By Darcy Henton and Chris Varcoe, Calgary Herald May 3, 2013 6:19 AM

 By Sheila Pratt, Edmonton Journal May 2, 2013

EDMONTON – If hundreds of ducks die on a tailings pond or a pipeline bursts, Alberta Environment won’t be investigating or be involved in any charges against oil companies.

Those powers — to investigate spills and infractions, and apply penalties — move to an arm’s-length agency, the new Alberta Energy Regulator, a body run by cabinet appointees reporting to the minister of energy and mostly paid for by the industry.

The AER is expected to be operating by June.

Energy Minister Ken Hughes said he’s confident the new AER will take on its new role as environmental enforcer role with vigour. To assist in that, the government recently increased fines for polluters up to $500,000, he said.

“Our commitment to environmental standards is not weakened one bit” under the new regulator, said Hughes. “What we’re creating is an entirely new regulator, not just a reboot of the (Energy Resources Conservation Board).”

The new board, yet to be appointed, has an obligation to take on this role appropriately, he added.

But critics are worried that environmental protection will take a back seat to the agency’s other role advancing the oil, gas and coal industries.

New Democratic environment critic Rachel Notley said the ERCB rarely, if ever, laid charges and has a weak enforcement record.

For instance, the ERCB set up Directive 74 requiring companies to shrink the size of toxic tailings ponds, but then exempted seven of nine projects from the new regulations, she noted.

“Environment protection is already subordinate to development issues and the new agency is the ERCB on steroids,” she said.

The energy industry pushed for the single regulator which will issue all approval permits required by environment laws, rather than having the environment department share that job.

Under the old system, it was the responsibility of the environment department to build a case to lay charges and take it to Crown prosecutors for a final decision, noted Notley.

In the new system, the energy regulator will be the gatekeeper on whether charges are recommended to the justice department and that’s a concern, said Notley, especially as the AER is headed by a former oilpatch insider Gerry Protti, a founding member of industry lobby group the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

But Hughes disagreed, saying “people should have confidence” in the new agency. The CEO working under Protti is Jim Ellis, a former deputy of both the energy and environment department, so “he has seen the balance” that’s needed between the “two sides of the same coin — the economy and the environment.”

University of Calgary law professor Shaun Fluker said it’s too soon say whether there will be fewer charges laid or weaker enforcement of environmental laws under the new regulator.

“On the face of it, there could be problems, but that could all be alleviated by a separation of the two functions (issuing approval permits and enforcement of the law),” said Fluker, adding he’s waiting to see regulation under the Responsible Energy Development Act, or Bill 2, which sets up the new regulator.

But Hughes said the point of the new regulator is to have “one coherent approach” to energy development “that will provide more certainty about the rules of the road of regulator, environmental groups and landowners.”

Ecojustice lawyer Melissa Gorrie said it’s important that the new regulator acquire the expertise and independence of investigators in the environment department, but that’s not yet known. “We don’t want industry-led investigations.”

She also called on the government to release draft regulations on investigations. “Right now, it’s all in a black box.”

Hughes could not say whether Alberta Environment investigators would move over to the new regulator. “That depends on the AER’s needs.”

But it would be “inappropriate” if the board of the AER hired industry investigators to look into spills or other incidents, he added.

Albertans should realize the new regulator is operating in “an entirely new policy context” for the energy industry, he noted, including the new Policy Management Office. This office will co-ordinate discussions between the energy and environment departments on policy issues, he added. Those policies will guide the regulator.

Alberta Environment declined to comment whether any or all if its seasoned investigators will move over to the new regulator.

The new energy regulator will enforce six pieces of legislation, including the Water Act, the Environment Enhancement and Protection Act, for the energy industry only — though it will likely take a year to complete the transition into the new job as chief environmental enforcer.

About 900 people, including more than 600 in Calgary, are employed by the energy regulator and that number will go up. The ERCB announced this week fees charged to the energy industry will jump by 36 per cent and are expected to rise again in June when the AER takes on the environment job.

The environment department will continue to be the investigator and enforcer in other industrial activities such as gravel operations.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Sunday is National Day of Mourning, a day set aside to remember workers killed or injured on the job.

You might not give it a second thought, especially if your work isn’t particularly risky.

