Category: Ed Stelmach

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alberta auditor general report 2007 Alberta Royalty Review Ed Stelmach Kevin Taft

ed stelmach tv.

So, how about last night’s 18 minute, $145,000 prime-time infomercial?

As it was already widly known that Ed Stelmach will be responding to the royalty review this afternoon, I’m still confused as to why Stelmach’s Tories felt it necessary to use taxpayers dollars on an infomercial that was purposely vague?

As expected, Stelmach’s much-awaited televised address Wednesday evening offered only vague hints on how he will ensure Albertans get the fair share the panel said they have been long denied.

I’m not sure what channel my friend Ken Chapman was watching (though as always, he has interesting observations), but at one point during Stelmach’s less than inspiring performance, I thought that he was trying to sell me a condo at Del Boca Vista Phase III.

During the address, Stelmach took some vague swipes at his former boss, Ralph Klein, and his closed-door style of leadership (this probably would have been an effective strategy had Stelmach not been a member of Klein’s inner-circle for nine-years and leads a government made up of the same Ministers and MLA’s).

So, all eyes turn to this afternoon when Albertans will find out whether ‘Accountability and Transparency” in the face of a challenge from Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, the ‘Our Fair Share’ royalty review, and a damning report from Auditor General Fred Dunn will actually faze Ed Stelmach’s Tories.

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Accountability alberta auditor general report 2007 Ed Stelmach Mark Norris Provincial Government Credit Cards Ron Stevens Sasha Angus Transparency

ron stevens’ hawaiian vacation.

What a week in Alberta politics. First, the damning Alberta Royalty Review Report and Auditor General’s Report slammed Ed Stelmach‘s Tory Government for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years. Then only days later, Ed Stelmach was refusing to fire his Cabinet Ministers responsible for the Department of Energy royalty scandal.

Now, it appears that the Stelmach Tories are being hit with new emerging scandals to deal with.

CBC has discovered that Stelmach’s Calgary Lieutenant, Deputy Premier and Calgary-Glenmore Tory MLA Ron Stevens, used his government credit card to make a three-day ‘pit stop’ in Hawaii on a 2003 winter trip to Australia for government business.

Credit card statements obtained under Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act show meals and drinks for Stevens, his wife and four others during their Honolulu stay were paid for with government cards.

Stevens defended the spending as saving Albertans money by taking a three-day tax-payer funded Hawaiian vacation.

Earlier this week Auditor General Fred Dunn revealed that former Tory Minister and leadership candidate Mark Norris and his assistant Sasha Angus used government credit cards to rack up nearly $50,000 in personal expenses with little record keeping (including for a bachelor party in Las Vegas). So, I think Albertans can be forgiven if it’s a little hard to take Stevens’ ‘word for it.’

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Alberta Politics Ed Stelmach

ed stelmach does bobby mcferrin.

What happens to politicians who become running jokes?

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alberta auditor general report 2007 Alberta Royalty Review Ed Stelmach Greg Melchin Kevin Taft Mel Knight

what does it take to get fired around here?

Ed Stelmach is refusing to take action against current-Energy Minister Mel Knight and former-Energy Minister Greg Melchin after the Department of Energy was singled out by Auditor General Fred Dunn for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years.

After noting that he recieved the ‘run-around’ from officials within the Ministry of Energy, Dunn slammed the Stelmach Tories management of Alberta’s resource royalties:

The principals of transparency and accountability, I believe, were not followed. I’m not impressed.”

“The department should demonstrate its stewardship of Alberta’s royalty regime and provide analysis to support that stewardship and this was not done.”

“The department’s monitoring and technical review findings were communicated to decision-makers. The question is: Did they hear or were they listening? At the end of the day, I don’t know, but they chose not to act.”

Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft is calling for Stelmach to fire Mel Knight and Greg Melchin.

“The public record clearly shows Albertans have been lied to,” Taft said. “The auditor general tells the truth about the government’s record of handling Albertans’ resources; government ministers, on the other hand, have been misleading the legislature and the public.”

Stelmach responded by saying that he’s “not interested in a witch hunt.“

It’s clear that Stelmach is protecting his long-time Tory friends. Mel Knight supported Ed Stelmach’s campaign during the 2006 Alberta PC Leadership Selection and Stelmach, Knight, and Greg Melchin were all full-members of Ralph Klein’s cabinet at the same time that the Tories failed to collect the BILLIONS of dollars in resource royalties owed to Albertans.

With the damning results of the Auditor General’s report coupled with Knight’s defence of the AEUB‘s using public funds to hire private investagators to spy on ordinary Albertans, one really has to wonder, what does it take to get fired in Ed Stelmach’s Tory Government?

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Accountability Alberta Royalty Review Ed Stelmach getitrightalberta.ca Transparency

who’s behind ‘getitrightalberta.ca?’

