How will AltaLink sale affect Albertans?

December 4, 2014 By

Lethbridge Herald

OUR EDITORIAL: WHAT WE THINK

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

It is now official — AltaLink is in the hands of Berkshire Hathaway. Last week, the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) and Industry Canada greenlighted the sale, with a price tag of $3.2 billion, which in the end gives a foreign company ownership of some very critical infrastructure in the province.  AltaLink transmits electricity to 85 per cent of Albertans, and now Berkshire Hathaway will have a large hand in shaping that process for the foreseeable future. Approval was given despite criticism from Alberta’s opposition parties, and several market observers, who raised serious concerns at the possible implications. Earlier this year, former Wildrose MLA Joe Anglin, one of the most outspoken opponents of the proposal, said it will now be an American corporation who will benefit from our “deliberately overbuilt transmission network,” which could pave the way for Berkshire Hathaway to maximize its profits by sending Alberta power south of the
border when the price is right. With few safeguards in place to control electricity sales across borders, Anglin was fearful Albertans would face a future of price instability, brought upon us through the Progressive Conservative government deregulation scheme, which has created what he called an auction like method whereby power generators set prices throughout the day.

Albertans have reaped the consequences of this system, particulary during periods of peak power demand in the summer, when prices skyrocketed. Attempts have been made to better inform the public of this fluctuation, and an Edmonton-based company, Gray Energy Economics, has even created the Alberta Power Price app, which constantly provides real-time power price information.  But it appears most Albertans have simply resigned themselves to the fact
this province’s system will continue to operate in a manner unlike those witnessed across Canada, where provincial ownership or control of their transmission lines is commonplace.  It is a different world in Alberta, however, where giant corporations often rule the day, and agencies like the AUC, tasked to regulate the system, often fail to protect everyday Albertans. For its part, the AUC, in its Nov. 28 ruling, approved the sale based on its “no-harm test” for financial impact on customer rates and service quality.

The AUC maintained it will continue to regulate AltaLink in the same manner, and suggested the sale to Berkshire Hathaway would have a positive impact on customer rates, because of the financing capacity of its new owner, with
AltaLink still in the process of a large transmission build. Having the ability to purchase and sell assets is necessary to ensure continued investment in energy transmission and foster a stable investment climate, AUC continued in its ruling. That appears to be the company line anyway, similar to the assertion deregulation would create a competitive energy market, and create investment in new energy plants, two outcomes which have failed to develop.  The AUC also downplayed fears AltaLink could export electricity to the U.S., as it maintained the company is a mere conduit through which market participants purchase and sell electricity , and AltaLink simply does not buy sell or own electricity. In the same breath,
the AUC added it does not have jurisdiction over electricity commodity pricing; however, it does control pricing of transmission services. However, a quick examination of Albertans’ power bills, and the rising delivery charges and rate riders, show just how effective the AUC has been fulfilling that responsibility. In the end, it is very possible Albertans will continue to pay the price for a deregulation scheme which has simply not had its desired impacts. The sale of AltaLink, a company which generated profits of over $107 million last year, according to the Alberta NDP, is another example of a system gone awry.

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Prentice to push Energy East with Quebec, Ontario Energy East pipeline

December 3, 2014 By

The Energy East pipeline is aimed at transporting Alberta crude to the east coast.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:47AM MST

Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is scheduled to meet with his Ontario and Quebec counterparts this week to lobby for support of the Energy East pipeline.

A spokeswoman says Prentice is to meet Quebec’s Philippe Couillard on Tuesday and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Wednesday.

Both eastern premiers have a list of demands about the proposal. They want contingency plans and emergency response programs in place, consultations with First Nations and consideration of environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions.

Wynne said she reached out to Prentice last week so he understood the principles that Ontario and Quebec want considered in the approval process for the proposed $12-billion pipeline, which would carry more than one million barrels of western crude daily from Alberta and Saskatchewan to oil refineries in Eastern Canada.

After chatting with Wynne on the phone, Prentice intends to press his position in person, he said Friday.