However, imagine you had one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, one with so many hazards you could die from a disturbingly long list of mishaps including strangulation, electrocution, asphyxiation and traumatic amputation.

Now imagine you had no right to know details of the hazards and no right to refuse work you thought unsafe. In fact, you are not covered by Alberta’s occupational health and safety laws that protect just about every other worker in the province.

Finally, imagine that Premier Alison Redford has been promising for 20 months to get you that protection but still hasn’t actually done so.

If you can do that, you can imagine what it’s like to be a paid farm worker in Alberta.

Farm workers are excluded from health and safety laws that not only protect workers from hazardous work but govern hours of work, overtime pay and vacation pay. If they’re injured on the job and their employer hasn’t voluntarily covered them under the Workers’ Compensation Board, their only recourse is to launch a lawsuit.

Every other province offers coverage, except Alberta.

Over the past three decades, more than 350 Alberta farm workers have been killed and more than 670 seriously injured. In 2012, 10 people died on Alberta farms, a relatively low number compared with the 16 in 2011 and the 22 in 2010. But in any given year, Alberta usually has more farm fatalities than its Prairie neighbours.

Up until 2010, the provincial government filed reports revealing the age and gender of each victim along with when the accident happened and how. “Victim was removing grain auger from bin, auger came into contact with a power line and victim was electrocuted,” reads a typically terse account from March 2010.

However, in 2011, the government stopped providing details, opting simply to release the overall number of deaths and a few statistics. Officials said they were trying to protect the privacy of victims’ families; critics complained the government was trying to hide the scope of the issue.

It’s not as if the government doesn’t know there’s a problem.

In December 2008, a provincial court judge reviewing the asphyxiation death of a farm worker in a grain silo issued this blunt conclusion: “No logical explanation was given as to why paid employees on a farm are not covered by the same workplace legislation as non-farm employees.”

In 2011, during the Progressive Conservative leadership race, Redford promised to expand the law. “We have to have farm workers protected,” she said. “Hired employees on farms are entitled to that protection.”

Yet the government under Redford has done nothing to change the law to ensure Alberta’s farm workers enjoy the same workplace protection offered to farm workers in every other province.

“We’re going to put in place the right approaches at the right time,” is how Redford answers questions on the matter, but she refuses to say when that “right time” will be.

Human Services Minister Dave Hancock says he is working with Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson to come up with ways to improve farm worker safety, but those improvements might only include more safety education for workers, as opposed to actual legislation.

“At the end of the day it’s outcomes that matter, it’s how do we ensure that we have fewer injured Albertans or no injured Albertans on the farm or otherwise?” says Hancock. “And we won’t just get that by bringing in a piece of legislation.”

If you follow that logic, there’s no need to have any workers anywhere covered by health and safety laws. The fact is every province recognizes a health and safety benefit in covering its workers, including those on the farm. Alberta recognizes a health and safety benefit for working Albertans, too, except for those working on a farm.

The political fact is the Alberta government is afraid changing the law will somehow damage the family farm, or at least damage the government’s rural voting base.

However, by not taking action, the government is allowing large commercial farm operations to escape responsibility.

Don Voaklander, director of the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research, says large feedlots are no different than other companies, such as oil companies, that are covered by health and safety laws. “The agrarian myth of the rugged family farm just doesn’t apply,” says Voaklander.

As a compromise, the government could pass a law that protects workers on industrial farms but excludes unpaid workers, such as family members on small family-run operations, as is done in some other jurisdictions.

This is an issue that obviously resonates more in rural Alberta than in urban centres, but Liberal MLA David Swann, who’s been on something of a one-man campaign to protect farm workers, says it should resonate with everybody. “Albertans think that we are producing our food ethically but that’s a false assumption.”

It’s something worth thinking about, not just tomorrow but every day until Redford fulfils her promise to farm workers.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON – Most Albertans do not believe the so-called “bitumen bubble” is the prime source of the province’s financial woes, according to a new poll.

Since Premier Alison Redford introduced the “bitumen bubble” to mainstream conversations during a televised speech in January, the government has warned the discounted price for Alberta crude will inflict a $6-billion hit on the provincial treasury this year.

