March20,2012-St. Paul Journal-Bill 6 is no fix to bad laws
March 20-St. Paul Journal-Not convinced by MLA’s stance
Alberta government names property rights advocate
EDMONTON – The governing Conservatives on Monday named Alberta’s first property rights advocate, the latest in ongoing government efforts to diffuse anger among rural voters concerned about land rights.
Justice Minister Jonathan Denis named Lethbridge lawyer Lee Cutforth to the post, a fourth-generation Albertan who grew up working on his family’s farm.
Denis said the advocate’s office will help Albertans understand how property rights laws affect them, correct public misconceptions about the laws, and provide advice to the legislature. The office will also investigate complaints.
“This is … an access to justice issue for me,” Denis said, noting it can be expensive for Albertans concerned about their property rights to get a full legal opinion. “For a relatively small amount of money in our budget we’re going to be able to provide this information.”
The office will cost an estimated $1 million to operate each year. The main office will be in Lethbridge, with a satellite office in Edmonton.
Cutforth will be the first property rights advocate in Canada.
“Personally, I see property rights very much as a fundamental right of a free society,” Cutforth said Monday.
“There are limits to the power of government. We’ll try to be a resource for people to find out about their own property rights … in the face of things like expropriation or the regional plans that are in the works.”
Cutforth said the office can investigate complaints and report on its findings, but does not have the power to fine or sanction.
His appointment is for three years under the terms of the Property Rights Advocate Act, which was passed in March following provincewide consultations with Albertans. The law comes into effect Dec. 18.
Cutforth will report to an assistant deputy minister in Alberta’s justice department and will deliver an annual report directly to the legislature.
Wildrose Justice Critic Shayne Saskiw said called Cutforth a “grief counsellor” and an “apologist.
“The job for him will be to explain that the government can violate your property rights and that it’s perfectly legal to do so,” Saskiw said. “The only thing that he can probably advise is that (Albertans) should go and beg the minister – with hats in hand and on bended knees – and plead for ministerial leniency.”
NDP leader Brian Mason said the government is “pandering.
“The appointment of an advocate, that’s not going to do anything if the government continues to bring in legislation that tramples on the rights of landowners,” Mason said.
Controversy surrounding provincial property rights legislation has dogged the Progressive Conservatives since 2009, when the Tories passed the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, or Bill 36.
Critics and opposition parties argued the bill gave the Tory cabinet too much power to “extinguish” rights in secret and without recourse to the courts.
Other bills also came under fire, including the Land Assembly Project Area Act (Bill 19), the Electric Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 50), and the Carbon Capture and Storage Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 24).
The Wildrose party successfully turned land rights into a political wedge issue, and though the Redford government amended the controversial bills before the spring election, the party still suffered sweeping defeat in the southern regions of the province.
With files from James Wood, Calgary Herald
Braid: MLA wage freeze has deeper connotations
By Don Braid, Calgary Herald February 8, 2013 5:44 AM
CALGARY — MLA pay has become such a poisonous subject that the PCs recoil in terror whenever they hear its name.
On Thursday, they made a huge deal of passing a modest motion to refuse any pay hike until March 31, 2014.
This means, effectively, that they’re turning down a 1.1 per cent cost of living increase.
And what group in our beloved Alberta is pressing for a cost of living raise?
That would be Alberta’s doctors, via the Alberta Medical Association, which this week infuriated Premier Alison Redford by raising the MLA pay issue.
The docs jabbed the PCs’ sorest wound, without anesthetic, by saying MLAs are overpaid.
Redford was so annoyed that at a news conference Tuesday, she took the spotlight off the New Brunswick pipeline proposal to refute the doctors’ charge.
That seemed to be that. But on Thursday, PC MLAs staged a bizarre legislature show trial of MLA pay, with themselves as judge and jury.
Their instant verdict? Not guilty.
The larger meaning? No raise for the doctors, not even cost of living.
To further seal the AMA crypt, the group’s president, Dr. Michael Giuffre, has not been invited to Saturday’s big economic summit, either as speaker or observer.
