Dale Weiss voices his concerns over the AltaLink powerlines planned to run near his property.–NEWS PHOTO EMMA BENNETT

Another shakeup of health care — a big one — is thundering our way, with the first hoofbeats expected in a provincial government announcement Tuesday.

Sources say the province will agree to a significant movement of money toward front-line care, and away from the ballooning administration of Alberta Health Services.

It’s likely that a number of vice presidents will soon depart AHS, severance packages in hand.

After watching the AHS head office expand ever since it was created in 2008, the PCs have decided it’s not working as planned, and the time has come to strip out executive blubber.

On Tuesday, the province will release its response to a report on health-care governance, written by Janet Davidson, the AHS official administrator who was appointed in June.

Davidson has already said her review would look at ways to get rid of duplication between AHS and the Health Department.

Davidson herself might help with that. In government, nearly everyone expects that she’ll soon be appointed as the new deputy minister of health.

Last Friday, in a shuffle of deputy ministers, veteran health deputy Marcia Nelson was sent to infrastructure.

An acting deputy took over the department. But indications are that Davidson, who joined AHS after Horne fired the whole appointed board, could soon get the deputy job permanently.

Some provincial people want to cement the command line from government to AHS by having Davidson fill both jobs — as deputy minister, and also as official administrator of AHS.

But that’s thought to be politically difficult, as well as possibly illegal.

Current legislation calls for the health authority to have its own stand-alone governance, either through a board or an administrator.

However the details shake out, it’s clear that the government’s impatience with the growing AHS empire, along with its occasional insensitivity to the public, is at an end.

Political command, as well as involvement in specific health issues, will be more direct and formalized.

The PCs have recently been testing the public’s attitude to direct action by politicians.

The most obvious case was Premier Alison Redford’s face-to-face meeting with disabled people in Edmonton, and her role in reversing an AHS decision to strip them of responsibility for their own home care.

There was no outrage at the premier’s action. In fact, the general reaction was approval.

Health Minister Fred Horne, who works closely with Davidson, provided another example Monday with his disgusted reaction to the appalling case of the senior whose face was allegedly chewed by mice in a Lethbridge care home.

“I must say I was very, very disappointed to learn of this,” Horne said. “I have a tremendous number of questions about what exactly is going on.”

Horne immediately sent inspectors from both AHS and his Health Department to investigate — signalling that AHS, which oversees such facilities, is itself under direct scrutiny.

The Lethbridge Centre is operated by Edmonton-based Covenant Health, a Catholic health-care organization, which runs 18 facilities around the province.

All of that shows, if nothing else, how vast and complex the health-care system has become.

And the AHS structure, for all its bloat, does not have a proper grip.

The only other candidate to provide oversight is the government, which needs to restore the far-more rigorous hold it had on provincial care and standards before the first health regions were created 20 years ago.

And may the government succeed. Please.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

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OTTAWA — Enbridge Gas Distribution is voicing concerns over TransCanada Corp.’s planned Energy East Pipeline project, warning the conversion of an existing natural gas line could send winter heating bills higher and leave many in the city without heat during the coldest months.

According to the City of Ottawa’s lobbying registry, on Aug. 22 Jamie LeBlanc, Enbridge Distribution’s director, energy supply and policy, and Michelle Wasylyshen, manager of government relations, met with three Ottawa city councillors and the City of Ottawa’s general manager of planning and growth management, John Moser, to express reservations about TransCanada’s proposal.

The Energy East project would retrofit the company’s 3,000-kilometre Canadian Mainline natural gas pipeline, which runs through rural areas in the south end of Ottawa and across the Rideau River, so it can carry more than 1.1 million barrels of crude oil a day to refineries and oil tankers on the east coast.

The line is currently underused, TransCanada has said, and altering it to carry crude oil alongside natural gas will the allow the company to more fully use its existing infrastructure.

However according to a copy of the presentation Enbridge delivered to Moser and councillors Marianne Wilkinson, Doug Thompson and Eli El-Chantiry, “As it stands now for example, post conversion, Enbridge would be as much as 25 per cent short of capacity needed to serve the Ottawa area on the coldest days of winter.

