Juno News - Calgary wants voting for non-citizens

00:00:00.000 After three years of pushing their anti-Canadian agenda, Calgary City Council has finally caught

00:00:05.660 the memo that they're not well-liked. So naturally, instead of making a concerted

00:00:10.060 effort to genuinely listen to Calgarians' concerns, they've doubled down. Council voted this week to

00:00:15.900 extend municipal voting rights to non-citizens. You might think that citizens are best inclined 1.00

00:00:21.880 to determine the future of their cities and their country. After all, they have the most at stake,

00:00:26.360 but woke ideologues increasingly disagree. It's not that they have any actual arguments,

00:00:32.140 but rather they need to find a way to continue pushing through their unpopular and unaffordable

00:00:37.460 agendas. And pandering to those who wouldn't otherwise be able to vote is pretty much all

00:00:42.240 they have left. We might be tempted to complain about how politicians are ruining our cities and 0.90

00:00:47.000 our countries, which they are, but might I suggest a different approach? We're about a year out from

00:00:52.720 next year's municipal election cycle. It might be time to put your money where your mouth is and

00:00:57.240 start organizing now to ensure better outcomes next year. I'm Rachel Emanuel, and this is the

00:01:03.160 Alberta Roundup.

00:01:06.500 Taking a look at our first story here, Calgary City Council this week voted to extend municipal

00:01:19.800 voting rights to non-citizens. It will call on Alberta municipalities to explore allowing

00:01:25.120 permanent residents to vote in municipal elections. The motion was put forward by Ward 8

00:01:29.720 Councillor Courtney Walcott. The councillors argued that many Calgary residents have lived in the city

00:01:34.540 for years, but still can't have their voices heard come election time due to not being Canadian

00:01:39.880 citizens. Walcott said, quote, for a long time, people have always said the ability to vote is the

00:01:45.220 incentive for citizenship. I would make the argument the ability to be engaged in community is the

00:01:50.140 incentive for citizenship. The motion was carried by a nine to six vote on Tuesday. Councillor Sonia

00:01:55.420 Sharp, who voted against the motion, said her mom was a resident for 30 years and was very proud when

00:02:00.840 she became a Canadian citizen. She said, quote, immigrants to this country who chose to come to this

00:02:06.340 country for a reason. It's likely those immigrants actually have a better understanding of what it means

00:02:11.560 to be a Canadian citizen than all of us. The motion will now go to the municipality of Penhold before

00:02:16.840 it goes to Alberta municipalities. It's more than likely all of this could end up being a waste of

00:02:21.340 time as Alberta municipal affairs minister Rick McIver said he won't be changing the rules to allow

00:02:27.340 for non-citizens to vote. Taking a look at our next story here, the Alberta government is forging ahead

00:02:32.820 with plans to study and likely build a rail network with commuter service around Alberta's two biggest

00:02:39.180 cities. It would also include a high speed link between Edmonton and Calgary. Transportation and

00:02:44.440 Economic Corridors Minister Devin Drachen said this week that the province would undergo a feasibility

00:02:49.440 study which would be completed in summer 2025 for rail connections between Calgary and Banff and

00:02:54.780 Edmonton and Jasper. The study will cost nine million dollars and it will assess ridership demand as well

00:03:00.280 as infrastructure needs. Requests for proposals would then be issued to private firms, a process that would

00:03:05.200 take another two years. The government predicts Alberta's population now nearly 4.9 million will

00:03:10.720 reach about 7.1 million people by 2051. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said commuters in Okotoks and

00:03:16.980 Airdrie currently start their mornings with a stressful drive downtown along with hundreds of other

00:03:21.940 commuters. Here's what else she had to say. And that doesn't need to be the case. We see the value in a

00:03:26.820 commuter passenger line that connects folks in those communities to the Calgary airport and then on to the

00:03:34.180 downtown core in the case of Airdrie for a more streamlined and relaxed commute. And we believe

00:03:39.760 that a solution like that will also work in Edmonton and the entire capital region. That is the starting

00:03:45.120 point. But we also want to open up direct access to our breathtaking and adventure-rich national parks.

00:03:50.960 Moving into our next story here, Calgarians are outraged over City Council's plan to do mass rezoning

00:03:56.960 across the city. The little bungalow currently beside you could be torn down and 12 units could be built in

00:04:02.680 its place. Hundreds of Calgarians have signed up to speak at City Council meetings and oppose this

00:04:08.220 policy, which City Council seems hell-bent on pushing through. I had Councillor Dan McLean on my

00:04:13.620 show this week to discuss. Here's a look at our conversation. Sure, when we're talking about

00:04:17.300 questioning the motives, I mean another thing that's been raised is it almost seems like this

00:04:20.740 could be a cash grab for city property taxes. If you think about it, if you live somewhere, you're

00:04:25.360 one house, you're paying property taxes on that one property, that's taken down, that's created into

00:04:30.320 four units, maybe suites. You said it could be up to 12. Now all those separate units are paying

00:04:34.320 property taxes. The city is going to just be raking in the property taxes here. And we're talking about

00:04:39.500 affordable housing. I mean, in most cases, this is an affordable housing that's going up. Some of

00:04:43.760 these townhouses that are being built are still going for $650,000. That's an insane amount of money

00:04:48.560 for a townhouse. You don't even have a lot of land. So the city is just going to be raking it on the

00:04:52.740 property taxes. Could that be a possible motivation for why they seem so bent on pushing forward

00:04:58.200 this policy that it seems nobody wants? Well, of course, the city is going to have additional

00:05:03.240 taxes and you're quite low on your 600,000 marks. A lot of these are a million, a million plus.