“I start from a position that these are two premiers with whom we can do business. Two premiers who are interested in building the Canadian federation and who have put out, what they’ve put out, in an attempt to be constructive. That’s the view I will take going into these meetings,” said Prentice, who called Energy East a “nation-building” project.

“The port facilities associated with that project are not going to be in Alberta. They’re going to be elsewhere in Canada. And the turbines that are sourced for that project will be certainly fabricated in the province of Ontario — not in Alberta — so this is a Canadian project with benefits for all of us as Canadians.

“We need to remain focused on that.”

TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) has filed an application to use a repurposed gas pipeline to carry crude two-thirds of the way across the country and to build a pipeline extension that would lead to Saint John, N.B.

The Saskatchewan legislature passed a motion last week calling on Ontario and Quebec to recognize the National Energy Board as the appropriate body to review the proposal and to remove unnecessary barriers to the pipeline.

Prentice said he has read with interest the principles Ontario and Quebec have put forward if they are to support the project.

“Most of them actually are encompassed within the jurisdiction of the National Energy Board and most of them would sensibly encompass any regulatory review of something such as a pipeline.”
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Saskatchewan family struggles to deal with deaths of three children

December 3, 2014 By

The Arnals have lost three young boys in separate farming accidents that has left the family dealing with sadness, grief and suffering.

By: Chris Purdy The Canadian Press, Published on Sun Nov 30 2014

RAVENSCRAG, SASK.—When one of her children was killed six years ago, Anne Arnal never dreamed she would have to go through the same pain again.

And again.

Three of her six children — her freckle-faced, youngest boys — have died in separate accidents on the family’s farm.

Arnal says most people can’t fathom the grief she and her family are suffering. “I could never imagine how or why I would be asked to have to do this,” she says.

“You try to figure out whether you’re supposed to gain something or whether you’re supposed to change somehow or what you’re being tested for . . . and I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Clifford Arnal grew up on the family homestead near the village of Ravenscrag in southwestern Saskatchewan, where flat prairie turns into rolling hills and valleys. He and his wife raised their children there, and it’s where he and his brother and father spent decades harvesting crops and herding cattle.

Now the place is a reminder of his dead boys.

He hasn’t been back to the farm since he buried two of his sons last summer. He took a construction job and his wife, who has stayed at the farm, makes the five-hour drive east to visit him in Estevan, Sask.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to go back home, he says. “It destroyed an entire generation that should be running that farm . . . There’s no future there now that they’re gone.”

Blake Arnal was the kind of kid who broke up fights on the school playground, played volleyball and badminton and, when he was home, worked hard to help out with the farm. He owned some of his own cattle and, in his early teens, started saving money so he could one day study agriculture at university.

On March 25, 2008, he was on an all-terrain vehicle, trying to tag a newborn calf, when the quad went over a ridge and crashed onto an icy creek below. He died instantly from a blow to the chest. He was 14.

Sean and Lyndon Arnal grew up best buddies, who chased rabbits and raised pigs and often fell asleep together on a basement couch.

Sean, with a keen interest in cattle genetics, could often be found reading livestock catalogues. He bought his first pickup truck a year before he got his driver’s licence. Lyndon was a goofball and a chatterbox. Once, during a family trip to Toronto, he was so struck by seeing homeless people that he asked to tour a Salvation Army shelter and handed over the $60 he had in his pocket.

The two brothers were together on July 23, 2014, riding a tractor towing a baler home. The machinery was going down a hill when it crashed and the two died.

Sean had just turned 16. Lyndon was 10. They were buried together in the same coffin.

Cliff Arnal says all his children were part of the farm from a young age — Sean swung from a Jolly Jumper attached to the roof of a combine as a baby. He started driving a tractor at 11. Blake was running a combine by the time he was 8, the same age Lyndon was when he first got behind the wheel of a semi-trailer.

When Blake died in 2008, the father heard rumblings in the community that he, as a parent, was to blame. He says he had hired a farm worker to supervise Blake, who was a careful driver.

