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Lorne Gunter: UCP government's two recent moves decidedly undemocratic

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There is a connection between two issues the Alberta government is pushing. The connection is subtle, but it’s there nonetheless. Both are likely constitutional and within the legislature’s power to approve. They’re not illegal.

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Yet they both slap democracy in the face.

One is the Smith government’s decision to move the province to perpetual daylight saving time (and in the process move winter sunrise to 10 a.m.)

The other is the decision to throw out the work of the non-partisan electoral boundaries commission. Instead, politicians who have a vested interest in the outcome will redraw Alberta’s 87 electoral divisions and add four more.

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For a government that claims to be such a big advocate of direct democracy, the time-change decision is the greater sin.

The decision not to leap ahead to MDT in summer and return every winter to MST was decided by the people of Alberta, not the government or the legislature.

It was a ridiculously close vote in a 2021 referendum — 50.2 per cent in favour of switching back and forth, 49.8 per cent in favour of keeping daylight saving time year round.

Since then, there have been lots of people who each year claim that if the vote were held again the opposite result would win.

They may well be right, but that is also beside the point.

A little less than five years ago the people of Alberta chose to keep leaping ahead in spring and falling back in autumn and no public opinion poll or vote in the legislature or gut feeling by politicians has the power to undo that. The will of the people is the highest possible authority.

We just went through a springtime when the voters in nearly 30 provincial ridings were given the chance to oust their MLAs, provided enough signatures could be collected. None of the petition drives was successful. So should government now have the power to pick and choose which MLAs to dump and which to endorse?

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Of course not. Still, that is pretty much what the UCP is doing with its time-change law, deciding the legislature knows better than the people and should overturn their will with a simple motion.

The government has a handful of referendum questions coming up this fall. If the UCP is so all-fired certain that going to year-round daylight saving time is the will of Albertans, wait until October and ask them again.

Something similar is happening with electoral boundaries, although not exactly parallel.

An independent electoral boundaries commission (EBC) was set up under provincial law a little more than a year ago. It consisted of a non-partisan chairman, Court of King’s Bench Justice Dallas Miller, plus two members appointed by the UCP and two appointed by the NDP.

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It held more than 30 public hearings across the province and it’s hard to imagine anyone knowing more about how to divide the province into effective and equitable constituencies. It proposed the creation of two new ridings, up from 87 to 89.

Almost immediately after the commission submitted its report in late March of this year, the UCP government dismissed it. Although the law setting up the commission allowed to it to recommend only two new constituents, UCP wanted four, mostly in rural areas that they do better in during elections.

The new commission-like committee will be made up of MLAs — a UCP chair plus three more UCP MLAs, and two from the NDP.

If that sounds a little unbalanced, you’re right. The UCP can approve any redistribution of seats it wants and it wants to approve four more UCP-friendly rural ridings.

That seems unethical and destined to cause some Albertans to lose faith in the next election.

It’s not exactly undemocratic, but it stinks of bias and favouritism.

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