The Alberta government is proposing sweeping changes to both the Municipal Government Act (MGA) and the Local Authorities Election Act (LAEA) that cover municipal elections, donations and the addition of municipal political parties.

Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver met with media to talk about the details Thursday afternoon, and he said they wanted to strengthen Albertans’ trust in their local government.

“Through this legislation, we are ensuring that locally elected officials and councils are accountable to the Albertans who elect them and make decisions that are clearly in Alberta’s interest and reflect the transparency and fairness that the citizens of Alberta, deserve,” said Minister McIver.

The changes are wide-ranging – we’ve included a fact sheet below that outlines all of the proposed changes. Ones most pertinent to municipal affairs include rules around political parties, third-party advertiser donations and the use of electronic vote tabulators.  

Political parties will be allowed at the municipal level for the 2025 election in a pilot project just for Calgary and Edmonton. McIver said political parties have always been allowed to exist at the municipal level, however this will put rules around how they may operate, including donations, disclosures, and having the party names on the ballots.  

“Over municipal election cycles, there have been plenty of examples in Alberta’s big cities of candidates organizing along party lines, and we are taking this step to enhance transparency for the voters of Calgary and Edmonton to allow candidates to show their party affiliation if they so choose, to give Calgary and Edmonton voters, I think, a better sense of who they are voting for,” Minister McIver said.

Candidates, however, are under no obligation to align with a party for a municipal election.

UCalgary political scientist Lisa Young said there are arguments on both sides of having municipal political parties. She said that there’s merit in that it helps voters make sense of who or what they’re voting for. That could, theoretically, improve civic engagement and therefore voter turnout.

“It’s what political scientists would refer to as a heuristic – it’s a mental shortcut. That means that voters don’t need to invest as much time and energy into figuring out who it is that they want to support,” she said.

On the flip side, Young said that municipal councils aren’t really set up to handle political party organization.

“Instead, what we’re accustomed to seeing are different groups of councillors coming together to support different issues with a real emphasis on reflecting the opinions of their constituents, which might be very much a function of local concerns, geographic concerns,” Young said.

“From that point of view, the idea of imposing party discipline into this level of government, I think, doesn’t fit all that well.”

Calgary city councillors respond to Bill 20

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he believes allowing municipal political parties just formalizes what’s already happening at the municipal level.

“Last election we had an entity that was well funded, well organized – union funded, I should say – endorsed and promoted a slate of candidates,” he said.

“My understanding is that you can still remain independent, and I would hope that councillors always would remain independent and represent their ward regardless, that they would just then be endorsed by a party that would maybe say you’re leaning more towards conservative values, lower taxes and safety, etc. or more to the left.”

Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott said he found some of his colleagues’ responses humorous.

“The people who have direct ties to the premier are saying that ‘yeah, of course, there’s already parties because yeah, of course someone’s already been whipped,” he said.

“Maybe the accusations around about that there’s people whipping votes are just really a personal admission that his votes are also being whipped. So, there’s a lot of humour in some of the things that I’m seeing.”

A Postmedia story from earlier this year showed mass opposition among Alberta respondents, along with the Alberta Municipalities lobbying against the addition of political parties.

Walcott said he sees this as the province exerting more authority over the big cities.

“You ask them the question purely, is this really just a matter of the province trying to institute some type of control over municipal elections because they really can’t handle the fact that municipal councils tend to be independent,” Walcott said.

“The end result is they don’t play the party line as much as they wish we would, because it would make their life so much easier if other elected officials didn’t ask them questions.”

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong said each councillor should come into decisions representing constituents.

“I know for sure that when we take a look at council sessions, each and every one of us have independent opinions and perspectives, we take information accordingly,” he said.

“Whether or not the future should be council having slates and council having common positions, I’m not in favour of that. I’ve always been a believer that municipal government should be representative of constituents every day of the year.”

Tabulator use will be banned

Should the proposed rules go through, Calgary’s 2025 municipal elections will not use electronic tabulators to count votes.

Minister McIver said that the tabulator decision was an issue of trust among electors and said he couldn’t cite any reasons for discounting the efficacy of the tabulator technology.

“The fact is, there are some Albertans that don’t like the idea of machines counting their ballots. As I said, this isn’t about any particular liking or disliking any particular machine or brand of machines,” McIver said.

“This is about the confidence that the voters will have the morning after the election.”

The Minister said that even if it’s faster and cheaper, it doesn’t make up for the main concern of voter trust in the election itself.

“Any argument that tabulators get the results faster, in my opinion certainly didn’t come true in Calgary where I was elected last election,” McIver said.  

“There was colleagues of mine that waited till 10, 11, 12 o’clock at night for the results. I don’t remember. I remember getting the results a lot earlier than that when the votes were counted on paper ballots.”

