Skip to content

LETTER: Sovereignty Act concerning legislation

Editor: Do we want to live in an Alberta where legislation can be changed by cabinet fiat? Where affected parties have little time to respond? Where your municipality can be punished by the province for enforcing federal laws? I have phoned and written

Editor:

Do we want to live in an Alberta where legislation can be changed by cabinet fiat? Where affected parties have little time to respond? Where your municipality can be punished by the province for enforcing federal laws?

I have phoned and written to Banff-Kananaskis MLA Miranda Rosin to express my deep concern with the proposed Sovereignty Act. I urge all concerned citizens to do likewise.

This proposed act allows cabinet to change Alberta legislation without bringing the new wording back to the legislature. That type of power is normally exercised only in emergencies. Arguments between Canada and Alberta over who has which powers under the constitution are not emergencies. This proposed act purposely makes it difficult for affected parties to respond – it narrows the required response time to 30 days rather than a more normal six months. It also tries to shield government parties against the legal consequences of their actions.

This proposed act attempts to tell the courts the standard they should apply to judgment (“patent unreasonableness”). The standards our courts apply – such as “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal cases, or the standard of “the reasonable man” in civil matters – have been established by centuries of British common law. Making up new standards on the fly suggests that the drafters of this proposed act know they can't meet normal standards.

This proposed act continues the UCP’s worrisome trend of meddling in municipal business. First it was the over-reach in forbidding municipalities and school boards to take public health measures locally to respond to local concerns. Now, with this proposed act, municipalities wishing to enforce the laws of Canada will somehow be blamed for doing that by Alberta.

Apparently, the UCP wants to please those who believe that Alberta lives in a state of perpetual victimhood. If they feel they must do that, I suggest they bring in an act modelled on Premier Scott Moe's Saskatchewan First, instead of the proposed Bill 1. While Saskatchewan First is both redundant and a bit silly, it appears to be at least constitutional and not anti-democratic. That’s a low bar. Let’s see if Danielle Smith’s UCP can step over it.

Leslie Taylor,

Banff

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks