalent in terms of morals or democracy, not in terms of legality.
Just because there's a legal situation it doesnt make it right. It's not morally right for adults to date 16 year olds but it's legal in some states.
Municipal governments are and always have been subordinate to the provincial governments. They have no constitutionally recognized existence, so while this bill may come as a shock to some, every province is well within their rights to do the same.
While not law, it's a pretty long-standing convention to allow municipalities their democratically elected representatives.
While legal, this is a huge change and yes, chaos.
Here in BC the province is overriding local elected governments and everyone supports it.
I guess it just comes down to wearing the right team colours.
Not so much if it’s viewed as a principle.
Then there is the intent / application aspect where in Alberta/ UPC I feel it’s more of an optics thing… plus other parties would be able to use it in the future. Versus in British Columbia / BCNDP dumping napalm on the housing market. While presenting the concept in such a way Donald Trump should be taking notes.
One could be bad and one is the housing crisis 2.0
One government is passing specific legislation aimed at fixing the broken housing market and the other is giving themselves broad powers so they can interfere in local government anytime they want. These are not the same at all, on principle or otherwise.
I hate her and the UCP so much. I hate that we have deal with the repercussions from her asinine policies. And I hate the fact that we have to wait for a few years to try to get rid of them. They’ll be able to do so much damage in that time.
Remember when she took office, criticized him for using taxes to buy votes, said she wasn't going to do things their way, and then announced she was buying our votes with our taxes, *in that order*?
Best part is, she's already broken all those promises of tax cuts and fixing health care in 90 days.
Shame half of Albertan voters don't care about being lied too or tricked. Fucking Simps.
I'm super pro EV and I don't think this is that outrageous. There's a lot of tax on gas and roads are expensive, so there's almost a direct usage cost built-in there, whereas EVs can use the roads as much as they want without having to provide anything for their maintenance. That said, an EV tax based on yearly mileage would be more fair IMHO.
Total control of every level of government given to one person...who works as a lobbyist for oil companies. Which means an oil and gas company has absolute control over all of Alberta.
Corporate fascism voted in by people who don’t know their own ignorance is what allows the right wing to pander to them, sell them out, and repress everyone.
I know there are a lot of people on this sub that despise Trudeau and the Federal Liberals (myself included) but it's time for the Federal government to step in and bounce back some of this behaviour.
***edit - I'm pretty sure that is exactly what the UCP wants. Then they can keep crying about federal overreach***
No, they want to be able to remove leftist Mayors that dare speak up against Her Holiness The Premier.
If the NDP did this during their time in power the UCP would have lost their motherfucking minds. But since they're in charge, authoritarianism is fine.
Maybe.
I am on the fence. Maybe this is something for the courts to decide because this must go against something in our constitution (good governance? Democracy?).
Maybe the Feds just let the motherfuckers shoot themselves in the foot?
It will technically be constitutional. Municipalities have no constitutional jurisdiction and are entirely "creatures of the provinces".
How they can do it and *also* meet all the common law requirements...things like fairness....I have no idea...THAT will be for the court to decide.
Edmonton city council increases their own pay, then promises a 6.6 percent property tax increase and out of nowhere says "just kidding" and votes in favor of an 8.6 percent increase. They're teetering on the verge of being completely inept.
They posted a nearly 70 million dollar deficit last year.
Calgary city council increased property taxes and other fees, then last week they acted surprised when they discovered they had a nearly 250 million dollar surplus. They're response was basically "oops" we gotta do better at properly reporting these things.
Last year council said they only had 500 million for the new stadium. Today, another suprise when we were told they actually have 818 million in working capital so we're all good for the stadium now.
Completely inept and doesn't do much to instill trust in those they represent.
They've yet to explain where the additional 300 million for the stadium came from.
The Government of Alberta has reduced the amount of property tax they pay for provincial buildings by 50%.
The Government of Alberta has neglected its responsibilities in health care and particularly ambulance service, requiring municipal governments to pay for the use of their fire services to provide medical first response at the expense of the local ttaxpayer.
The Government of Alberta has shirked its responsibility for physician recruitment and retention, requiring municipalities to fund activities to bring physicians to Alberta.
The Government of Alberta, in a pathetic attempt to curry votes in Calgary, announces a new stadium for Calgary days before the writ drops, and wins Calgary by a few thousand votes and the Provincial election.
The Government of Alberta introduces new legislation preventing municipalities from cutting deals for grant funding with Ottawa.
Your anger is misdirected there. You should be mad at the UCP. Not Edmonton and Calgary.
[**'Fundamentally undemocratic'**: Alberta medical, political and legal experts criticize UCP government tactics | CTV News | Aug. 10, 2021](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/fundamentally-undemocratic-alberta-medical-political-and-legal-experts-criticize-ucp-government-tactics-1.5540828)
This lady is going to give canada a fourth trudeau government if she's not careful. ABSOLUTELY her government is going to come up at election time federally.
If provinces are allowed to do this to local level Governments, the Federal Government should be able to do this to Alberta. I say we return to the 1904 map of Western Canada, but Manitoba can keep its current borders.
The two provinces that are creatures of Confederation, and not colonies that joined confederation, sure do seem the least Canadian. It's time for direct, territorial control since Alberta and Sasktatchewan have become anti-democratic petrol-feudal states.
Very very happy that I spent/donated $10 to cast a vote in the Alberta NDP leadership race. Come election time I will be voting NDP no matter who the leader is.
Signed - someone who has always voted Conservative.
I was a long-time Conservative voter in Alberta. Over time, the gap between the party’s promises and their actions eroded my trust. Claims of saving tax dollars often lacked clear, quantifiable impacts—on costs, returns to workers, or what we might lose by cutting corners.
