Breakenridge: Self-serving double standard at work in Alberta government

It was interesting timing last week as Alberta scored a major victory against federal overreach just as it announced plans to engage in some major provincial overreach.

All of this comes on the eve of a referendum in which — among other things — Albertans will be asked to give the Alberta government a mandate to wrest more control from Ottawa in a variety of areas of federal or shared jurisdiction.

It all serves to highlight a glaring and self-serving double standard for this government when it comes to decentralization and respecting jurisdiction. Power should flow up from municipalities and down from Ottawa, landing — conveniently — in the province’s lap.

On Friday, we learned the Alberta Court of Appeal once again concluded that the federal Impact Assessment Act unconstitutionally intrudes on provincial jurisdiction. Alberta won such a victory in 2023, and this latest case was a test as to whether Ottawa’s changes to the law fixed the problem.

Clearly they did not.

But just as Alberta scores a win over federal encroachment, the provincial government is rolling out a heavy-handed intervention into municipal zoning regulations.

Edmonton will be forced to return to rules that were in place two years ago, before zoning changes that paved the way for more high-density infill development. Calgary, which has repealed blanket rezoning, is being ordered to hold the line.

This has been an emotional and intense debate in both cities, and was arguably a major issue in last year’s municipal elections. Clearly, the opposition to blanket rezoning was more successful in Calgary’s election, hence the swift move to change course.

It’s not just the housing issue; Alberta’s government has taken steps to overrule municipalities on bike lane infrastructure, photo radar, how municipal elections are administered and even how public transit should be built.

It’s no shock that all of these decisions hew closely to the Alberta government’s preferred policy preferences. It also seems designed to appeal to the UCP’s political base: if you don’t like what those lefty city councils are doing — or that Liberal government in Ottawa — we’ll use our political muscle and tools to block, overturn or stymie those policies.

It’s not dissimilar to the push behind the Alberta Sovereignty Act or moves to undermine the federal government’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” It plays well in Ottawa, especially among conservatives, but it’s a principle that cuts only one way.

There was once a period when Alberta had a New Democrat premier and the country had a Conservative prime minister. It’s conceivable that we could see that again in the not-too-distant future.

Would it still be the preferred approach in that scenario to have, for example, greater provincial control over immigration and judicial appointments? Or provincial laws taking precedence over federal laws?

Similarly, how would conservatives feel about an NDP premier forcing Calgary to reinstate blanket rezoning or ordering cities to build more bike lanes and implement more photo radar?

As Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas points out, “just because the premier agrees with my vote today doesn’t mean that she gets to decide my vote tomorrow.”

Ultimately, he argues, this is about “whether your vote matters here in Calgary. Edmontonians elected their council. Calgary elected ours. We made different decisions, and that’s democracy.”

Local democracy should still matter. Otherwise, we could just abandon the charade and have the province appoint its own preferred municipal administrators.

Regardless of whether it’s local, provincial or federal elections, not everyone is going to like the outcome. That’s democracy, too.

Undermining that to sell your supporters on the idea that you can insulate them from the stuff they don’t like might yield short-term political gain, but it does longer-term damage to our system.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com.