Anne Arnal says keeping her kids from farm work wasn’t an option, even after Blake’s death. Sean and Lyndon were energetic boys and she didn’t want them growing playing video games in the basement. They wouldn’t have been the people they were supposed to be, she says.

Cliff Arnal believes the computer on the tractor Sean was driving failed so that when the machine went into neutral, he was unable to steer it. The RCMP says they investigated but found no suspicious circumstances.

The family’s sad story reflects statistics of farm deaths involving children — most are boys killed by tractors and all-terrain vehicles. A study by the Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting program shows an average of 104 farm deaths each year and 13 of them were children.

The surviving Arnal siblings all work or study elsewhere. Chantal Henderson, a 26-year-old nurse in Swift Current, Sask., is the oldest. Dylan Arnal, 24, lives in East End, Sask., and does farm work for a neighbour. Olivia Arnal, 18, is studying business at the University of Regina.

With no children at home, and a husband who can’t stand to be there, Anne Arnal says days on the farm can be quiet.

When Sean and Lyndon died, a friend who’s a doctor visited her every day for two weeks to see if she was suicidal. She says she has learned to keep busy and find purpose.

She doesn’t know if she’ll leave the farm for good. For now, she’s dealing with her grief the best she can — by keeping it in an imaginary box.

“I open it a little bit every day and I have my little bit of sad time and crying and whatever I need to do. Then I shut that box . . . I don’t have to throw it open and cope with it all right now.

“I’ll carry that box forever.”

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Alberta Energy Regulator says pipeline spills 60,000 litres of crude into muskeg

December 3, 2014 By
By Staff The Canadian Press
November 30, 2014 Updated : November 30, 2014 | 1:33 pm

RED EARTH CREEK, Alta. – The Alberta Energy Regulator says close to 60,000 litres of crude oil have spilled into muskeg in the province’s north.

An incident report by the regulator states that a mechanical failure was reported Thursday at a Canadian Natural Resources Limited (TSX:CNQ) pipeline approximately 27 kilometres north of Red Earth Creek.

The report says there are no reports of impact to wildlife and that a cleanup has begun.

Red Earth Creek is over 350 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Carrie Rosa, a spokeswoman for the regulator, says officials have been delayed reaching the scene due to poor weather in the last few days.

No one from Canadian Natural Resources could be reached on Saturday for comment.

In April, a pipeline owned by the company spilled 70,000 litres of oil and processed water in the region.

The Alberta Energy Regulator said at the time that the spill northwest of Slave Lake was not near any people, water or wildlife.

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AltaLink sale to Berkshire Hathaway approved by AUC

November 30, 2014 By

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Pincher Creek Voice

Chris Davis

On November 28 the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) released their decision to approve the sale of AltaLink to MC Alberta, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska and led by longtime CEO Warren Buffet.

 According to an AltaLink press release “This is the final of three approvals required for the sale; the other two were received earlier this year from the federal government. We are pleased with the decision of the AUC. We expect the transaction to reach financial close as soon as possible.” Previous to the AUC decision the sale was found to be acceptable by the Competition Bureau of Canada and Industry Canada.  The AUC found that “customers will be at least no worse off after the transaction is completed and that the no harm test has been satisfied”.

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LTE: Say no to the AltaLink power lines

November 29, 2014 By

Opinion Letters

Pincher Creek Echo

In this Letter to the Editor Mr. Smith details why he hopes to see a stop put to the planned transmission line. File Photo.

In this Letter to the Editor Mr. Smith details why he hopes to see a stop put to the planned transmission line. File Photo.

My wife and I are to be directly impacted by the proposed AltaLink transmission line therefore I would like my voice heard in this discussion. Not only is this huge line not needed, it would be constructed by a foreign-owned, Calgary-based company for profit. There is no urgent need for this transmission line that has a sole purpose of moving Alberta generated electricity into BC where it is subsequently sold to the northwestern United States for carbon tax credits.

