Province seeks more power again – will oversee libraries, municipal conduct codes and certain public utility decisions

By ZOE MASON on April 4, 2026.

zmason@medicinehatnews.com

A bill tabled Thursday includes a wide-ranging array of new oversight authority for the province in numerous areas currently overseen by municipal authorities.

The province gains new powers in areas such as content guidelines for public libraries, regulations for the behaviour of city councillors and the transfer of public utilities to separate entities like municipally controlled corporations.

Bill 28 imposes new restrictions on public libraries regarding materials that feature explicit images of sexual acts. These materials will be required to be separated from other content, and children below the age of 16 will require parental consent to access them.

“Pornographic material paid for by the taxpayer should not be in the access of children’s leisurely reading when they go on an afternoon to a library. I think parents expect that truly explicit pornographic material isn’t something that they’ll fall upon by accident,” said Minister of Municipal Affairs Dan Williams at a news conference Thursday, citing zero examples.

Williams says explicit material will be kept behind the counter and managed by library staff.

Several books were pulled off shelves last year when Premier Danielle Smith’s government imposed a ban on graphic sexual material in school libraries.

The bill also enables the creation of the new universal code of conduct for municipal governments. The province repealed the requirement for municipalities to have codes of conduct last year in anticipation of the universal code.

Details about what will be included in the code will be determined later by regulation, but department officials say the penalties for violating the code will not differ substantially from the sanctions available under previous municipal codes of conduct. Penalties will not include the ability to remove an individual from council.

Mayor Linnsie Clark was subject to an array of sanctions after being found in violation of the municipality’s code of conduct in 2023. She later won an appeal to have her powers restored.

Another aspect of the bill proposes granting provincial cabinet the power to direct the transfer of a publicly owned utility to a municipally controlled corporation.

The legislation does not set out criteria for when this power might be used, but Williams says it would be a measure of last resort.

“I think it would be rare and few and far between.”

Williams says the first step would always be a conversation with the municipality in question.

“If we continue to see failures in the delivery of core services and the reluctance of a municipality to have true, appropriate oversight and governance with committed resources so we know where the money is being reinvested when its coming in, then we may have to look at a legislative solution.”

Williams raised Calgary’s water infrastructure as an example of when this power may be used. He pointed to a report released after the 2024 Bearspaw watermain break, which suggested Calgary’s water utility be transferred to a new entity.

Bill 28 also prohibits the imposition of “vacancy taxes” designed to impose an additional fee on homeowners who do not occupy the property for a minimum amount of time.

“We do have to balance the interest of the economy and the residents at the same time,” said Williams.

Canmore is currently the only jurisdiction in the province that has a vacancy tax. The tax was upheld against an appeal in the province’s highest court earlier this month.

“I know when it comes to the housing market, it’s a unique circumstance, so anything that we can do to work collaboratively with them, I’m open to the conversation. Creative solutions are very welcome, and I’ve addressed that to the mayor,” said Williams.

Vacancy taxes will only be allowed to apply to non-Albertan homeowners.

The bill also creates a “municipal Sunshine List” that will require municipal employees earning above a certain income to disclose their earnings. The threshold will be the same as for provincial employees.

Bill 23, also tabled this week, proposes to lower that threshold to include employees earning more than $130,000 in base salary.

The bill also includes changes to the structure of off-site levies, including new exemptions for charter and independent schools, and creating a framework for “Automatic Yes” development permitting.

Bill 28 comes on the heels of another piece of legislation that looked to assume new powers from other jurisdictions, as Bill 25 looked to concentrate more control at the provincial level over decisions typically made by school boards, including naming schools, extending the contracts of superintendents and compelling the disposition of underutilized property.

Williams denied the suggestion that the recent policy mirrors the kind of federal interference in the province that the UCP government has campaigned against.

“In a legal sense, municipalities are creatures of the province, meaning statute creates them,” said Williams. “They don’t have the same authority that a province has. Truly speaking, when the federal government intercedes into provincial jurisdiction, they are outside their sovereign authority.

“I think municipalities have an autonomy, of course, locally, in how they are elected. But ultimately overseeing that is a provincial responsibility.”

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