Lethbridge Mayor Blaine Hyggen is reacting to newly-proposed changes to municipal elections. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Many questions remain on municipal election changes: Lethbridge mayor

Apr 26, 2024 | 3:27 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – “Province, stay in your lane, do your stuff. We’ll do ours.”

The mayor of Lethbridge is reacting to the Government of Alberta’s newly-proposed changes to municipal elections.

Blaine Hyggen says this week’s announcement of Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act 2024, came as a surprise to many of Alberta’s mayors.

“We knew there was going to be some changes, didn’t know what they were going to be, so a little surprised at how many. There was a lot. There were a lot of changes, and again, I’m highlighting like crazy. I’m sure I burned out a couple of highlighters here already until two in the morning trying to figure out what some of those changes are,” says Hyggen.

The mayor told local media that he is going to need more time to review the proposed changes before he can delve too deeply into the individual topics under the Act, but he gave some of his general thoughts.

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Interfering in Municipal Bylaws

One measure in the bill would “enable Cabinet to require a municipality to amend or repeal a bylaw.”

Hyggen says it is unclear to what extent the province would be able to use that authority or how often it could potentially happen.

However, he believes that governments have jurisdiction over specific areas for a reason.

Citing healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic as one example, Hyggen recalled the difficulty of having to follow provincial regulations while still having to come up with several health-related bylaws at the city level. Healthcare is the jurisdiction of the provincial government, not municipal.

This made Hyggen wonder what would happen if the premier decided to make changes to the Land Use Bylaw and govern how the city manages its own land.

He reiterated his point from the beginning of this article that each government needs to respect jurisdiction and not get involved in matters is does not have control over.

Political Parties

The Act would seek to create a pilot project in Calgary and Edmonton where political parties are introduced at the municipal level. A candidate would have the option of running as a member of a party or run independently as mayors and councillors currently do.

Depending on how well that goes, municipal parties could be allowed elsewhere across the province in the future.

Hyggen says there are “positives and negatives” for introducing an idea like this.

He was hesitant to give a firm yes or no as to whether he supports the idea, though, because there are so few details on how exactly it would be implemented.

Hand-Counted Ballots

The provincial government looks to outlaw the use of electronic voting tabulators. Instead, all ballots in municipal elections would have to be counted by hand on paper.

The City of Lethbridge has used electronic counting machines since 1989.

Because it has been so long since hand-counting was used in Lethbridge, Hyggen believes it could require a lot of work and money to make the change happen.

In speaking with the city’s clerks office, he says they might have the create an Elector’s Register, which is something they do not currently have. The mayor also wondered if they would need to do another census before next year’s election to ensure all of their information is up-to-date.

“If there’s costs that’re going to come with this, [we need to make sure] that they help us with those costs,” says Hyggen. “If they’re not doing tabulators and they’re doing counting, are they going to give us grants to hire these folks? Or if we need to do a census, do we get that?”

At the time of publication, the Act has only gone through a first reading in the legislature. Hyggen hopes to consult more with the province and other Alberta mayors on the proposed changes before it can be read for a second time.

Municipal elections in Alberta are scheduled to be held on October 20, 2025.

READ MORE: Alberta proposes councillor removal powers, electronic tabulator ban and more in city government revamp

READ MORE: Here’s how municipal elections and governance in Alberta are changing

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