Category: Alberta Politics

As part of his government’s priority of Accountability and Transparency for Building Tomorrow’s Secure Alberta Future, Ed Stelmach has taken a hold of the reigns of democracy by invoking closure on the debate of controversial Bill 46. Official Opposition MLAs were only given four hours to debate the Bill before Stelmach shut down debate on the Bill.

Alberta Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman:

“The Conservatives aren’t even allowing their own members to speak to it,” Blakeman says. “If you think electing a Conservative MLA will put you on the inside of government, you’re wrong. They’re shutting down their people.”

This is the first time the Stelmach government has used closure. The Klein government used closure 38 times in 14 years but it seldom used closure on more than one stage of a bill.

“Stelmach is Klein on steroids,” Blakeman says. “He’s hyper-Klein.”

The Tories introduced amendments to the Bill this week, but a group of central Alberta landowners (including Lacombe-Ponoka Green candidate Joe Anglin) responded with:

In Bill 46, including the new amendments tabled today, if a person is directly and adversely affected by a proposed project the new commission can still make any decision or issue any order without giving notice or holding a hearing if the commission is satisfied the applicant followed the rules respecting each owner of land. No one knows what the rules are in respect to each owner of land and the rules have not been made or defined. What’s troubling is, Bill 46 allows the commission to make rules and regulations that supersede legislation. In essence the new Commission will be able to make rules to circumvent legislation.

Furthermore, the public can have no confidence in Bill 46 if section 24(1) remains. Section 24(1) allows the Commission to make any decision or issue any order without giving notice or holding a hearing if the commission considers the matter urgent or for any other sufficient reason. Simply stated citizens have no right to notice or to a hearing in Bill 46. Finally, in Sec 9(4) the Commission does not have to afford an opportunity to a person to be represented by counsel.

This ended up in my email inbox this evening…

– KILL BILL 46 RALLY ¬
What: A Rally of citizens concerned about the negative effects of the Government’s proposed Bill 46 on peoples rights to participate in energy and utilities regulatory proceedings.

When: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 12:00 Noon sharp
Where: Alberta Legislature Building
10800 – 97 Ave.
Edmonton, AB

Why: Bill 46 is about to be passed into law by the Conservative Government even though it will have very dramatic negative effects on the ability of the citizens of Alberta to effectively intervene into proposed energy and utility projects that will directly affect them, their lands or the environment. There has been widespread opposition to the Bill and now is the time to show Premier Stelmach that Albertans do not want Bill 46 to be passed into law.

Who: Concerned citizens, landowners, environmentalists and social justice activists – everyone interested in fair and transparent government.

Contacts: Southern Alberta: Mike Judd, 403-627-2949
Central and Northern Alberta: Joe Anglin, 403-843-3279

– After a bizarre year of seemingly picking fights with the Alberta Teachers’ Association, it looks like there finally might be some resolution to the long-smoldering teachers unfunded pension liability issue.

Yesterday, the Tories announced that they will be investing $6.4 billion to deal with the issue. I haven’t any details of the deal, but this is a long-standing issue that has been on the mind of a lot of Albertans for a long time. Hopefully this issue will be resolved so that the government can now deal with the other critical issues facing Alberta’s education system.

– I attended session in the Alberta Legislature yesterday afternoon and have two main observations…

1) It was a little rich of Ed Stelmach to praise Stephen Harper’s electoral redistribution that gives Alberta five more seats in the House of Commons while at the same time 2/3’s of Alberta’s population is represented by under half of the seats in the Alberta Legislature.

I also noticed that Drayton Valley-Calmar Tory MLA Tony Abbott boisterously cheered the disparity when Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft pointed out urban Alberta’s underrepresentation in his response to Stelmach.

2) The bizarre contradictions that Ed Stelmach and disgraced Energy Minister Mel Knight continue to make regarding Auditor General Fred Dunn’s allegations that the Tory Government failed to collect up to $6 Billion in royalties over the past 7 years due to mismanagement and gross incompetence.

In Question Period yesterday, it was pointed out that on November 7, Ed Stelmach told The Canadian Press that as a Minister in Ralph Klein’s cabinet, he was never made aware that reports from the Department of Energy recommended that Alberta’s royalties be increased.

Here is where the contradictions begin…

Stelmach to CP: “In the time that I was around the Cabinet table…there was nothing coming to me…”

Mel Knight in the Legislature: Knight said he couldn’t release internal documents itemized by the Auditor General in his review of royalty rates because of “legislative protection with respect to some information that’s provided to the Cabinet.“

How can a document both not exist and be secret at the same time?

I think Stelmach may need to get someone other than Tom Olsen to write his talking points.

This past week in the Alberta Legislature has been witness to some bizarre acts.