But an online survey by Leger Marketing found that only one-fifth of Alberta voters believe the combination of pipeline constraints and oil price differentials is “primarily responsible” for the government’s financial problems.

A majority, 65 per cent, said the bubble was not the prime culprit behind the budget crunch. The remaining 16 per cent said they “don’t know.”

Leger’s Alberta vice-president, Ian Large, said he was surprised to see that nearly two-thirds of respondents reject the “bitumen bubble” explanation as the main reason for Alberta’s financial woes.

Calgary voters were slightly more likely than Edmontonians and residents in other parts of the province to say the bitumen bubble was the main source of money problems.

Large said he believes several factors are influencing public opinion on the issue.

For one, it is complicated to explain the causes behind Alberta’s fluctuating oil prices compared to the North American benchmark. At its low point in January, Alberta crude was selling for about $37 less per barrel than West Texas Intermediate, but that gap shrank to about $14 per barrel in March.

Meanwhile, other questions previously released from the Leger poll, commissioned by the Journal and the Calgary Herald, found that the Tories face a sharp slide in support as they are dogged by an array of trust and accountability issues.

Though the government is correct to point to problems with resource revenue caused by pipeline capacity and fluctuating oil prices, “because of all the frustrations with all the other issues, people aren’t buying it,” Large said.

The controversial 2013-14 budget delivered March 7 also distracted from the overall revenue challenges, Large said. The budget included a freeze to overall operational expenses, cuts in some areas and a sixth consecutive deficit. It also laid out a plan to borrow billions of dollars for infrastructure, in addition to a plan to start saving money again in 2014-15.

“I think that this message was lost both in the budget and then in the push back from the opposition,” Large said. “The opposition’s comment was: ‘This isn’t news. We’ve always had this problem. Why is this all of a sudden news?’

“So the government was not able to really make this argument very clearly.”

Faron Ellis, a political scientist at Lethbridge College, said the Redford government deserves credit for educating Albertans about the different price it gets for its oil.

If pollsters asked a different question, such as “Are you aware that pipeline capacity and what’s called the ‘bitumen bubble’ is an important long-term problem?” most Albertans would probably agree it is an issue.

“They’ve done a good job bringing the issue forward,” Ellis said. “Moving to the next stage and saying, ‘It is the cause of our current problems,’ there is considerable skepticism.”

Leger also asked 1,011 eligible voters in its non-random online survey if they had a favourable or unfavourable impression of the March 7 budget. Only 20 per cent reported a strongly or somewhat favourable impression, while 60 per cent said they somewhat or strongly disliked the spending plan.

Another 20 per cent said they could not offer an opinion.

Ellis, who studies and teaches polling methods as director of Lethbridge College’s Citizen Society Research Lab, said it should come as no surprise to anyone that six in 10 Albertans are unhappy with the budget.

“The Redford government was not given an austerity mandate. They campaigned on the progressive side,” Ellis said.

But Ellis said he was impressed Redford acknowledged Monday that she expected to take a political hit in opinion polls in the aftermath of the budget.

At this point, one year into a four-year mandate, her government is in a classic majority position, making tough calls early in the term, he said.

“We’ve seen many governments, federal and provincial, get through this,” Ellis said. “The test will be in three years. Has the situation been resolved? If it hasn’t, they will pay the price on the negative side. If it has, they’ll be rewarded.”

On the subject of cuts to post-secondary education, one of the most contentious pieces of the 2013-14 budget, more than 60 per cent of those polled said they disagreed with the decision to slash operating grants to colleges and universities by $147 million.

Edmonton residents were most unhappy about the cuts, with 67 per cent disagreeing compared to 60 per cent in Calgary and 57 per cent in the rest of Alberta.

“What’s surprising about this question is it wasn’t as universally condemned as I would have expected,” Large said. “There’s 26 per cent that agree with the decision.”

Although students, faculty and the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary have vocally opposed the advanced education cuts, Large said the government seems to have done a good job managing the fallout.

“I don’t think the government is going to hang on this one,” he said. “It really does affect a fairly small minority of the population.”

Leger conducted its online survey from April 9 to April 12. It does not a report a margin of error, but the company says a probability sample of this size would result in a maximum margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

That margin of error increases to more than five percentage points for regional breakdowns.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal