Ian McCormack

Imagine if a hockey team’s players and coaches decided they’d rather do each other’s jobs. How effective will that team be? The centre decides he’d be a good coach, so he swaps places with the head coach. The result is that we get an untested and possibly disastrous coach, and the new coach-become-centre gets beaten to the puck every time. Whether this is junior hockey or the NHL, this position swap will turn out badly, and the team will fail. The Ineffective Team This is a metaphor I’ve been...

Newfoundland and Labrador have recently had their municipal elections; Alberta’s are also complete. Next up is New Brunswick in the spring. As newly elected councillors, mayors, and reeves turn their attention to the next four years, and managers work with their councils to encourage and receive direction, governance needs to take root and be fertilized so it can thrive. There is a cascade of good governance that needs to be in place for a council and a municipality to be as exemplary as they...

It’s a new day for local government in Alberta. The vast majority of municipalities held their elections yesterday, and councils are now reinvigorated with full membership for the next four years. Coming out of the vote, and some of the changes leading up to the 2025 election, there are some conclusions that we can start to draw. Legislative Changes There were several major differences in legislation that had an impact on this round of elections. Political parties were permitted in both...