Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the province is not overreaching, it’s protecting Alberta municipalities from bad federal policies. Smith defended the province’s foray into municipal housing policy Saturday on her call-in radio program Your Province, Your Premier. Friday, Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas expressed concern that the province’s new direction on housing concerning infills borders on provincial overreach. “Do you know who undermined local democracy?” Smith asked. “I would say that the overreach happened when the federal government came in, and bribed city councils in Calgary and Edmonton.” Smith added that Calgarians pushed back on their own, voting out the mayor and a bunch of councillors in the 2025 municipal election, but in Edmonton there was a lack of awareness of the implications of blanket rezoning. Edmonton must return to the parameters for housing types, density and height that existed before its 2024 zoning changes, and restore minimum on-site parking requirements from before 2020. The city must also undertake an 18-month review. Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack said the directive would make the city less affordable, increase property taxes and create uncertainty. Smith said the province reversed zoning bylaw changes this week that Edmonton made in 2024 because Ottawa influenced the city’s rules. “We said that any entity that receives money from us, that the federal government cannot do a workaround on this, they have to come through us in order to administer funds,” she said, “and fortunately, we (have) developed a collaborative approach with the federal government...and they’re respecting our ability to work with municipalities to identify that.” She added that she heard from plenty of Albertans about the blanket rezoning issue. “I’’ll tell you as well, when (municipal) things land on my desk, I am obliged to deal with them,” she said. “Municipalities by and large have the widespread support of those who elect them,” she added, “but just this last week alone, I received 2,653 letters from people asking me to do something about this infill issue.” Understanding municipal needs Friday, the Alberta Municipalities President backed up the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary. “MLAs who don’t live in a community can’t understand its needs,” Dylan Bressey said. “The province has created municipal governments so that we have local politicians accountable to local people having conversations with their communities about what is best.” Bressey said member municipalities have been worried about a number of local decisions made by the UCP government on subjects like bike lanes, photo radar, library materials and police funding. “I’ve talked to mayors and councillors from the far south to the far north, from our tiny summer villages to our big cities, and they are deeply concerned about provincial actions that have taken away local authority,” he said. “Again and again and again, these changes have had unintended consequences in communities that the province didn’t even mean to make, but they didn’t consult correctly.” With files from The Canadian Press and CTV News’ Timm Bruch and Mason DePatie