00:05:08.600 They'll take a six, $700,000 bungalow. And again, this is where the speculation comes in. It's not

00:05:15.100 just the city that's going to be raking in money. It's the industry developers. Moving on to the

00:05:20.320 controversy of the week, following backlash from mayors and councillors, as well as concerned

00:05:24.540 residents in Alberta, the government is promising to make amendments to propose Bill 20.

00:05:29.600 Introduced in the legislature a week ago, the proposed bill would give the Alberta cabinet

00:05:33.820 the power to dismiss councillors and mayors in any municipality and to repeal or amend local bylaws.

00:05:41.080 It would also allow for the creation of municipal political parties in Edmonton and Calgary as a

00:05:45.660 pilot project. Responding to the bill, Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondick says she was glad to see that it would

00:05:51.280 require municipal candidates to undergo a criminal record check and that the government would be

00:05:55.540 validating recall petitions instead of leaving it to the city. But she also had some concerns.

00:05:59.960 Take a listen.

00:06:00.840 So right now, all it says is removal of the council member if it's in the public's interest,

00:06:06.740 but public interest is not defined. I do know that Minister McIver has said something to the effect

00:06:12.400 of public interest can be defined as public push or, you know, public request. I still don't know

00:06:19.120 what that looks like. And in an age where recall exists, does it now mean that you can file a

00:06:24.880 recall petition against someone and that becomes the grounds for cabinet making a move towards

00:06:30.360 removal? It's all unclear. It doesn't mesh together well. And public interest has to be defined very

00:06:35.580 clearly for the public. In a statement, Municipal Affairs Minister Rick McIver said he's planning to work

00:06:40.920 with municipalities over their concerns and that amendments will be made. He said that cabinet would

00:06:45.540 only remove councillors as a last resort and that changing or repealing local bylaws would not be

00:06:50.720 done lightly. In a statement, he said, quote, the role of an elected official is one with tremendous

00:06:55.360 responsibility and expectations. The Municipal Affairs Statue Amendment Act will strengthen the

00:07:00.760 accountability of locally elected officials and councils while balancing the need to support

00:07:05.360 local autonomy in areas of municipal oversight. Here's Alberta Premier Daniel Smith defending the

00:07:09.680 proposed bill at an unrelated press conference earlier this week.

00:07:12.480 Well, I would say we're in a bit of a different situation because the constitution of our country

00:07:17.720 recognizes two orders of government, the federal government and the provincial government, as well

00:07:22.640 as recognizing indigenous governments. But they have said that municipalities get their legislated

00:07:28.980 authority from the from the provincial level of government. What we've observed is that the federal

00:07:34.520 government is attempting to do a variety of workarounds to get their agenda passed, which may be

00:07:40.000 complex to what it is that we want to do as a province. And so we are taking every mechanism

00:07:45.700 that we need to make sure that we're asserting that the federal government has to talk with us

00:07:53.020 when it comes to supporting municipalities or talking about policy change in municipalities.

00:07:57.560 That's what also Bill 18 was about.

00:07:59.240 And finally, what we're watching in the weeks to come, a sweeping fire restriction has been put in

00:08:03.300 place across Alberta as hot dry weather leaves forests tinder dry. Emergency officials are urging

00:08:08.880 extreme caution in the weeks ahead as persistent and severe drought pushes Alberta's wildfire danger

00:08:14.260 to the extreme. On Wednesday, following a wildfire information update, the province introduced a fire

00:08:19.960 restriction in the province's forest protection areas in an effort to manage the risk. With the

00:08:25.060 exception of Calgary's forest protection zone, all outdoor fires are now prohibited on public lands,

00:08:30.220 including back country and random camping areas. Wildfires have already prompted a handful of

00:08:36.420 communities to temporarily evacuate and put hundreds more Albertans on notice to leave their homes at

00:08:41.420 a moment's notice. And finally, moving into our weekly comment roundup, these comments all focus on

00:08:46.160 last week's story talking about tabulators. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith is now making move to ban

00:08:50.860 tabulators, as you know, if you watched last week's episode. User Steve Elliott said, quote,

00:08:55.120 the people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do,

00:08:59.680 Joseph Stalin. I don't know if that's actually a real quote from Joseph Stalin, but it's certainly

00:09:03.500 true. User VX Coco said, quote, I never really cared using the electronic tabulators, but the fact is that

00:09:09.980 if anyone has mistrust, then it needs to be addressed. I completely agree, and there's absolutely

00:09:14.520 no reason why we shouldn't be able to hand count the ballots in Alberta. We can do it for the rest of

00:09:19.140 Canada. Okay, everyone, that's all we have time for today. Please like this video and subscribe to

00:09:23.420 True Nora so you don't miss any of our content. You can head over to donate.tnc.news to show some

00:09:28.720 support for our work. I hope you guys have a great weekend. I'll see you next week. God bless.

Juno News - May 04, 2024

Calgary wants voting for non-citizens

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