You remember when our city was completely covered with trash?
Sorry, I mean election signs.
Well, it's about to get a lot worse.
Oh, yeah. They took away our powers under the MGA. So we cannot determine what happens on city property, along boulevards and sidewalks and things like that, as far as signage goes during elections.
It's actually probably not the safest thing to do, to have a whole bunch of text on the side of the road that people are distracted by.
They snuck another change in
While the province was meddling in elections last year, introducing parties that Albertans didn't want, changing rules to allow more dark money, and helping their friends avoid consequences for breaking rules, they snuck another change in.
The Elections Act now forbids municipalities from passing any bylaw that regulates election signage in any way.
Based on current legislation, in the next election, there will be almost an insane proliferation of signs. Basically, whoever has the most money can just spam the zone.
I guess if we want money to be the determining factor in how people choose to vote, we can do that. In many ways, it already is. Probably is way too much, at a time when people are saying they'd love to see less money in politics.
In theory
In theory, the minister is able to draft regulations setting rules on election signs provincewide.
But in practice, nearly a year ago, the UCP removed all council codes of conduct provincewide. You can look for the video I produced on that last April. And they said the same thing, that there would be provincewide codes of conduct. But there still aren't any.
And any municipal councils across the province are not currently held to any code of conduct at all.
How far does the province actually want to go with their authorities creeping in onto the MGA? I get that they get frustrated by things, but what is their capacity? Can they actually regulate this? And my feeling is probably not.
You know, it would just be nice to have these larger conversations in a calm fashion, and that legislation is brought forward thoughtfully and ready for prime time. I think what the province will find out is there are a lot of unintended consequences when you don't fully think through legislation.
So yeah, a lot of meddling, but not a lot of deep understanding of what the issues are, why decisions have been made.
Get my news and takes in your inbox
Don't let algorithms control whether you see my latest video or article. We don't need to include Mark Zuckerberg in our relationship.
Free. Emails from Troy Pavlek when I publish something new. Unsubscribe any time.
That didn't go through. Try again in a minute, or email [email protected].
You're in. Thanks for subscribing!