It’s a pointed omission, considering that overall compensation for Giuffre’s members constitutes 8.5 per cent of the entire provincial budget.
Beyond the docs, the freeze says that any labour group, including teachers and government workers, will be lucky to pry a discontinued penny out of the government.
On Thursday, the premier started it all with a tweet: “Proud of my PCAA team for leading by example: PCs will freeze pay and housing allowances today.”
That led to an eruption in the all-party members services committee at the legislature.
Opposition MLAs objected to Redford announcing the decision in public, without notice to them, before it was even debated. How could she do that to an independent committee?
They all know, of course, that this body is about as independent as an inmate in maximum security.
The votes are preordained by the PC majority, sometimes on direct orders from the premier’s office — as happened with last year’s sudden reversal on pay for the infamous no-meet committee.
On Thursday, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith moved that the proposed freeze be extended until the province finally balances its consolidated books.
Perhaps aware that this date will likely coincide with other science fiction, the government members refused.
In the end, though, Smith voted for the freeze with the shut-off date in 2014. She could hardly do otherwise.
Redford must have smiled when she aimed her final tweet straight at Smith: “Thank you for supporting the PC motion to freeze MLA pay. It’s good to work together to do the right thing.”
Now the premier and crew head into Saturday’s economic summit at Mount Royal University, with the pay thing pretty much off the table.
But here’s another oddity.
The “bitumen bubble” that the PCs keep raising alarms about is shrinking fast.
On Thursday, the price differential between West Texas Intermediate crude and Alberta bitumen was down to $25.50 per barrel, the lowest gap since last October.
This is good for Alberta. Ultimately, it helps the government, too.
But the incredible shrinking bubble does pose a question — is the gap as serious and lasting as the PCs claim, or mostly a mask for other problems?
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
Simons: Premier and AMA both fumbling doctors’ wage football
EDMONTON – Doctors are supposed to be good at analyzing symptoms and making diagnoses. Politicians are supposed to be good at politics.
But to judge by the “negotiations” between the Alberta Medical Association and Redford government, neither Alberta’s physicians nor its political leaders have a very firm grasp on such skills.
If there’s been a strategic error to make in the past few months, the AMA seems to have made it.
Two years ago, then-AMA president P.J. White threw his very public support behind Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative leadership rival Gary Mar. The AMA actually sent out Mar campaign material, inviting doctors to take part in a Mar-sponsored forum. That tactic backfired, when Mar, the “sure thing” front-runner, lost to Redford in a dramatic upset.
The AMA followed that strategic blunder with an even bigger one, when it took out ads attacking the Tories in the midst of the provincial election campaign. The association insisted the ads were non-partisan. Nonetheless, they were cautioned by the province’s chief electoral officer for their activities.
Whatever the AMA’s intentions, it’s clear from the waspish tone of the election-time correspondence between Alison Redford the AMA’s then-president, Linda Slocombe, that Redford perceived the AMA to be supporting the Wildrose Party.
It’s perfectly possible to view the AMA’s anti-Tory election ads, not as an effort to get the Danielle Smith elected, but as a brave, disinterested, democratic effort to speak truth to power. Nonetheless, when Alberta voters defied the predictions of pollsters and pundits and returned Redford to power, the appearance that the association had campaigned on behalf of the Wildrose turned into a strategic liability.
(To put it more colourfully? In this province, if you try to bring a government down, you’d better succeed — or run the risk of blow-back.)
The AMA’s quandary now isn’t just that the lobby group misdiagnosed the province’s political symptoms. It has also misjudged the public mood.
Back in the Klein era, the province’s physicians successfully positioned themselves as champions of public health care and public hospital services. Public sympathy was with them.
Not this time. In these contract negotiations, the AMA has failed to make the case that it is acting in the best interests of Albertans. Somehow, the public debate has become focused on physician compensation, not patient care.
It’s just not very persuasive to ordinary Albertans for the AMA to argue that Alberta MDs are only paid 14 per cent more than the national average, not 20 per cent — not when physician compensation makes up 8.5 per cent of the strained provincial budget.
