Political career
Municipal politics
Boutilier was elected to the Fort McMurray city council on October 20, 1986, to a three-year term as alderman. He was re-elected October 16, 1989, and was elected the youngest mayor in the city's history October 22, 1992.[3] He served in this capacity until April 1, 1995, when Fort McMurray lost its status as a city and was rolled into the new Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.[3] He was the first mayor of this new municipality, serving until 1997 when he resigned to enter provincial politics.[3]
Provincial politics
Boutilier was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1997 Alberta election, when he ran as the Progressive Conservative candidate in Fort McMurray.[4] The incumbent Liberal, Adam Germain, was not seeking re-election, and Boutilier won by defeating John Vyboh by more than a thousand votes.[4] As a backbencher, he moved several bills: the Mines and Minerals Amendment Act was a 1997 government bill designed to enable the implementation of a generic royalty regime for new development in the Alberta oilsands and streamline the process for land leases to oil and gas companies by moving administrative elements from legislation to regulation.[5][6] The bill passed with Liberal support, but New Democratic leader Pam Barrett opposed the bill out of concerns that it left the legislature out of debates in which it should play a role and provided overly-generous incentives to oil companies without requiring anything from them in return.[6][7] Also in 1997, Boutilier sponsored the Cost Declaration Accountability Act, a private member's bill that never reached second reading.[5]
In 1998, Boutilier sponsored two more bills.[8] The Railway Act was a government bill that modernized the rules governing the operation of railways in Alberta.[9] The Liberals expressed general support for the bill,[10] but ultimately opposed it on the basis of a clause that allowed cabinet to make regulations on "any matter that the Minister considers is not provided for or is insufficiently provided for" in the Act, which they considered to be dangerously broad.[11] The bill passed.[8] The same year, Boutilier sponsored the Government Accountability Amendment Act,[8] a private member's bill that would have required all government bills to include an associated financial cost to come before the legislature with an estimate of those costs for the ensuing three years.[10] The bill was hoisted for six months on second reading on a motion by Wayne Cao, which, since the legislature was not in session six months later, effectively killed the bill.[8][12]
He was re-elected in the 2001 election with a substantially increased margin over Vyboh.[13] Following the 2001 election, Premier Ralph Klein named Boutilier to his cabinet as the Minister of Municipal Affairs.[14] In this capacity, Boutilier sponsored the Municipal Government Amendment Act in 2003.[15] The Act allowed municipalities to charge developers off-site road levies, a practice which had been common but which had recently been successfully challenged in court, and passed largely without controversy.[16][17][18] Boutilier kept the municipal affairs until after the 2004 election (in which he was again re-elected handily, this time in the newly formed Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo riding),[19] when Klein transferred him to the post of Minister of the Environment.[20] He held this post in 2005, when a Canadian National Railway train derailed, spilling oil into Wabamun Lake.[21] At the time, Boutilier described himself as "damn well pissed off" about the spill and about the allegation that CN had neglected to report that the spill contained carcinogenic chemical, and pledged "to bring to the full extent of the law anyone who has breached Alberta law."[22] CN was eventually charged under federal statutes.[23] He was also at the forefront of his government's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, at one point slipping his Quebec counterpart Thomas Mulcair a note during a United Nations conference on the subject in Montreal, which Mulcair interpreted as a request that Quebec soften its support of Kyoto in exchange for investment in the Montreal Stock Exchange by Alberta industry.[24] Boutilier characterized the note as "discussions in terms of what we would want to be able to do in a positive environmental initiative" and denied that he was trying to influence Quebec's position.[24]
Expulsion from the PC caucus
In the 2006 Progressive Conservative leadership election, Boutilier initially backed Lyle Oberg,[25] and switched his support to eventual winner Ed Stelmach after Oberg was eliminated on the first ballot.[26] When Stelmach succeeded Klein as premier, he named a smaller cabinet than Klein's.[27] This included a merger of the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio with Intergovernmental and International Relations, and Stelmach gave the expanded portfolio to Boutilier.[28]
That same year, Stelmach also announced that the construction of a $35-million, 48-bed long-term care centre in Fort McMurray would be a priority for his government. But the next year, Health Minister Ron Liepert said the project would be delayed by at least four years. Liepert said the project was not an immediate priority because Fort McMurray’s growing population at the time was young.[29]
Boutilier was re-elected by another expanded margin in the 2008 election,[30] but was not named to Stelmach's new cabinet, making him the only returning member of the pre-election cabinet not to receive a portfolio.[31] His demotion was met with protest in his home riding, which contains much of the oilsands activity driving Alberta's economy at the time, and the local Progressive Conservative riding association sent a letter of protest to Stelmach.[32][33]
