Alberta Is Trying To Bring In A New Law To Stop Cities Imposing Their Own Public Health Rules
The move has been blasted as an "overreach."
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the province will change a law to stop cities from bringing in their own public health rules.
The move follows a decision by the City of Edmonton to keep its mask mandate in place, after provincial restrictions ended on March 1, while the City of Calgary decided to end its mask bylaw.
At a news conference in Red Deer, Kenney said: “Something Albertans do not deserve right now is uncertainty and confusion.
“We can move forward confidently together with clarity instead of confusion. We are concerned that a patchwork of separate policies across the province could just lead to greater division, confusion, and enforcement difficulties with no compelling public health rationale.”
Amendments will be made the to Municipal Government’s Act “as soon as possible”, Kenney added.
In a series of tweets, Edmonton’s Mayor Amarjeet Sohi criticized the premier’s decision, saying the implications of “such an overreach will go far beyond the mask bylaw”.
“If this overreach goes unchallenged, the province could, for example, restrict our smoking bylaws or affect how we build our cities by changing our zoning bylaws or decide how we manage traffic in our neighbourhoods to protect our children,” he explained.
Edmonton chose to keep its masking bylaw in place while the number of active COVID-19 cases remained above 100 per 100,000 residents. A city council meeting is scheduled to discuss the bylaw on March 8.
Sohi added he would be consulting with the city’s legal department, the city council and other municipal organizations to “see how this overreach could be challenged”.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek also criticized the move by the premier, according to CTV, who reported that the city had been looking to amend its mask bylaw in order to allow peace officers to enforce the provincial mask mandate that remains on transit.
Gondek told a news conference: “The city would have to enact its own bylaw, but we can’t because apparently, according to the Municipal Government Act that will be rewritten, we won’t have that power.”
At the same news conference in Red Deer, Kenney also called for an end to the vaccine mandate for Alberta Health Services workers.
He said: “We saw vaccines having a powerful effect … but that has changed and our approach to the disease has to change.
“We can't just be bloody-minded about this when a policy lever that we pulled is no longer useful.”