Edmonton city council wants more municipal autonomy

Edmonton City Council wants to strengthen its autonomy to push back against increasing provincial interference. Last week, Council voted 9-3 in favour of proposing a resolution to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to establish a task force on municipal autonomy. Aaron Paquette is the Edmonton City Councillor for Ward-Dené. He brought the motion forward. How do you view the relationship right now between the Alberta government and the City of Edmonton? It's extremely dysfunctional. It's not for lack of trying on the city part. We make continual overtures, but they are not returned in kind. What do you mean by that? What I mean is that, well, a good example is just recently with photo radar, we put forward by their own metrics what areas in the city needed photo radar, and they have decided that only two have qualified, despite us being above and beyond what they said was required. And, you know, it's things like that. It's small, but they build up and build up. But the real major ones are lack of funding. I don't know if people know this, but unconstrained infrastructure funding has, since 2011, when it was $585 per person when adjusted for inflation, has dropped by 72%, even though our population has grown so rapidly. And this is across all of Alberta. Every municipality is suffering under all of these types of choices. And then local councils are... Basically stuck in a position where they say, do we raise taxes or do we allow this infrastructure deficit that has been created to continue as we try to manage the fallout? And what's very frustrating for Alberta municipalities across the province is that. They then carry the blame and burden of this from the electorate who think that it's local councils who are dropping the ball. So what are the lines of communication like between your municipal government and the provincial government? You know, it's very fascinating because from an administration to administration level, it's very functional. And even when I meet with individual MLAs, these are good people who are trying to do good things for the most part. But when it comes to dealing with the actual government, that's when it falls apart from government to government. How do we stand up for the people of Edmonton in a constructive way that isn't just complaining, isn't just finger-pointing, isn't just throwing our hands up in the air, but actually taking action? And why do you think that means more municipal autonomy? Like, how do you plan to go about this through a task force? Well, we actually used to have more autonomy. And that was in 2019, I believe it was. April 1st, where Rachel Notley's NDP government gave Calgary and Edmonton city charters, which came with guarantees of funding that matched the Alberta economic realities. If they were doing well, it's more funding. If they're doing not so well, it was less funding, so it was fair. And it also gave them more control over local development and how that would roll out in local roads and bylaws. Very, very simple things, but very, very instrumental and powerful. And in the election of that year, Jason Kenney promised with the UCP that they would not touch those charters. Well, they won. And in December, those charters were ripped up. And we still have charters, but they are very much in a reduced form So then how would establishing this task force on municipal autonomy through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities help this situation? Well, one of the taglines that is used on Alberta municipalities is strength in numbers. And right now municipalities are actually not comfortable speaking up because there is retribution that can happen. Just me speaking up I know puts a target on me. And target how? In what way? Well, it brings me to the attention of the provincial government, who has given themselves the power to fire councillors and mayors at whim through an order in council. We've seen this happen in the province already? We have not yet seen it. They brought it in because they were frustrated by the legal steps they had to take in order to remove the Chestmere Council, and so they just gave themselves the ability to do it without checks or balances. So here we are in this position, and I know that by raising it, I get on their radar. I know that that puts my job at risk, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is my oath to the people of Edmonton that I would serve them to the best of my ability. Now, the other thing it does for other municipalities is that... It means that the province can say, you know what, we don't like the way that you're standing up like that. You are not going to get this funding or it's going to come with these certain requirements that are quite onerous or you can forget it. And so to have that... With them, that sort of like bullying ability that no one can do anything about is absolutely unconscionable, it's dysfunctional, and it means that municipalities cannot do the job they were elected to do by their local governments, by their local electorate. And so... When we can join together, and we can all use our voice together, it sort of spreads out the target for one thing, and for another, it's a loud voice where all of these elected councillors and mayors in their cities can stand up for the people who need them. Is where, look, Canada is beautiful, we love Canada, we love Alberta, the lakes, the rivers, the streams, the wildlife, the festivals, but it's the people who make up this country, this province and the city. And where do the people mostly live? In the municipalities.