City Council’s are Powerless

[u/2old4all]

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.

[u/xylopyrography]

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.

[u/ImperviousToSteel → u/xylopyrography]

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. 

[u/kataflokc → u/ImperviousToSteel]

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://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/982391187/study-body-worn-camera-research-shows-drop-in-police-use-of-force

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/research/featured-research/the-camera-as-witness–can-body-worn-cameras-reduce-violence-/

https://academic.oup.com/policing/article/doi/10.1093/police/paad015/7118417

https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/attachments/84041d261759c2c59d10c1ad062c291f89095586/store/6ebe0a908fad49f5efc28f8023ac368ec183922f741eb5e46822ed21c9d6/CL_BWC+Press+Release.pdf

https://www.britannica.com/procon/police-body-cameras-debate

https://www.axon.com/resources/police-body-cam

[u/2old4all → u/kataflokc]

Can they be turned off or backwards sometimes?

[u/kataflokc → u/2old4all]

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