Graham Thomson takes a good look at Ed Stelmach‘s bizarre attack tactics on Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft earlier this week. In an uncharacteristic attack on Taft, Stelmach abandoned his “nice guy” image by deliberately misquoting a quote of Taft’s from a news article on the royalties issue. This whole story seems to have less to do with Stelmach or Taft, and more to do with a lack of respect for journalists and their work. I’m still amazed that Stelmach and Tom Olsen thought they would get away with trying to pull an act like this.

My friends from the Conservative Party of Canada will surely appreciate Stelmach’s second attack. Stelmach seems to have taken a page from the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin handbook by accusing the Alberta Liberals have having a hidden agenda… sigh… here is ‘Honest Ed’s’ response to a question from Kevin Taft on accountability in the Tory Government’s Annual Business Plans:

What the Liberals would like is to hoard this money, just bring it in and then dish it out to Albertans piece by piece, through his fingers, by having Albertans come on their knees, stand before him, and say, “ Oh, please, give me some of that money back,” that should go to all Albertans. That’s what the Liberal government is all about. It’s not going to happen in this province because I don’t stand for that kind of behaviour.

I think Craig Chandler will fit in just fine.

Following up from the Spring Session of the Alberta Legislature and last week’s beginning of the Fall Session, here are some of the pieces of legislation up for debate (some have carried over from the Spring Session).

Bill 1 — Lobbyists Act (Stelmach)
Bill 2 — Conflicts of Interest Amendment Act, 2007 (Brown)
Bill 7 — Private Vocational Schools Amendment Act, 2007 (Webber)
Bill 8* — Vital Statistics Act (VanderBurg)
Bill 9 — Tourism Levy Amendment Act, 2007 ($) (Oberg)
Bill 11 — Telecommunications Act Repeal Act (Dunford)
Bill 13 — Access to the Future Amendment Act, 2007 (Rodney)
Bill 23 — Unclaimed Personal Property and Vested Property Act ($) (Oberg)
Bill 24 — Real Estate Amendment Act, 2007 (Rogers)
Bill 31 — Mental Health Amendment Act, 2007 (Abbott)
Bill 35 — Alberta Personal Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Rogers)
Bill 36 — Alberta Corporate Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Rogers)
Bill 38 — Government Organization Amendment Act, 2007 (DeLong)
Bill 40 — Personal Directives Amendment Act, 2007 (Ady)
Bill 41 — Health Professions Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Hancock)
Bill 42 — Insurance Amendment Act, 2007 (Rodney)
Bill 45 — Smoke-free Places (Tobacco Reduction) Amendment Act, 2007 (Hancock)
Bill 46 — Alberta Utilities Commission Act ($) (Knight)
Bill 204 — Emblems of Alberta (Franco-Albertan Recognition) Amendment Act, 2007 / Loi modificative de 2007 sur les emblèmes de l’Alberta (reconnaissance du fait franco-albertain) (Oberle)
Bill 205 — Environmental Protection and Enhancement (Conservation and Reclamation) Bill Bill 212 — Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act (Johnston)
Bill 213 — Regulatory Accountability and Transparency Act (Backs)
Bill 214 — Healthy Futures Act (Blakeman)
Bill 216 — Water Protection and Conservation Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Swann)
Bill 218 — Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (Repeal of Ministerial Briefing Exemption) Amendment Act, 2007 (Agnihotri)
Bill 222 — Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (Tobacco Investment Elimination) Amendment Act, 2007 (R. Miller)
Bill Pr1 — CyberPol – The Global Centre for Securing Cyberspace Act (Cenaiko)
Bill Pr2 — Crest Leadership Centre Act (Marz)

Continuing from my post from earlier this week, here are some of my thoughts on the first week of the 2007 fall session of the Alberta Legislature…

1) There are three Dave’s (Dave, Dave, and Dave) who should be allowed to speak more often.

2) To reiterate #1, Ed Stelmach should let Dave Hancock talk for him in Question Period. It would be far less painful for everyone.

3) Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft and Ed Stelmach have had some entertaining spars in the first two days over failed Energy Minister Mel Knight and the $6 Billion dollars in resource royalties that the Tories failed to collect over the past number of years. With Auditor General Fred Dunn’s findings backing Taft’s position, I will again reiterate #1, Stelmach should let Hancock do the talking.

4) Ken Kowalski is embarrassed about Alberta’s shortest election. I’m embarrassed for Ken Kowalski (in fact, I shed a tear).

5) The Alberta Liberal Caucus has finally hired a new Caucus Communications Director in the form of Larry Johnsrude, so I’d expect some interesting communication strategy and direction coming out of the Official Opposition (direction on the communications-front has been one of the Alberta Liberal Caucus’ most noticeable weaknesses in recent sessions). Watch out, Public Affair Bureau.

