Pros, cons to municipal party approach in Alberta: political scientist

Political parties have officially entered the Edmonton political landscape. The first organized party launched six candidates on Monday. CTV News Edmonton's Connor Hogg has the story.

With the number of political parties for Edmonton’s municipal election this coming fall starting to increase – city councillor Tim Cartmell is expected to introduce his own group soon with another entity, PACE, already formed – one political scientist wonders how effective such a system will be.

Dr. Chaldeans Mensah, a political science professor at Edmonton’s MacEwan University, says while the concept of having parties run at the municipal level may “bring a bit of clarity” and structure to the process for voters as they will presumably have a specific program.

Mensah’s musings come with PACE, which stands for Principled Accountable Coalition for Edmonton, and Cartmell’s yet-to-be-named party – an unveiling for it Tuesday was postponed – taking shape after the Alberta government passed legislation last year allowing political parties to run in municipal elections in both Edmonton and Calgary.

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“If you’re voting for a specific political party, you know that the members are going to be rowing in the same direction on policy,” Mensah told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday. “Council (wouldn’t) be a bunch of individual councilors, but they (would) be paying attention to the program of the party.”

On the flip side, however, is the possibility that a city council would run much the same as it does now.

“If (parties) are successful in electing their members, then presumably they will have an impact on council,” Mensah said.

“If they’re unsuccessful, and we have independent members running and perhaps members of slates who are going to be elected, we are back to the old, individual councillors looking at issues and making determination based on their beliefs and so on.”

Doug Main, a board director for PACE and a former MLA and cabinet minister for the Progressive Conservatives more than 30 years ago, called the political party “a movement.”

It’s the first party in Edmonton to present a slate of candidates – on Monday, it introduced six of them, with a goal of one for each of the city’s 12 ridings in the coming weeks.

PACE’s platform is centred around fiscal responsibility and community safety.

“It’s a gathering of like-minded people who have seen what’s come out of city hall over the last four-to-eight years and are just not happy,” Main told CTV News Edmonton, singling out tax increases, recent zoning bylaw changes and transit safety as key concerns.

Mensah called PACE’s approach with messaging “astute.”

“I see the frustration that people have about high taxes (and) lack of addressing real, core municipal issues,” he said.

“They want to tap into that on a kind of fiscally conservative platform, very pragmatic, but they’re afraid to be seen as maybe a UCP-type connection, so they’re very careful not to even use the word ‘conservative.’”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg