Alberta’s United Conservative Party MLAs are likely to soon get a hard lesson in what the late Colin Powell supposedly called the Pottery Barn Rule.
To wit: If you break it, you own it.
In Canadian politics, there is a relevant corollary to the Pottery Barn Rule, which Mr. Powell, a career soldier who rose to be a general of the Army and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is said to have used when he was secretary of state in 2003 to try to explain to President George W. Bush what would happen if the United States invaded Iraq.
The corollary is, there’s nothing an elected Canadian politician loves to say when fielding a complaint from a constituent as much as, “Sorry, not my jurisdiction!”
So let’s just put aside the joint facts that Mr. Powell insisted he never said anything about the Pottery Barn Rule, and Pottery Barn said it has no such rule in its stores, and get to the problem UCP MLAs are likely to experience if the Legislature goes ahead and passes Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act.
Now the MASAA is a bill with a dull name, presumably chosen to disguise the fact it is in fact radical legislation that undermines democracy and in is line with the increasingly authoritarian mood of the leadership of the UCP, starting with Premier Danielle Smith.
As an aside, this goes against the usual UCP practice of giving legislation dramatic and tendentious names to suggest that bills will do the opposite of what they are intended to do. A recent example of that would be 2020’s Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act, which was intended to restore an imbalance in favour of employers Alberta labour relations. But, I digress.
MASAA is intended to fix a system that works reasonably well, but the UCP hates because voters in Edmonton and Calgary keep exercising their democratic franchise in favour of progressive municipal politicians. In an attempt to rig the field in favour of Take-Back-Alberta-style conservatives, it will introduce municipal political parties, reintroduce corporate money to municipal politics, and allow cabinet to nullify bylaws and fire city councillors in secret.
The intended effect, obviously, is to make it easier to elect conservatives to city hall, and, failing that, to make it easier to intimidate city hall politicians to do what the provincial government wants, and, failing that, to make it easy to fire municipal leaders the UCP doesn’t like without proper explanation or due process.
As a result, almost everyone despises the act. It’s been pointed out that the government already has the power to remove councillors who actually need to be fired. It’s been openly called authoritarian. It was conceived without consultation, as the Edmonton Journal’s municipal politics columnist observed. And even rural councillors, who normally function as a farm team for conservative governments on the Prairies, don’t like it.
The backlash was so fierce the government rolled out Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver a second time to promise to introduce some amendments – presumably to settle down the rural critics who are usually more friendly to the government.
As St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron told the CBC, nobody really believes that Mr. McIver’s promise of meaningful consultations will turn out to be very meaningful, but “I’ll cross my fingers that they’re very genuine about that statement.”
Which is why it matters that the UCP’s own backbenchers realize what this means for them.
One wonders if it’s occurred to anyone in the UCP Caucus that if their leadership breaks municipal democracy in Alberta, they’re going to own it. Not their bosses, either, so much as the backbenchers who are paid well, have little responsibility, and enjoy a good life.
It’s axiomatic that when municipalities refuse to consider bylaws their voters demand, or pass ones the same voters don’t want, they’re now going to tell the angry constituents who call that there’s nothing they could do, the province gives them their marching orders, and they’ll all be fired if they push it.
Human nature being what it is, they may even say that now and again when it isn’t really true.
In other words, Bill 20 hands them a kind of Get Out of Jail Free Card, the ability claim their jurisdiction isn’t their jurisdiction any more while remaining in their jobs.
True or not, what town councillor wouldn’t be tempted to say something like this: “I completely agree with what you’re saying, but the government’s made it clear they call the shots now. Why don’t you call your MLA? Here’s their number …”
If you break it, you own it.
It’s your jurisdiction now.
Brace yourselves, backbenchers!
Which municipal councilperson in their right mind, with even a modicum of self-respect, is not saying: “Take this job and shove it?”
