Monday, March 9, 2015
Pam Kean, Director, Consultation, AltaLink

Recently an editorial* (Accuracy lacking in minutes from AltaLink meetings, February 25, 2015) appeared in your publication and I would like to take the opportunity to respond and clarify AltaLink’s role in Alberta’s electric system and how homeowners’ and landowners’ input is critical to the decisions we make in identifying locations for new transmission lines.

Many people believe that AltaLink decides which transmission projects are needed. This is incorrect.

The need for transmission projects in Alberta is determined by the independent, not-for-profit Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). A need then requires approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC). In the case of the Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock Transmission Project, the need was approved by the AUC in 2014.

This project is driven by the need to connect clean, green wind energy in southwest Alberta to the electric grid to ensure all Albertans reap the benefits of green energy.

The AESO has directed AltaLink to build the project to satisfy this need. As a public utility, we’re required by law to complete the project.

As an Alberta company, we respect the magnificence of the area in which the project will be built and understand that landowners have concerns about the impact infrastructure development might have on the landscape.

Working together with community members, we believe a solution can be found that makes sense. Some factors taken into account as we identify potential route options include the residential, environmental, visual, agricultural, and electrical impacts of the proposed line and substation. As a regulated utility, we must also consider the cost of the solution to Alberta ratepayers.

In an effort to gather input we have reached out to landowners in the project area. It is early in the process and the right time for stakeholders to get involved, and stay involved, as we move forward. In addition to input received from more than 500 visitors to our interactive feedback sessions, we have received numerous letters from landowners and interest groups, and had many valuable face-to-face meetings with landowners in the area. All of this information has been crucial to our consultation process.

We have participated in large group meetings with landowners to discuss the project. Our meeting summary is meant to act as a general record, at a high level, of main topics discussed during the meeting. We strive to create an accurate record of the meeting and continue to work with community representatives present at the meeting, as we committed to at the time, to ensure the summary presents an accurate reflection of the discussion.

Your input helps guide our decisions, and ultimately, the location of the line. We look forward to continuing the conversation with landowners to ensure that together we find a low impact solution.

Yours truly,
Pam Kean
Director, Consultation

*Editor’s note: for clarification, the item in question that the above is in response to was a letter to the editor, not an editorial.

Dr. Harpreet Kochhar says consumers not at risk because of Canada’s BSE safeguards

By John Cotter, The Canadian Press Posted: Mar 08, 2015 8:51 AM MT Last Updated: Mar 08, 2015 8:56 AM MT

BSE is a fatal and untreatable wasting disease of the brain and nervous systems caused by rogue proteins called prions, which can be spread through contaminated feed. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

Canada’s chief veterinary officer says some cattle associated with the investigation into a case of mad cow disease in Alberta were slaughtered over the last few years and entered the human food chain.

But Dr. Harpreet Kochhar said consumers are not at risk because of Canada’s bovine spongiform encephalopathy safeguards.

• BSE cow born on Alberta farm, says Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

“There is no food safety concern here because any of these animals would have been slaughtered and the specified risk material, which is the material which actually harbours prions, (would) have been removed completely — and that is because of the enhanced feed ban,” Kochhar said in an interview.

.”And none of the animals, if they had ever shown any symptoms, would have been brought to the slaughterhouse because of other controls like surveillance.”

Less than 250 human cases worldwide

BSE is a fatal and untreatable wasting disease of the brain and nervous systems. It is caused by rogue proteins called prions, which can be spread through contaminated feed. Humans who eat infected beef can develop a fatal disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Fewer than 250 human cases have been reported worldwide.

Last week, a report posted on the World Organisation for Animal Health website indicated that 317 cattle out of 750 associated with the BSE investigation had been slaughtered.

The information about the BSE cow’s so-called “birth cohort” was submitted to the Paris-based organization, also known as the OIE, by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The numbers refer to cattle born within one year of the BSE cow’s March 2009 birth. Both numbers have since been removed from the OIE website.

Kochhar said the posting was an initial draft and the slaughter number was not correct. He said the final number could be higher.

Kochhar said the 750 number was “approximately right within 95 per cent confidence.”

Investigators are still working to confirm both totals, which will be submitted to the OIE, he said.

Numbers released accidentally

OIE spokeswoman Catherine Bertrand-Ferrandis said the numbers were accidentally posted on the web due to a computer glitch and were later removed because they are not yet considered to be official by the Canadian government.