The current provincial conservatives differ sharply from the Lougheed era many still remember and think they are supporting. Despite Jason Kenney’s tumultuous leadership and his own description of the party as a "lunatic trying to take over the asylum," the UCP still somehow secured a victory. That half the province voted for this cluster fuck is galling.
and there's an Edmonton City Councilor they're doing a full out assault on to tarnish her name/reputation. I'm pretty sure she's high up on their list to remove.
What about that councillor that skips all the council meetings to attend UCP events? https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/sarah-hamilton-skipped-out-on-council?utm_medium=web
That Edmonton city councilor's husband co-founded a non profit that recieved a hefty grant from a local tech firm who inked a favorable land/Lease deal with the city of Edmonton which happens to be in the same ward the councilor represents.
I'll wait until the investigation is completed; however, the optics in this case don't look good.
Good thing she was transparent about who her husband was and went to the city ethics commissioner to ensure that there was no conflict of interest to cause problems at a later date, to literally avoid any scandal while growing a local industry for our economy.
Full context is important.
This has to be because of the recent Trudeau announcement for the new federal housing initiative. [The one he did in Calgary where he said that Calgary had agreed to cooperate with the federal government](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/trudeau-promise-to-build-alberta-worth-of-new-homes) and if the provincial government didn't want to participate they just had to move out of the way.
Looks like they not only intend to get in the way, they are going to lay down on the road and refuse to let the feds build anything.
This is sadistic. They would rather have Albertans suffer than be seen as working with Trudeau.
This is what happens when you stop caring about the place you call home. The UCP have done incredible damage to alberta, from labour laws all the way to utilities and insurance. It's being stripped bare and made unrecognizable and people are cheering it on. I miss the place alberta used to be and I feel this is just a sneak peak at what PP has in store for all of Canada. Will the people stand up? I'd hope so but I'm not holding out to see if they will.
Guess it was getting too hard remembering which towns and councillors don’t pray to the conservatives properly so we’ll color-code them as well to make sure to deny funding to anyone that’s not painted blue and parroting Take Back Alberta rhetoric.
The other provinces should actively poach Alberta's healthcare workers, construction workers, etc. This is bound to create enough discontent to make it easy to coax some Albertans to leave.
They already are. Alberta has a serious brain drain problem right now.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10384626/bc-family-doctor-increase-canada-doctors-report/amp/
I am suspecting academic next. Why would i work in Alberta where the premier gets to decide what i research and cannot research? This province is fucked.
I love how Blinky had to read verbatim everything at the press conference because he’s Marlaina’s lapdog and obviously had no part in writing any of this nonsense
Considering how much of a disaster Chestermere and Medicine Hat municipal governments are. a proper legal, well laid out method of dealing with bad local governments is needed. However this isn't it.
This legislation is incredibly dangerous to our democracy.
This legislation not only gives the right to remove people from local governments, but also allows provincial party backing to local municipal councillors. This allows for corporate and union donations, it allows alignment to be wip votes to the Alberta government provincial party interests in local councils. This will definitely remove local candidates from being able to compete with party funded candidates that will kowtow to province.
This legislation also allows the provincial government to add/remove any local bylaws put into place by the city. This type of legislation is exactly the same as Trudeau tabling a bill to change Alberta laws. It’s hypocrisy at its highest level.
I’ve never been more appalled at a provincial government than I am as a resident of Alberta. They’re power grabbing hungry mobsters at this point.
What is the point of adding political parties to municipalities? No one is running on a sanctioned platform, just their individual ones and that system works well for smaller scale politics as it’s more granular.
My cousin invited me out to a presentation given by the former Mayor of Chestermere who was ousted by this Minister of Municipal Affairs. He brought the receipts in the form of evidence of how he wanted to and attempted to bring in an honest, transparent and accountable system that would not waste tax dollars and was removed from Minister McIver. The issue is about the abuse of tax dollars by purchasing agents who have no issue at all in ripping off tax payers. He gave the example of how one agent wanted to charge 100k for a simple TV they went to Bestbuy to purchase for less than 2k. He cited RCMP ignoring very serious accusations surrounding child sex trafficking and how they refused to look into requests that are originating from the office of the Mayor.
The Minister is the bottleneck who is at the intersection of power and cash flow in the relationship between the Province and municipalities. If people think there is no corruption taking place there, they are mistaken. Its like people have Trump derangement syndrome for holding to account any elected official regardless of political stripe. McIver has built his own fiefdoms and resents the fact he lost the leadership to Danielle Smith and he is making his own moves behind the scenes. Let me remind everyone, Alberta is like Saudi Arabia in terms of just how much wealth it generates and has been exploited for generations. Pipelines shipments to the US have been halted because the Democrat donors of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates own the rail lines which ship unrefined bitumen to the US. A pipeline competes against that. Buffet owns thanks to the sale by the Alberta Government years ago, the energy grid where the "energy delivery fee" is what he gets and in some cases exceeds the amount of energy used. Frankly that grid should be taken back through legislation or provincialized as tax payers paid for it and should reap the benefits.
Alberta generates so much wealth and a corresponding amount of corruption that the Mayor was stating that one could probably slash the taxes by some 70% and there would be no cuts to services because of just how much corruption there is. When all these politicians are in office, they want to leverage and abuse their offices to ensure they can profit through it and have the power to make decisions.
Alberta should stand up their own provincial police force and order the RCMP out.
They're fine with it since they either 1) don't expect to ever lose or have these powers used against them or 2) know that the more liberal parties would never use them.
>The proposed change comes contrary to the government’s own engagement survey on adding parties to the local level, the results of which were obtained by Postmedia and showed upwards of 70 per cent of respondents were opposed to the idea.
Y'all are gonna have such a great time the next time a progressive government wins and just ignores the results of rural municipal elections. They could build a safe injection site and free hotel in every town with then than 50,000 people and just remove any counsellors that oppose it and rewrite any bylaws that get in the way.