Over the past week, a new website has popped up – getitrightalberta.ca – calling for Alberta’s Tory Government to keep the resource royalty structure the way it is – even after the damning Alberta Royalty Review Report and Auditor General’s Report slammed Ed Stelmach‘s Tory Government for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years.

The big question is, who is behind this website?

A bit of investigating will reveal that the website has been set up by the consulting firm Hill & Knowlton and a quick check at CIRA will reveal that the website registration is listed as:

Registrant Name Hill & Knowlton
Registrar Webnames.ca (UBC Research Enterprises Inc.)
Renewal Date 2008/09/25
Date approved 2007/09/25
Last changed 2007/09/28
Description
Registrar Number 70
Registrant Number 2010422
Domain Number 2010422
DNS1 ns1.maximumasp.com 216.128.31.5
DNS2 ns2.maximumasp.com 216.128.31.6

Administrative Contact
Name Lisa Litz
Job Title
Postal Address Suite 540, 202 – 6th Avenue SW Calgary AB T2P2R9 Canada
Phone 1-403-5146236
Fax
Email lisa.litz@hillandknowlton.ca

Technical Contact
Name Lisa Litz
Job Title
Postal Address Suite 540, 202 – 6th Avenue SW Calgary AB T2P2R9 Canada
Phone 1-403-5146236
Fax
Email lisa.litz@hillandknowlton.ca

Now, far be it from me to assume that a slick large national consulting firm like Hill & Knowlton wouldn’t set up a website like this out of the kindness of their hearts, but I’m going to do just that – assume that Hill & Knowlton isn’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.

So, the question remains: who is behind ‘getitrightalberta.ca?’

Interestingly, Hill & Knowlton’s Calgary office is led by none-other than Mr. Ken Boessenkool, a member of the infamous firewall six and former adviser to Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper.

So, the still question remains, who is really behind ‘getitrightalberta.ca?’

The debate about Alberta’s resource royalties is too important to Alberta’s future to include ‘hidden stakeholders.’

Who is paying Hill & Knowlton to run this site?

Albertans should email Mr. Ken Boessenkool and ask him straight out.

Albertans are owed an explanation.

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Ed Stelmach Gary Mar Murray Smith Political Patronage

gary mar is the new murray smith.

Tory MLA Gary Mar was appointed this afternoon to replace former Tory Minister Murray Smith as Alberta’s Ambassador to Washington DC.

One wonders if Mr. Mar, who was dumped from cabinet in January 2007, will be inheriting the taxpayer funded high-life that Murray Smith lived while attending the garden parties and socials inside the beltline.

Smith’s appointment in 2004 was criticized as partisan patronage and his lavish expenses have been criticized since.

Ed Stelmach‘s Tories have come under heat in the past weeks as years of Tory partisan patronage have begun to bubble to the surface.

Mar will begin his new position in October, which would mean that there is potential for another Calgary by-election in the near future.

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Alberta Tories Barry McFarland Cindy Ady Ed Stelmach Idaho-Alberta Task Force

$19,000 payday for tory mla’s.

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that Tory MLA’s Cindy Ady and Barry McFarland received $19,000 for work on the Idaho-Alberta task force – a task force which only met once and has no recorded accomplishments.

No meeting minutes. No phone records. Not to mention no border between Alberta and Idaho.

A spokesperson from Premier Ed Stelmach‘s office:

admitted the task force didn’t do much in the end, but they had good intentions and tried to set up meetings with their American counterparts. “Can I show you a report, an agreement, a memorandum, anything? No, I can’t. It just isn’t there,” David Sands said.

John Nordstrom, with the Idaho Department of Commerce, referred to the group as the Idaho-Alberta Sister State Task Force.

He said the state politician who sat on the informal committee didn’t receive any extra compensation.

“It was just part of their normal job. There wasn’t any extra pay or any-thing.”

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Alberta Royalty Review Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach Hugh MacDonald Kevin Taft Lyle Oberg

alberta’s royalty review.

Now that I’ve had a chance to take a look at the much talked about Alberta Royalty Review Panel Final Report, I have some thoughts to offer.

1. The report is much more damning than I think anyone thought it would be.

The report begins with the opening statement: “Albertans do not receive their fair share from energy development.” The report proves this to be an understatement.

2. The report revealed that a lack of government accountability has led to billions of dollars in reduced royalty income over the last 15 years – the royalty holidays and adjustments have reduced Alberta’s income by nearly $8.6 billion over the past 15 years.

Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft and Shadow Energy Minister Hugh MacDonald pointed out that:

the government failed to report a four year royalty holiday period, which began in 1997, under former Minister of Energy Steve West. In 2001, the Auditor General questioned why the royalty holiday and incentive programs were not reported. The Auditor General started to report these amounts in his annual report. Since then, the Department of Energy has buried the amount of the royalty adjustments in their financial footnotes.