According to the 2021 General Election Summary Report produced by Elections Calgary, tabulators were used in a vote of electors (Olympic vote) before they were used in the 2021 municipal election. In that report, it said that once tabulators successfully produced results, they were securely transported to a central location.

“Elections Calgary began publishing unofficial results as they came in, within approximately 30 minutes of the close of voting stations at 8 p.m,” the report read.

“The quick generation and publication of unofficial counting of ballots was due to the use of vote tabulators.”

Unofficial results of the 2021 municipal election were known before 10 p.m.

According to a Global Calgary story from 2017, the municipal election in that year was marred by issues with paper ballots, voting, and vote reporting. Laura Kennedy, who was Chief Returning Officer at the time said that changes needed to be made, including examining the use of tabulators.

Council changed local bylaws to allow the use of tabulators in 2018.

City of Calgary administration issued a statement in response to Bill 20.

“The City Clerk and Returning Officer, as well as Administration, will take the time to review the proposed amendments and engage with Council,” read an emailed statement.

“This may include required amendments to the Election Bylaw (Bylaw 35M2018). Administration will inform Council about the legislative changes.”

Donations, TPAs and other items

The Government of Alberta is also looking at making big changes to donations and third-party advertisers (TPAs).  They will once again allow union and corporate donations to municipal candidates, with the same $5,000 limit as individuals. 

They will also allow donations outside the local election year and require annual reporting of donations.  TPAs will also be required to register and report finances on plebiscites. Only Albertans and Alberta companies and unions can contribute, up to the $5,000 limit. They will also limit donations to third-party advertisers to $5,000 per election period, which starts May 1 of an election year.

“While the Act was amended several years ago to quote take the quote, ‘big money’ out of local politics, Albertans are not convinced that that is the case,” McIver said.  

“Rather it appears unions and corporations have found a way to donate around the restrictions which now less transparent than it once was.”

According to the province, TPAs will also have to disclose their finances in line with current candidate regulations, along with their individual donors. Local media in Calgary had to FOIP these documents after the last election and were initially denied identifying information before the province’s privacy commissioner intervened.

Young questioned the return of these donations.

“Increasingly the norm in Canada at the federal level, at the provincial level, and often at the municipal level has been toward only permitting individuals to contribute to candidates or political parties. I think the sense here is that elections ought to belong to the voters, and that allowing corporations and unions to make contributions, which relationships with politicians in which there’s an expectation of some kind of a reward, a quid pro quo,” said Young.

“So it is surprising to see the provincial government move in the opposite direction to reopen the door for union and corporate contributions and especially in municipal politics, where there are potentially closer relationships between developers who want to get approval for their latest projects, or unions that are going to be negotiating with the city for wage settlements.”

Bylaw, councillor repeal

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that the legislation presented more questions than answers. However, there were some positives in the proposed provincial legislation, she said. Mayor Gondek said having criminal record checks for candidates was a positive step. As was the province now validating recall petitions, as it takes the burden off municipal administration.

“Fully exempting housing providers from all property taxes, this is a big deal,” she said.

“We have been doing this as a municipality for quite some time, and asking the province to match this and I’m very happy to see that they’re now following our lead.”

The province having the ability to repeal local bylaws, remove councillors at cabinet’s discretion and re-introduction of “big money” into municipal elections were troublesome, the mayor said.

“The provincial government claims that this is intended to ensure that local elections are transparent that they’re fair and they’re free,” the mayor said.

“But I’m left asking why they’ve inserted themselves into municipal government in a manner that actually strips the voting public’s right to elect the council that they believe is the best to serve them.

“If the people that are in provincial government right now are interested in doing the work of the municipal government, perhaps they should have run for these positions.”

One red flag is that the notion of “public interest” isn’t well defined by the province. Minister McIver told reporters that public interest, either in the case of bylaw or councillor repeal, would be assessed on a case-by-case basis. He said that cabinet would be well-advised to make decisions wisely, as a poor decision could cost them future provincial elections. McIver said that he’d prefer if the government had to use neither measure.

Mayor Gondek said the repeal of bylaws is cause for concern.

“I think the idea that the municipal government no longer has the ability to set forth bylaws that wouldn’t be turned over by a provincial government is something that we all need to think carefully about,” she said.

Young said that these elements make one wonder why we would be electing future councils at all.

“This is heavily interventionist. The idea that the provincial government has a veto over every decision that a council makes, that a bylaw can be repealed in this way, really takes away the already fairly limited autonomy that councils have.”

The province said that it would consult with municipalities and citizens through 2024. Bill 20, however, would come into effect upon the bill’s passage and receiving Royal Assent.