6) It will be interesting to see how newcomers Craig Cheffins (Alberta Liberal MLA Calgary-Elbow) and Jack Hayden (PC MLA Drumheller-Stettler) adapt in their first session.

7) There is some big debate on Bill 46 and it is spilling out into what is supposed to be safe Tory territory. Check out CFSR for more…

8) At what point do you think the newly re-elected big city mayors Stephen Mandel and Dave Bronconnier start throwing their weight around?

9) When is Gary Mar resigning his Calgary-Mackay seat to take his patronage post in Washington DC? His name is still listed on the Assembly seating plan.

10) Brian Mason continued railing against the Alberta Liberals with the approval of the Stelmach Tories. The Tories are doing their best to support the New Democrats in the Legislature in hopes that any NDP gains in Edmonton will offset Alberta Liberal gains in Calgary, once again creating a winning situation for the 36-year ruling Tories.

I actually don’t mind the other three New Democrat MLAs, but Brian Mason’s strategy is one of the reasons why I’d have a hard time supporting his party (his mustache is the other reason).

11) Alberta Alliance MLA Paul Hinman… yeah… so… Paul Hinman… there’s no real point in writing any more on this topic…

12) I’m still waiting for Drayton Valley-Calmar Tory MLA Reverend Tony Abbott to do something crazy.

In 2005, Abbott declared that Federal Tory/Liberal MP Belinda Stronach “whored herself out for power” and then proceeded to try to get into a fist-fight with Alberta Liberal MLA Rick Miller in the hall behind the Assembly.

Abbott recently lost his bid for the Tory nomination in his own constituency, so he really has nothing to lose (and has also been rumoured to be in talks with the Wild Rose Party).

13) Looking to the future, you have no idea how much I’m looking forward to a Harry Chase–Cal Dallas showdown in Question Period after the next election.

Best-political-names-ever.

I have a growing list of thoughts on the start of the fall session of the Alberta Legislature that I’ll post tomorrow. But until then, here is my one first thought:

1) There are three Dave’s (Dave, Dave, and Dave) who should be allowed to speak more often.

The fall session of the Alberta Legislature begins this afternoon and it should be interesting.

With rumours of a fall election potentially starting to fade and and the potential for a spring election looking more likely, look for the parties inside and outside of the Assembly to try to capitalize on this session.

Here are some things to look forward to:

1) Ed Stelmach‘s Tories will be putting forward 24 Bills forward for the fall session which includes an agressive agenda on smoking-bans and speeding tickets (no legislation on royalties will make it this fall). The most controversial will no doubt be Bill 46.
Critics fear that under the premise of making the EUB more efficient, Bill 46 breaks up the EUB into two separate entities, the ERCB and AUC. The Bill then:

1. Gives the Alberta Utilities Commission the power to make orders and issue decisions without giving public notice or holding public hearings (section 9(1));

2. Gives the Alberta Utilities Commission the power to prevent landowners and consumers from making verbal representations to the Commission (section 9(4));

3. Limits the time period in which Albertans can appeal a decision or order made by the Alberta Utilities Commission to 30 days (section 29(2)).

4. Restricts the ability of landowners to hire outside legal counsel when intervening in regulatory hearings (section 9(4));

5. Corrects past misdeeds and wrongdoings by making this law retroactive to June 1 2003. Section 98(2)

If Ed Stelmach is smart, he’ll let Dave Hancock do all the talking.

2) As well as focusing in on Bill 46, Kevin Taft’s Alberta Liberals will be putting forward a legislative agenda including a comprehensive housing strategy, labour-code reforms, and water protection.

They will also keep up the pressure on Ed Stelmach and Mel Knight so the issue of the billions of dollars of resource royalties the Tories failed to collect stays on the minds of Albertans (they’ve also put together a fancy map showing what those billions could have been used for).

The Alberta Liberal Caucus has also hired former Edmonton Journal reporter Larry Johnsrude as their new Caucus Communications Director.

3) Watch out for Drayton Valley-Calmar Tory MLA Tony Abbott. Abbott is a standard bearer for the right-wing in the Tory caucus and was defeated in his nomination for the next election. He could be unpredictable.

4) Watch for the Wild Rose Party to try to fill the void left by Paul Hinman’s one-man Alberta Alliance caucus on the right flank. Don’t count on it, but maybe we’ll hear something from newly elected Social Credit leader Len Skowronski.

5) Look for the issue of the Stelmach Tories Public Affairs Bureau spending spree on a $145,000 infomercial and +$200,000 taxpayer funded partisan advertising campaign to make news through question period.