New provincial legislation has been introduced that could effectively veto any future deal struck between municipalities and the federal government.
The concern for Airdrie’s Mayor Peter Brown is whether this means an end of future investment from the federal government into Alberta communities.
“Airdrie, like many other municipalities in our province, has significant infrastructure needs,” Brown said, adding it doesn’t matter where the money comes from.
He noted the Alberta Premier and a number of ministers have stated their frustration over the federal government dealing directly with municipalities for quite some time.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the final straw was recent federal housing grants to some Alberta cities that were made without her government’s involvement.
The federal government announced it would invest $24.8 million to build more homes in the City of Airdrie from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) in March.
Airdrie’s deputy mayor Al Jones said city staff worked hard to achieve the recent housing grant, despite Smith stating the federal government is picking favourites and not providing fair per capita funding.
“This is the first major investment in Airdrie that we've seen from Ottawa in years-- I would not think that we are by any means one of their favourites,” Jones said. “I think our staff did an excellent job of advocating on behalf of the needs of Airdrie and meeting the criteria to be able to actually apply for that grant.”
According to Smith, the law won’t create more red tape and instead create a one-stop funding shop for the federal government.
Municipalities have not been privy to the details of the new bill, Jones said, but the City of Airdrie is expecting to be consulted through the process as a partner to the province.
“I think it's really easy for us to see the bad in this,” he said. “I'm not saying we don't have concerns because you always worry about the potential negatives, but I am hopeful that it will be positive”
A positive result would be that the new legislation makes Alberta’s municipalities even stronger when advocating to Ottawa, he added.
Alberta has accused Ottawa of repeated intrusions into provincial areas of constitutional authority, particularly when it comes to energy industry regulations and rules to green the electricity grid.
There are about 800 of 14,000 federal agreements Smith’s department has reviewed and “flagged as problematic,” such as naming electric buses, wind and solar projects, net-zero housing and electricity, safe supply programs, the national pharmacare plan, and dental care as the type of overreaching projects that run counter to Alberta’s priorities.
Moving forward, all federal agreements with Alberta entities will go through the provincial government, to make sure there are no "ideological strings attached," and funds will then be disbursed to towns, cities, and other entities.
The act is not intended to be retroactive and won't interfere with existing federal-municipal agreements.
Brown noted the City of Airdrie only received a portion of the federal housing grant it was promised and he questioned whether this new bill would affect existing contracts.
-With files from Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