“TransCanada is creating the impression that most or all of the pipe they are considering for re-deployment is excess capacity — this is far from the case for the Eastern Triangle (east of North Bay).”

While the company wouldn’t elaborate on its concerns further, a spokeswoman for Enbridge, which provides natural gas to more than 2 million customers across Ontario, confirmed the meeting with city officials took place and said the company is in talks with TransCanada to try to ensure that the supply of natural gas coming into Ottawa remains uninterrupted. She also said the company is working to ensure that prices don’t rise as a result of constrained supply, should TransCanada’s plans be approved.

“We have a vested interest in and an obligation to ensuring that any potential natural gas supply constraints can be addressed in a way that is not at the expense of the natural gas market and ultimately our customers,” said Enbridge spokeswoman Chris Meyer in an emailed statement.

Meyer also said TransCanada may need to build a second pipeline along some parts of the Energy East route to handle transporting the natural gas that it plans to displace.

“While there is sufficient excess capacity on the mainline west of North Bay, a new line will have to be built to replace any capacity that is taken out from North Bay to Iroquois. Enbridge Gas wants to ensure that gas customers are not financially harmed by redeployment of utilized gas facilities to (carry) oil,” she said.

TransCanada denied any new construction would be necessary.

“We will not have to build a new pipeline. As we have previously said TransCanada will ensure that we continue to meet our firm natural gas contractual obligations,” said Philippe Cannon, a spokesman for TransCanada. “TransCanada will ensure that even after the conversion of a portion of its natural gas Mainline to oil service, its natural gas pipeline system will have sufficient capacity remaining to be able to transport the firm natural gas volumes that customers have contracted … to Eastern Canadian markets.”

Cannon said the Mainline is comprised of multiple natural gas pipelines running side-by-side and if excess demand were detected, TransCanada could simply re-route one of the existing lines to add more supply to homes in Ottawa.

The company claims the project will help reduce Eastern Canada’s dependence on imported oil, while offering Alberta oil companies better access to shipping ports where crude can be loaded onto oil tankers and sent overseas. TransCanada would like to see the crude oil flowing east as early as 2017. The company will release a study Tuesday morning that will explore the investment the firm is prepared to make and the economic impact that investment could have on provinces across the country.

Enbridge’s concerns raise more questions for TransCanada, which already faces opposition from environmental groups and questions from area politicians who want to know what role the company will play in the event of a possible pipe rupture and oil spill.

The City of Ottawa has said that since the pipelines TransCanada plans to use are already running on existing rights-of-way granted to the federal government years ago, there is little the municipality can do or say to oppose the proposed project.

Still, the pipeline retrofit still needs numerous approvals from various departments of the federal government, including the National Energy Board and Natural Resources Canada.

This fall, TransCanada plans to begin consulting Ottawa residents who live in or near areas through which the pipeline would pass.

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© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Original source article: Enbridge warns Ottawa councillors that Energy East pipeline could lead to winter gas shortages

VICTORIA — Federal Green party Leader Elizabeth May claims leaked documents show taxpayers are subsidizing the bid to build the proposed $6-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline with about $120 million in government studies.

While Ottawa is cutting major science research projects across Canada, May says the documents reveal the federal government has embarked on at least two major initiatives that are “greasing the wheels” for Enbridge (TSX:ENB), the Calgary-based firm proposing the pipeline.

May says the Harper government is spending at least $78 million on marine spill studies specifically connected to bitumen, the molasses-like crude that will be shipped in the pipeline between Alberta and B.C.

She also says the documents reveal Ottawa is spending $42 million to study ways to improve weather forecasting in the coastal regions that will be used by oil tankers if the project is approved by the federal Joint Review Panel.

One of the conditions set out by the B.C. government for its approval of the pipeline was that oil spill response, prevention and recovery on the west coast needed to be world-class.

The federal government could not immediately be reached for a response to the documents, dated May 2012.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Original source article: Feds spend $120 million to ‘grease’ Enbridge’s Northern Gateway bid, Greens say

By Dave Cooper, Edmonton JournalJune 7, 2013

By Marty Klinkenberg, Edmonton JournalSeptember 4, 2013

Albertans are still being encouraged to reduce power consumption, as above-average temperatures continue to put pressure on the electricity grid.

