By George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Macleod Gazette
Alberta’s rural municipalities appear to be forging an improved dialogue with the provincial government, despite past clashes over how much and when they’re consulted.
Recent interviews with key players suggest that they’re ready to work together and hear each other out on major issues — things like funding levels for roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and a new system to deal with accusations of poor councillor conduct.
Their comments follow Dan Williams becoming minister of municipal affairs in May, when he was shuffled from mental health and addiction.
Williams toured central and southern Alberta during the summer to meet with elected and unelected leaders from more than 40 municipalities.
Rural leaders welcomes new focus
Kara Westerlund, president of the RMA, said she’s glad the minister took to Alberta’s highways and byways. Williams is “incredibly approachable” for her and the association’s member municipalities, she said.
“I hope he does that every summer, and that he comes to break bread in our backyard to truly see who we are, how we live and what we have to contribute to the province and the country,” said Westerlund, a councillor from southwest of Edmonton in Brazeau County.
Rural concerns
The RMA has criticized the dome’s recent record on legislation that affects how municipalities operate and govern. Often, the association has said it was not properly consulted before bills were introduced and advanced. It also wants the province to tie up loose ends dangling from new laws.
The legislature is set to resume Oct. 23, after sittings over the last two years approved a raft of changes for municipal governments to contend with.
The province created provisions to order electorate votes on the removal of councillors who cabinet deems unable, unwilling or refusing to perform elected duties. The government can also revoke or revise bylaws that cabinet determines clash with provincial policy, contravene the Constitution, or exceed local scope or authority.
Municipal governments are no longer allowed to use electronic tabulators to count votes in elections, and they can no longer have their own codes of conduct.
Rules surrounding campaign finances and intermunicipal relationships have changed. So have the duties of key administrative staff, including chief administrative officers.
Not all the changes are controversial. For example, the UCP government has improved voter accessibility for people with disabilities and people displaced by wildfires.
Policing and transportation concerns
But it’s also moved towards creating a provincial police service. Although crime and police response times are an ongoing issue along roads less travelled, municipalities worry that the expertise and professionalism of the RCMP will be lost if the national service is pushed aside.
Funding levels and formulas for infrastructure continue to be inadequate for expansion and maintenance, the RMA says. The problem goes back two or three decades, Westerlund said.
The RMA — which represents 69 municipal jurisdictions that blanket more than 85 per cent of the province’s landmass — estimates that an infrastructure deficit affecting its member municipalities has reached $17.25 billion. Given current funding trends, the deficit will grow to more than $40 billion by 2028, the association predicts.
The roads and bridges portion alone of today’s deficit is about $14 billion, the RMA has calculated.
Devin Dreeshen, the minister of transportation and economic corridors, said he’s “all ears” if municipalities have innovative ideas to fund the maintenance and expansion of roads, bridges, and water and wastewater infrastructure.
The government “loves working with RMA and all the rural municipalities across the province, because they truly are what makes Alberta great,” said Dreeshen, the member for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake.
“To make sure we have thriving rural communities is important,” he said, noting that the resource sector operates in the countryside. “We obviously want to help as much as we can.”
That desire is behind $118 million in grants in the current budget to municipalities for water and wastewater projects, he said, and some of the grant approvals address the added pressure of serving the resource industry.
“But demand is always greater than the dollars that we have available,” Dreeshen stressed.
Looking for solutions
Williams, the member for Peace River, said relationships and attitudes are in the right place. The RMA’s president has “an open mind, looking to try to find solutions while looking after the best interests of all of her members,” the municipal affairs minister said.
“If you care about the ratepayers across every single county in the province, and I care about all the citizens of the province, then we’re fighting for the same end. Starting from that position puts us to great advantage.
“No one’s looking to dunk or score points in this relationship. We’re looking to find productive solutions.”
Williams continued: “Will there be differences? Of course. . .I have an ultimate responsibility to make sure municipalities are run well. That’s a different role than the RMA has as an advocacy body for the wide-ranging views of many, many municipalities.”
Rural municipalities are “on the ground and on the frontlines,” he said, meaning they can provide feedback he and the government need.
Seeking more money at every turn, however, won’t work. That’s especially true given the deficit situation the province is in and the desire to be “as fiscally prudent as we can be,” Williams cautioned.
“But if it’s all about finding common ground and finding innovative solutions and making sure that we prioritize the right things at the right time for municipalities, then that’s where we can find a huge amount of forward movement.”
Incorporating a rural perspective
Westerlund concurred that a rural perspective is important. “Sometimes it’s easy to make decisions and have theories and suggestions in downtown Edmonton, sitting in the legislature,” she said.
Provincial lawmakers need to “take a walk in our shoes to see what’s actually happening and truly understand the direction that we’re going in,” she said. “If what you’re trying to fix is not broken, why are we fixing it?”
Just after his rural tour, Williams said he was impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit and wealth of innovation demonstrated by community leaders.
Westerlund said she’s “not surprised” that Williams hears about entrepreneurialism and “the passion and the drive of rural Alberta.”
She continued: “I eat and breathe it every day, and I couldn’t be more proud of the people we have living on the rural landscape. They are resilient a bunch, and when push comes to shove, for every problem and every issue that we have, we have 10 or 15 solutions.”