By modifying the St. Albert Public Library Board’s budget request before presenting it to St. Albert City Council as part of its proposed city budget, the city’s administration contravened the Alberta Libraries Act, the library board’s co-chairs advised city councillors in an Oct. 22 letter to the city’s mayor and council.
Having drawn the breach of provincial law to the attention of the elected representatives, Colleen McClure and Deborah McTaggart-Baird suggest it “can be perceived as undermining the authority of the board.”
Ms. McClure and Ms. McTaggart-Baird noted in their letter that “in the draft City Budget, Administration amended the board’s request (as approved and submitted in early July), reducing it by $500,000. Making a change to the Board’s submitted request prior to Council’s formal budget deliberations marks a notable change in process and precedent.”
Moreover, Ms. McClure’s and Ms. McTaggart-Baird’s letter states, this was done “without consultation or notice.”
Their conclusions are hard to dispute.
The Libraries Act is quite clear, so there is no reasonable excuse for the city administration, which includes its own legal staff to advise it on such matters, to have missed Section 8 of the act, which states:
8(1) The municipal board shall before December 1 in each year prepare a budget and an estimate of the money required during the ensuing fiscal year to operate and manage the municipal library.
(2) The budget and the estimate of money shall be forthwith submitted to the council of the municipality.
(3) Council may approve the estimate under subsection 1 in whole or in part.
In other words, the city administration may not, as it did to very significant degree, modify the budget submitted by the library board, and then roll it into its own proposed city budget and present that to council.
And City Council is obligated by provincial law to consider the board’s entire request, after which it has the ability to approve the board’s budget, in whole or in part – thereby maintaining its statutory control over the city’s budget.
It’s likely that the drafters of this legislation included this provision to prevent circumstances in which city administrations, led by administrators who answer to council, decide to advance their own agendas for library spending. Libraries, obviously, are institutions the Legislature considered important enough to qualify for their own governing boards.
Library board members are appointed by city councils, but the rules for doing so are clearly set out in Section 4 of the act. They prevent a library board form being dominated by supporters of a single city council during a single term.
Whatever the reason for this serious omission was in St. Albert’s case, the optics are terrible given the coincidence that the city administration is seeking in the same budget an increase of $480,000 a year to add two additional senior officials to an administration that already looks top-heavy to many residents.
It is also important to note that the $500,000 the administration wishes to slash next year is only one third of a $1.5-million, three-year cut to the library’s annual funding sought by the city administration. That would amount to about 35 per cent of the library’s annual budget, result in many staff layoffs, and bring to an end many popular programs.
Ms. McClure and Ms. McTaggart-Baird conclude their letter by advising council “we feel it is important that these actions be noted and brought to council’s attention to prevent a similar process error in the future.”
This is all very well, but I would suggest that council needs to go back and vote again on a budget that has been presented in compliance with the law.
We are a society in which the rule of law prevails after all, and its niceties must be observed. Following the law would have the additional advantage of letting all St. Albertans know that those councillors who voted for the modified budget were fully informed of the size of the cut to library services they were making and of the full impact it would have.
The library board is scheduled make its presentation to City Council this afternoon, but as things stand because the $500,000 cut for 2023 was included in the budget a councillor will have to make a motion to fund the library more generously or the cut will stand.
If a councillor makes a motion to fund the library differently there will have to be a public debate on that change – again, important for voters to be able to hear.
The library has asked for its budget to be frozen in 2023, which in practical terms will amount to a cut of about $200,000.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a former member and chair of the St. Albert Public Library Board. I believe the library is among the city’s most valuable cultural and educational institutions, and, just to be clear, that if we can’t afford to approve its budget request we certainly can’t afford two expensive additional bureaucrats at City Hall. DJC
Public libraries are an important thing to support. It’s foolish to cut funding for them. What are people thinking when funding is cut to libraries? It’s reminiscent of Ralph Klein’s cutbacks to important things, such as public education and public healthcare. He wasn’t fiscally responsible, because Norway and Alaska have more money from their oil than Alberta does, and this was one of the things that led up to these cuts. The UCP are the same way as Ralph Klein was. What they are doing in St. Albert is something similar, where they have unjustified expenses, and they are making up for this by doing cuts to an important service, which is a public library. There is no sense in this.
3 way conversation today …….
1. there was a news banner stating large groups were okay with an authoritarian leader…
2.authoritarian : someone forcing YOU, to do all the things you don’t believe in. Think about that people.
1.Key word there is THINK , they don’t have to, they just ask Siri or Alexa, or their roomba ,no brain required.
3.Sure they have to “think”..just ask Alexa.
Sure, it made us laugh, but unfortunately it’s true. Just in the last few years I’ve realized how much people have ” dumbed” down. They can’t think for themselves, someone is always making a decision for them. It took me awhile to figure out
( IMHO) the W5’s ,and basically it’s just making a 21st century serf.