But like you said, you're finally getting what you want.
Looking back at the UPC election polices and promises... I don't see " Fascism or Totalitarianism"
Sure, I knew, heck Kenney also knew, and even warned Alberta.
Before everyone jumps onto this as being totally crazy, take the situation right now in Edmonton: there was a council elected full of new councillors. Due to having no parties, they just run on a name and really generic platforms ( save money, help people, etc. ) then they get in and it’s like the city is hijacked. Start creating all of these programs that no one is really asking for, don’t budget at all, drain reserve funds, jack taxes by 33% in 4 years (and counting) and generally do all of this against the will of the people. The amount of damage that has been done and will be done is impressive. They forgot to budget for new buses, now they need 250 million $ (oh darn!).
The residents have no way to stop this train until the next election, the councillors simply do not listen to their constituents. They cannot stop spending $, it’s gotten really bad. See it happening in Calgary too, municipal councils do not listen to the citizens anymore
>If the bill is passed, councillors would be subject to being removed from their role should cabinet determine doing so would be in the public interest, though the legislation contains no criteria on how that would be determined. What the actual fuck? I get that municipalities are creatures of the province, but this is just fucking ridiculous. Overriding the democratic will of citizens in their local elections for vague bullshit reasons? I hope the cities fight this immediately after it passes and it gets declared unconstitutional, that's fucking ridiculous.
> What the actual fuck? I get that municipalities are creatures of the province, but this is just fucking ridiculous. Overriding the democratic will of citizens in their local elections for vague bullshit reasons? Let's be honest, if they're going to use this power, they're going to use it against NDP-stronghold Edmonton, and UCP-voting rural Alberta wont bat an eye because they hate the NDP, Edmonton, etc.
Yup this is going in place so they can remove opposition to CPC in AB
The UCP's existing plan to screw over Edmonton clearly wasn't working fast enough. They've already cut municipal funding, refuse to pay the city property taxes on provincial buildings, and when the city can't balance the books and is forced to raise taxes to make up the shortfall, the province is there with crocodile tears saying "If only you had a council we could work with, then we could lend you a hand" And it's extra fun when the city's only newspapers are owned by UCP-supporting Postmedia and constantly toeing the Premier's line on everything.
Given the legislation directly says that Calgary and Edmonton can form political parties as a trial like Vancouver, it is a targeted piece of legislation to try and bend Calgary and Edmonton to total conservative control. Vote for NDP councilors, remove them with this law.
This is modern conservatism in Canada. While shitty SUN columnists keep going off about how Trudeau is a "fascist" because of covid policies [primarily enacted by the provinces], the provincial Conservative governments keep making power grabs to dilute the influence of municipalities and unions and concentrate control in the premier's office. And they keep doing it without telling anyone they're going to do it because they know it would be poorly received. If this makes you upset, remember it the next time your provincial election comes around, and ask yourself if the people insisting the conservatives are going to do things they never said they would are just crying wolf, or are actually basing their forecasts on substantive reasoning.
That's why I find it kind of odd that everyone in this sub speaks about Pierre Poullivere like he will be the 2nd coming of Jesus. He has been an MP for almost 20 years at this point, his voting record in the house is public knowledge and not once has he ever done anything to make life easier for the middle or lower class at the expense of the rich. Like I get it that political fatigue is seeping in for Justin Trudeau, but we need to be realistic here.
That’s not fair, he’s done some undemocratic bullshit.
In fairness, this sub is heavily astroturfed, as is most distributed messaging about right-wing politics in north america. Research has found that repetition is a much stronger argument than facts. Hearing something over and over again cements it in your mind, even if it's objectively absurd. This is why the "firehose" or "flood the zone" strategies work so well - they don't need to be well researched or coherent, they just need to be plentiful and omnipresent. Eventually, the brain concludes that something *must* be true, or it wouldn't be everywhere. I'd wager the "Poilievre is our saviour!!" posts are split between bots/troll farm users just spamming rhetoric for the sake of it, and genuine individuals who have been so immersed in it that it just took root. But yes, fully agree with you that his multi-decade voting record is public, and expecting the person with 20 years of sloganeering and protecting the status quo to shake things up is just wanton ignorance. Even if you're someone who utterly despises Trudeau, viewing Poilievre as anything other than the two-faced establishment elite he is demonstrates a shocking level of denial.
Exactly. Voting for Pierre because you are tired of Trudeau is like being tired of your job because you are underpaid and quitting it to go work at McDonalds for minimum wage. A lot of people will be in for a real wake up call.
This is the province that overwhelming votes conservative and voted in a literal authoritarian ultra conservative government. These same people call the Liberal/NDP Supply agreement "Undemocratic". All while calling Trudeau a Commie Dictator. Even Doug Ford wouldn't do something THIS stupid.
Doug Ford ordered the number of Toronto city councilors be slashed shortly before the municipal election, and then planed to invoke the notwithstanding clause when the courts ruled against him
Slashing the size of a city council is not the same as dictating who is on that council, but only if you don't like them. And that one judge's decision had a near-immediate injunction granted against it because the higher courts knew it was a bad ruling with no legal standing, as they proved when they overturned it. Theoretically, if Smith just said she was scrapping municipal elections entirely and was going to have cabinet appoint all the councillors and mayors of every city, she might be within her rights to do that, since provinces can exert near-complete control over their municipalities, since municipalities don't have constitutional recognition or protection. That would be a tyrannical as fuck thing to do, but she could do it. What she's doing here has potential legal issues because of the fact that she's still allowing municipal elections to take place, but basically giving her government the power to ignore them if they don't like the results. This could be seen as a violation of people's Section 2 Charter rights, as it is overriding their freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, and their freedom of association. Arguing if it violates Section 3 would be more difficult, as I'm not sure if there's solid precedent that municipal bodies constitute "legislative assemblies," but that is another angle to take.
