St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron expressed some frustration with the province's new panel that will see issues discussed among citizens and brought in as possible referendum items for 2026.
The Alberta Next panel was first announced on May 5. Since then, 15 panel members have been named, including Premier Danielle Smith, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz, Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken, as well as other doctors and members of the business community.
Heron said the lack of municipal representation on the panel was concerning, although that consultation with municipalities does not always lead to the province changing their policy decisions
"In my experience it hasn't always been very positive. The province doesn't listen very often to municipalities," Heron said.
A website has been set up, which contains details and dates for upcoming town halls the panel will host. The panel will lead public consultation on a variety of issues, including immigration, an Alberta Pension Plan, a provincial police force, as well as Alberta separation. The website also includes surveys that members of the public can complete online.
The survey on immigration asks if residents are comfortable with the current levels of immigration and whether Alberta should withhold provincial supports and aide from newcomers if they do not meet requirements from the province. The video that is required to be watched before residents can take the survey ties immigration rates to rising housing costs and unemployment.
Another survey asks if Alberta should create an Alberta Police Service to take over community policing from the RCMP. The video says that the RCMP is accountable to Ottawa, instead of the province, and also states that RCMP officers can be moved out of their posts and across the province, resulting in little connection to their communities they serve.
Heron said she watched the videos and found them to be "heavily biased."
"The general theme for everything is 'No more oversight from Ottawa we want to do this all ourselves.' Well I completely disagree, especially with policing," she said, adding that St. Albert chooses to remain with the RCMP for a number of reasons, and one of them being that they get money from the federal government to offset the contract cost.
She said that transitioning from the RCMP to a provincial police force would likely give the City no increase in any kind of say than it gets with Ottawa right now.
"We have a good interaction with the RCMP here. We do get our individual issues expressed at the table. I have no guarantee that would happen at the provincial level," she said. "It's just trading one master for another."
On the province's claims about immigration, and threats to withhold services to newcomers if they don't meet certain requirements, Heron said she found them particularly offensive.
"They're just trying to make Alberta an unattractive place to settle because you won't get the social services that other provinces would offer," she said. "Coming to Canada is a federal decision, not a provincial one."
Muna Abdulhussain, executive director of the St. Albert Newcomers Centre, said that support services for newcomers are essential, especially in their first month of coming to a new country.
"If there's no help for the newcomers then when they come they're going to ask their neighbour, they're going to ask their bus driver, they're going to ask the public and they may be misled," Abdulhussain said.
Heron said she was concerned about these information sessions that would lead to potential referendum questions would only see those who are very plugged into these specific issues turning out to vote.
"I'd rather see a lot of these kinds of things inform the UCP's platform for the next election," she said.