At the recent AltaLink information open house I was told by Matt Gray of the Alberta Electric System Operator’s corporate communications department that wind turbines contribute about seven per cent to the overall electrical grid. He did not specify if “about” was 6.5 or 7.1 per cent. Every one of those wind turbines require back up generation because even in the south the wind does not blow all the time and there is no way to store the miniscule amount of electricity produced. The peak times electricity is required is in the heat of summer when the wind rarely blows and in the dead of winter when gusts coming off the Livingstone Range is too much for the turbines to handle.

Because the Alberta Government has a policy that every wind generator has the right to be connected to the electrical grid we, every Albertan from Fort McMurray to Pincher Creek, pay for the construction of these lines. Don’t just complain about your power bill complain to your MLA, he or she is responsible for picking your pocket with an unneeded, overbuilt transmission line.

The proposed transmission line is to run right through a Bald Eagle nesting area. We have seen in the past AltaLink’s concern for our wildlife with its misplaced Snake Trail area transmission line where hundreds of waterfowl were slaughtered by a line constructed on top of a staging area for migratory ducks, geese and swans. No fine was levied against AltaLink that I am aware of. Will the company then be allowed to kill eagles with impunity?

Thanks to the brain trust of the Municipality of Pincher Creek our once beautiful gateway to the Rocky Mountains is a grotesque mishmash of unsightly and unneeded wind turbines.

Say no to this abdominal tribute to corporate greed. Warren Buffet is rich enough already.

Doug Smith

60 Catalina Dr.

Sherwood Park, AB

*Editor’s note: Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of AltaLink is still under review by the AUC

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Two Wildrose MLAs bolt to Prentice’s PCs, leaving official opposition reeling

November 27, 2014 By
 By , QMI Agency

First posted: | Updated:

More Coverage

On Monday, the Wildrose bled. They could well bleed some more.

Kerry Towle and Ian Donovan are two Wildrose members of the legislature from the countryside where the opposition party draws its greatest strength.

On Monday, they take the walk to Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives.

The defection of Towle really hurts. She was close to Wildrose leader Danielle Smith. Now she is close to Smith as Brutus was once close to Caesar.

The Wildrose leader takes to the podium Monday afternoon with a quick statement to the salivating newshounds and no questions from them.

Smith doesn’t speak the word traitor or turncoat or Judas or a hundred other nasties.

She lets us connect the easy-to-see dots in her mind.

Smith contrasts Towle and Donovan with Wildrose MLAs Rob Anderson and Heather Forsyth.

Smith must be thinking: Oh, what a day it was, almost five years ago, right after the Christmas holidays.

Smith, Anderson and Forsyth. A trio of wide smiles.

Anderson and Forsyth left the ruling PCs. They defected from the government to Wildrose, a party with only one seat in the legislature.

The party had just won a byelection in a squeaker because people were vein-popping angry at the sitting premier, Ed Stelmach.

Your columnist can still recall Smith applauding the courage of Anderson and Forsyth back in January of 2010. There was so much hope in the small room.

On Monday, Smith is wanting to sound tough. The last month she has been in free fall.

She tells us says Anderson and Forsyth “gave up the perks for power” and did so “not for personal gain.”

Smith says Towle and Donovan did the opposite. Ouch. The Wildrose leader says Towle and Donovan will have to answer for their actions at home and in the legislature. Oh my.

On the other side of the legislature, Jim Prentice and the PCs are happier than sailors on shore leave.

Unsteady Eddie and Entitled Alison are two PC premiers relegated to the history books by many Albertans.

Plenty of people are giving Prentice and the PCs a chance, including some who until recently hailed the Wildrose as the government-in-waiting.

That group now includes two former Wildrose MLAs.

Smith and Wildrose?

They lost four byelections last month when they should have won at least one.

With the defeat Smith staggered a spacewalk, first wanting a review of her leadership by party members, a vote that wasn’t even possible according to her party’s rules.

Smith rambled about Wildrose MLA Marine Joe Anglin’s alleged taping of closed-door gabfests of Wildrose politicians but offered no proof he was doing any recording.

Anglin now sits as an independent in the legislature.