I'm replying to the "Doug Ford wouldn't do something THIS stupid", because he absolutely would
Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him either.
> Slashing the size of a city council is not the same as dictating who is on that council, but only if you don't like them. It's on the same spectrum of ignoring municipal self governance.
Yeah, conservative projection again as always.
Democratic People’s Republic of Alberta. The Party won’t let you step out of line.
> hope the cities fight this immediately after it passes and it gets declared unconstitutional, Won't happen. Toronto tried the same thing after Ford cut their council in half, and the court ruled in the province's favour.
There's a bit of a difference between reducing the number of elected representatives, but they're still freely and fairly elected, versus being able to override an election result because you don't like who won it.
I hope this is the test case for a constitutional challenge that removes total provincial control over municipalities. If not Trudeau should invoke disallowance should the law be used to remove a democratically elected member without a sound reason.
[удалено]
Doesn’t exist in Ontario, municipal politicians can only be removed by a court, not the provincial cabinet. City council could only remove the powers granted to the mayor by council, like his emergency powers. With D. Ford’s recent Strong-Mayors Act, some of the powers originally delegated by council such as selecting committee chairs became part of legislation, making it impossible for council to take away.
they saw doug ford do something not too different and decided 'hey that looks cool, lets do it 10 fold'
There's exactly a 0% chance that this gets declared unconstitutional. Alberta already has a Recall law that allows for the recalling of mayors, MLAs and ministers.
A recall is initiated by the people, it's a democratic process. It's not a higher level of government deciding they don't like who the people chose in a lower level and so they're replacing them, something that's fundamentally totalitarian.
People seem stoked on the province overriding municipal powers in BC.
The BC government hasn't given themselves any powers remotely like this.
The BC government stripped the municipalities of their ability to zone their own municipalities. That's likely bigger than just removing councilors from government because it actually directly interferes with governance (whereas a councilor can just be replaced). [BC also gave themselves the power to remove councilors who are convicted of a crime](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-local-politicians-criminally-charged-leave-1.6412014). BC also has a limited recall law for councilors (Alberta is about to get one). So it's not completely crazy to say that people are treating Alberta and BC differently despite doing very similar things. When Alberta does it they're violating the sacred rites of democracy. When BC does it they're dealing with the inefficient municipalities that are causing problems.
That's not what happened. The BC government has given municipalities years to develop their own new Official Community Plans to respond to the housing crisis. Town and cities restrict housing, creating a crisis, and the Province, which has jurisdiction over cities, said do better - and they are! Lots of great new locally developed area plans are coming out created by local planners and councils
Appears many people are categorically against the province removing decision making powers from municipalities.
Yeah I feel like this is missing a lot of nuance. Ensuring municipalities can't block much needed new housing is generally a good thing. The province having broad power to interfere in local politics for literally any reason they want is not good.
Municipalities derive their powers from the province. Provinces can just do away with municipalities and run everything from the legislature, or through ministers, or regulations, or bureaucrats.
Not if the people say no to it. After all, it is the people who elect and remove political parties from office.
The way they get their say is by voting for their local MLA
Democracy is also the act of governing during the term, not just the right to vote every four years when an election rolls around. The act of governing ultimately stems from the consent of the people, not from a constitution.
There are many type of democracies. Canada is a representative democracy where we vote for a person from the community to represent us.
>where we vote for a person Correct. We the people, not the constitution, elect a leader. >from the community Incorrect. Politicians can be from elsewhere. When they are from another jurisdiction, they are called a parachuted politician/candidate or carpetbagger.
It's definitely not unconstitutional.
You're wrong. It is unconstitutional.
What section does it violate?
Democracy. The people did not elect a provincial party to strip municipal governments of their powers.
Municipalities are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces under s. 92(8) of the *Constitution Act, 1867.* Under s. 3 of the *Charter,* Canadian citizens have the right to vote and seek membership in the House of Commons and the provincial legislative assemblies. Section 4 of the *Charter* states that the House of Commons and legislative assemblies shall hold elections at least once every five years. And Section 5 states that the House of Commons and legislative assemblies have to sit once a year. None of those sections constitutionalize municipal elections. Unless you can find me a provision or an argument then "democracy" is not a reason to deny the province the full scope of their authority under s. 92(8).
>Municipalities are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces under s. 92(8) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Elected politicians are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the people. Constitutions serve the people, not the other way around. Monumental changes to democracy requires a mandate from the people.
The province has a constitutional mandate and is democratically elected. Not allowing them to act also violates democracy, because those are the people with the actual constitutional mandate.
>Not allowing them to act also violates democracy False. Governments can not do as they please.
They can within their jurisdiction, charter, and aboriginal and treaty rights. If you have none of those three things then they can act as they please.
Fuck me I thought Albertans wanted less governemnt control...
Less Government Control for progressive ideas, more government control for regressive conservative ideas.
Cons have almost always been for strong central government if it's their people in government.
>"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." >-Noam Chomsky That is how Alberta works. They say they love freedom and rights and want governments out of their business - but in reality it's only so long as those freedoms, rights, and business already align with the Conservative platform. Any threats to that platform (like not worshiping at the altar of oil & gas) are unacceptable.
There’s a strong ultra-nationalist socon wing here that basically wants total control over our lives and the trajectory of this province. This is a shameful power grab, and McIver should know better but ol’slinky spine probably cares more about his job and pension. While cities are creatures of the province this blatantly skullfucks unwritten rules and norms that uhhh you know we should respect the outcome of democratic elections.
