Constitutional crisis? No it’s not, and you’re being dramatic.
Fair point, hyperbolic statement on my part. Cheerfully withdrawn.
They’re not proposing to redistribute constitutional powers or to usurp the authorities of the provinces. They’re offering pretty considerable financial incentives to push housing growth, and as part of this are offering significant conditional assistance with municipal infrastructure. They want and intend to do that through funding provincial programs, but if a given province doesn’t want to establish such a program, they can offer infrastructure support directly to municipalities.
I am aware of the funding processes between all levels of government. I also am aware that there is a difference between cooperation and co-opting betwen different levels as well. Especially when a provinical jurisdiction is being dictated to by a federal one.
Say Calgary were to ask for federal funding to further expand its commuter rail system. Feds say “yup, but show us the plans to approve x amount of high density housing proximate to the new stations”. The city does so and also asks for help upgrading wastewater infrastructure in certain neighbourhoods targeted for growth and densification. The feds agree to do so.
That is fine and dandy. Good for Calgary. Do those plans fit in with Alberta's larger plan to sustain that infrastructure? Power generation? Health care needs of those high density buildings? Schools for the kids that will be living in those areas?
Provincial matters all and play directly into the planning for that municipal request. Mom vs Dad between the Provinces can fuck up the best of intentions.
You propose that the province of Alberta, not having established a provincial program to access and control the purse strings over this federal funding, is upset by this (very plausible).
Plausible? It has been a plank of the Alberta government since Trudeau the First. See NEP. See Equalization Payments. Alberta has been dictated to since 1905 and the prevailing attitudes outside of Calgary and Edmonton is that the arrangement is no longer beneficial.
You suggest the province could choose to collapse a municipal government for directly accessing federal funding to directly or indirectly expand housing. Could the province do this? Maybe. I take your word for it that they can.
Section 92, Para 8 of the British North America Act gives exclusive power to the Provinces to deal with municipal matters as they see fit.
This was reopened in the late 1970s when Trudeau the Elder started the Constitutional repatriation process and the FCM wanted to constitutionally enshrine this 3rd level of government. Papa Trudeau agreed, but everyone else involved including all 10 Premiers disagreed. The Constitution Act of 1982 maintained that the Provinces are the sovereign authority for the municipalities. The Quebec Referendum in 1995 also affirmed that should a province leave Confederation, the municipalities had no Constitutional rights to remain and could be collapsed into that province entirely.
This article explains it in depth.
Would that be constitutionally lawful? Again I take your word that yes it would be.
See above.
It would not be a constitutional crisis, but it would certainly be a bold political play and maybe a democratic crisis inasmuch as it stomps on the will of the city’s voters expressed in electing their council.
Municipalities have no legal charter. They have no constitutional protections. The Constitutional arguement is that the Provinces can create municipal governments to make
their lives easier in governing, however, the democratic representation of citizens stopping at the Provincial level, while pissing people off, woukd be a legal power play.
I think a province scuppering a municipal government to punish them for taking direct federal funding to build infrastructure and to address something everyone agrees is a problem would be a hell of a move and would carry great political risk for that government. The only government stupid enough to do that would, I guess, be a government stupid enough to do that.
Out of curiosity did you actually read the plan yet or just reply to that one part of my comment?
I did, and I believe its a good plan; where it falls down is essentially cutting the line in working with ALL levels of government to factor provinical concerns as well. We are a federation, yes, but we do have a division of powers for a reason.
I wonder how quickly the Fed would howl to the moon if a province set up their own National Guard, or Coastal Defence Force to augment the needs of the province currently unmet by the CAF.
As long as people at all levels keep blaming Trudeau for the housing crisis, it will give him license to try and fix it.
People can’t have it both ways.
This I agree with, but like I have said above, cooperation between all levels, in their respective roles and responsibilities, is what is needed.
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