By Liam Verster

First three pieces of election reform package passes in Alberta

Jul 27, 2020 | 10:07 AM

The United Conservative Party is rolling out a multi-piece democratic election reform package. The first pieces of legislation were passed and received royal assent on Thursday, July 23.

The first piece of the new election reform is Bill 26, the Constitutional Referendum Amendment Act, involves expanding referendums in Alberta to include policy initiatives and the ability to do regional referendums on certain policy issues. Albertans were already able to vote on constitutional issues, but this new legislation gives the government the flexibility to ask Albertans questions regarding policies. This way, in the next election, voters may see questions on topics such as changing from the Canadian Pension Plan to an Alberta-based pension, on equalization, or on daylight saving time.

Bill 27, the Alberta Senate Election Amendment Act was also passed on Thursday, which will bring back Senate Elections in October.

Minister of Justice and Solicitor General, Doug Schweitzer, says having more topics on municipal ballots may end up engaging more people and lead to better turnouts at municipal elections.

Meanwhile, Bill 29, the Local Authorities Election Amendment Act, was also passed and received royal assent on Thursday. Schweitzer says Bill 29 is designed to help level the playing field, as more often than not, the incumbent in a municipal election will win and hold their position.

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“So the design of this bill is actually to help level the playing field so the incumbents can’t just build a massive war chest and make it very difficult for a new candidate to actually build up the ability to raise funds.”

Schweitzer says they’re also going to be bringing in changes to PACs and other third parties heading into the fall, as well as the way unions can advertise in campaigns. Schweitzer says they want to make sure that members of unions have the choice of how their dues are being spent, especially when it comes to backing a particular political party.

Meanwhile, Schweitzer explains that a committee of the legislature is also working on specific details of the next two other pieces of legislation involved in the election reform package, recall legislation, and citizen initiatives.

“With the recall, it gives citizens the right to hold a by-election if their local MLA is not serving in the way that they want, as well as have the ability to bring forward policy initiatives under a citizen initiative. If they get enough signatures, they can put a policy initiative on the ballot, for all of Albertans to decide on.”

He adds that the citizen initiative could have to do with specific policies or a constitutional change. It would involve having someone put that idea in writing, work with Elections Alberta to ensure all the right documents are filled in and filed properly, and then go out and collect signatures from the public. However, the specific details of this initiative are still not finalized and are currently being discussed by members of the legislature.

“So it’s purely a policy initiative they’re looking at one threshold, if it’s a bigger constitutional question they may have different thresholds for getting requisite signatures. You may have to get X number of signatures from all 87 constituencies, or things like that. So they’re reviewing that right now, but it really has to be there, it has to be that fear outlet for all of Albertans to come forward and say ‘Look, I want this issue and I think it’s important enough,’ and if the government of the day is not addressing it, it gives the citizens of Alberta the ability to make it a reality.”

A similar review process is underway for determining the specifics of the MLA recall legislation. Schweitzer says, if passed, this legislation would allow, once a certain period of time has passed from the initial election, for the public to issue a call for a by-election.

“So after about a year or two years, if they’ve misbehaved, or their conduct is not what the community wants, or they didn’t live up to the camping commitment that they said they were going to do, then it gives the rights to citizens to go out and get signatures, and say ‘You know what? We want a by-election, we want to hold a new election here in our constituency, to hold this member accountable.’

“That person can then run for re-election, or somebody else could get elected through that process as well. It brings accountability to the elected officials to make sure that we do what we committed to in the general election campaign.”

Bills 26 and 27 have already been put in place, and Bill 29 will come into effect on September 1. The other two pieces, the recall and citizen initiative legislations, are expected to go be debated and voted on in the fall.