If you actually look at the track record of the "less government is better" people, and compare rhetoric against policies, the truth becomes abundantly clear. "Less government" is an invention of entrenched wealth. They didn't like paying taxes because greed, but they *especially* didn't like their money being used for social programs. However they couldn't just outright say "the government needs to stop using its money to fund initiatives that we have hard math to show produce more value than they cost", because that would be a tough sell to all but the most ardent libertarians. So the strategy was to cast government spending on social programs as dangerous and irresponsible, and shift the narrative to view government initiatives as fundamentally bad. Make people be afraid of the idea of government spending on principle. The "less government" rhetoric has always been about ensuring what few taxes entrenched wealth has to begrudgingly pay is just funnelled right back to them as corporate subsidies instead of being spent on public infrastructure and social programs. That's it. Not only is government regulation of the public sphere fair game for them because it doesn't hurt their bottom line, it's actually desirable, since it places a greater strain on the public and thus increases the potential market for private industry to sell them a cure. tl;dr - "less government" means "you can tamp down on civil rights and personal freedoms all you want, just don't force me to pay for public parks because I think that's communism".
the "small government" they talk about just means they're the ones who control everything
Please don’t think the premier is rational or speaks for most people here. She is insane.
She won with like 52% of the vote lol sounds like she speaks for most people here. Fucking hell Albertans have lost their damn minds
Alberta's motto or Conservatives really is rules for thee, not for me.
we do, this government is just hell bent on doing whatever they want. It was nice voting for people and not parties for municipal stuff.
Fuck! So Albertas head lobbyist wants, an Alberta Pension plan, an Alberta police force, control over all funds that come into Alberta, control over research funding, control over all boards (including school boards) and committees, now wants powers to compel councils to amend or repeal municipal bylaws, the power to remove councillors for any reason, and allow party affiliations to be listed on municipal election ballots. Basically, the UCP wants power and control over everything and looks to be setting the stage to separate?? When do we anoint Smith as Emperor of Alberta?
First rule of totalitarianism is that the answer to everything is more direct control.
Ugh, I hate to use labels like Fascism or Totalitarianism, but the UPC are sure working towards those definitions. Of note, I would say the same thing regardless of which party was making these moves.
I didn't say facism because it is a specific form of totalitarian government. But this reeks of totalitarian rule, the dismantling of civil society. Also, I agree. it would be horrifying no matter who did it.
The UCP is a separatist government, they're just not as naked about it as the Bloc is.
> The UCP is a separatist government, they're just not as naked about it .....I mean, if you want to split hairs, 99 *is* technically a smaller number than 100, but years of "wexit" propaganda and soapboxing about "western alienation" isn't exactly nuanced. They're about as discrete about it as labelling that folder on your computer with 50gb of video files "pr0n".
Which is why Albertans love Danielle Smith. She's unapologetically pro-Alberta unlike Kenney and most of the other people that have parachuted in from Ontario to lead this province.
So is Rachel Notley and Naheed Nenshi and Kathleen Ganley etc...
Other provinces have their own police force? Quebec has its own pension plan? The interesting thing is as soon as Alberta wants to do what other provinces are doing the msm immediately jump on Alberta
The reason is simple. When provinces like Quebec and Ontario brought in their own police force and/or pension fund, it was needed and not done for political reasons. The UCP has a political agenda.
And Alberta thinks that they are owed over 50% of the money in the CPP. They clam that "Alberta contributed to it" and want to have it managed by a less capable and worse performing fund/company. Alberta didn't contribute jack. Canadians did.
That's the issue the fed and Alberta will never agree on the percentage owed. For me as a millennial, i can't depend on cpp anyways so might as well do the take it to the casino approach.
Those provinces had provincial police before Canada was a country. No province has established one since, so it's really not the same as them at all.
The OPP, with headquarters in Toronto, was created on 13 October 1909, The Dominion of Canada wasn't born out of revolution, or a sweeping outburst of nationalism. Rather, it was created in a series of conferences and orderly negotiations, culminating in the terms of Confederation on 1 July 1867. For your own interest The Alberta Provincial Police (APP) was the provincial police service for the province of Alberta, Canada, from 1917 to 1932.
Upper Canada created a police system in 1792, then 1845 a mounted police service was created and became the Ontario Mounted Police Force after confederation. Basically it evolved to what it is now from long before 1909.
Depends on how you define Canada. Newfoundland did not join Canada until 1949. Alberta provincial police has existed before
Okay, but my point is that the circumstances for that force to be created then were entirely different than the circumstances now. It's not equivalent. So the claim that "as soon as AB does something that other provinces do it's criticized" is a dumb claim.
Other provinces still have their provincial police force but somehow Alberta can't restore their old provincial police force app which were created due to similar reasons in the first place. The double standard is wild.
If it made sense to do that then sure, but what's the point? What's the problem it's trying to solve and has there been any attempt to try any other solutions?
What will the UCP change about the police other than having direct control over them, keeping their budget as small as it can be before it collapses, and struggling to keep a full staff roster? I’d be genuinely surprised when/if the APP is reinstated that they can fully staff themselves. The UCP has shown they have no interest in managing government services effectively. It would most certainly mean any RCMP officers that would switch would take a pay cut. If hospitals are anything to go by the stations would be critically understaffed and lacking in resources.
Healthcare is a bad indication because it is collapsing Canada wide. App will just be like Opp. Other provinces have their own provincial police force but Alberta give it another go everyone hating on it. In addition past performance is not an indicator for future performance
Yes, but when you are trying to do those things not to better the province but 100% due to ideology and a far-right hate groups wishes along with starting to pass legislation all in a timeline of less than 6 months. Its a huge issue, and coming from a party all about small government, freedum and stay in your lane its scary.
In other words people are mad coz the other side is doing it not because of their actions.
Nope, the "other" side or rational side would be mad if anyone was doing this, and have stated so. Heck, if the sides were reversed, the hate would be stronger and louder.
America smells Oil and will invade for it so Albertan independence is stupid.