Here are Kevin Taft and Hugh MacDonald in their media conference following the release of the report:

3. Though some are rallying against the report, the same people don’t seem to understand the difference between a royalty and a tax.

4. There is no doubt that the release of this report is a defining moment in Alberta’s politics and the reaction or lack thereof by Ed Stelmach‘s Tories may define the main issue of the next provincial election.

5. In 2004, Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s report into the Sponsorship scandal revealed that up to $100 million of the $250 million sponsorship program was awarded to advertising firms and Crown corporations for little or no work.

In 2007, Alberta’s Royalty Review Panel revealed that approximately $8.6 billion in natural resource royalties owed to Albertans were not collected. This failure occured while Ed Stelmach and Lyle Oberg were sitting at the table in Ralph Klein’s Tory Cabinet.

Albertans have been cheated in a big way and should be furious.

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AEUB Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach Mel Knight

ed stelmach and mel knight continue to fumble the aeub scandal.

Long title. Big deal.

Tory Premier Ed Stelmach and his Energy Minister Mel Knight continue to fumble in the face of the growing AEUB scandal. It looks as if Stelmach and Knight are pulling out every tool in the Tory tool chest in order to not deal with the scandal of the public AEUB hiring private investigators to spy on ordinary Albertans.

For the highlights, I’ll defer to the brutal eloquence of Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson…

Energy Minister Mel Knight did two things exceptionally well in his news conference at the legislature on Monday afternoon: he arrived on time and he didn’t fall off the stage.

He did everything else remarkably badly.

At times Knight looked like he didn’t know how to answer questions or was doing his best to avoid them. Sometimes he grew so testy with reporters it looked like he wanted to kick them. I suspect the reason he didn’t was because at any given time he had a least one foot stuck firmly in his mouth.

Monday was supposed to be the day the Alberta government would demonstrate leadership on the EUB spying controversy that has plagued the government since news broke in June the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hired a private investigator who had spied on landowners.

For weeks, the government has been hinting it was about to take decisive action to recover the EUB’s reputation that has sunk so low you’d need a drilling rig to find it.

Instead, we had a minister of energy doing his best to downplay the biggest scandal to hit the government since Ed Stelmach became premier.

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Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach Neil Brown Political Patronage

political patronage: alberta-style continued…

The Edmonton Journal continued it’s two-part feature on political patronage in Progressive Conservative Alberta. Here is a second list that the Journal put together:

SOME PROMINENT TORIES WITH MULTIPLE APPOINTMENTS

– Audrey Luft, organizer of 2007 Alberta PC annual convention: Alberta Foundation for the Arts (chair), NAIT, Alberta Economic Development Authority

– Doug Goss, Edmonton co-chair of Tories’ next election campaign: Capital Health, Alberta Economic Development Authority

– Wayne Jacques, former Conservative MLA: Peace Country Health Region, Transportation Safety Board, Law Enforcement Review Board

– Alf Savage, former PC president: Auto Insurance Rate Board (chair), Municipal Government Board

– Wendy Kinsella, losing Edmonton PC candidate in 2001: NorQuest College (chair), Capital Health (vice-chair)

– Marvin Moore, former PC campaign manager and cabinet minister: Peace Country Health (chair), Agriculture Marketing Products Council Appeal Tribunal

– Dale Johnson, president of Whitecourt-Ste. Anne PC association: Aspen Health, Credit Counselling Services of Alberta

– Robert Seidel, lawyer to former treasurer Stockwell Day: Grant MacEwan College, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research

– Skip McDonald, former president of Klein’s PC constituency association: Calgary Health, ATB Financial

UPDATE: Calgary-Nose Hill MLA Neil Brown says there’s nothing wrong with these appointments.

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Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach Neil Brown Political Patronage

political patronage: alberta-style.

Kudos to Darcy Henton and Jason Markusoff of the Edmonton Journal for writing a feature article on the deluge of political patronage currently present in Alberta. The Journal also went through and detailed a list of provincially appointed boards and their card carrying Progressive Conservative Party members.

Here are the top 40 boards with the highest percentages of card-carrying Conservatives serving on them.