She said that the OIE hopes to receive a followup report from Canada in the coming days.

The beef breeding cow with BSE was discovered last month on a farm near Edmonton and was born on a nearby farm.

Another cow born on the same farm in 2004 tested positive for the disease in 2010. No parts of the BSE cows got into human or animal food, the agency has said.

Kochhar said in a typical BSE investigation, up to half of the cattle involved have already been slaughtered.

Another 10 per cent are still alive, about 10 cent have been exported and 10 per cent can’t be traced, he said. The rest would have died for different reasons.

Investigators continue the complex task of checking cattle born on the farm and which may have been exposed to the same feed as the BSE cow.

Kochhar said records suggest that other cattle had access to the same feed, but it is too early to say how many.

A typical BSE investigation takes about six months before a final report can be submitted to the OIE, he said.

COLIN PERKEL

TORONTO — The Canadian Press

Published Sunday, Mar. 08 2015, 8:35 PM EDT

Last updated Sunday, Mar. 08 2015, 8:48 PM EDT

Four rural families who lost their fight against the construction of wind farms near their homes will have to pay a total of $67,000 to the companies they took to court.

The costs award is far less than the $340,000 the three wind companies were demanding because, as Ontario’s Divisional Court ruled, the families’ battle was more than a personal crusade.

Shawn Drennan, whose home near Goderich, Ont., is a short distance from a 140-turbine project, said he was pleased the ruling has cut his bill to $25,000 from more than $200,000.

“I’m feeling relieved,” Mr. Drennan said in a weekend interview. “$25,000 is not a small number but it’s manageable.”

In a decision released late Friday, Divisional Court rejected arguments from the Drennans, Ryans, Dixons and Kroeplins that they should have to pay none of the companies’ legal bills. But the court also rejected the companies’ contention that the families had been purely selfish in launching the turbine challenge.

“Although the appellants obviously had a private interest in the litigation, their appeals contained a strong public-interest component – raising, as they did, the constitutionality of part of the legislative regime governing the construction and operation of wind farms in this province,” the court said.

“Any award of costs must reflect that strong public-interest component.”

At any rate, the court found, the amount demanded by K2 Wind, Armow, and St. Columban was unreasonably high.

It also took the companies to task for failing to explain exactly how they had arrived at the amount they were asking for.

The families had argued Ontario’s turbine-approvals process was unconstitutional because it exposes citizens to a reasonable prospect of serious harm to their health. In December, Divisional Court rejected that challenge.

In asking for $340,000 in costs, the companies said the families knew the risks of losing. They also said the high-stakes fight had forced them to deploy considerable legal resources to defend projects they say are safe and properly approved.

The families’ lawyer Julian Falconer, who had denounced the companies’ initial bill as intimidation aimed at discouraging legal challenges, said the costs award captured the larger issues in play.

“The court ruling is very important because of the recognition that these cases are not all about money,” Mr. Falconer said on the weekend.

“What these families have on the line went well beyond protecting their backyards.”

The families are hoping Ontario’s top court will hear an appeal of the December ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the provincial rules and allowed the three wind projects to proceed.

Chandra Lye, CTV Edmonton
Published Thursday, March 5, 2015 10:07AM MST
Last Updated Thursday, March 5, 2015 10:51AM MST

The leader of Alberta’s NDP is calling on Premier Jim Prentice to apologize after saying that Albertans need to “look in the mirror” if they want to know who is responsible for the province’s fiscal crisis.

“I think that is a profoundly insulting comment to all Albertans,” Rachel Notley said.

“If Jim Prentice were to look in the mirror what he would see is the leader of a very tired, 43-year-old government. A government that is completely, and totally, and solely responsible for the fiscal crisis that we are in right now.

“We are calling on Jim Prentice to issue an apology to Albertans for the profoundly insulting statement that he made and to take responsibility for his record and for his government records.”

Notley also called the comments arrogant.

“These guys are the ones that have been at the controls. These guys are the ones that have made the decisions. It is their decisions that put us here. How dare they blame the families that are struggling to make ends meet under the circumstances that these guys have created?

“If this is what the premier will say to Albertans now, six weeks before an election, heaven forbid what he is going to say to Albertans after the election if they give them a four year mandate. I would be troubled and worried about where we are going.”

The hashtag #PrenticeblamesAlbertans has been trending and includes sarcastic comments and memes.