The Alberta Electric System Operator issued a release last Thursday asking Albertans to turn off unnecessary lights and electrical appliances, minimize the use of air conditioning, and run major appliances after 7 p.m. In addition to the strain created by the warm weather, a planned outage on the British Columbia intertie is preventing Alberta from being able to import power through its largest interconnection.

“We’re not in a position yet to have to issue an appeal, but we are tight right now. Our supply is quite low and our demand is high,” said AESO spokesperson Dawn Delaney.

Delaney said the situation is being closely monitored. If demand begins to exceed supply, the system has a reserve margin of power it can draw on but, at that point, AESO will have to issue an urgent call to Albertans to reduce consumption. Contingency plans are also in place that would allow AESO to order rolling blackouts, if necessary.

“We’re not at that point yet,” Delaney said. “We’re still framing this as more of a friendly reminder to Albertans.”

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

OTTAWA-Environment Canada has launched an investigation into an ongoing industrial spill that has lasted for weeks in Alberta at an oilsands facility about 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

First reported to provincial regulators in the spring, Canadian Natural Resources Limited says seepage of bitumen emulsion at four different sites of the facility, near Cold Lake, continue but are contained and being recovered.

“Environment Canada’s Enforcement Branch is currently assessing the situation with respect to federal environmental and wildlife laws within its jurisdiction, and has opened an investigation,” said Environment Canada spokesman Mark Johnson in a statement sent to Postmedia News on Wednesday evening.

The Alberta government’s energy regulator and its environment department are also conducting separate investigations into the incident, monitoring for potential impacts to soil, water, as well as dozens of wildlife deaths.

“We are working with Environment Canada in several areas, including wildlife,” said Alberta Environment spokeswoman Nikki Booth.

A spokeswoman for CNRL told Postmedia News that Environment Canada officials were on the site of the incident on July 4 and had followed up with additional requests for information.

“We have provided the requested information to EC  in regards to understanding the incident, the cause, and our plans going forward,” said spokeswoman Zoe Addington.

The facility uses a method employed in many oilsands operations that involves the injection of steam, deep underground to recover bitumen, the tar-like heavy oil found in natural deposits in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

CNRL said it believes the seepage was caused by “mechanical failures” in some wellbores that it is investigating, while working with government officials on clean-up efforts.

The provincial energy regulator has reported those efforts are ongoing and it ordered steaming restrictions on the company in mid-July.

“Bitumen recovery, impacted soil removal, fissure exposure, surface water management and containment efforts continue at the… sites,” said the Alberta Energy Regulator in its last online update on Aug. 20. “To date, the total wildlife impacts between all four sites have been reported with two beavers, 38 birds, 91 amphibians and 32 small mammals deceased.”

A spokesman for AER also confirmed that there were four separately reported spills – two on May 20, one on June 8 and a fourth on June 24 that affected a local body of water.

“We are investigating all four incidents,” said the provincial regulator spokesman Bob Curran. “We do not know the cause of the incidents at this time, so we do not know if they are related.”

The company has reported recovering about 8,700 barrels of bitumen emulsion and has about 200 employees and contractors on site to “continue to reduce the impacts of these bitumen emulsion seepages until the locations are fully remediated.” Wildlife monitoring teams from the company are also “doing sweeps” each day, says CNRL on its website.

Environment Canada confirmed its own investigation two weeks after Postmedia News asked it a series of questions about the incident and the nature of warning letters sent to another company operating in the oilsands. Suncor had received 17 written warnings from the federal department over a three year period between 2009 and 2013, about alleged violations after more than 400 inspections.

Johnson said many of the warnings to oilsands companies were related to alleged violations that didn’t result in direct environmental harm, such as the failure to submit mandatory reports on time.

He added that the volume of inspections also demonstrated that the department takes environmental impacts of oilsands development “very seriously.”

The department also opened an enforcement office in Fort McMurray in April 2012 to help enforce federal environmental laws such as the Fisheries Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Migratory Birds Convention Act, he explained.

“The new office is part of the continued commitment by Environment Canada to work with other regulators to proactively and cooperatively monitor the environmental performance of oilsands operations,” Johnson said.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Original source article: Federal investigation launched at CNRL oilsands site