Health boards and regions
– Peace Country Health Region: 13 Tories / 13-member board

– East Central Health: 9 Tories / 12-member board

– Capital Health: 8 Tories / 14-member board

– Calgary Health: 7 Tories / 13-member board

– Aspen Health Region: 11 Tories / 14-member board

– David Thompson Health: 11 Tories / 15-member board

– Chinook Health: 7 Tories / 12-member board

– Northern Lights Health: 7 Tories / 12-member board

– Palliser Health Region: 7 Tories / 13-member board

– Alberta Cancer Board: 5 Tories / 10-member board

– Health Quality Council: 4 Tories / 8-member board

– Public Health Appeal Board: 2 Tories / 4-member board

– Health Facilities Review Board: 8 Tories / 12-member board

Post-secondary Institutions

– Northern Alberta Institute of Technology: 8 Tories / 12-member board

– Portage College: 5 Tories / 7-member board

– Lethbridge College: 4 Tories / 7-member board

– Athabasca University: 6 Tories / 11-member board

– Red Deer College: 3 Tories / 6-member board

– Mount Royal College: 5 Tories / 10-member board

financial

– ATB Financial: 9 Tories / 13-member board

– Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corp.: 4 Tories / 8-member board

addictions and disabilities

– Premier’s Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities: 5 Tories / 8-member board

– Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission: 7 Tories / 10-member board

– Crystal Meth Task Force: 7 Tories / 12-member board

– Northwest Alberta Persons with Developmental Disabilities: 6 Tories / 7-member board

Agriculture

– Alberta Grain Commission: 8 Tories / 11-member board

– Agriculture Products Marketing Council: 7 Tories / 11-member board

– Alberta Agriculture Research Institute: 4 Tories / 7-member board

Other

– Seniors Advisory Council: 8 Tories / 10-member board

– Northern Alberta Development Council: 9 Tories / 10-member board

– Worker’s Compensation Board: 3 Tories / 4-member board

– Alberta Foundation of the Arts: 6 Tories / 10-member board

– Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission: 6 Tories / 7-member board

– Alberta Economic Development Authority: 29 Tories / 60-member board

– Alberta Order of Excellence Council: 6 Tories / 6-member board

– Social Care Facilities Review Commission: 7 Tories / 11-member board

– Alberta Science and Research Authority: 9 Tories / 19-member board

– Northeast PDD Board: 5 Tories / 7-member board

– Alberta Fatality Review Board: 3 Tories / 3-member board

– Rural Alberta’s Development Fund: 6 Tories / 12-member board

Click here to see the list of the 100 provincially appointed Boards and Government agencies stacked with Tory appointees.

Tomorrow, the Edmonton Journal will be profiling the process which allows the Progressive Conservatives to commit this degree of political patronage.

UPDATE: Calgary-Nose Hill MLA Neil Brown says there’s nothing wrong with these appointments.

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Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach

the post-ed stelmach pc poll.

Here are the results from the most recent daveberta poll:

Who will be the next Leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party?

Selection
Votes
Craig Chandler 17% 39
Ray Danyluk 1% 3
Jim Dinning 9% 21
Dave Hancock 14% 33
Ted Morton 33% 75
Mark Norris 3% 7
Lyle Oberg 5% 12
Tom Olsen 17% 40
230 votes total
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AEUB Ed Stelmach

the aeub scandal continues.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board scandal continues to haunt Ed Stelmach‘s Tories as it has now been uncovered that the AEUB had hired a private investigation company to monitor a second public hearing in May 2007.

The board is already being investigated by the government for hiring Shepp Johnman to monitor landowners at a hearing in Rimbey who were opposed to a proposed powerline between Calgary and Edmonton.

According to the Canadian Press, “the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board accepts the findings of the privacy commissioner regarding undercover investigators at hearings into a contoversial power line.”

And in case you wanted any more evidence of Ed Stelmach’s decisive leadership skills, after defending the AEUB’s actions in spying on Albertans in June, our Conservative Premier has decided to ‘think about it…‘

“But Premier Ed Stelmach said he wants to see more evidence about the decision of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board to use private detectives at two hearings since last spring.

What more evidence does Ed Stelmach need before heads start to roll on the AEUB Board?

What about using public funds to hire private investigators to spy on Albertans does Ed
Stelmach find acceptable?

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2008 Alberta PC Leadership Race Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach

post-stelmach poll results.

The interim results are tallying up in what is quickly becoming to known as the unofficial 2008 Alberta PC leadership race.

Look on the sidebar to vote (early and often…):

Who will be the next leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party?

Selection Votes
Craig Chandler 22% (20 votes)
Ray Danyluk 1% (1 vote)
Jim Dinning 12% (11 votes)
Dave Hancock 13% (12 votes)
Ted Morton 28% (26 votes)
Mark Norris 2% (2 votes)
Lyle Oberg 8% (7 votes)
Tom Olsen 15% (14 votes)

93 votes total

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Alberta Tories Ed Stelmach

mr. dithers: alberta edition.

Aren’t you glad that Ed Stelmach is speaking for Alberta to the rest of Canada?

“Will there be people without homes? Yes. Will there be some sick people that we can’t save, despite all the medical technology that we have? Yes, there will be. But people are continuing to move here because where else are they going to go in Canada?”

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