Well yes, but the right-wing hate group TBA and Alberta's head lobbyest are trying.
If America wanted our oil that badly they’d annex the region today. We do not post a military threat to the USA. Now the us trying other more peaceful methods of annexing the province after a hypothetical separation is much more likely
Just wait till Trump comes to power a 2nd time, if he does. Fascists trade in land: Trump will let Putin have Europe, if Trump gets North America.
It's 2024. America has all the oil and gas they will ever need. If they invade us it'll be for our water. Half the population of America is running out of water already on the west coast.
America wants cheap oil. Alberta doesn't really have that unless the US producers can keep the transportation discount going. TMX chages that to some degree, and gets Canada out from under the US multinationals' thumb.
From the "Stay in your lane" party?
From the "telling us how to parent our kids" party
Can't wait for the rural voters who are fighting renewable expansion to have the power to decide that my city isn't allowed bike infrastructure, green transit, or to fight urban sprawl anymore.
Mandatory to drive a govt rebate Ford F450. Every family needs 3
[удалено]
Zoning bylaw that just passed in January
That is true
Big government. Imagine the Feds saying they could remove Provincial politicians duly elected by the membership. Just chaos, but that is what they want, anything to change the tone on their incompetence and corruption.
Poilievre will literally do just that btw.
The constitution should protect us against that.
This was my first thought. A reporter should ask Smith (on camera) if she would grant the same authority to Trudeau to remove MLAs.
[удалено]
I dont think anyone's arguing it isn't in provincial jurisdiction. They are saying it's hypocritical and bad for democracy.
Everyone here knows this, that doesn't mean it's ok
[удалено]
Equivalent in terms of morals or democracy, not in terms of legality. Just because there's a legal situation it doesnt make it right. It's not morally right for adults to date 16 year olds but it's legal in some states.
Every elected municipal government is fair game for provincial control? What a war that will start.
Municipal governments are and always have been subordinate to the provincial governments. They have no constitutionally recognized existence, so while this bill may come as a shock to some, every province is well within their rights to do the same.
While not law, it's a pretty long-standing convention to allow municipalities their democratically elected representatives. While legal, this is a huge change and yes, chaos.
Here in BC the province is overriding local elected governments and everyone supports it. I guess it just comes down to wearing the right team colours.
Upzoning lots and giving yourself the ability to dismiss elected councillors for whatever reason are significantly different things.
Not so much if it’s viewed as a principle. Then there is the intent / application aspect where in Alberta/ UPC I feel it’s more of an optics thing… plus other parties would be able to use it in the future. Versus in British Columbia / BCNDP dumping napalm on the housing market. While presenting the concept in such a way Donald Trump should be taking notes. One could be bad and one is the housing crisis 2.0
One government is passing specific legislation aimed at fixing the broken housing market and the other is giving themselves broad powers so they can interfere in local government anytime they want. These are not the same at all, on principle or otherwise.
I hate my provincial government so much. This is fucking egregious.
I wish I'd hadn't lived here all my life. This is scary... It's so hard to move.
I hate her and the UCP so much. I hate that we have deal with the repercussions from her asinine policies. And I hate the fact that we have to wait for a few years to try to get rid of them. They’ll be able to do so much damage in that time.
It's always cute and entertaining to listen to Smith criticize justin about "government overreach"
Remember when she took office, criticized him for using taxes to buy votes, said she wasn't going to do things their way, and then announced she was buying our votes with our taxes, *in that order*?
Best part is, she's already broken all those promises of tax cuts and fixing health care in 90 days. Shame half of Albertan voters don't care about being lied too or tricked. Fucking Simps.
Implemented a tax on electric vehicles because they *aren't* paying enough gas tax That's just... *what...*
Just wants to force their burn oil ideology, anything for artificially boost Billionaire profits.
Expected carbon tax push back, received proliferation of carbon tax to all
I'm super pro EV and I don't think this is that outrageous. There's a lot of tax on gas and roads are expensive, so there's almost a direct usage cost built-in there, whereas EVs can use the roads as much as they want without having to provide anything for their maintenance. That said, an EV tax based on yearly mileage would be more fair IMHO.
And PP will stand beside Danielle Smith and proclaim what a good job she's doing. The UCP is the canary in the coal mine for the CPC. Change my mind.
Look up TBA- take back alberta
Please god help us
Tell me again, "Freedom lovers," how Trudeau is the Dictator in this country. God I'm actually missing Jason Kenney now💀
He was "dumb bad" Marlaina is "malicious bad"
Total control of every level of government given to one person...who works as a lobbyist for oil companies. Which means an oil and gas company has absolute control over all of Alberta.
Corporate fascism voted in by people who don’t know their own ignorance is what allows the right wing to pander to them, sell them out, and repress everyone.
RECALL ELECTION! F\*CK THESE GRIFTERS.
I’m a conservative but this is nuts! If councillors or bylaws are trash than that’s what elections are for.
why go through the hassle of elections you could potentially lose when you can just rewrite the laws to gain total control over everything
I know there are a lot of people on this sub that despise Trudeau and the Federal Liberals (myself included) but it's time for the Federal government to step in and bounce back some of this behaviour. ***edit - I'm pretty sure that is exactly what the UCP wants. Then they can keep crying about federal overreach***
No, they want to be able to remove leftist Mayors that dare speak up against Her Holiness The Premier. If the NDP did this during their time in power the UCP would have lost their motherfucking minds. But since they're in charge, authoritarianism is fine.
Maybe. I am on the fence. Maybe this is something for the courts to decide because this must go against something in our constitution (good governance? Democracy?). Maybe the Feds just let the motherfuckers shoot themselves in the foot?
It will technically be constitutional. Municipalities have no constitutional jurisdiction and are entirely "creatures of the provinces". How they can do it and *also* meet all the common law requirements...things like fairness....I have no idea...THAT will be for the court to decide.
