Tuesday, Edmonton’s city council discussed the upcoming municipal election which is scheduled to take place around a year from now under a different set of rules.
Going into this civic election, candidates will be running under the alberta government’s Bill 20 which creates sweeping changes to how local elections will run in the city.
In addition to creating political parties at the municipal level, the bill also allows unions corporations, and third-party advertisers to spend on local elections as well as increasing the limits candidates can spend on their campaigns.
“In the last election, corporations and unions were prohibited from donating,” said Mayor Amarjeet Sohi.
“Why would somebody living in another part of the province be funneling money through corporations or unions or private donations to influence the outcome of a local election?”
With donations allowed to both political parties and the candidates running under them at the local level, some Edmonton city councillors raised concerns over an unfair spending advantage to party-affiliated candidates.
A mayoral candidate can spend one dollar per person based on the population of the municipality, and so can the political party they run under. Third-party advertisers get 50 cents per person.
“Mayor Sohi spent $655,000 this now, the next mayoral campaign, the candidates could spend up to $4 million. So I hope to hear full-throated condemnation of this from all councillors and all political candidates,” explained Michael Janz, the Councilor of Ward Papastew.
Last week, Alberta’s minister of municipal affairs told media, that’s how it is at the provincial level.
“There’s a certain element of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so that’s the kind of the what the rules run in the provincial party rules, and in some ways we tried to mirror those,” said Minister Ric McIver.