The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - 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

00:00:05.700 the memo that they're not well-liked. So naturally, instead of making a concerted

00:00:10.100 effort to genuinely listen to Calgarians' concerns, they've doubled down. Council voted this week to

00:00:15.940 extend municipal voting rights to non-citizens. You might think that citizens are best inclined 1.00

00:00:21.900 to determine the future of their cities and their country. After all, they have the most at stake,

00:00:26.400 but woke ideologues increasingly disagree. It's not that they have any actual arguments,

00:00:32.100 but rather they need to find a way to continue pushing through their unpopular and unaffordable

00:00:37.480 agendas. And pandering to those who wouldn't otherwise be able to vote is pretty much all

00:00:42.280 they have left. We might be tempted to complain about how politicians are ruining our cities and 0.90

00:00:47.020 our countries, which they are, but might I suggest a different approach? We're about a year out from

00:00:52.760 next year's municipal election cycle. It might be time to put your money where your mouth is and

00:00:57.280 start organizing now to ensure better outcomes next year. I'm Rachel Emanuel, and this is the

00:01:03.200 Alberta Roundup.

00:01:04.580 Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day. On Alberta Roundup, she has her say.

00:01:13.720 Taking a look at our first story here, Calgary City Council this week voted to extend municipal

00:01:19.820 voting rights to non-citizens. It will call on Alberta municipalities to explore allowing

00:01:25.160 permanent residents to vote in municipal elections. The motion was put forward by Ward 8

00:01:29.740 Councillor Courtney Walcott. The councillors argued that many Calgary residents have lived in the city

00:01:34.580 for years, but still can't have their voices heard come election time due to not being Canadian

00:01:39.900 citizens. Walcott said, quote, for a long time, people have always said the ability to vote is

00:01:45.100 the incentive for citizenship. I wouldn't make the argument the ability to be engaged in community

00:01:49.680 is the incentive for citizenship. The motion was carried by a nine to six vote on Tuesday.

00:01:54.680 Councillor Sonia Sharp, who voted against the motion, said her mom was a resident for 30 years

00:01:59.400 and was very proud when she became a Canadian citizen. She said, quote, immigrants to this country

00:02:04.840 who chose to come to this country for a reason. It's likely those immigrants actually have 0.99

00:02:09.720 a better understanding of what it means to be a Canadian citizen than all of us. The motion will

00:02:14.620 now go to the municipality of Penhold before it goes to Alberta municipalities. It's more than likely

00:02:19.820 all of this could end up being a waste of time as Alberta municipal affairs minister Rick McIver

00:02:24.220 said he won't be changing the rules to allow for non-citizens to vote. Taking a look at our next story

00:02:30.640 here, the Alberta government is forging ahead with plans to study and likely build a rail network

00:02:36.120 with commuter service around Alberta's two biggest cities. It would also include a high-speed link

00:02:42.020 between Edmonton and Calgary. Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Drishan said this

00:02:46.940 week that the province would undergo a feasibility study which would be completed in summer 2025

00:02:51.840 for rail connections between Calgary and Banff and Edmonton and Jasper. The study will cost

00:02:56.800 nine million dollars and it will assess ridership demand as well as infrastructure needs. Requests for

00:03:02.260 proposals would then be issued to private firms, a process that would take another two years. The

00:03:06.900 government predicts Alberta's population now nearly 4.9 million will reach about 7.1 million people by

00:03:12.820 2051. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said commuters in Okotoks and Airdrie currently start their mornings

00:03:18.780 with a stressful drive downtown along with hundreds of other commuters. Here's what else she had to say.

00:03:24.160 And that doesn't need to be the case. We see the value in a commuter passenger line that connects folks

00:03:29.320 in those communities to the Calgary airport and then on to the downtown core in the case of Airdrie

00:03:36.180 for a more streamlined and relaxed commute. And we believe that a solution like that will also work

00:03:41.740 in Edmonton and the entire capital region. That is the starting point. But we also want to open up

00:03:47.040 direct access to our breathtaking and adventure-rich national parks. Moving into our next story here,

00:03:52.520 Calgarians are outraged over City Council's plan to do mass rezoning across the city. The little bungalow

00:03:59.160 currently beside you could be torn down and 12 units could be built in its place. Hundreds of

00:04:04.420 Calgarians have signed up to speak at City Council meetings and oppose this policy, which City Council

00:04:10.060 seems hell-bent on pushing through. I had Councillor Dan McLean on my show this week to discuss.

00:04:15.000 Here's a look at our conversation.

00:04:16.140 Sure, when we're talking about questioning the motives, I mean another thing that's been raised is

00:04:19.600 it almost seems like this could be a cash grab for city property taxes. If you think about it,

00:04:24.480 if you live somewhere, you're one house, you're paying property taxes on that one property,

00:04:28.020 that's taken down. That's created into four units, maybe suites. You said it could be up to 12.

00:04:32.660 Now all those separate units are paying property taxes. The city is going to just be raking in the 0.62

00:04:37.280 property taxes here. And we're talking about affordable housing. I mean, in most cases,

00:04:41.780 this isn't affordable housing that's going up. Some of these townhouses that are being built are

00:04:45.060 still going for $650,000. That's an insane amount of money for a townhouse. You don't even have a lot

00:04:50.140 of land. So the city is just going to be raking in on the property taxes. Could that be a possible

00:04:54.500 motivation for why they seem so bent on pushing forward this policy that it seems nobody wants?

