Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston at a recent conference hosted by Alberta Municipalities. (Supplied)

By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

"i would hate to see it," says councillo

Red Deer mayor, council members, staunchly against party politics at municipal level

Mar 20, 2024 | 12:58 PM

Red Deer’s mayor believes enshrining party politics at the municipal level would be a “poor move” and detrimental to the flexibility of local governance.

Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver told Alberta Municipalities (ABMunis) members at a conference last week that Albertans can expect the UCP to amend legislation which would allow for parties to actually be listed on the ballot under the Local Authorities Election Act. He noted, however, that despite the rule against listing them, technically parties or slates are already permitted to exist.

Speaking to rdnewsNOW about last week’s Alberta Municipalities gathering, Mayor Ken Johnston says such legislation would only cause more divisiveness.

“It would be, potentially, very difficult to govern. For example, if the mayor was elected under a liberal party banner, but council has a majority of another party, it would be challenging. And how would that look when you’re trying to do something with Blackfalds or Red Deer County?” he wonders.

“I’m really hoping we do not go down this road, because I really don’t see any positive change it would have on the way we do civic life.”

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Alberta Municipalities adopted a motion in favour of ‘Maintaining Non-Partisan Municipal Elections’ at its primary annual conference in September 2023. The resolution gained 95 per cent support.

The motion states that partisan politics at the municipal level would restrict individually elected officials from independently pursuing the best interests of the municipality, instead binding them by the ideology of the political party they represent.

Tyler Gandam, ABMunis president, says the UCP seems to be forging ahead on this despite three successive Government of Alberta surveys which show most Albertans are opposed to it.

“This, [also] despite the fact a survey conducted by pollster Janet Brown for ABmunis in September 2023 found that 68 per cent of Albertans were opposed to the idea,” Gandam adds.

Premier Danielle Smith said on her radio show in February that she’s in favour of the move, “especially for the largest municipalities.”

Other members of Red Deer city council are also firm in their opposition to said legislation.

Cindy Jefferies, who’s had two stints on council, says what appeals to her when it comes to municipal politics is that there are no parties.

“You spend way too much time trying to build your party, defend your party, and position your party, and not so much on the issues at hand. I would hate to see it,” she says. “It’s important for people to recognize that when coming to the council table, you represent everyone in the community, not just those who think like you. Party affiliations would take us a little further away from that.”

Longtime Councillor Lawrence Lee says introducing party politics locally doesn’t recognize the core purpose of a municipal council.

“We are talking about roads, utilities, infrastructure, water, wastewater, recreational amenities, and I don’t know if folks consider parties when thinking about those types of decisions,” says Lee.

“Hearing Minister McIver, what stuck in my mind was when he spoke about how if you don’t think there are political parties at the local level right now, well there were when he was a Calgary city councillor, but that’s out of context. Factually, we can say locally that there are people locally affiliated with whatever party, but the challenge is in the decision-making process; the actual decisions come down to a data-driven approach, so how do politics, or how should or could they influence decisions?”

Lee suggests the province is using an issue like this to distract from other hot-button topics.

“It’s part of an overarching strategy to throw as much as you can into the political hopper to create distractions to achieve maybe a few other things … such as an Alberta Pension Plan or a provincial police force.”

There’s also conjecture about the role the group Take Back Alberta is having on the push for parties locally.

Lee says regardless of who’s pushing for it, good councils are representative of the overall demographic

Jefferies’ concern comes down to the division a group like Take Back Alberta could cause by pushing for this.

“We already have enough division in the community on other things and the more we divide rather than come together, the worse off we are. A lot of time is wasted trying to resolve these divisions,” she says. “Quite often, there are personal vendettas against one or two candidates and that’s problematic, so it makes people think twice about wanting to run, and whether they want to plan in the political game or not. That’s very sad for the state of our democracy.”

Quebec and British Columbia are the only two provinces already with party politics at the local level.

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