Alberta municipalities cool toward provincial ministers amid cuts, election changes

Premier Danielle Smith faced more than 1,000 mayors, councillors and municipal officials — many frustrated with her government's recent legislation, at the Alberta Municipalities fall conference in Red Deer on Thursday. 

Smith and Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver received a polite, yet tepid, reaction from the crowd to their speeches.

Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam said his members, which come from the 265 cities, towns and villages that represent 85 per cent of Albertans, are frustrated with measures in Bill 18 and Bill 20 — two controversial bills passed by Smith and her United Conservative government in the spring, as well as cuts to funding.

The measures include allowing political parties to run candidates in municipal elections in Edmonton and Calgary, a ban on the use of vote counting machines in municipal elections and a prohibition on municipalities entering into funding agreements with the federal government without provincial consent. 

The changes caught many municipal leaders off-guard.

Then there are the funding issues. Municipalities are angry about a funding shortfall in a program that provides them with grants in lieu of property taxes on provincial buildings.

The grants were cut nearly in half by former premier Jason Kenney in 2019 and 2020. 

Gandam said the province is giving municipalities $722 million in infrastructure grants each year in the Local Government Fiscal Framework.

"It's a start, but another $1 billion a year of funding is needed," he said. "We believe more needs to be done to address Alberta's $30 billion and growing infrastructure deficit."

Delegates' frustrations with the provincial government were echoed in some of the resolutions passed at the convention. A resolution calling for a reversal of the ban on vote counting machines was passed by 85 per cent of delegates. 

"What we have heard is that people want to go back to counting ballots the old-fashioned way by paper," she said. 

Gandam said he hasn't heard about any problems from member municipalities and the public.

"I would be really interested in hearing where that request is coming from because we're not hearing it as elected officials," he said.

Costs of tabulator bans

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said it will cost municipalities more to hand count ballots and delay the results.  He said Smith is banning the machines based on misinformation from American conspiracy theorists. 

Edmonton has estimated the extra costs incurred by a tabulator ban at $2.6 million. Nenshi said he talked to people from a mid-sized city who estimated their costs would go up by $300,000. He was blunt about what the province should do. 

"If you're going to put costs onto municipalities, pay for it," he said. "Don't expect property tax payers to have increased property taxes to pay for your whims."

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the city clerk's office has made preliminary estimates that not using vote tabulators would cost the city at least $1.3 million in the next election. 

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he hopes the province reimburses municipalities for the extra cost of hand counting ballots because taxpayers will end up footing the bill. He says the city has used tabulators for 20 years and has never encountered problems. 

"Adding $2.6 million … we should be avoiding that cost," he said. "It's unnecessary and unneeded."

Sohi is happy the province will again offer low-interest loans to municipalities. But he said the province's refusal to pay its full share of taxes on provincial buildings in Edmonton has cost the city $90 million in deferred revenue. That cost gets piled on to local ratepayers, he said. 

"That is not fair," Sohi said. "People are struggling to pay their bills."