AUMA welcomes Premier Kenney

AUMA congratulates Premier Jason Kenney on his swearing in as the 18^th Premier of Alberta. We look forward to working with the Premier and Members of the Legislative Assembly on the issues important to municipalities. There are many policy items identified in the 117-page United Conservative Party (UCP) election platform that are important to municipalities. For example:

Infrastructure

One of the issues AUMA spent a lot of time advocating for was equitable infrastructure funding. We were very pleased to see the UCP’s commitment to maintaining the existing Government of Alberta Capital Plan through 2022/23, ensuring predictable long-term infrastructure funding, and commitment to transparency with a new Alberta Infrastructure Act.  The new Act would outline future prioritization criteria, establish predictable funding levels and ensure adequate maintenance of existing assets. The new UCP government will also increase the use of private-public partnerships. During the Speech from the Throne, the Government committed to tackling Infrastructure issues as part of its upcoming legislative agenda.

Municipalities

The platform also mentioned several specific commitments to municipalities including:

1. Commitment to consulting with municipalities on a new provincial funding formula for police services.
2. Amending the Municipal Government Act to allow municipalities to offer property tax incentives to attract investment and development which was mentioned as a priority for the spring sitting of the legislature in the Speech from the Throne.
3. Amending the Municipal Government Act work with municipalities to facilitate pre-approved industrial zones to streamline regulatory approvals and decision-making.
4. Creating new flexibility for municipalities to permit alcohol use in parks, street festivals or other areas and streamline the planning approval process for affordable housing projects at the local level.

Carbon Tax and Red Tape Reduction

In addition to eliminating the carbon tax, the UCP government will bring forward Bill 4 - the Red Tape Reduction Act, to reduce regulatory burdens. We appreciate that over 140 AUMA members took the time to respond to the AUMA Streamlining Government Survey. You have identified several regulatory areas that can be streamlined to increase efficiency between the provincial and municipal governments; furthermore, municipalities have identified that empowering municipalities to make decisions locally is important when reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens. AUMA will be sharing our member survey results on red tape reduction soon with the province and look forward to working with the Associate Minister of Red Tape Reduction to strengthen Alberta’s economy.

Other initiatives that AUMA is following:

• Developing a 10-year tourism strategy in consultation with stakeholders;
• Creation of a Caribou Range Taskforce which will include local municipalities;
• Consulting with municipalities on the development of a new Alberta Advantage Immigration Strategy which will consist of a program to incentivize new immigrants to start businesses in smaller Alberta communities;
• $40 million commitment to launch an Opioid Response Strategy that expands support for treatment centres;
• Consulting with communities on the locations of safe consumption sites;
• Incentivize media production (film and television industry) in rural areas;
• Increasing use of mixed-income housing; and
• Ensuring rules that provide flexible and affordable housing options for seniors, including unrelated seniors who want to live together and support each other in a single dwelling.

AUMA plans to work with the new government to ensure the municipal perspective is well represented, including the provincial government’s plan to address municipal governance. We look forward to working on the issues that are important to Albertans.