In many tweets, Albertans sarcastically blame themselves for everything from the demise of the dinosaurs to the blown play call that cost the Seattle Seahawks the Super Bowl.

Others say Prentice is right on, given that Albertans have voted to keep the Progressive Conservative party in power for more than 40 years.

Prentice has promised to remake the budget radically this month, since low oil prices have drained billions of the dollars from the treasury.

He says there will be “pain” for everyone, but says corporate taxes and oil royalties will be off

With files from The Canadian Press

Chris Varcoe, Calgary Herald

March 5, 2015
Last Updated: March 5, 2015 8:27 AM MST

Alberta Premier Jim Prentice speaks with the media following a luncheon speech to the Rotary Club at the Palliser Hotel on Tuesday March 3, 2015.

Gavin Young / Calgary Herald

Premier Jim Prentice says Albertans should “look in the mirror” when it comes to the financial woes now squeezing the province — and defends his decision to reject corporate tax hikes while his government eyes higher levies and deep spending cuts.

Opposition critics, however, say the Tory premier is trying to make all Albertans scapegoats for years of financial mismanagement by the long-serving Progressive Conservative government.

Speaking on a CBC radio program Wednesday, Prentice continued to warn about the tough medicine that awaits Albertans in this month’s provincial budget. In recent weeks, the government has been raising the prospect of spending reductions and higher taxes to make up for a revenue shortfall caused by low commodity prices.

“We all want to blame somebody for the circumstances that we are in,” Prentice said. “But the bottom line is we’ve had the highest cost and the best public services in the country, and we haven’t built, basically, a revenue model that sustains them.”

The government has said it’s facing a potential $7-billion revenue hole this year triggered by the collapse of crude prices from $100 US a barrel last summer to $51 a barrel on Wednesday, constraining energy royalties.

The province is considering a range of options to deal with the shortfall, including altering the personal income tax system, re-introducing health premiums, hiking the gasoline pump levy — the lowest in the country at nine cents per litre — and increasing taxes on liquor and cigarettes.

Finance Minister Robin Campbell has also indicated spending will be chopped by $2 billion annually, an overall five per cent cut from last year’s levels.

Prentice said the government is busy preparing a 10-year financial plan and will take steps to address the broader issue of public services being funded by volatile oil prices.

“In terms of who is responsible, we all need only look in the mirror, right. Basically all of us have had the best of everything and have not had to pay for what it costs,” he added.

“Collectively we got into this as Albertans and collectively we’re going to get out of it and everybody is going to have to shoulder some share of the responsibility.”

Wildrose critic Drew Barnes said he’s amazed the premier would blame all Albertans for the fiscal crisis since the Progressive Conservatives have been in power uninterrupted since 1971.

He noted that just a decade ago, the province had $17 billion in its rainy day contingency fund and that has since dwindled to around $6 billion.

“After 43 years of being in power and having control over the provincial chequebook, how could it be anybody else’s responsibility but the PC government,” said the Wildrose MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat.

Barnes said there would be no need to raise any taxes if the government was committed to cutting spending and rooting out waste.

NDP critic Brian Mason said the PC government gave up billions of dollars in revenues by chopping corporate taxes by about a third a decade ago and by moving away from a progressive income tax system to a 10 per cent flat tax.

“I’m appalled that he would talk to Albertans like that, when it’s his government that’s made all of these key decisions all along,” said Mason.

“It’s a transparent effort to avoid accountability — and to blame the very people who are going to be hurt by his government’s incompetence is breathtaking.”

Mason said the province must look at hiking corporate taxes, something Liberal MLA Kent Hehr said should be on the table as the province scrambles to find additional revenue.

Hehr said the province’s 10-per-cent tax on businesses could be raised modestly and still keep the province competitive.

“If everyone is going to share the pain, our corporate sector should also be part of it,” said Hehr, who also disagreed with the premier that Albertans have the best public services in the country.

At 10 per cent, Alberta has the lowest corporate tax in Canada. British Columbia is next at 11 per cent, with Nova Scotia and P.E.I. on the other end at 16 per cent.

Hiking the corporate tax rate to 12 per cent would bring in an estimated $1 billion, but Prentice said it would lead to companies relocating jobs and shifting head offices to other provinces.

“We are hanging on to every single job that we can in Alberta right now — that’s a focal point of the government,” he said.

