There’s a fashionable trend sweeping Canadian city councils. It’s called “Access without Fear.” And Edmonton’s council has been infected by it, too.

On Monday, council heard submissions from illegal immigrants and those who advocate on their behalf about why city services should be provided by city taxpayers to those who are in Canada illegally and on the same basis as they are provided to citizens and permanent residents.

While organizers of the Canadian Access without Fear (AWF) movement won’t say their goal is the establishment of sanctuary cities (because the concept of sanctuary cities has become very controversial in the United States), that is exactly what they are after.

They want municipal officials to refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies whose job it is to deport immigrants whose visas have expired.

Supporters of AWF want cities to command their employees never to ask about the immigration status of anyone applying for city services such as subsidized housing, transit passes, rec centre passes and library cards.

If city workers learn that someone they are dealing with is in the country illegally, AWF would forbid them from notifying the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency or Immigration Canada.

In extreme cases, AWF cities forbid their local police from holding immigrants just because they’re illegal. And when illegals’ local detention is finished, police are forbidden from turning them over to federal law enforcement.

The whole premise is anti-democratic and undermines the rule of law.

Cities don’t have the power to overturn federal law within their boundaries just because “progressive” councillors disagree with those laws.

Access without Fear – no matter how high-minded – is therefore nothing more than an attempt to circumvent immigration laws just because municipal politicians disagree with them, yet lack the courage or energy to try to alter those through the legal or political process.

It’s the same as if some municipality decided it wanted to become a magnet for new investment, so it chose to suspend federal and provincial occupational safety laws and ignore minimum wages.

The city government in question wouldn’t have authority to do that. And the very same smug activists behind AWF would be outraged by such an unlawful undermining of workers’ rights.

But they are doing the same with their sanctuary cities plan, no matter how noble they think their cause is.

Don’t like current immigration law, work to change it. Because if you undermine immigration laws, what’s to stop other government from ignoring laws you do like?

That’s the real arrogance of “progressives.” When they dislike a rule or law, but are too impatient to change it using proper methods, they believe their moral and intellectually superiority gives them they right to take.

There could be legitimate reasons to ensure even illegal immigrants receive local services. People shouldn’t have to live in horrible housing, for instance, or work in abusive conditions just because they are illegal.

But that is not what is behind AWF. The Access movement is about ignoring the duly passed laws of Canada just because activists with sway over city councils disagree with the laws

Thankfully (at least so far), Edmonton’s council seems willing to exclude the Edmonton Police Service. The EPS would not be required to hide a person’s illegal status from federal agencies intent on expelling them.

But when the administration is considering an AWF policy and when council is debating one, they must consider taxpayers. They must consider those new Canadians who immigrated here legally and how it’s unfair to treat illegals the same. And they must be conscious the damage AWF does to the rule of law.