Western Standard - Would a party system cure all these ills in the municipal system？

00:00:00.000 political parties in municipal elections. And boy, I tell you, municipal leaders are pretty

00:00:06.220 worked up over the whole concept, because it sounds like Premier Smith is going to

00:00:09.620 bring in legislation to allow it. Now, the question these incumbent municipal politicians

00:00:13.820 should be asking as they rally in opposition to allowing parties in municipal politics is,

00:00:18.760 or what we should be asking them is, what are you afraid of? I mean, the case being made by

00:00:23.100 Albertan mayors, Reeves, and councillors in opposition to these proposed changes is that

00:00:27.440 nobody wants to see these parties. They're saying Albertans don't want it. It's okay, if that's the

00:00:33.020 case, then you guys should have nothing to worry about. You'll be re-elected as independent candidates

00:00:37.940 and the parties will just fade away into the sidelines, right? The reality is, countless

00:00:43.780 municipal politicians have been taking advantage of the lack of party politics at the municipal level,

00:00:48.640 coupled with the apathy of voters to get elected under false pretenses. I mean, we've got no means

00:00:53.300 of vetting through a party nomination process, so candidates can disguise themselves as conservative

00:00:58.100 minded people when they're running for office. Of course, once they get elected, they tack hard left,

00:01:03.180 and unfortunately, the frustrated electorate tends to stay home rather than vote these pretenders out 0.95

00:01:07.640 of office. Former Calgary Mayor Nahed Nenshi is a prime example of that. Municipal politics in Alberta

00:01:13.740 right now are a mess. Councils everywhere are fractured at each other's throats, not getting anything done,

00:01:19.240 while frustrated voters are trying things such as recall initiatives to get rid of these terrible

00:01:23.000 politicians. I mean, look at Chestermere, the province had to actually step in and fire the mayor and

00:01:27.700 council, because they were too nutty to try and bring to a reasonable state of functional order. Would a

00:01:33.140 party system cure all these ills in the municipal system? No, of course not, it wouldn't. But it sure would

00:01:37.800 help. If candidates have a party allegiance tied to them, voters, people and general citizens can get a better

00:01:44.140 idea of where that candidate stands ideologically. Parties typically have a nomination process before

00:01:49.980 endorsing candidates. If there's a contested nomination, we can rest assured that closet

00:01:54.880 socialists are going to be exposed before they hit the ballot in the general election. Some of the

00:01:59.360 less than mentally stable contenders for the job could probably be weeded out as well. I mean, we get a lot

00:02:04.520 of good candidates running for office, but they don't lose, they lose the elections because they don't

00:02:08.060 know how to run in them. And they don't have an organization behind them to help them along with it.

00:02:13.380 With parties, candidates have a structure and a potential team to help them effectively contest the election.

00:02:18.140 And then costs and campaigning, they can be reduced as candidates can share costs from constituency to

00:02:24.420 constituency on things like branding, communications, printing, and even sharing campaign office space.

00:02:29.880 With a party apparatus, candidates with limited campaign experience can still compete effectively

00:02:35.180 for the role. Parties can also hold candidates accountable between elections. That's something we

00:02:39.660 all dearly want. I mean, much like in other levels of government, a party can't remove a person from

00:02:44.180 their elected position, nor should they be able to. But a party can refuse to endorse that candidate in

00:02:48.060 the next election if the candidate deviates too far from the shared principles they said they held

00:02:52.900 with the party. That ability, though, does reflect one of the potential downsides of a party system. I

00:02:57.520 mean, to be fair, candidates could find themselves more inclined to answer to the party than their

00:03:01.020 constituents, and that's not a good thing. It's a risk that should be mitigated through party

00:03:05.740 policies, though. When municipal parties are formed, representatives will need to have the leeway to be able to

00:03:11.100 represent their needs of the individual constituencies rather than always towing a party line.

00:03:15.420 I mean, a suburban councillor, they're going to have different policies and priorities and needs than

00:03:20.400 an inner city urban council would, and they should have the flexibility to represent those differences.

00:03:25.500 With city and town councils having a small number of people within them, these councils,

00:03:30.760 a traditional party politics such as whip votes won't work anyways. Those problems, though, can and would be

00:03:35.060 ironed out with an effective party. We can't pretend that parties don't exist in municipal politics already.

00:03:40.200 A board of unions put together a war chest of an estimated $1.7 million and gave it to a political action

00:03:47.040 group called Calgary's Future in the last election. That group's purpose was to elect a certain slate of

00:03:52.000 candidates in the municipal election, and lo and behold, most of the candidates endorsed by the unions won their

00:03:56.760 seats. You know what that's called? A party system. We already have it, guys. We'd be better served to make the

00:04:03.240 system official and then make the parties transparent. Many of the municipal politicians currently howling and

00:04:08.460 pissing and moaning over the advent of a party system in Alberta's municipal elections got elected with

00:04:12.600 union support. They know full well they likely couldn't win re-election if they had to wear their

00:04:17.380 union allegiance on their sleeves while competing for the job against other candidates running under a

00:04:22.020 party banner. Their interest isn't that of Albertans. Their interest is in themselves.

00:04:27.300 People often ask, why does Alberta vote conservatively, federally, and provincially? It elects far-left

00:04:31.300 politicians at the municipal level. Well, the main reason is the lack of parties at the municipal level.

00:04:35.480 Leftists know they can't win through openly campaigning on their ideology, so they've

00:04:39.380 gravitated to the level of politics where they can hide their leanings, and it's been an effective

00:04:43.220 tactic on their part. And again, if it's true that Albertans truly don't want party politics in

00:04:48.160 municipal elections, then these municipal politicians currently in power have nothing to worry about.

00:04:52.740 Few would vote for those ghastly party-endorsed politicians anyways, right? So why are you guys so

00:04:58.580 worried? It's the fact that these clowns are that worried that tells me exactly why we need those 0.96

00:05:03.100 parties in municipal politics so much. I'm looking forward to seeing them coming along. 0.89

Western Standard - March 21, 2024

Would a party system cure all these ills in the municipal system？

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