3.sent me a picture of Voltaire, with the caption–*The comfort of the rich, depends on an abundant supply of the poor. *
And the poor, the uneducated, are the serfs. History has told us that the ruling class, of kings and knights and lords and ladies along with the Clergy, did not want the serfs educated. If they learned to read or even write their names, they would be trying to reach above their station. They would become restless, and not happy with their pittance, and might start spreading that restlessness to others and we would not be able to control them and their dissatisfaction with their lives.
So for the last 20 yrs at least, it’s been a constant birage of you need this, this will make it easier, you don’t have the time, we will “give ” you smart phones, smart watches, smart cars, smart appliances, everything to make your life easier and faster and better and off you go ..to your job, and the roomba will clean your floors and your fridge will tell you what food you need, and Alexa will tell you how to cook it, unless you want to make it even faster, better, easier, then just skip all that and order premade………Just as a small sidebar: it never fails to amaze me, the people who are complaining about ” inflation “who are running around with *deer coffees in hand. Another subject taken out of mandatory curriculum, book keeping 101, oh but of course, that’s why you need an accountant, a financial advisor etc etc.
People are right when they say they are not being listened to, they just don’t realize that they are complaining to the very people who put them where they are. The ones who pretend they are listening to them, then use those complaints to stir up more people and come join the crowd, I’ll make everything better, only I can make things better, I am advocating for you as long as you put ME in power. It boggles the mind, the brazeness with the story ,of the government isn’t looking after you, vote me for government and I’ll look after you.???? Say What??
In a sense I almost feel sorry for Dani , the blind leading the blind, because in the big picture she might have her little power play time, but she is as much a minion as her followers.
Libraries are places of learning, knowledge is power, but the cold and ruthless do not want to share that power. I remember seeing a news clip, from when they were bombing in Syria, and the frantic scramble at the university to get out as many books as they could, books that were over 500 years old, I wanted to cry, I could feel the hurt the professor was feeling. All the knowledge that had been destroyed already and all that was going to be, why??, the want of power.
As a ” poor kid ” from the farm, one thing I have always been thankful for, is my grade 7 teacher, who gave me my first book to take home and read. I returned it 2 days later and she asked me if I hadn’t liked it, I told her I did, but I had finished reading it, so she gave me 2 more for the weekend and the quest for knowledge began. Due to life and circumstances, I never finished high school, but I never stopped trying to keep myself informed. And that is what the agenda has become, take away the books, the libraries, the places of learning, and what little is left, well we will pick and decide what you should learn, just enough to fill the vacancies of the jobs, to keep us at our comfort level. And hey, little woman, don’t you worry your pretty little head off, you look after the kids yada yada….
Tomorrow/ today, we will find out the results of 2 elections, and IMHO neither one looks promising, the one in Alberta may, and I say MAY take a little longer to play out, before the full impact is felt, but it also depends on how badly things go next door. Because from what I’ve seen on the media, they haven’t realized that there is no happy outcome.
A loss will not be a loss (because they will fight it) and a win will not be a win. ..for then the endgame is in sight for them, and the poor and the uneducated will suffer.
So fight for your library (s)if you can , it is important.
Maybe some time in the future, someone will pick up a book, and be as mesmerized as I was, a poor little farm kid, that traveled the world, that traveled back in time, and sometimes into the future ( I preferred historical fiction, but my book shelves are now filled with an assortment of authors. It’s one of the things that I’ve always liked about Victoria, awhile ago, they opened up the 650 th — free little library– that says alot and also why the election for school trustees became a vocal issue, when people found out about just who and what the candidates were all about ( VIVA/ PPC)
…..as Scotty said, they are following a similar pattern and filling offices from the bottom and now they are not even trying to hide the agenda, because as I said 5 yrs ago, listen to the words, they are telling you what they are going to do, or they are planting word seeds, waiting to see which will grow.
What is that old expression—-hope springs eternal???
In these times of increasing “fake news” public libraries, and the people who staff them, serve as an important bulwark against the onslaught of ignorance. They are important in any community’s intellectual, cultural and social landscapes.
I escaped from my adolescence by taking refuge in the stacks. Such refuge should not be denied any in our communities.
Thanks for your advocacy.
It seems that the post-law Alberta, as defined by Danielle Straitjacket, is already having its far-reaching effect. Now that we are all rushing headlong into an era where laws, legal procedures, and courts decisions are reviewed (and dismissed) based on a made-to-be-ignored premise, this sort of thing is going to become all too common.