00:05:01.220 Well, of course, the city is going to have additional taxes and you're quite low on your

00:05:05.240 $600,000 marks. A lot of these are a million, a million plus. They'll take a $600,000, $700,000

00:05:10.200 bungalow. And again, this is where the speculation comes in. It's not just the city that's going to be

00:05:16.480 raking in money. It's the industry developers.

00:05:19.440 Moving on to the controversy of the week, following backlash from mayors and councillors,

00:05:23.820 as well as concerned residents in Alberta, the government is promising to make amendments to

00:05:27.940 propose Bill 20. Introduced in the legislature a week ago, the proposed bill would give the Alberta

00:05:33.520 cabinet the power to dismiss councillors and mayors in any municipality and to repeal or amend local

00:05:39.980 bylaws. It would also allow for the creation of municipal political parties in Edmonton and Calgary

00:05:45.360 as a pilot project. Responding to the bill, Calgary Mayor Jody Gonnick says she was glad to see that it

00:05:51.180 would require municipal candidates to undergo a criminal record check and that the government

00:05:55.220 would be validating recall petitions instead of leaving it to the city. But she also had some

00:05:59.260 concerns. Take a listen.

00:06:00.980 So right now, all it says is removal of the council member if it's in the public's interest, but public

00:06:07.160 interest is not defined. I do know that Minister McIver has said something to the effect of public

00:06:12.900 interest can be defined as public push or, you know, public request. I still don't know what that

00:06:19.420 looks like. And in an age where recall exists, does it now mean that you can file a recall petition

00:06:25.560 against someone and that becomes the grounds for cabinet making a move towards removal? It's all

00:06:31.540 unclear. It doesn't mesh together well. And public interest has to be defined very clearly for the

00:06:36.820 public. In a statement, Municipal Affairs Minister Rick McIver said he's planning to work with

00:06:41.100 municipalities over their concerns and that amendments will be made. He said that cabinet

00:06:45.340 would only remove councillors as a last resort and that changing or repealing local bylaws would

00:06:50.240 not be done lightly. In a statement, he said, quote, the role of an elected official is one with

00:06:54.880 tremendous responsibility and expectations. The Municipal Affairs Statue Amendment Act will

00:07:00.120 strengthen the accountability of locally elected officials and councils while balancing the need to

00:07:05.120 support local autonomy in areas of municipal oversight. Here's Alberta Premier Daniel Smith defending

00:07:09.540 the proposed bill at an unrelated press conference earlier this week.

00:07:12.900 Well, I would say we're in a bit of a different situation because the constitution of our country

00:07:17.760 recognizes two orders of government, the federal government and the provincial government, as well

00:07:22.680 as recognizing indigenous governments. But they have said that municipalities get their legislated

00:07:29.000 authority from the from the provincial level of government. What we've observed is that the federal

00:07:34.540 government is attempting to do a variety of workarounds to get their agenda passed, which may be

00:07:40.020 in complex to what it is that we want to do as a province. And so we are taking every mechanism that

00:07:45.960 we need to make sure that we're asserting that the federal government has to talk with us when it comes

00:07:53.900 to supporting municipalities or talking about policy change in municipalities. That's what also bill 18 was

00:07:58.880 about. And finally, what we're watching in the weeks to come, a sweeping fire restriction has been put in place

00:08:03.560 across Alberta as hot, dry weather leaves forests, tinder dry. Emergency officials are urging extreme

00:08:09.520 caution in the weeks ahead as persistent and severe drought pushes Alberta's wildfire danger to the

00:08:14.580 extreme. On Wednesday, following a wildfire information update, the province introduced a fire restriction in

00:08:20.620 the province's forest protection areas in an effort to manage the risk. With the exception of Calgary's

00:08:26.140 forest protection zone, all outdoor fires are now prohibited on public lands, including back country and

00:08:32.400 random camping areas. Wildfires have already prompted a handful of communities to temporarily evacuate and put

00:08:38.920 hundreds more Albertans on notice to leave their homes at a moment's notice. And finally, moving into our weekly

00:08:43.860 comment roundup, these comments all focus on last week's story talking about tabulators. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith is now

00:08:49.940 making move to ban tabulators, as you know, if you watched last week's episode. User Steve Elliott said, quote,

00:08:55.160 the people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do, Joseph

00:08:59.920 Stalin. I don't know if that's actually a real quote from Joseph Stalin, but it's certainly true. User VXCoco said, 0.99

00:09:05.680 quote, I never really cared using the electronic tabulators, but the fact is that if anyone has

00:09:10.900 mistrust, then it needs to be addressed. I completely agree and there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't

00:09:15.740 be able to hand count the ballots in Alberta. We can do it for the rest of Canada. Okay, everyone, that's all we have

00:09:21.160 time for today. Please like this video and subscribe to True Nora so you don't miss any of our content.

00:09:25.240 You can head over to donate.tnc.news to show some support for our work. I hope you guys have a great

00:09:30.680 weekend. I'll see you next week. God bless.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - May 04, 2024

Calgary wants voting for non-citizens

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