Running For City Council? Why Bother?
With the government of Alberta introducing Bill 20, it raises the following question in municipal politics. If a councillor can be removed by order of cabinet, or a bylaw overturned because it does not jive with the ideology of the government, why be a municipal councillor at all?
With the government of Alberta introducing Bill 20, it raises the following question in municipal politics. If a councillor can be removed by order of cabinet, or a bylaw overturned because it does not jive with the ideology of the government, why be a municipal councillor at all?
Yes, the provincial government has authority over all municipal entities and functions. But just because you have the right to do something, does it mean it is the right thing to do?
There is a principal that is rooted in the Magna Carta which is “no taxation without representation”. The largest expense most of us will have in our lifetimes is taxes. Tax is a legal expropriation of a part of your economic efforts so that we can pay for essential services that benefit society as a whole. This is all the taxes we pay at all levels of government. We pay taxes on income, on consumption and on property values.
If those taxes “buy” us the right to vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections to voice your opinion on who should get the privilege to spend those tax dollars and how they spend them, it is one our most valuable possessions and we should exercise the right.
With Bill 20, the provincial government is now putting at risk the value of local representation. If the provincial government can trump local leadership and decision making, the role that municipal government has to listen, react and address local issues becomes less.
If Bill 20 is to give the province, or more arcuately a small part of government called the cabinet, the ability to remove councilors and rescind bylaws that may conflict with the ideology or agenda of the provincial government, then why run for municipal council in the first place?
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