The UCP creates bills that are so inherently flawed, that they have to redo them, or modify them, right after they are made. It’s because they are not legal, or there are other problems with them. The courts will definitely have a field day with the UCP, because they are there to ensure that our democracy gets protected. Whatever the UCP are doing with their bills, such as Bill 18 and 20, will definitely be challenged, and the courts will not go along with the UCP. There are multiple things that the UCP are doing wrong, and their popularity is sliding. Because of this, the UCP needs to find ways to retain power. One way is to go after the two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary, where the support of the UCP isn’t that strong. If the UCP thinks that coming after Edmonton and Calgary, will make them retain power, they will have to think again. Many voters in these two cities want nothing to do with these phony Conservatives and Reformers, who don’t get the proper oil royalty rates and corporate tax rates that Peter Lougheed was getting, which loses us billions of dollars, do boondoogles that also cost us a fortune, destroy jobs, increase poverty levels, degrade the environment, treat seniors badly, cause utility bills and insurance rates to rise, make crime levels rise, let infrastructure deteriorate, and create problems with the public education and public healthcare systems. Danielle Smith and the UCP seem to be out-doing Ralph Klein (their hero), for being abysmal. Rural Albertans don’t seem to use their brains when they vote. These phony Conservatives and Reformers have walked all over them for years, and they stand back and take it.
That’s not an assuring look on Ric McIver’s face. Very unsettling. I also wonder what’s going on with David Parker? He had to appear before Elections Alberta, not that long ago, and disclose who is financing him. There was a time limit for him to comply with their orders, and he hasn’t done that. If he remains disobedient, what will the consequences be for him? I just hope he and Take Back Alberta go down, and stay away from politics.
I can not imagine Smith being concerned for the plight of the backbenchers over Bill 20. Smith is the organ grinder and the the backbenchers are her dancing monkeys.
You raise a very interesting point, David. I am quite enjoying the mental image of MLAs fielding municipal affairs calls on everything from snow clearing to cat control, after a bylaw doesn’t go a constituents way.
I guarantee that MLAs won’t like this, especially not Ric McIver. He didn’t like it when it was his job as a City of Calgary alderman. If they want control over everything, let them live with the consequences. Garbage not collected? Phone it in!
Just one small comment: with all due consideration, you, and Dr. Wesley are missing the historical context of authoritarianism in Alberta. In most things important to farmers and ranchers, Alberta has been an authoritarian, single party state since the foreign oil industry took power in the 1940s. Since then, on land use, property rights, due process, and even security of the person, Alberta farmers and ranchers have not had the right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property. Spying and lying industry-captured regulators make a mockery of all those values here in the country. Bill 20 just makes explicit the reality on the ground and imposes it on the biggest cities.
Per capita, rural voters, sparse as they are, might be more politically influential than their urban counterparts, but no amount of gerrymandering can diminish Alberta’s comparatively large and growing urban demographic. That said, the TUBCAP government is so psephologically gormless as to blithely stumble into a pincer of its own making with respect urban backlash and sparse but, for all that, farmers’ widespread, longstanding resentment of official favour to the petro-industry on their rural properties. I think we saw some of that in 2015 when the rural constituency boiled over.
How Weibo Ludwig and Jessica Ernst took on petro-industry highhandedness couldn’t be more different, but they do share the tip of a brooding, metaphorical iceberg.
TUBCAP is displaying Fort Sumpter-like jingoism when it thinks rural ridings can overwhelm urban ones on its behalf.
Scotty: it is true that most Alberta farmers and ranchers share a deep antipathy towards the oil and gas industry and almost all of us hold in complete contempt their enablers in government. However, full time farmers and ranchers make up less than 2% of the overall population and are spread among the all the rural ridings.
Most “rural” and “rurban” voters work for the oil and gas service sector and truly believe that the UCP will give them another oil boom. They just need a little help from the dreamers in Calgary to elect a UCP majority government.
It’s not like Queen Danielle or anyone in the UCP really cares about what they break. If anything, they will be rewarded, with votes and ‘dark money’ to break as much as they can. Of course, there’s always the reality that they can push it too far with their voting base, and actually anger them. But even that reality doesn’t enter into their minds when, because, I suspect many of the UCP MLAs are not interested in anything outside how much they can fleece for themselves. This is a kleptocracy, and they are doing it right out in the open. As for what their voting base thinks of this sort of stuff, they’ll allow it. The UCP base is like the MAGA base: they are ready and willing to make wild compromises with the hypocrisy in the UCP leadership. The MAGA base is pretty uniformly Christian-Nationalist and go along will all that entails. But when they are confronted with the fact that there are Jews in his own family (his daughter and his grandchildren) they find amazing ways to bend reality. Christians and Jews are the same? No they’re not. They can all follow Jesus? No they don’t. And what about those who are not Christian? Ummmm… Compromises with reality are a coping mechanism, and the UCP/MAGA base are spinning wildly to keep up.