The Wildrose convention did not rouse the faithful and show a way forward. Smith’s speech was lame and meandering and blamed the media for party woes while talking about such things as Fun Police. Don’t ask.

At the hootenanny in Red Deer, party members recognized all Albertans have equal rights but then stopped short of naming where individuals needed protection against discrimination, for example, race, gender and sexual orientation.

After the vote, one Wildrose MLA walked away, muttering about the stupidity of the naysaying party members. He wasn’t alone.

On Monday, as two of their colleagues go out the door to Destination Toryland, Wildrose MLAs declare their support for what their party rejected.

Those who defected, explain why they vamoosed.

Towle says people in her central Alberta riding asked her to think about joining the PCs because she could do more with them than against them.

“I didn’t wake up and say: Well, you know, I had the wrong grilled cheese sandwich, I’m going to leave Wildrose. I feel strongly, in order for us to move forward, conservatives as a whole need to come together.”

Donovan’s songsheet isn’t a whole lot different.

Donovan says the people he represents want him back on the inside.

He also speaks of Smith’s pledge. If Wildrose loses the next election, she’s gone.

“It’s hard to follow somebody when they say they’re not sure they’re going to lead the team if they don’t win the next game,” says Donovan.

To quote an old saying, Smith dances with the one who brung her.

“Changing one person at the top does not change the government’s recurring problems of entitlement and mismanagement,” says the Wildrose leader.

“The premiers change, the problems remain. They always do. We will fight for what we know in our hearts is good for Alberta and good for Albertans.”

But is this a rallying cry or is it a swan song?

[email protected]

On Twitter: @sunrickbell

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LLG opposes new line project

November 24, 2014 By

By John Stoesser, QMI Agency

A local group of landowners are opposed to a new transmission project that would see power lines running west from Pincher Station to connect to a trunk line on the Livingstone Range.

The Alberta Electric Systems Operator ordered transmission company AltaLink to plan and develop the $500 million to $750 million Castle Ridge Rock to Chapel Rock project this fall.

After the developer held their first round of public consultations the other week the Livingstone Landowners Group met to discuss their position on Nov. 8.

“They’re beginning what they call their consultation phase, which is to throw out a bunch of ideas and see how people react and see if there is an easy way through this or not,” vice-president of LLG, Bill Trafford said.

By the sounds of the discussion at the meeting, the LLG is ramping up the opposition rhetoric. Throughout the evening at the Lundbreck Community Hall – where about 50 people attended – combative vocabulary like “fight”, “battle” and “resistance” was tossed about.

The group came up with five positions on the CRRCR project. They do not support or endorse it or want to discuss specific routes with AltaLink. They want the line company to use existing infrastructure corridors where possible and avoid environmentally significant areas such as native grassland. They want the lines located and designed in ways that limit visual intrusions – preferably underground – and they want AltaLink to recognize and act in accordance with the recently-released South Saskatchewan Regional Plan.

This is not the first time that the LLG has opposed a transmission project. They also objected to the Fidler to Chapel Rock project, which was recently cancelled after the Alberta Utilities Commission found a lack of need, that would have seen lines running north of the Oldman Dam and over to the same 1201 trunk line.

“We undertook to work with them and deal with that and effectively the decision that came out was don’t run that line north of the Oldman Dam, run it south of the Oldman Dam to Castle Rock substation,” Trafford said at the meeting.

The new CRRCR proposals show possible line routes starting at a substation south of the dam and then heading north again after passing Cowley.

Both the LLG and AltaLink have stated that they are looking for feedback from the people affected by the possible power routes. However, the landowner group claimed that the transmission company may use questionable procedures during their proposal consultations.

“They’ll do the very best to break you apart,” LLG director Bruce Mowat said during the meeting. “They’ll try and get you fighting with your neighbour and don’t do that. Just staying working as a group. You have a lot of power in numbers working together and we found that out in the past.”

“It’s tactics, they have lots of different tactics to approach it,” he said. “And they’ll have one (consultant) come talk to you one day and you think you’ll be dealing with that fella’ and the next week it’s somebody else and then the next week after that it’s somebody else.”

