Two articles released today, one by Parkland Institute researcher Barret Weber and the other by Dave Cournoyer on his daveberta.ca blog, show a clear path to making Alberta's elections more fair and democratic.
Weber's article lays out the current situation for electoral finance at the provincial level and compares it to other Canadian provinces, as well as the federal system. He then makes seven clear proposals for how the new NDP government could improve the system. Read Parkland Institute's article "Ending Pay to Play: The Need for Political Finance Reform in Alberta."Our document "A Just and Fair Alberta: Priorities for Change" (see page 20) lays out our own top three priorities for democratic reform in Alberta, including many of the same points made in the Parkland Institute article.Cournoyer's article moves the focus to the municipal level, pointing out that the province is responsible for legislating electoral finance laws for municipal elections across the province. As the article shows, the current laws governing electoral finance at the municipal level are grossly unfair and should be a clear priority for the new NDP government. Although these concerns at the municipal level were not part of the party's election platform, they very much align with the NDP's commitments to reform electoral finance laws at the provincial level. Read Dave Cournoyer's article "Notley's NDP should ban corporate and union donations in municipal elections."
