Does Alberta really need more party politics?

The UCP is considering allowing "party affiliation" on municipal ballots.

Still of Danielle Smith, retrieved from completely unrelated video.

Prior to 2015, Alberta had rarely been viewed as having a volatile electorate. Most of Alberta’s governments have lasted for decades and the 2015 election of the NDP was seen as a “blip” or, as the conservative opposition called it, an “accidental government”.

When the NDP came to power that May, Alberta’s oil and gas industry was already well into its harshest downturn in years, which coincided with a number of factors far outside of the province’s control, including, but not limited to: investment uncertainty as investment funds sought to appease shareholders demanding a reduction in fossil fuels within their portfolios, and less volatile markets; the onboarding of automation within the oil sands itself; insurance companies unwilling to take on the risk of fossil fuel investments, and; a global move to greener energy.

Those issues aside, the election of the province’s first non-conservative government in three generations also ushered in a palpable change in the population. There was jubilation, assuredly, but there was also an intense anger that arose from newfound insecurity over what, exactly, such a change meant.

Unfortunately, a unification of the conservative vote, and their subsequent re-election in 2019 with the largest number of votes for a single party ever in the province, did not appease that anger. The United Conservative Party seemed singularly focused on getting back at those who had ripped power from them in the first place.

For those who had hoped the NDP’s election heralded the dawn of a new dynasty, their dejection quickly turned as bitter as the conservative’s, and Alberta officially became a two-party state with a gulf between the two that seemed impossible to bridge.

Why now?

It’s no small wonder, then, that some would feel a sense of angst at the idea of adding more party infrastructure to the only level of government that isn’t currently marred by intense animosity from “both sides”.

In fairness, this animosity already exists for conservatives. Progressives may be forgetting the fact that it’s been a while since there was a conservative mayor in either of the province’s two major cities.

Dave Bronconnier, a long-time city councilor who also ran for a federal Liberal nomination in 1997, won the Calgary mayoral race in 2001. He was succeeded by Naheed Nenshi, who beat out now-Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver in 2010.

In Edmonton, Jan Reimer, a “lifelong new democrat” was first elected Mayor in 1989 and served two terms before being replaced by Bill Smith, a former Edmonton Eskimos player. Smith was replaced by Stephen Mandel, who chose not to run in 2013, and became Alberta’s Health Minister under the Progressive Conservative government in 2014. Don Iveson replaced Mandel in 2013, and was generally considered to have a more progressive disposition.

Both Nenshi and Iveson took a public stance of non-partisanship even though they are considered to have held more progressive than conservative views generally.

Conservatives have actively rallied for municipal politicians, but with varying degrees of success.

A lack of success in winning the top seat has been an point of contention and we’ve seen provincial conservatives vying for change since.

The first cooperative slate in my memory appeared in Calgary’s 2017 School Board Trustee race. The “Students Count” slate originally consisted of four women, one of whom was an active UCP supporter whose social media history led to her withdrawal from the slate. Two more candidates joined the slate shortly afterward.

Three members of the slate were elected to the School Board, with one, Lisa Davis, vying controversially for the UCP nomination less than a year later in 2018.

Another “slate” (later declared “just a project to recruit candidates”), headed by a declared candidate with long-time conservative ties, showed up in 2019, ahead of the 2021 municipal race, but did not receive a warm welcome. Of the initial four named candidates it intended to support, not including the organizer, only two were elected — not including the organizer.

Leading up to the 2021 races, the UCP government announced they would hold a non-binding referendum on equalization — a federal program near and dear to the angriest conservatives in Alberta — a tactic many felt was aimed to flood municipal elections with more conservative-friendly participation that would help elect conservative candidates.

Instead, Jyoti Gondek triumphed over Smith-era Wildrose constituency association president and city councilor Jeromy Farkas in the Calgary race, while Amarjeet Sohi, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, easily took Edmonton.

Another “Alberta Advantage”

Conservatives seem to think that if voters could walk into a polling station and simply mark an ‘X’ beside the name of a person they know nothing about aside from their political affiliation, they would have a better chance of getting elected municipally.

It’s not an unfounded assumption.

There’s an old joke that Albertans would elect an empty beer can as their representative if it had a blue sign.

With that kind of a recommendation, who can blame conservatives for just wanting to give themselves a better shot at undeserved success? Yours truly has, in the past, pondered the benefits of removing party affiliation from provincial and federal ballots for essentially the same reason.

Slates, or “parties” at the municipal level exist in other jurisdictions already. Some are created ahead of the election with a city-specific platform, and others align themselves with provincial parties. The UCP, based on questions from their 2023 survey — and the narrowly-perceived “benefit” mentioned above — may be contemplating the latter.

The problem is that different levels of government have different priorities — and they should.

One of the reasons why people complain much more about the federal tax they pay than the provincial is because they don’t feel they directly benefit. It’s different at the municipal level. You see the direct impact of road or building construction, park maintenance, and garbage collection.

In 2019, municipal leaders were the face of tax increases after the province reduced funding for policing and other local priorities. I, for one, certainly don’t want my municipal officials toeing the party line and pointing their fingers at the federal government instead.

Is anyone really interested in the Premier having more sway over municipal leaders than securing $537 million of the city’s dollars right before a provincial election?

Surprising no one, Calgary city council adopted a 7.8 per cent property tax increase shortly thereafter.

There is already enough overlap between municipalities and the provincial government because municipalities are fully reliant on the province to return tax collected — and precisely the same as complaints about the federal government, that doesn’t always happen.

Do we really want the Premier getting involved in municipal decisions?

The UCP held onto government by a mere thread in the last election — they should seriously reconsider whether adding party affiliation to municipal elections will benefit them after the next one.