AltaLink’s external communications manager Peter Brodsky would not comment directly on these allegations because he was not at the meeting but he did offer a statement about the company’s consultation process.

“What I will say is when we choose routes and do our public consultation we do it at the highest level of integrity and ethics,” Brodsky explained. “We deal with our stakeholders on a level of honesty and integrity that we’re quite proud of and we will speak to any and all landowners impacted by our projects, hear their concerns and do our best to accommodate them where practical and possible.”

Brodsky also addressed the continuity of AltaLink’s consultations, saying, “Because we want to develop relationships with our landowners, our stakeholders, we assign agents and those agents would continue the process through the full submission of the project.”

However, if a landowner requested another agent due to any concerns, “We endeavour to keep very detailed record of all our consultations and so the ability to move from one consultation agent to another shouldn’t require a complete relearning of the relationship.”

While a number of people at the LLG meeting said they considered AltaLink’s public consultations to be more like “risk management” sessions it was clear that they considered the routing as only one piece of the power puzzle.

“We have people all over Alberta fighting for the same values,” David McIntyre, a forestry scientist, said. “We have not done a good job in getting our government to fight for us. Jim Prentice has said he is fighting for the environment, what is he going to do in this particular case?”

McIntyre also mentioned some of his recent public correspondence with MLA Pat Stier and the role of local council in this issues.

“It’s that our own council doesn’t stand up for us,” he said. “And I don’t want to say they don’t but I haven’t heard their voices standing up for us on this.”

Both Reeve Brian Hammond and Deputy Reeve Terry Yagos were at the LLG meeting and were thanked for their presence. Later in the evening a question was put directly to the reeve about the MD’s ability to influence the situation, especially regarding the community values document.

“You can point the finger at the municipality all you want but that’s not where the decisions are made,” said Hammond.

“We’re not your enemies…the only thing we can do is make them aware of the concerns of the ratepayers that are brought to our attention,” he said.

Hammond went on to say that the MD, along with passing on messages to higher levels of government, is also reviewing people’s position on wind farm development in the area.

“We need to make some hard decisions… The intensity of the resistance, the participation of the public, needs to be directed at the people who have the right and the ability to make decisions. The regulator, the Alberta Electric Systems Operator, they’re the people making the large-scale decisions,” Hammond said. One local landowner, Justin Thompson, also highlighted the fact that transmissions decisions come from the province and the populace.

“One of the things I think is really important to remember in this instance is it’s not AltaLink’s choice of whether this line is going to cost X or Y or Z,” he said. “It’s the regulator’s choice and ultimately Albertans choice. So right now they’ll come out with the status quo, which is the big lattice towers. And it’s up to communities and others to say, ‘We want to understand the true cost of different options.’”

“At the end of the day taxpayers, Albertans, might decide that this landscape is valuable enough to enough to spend an extra $10 million,” Thompson said. “It’s not AltaLink’s choice. But (their) first step in this is to say, ‘We’re going to do big, ugly lattice towers, ‘and that’s the choice because it costs too much to do anything else.”

Some of the different options LLG would prefer include running power lines underground or along Highway 3. In the consultations in Pincher Creek last month, AltaLink representatives said that underground lines are much more expensive than above-ground lines and that a route along Highway 3 could be problematic in terms of cost as well.

Discussion also turned to the fact that Albertans want cheap and reliable electricity and that people who do not live in the area do not care if power lines are installed.

“The notion that we need to make decisions on the basis of the interests of all Albertans, well there’s some validity to that story,” said Hammond. “And the other side of that is maybe if we’re making decisions based on the interest of all Albertans and it impacts a very small microcosm of the total population, maybe there needs to be a recognition by all of Albertans.”

According to Thompson, the value of this area extends beyond the relatively smaller number of people who live here.

“The point where this landscape is only valuable to 100 people, that’s not true,” he said. “There’s hundreds of thousands of people who drive down the Highway 3 corridor every year. They love this landscape.”

