Canadian President of ATU says the Local Measures Statues Amendment Act is about cutting essential services that the community relies on

Last week, the United Conservative Party introduced Bill 56: the Local Measures Statutes Amendment Act, 2021 into the house. This bill will negatively impact municipalities in Alberta.

“This bill is extremely deceitful because they are branding cuts as funding,” said President John Di Nino. “if passed this legislation would extend the ‘Municipal Sustainability Initiative’ until 2023-24 and delay the new fiscal framework for local governments until 2024-25. This totally leaves our municipality in limbo and without a financial lifeline during a global health emergency.”

Most of the capital funding is coming from federal infrastructure money and gas tax revenues. The Province of Alberta. Overall, the MSI will allot 13% less to municipalities than it did three years prior.

“The UCP party made the Local Government Fiscal Framework a major campaign plan in 2019, however we will not see it implement until 2024-25,” said Di Nino. “When it finally comes into effect, the baseline rate of the framework will be lower by over $100 million dollars. It’s typically say one thing and do another thing with this government. Moreover, they are going to force city services like public transit to absorb the costs of their financial mismanagement and wrong-headed fiscal strategies. We need all workers in Alberta to stand up and tell the current government that we will not accept lower standards and declining services.”