Alberta Legislature update, Bill 28 retreat

We are finally back to work in the Alberta Legislature and the proceedings certainly kicked off with a bang.
The first week involved a full government retreat on a bill the PCs were trying to ram through. Bill 28, the Modernizing Regional Governance Act, will allow the province to create regional growth boards which would be responsible for coming up with growth plans for municipalities clustered together.

In a lot of instances, there are economies of scale that can be achieved by having a regional effort contribute to the delivery of services.  Indeed, it very well may be in a few towns’ best interest to work together to save costs on services like water treatment or on building regional infrastructure.
Now at first glance the government bill sounds good, but as is often the case, the fine print tells a much more troubling story.
What the bill would have done in effect was give the Province complete control over municipal governments. And hard as it is to believe, this bill would have given the PC government power to fine mayors and/or councillors $10,000, or even send them to jail for a year for refusing to hand over paperwork. Yes, that is written in the legislation.
As you are probably figuring out, there was a lot of opposition and concern from municipal governments. Making matters worse, the two major bodies representing local governments–AUMA and AAMD&C–weren’t even consulted!
We pointed all this out to the government and asked them to slow down, to consult, to gather feedback.  We made clear that regional cooperation is often smart and responsible, but that any kind of effort should be voluntary rather than legislatively forced.  We demanded that the government start viewing local decision-makers as their partners rather than their subjects. 

In fact, our Wildrose team hammered these points home all evening, and well into the morning with the session finally ending near 2:00 a.m..

Well guess what, the next morning the PC’s did what we were pleading with them to do, they delayed the bill.  They begrudgingly agreed to take it off the table and consult just like we asked them to.
It is a victory for local municipalities and it shows how effective an official opposition can be.  We will continue to push for accountability and pose the tough fair questions to government.
As always I encourage you to contact me if there’s anything on the provincial agenda that you want to discuss or feel I can help you with.