So, when confronted with the reality that the UCP is, clearly, undemocratic, authoritarian, and everything they claim to oppose (PMJT, for example) they dismiss is and make that amazing compromise that the UCP can do what it wants because all politicians are the same. Now there’s some wild pretzel logic at work in that mindset.
Yes, this law is full of things not needed that no one really wanted or asked for. It makes the provincial leaders look like bullies and makes life more difficult for municipal leaders. No amount of consultation by McIver, who is trying to appear genial here, whether real or not will fix all these fundamental problems.
I am surprised McIver sticks around trying to defend this. He as a former municipal politician no doubt well understands how bad this is. If he had convictions or principles this would be the time for him to stand up for them.
In addition to all of the above this is just more over reach by a meddling provincial government that anyone who is truly a libertarian, as opposed to those like Premier Smith who occasionally claimed to be, should also be against.
La Hefa’s in charge now. More bananas for the republic! Fire non-compliant mayors and city councillors. Trot out wildly unpopular rejects from the past to replace them. Tear down the bylaws. Forget ditches: Dani wants axe-the-tax protestors blocking your driveway with their trailers and planting F-Trudeau flags on your lawn. The people are wrong and if they object, disenfranchise them!
If you think it’s bad now, wait until Ric McIver is your MLA for life. Call this movie “Trash Can 1999: Scorched Earth 2”.
Perhaps this law could be the “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility Law.” I mean, it’s kind of catchy, isn’t it?
As usual, an astute column.
The impact of the proposed Bill 20 is going to be even harsher and more convoluted than you suggest, though.
In some cases, the provincial candidates may be happy to “own” decisions imposed on municipalities.
Take the current heated debate in Calgary and other municipalities on blanket densification zoning. My impression is that citizens are split right down the middle on this one. Right of centre tends to oppose it; left-leaning are for it.
If the current Alberta government were to have their way, the proposed planning change wouldn’t occur, and many would like that.
One of the many negative aspects of Bill 20 will be increasing polarization and decline of nuanced debate at the municipal level. The awful divisions we see at the provincial and federal levels will now taint local councils. The “whipping” of votes under a party system will destroy the closer connections that citizens have with their individually-elected councillors.
On balance, I can imagine UCP MLAs are more likely to rub their hands at the prospect of their party being able to interfere in municipal affairs.
Please let the Minister know what you think and cc your local MLA. I have no illusions that my opinion matters to this government. I am still a citizen and want my opinion recorded. Bullies thrive when we silence ourselves.
“…the province gives them they’re marching orders…”
Another late-night bout at the keyboard?
Nonetheless, a good column, as always.
Lars: I have a day job. It’s always late at night when I write this blog. Usually I read it over first thing in the morning and catch a lot of slips like that. There was no time yesterday morning, alas, to do that. Thanks as always. It’s been fixed. DJC
I didn’t realize that you have a day job, David.
Even more reason to thank you for the effort you put into this blog.
Lars: As noted in my potted bio on this site (full disclosure, and all that) I am a communications advisor for United Nurses of Alberta. DJC
I see it now.
Those three horizontal lines indicate something quite different on Outlook, which is where I see them most often.
Well, thanks again for providing such high-quality postings.
Funny how Bolsonaro had a thing about electronic voting machines too. Speaking of transparency, I got a personal invite from the CEO of Northback Holdings, Mike Young. He wants to meet up with me. I wonder if I should swipe right? Odd how it’s always paper correspondence. Are they feeling pangs for the demise of Canada Post?
Well well. Albertans sent in the clowns! Now come the lawyers!
With urban Albertans already looking askance at the PUBCAT government, it is a march of folly for it to think that further offending urban voters will reverse its misfortunes. But never did I expect TUBCAP to adopt Hendrix’s “If 6 was 9” as a paean.