Alberta, December 4: The Alberta government is crafting changes to be debated next week to reverse the section of a bill that gives cabinet unfettered power to rewrite laws behind closed doors without legislature approval, the province’s premier said Saturday.
Danielle Smith told her Corus radio talk show that her sovereignty bill was never supposed to give cabinet such sweeping authority, adding her government wants to make it clear in law that this is not the case.
“You never get things 100 percent right all the time,” Smith told her radio listeners.
“I think there’s some confusion on that, so we’re working on some amendments to make it clear.”
The bill, introduced Tuesday by Smith as the signature legislation of her new administration, has faced widespread condemnation for granting her and her cabinet sweeping authority to redress any federal policy, law or program it deems harmful to Alberta.
Critics say such power exercised in secret without legislature oversight is a threat to the checks and balances that underpin a healthy democracy.
For days after Smith introduced the bill, she and her cabinet members rejected accusations, including from legal and constitutional scholars, that the bill granted unchecked power.
On Thursday afternoon in the legislature, Smith accused the Opposition NDP of fearmongering “that somehow this act gives power to the cabinet to unilaterally alter legislation behind closed doors despite the fact that it does not.”
“There is some concern right now that (the bill) is written in a way that suggests that we (cabinet) would be able to unilaterally change statutes — and we’re not able to do that,” she told her radio show.
“If there are any changes to statutes (under the bill), it does have to come back to the legislature, so we’re working on making sure that that gets clarified.”
Smith said those matters would be debated and addressed next week, adding that she’s taking what she described as a “fair-minded” approach.
“If we caused some confusion by some awkward wording, then let’s clean it up and then be able to talk about the bigger issues,” she said.
Political scientist Duane Bratt said it’s a positive step for the bill to be amended to remove the sweeping powers to the cabinet.
But Bratt said the change is not a tweak, the bill has become a confusing mess, Smith did not seem to understand the legislation she was introducing, and the entire affair raises larger questions about Smith’s competence in the top job.
“How did this get in the bill in the first place?” said Bratt, who teaches at Calgary’s Mount Royal University.
“Wouldn’t they have read it? Wouldn’t they have noticed this? This is damaging to have to backtrack. These are major reversals on her signature piece of legislation. (No matter) whoever wrote it, at the end of the day her name is attached to it. She’s the one who introduced the bill. She has to wear this.”
The bill, now in the second reading, has also triggered concerns over the provision that grants the cabinet the power to order provincially legislated or funded entities to reject federal laws if the cabinet deems Ottawa is causing harm.
Those entities include municipalities, police forces, health regions, post-secondary institutions, and school boards.
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