Alberta cabinet ministers champion municipal parties, grid changes at conference

Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver said municipal political parties will make clear the affiliations these politicians have. “I certainly identified myself as a Conservative when I was on city council in Calgary and I know other people identify themselves with a party,” said McIver on a Friday panel at the Alberta Municipalities Spring 2024 Municipal Leaders Caucus. “It’s all legal.” However, McIver said there should be rules around municipal parties. For example, these people would have to declare that and disclose their financial arrangements. While people will be able to form parties, he said no one “will be required to be in a political party to run municipally.” If no one wants them, he acknowledged people will not run with them. Across Alberta, he acknowledged municipal politicians have voiced support for certain ideologies. These politicians will often receive endorsements from third party groups. By putting rules around these instances, he predicted it will be positive. He said this is not a takeover of municipal councils by the Alberta United Conservative Party. This is because the Alberta UCP will not allow a municipal party to be affiliated with it. It will be municipal politics done by separate parties. McIver said the UCP is trying to be careful with this proposal. If people think party affiliations do not exist at the municipal level, he said they need to give their heads a shake. The union-backed coalition of candidates who supported progressive policies came out on top in the 2021 Calgary election. READ MORE: MORGAN: It’s time for municipal political parties in AlbertaThe 2021 election offered the largest turnover of elected positions seen at Calgary city hall in a generation. Conservatives had an opportunity to get a slate of small government representatives into office and blew it. Rather than gripe about how the union coalition took over city hall, various conservatives said they could learn from it by forming a municipal party. Alberta Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf said the government has launched multiple inquiries and a full overview into the electricity grid. “One of the most exciting opportunities that we have is that we have the opportunity not just to bring our stakeholders to the table with the regulators but also bring the government back to that table with the regulators to make sure we have a good line of sight on where we are today and how we’re going to get to 2050,” said Neudorf. “And with that clarity, that allows industry to have a little bit more insight on what potential assets might be coming off line in the future and what opportunities they would have to bring new generation online.” By fixing the energy grid, Neudorf said it will provide Alberta with the opportunity to define the better balance for generation. He said the Alberta government has received unfair criticism from renewables. What it saw was an influx of renewables without consideration of their unique characteristics, which is often their intermittancy. Alberta experienced a grid alert because renewables were not working as well as they should have in January. With better planning, he said it “opens up tremendous opportunity to see new technology brought on board.” Some of the technologies he said he wants to see weaved into the grid are hydrogen blending and nuclear, geothermal and biomass projects. He said he knows Alberta is capable of great achievements in short time periods. Two hundred megawatts came off the grid in less than five minutes in January. That equates to be about 500,000 homes. He said people should never doubt the power of Albertans. Neudorf pledged to give Albertans control through the potential reconsideration of time of use rates, demand side management and better optimization of the electricity grid. With the tools the Alberta government is proposing, he said it will give Albertans the tools when and where they need it at the lowest cost possible. The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) declared a grid alert in January to deal with ongoing extreme cold temperatures across Western Canada, restricted imports, and high demand. READ MORE: Alberta electricity operator asks Albertans to save energy to prevent outagesAESO asked Albertans to reduce their electricity use to essential needs only. It said reducing peak electricity demand through conservation would minimize the high potential for rotating outages that evening. At the time, AESO projected the Alberta electricity grid would face a 100 to 200 megawatts shortfall of electricity during peak evening hours. Immediate power conservation could make a significant difference in reducing overall system demand, sitting at 12,000 megawatts.