Political analyst David Taras said it appears Prentice’s political honeymoon is ending as public unease grows over issues such as cutting the auditor general’s funding and raising taxes.

Pointing fingers at the public is unlikely to work as the premier strives to build consensus for the tough decisions ahead, Taras said. The premier’s comments on Albertans having the best public services also fall short, given the troubles within the education and medical systems, said the Mount Royal University professor.

“We don’t have the best services in the country, that’s the whole point,” Taras said.

With files from The Canadian Press

[email protected]

By Rick Bell,QMI Agency

First posted: Thursday, February 19, 2015 07:34 PM MST | Updated: Friday, February 20, 2015 11:01 AM MST

They couldn’t expect us not to notice the very noticeable elephant in the room.

The provincial government of Premier Jim Prentice tells us this year they need $7 billion they don’t have. They blame the tanking oil price for the missing money.

They say they must take more dollars from you.

They hope you won’t look around and see the big, fat elephant — their elephant, a bloated creature fathered and fed by Progressive Conservative politicians.

Yes, we’re talking about the out-of-control spending over the past decade on the day-to-day running of the government.

We are NOT talking about spending to build stuff. We’re not jawing over how much went to constructing new schools or roads or health facilities.

We are just talking about spending on the day-to-day bills.

A warning.

The following information from Fumbling the Alberta Advantage, a Fraser Institute study released Thursday, contains scenes of gross irresponsibility and stupidity.

Reader discretion is advised.

Back in 1993, the Government of Alberta’s day-to-day spending in 2013 dollars was about $9,000 a person.

Three years later, the Ralph Klein government cut the spending to about $6,800 a person.

In 2004, with Ralph still at the helm, operating spending was back up to $9,000 a person.

A lot more cash was coming in from oil. Dollars were freed up from not having to fork out for interest costs because the debt was being paid off. Spending went up.

But that wasn’t good enough for Toryland.

In the years to follow, the provincial PC government torqued up the doling out of daily dollars beyond accounting for increases to the cost of living and the growth in the population.

Talk about torquing. By 2013-14, day-to-day provincial government spending jumped by $2,000 a person.

According to the report, much of the spending “can be traced to the public sector and how it has swallowed extra revenues available to the province.”

Had the PC rocket scientists in Toryland stuck to hiking spending by the increase in inflation and population, the provincial government would have saved $49 billion over the last decade.

In the last budget year alone, the province would have saved $8 billion.

Now remember, we’re now told the province’s budget is in the hole by $7 billion.

If the PCs had shown a smidgen of self-discipline, they could have filled today’s $7-billion hole without raising your taxes.

Mark Milke, one of the report’s authors, says Albertans would be “throwing rose petals” because the PCs “had been so prudent instead of spending every year as if they were going to get a gigantic Christmas bonus.”

Alas, the PCs of the past decade decided to jack up spending like there was no tomorrow, thinking big oil money would flow in forever.

It didn’t.

Like an eatery owner after someone dines and dashes, we are left holding the tab.

Then again, Albertans did keep the PCs in power despite many scribblers of all political stripes banging the drum time and time again about the spending and mismanagement in Toryland.

How often did we speak? Too often and to little effect.

That’s not all.

If the PCs hadn’t decided to go hog-wild on day-to-day spending, more bucks could have found their way into building schools, roads and the like.

“If the family hadn’t spent so much money on going out five times a week they could have saved more money for sports equipment, a new car and renovations to the house,” says report writer Milke.

And since the PCs spent so much money keeping everyone happy within government they also couldn’t sock away multi-billions in the rainy-day Heritage Fund.

Yes, the worst suspicions are confirmed.

Milke says the province has to deal with the salaries, benefits and pensions of those on the provincial public payroll.

He says Albertans should ask themselves a question.

“Why on God’s green Earth should I be forced to pay more tax into a broken system the premier himself isn’t fixing?”

Others will argue a different case.

They will point out in this time of “burden sharing” tax hikes and fee increases for individuals are in the budget mix but hiking the low tax on corporations is somehow off the table.

Whatever the fight, everyone agrees where the finger of blame should be pointed.

