High River's Mayor is also not happy with Bill 20

The proposed Bill 20 from the provincial government has municipalities across the province up in arms.

High River's Mayor Craig Snodgrass is no exception.

Some of the proposed changes centre around the ability of the UCP government to fire elected municipal officials without process.

Snodgrass questions their reasoning behind it.

"So, in their words it allows Cabinet to remove a councillor if in the public's interest. Who says what's in the public interest? So, what it does is it opens the door for a very biased opinion of 'I don't like that mayor,' or 'I don't like that councillor and they're going to go.' And this is where all of Bill 20 stems from. Every single ounce of it. "

The Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ric McIver has since said "This would only be used in very limited circumstances" but once again there was no clarity on what that process would look like.

One of the other hot-button issues with the proposed changes is the provincial government's desire to add political party support for candidates on a municipal level.

Snodgrass says this is a big red flag.

"It's a very, very dangerous road to go down. We do not need political parties at the municipal level. We put our hands up and we make decisions based on what we feel is the best direction for our community as a whole, not because of what our party tells us what to do.

The mayor did say it wasn't all bad news.

"There's one good piece in here which is allowing municipalities to require criminal record checks for candidates. Not a bad idea."

The Mayor of Okotoks, Tanya Thorn, recently came out very much against Bill 20.