Referendum sign rules causing confusion as municipalities lose oversight, Edmonton and Calgary struggle

Municipalities across Alberta are scrambling to manage referendum signs with little power to enforce rules, after provincial legislation stripped them of authority over election advertising.

Bill 54, passed in recent years, prevented municipalities from creating bylaws or passing resolutions about election signs and ads. While the provincial government can now make regulations on ad placement, no enforcement authority has been clearly established, and Elections Alberta—which administers the referendum—has jurisdiction only over the content of signs, not their placement, size, or damage.

In Calgary, a video shared online Tuesday appeared to show a city worker removing referendum signs from the roadside. The city said some were removed in error and later returned, and Calgary said it will investigate. But Let Alberta Decide, a referendum campaign group, says the city has not returned all its signs and believes they were placed lawfully.

Edmonton removed election-sign provisions from its Public Spaces Bylaw in March, though general provisions about signs and public-space use remain. But without specific referendum authority, the city's ability to enforce is unclear.

"There's confusion and uncertainty," Calgary Councillor Nathaniel Schmidt said. He noted an increase in vandalism and argued municipalities understand their communities better than any higher-level authority. "The combination of those two things, I think it actually shows the value that municipalities can bring to something like this, because nobody knows this municipality better than us. We work on the ground here directly with citizens every day."

Schmidt warned that removing municipal regulation creates a gap: "By removing that layer of regulation and enforcement to a higher level that maybe has less of that direct contact, then we can see what's happening now where there's less certainty around how things work."

Dylan Bressey, president of Alberta Municipalities, characterized the current situation bluntly: "It really is the wild west right now in many communities, just because there's no enforcement authority over these signs. It's yet another thing that municipalities have to figure out how to navigate."

Official said there are rules in place for sign size and placement on provincial highways, but the Justice Minister's office declined to provide details on those standards or timelines for new provincial regulations.