Of course, in Ontario, DoFo’s government is moving to suspend those sections of the Charter which allow for free association (unions) because they are just getting in the way of Ford’s big brain agenda, which is proving to be the flashpoint of wider labor unrest. Looks like every union in Ontario, even those that allied themselves politically with the CONs, are having second thoughts about their allegiances. The notion of if they come for one union, they will come for all of them is beginning to have its resonance, however delayed.
The notion that the Notwithstanding Clause is never to be used is proving to be shortsighted. Former BC premier Christy Clark delayed, the CBC no less, that if she were premier again, she would use the Clause 24/7. It has been said, more than a few times these days, that any democratically elected leader is just a few minutes away from going full-on fascist. It’s already happened in Turkey and Hungary, and Italy may not be too far off from joining the despots’ club.
Of course, a tiff over a city budget and the funding of its library seems like a matter of no consequence, but pause for a moment and consider that larger things always have small beginnings. Today’s city councilors will use the populist/fascist playbook to assert their agenda, even if they are legally not empowered to do so. Of course, they will always declare that they were chosen by the people (YADA YADA YADA) to do the people’s bidding. And everyone knows that the voters know that libraries are useless while books and reading are gay. (Yes. US-style Republicans can be everywhere.)
After this Tuesday, I expect the crazy will be dialed up everywhere. Mo popcorn.
The courts in Alberta are going to play an integral part in keeping these neo cons in line. Can’t wait what Ms. Herd immunity has in store for us next. I also wonder how the non- WR part of the UCP caucus feels these days. Sometimes the devil you know…..
Imagine the day when only UCP members rule the boards of public institutions and charities across this province, and no one is left to reveal their skulduggery. That moment is approaching. Things are about to hit the fan. First, they will attack the libraries.
https://www.salon.com/2022/08/11/on-books-on-schools-libraries-and-even-bookstores-is-just-beginning/
While Jason Kenney finds it smart to cut 4% or $9.4 billion off Notley’s corporate taxes for the benefit of the rich he can’t provide the municipalities with sufficient funds to run their financial needs properly. We didn’t see this problem when Lougheed was running the show and Alaska and Norway aren’t having any problems.
When gaming the system becomes habitual, then breaking it becomes casual. Normally (the fact that this word can be used here should raise a flag), system-gaming flys under the radar, nice and low with a series of small cargoes, so that it looks like merely working the system to that most myopic part of it: the main-beam of democracy which elects the public bodies of budgetary approval by touching a quickly scrolling ticker-tape of coarse, binary braille from which it derives its blocky verdicts in a most imprecise way. But when the line between gaming and working the system becomes the voters’ issue, the kurtosis of partisanship will controvert whether it’s about bending the rules inappropriately or using the rules to their most efficient intent. If the quantum is small and controversially hard to discern whether rules have been broken or not, voters might very well overlook or underappreciate it —which is the mojo of all systems-gamers. Of course when it’s big, systems-gamers, if coordinated enough, steal between the potholes while the electorate is as distracted as a farmer speeding an injured hand to the doctor: this ain’t no time to dee-bate nuthin ‘bout no dang rool a laws!
Now, there are a lot of retired professional librarians in my family (I know cuz when they visit they never fail to tsk-tsk that my Dewey is kinda gooey), and they are nothing if not polite (I would say, to a fault), but I wouldn’t, if I were on St. Albert’s city council, make its own city librarians put a finer point on what they politely call to its attention as a wee ‘error,’ but which is in fact a breach of the rules, if I may put it so mildly.
When sovereign provincial governments, normally of right-wing parties, get habituated to gaming the system by, for example, what the BC Liberals did to us here, the ‘death of a thousand cuts’ (or as Joni Mitchell’s first hit warned that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone), they risk going too far (ask disgraced former-premier Gordon Campbell about his HST campaign lie or the corruption convictions from the privatization of BC Rail) and the rule of stealth is bent to the point of discovery. Although the BC Liberals went to great lengths to stymie FOI requests and parliamentary accountability (Gordo also eliminated fall sittings of the Assembly), among many other stealth tactics to undermine the public enterprise, by the time it was wearing out its welcome it hardly bothered to hide it—prob’ly because it knew the jig was up and proceeded to pillage the public purse while the gettin’ was good. That blatancy probably accounted for the first two back-to-back wins by the same NDP Premier, John Horgan, and reminded as we are of the BC Liberal legacy in the form of higher hydro bills and ferry fares (among other wallet-bending results) we now have to pay, might also account for even another NDP win in 2024, the first trifecta ever.
But that’s a story of trying to hide systems-gaming (and not getting found out until it’s too late, as with BC Rail, now probably irrecoverable as a public enterprise, despite the proven corrupt sale), and of voters finally throwing the bums out.