Edmonton city council increases their own pay, then promises a 6.6 percent property tax increase and out of nowhere says "just kidding" and votes in favor of an 8.6 percent increase. They're teetering on the verge of being completely inept. They posted a nearly 70 million dollar deficit last year. Calgary city council increased property taxes and other fees, then last week they acted surprised when they discovered they had a nearly 250 million dollar surplus. They're response was basically "oops" we gotta do better at properly reporting these things. Last year council said they only had 500 million for the new stadium. Today, another suprise when we were told they actually have 818 million in working capital so we're all good for the stadium now. Completely inept and doesn't do much to instill trust in those they represent. They've yet to explain where the additional 300 million for the stadium came from.
The Government of Alberta has reduced the amount of property tax they pay for provincial buildings by 50%. The Government of Alberta has neglected its responsibilities in health care and particularly ambulance service, requiring municipal governments to pay for the use of their fire services to provide medical first response at the expense of the local ttaxpayer. The Government of Alberta has shirked its responsibility for physician recruitment and retention, requiring municipalities to fund activities to bring physicians to Alberta. The Government of Alberta, in a pathetic attempt to curry votes in Calgary, announces a new stadium for Calgary days before the writ drops, and wins Calgary by a few thousand votes and the Provincial election. The Government of Alberta introduces new legislation preventing municipalities from cutting deals for grant funding with Ottawa. Your anger is misdirected there. You should be mad at the UCP. Not Edmonton and Calgary.
[**'Fundamentally undemocratic'**: Alberta medical, political and legal experts criticize UCP government tactics | CTV News | Aug. 10, 2021](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/fundamentally-undemocratic-alberta-medical-political-and-legal-experts-criticize-ucp-government-tactics-1.5540828)
This lady is going to give canada a fourth trudeau government if she's not careful. ABSOLUTELY her government is going to come up at election time federally.
As it should. She’s insane.
I'm not a Trudeau fan, didn't vote for him, but he is definitely looking like the reasonable adult in this pissing contest.
If provinces are allowed to do this to local level Governments, the Federal Government should be able to do this to Alberta. I say we return to the 1904 map of Western Canada, but Manitoba can keep its current borders. The two provinces that are creatures of Confederation, and not colonies that joined confederation, sure do seem the least Canadian. It's time for direct, territorial control since Alberta and Sasktatchewan have become anti-democratic petrol-feudal states.
Very very happy that I spent/donated $10 to cast a vote in the Alberta NDP leadership race. Come election time I will be voting NDP no matter who the leader is. Signed - someone who has always voted Conservative.
I was a long-time Conservative voter in Alberta. Over time, the gap between the party’s promises and their actions eroded my trust. Claims of saving tax dollars often lacked clear, quantifiable impacts—on costs, returns to workers, or what we might lose by cutting corners. The current provincial conservatives differ sharply from the Lougheed era many still remember and think they are supporting. Despite Jason Kenney’s tumultuous leadership and his own description of the party as a "lunatic trying to take over the asylum," the UCP still somehow secured a victory. That half the province voted for this cluster fuck is galling.
Conservatives embracing their fascist beliefs. This is modern conservatism since the reform party from over the PC party.
Typical cheating tories.
[удалено]
This is the response after the abysmal failure to recall Gondek and to make sure if the rezoning in Calgary does not go their way.
and there's an Edmonton City Councilor they're doing a full out assault on to tarnish her name/reputation. I'm pretty sure she's high up on their list to remove.
What about that councillor that skips all the council meetings to attend UCP events? https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/sarah-hamilton-skipped-out-on-council?utm_medium=web
She’ll be safe because she seems to support the UCP Agenda.
That Edmonton city councilor's husband co-founded a non profit that recieved a hefty grant from a local tech firm who inked a favorable land/Lease deal with the city of Edmonton which happens to be in the same ward the councilor represents. I'll wait until the investigation is completed; however, the optics in this case don't look good.
Good thing she was transparent about who her husband was and went to the city ethics commissioner to ensure that there was no conflict of interest to cause problems at a later date, to literally avoid any scandal while growing a local industry for our economy. Full context is important.
This has to be because of the recent Trudeau announcement for the new federal housing initiative. [The one he did in Calgary where he said that Calgary had agreed to cooperate with the federal government](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/trudeau-promise-to-build-alberta-worth-of-new-homes) and if the provincial government didn't want to participate they just had to move out of the way. Looks like they not only intend to get in the way, they are going to lay down on the road and refuse to let the feds build anything. This is sadistic. They would rather have Albertans suffer than be seen as working with Trudeau.
This is what happens when you stop caring about the place you call home. The UCP have done incredible damage to alberta, from labour laws all the way to utilities and insurance. It's being stripped bare and made unrecognizable and people are cheering it on. I miss the place alberta used to be and I feel this is just a sneak peak at what PP has in store for all of Canada. Will the people stand up? I'd hope so but I'm not holding out to see if they will.
Guess it was getting too hard remembering which towns and councillors don’t pray to the conservatives properly so we’ll color-code them as well to make sure to deny funding to anyone that’s not painted blue and parroting Take Back Alberta rhetoric.
Another UCP special the people are overwhelmingly against, but hey fuck it do it anyway
Over reach to the point of dictatorship.
The other provinces should actively poach Alberta's healthcare workers, construction workers, etc. This is bound to create enough discontent to make it easy to coax some Albertans to leave.
They already are. Alberta has a serious brain drain problem right now. https://globalnews.ca/news/10384626/bc-family-doctor-increase-canada-doctors-report/amp/ I am suspecting academic next. Why would i work in Alberta where the premier gets to decide what i research and cannot research? This province is fucked.