[email protected]

By John Stoesser, QMI Agency
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 3:27:11 MST PM

An AltaLink employee speaks with a community member during the transmission system developers round of open house sessions to unveil a ‘‘stakeholder suggested“ route. The forums for the Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock proposal were held in Cowley on Feb. 10 and Lundbreck on Feb. 11. John Stoesser photos/QMI Agency.
Transmission system developer AltaLink held another round of information sessions displaying a new proposed route for their $500-million Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock project in Cowley on February 10 and Lundbreck on February 11.
The additional “stakeholder suggested” route would run 240-kilovolt wires south of Highway 3, paralleling a smaller, existing line and then head north after passing through a substation near Lee Lake, if it is approved. From there a 500-kv line would either pass Bellevue along Highway 3 or head up the North Burmis Road to connect to line running along the Livingstone Range.
“We’re not making decisions here tonight, just as we didn’t make decisions back in October,” Peter Brodsky said, a communications manager with AltaLink. “This is a preliminary process that allows us to get input from individuals directly impacted by the proposed line.”
Over 120 people attended the four-hour session in Cowley, Alta. informed by about 20 blue-vested AltaLink employees and a handful of AESO spokespeople.
A number of individuals and groups affected by the proposed routes have expressed scathing criticism of the project. Some of the mains concerns are that the project is overly expensive, tracks through pristine lands valued for tourism and is not justified by the needs document.
“We are pawns in our own community,” said David McIntyre, a resident and scientist who says his view would be compromised by one of the proposed routes. “We are victims that AltaLink has chosen, the relative few to represent society as a whole. So instead of addressing Albertans and telling Albertans they want to screw up and run lattice towers through an internationally revered and marketed landscape, they come down and tell a handful of people and try to pit neighbour against neighbour to get what they want so they can go home with hundreds of millions of dollars that we pay for.”
The Alberta Electric System Operator, the entity that plans and runs the province’s power grid, developed the needs document that was submitted to and approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission to justify the CRRCR project.
“We don’t even know if this is needed,” McIntyre said of his biggest criticism of the CRRCR. “AltaLink is here to tell us it is but we as a society have no idea. We have electrical engineers that tell us it’s not needed and yet AltaLink points to a needs assessment that was done I believe more than a decade ago.”
During the meeting AESO spokesperson Mike Deising said the newest iteration of the needs document is an amendment to the original and that the system’s operator reviews needs and plans every two years.
One reason behind the overarching Southern Alberta Transmission Reinforcement plan is connecting wind generation in the area to the grid and move that power to load centres, specifically Calgary. The AESO’s milestone for approving the CRRCR project was 600-megawatts of installed wind power in the area.
“We’ve far exceeded that, there are 457-megawatts that have been already constructed and almost another 600 in our connection queue,” Deising said, adding those extra 600-MW were in various stages of completion.
Deising also explained that the CRRCR line is not necessarily meant to export wind power to BC or Montana.
“That’s a very common misconception, Alberta is a net importer of electricity,” he said, adding that usually Alberta imports electricity five percent of the time and exports power one or two per cent of the time.
“We’re not setting ourselves to move power out. We need all the power we can get in the four corners of this province,” Deising said.
At the moment 1,450-MW of wind power is installed in Alberta and the AESO claims that could double over the next two decades.
The Livingstone Landowners Group, a collective of people living north of Highway 3 along the proposed CRRCR routes who oppose new power lines in the area has requested that the AUC and Premier Prentice reconsider the project. The group said in a news release that AltaLink is, “willing to deviate into environmentally sensitive lands” that could create “lasting harm” and is proposing at least one route that violates the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan.
LLG also advocates for underground power lines but AltaLink says that option is not even on the table due to their significantly increased cost.
“When you’re talking about high voltage lines of this capacity the underground excavation required, the concrete vaulting you would require around the power lines makes it an exorbitant cost related to complete a line of this size,” Brodsky said. “It just isn’t economically feasible to look at undergrounding this line.”
Simon Wood, a resident in the MD has written MLA Pat Stier and copied the premier regarding how the line would affect him personally. The new proposed route could run closely past his residence, with lattice towers that would be taller than the trees.
“When we built our house, I installed a solar electricity system. That’s right, I’m off grid. I don’t even get my power from AltaLink!” wrote Wood who is angry about the project and asked Stier to oppose it.
Stier attended the open house sessions in Cowley and Lundbreck.
“I think everybody here is very concerned about the amount of wind energy and the industrialization of this corridor is starting to become a more heard issue in my office,” the MLA said. “As AltaLink and the AESO decide how they’re going to continue to power up this area one has to wonder I think – and most of the people are saying this – just when is enough enough?”
Monica Field, McIntyre’s wife, spoke to the emotion of the people affected by the project.
“This process is destroying us,” she said. “It’s causing us so much anxiety and when you see a picture of where you live with the towers put on it and you think, ‘Can I still live here? Can I stand it?’ And you feel like running away screaming… It’s really awful to be in there and feel everybody’s emotion. They’re just so upset.”
Brodsky recognized that emotions and concern occur during these information sessions. Part of the sessions include a wall of handwritten notes with people’s thoughts on the project. The posted ideas ranged from “build it already” to “the AESO needs to be investigated by the RCMP”.
“What we hope to do is in the spring have a preferred and alternate route identified and at that time we could be back in the community to share those with the community members and get some final consultation prior to submitting a facilities application to the Alberta Utilities Commission,” said the AltaLink spokesperson about the next steps in the project.
[email protected]
@echo_stoesser

