Opinion: Alberta appears to be crusading against its own cities – and Canadians should take note

Tim Querengesser is an Edmonton-based writer whose work on cities, city governance and metropolitan economies has appeared in The Globe and Mail, CityLab, Canadian Geographic, The Walrus, Financial Post, CBC and The Sprawl.

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford decided to slash the size of Toronto’s city council, it felt like a logical step in the populist, anti-elite spirit that helped his Progressive Conservatives win the 2018 provincial election. But it was also a reminder that the partisan grievance-politics movement taking hold from the top down in the United States, where a bellicose President is fuelling divisive rhetoric in statehouses and judicial elections, likely wouldn’t develop in the same way here in Canada. Instead, those politics would more likely reveal themselves where the factors are most advantageous – in our cities.

Cities are where the vast majority of Canadians live – more than 80 per cent of us reside in urban centres, even if many of us don’t necessarily identify as such. Cities are where a majority of newcomers settle and where a majority of our GDP is now produced. Yet Canadian cities are also hamstrung by provincially controlled policies, which give them few ways to raise money, despite having responsibility for 60 per cent of the infrastructure we rely on daily, and prevent them from running deficits.

The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated this mismatch of jurisdiction and power. Municipal governments have recently called on Ottawa to directly allocate $7.6-billion to them as they face existential budgetary shortfalls. And like Mr. Ford in 2018, some provincial governments are about to seize the opportunity to put their populist, urbanite-bashing rhetoric into action.

The latest to do so? Alberta.

The forthcoming scrap over Albertan cities became clearest this week, when Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government passed Bill 29. The bill followed a survey that asked Albertans what, if any, changes they wanted to be made to municipal elections. Even though the government did not release those results, it has now passed a bill that recasts municipal-election donation rules to allow individuals to donate up to $5,000 per candidate to an unlimited number of candidates.

Compared with rules for federal and provincial election campaigns, these rules are outliers. Indeed, Bill 29 will even allow third-party advertisers in the campaigns to remain anonymous, by requiring audited financial statements only for advertisers that spend more than $350,000.

The government argues that Bill 29 restores fairness. “The next round of local elections will be critical for the future of Alberta,” Minister of Municipal Affairs Kaycee Madu said in a release. “These changes are about levelling the playing field, so the best candidates for local office – regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum – are running and winning.”

Many worry the bill sets the stage for candidate slates, and, with them, the formal entry of partisan politics at the municipal level in Alberta. On the surface, this may seem benign. But Edmonton city councillor Andrew Knack thinks the relative economic and cultural success of Canada’s cities of late has been driven by individual politicians free to reflect constituent interests, rather than the tribal warfare and concessions that are part and parcel of being tied to a party.

A rise of party politics in Canada’s cities could “pull away from people’s willingness to think critically about issues, and it impacts the need for us to recognize that cities are going to forever evolve,” Mr. Knack said. “When you start introducing party politics, you start creating factions.”

But Bill 29 is not the only cudgel about to be wielded against Alberta’s cities. In June, after his government’s Fair Deal Panel released its recommendations, Mr. Kenney has publicly mused about holding a provincial referendum in concert with already planned municipal elections in 2021. This referendum would ask Albertans about equalization, the idea of creating a provincial police force, and about the province’s continued participation in the Canada Pension Plan.

The potential optics of this ballot-blending are dangerous. “I’m very concerned about the stated intent to bring provincial referendums onto the municipal ballot,” Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given said in an interview. “The intention there would seem to be to confuse, in the minds of voters, local issues with provincial and national issues. I think it’s very important when people go to elect their local council that they have enough mental space to think about local issues – seniors’ care, affordable housing, homelessness, public security, parks and recreation. To crowd that out with thinking about Alberta’s place within Confederation, [or] provincial police forces, I think that does a disservice to the voters of Alberta.”

At best, the referendum will reduce 2021 municipal votes in Alberta to a kind of satisfaction survey with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government. But at worst, it could cause outrage and disillusionment with Ottawa to be bolted onto the municipal candidacies of so-called urban elites. Indeed, campaigns already exist to “take back city hall” from progressive mayors in both Calgary and Edmonton. Meanwhile, Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi has been described as “Trudeau’s mayor” by UCP cabinet ministers, lest the potential – though meaningless – connection be lost for those grinding an axe.

Alberta’s cities could yet persevere. But the darkest outcome surely now sits on the table: that Edmonton and Calgary, home to more than half of Alberta’s population – along with mid-size cities such as Medicine Hat or Lethbridge – see their councils diluted into glorified school boards that do the partisan bidding of their provincial governments.

It’s a worrying thought. Mr. Madu might well be right: The next round of municipal elections are “critical” for the future of Alberta, and a potential bellwether for the rest of the country.

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