Edmonton Journal ePaper

The campaigns have been quiet on municipal concerns

Considering the role of local government in the lives of voters, silence doesn't cut it

KEITH GEREIN kgerein@postmedia.com

Amid the frequent bozo eruptions, battles over health care privatization and raging wildfires, there hasn't been much bandwidth this election to talk about municipal-provincial relations, which haven't exactly been a source of harmony in recent years.

Yes, the campaign has brought infrastructure promises for the cities — heavily tilted toward Calgary — along with debate about how to manage crime, drugs and social disorder.

Those things are obviously important, and anyone who attended last week's memorial for two men brutally murdered in Edmonton's Chinatown a year ago got the message that we still have a long way to go on community safety.

But apart from the one-time, election-fuelled proclamations from the parties, I am generally more interested in how each of them would approach their relationships with civic leaders, and treat cities and towns more as partners in Alberta's development.

In part, this is about a willingness to listen and collaborate despite ideological differences, and in part it is about proper funding and alignment of responsibilities. Had there been more consistency on these things in recent years, you can imagine the better outcomes we might have had on COVID policy, economic recovery, affordability and homelessness, among other issues.

On that funding front, both major parties are offering similar policies in which the main annual grant to municipalities would be tied to swings of provincial revenue.

The UCP government has included this concept as part of its new Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF), which is set to come into effect next year. And the Danielle Smith government recently improved the program's terms by agreeing to fully index LGFF funding to changes in provincial income — up from 50 per cent indexed.

(Plainly, if provincial revenue is pegged to rise two per cent, LGFF funding is now also supposed to rise two per cent.)

As for the NDP, the party says it has long been ahead of the UCP on the indexing idea, which was included as part of the Big City Charters deal the former Notley government negotiated back in 2018. (The UCP later rescinded that agreement).

For this election, the NDP is again promising a one-to-one indexed program, but the party says it will go a step further by legislating these terms in something called the Partners in Prosperity Act.

When it comes to more innovative funding ideas, I think the UCP missed an opportunity by not talking more about the possibility of allowing municipalities to keep all of the property tax they collect rather than continuing to send a big chunk of it to the province every year.

Though there would be many complications, I'm told Smith's government remains interested in exploring the idea down the road. As such, it's a puzzle and a shame that the UCP didn't promote it more during the campaign.

Likewise, I am disappointed neither party has been forthright with their views on another potential shakeup — changing civic elections to allow candidates to run under political party banners.

The NDP ignored my questions on the matter, which is weird, considering Edmonton's last municipal election saw significant NDP involvement and a handful of de facto NDP candidates.

The UCP also ignored my questions, which is perhaps even weirder because Smith herself openly talked last fall about municipal political parties for Calgary and Edmonton.

This is where trust becomes a factor.

Smith has made it so in a variety of ways, including her refusal during this election to spell out a definitive position on some of her party's most controversial ideas, including an Alberta pension plan and a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.

The UCP leader has said only that such things can be revisited after the race. And though Smith didn't refer to it specifically, it seems we have no choice at this point but to put municipal political parties on that same list of policies in limbo.

That's simply not good enough. For such a big upheaval to how municipal government works, voters deserve to know now if this is a real possibility. Or failing that, we should at least be assured of a future referendum on the issue.

Ultimately, much of this comes down to respect, which must also extend to intergovernmental relations. I've heard over and over that people want their various governments to work together.

The success of such relationships depends greatly on personalities, and it is a two-way street. But it is also a matter of leaders establishing a proper diplomatic culture.

Here, again, I see a divergence with the parties, because the

UCP has not exactly written itself into the annals of respectful government.

The last year has thankfully brought about some improvement, including a much-needed, if belated, focus on crime and social disorder. But even still, the UCP has continued to do ire-provoking things.

Going around Edmonton's mayor and city council by hand-picking councillors to sit on a provincial task force was one such example. Unilaterally deciding to give itself three seats on city police commission boards was another, as was having

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi wait five months for his first meeting with Smith.

At the end of the day, I know provincial-municipal relations is not an issue that wins elections, but it should be a bigger part of the campaign.

(Perhaps former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi's endorsement of Notley on Friday will help draw some of the spotlight).

Municipalities drive a lot of Alberta's economy, and the cities in particular are struggling with some really complex social issues.

They are also central to the province's campaign to get people to move to Alberta — a campaign largely based on the promise of great communities and an affordable lifestyle.

If the next provincial government really wants to make good on that promise, they need to stop forgetting that the voters who elect them are the same voters who elect their local representatives.

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2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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