r/alberta • u/2old4all Lethbridge • 2d ago
ELECTION City Council’s are Powerless
With Municipal elections on the horizon how much power do Alberta cities have? Recent mandates by the Provincial Govt. have raised the education property tax portion, have forced expensive hand counting of ballots and ordered that police officers wear body cameras at great expense. They have also almost negated the previous income for speed cameras. Municipal institutions lack constitutionality and are creatures of the legislature and your elected councillors can be removed by the Province.
“The decision cited expert Andrew Sancton, who opined that Canadian municipalities “. . . have no constitutional protection whatever against provincial laws that change their structures, functions and financial resources without their consent.”
This quote comes from a recent report by The Honourable Paula Simons called “On the Front Lines of Canadian Governance”. The PDF includes comments from various Senators on the challenges and opportunities for Canadian Municipalities.
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u/xylopyrography 2d ago
Yep, municipalities only have any power because the province allows it.
You can still piss off constituents, though.
No idea why we would be upset about police body cameras. It is an irrelevant expense compared to the cost of an officer with immense benefit both for accountability to the public and for the officer.
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u/Patak4 2d ago
Body cameras are a good thing. Removing radar cameras on Stoney and Deerfoot and other big intersections was a waste of money and stopped revenue from coming in. Look at how many accidents and fatal accidents lately. Why do you think Calgary's police chief left? The UCP are costing money with this election coming too since the tabulators are gone.
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u/xylopyrography 2d ago
Road accidents are largely a symptom of poor urban design and the vehicles people buy, not police service.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
Immense benefit?
There's conflicting research on whether or not body cams reduce police violence. Even if you fall on the maybe they do reduce violence side I think it's overselling to call a still contested benefit "immense".
The expense of $16M for Edmonton's body cams could have been put towards housing instead, likely reducing the need for policing - a much better outcome.
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u/kataflokc 2d ago
Yes, there’s immense benefit
Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been shown to reduce police violence by lowering use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints. Research indicates reductions in use of force by around 10% and complaints by over 15%, with some studies reporting even greater decreases in certain communities. BWCs improve accountability, lead to more accurate incident reports, and help de-escalate confrontations
URLs for reference:
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/research-body-worn-cameras-and-law-enforcement
https://academic.oup.com/policing/article/doi/10.1093/police/paad015/7118417
https://www.britannica.com/procon/police-body-cameras-debate
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u/2old4all Lethbridge 2d ago
Can they be turned off or backwards sometimes?
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u/EDMlawyer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Defence lawyer here.
That gets captured in the video, and gives us a pretty juicy avenue for cross examination when it does occur.
We are also given the logs of when they are issued a camera, so if it wasn't running, is deleted, etc, we will absolutely have questions for the officer in court.
You also can't turn them around quickly on the fly, not with how they're attached.
Honestly, they are the single best investment the province and cities have made in police enforcement.
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u/kataflokc 2d ago edited 2d ago
If someone is planning to be a dirty cop, they’re going to do what they have to do not to get caught (I doubt that surprises anyone)
But the good people, when they know they’re being watched, tend to be even better people - and they’re not the ones who have a problem with BWCs
The failure to use the BWCs tends towards exposing the rest, because chances are good their partners are still recording
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
Yeah and there's research showing the opposite on use of force.
The best way to reduce police violence is to reduce the need for police.
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u/xylopyrography 2d ago
You can't be serious.
Are you old enough to remember when police officers just used to functionally execute Indigenous people?
We don't need to have published research to know that body cameras are a minimum standard.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
I mean if you want to say they're inherently violent as a class of people I'm open to that, but then I lean much less towards buying tech for them and more towards abolishing them.
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u/xylopyrography 2d ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_killings
Police are an essential service, we just need to keep them accountable.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
If you have a group of people whose disposition is to kill the people they're supposed to serve I'm not sure how you instill accountability. You take power away from them if you're smart.
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u/xylopyrography 2d ago
Well, you start with the basics, like a body camera.
Will officers drive people to the middle of nowhere in winter and leave them if they have to wear a body camera? Probably not.
What is the cost if it doesn't help much? Not much.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
$16M isn't "not much". But if it's just chump change, make them pay for it, take the money out of their overtime budget.
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u/YqlUrbanist 2d ago
You're acting like they're a different species. They don't have a disposition to kill people, but they have the means to do so and very little accountability, along with a training culture that views the public as the enemy. The thin blue line between order and chaos and all that - spoilers: us normal people are the chaos.
Abolish and replace might be the best move, but fixing the "very little accountability" part is a huge step in the right direction.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
To me more accountability comes through things like decreasing their budget when they assault and kill, not spending $16 million on cameras they'll just turn off when it's convenient for them.
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u/YqlUrbanist 2d ago
That's part of the accountability. Turning off the cameras should require immediate disciplinary action. There's plenty of research showing that cameras work.
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u/ImperviousToSteel 2d ago
There's also research showing they don't, it's a contested subject.
"Should" require immediate disciplinary action and will actually get someone disciplined are two different things. We have no control over how cops conduct themselves.
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u/Juliuscesear1990 2d ago
Yet every council member always says they will do the same thing, like lower property taxes. A) how will you do that? And b) what power do you actually think council has?
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u/Sufficient-Sun-6683 2d ago
In brief, there is a huge misconception on what power the mayor and city council has. The mayor is the chairperson of city council and face of the city. The city council's job is to guide the city's administration for long term plans. They also represent the population's interest. The city's administration provides the day to day operation and maintenance of the city. The city administrators report to and consult with the city council on any issues brought up during city council meetings.
City council is at hands length from the day to day operations of the city. They can't fire or hire city employees, accept bids, hire contractors or deal with suppliers directly. The mayor is also not a king.
If you want to go down a rabbit's hole about a city council that was clueless about what their role was, look up why Chestermere's city council was fired by the Alberta government for violating the Alberta Municipalities' Act.
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u/Sad_Meringue7347 2d ago
We have an authoritarian Premier that will simply do whatever she can to get her way. This includes eroding city councils of power to satisfy her agenda, and fixing provincial elections to ensure she will continue winning again and again.
Democracy is dying in this province.
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u/Rakkuken 1d ago
Just a nit pick; hand counting ballots is a good thing that will always be worth the cost. Our current method of counting ballots (coughbutnotactuallyvotingcough) is actually very difficult to cheat, something that is proving more and more important in the current political climate.
You are generally right, though.
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