AltaLink is investigating reports about dozens of dead ducks near one of its transmission lines in southwest Alberta.

• Dead ducks under power line raise concerns for Alberta man

Retired scientist David McIntyre raised concerns after he found duck carcasses under a newly-built transmission line north of Pincher Creek.

McIntyre estimates the deaths may be in the hundreds based on a 10-minute walk along the line he took on Dec. 31.

Judging from the damage to ducks, he thinks they may be hitting the line in bad weather when they can’t see it.

The company is sending workers to an area near Pincher Creek and may install “flappers” to help make the lines more visible.

Director Scott Schreiner says it appears it happened near an existing line and not near one of the new transmission lines under construction.

“We’ve sent a team of environmental experts from AltaLink and external providers down to investigate. Normally, what we try to do is mitigate any impact on the environment of our facilities. That includes bird contacts.”

The team will walk up and down the transmission lines in the area and may also do a bird count. While the company performs environmental assessments and can use some techniques to divert birds, Schreiner admits some conflict with birds is unavoidable.

“Whether it’s a phone line or a telephone tower or a house, birds have collisions with those aerial facilities.”

AltaLink will need a few days to investigate the reports. The company has notified Alberta Environment about the incident.

Under fire for spending on domestic advertising and international travel, Premier Alison Redford is defending the government’s Building Alberta campaign and a series of high-profile trips by cabinet to start the new year.

On Tuesday, the official Opposition released new documents showing the province spent $661,663 on Building Alberta advertising last year.

Along with more than $1 million spent on huge signs posted on infrastructure projects, the total tab for the Building Alberta branding exercise in 2013 exceeded $1.7 million.

Speaking to reporters in Calgary, Redford maintained it’s important for Albertans to know about the government’s spending on roads and public facilities, especially after last June’s devastating flooding in the south of the province.

“We want to make sure that people know what our commitment is to infrastructure,” she said.

“People who are thinking about coming back to those (flood-damaged) communities will have confidence those communities can be rebuilt. This is an important part of that and we’re going to continue to do it.”

But Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson said the Building Alberta campaign is a cynical attempt to sell the Progressive Conservative government’s plan to borrow billions of dollars to fund construction projects — and taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for political advertising.

Documents obtained by the Wildrose Party show the government spent $287,759 on a television, online and print ad blitz, $277,538 on a mail-out sent to every Alberta home, $32,950 on the creation of the Build Alberta campaign, $21,995 on the corporate document, $25,883 on displays and backdrops, and $15,537 on video and multimedia.

“There is not one dollar in that money that was spent that was in the best interests of Albertans,” said Anderson.

“There is no point to it. It does no good . . . They are just taking taxpayer money and promoting themselves.”

Derek Fildebrandt of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose freedom of information request revealed the government’s expenditure on Building Alberta signs, said the campaign shows the need for stricter rules around partisanship in public advertising.

The Building Alberta signs are particularly egregious because they bear Redford’s name and sport the PC colours of blue and orange, he said.

“Building Alberta is becoming a punchline now . . . representing waste, representing partisanship,” said Fildebrandt.

Fildebrandt and Anderson said the government’s spendthrift ways extend to travel.

Redford embarks Thursday on a business promotion trip to India and visits the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The total cost for the trip, which includes ministers Manmeet Bhullar and Naresh Bhardwaj, exceeds $120,000.

International and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Cal Dallas will join Redford on the trip and then proceed to Singapore at a price of $56,400, while Thomas Lukaszuk, minister of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour, is currently in China at a cost of $20,800.

Redford made no apologies for the travel, maintaining it is a vital part of the Building Alberta plan for ministers to be on the road spreading the news about the province and its resources.

“As we move forward and we think about where we need to be able to sell our products, it’s India, it’s China,” she said.

“It’s ensuring that we’re creating the story we need to tell in the United States and in Europe with respect to responsible environmental sustainable development, the way that we’re developing our energy industry.”

Anderson said he doesn’t object to the travel but he has no confidence government members are getting the best deal for taxpayers, pointing to expensive hotel rooms and flights racked up by Redford.

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EDMONTON — The Opposition says Alberta’s governing Progressive Conservative party should be forced to repay more than $1 million in taxpayer money spent on signs touting building projects in the province.

The Wildrose party says the signs, in hues similar to Tory colours and featuring Premier Alison Redford’s name, are nothing more than partisan political advertising.

Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show the government put up 293 blue-and-orange “Building Alberta” signs in 2013.

The material obtained through an access-to-information request shows the average cost was $3,500 per sign.

WASHINGTON – Alberta Premier Alison Redford says she senses a shift in discussions with some U.S. government officials about the proposed Keystone XL oilsands pipeline.

After her fifth trip to Washington, D.C., Tuesday to lobby for the project, Redford says some people there are starting to appreciate that shipping bitumen by rail generates more greenhouse gases than shipping it by pipeline.

Redford says she met with U.S. State department officials as well as members of Congress and the Senate and the talks went very well.

She says she continued to promote Alberta’s environmental record, including carbon capture and storage projects and new land use policies.

Some Americans say the Keystone XL pipeline would reduce U.S. reliance on crude imports from unfriendly countries and create jobs, but others argue the environmental risks are too high.

TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) filed its Keystone XL proposal more than five years ago and expects a decision will be made soon.

“I actually feel that the discussion that I have been able to have with people, some of whom I have met before who are following this closely and some who I have met for the first time, leads me to believe that people are really fully seized with these issues, have understood the discussion that we have been trying to have out of Alberta and that it is going very well,” she said Tuesday.

The US$5.4-billion Keystone project would ship bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Redford suggested she was encouraged by the discussions in the U.S. capital about shipping crude derived from the oilsands by pipeline versus by rail.

“A lot of that product is being transported by rail at the moment, and that is something that is receiving quite a bit of attention in the United States, partly because we know that transportation by rail leads to higher greenhouse gas emissions than a pipeline would,” Redford said.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty talked about oil pipelines, including Keystone XL, in front of a business crowd in Edmonton Tuesday.

“I was in Texas the other week and I can tell you the support for the Keystone pipeline is huge,” he said.

“I am hopeful that the sensible course will be followed.”

Flaherty touted the three options for shipping oil to port through Canada as well — west through the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, north to the port of Churchill, Man., by rail and east to New Brunswick by pipeline.

“I think we should do them all, personally. This is the future of the country — it’s long term. I think we should move on all fronts.” he said. “We need to do something.”

EDMONTON – The Alberta government spent more than $1 million on roadside signs in 2013, many of them branded with the province’s “Building Alberta” slogan, internal documents show.

Premier Alison Redford’s government spent at least $1,043,183 on 293 signs last year, according to the documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation under freedom of information laws and released Thursday. The expense marked a significant increase over the two previous years, and the taxpayers organization says the documents show the cost has been steadily increasing.

Included in last year’s $1-million total are 257 Building Alberta signs – including 56 flood recovery signs – at roughly $3,380 each, and 38 Greening Alberta signs at a cost of roughly $4,805 each. Another eight signs classified under the label Project Limit came with a total price tag of $40,100.

The amount spent on the roadside placards in 2013 increased significantly over 2012, when the government spent nearly $219,000 on 73 signs, the majority of which were branded with the Building Alberta slogan.

The most expensive Building Alberta signs were also purchased in 2012, at $8,000 a pop.

In 2011, the government spent even less, shelling out $33,364 on 16 Building Alberta signs – roughly $2,085 each.

The documents do not reveal which company, or companies, provide the signs. The installation costs of the signs are also not included in the documents.

The Building Alberta signs have provided much fodder to opposition critics, who say they are branded with Progressive-Conservative party colours and Redford’s name to advertise using government dollars.

In a news release, Derek Fildebrandt, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, called the signs “wasteful.”

“These signs are not innocent, bureaucratic bulletins,” Fildebrandt said. “They are partisan propaganda with Premier Redford’s name emblazoned on them.”

In early December, Redford dismissed criticism that her office had ordered the signs be erected on flood-affected sites even if projects weren’t yet tendered.

“Putting up these signs shows (the) commitment that we have as a government to the Building Alberta plan and the Rebuilding Alberta plan,” she said at the time. “That is hope.”

The criticism was the result of a leaked email from the premier’s office advising three ministers and their press secretaries to get signs up in a two-week period.

“The premier would like to ensure that Building Alberta signage is up and in front of every flood-affected road, bridge, school, etc., literally everything on our infrastructure list to ensure that folks know that we are going to be rebuilding,” says the email from Redford’s director of political operations, Darren Cunningham. “I don’t care if an RFP (Request for Proposal) is ready or not, we need a very visible commitment that the government is rebuilding.”

More to come …

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