By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

voting by permanent residents

Penhold seconds controversial Calgary resolution for debate at Alberta Municipalities conference

May 17, 2024 | 4:20 PM

Penhold town council has taken on the role of getting a Calgary city council resolution onto the agenda for this year’s Alberta Municipalities (ABMunis) conference.

That advocacy group, comprised of representatives from all of Alberta’s municipalities, is holding its next annual conference Sept. 25-27 at Westerner Park in Red Deer.

The resolution in question is one that garnered quite a bit of attention a few weeks ago when Calgary council first raised it. It’s one that proposes support for changes to provincial election law which would allow for permanent residents to vote.

But for a municipality to get a resolution on the ABMunis agenda, it needs not just its own council’s support, but that of another.

Enter: Penhold town council.

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Mike Yargeau, mayor of the small central Alberta town just south of Red Deer, has a working relationship with Calgary City Councillor Courtney Walcott — the resolution’s main proponent — through sitting on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).

But Mayor Yargeau wants a few things to be clear.

“We weren’t debating what was in the motion, per se; rather, we were debating whether or not we’d second the motion, which by doing so doesn’t necessarily mean we agree with it. It means we agree with the idea we should at least allow members at Alberta Municipalities to have the discussion,” Yargeau explains.

“Judging by the debate, we have some councillors who might not agree, but we chose to second it to send to the conference.”

Resolutions passed at ABMunis in no way legally behoove the province to follow through on them with legislation, Yargeau also notes.

“I don’t think we even have a ton of permanent residents in Penhold, but that’s one of the reasons I think it’s important to hear from Calgary about why it’s important to some of their council,” he adds. “I don’t necessarily understand the issue, but it’d be nice to get that understanding.”

In the wake of Calgary city council approving to send the motion to ABMunis, both Alberta’s premier and minister of municipal affairs issued comments about it.

Minister Ric McIver, a former member of Calgary city council, said unequivocally, “Alberta’s government has been clear since the beginning: only Canadian citizens are able to vote in civic elections. That will not be changing.”

In a social media post, Premier Danielle Smith wrote that council, “voted to allow non-citizens to cast ballots in civic elections. In my mind, only Canadian citizens should be able to vote in federal, provincial and municipal elections.”

Yargeau believes the pair’s statements to be misleading.

“The premier and minister, I would assume both know how election law is set in Alberta, and it’s not by municipalities. But both of them put out statements implying that Calgary had passed a bylaw allowing non-Canadians to vote, which isn’t at all what happened,” he says, further calling their remarks disappointing.

“Again, I don’t understand every issue, and every municipality may have different issues. But just because I don’t understand it or I don’t see it in my day-to-day, doesn’t mean it’s not worth discussing.”

Yargeau says we should all be more open-minded to learning.

“As elected leaders, that’s our job — to listen and have uncomfortable conversations sometimes. I know we’ll have people, even from Penhold, who’ll probably not agree in the end, but that’s okay, they don’t have to. The whole point is we can have this discussion and go from there.”

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