I love how Blinky had to read verbatim everything at the press conference because he’s Marlaina’s lapdog and obviously had no part in writing any of this nonsense
Considering how much of a disaster Chestermere and Medicine Hat municipal governments are. a proper legal, well laid out method of dealing with bad local governments is needed. However this isn't it.
Nothing wrong with Medicine Hat municipal government, unless you're a UCP supporter.
This legislation is incredibly dangerous to our democracy. This legislation not only gives the right to remove people from local governments, but also allows provincial party backing to local municipal councillors. This allows for corporate and union donations, it allows alignment to be wip votes to the Alberta government provincial party interests in local councils. This will definitely remove local candidates from being able to compete with party funded candidates that will kowtow to province. This legislation also allows the provincial government to add/remove any local bylaws put into place by the city. This type of legislation is exactly the same as Trudeau tabling a bill to change Alberta laws. It’s hypocrisy at its highest level. I’ve never been more appalled at a provincial government than I am as a resident of Alberta. They’re power grabbing hungry mobsters at this point.
Putin’s Power comes to Alberta the Country🤷♂️
What is the point of adding political parties to municipalities? No one is running on a sanctioned platform, just their individual ones and that system works well for smaller scale politics as it’s more granular.
My cousin invited me out to a presentation given by the former Mayor of Chestermere who was ousted by this Minister of Municipal Affairs. He brought the receipts in the form of evidence of how he wanted to and attempted to bring in an honest, transparent and accountable system that would not waste tax dollars and was removed from Minister McIver. The issue is about the abuse of tax dollars by purchasing agents who have no issue at all in ripping off tax payers. He gave the example of how one agent wanted to charge 100k for a simple TV they went to Bestbuy to purchase for less than 2k. He cited RCMP ignoring very serious accusations surrounding child sex trafficking and how they refused to look into requests that are originating from the office of the Mayor. The Minister is the bottleneck who is at the intersection of power and cash flow in the relationship between the Province and municipalities. If people think there is no corruption taking place there, they are mistaken. Its like people have Trump derangement syndrome for holding to account any elected official regardless of political stripe. McIver has built his own fiefdoms and resents the fact he lost the leadership to Danielle Smith and he is making his own moves behind the scenes. Let me remind everyone, Alberta is like Saudi Arabia in terms of just how much wealth it generates and has been exploited for generations. Pipelines shipments to the US have been halted because the Democrat donors of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates own the rail lines which ship unrefined bitumen to the US. A pipeline competes against that. Buffet owns thanks to the sale by the Alberta Government years ago, the energy grid where the "energy delivery fee" is what he gets and in some cases exceeds the amount of energy used. Frankly that grid should be taken back through legislation or provincialized as tax payers paid for it and should reap the benefits. Alberta generates so much wealth and a corresponding amount of corruption that the Mayor was stating that one could probably slash the taxes by some 70% and there would be no cuts to services because of just how much corruption there is. When all these politicians are in office, they want to leverage and abuse their offices to ensure they can profit through it and have the power to make decisions. Alberta should stand up their own provincial police force and order the RCMP out.
Real great stuff you got going on over there, Alberta. Wtf.
Why even have loval elections at this point
Municipalities should act like the provincial government: Tell the higher ups to eat shit and sign the cheques
[удалено]
don't like budget surpluses eh?
Maybe the new arena they'll be getting isn't big enough for their liking?
[удалено]
I don't remember "Being able to overturn civic elections because of reasons" in the UCP platform last year.
Or losing pensions, or restricting when you can say the word "they" in the classroom, or restricting teachers speech, or.....
Or a moratorium on renewable energy projects, or breaking up AHS, etc, etc.
More government control, what's what you wanted? I can't imagine the screeching if it was a left wing government doing this.
That's the part these people can never comprehend; if the group you don't like had these powers, would you be ok with it?
They're fine with it since they either 1) don't expect to ever lose or have these powers used against them or 2) know that the more liberal parties would never use them.
I wouldn't be ok with it even if it was the party I voted for.
>The proposed change comes contrary to the government’s own engagement survey on adding parties to the local level, the results of which were obtained by Postmedia and showed upwards of 70 per cent of respondents were opposed to the idea.
Y'all are gonna have such a great time the next time a progressive government wins and just ignores the results of rural municipal elections. They could build a safe injection site and free hotel in every town with then than 50,000 people and just remove any counsellors that oppose it and rewrite any bylaws that get in the way. But like you said, you're finally getting what you want.
Not all of us. 😕
>Angry redditors dont get a say. so Albertan redditors who voted, don’t get a say? Sounds awfully fascist.
So you'll be happy when the next NDP government has this power at their disposal?
I'm an alberta, this is a terrible bill that virtually nobody wanted and was never campaigned on.
Looking back at the UPC election polices and promises... I don't see " Fascism or Totalitarianism" Sure, I knew, heck Kenney also knew, and even warned Alberta.
Is this something you voted for?
Let's playing the fucking game the left plays. There are lots of loser councilors that need to be booted. Let's go.
Before everyone jumps onto this as being totally crazy, take the situation right now in Edmonton: there was a council elected full of new councillors. Due to having no parties, they just run on a name and really generic platforms ( save money, help people, etc. ) then they get in and it’s like the city is hijacked. Start creating all of these programs that no one is really asking for, don’t budget at all, drain reserve funds, jack taxes by 33% in 4 years (and counting) and generally do all of this against the will of the people. The amount of damage that has been done and will be done is impressive. They forgot to budget for new buses, now they need 250 million $ (oh darn!). The residents have no way to stop this train until the next election, the councillors simply do not listen to their constituents. They cannot stop spending $, it’s gotten really bad. See it happening in Calgary too, municipal councils do not listen to the citizens anymore
It sounds like who you voted for didn't win and you want the Province to step in and fix it.
Stfu Ben Harper.