Alberta’s UCP— and, I dare say, much of the partisan right these days—is actually proud of gaming the system (yes, yes, it would doubtlessly call it “working” it, with rigid unguence). When a municipality’s chartering authority so cavalierly rides roughshod over the rule-of-law by passing legislation it knows would not stand up to charges of unconstitutionality, the town council can hardly expect to get scolded—or much invigilated—by its jurisdictional superior. Indeed, what do municipal councils anywhere in the province make of the new UCP leader’s stated intention of ignoring federal laws it doesn’t like? Surely a little thing like a Libraries Act can be tweaked with impunity, right?
It’s a cinch that a sizeable minority of Ontarians approved of D’ohFo’s threat to bargain with educational workers by way of the notwithstanding clause, and a sizeable majority will agree that he only backed off when he realized parents were not going to get sucked into this kind of gaming (personally, I find it remarkable the accusation that greedy unions are using school kids as pawns didn’t stick like it so often has). Trudeau’ s discrete tut-tutting of this inappropriate use of the Constitution wasn’t essential to embolden parents of school kids who, much to Ford’s disappointment, more supported CUPE than his policy games.
But it’s as simple as that. Nobody’s celebrating that the rule of law was upheld because the issue was (is) instead that D’ohFo bent the rules too far— this time not being illegal but certainly impolitic.
Still, Ford wins by looking conciliatory and by keeping the threat alive. Indeed, it’s the second time he’s resorted to it, although this time a bit more forcefully—not only that he might use the notwithstanding clause again for some other reason of his choosing, but because the threat of striking in general will remain in the back of everyone’s mind no matter what side of this particular issue they were on. Most outstanding is that as far membership in the aspirational anti-federal (and increasingly anti-federation) “Conservative Resistance” against alleged Liberal harms goes, he keeps his dues paid.
Most people will figure whatever happens in St Albert doesn’t affect them, but as another example of gaming the system—this time actually breaking its rules instead of merely bending them—which has become the partisan right’s modus operandi, and considering these parties will all be asking voters for their endorsements, the reportage is importantly newsworthy to everyone everywhere in the Western World, or wherever neo-right parties are struggling to hold power and popularity.
Thank you and God Bless Librarians! (…and I didn’t say that just because I have to…)
I’m baffled by how frequently the UCP is getting blamed for St. Albert city council’s apparent inability to manage their library.
Don’t pin this on us. I didn’t tell city council to gut the library for pennies. If you don’t like it, our voter turnout in municipal elections in St. Albert is only 35%. Get out the vote next time.
It’s not like we don’t give you enough to complain about. We’re asking Paul Alexander what he thinks about COVID, for Christ’s sake!
Joe: I don’t think I’ve left the impression the UCP is to blame for the current library situation, although once upon a time I had some complaints about PC funding for libraries. This one is clearly on City Council and the city administration, probably driven by the council’s fear of a very small but vocal group of anti-library activists associated with the old St. Albert Taxpayers Association in its various guises, and the resentment by the administration of the fact the Libraries Act doesn’t put the library directly under their thumb. I think if Cam MacKay hadn’t used library funding as a wedge issue in his unsuccessful mayoral campaign a few years ago, we probably wouldn’t be here. Perhaps when he’s in Alberta, we can ask Dr. Alexander what he thinks of libraries as a tool for doing our own research. DJC
Oops – I didn’t intend to direct my statement towards the article. I meant it as a response to the numerous other commenters who mentioned the UCP in their various replies. I should have added a proviso indicating as much.
As for the article, I’m in complete agreement. I have serious concerns about council’s apparent need to place emphasis on the library as a target for cost savings, particularly given its relatively tiny portion of the municipal budget.
Joe, maybe it has something to do with the UCP ‘s first budget and GiPOT ,where funding was cut to municipalities in 2019 and now those cuts are becoming evident., and choices have to be made….and with 170 communities being affected, how many more libraries will be affected ?
Interesting comment. I had to look up GiPOT since I was unfamiliar with it. I’m a bit baffled by the need to exempt GoA properties from municipal taxation – if the GoA can own a building and manage it, I don’t see why tax exemption is necessary.
In any case, the St. Albert budget documents don’t clearly identify a significant hit in their budget as a result of the changes. From the budget website the level of government transfer to the city seemed to be budgeted at around $3.6 million each year. Historical transfers don’t delineate between operational or capital budgets so it’s hard to tell more without doing more digging.
The total value of GiPOT grants is apparently down by 50% which according to their website was $30 million. Assuming per capita parity (far from certain, but good enough for a back-of-napkin calculation) I’d assume that’s a $500,000 hit to St. Albert – again, this isn’t reflected in the budget and as far as I could see the province isn’t a significant contributor to St. Albert’s operational budget.
While I didn’t delve too deeply into budget details, based on my limited reading I simply can’t agree that UCP funding levels played even a tangential role in council’s current library machinations.