Boutilier also became a vocal critic of the government for delaying the long-term care facility, and compared the treatment of Fort McMurray’s seniors at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre to being kept in "holding cells.” He also said Liepert was “talking gibberish.”[34]
In July 2009, Stelmach kicked Boutilier out of the Progressive Conservative caucus for publicly criticizing the government’s delay of the facility. Stelmach's spokesman said that his ejection was due to his seeking "preferential treatment" for his riding; Boutilier denied that he had done so.[35]
A continuing care centre would not be built in Fort McMurray until 2021. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 20, 2018. It was approved in 2015 by Premier Rachel Notley following lobbying from Brian Jean, the MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin. Both Notley and Jean agreed the project had been mismanaged and needlessly delayed by the former PC government.[36][29]
Joining the Wildrose caucus
In June 2010, after nearly a year as an independent, he joined the Wildrose Alliance Party, saying that the move was "a natural flow,” and in hindsight calling his expulsion from the PC Party "the best thing that ever happened to me in my political career.”[37]
Boutilier was joined by fellow former Tories Heather Forsyth and Rob Anderson. As an Opposition MLA, Boutilier was a vocal critic of the PC government’s handling of education, health care, transportation, infrastructure and housing in Fort McMurray.[38]
He continued to demand a long-term care centre project and progress on twinning Highway 63, which had been announced and was scheduled to be finished in 2012.[39] The highway between Fort McMurray and Atmore would not be twinned until 2016.
In the 2012 Alberta election, Boutilier ran for re-election as a Wildrose candidate in the new electoral district of Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo. He was defeated by PC candidate Mike Allen.
Return to municipal politics
In July 2013, Allen was arrested in a prostitution sting during a government trip to St. Paul, Minnesota.[40] Boutilier remained silent on a possible political comeback,[41] but in October, announced he would be seeking a Ward 1 municipal council seat in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
When it came to local governance, Boutilier commented that residents were beginning to feel that "the inmates are running the asylum."[42] Boutilier won one of six seats representing the urban Ward 1 covering Fort McMurray. He quickly earned a reputation on council as a strong fiscally conservative voice who frequently criticized past administrations for hiring companies and consultants based outside Alberta.
Residency controversy
In May 2014, Fort McMurray Today discovered Boutilier did consultant work for the municipality prior to being elected to council. After the 2012 provincial election, he was working as an urban planning and political consultant and submitted a "strategic roadmap" for projects approved by the previous council administration.[43]
Boutilier was paid $2,957.58 for his two-page report. This included a $1,050 expense for two round trips from Edmonton to Fort McMurray. The report and invoice was leaked to the newspaper and showed Boutilier ran his consulting business out of a residential home in Edmonton.
The address and the expenses raised questions regarding Boutilier's residency and his eligibility to hold a council seat. Boutilier said he owned an Edmonton home because his son regularly had treatments related to his autism at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital and he lectured part-time at the University of Alberta.
In November 2014, a Fort McMurray business owner named Robert Vargo, who supported Boutilier's Wildrose campaign, filed a legal challenge questioning Boutilier's residency.[44] Vargo wrote in his affidavit that Boutilier had moved to Edmonton shortly after Stelmach expelled him from the Progressive Conservative Party's caucus. Three more people filed separate affidavits claiming they rented Boutilier's Fort McMurray home and rarely saw him.[45] They also claimed Boutilier was claiming a northern living allowance, despite allegedly living in Edmonton.[46]
Boutilier's lawyer dismissed the affidavits as "a frivolous application" and said a defence was being prepared. At the same time, Fort McMurray Today reported Boutilier had started looking for new jobs in the private sector as questions about his eligibility to sit on council were raised in the community.[47]
Resignation from council
The claims made by Vargo and the three individuals never went to court. In January 2015, Boutilier resigned from council one day after Vargo dropped the challenge.[48] Boutilier denied his resignation was related to the dropped case. The lawyers for Vargo and Boutilier said the motivations behind dropping the challenge would remain a private matter between the two men.[48][49]
On the same day as his resignation, Boutilier purchased a membership with the Progressive Conservative Party's riding association for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, leaving many to believe he would attempt to run as an MLA in the 2015 Alberta general election. Boutilier said he was returning to the party because of the leadership of Premier Jim Prentice. He said his expulsion from the PC caucus was "water under the bridge."
The PC nomination in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo went to incumbent MLA Mike Allen and was not challenged by Boutilier.[50]
Post-Politics
Boutilier now works for Edmonton-based lobbying firm Alberta Counsel. The firm includes Shayne Saskiw, former Wildrose MLA for Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills, as principal.[51] In October 2021, Mayor Don Scott of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo awarded Boutilier and 12 other residents the Key to the Region.[52]