By Rick Bell, QMI Agency
First posted: Tuesday, February 03, 2015 10:14 PM MST | Updated: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 06:56 AM MST
We wait. The unions wait.
Premier Jim Prentice says wage rollbacks for provincial public sector workers are on the table.
But they aren’t on the table yet.
On Wednesday, members of the Alberta legislature will agree on a 5% cut to their sweet paycheques. Prentice and his cabinet ministers thumbs-upped a 5% cut for themselves as well. They will feel little pain.
With those 5% cuts to the politicians now going down, Prentice is asked when his government will finally talk to the unions about wage rollbacks.
The premier stickhandles.
“We inherited a situation where there are existing collective agreements which we obviously have to honour. We’ll deal with the realities of those,” says the premier.
“We also inherited a situation where there are public sector wage increases, negotiated by previous premiers and governments, that we inherited and that we’re going to have to wrestle with.”
So the premier is going to wrestle with the pay in the agreements he’s honouring.
If your head is hurting you are not alone.
Prentice says it all has to start with “a frank discussion” about “Alberta’s fiscal position and defining solutions that are going to protect front-line services and mitigate the risk of job losses.”
Is this a case of taking a pay cut so more people keep their jobs?
A supplementary question from the peanut gallery.
Mr. Premier, are you talking about wage rollbacks?
“We have not specifically put a fiscal plan on the table,” says Prentice.
“We’ve made it clear Alberta is going to have to live within its means. We are going to have to reduce government expenditures.”
Prentice says Alberta has to cut spending down towards the average in this country. He adds this province’s cheque writing is “significantly higher” than the national middle-of-the-road.
Besides hearing the province will not increase taxes on corporations as part of the master plan to unscrew what was screwed up by the lamebrained Progressive Conservatives, we are left with what the premier has said in the past.
Wage rollbacks have to be discussed with provincial public sector unions though no one in his government has mentioned rollbacks when they’ve gone to the unions.
Albertans expect government workers to share in the burden of what is to come.
The talk is for your benefit. Will you suck up getting your taxes hiked if you see someone on the provincial public payroll take a 5% hit?
The unions do not know with certainty where Prentice is headed.
Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, where the average salary for one their members working in direct government services is $56,000 a year, confirms there’s no sniff of wage rollbacks from the PC braintrust.
Smith hasn’t been called to attend any meetings on the subject. Not yet anyway.
The union leader says direct Alberta government employees in AUPE have taken three zeros in the last five years.
Their contract doesn’t expire until 2017. He feels they’ve done their bit.
For those of his union members working in health care who are going into contract talks or in them already, it’ll all be in the negotiating.
Meanwhile in Calgary, Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation stands on the cold steps of the premier’s southern Alberta HQ.
It is where Ralph announced Alberta’s debt being paid off in full.
Inside the building, Ralph’s government announced a 5% rollback to provincial government wages a generation ago.
The CTF recommends Prentice be like Ralph by cutting and not taxing more.
Two years back, the CTF told Alberta’s PC government the following.
“Repeatedly ignoring calls for modest spending controls in the past has created a fiscal disaster for the province that will require significantly more muscular action than would have been required had measures been taken earlier.
“In short, the party is over.”
The PC party who mismanaged the public purse and dismissed the warnings of the many who could add up the ugly arithmetic now want to be in charge of fixing what they did — again.
To no surprise, the CTF main man says it’s time to play hardball with the unions after playing softball for too long.
It’s not hardball season just yet. All we’re seeing played is hockey, what with all the stickhandling.