Let's talk a bit about Jason Kenney's lovely little bit of legislative overreach with #Bill10 wherein he's given himself the power to simply create whatever laws he likes while there's a public health emergency. #ableg #abpoli /1

The need to suspend / modify the workings of various parts of things during a public emergency is a normal part of good governance. It's more than passing strange for the government to give itself the blanket right to create random laws without legislative oversight, though. /2

You know it's bad when one of Kenney's staunchest allies - John Carpay over at JCCF - is critical this move: https://www.jccf.ca/alberta-government-gives-itself-sweeping-new-powers-to-create-new-laws-without-legislative-assembly-approval/ /3

While @tim4hire assures us that the laws which ministers may create during a state of emergency are temporary, I'm more skeptical, and I suspect there is a bigger game being played by the Kenney government here. /4 https://twitter.com/tim4hire/status/1247298026802155520?s=20

Yes, those "temporary measures" may themselves expire 60 days after the end of the state of emergency, but that 60 days is more than enough time for the UCP government to ram an omnibus bill through the legislature. /5

For example, I will point you to Bill 5, which the government rammed through in a single day on March 17.

https://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_status&selectbill=005&legl=30&session=2 /6

You cannot tell me that in any reasonable context such a bill (some 20 pages of legislative changes) could go through 2 readings, and committee review, in a single day.

This basically means that any kind of intelligent review of the legislation simply isn't being done. /7

So, my first contention is that the UCP government has no real respect for the legislative process in the first place. They see it as an impediment to their agenda. /8

Which brings me to their first actions under this act. Were they health related? Nope. They were a set of changes to the employment rules in Alberta: /9

https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=700122D6A74F3-F688-D77B-42A3309636AA078B

To me, this looks a lot like so-called "right to work" legislation that the GOP started pushing in the US which basically put a huge amount of control in the hands of employers. /10

Is this strictly necessary - especially the bit about shift changes? - in the context of the #COVID19 emergency? I remain dubious. /11

But ... it isn't exactly a big leap to imagine the government pushing numerous little changes through under their emergency powers, and then bundling them all up in a housekeeping bill to be be presented this coming fall. /12

Bear in mind, if the current state of emergency lasts through the end of May, the provisions themselves won't expire until the end of July at the earliest, and if the state of emergency continues through June, then we're getting well into the timeframe for the fall sitting. /13

That means this relatively small modification to the emergency legislation becomes a means for the government to put in place much of its legislative agenda without having to present it in the legislature first. /14

Then, some months later they introduce an omnibus bill and argue that all they are doing is making official what has been the case for some time already - how bad is it really?! /15

My point here is not that we should be reassured by the idea that there is an expiry on these changes, but rather that we should be asking how the #UCP government could use this to avoid scrutiny. /16 ~fin~