When Danielle Smith’s government introduced a sweeping suite of bills designed to strip the province’s municipalities of their traditional autonomy and powers, and to disrupt attempts by the federal government to fund municipal projects and initiatives directly, many Albertans—including not a few mayors and councillors—wondered just how they could do such a thing. How could the province propose legislation that allows it to override municipal bylaws, replace elected councillors, mandate the creation of political slates, or give itself the power to approve federal grants?
Here’s the hard answer.
Under the terms of Canada’s constitution, cities are but “creatures” of the provinces. Municipalities, no matter how big, have no constitutional protection against provincial laws that might change their structures, functions or financial resources, with or without their consent. Indeed, Canada’s courts have found that municipalities have no legal or political autonomy. That means their powers are subject to abolition or repeal by provincial legislatures.
It is an absurd state of affairs. Toronto’s population is more than twice the size of Manitoba’s. More people live in Calgary than in all of Saskatchewan. Red Deer’s population isn’t much less than Prince Edward Island’s. Yet even the smallest provinces have powerful constitutional rights and protections, not to mention lucrative funding deals with the federal government.
Canada’s municipalities have no legal or political autonomy. This is an absurd state of affairs.
But municipalities large and small are the Cinderellas of Confederation, forbidden to go to the constitutional ball.
It makes no sense when you consider that municipalities are the economic engines of our provinces and our country. Nor when you consider all the responsibilities that have been downloaded to cities and towns over the decades. It’s municipal governments that must respond first to natural disasters, including those spurred by climate change. Whether we’re talking about floods or wildfires or violent storms, it’s local governments that must provide the emergency services, then pick up the pieces and rebuild their communities.
Cities and towns are likewise first responders when it comes to rebuilding and retrofitting infrastructure to withstand the impacts of climate change—from retooling storm sewers, to building reservoirs and dikes, to depopulating flood plains.
Cities and towns build our social infrastructure too. In multicultural Alberta, where immigration is essential to our economic future, it’s local governments that help newcomers adapt. As our urban Indigenous population booms, municipalities wrestle with the realities of reconciliation. Local leaders deal first-hand with the twin dilemmas of homelessness and drug addiction in the face of the opioid crisis. And our cities must respond to the challenge of ensuring affordable housing for young working Canadian families.
These poor “creatures” have been fighting for decades for the respect and resources they need—even while collecting a fraction of the taxes that federal and provincial governments do. And those tax bases have been hard hit by the aftershocks of COVID, the hollowing out of downtown towers, the emptying out of traditional retail. Calgary still has the highest downtown office vacancy rate in the country, at 30 per cent, compared to 18 per cent nationally. Edmonton is faring a bit better, with a vacancy rate of about 21 per cent. But that’s still above the national average—and it puts pressure on cities to raise residential tax rates, which puts a squeeze on homeowners.
It’s not only big cities such as Edmonton and Calgary that are struggling. In 2019 the Rural Municipalities of Alberta found an unprecedented $81-million on property taxes from oil and gas companies had gone unpaid to small towns and counties across the province. By January of 2020 the same body reported that rural municipalities were facing a shortfall of $173-million in such unpaid taxes. By end of 2023 the RMA’s members reported that at least $251.8-million of municipal property taxes had gone unpaid by the energy industry.
Small wonder that many Alberta municipalities have been keen to strike deals with the federal government, deals which funnel money directly to them, without provincial gatekeeping—and small wonder many are pushing back against the UCP’s proposals to throttle such grant programs.
But this isn’t just an issue of a fight between a particular premier and certain mayors. It’s really about the constitutional inequity at the heart of this country, which leaves cities—even cities with millions of residents—locked in a feudal relationship with their provincial overlords. Meantime, local councils struggle on, doing the essential, often thankless work their citizens need and demand. But if we want to prepare for the environmental, economic and social challenges ahead, we must free our cities and unleash their remarkable capacity to lead the way.
Paula Simons is an independent senator for Alberta. The report of her Senate inquiry into the state of Canada’s municipalities will be released in September 2024.
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