The meeting ended with LLG hoping to bolster their numbers and learn more about different engineering approaches to transmission development, especially regarding underground lines.

“We’ve have a really good team of people, very knowledgeable, very experienced… Well-regarded, well-respected and we have the attention of the AUC, AESO and AltaLink from the last go around so they know it’s a force to be reckoned with not something they can slough off to the side,” said Trafford.

Meanwhile Brodsky encouraged anyone that “If there are concerns I would hope they would bring those concerns directly to us so we can address them.”

The next round of public consultations on the CRRCR transmission project is expected to take place in the winter or spring of 2015.

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Motion aims to protect property rights

November 19, 2014 By

LETHBRIDGE HERALD GUEST COLUMN

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014

MLA HOPING TO HAVE ALBERTA LANDOWNER RIGHTS ENTRENCHED IN CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Rod Fox
MLA, LACOMBE-PONOKA
On Nov. 24, I will be joined by Wildrose MLAs as we introduce Motion 501 to the legislature urging the assembly to support entrenching Alberta landowner rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  This move would in one stroke ensure any current or future Alberta government respects the rights of Alberta property owners by cementing those rights in the Charter — Canada’s highest law.  This is what both I and Jim Hillyer — the Member of Parliament from
Lethbridge — are fighting for. Hillyer is introducing a similar motion in Ottawa. He will ask Parliament to support the same principle: to amend the Charter to enshrine property rights for Albertans. The result would be that the government could not take actions under any law to diminish the value of property without fairly compensating landowners.  This kind of positive constitutional  change is possible and critical for advancing property rights here in Alberta and across Canada.

Under Section 43 of The Constitution Act, changes can be made to the Charter that apply only to individual provincial legislatures. This change would only affect Alberta.  Over the coming weeks, I will be asking my PC, Liberal and NDP colleagues to join me in unanimously supporting this motion.  It remains unclear whether Premier Jim Prentice plans on moving forward with meaningful property rights legislation this winter. But even if he does, the fact remains: landowners need rock-solid assurance of their rights; they need to know the rules of the game won’t change at a moment’s notice. This motion is the only way to truly achieve that.  The fact is, supporting this motion should not be about partisanship, it should be about doing what is right for Alberta.

As it stands, when the province directly takes private property for public purposes there are fairly clear rights in place under the Expropriation Act.  Where things get murky is in cases when the province places restrictions on land that depreciate its value — also known as “de facto” expropriation.  These restrictions can include things like revoking licences or permits, or freezing development in case there is expropriation one day, or putting caveats on land titles, or granting access to companies to pump CO2 under your land.  Instead of always allowing independent determinations of fair compensation, recent legislation has given broad discretion to the government to decide the fate of your land and your business, and explicitly ruled out appeals of those decisions or the compensation offered to the court.  Tensions between individual property owners and government infrastructure or planning are inevitable. The key is whether the businesses and property people have worked so hard for are respected. This is why property rights have been recognized since as far back as 1215 with the Magna Carta as a key to economic and political freedom.  We see this as an exciting opportunity
for Alberta to lead the way once again in Canada, and entrench a fundamental right that our federal constitution has been missing for too long.  With your help, we can make truly positive changes to public policy in Alberta. If you support entrenching property rights for Alberta in Canada’s constitution, please call or write your local MLA and urge them to support Motion 501.

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Wildrose says Alberta bill to protect private property rights weak

November 19, 2014 By

The Canadian Press
November 18, 2014 02:19 PM

EDMONTON – Alberta’s Wildrose party says Premier Jim Prentice isn’t going far enough to protect the rights of property owners.

Prentice has introduced a bill to cancel the controversial Land Assembly Project Area Act.

The legislation was passed in 2009 but has yet to be proclaimed into law.

Some landowners and the Opposition say the act is fundamentally unfair because it allows the province to expropriate land without proper compensation or fair recourse to the courts.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith says other related bills need to be changed as well to ensure that the rights of private property owners are respected.

Smith says her party will introduce a motion in the legislature to push forward the idea of enshrining property rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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