The doctors’ PR position hasn’t been helped by the twists and turns of the queue-jumping inquiry, set to resume Feb 19.
Instead of looking like the victims of political or bureaucratic bullying, some of the doctors who’ve testified so far have come across as entitled elitists who didn’t mind bending the rules to help their families or private patients.
And yet, as bad as the AMA’s bargaining tactics have been, the government’s strategy has been as bad, or worse. Alison Redford just can’t seem to shut up about health premiums, bringing them up again and again as a threat to counter the doctors’ salary demands.
This week, the Tories had what should had been a big political win, when New Brunswick premier David Alward came for visit, lauding the oilsands and talking up plans for a west-to-east pipeline. That should have been Wednesday’s big story. Instead, Redford chose to attack the AMA — pushing her own victory off the front page, derailing her own news cycle.
The average Albertan doesn’t much care about all this political posturing. As patients, we want to be sure our doctors are fairly compensated, so that we can recruit and retain the physicians our booming province needs. But many Albertans are also keenly aware of the looming budget realities — and of the need to reform primary health care. It may not be fair for the premier to blame the province’s financial woes on the wage demands of doctors, teachers, and other public sector workers. Yet economic realities have conspired against the AMA, at a time when there’s little public sympathy for big wage demands.
If physicians want a better deal, they’ll need a smarter strategy, one that inspires public support, not government resentment. If, conversely, Redford wants to look commanding, instead of petty and vindictive, she’ll have to stop rising to the bait every time the AMA sets out to goad her.
To read Paula’s blog, go to edmontonjournal.com/Paulatics
Thomson: Sparks fly in pipeline pursuit
By Graham Thomson, Edmonton Journal February 7, 2013
When David Alward toured the oilsands this week, the CBC offered a story on its web page with an unintentionally ironic headline: New Brunswick Premier woos Alberta on pipeline proposal.
New Brunswick is wooing Alberta?
Anyone who follows Alberta’s desperate mission to get more bitumen to market knows that in the boudoir of Canadian petro-politics, Alberta is not exactly playing hard to get. In fact, when it comes to seeking partners to help build more pipelines, Alberta is something of a brazen little hussy.
No wooing is necessary.
Nevertheless, the Alberta government did get a little giddy when Alward came a-calling. He was here to talk about a pipeline to ship Alberta’s bitumen to New Brunswick for upgrading at the huge Irving Oil refinery in Saint John. Deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk took Alward on a guy date to a pub to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, got him a tour of the oilsands on Monday and invited him to a joint news conference with Premier Alison Redford on Tuesday.
Alberta rolled out the red carpet because it’s not as though a lot of politicians are beating down Alberta’s door these days to talk about pipelines. British Columbia is decidedly cool to the idea of permitting the Northern Gateway pipeline to pump Alberta’s bitumen to Kitimat for shipment to Asia. And President Barack Obama is having commitment issues on the Keystone XL pipeline to move bitumen to the Gulf Coast.
So having a politician show up on Alberta’s doorstep with the political equivalent of a dozen roses in hand had the provincial government’s heart all aflutter. For Redford, it was a good news story after weeks of negative headlines about “bitumen bubbles” and looming budget deficits. Here was a fellow premier who didn’t just pay lip service to her notion of a Canadian Energy Strategy; here was a premier who supported Redford in a very concrete way to get Alberta’s bitumen to a “tidewater” port.
“The dynamics in New Brunswick right now is that literally the three major political parties in our province have all come forward saying we support the idea of the western pipeline to Saint John,” Alward said. “We support what that would mean for New Brunswick and very importantly for Canada as well.”
Redford can only imagine what it would be like to have the opposition parties in Alberta agree with her on anything. The NDP and Liberals, for example, argue we should do more upgrading and refining here, and then ship value-added products such as petroleum to other markets. The energy industry doesn’t agree, saying upgraders and refineries are terribly expensive and uneconomic, particularly when there are underused refineries on the Gulf Coast, Montreal and Saint John.
Both Alward and Redford make a solid argument for shipping Alberta’s bitumen to the East Coast, especially if the Northern Gateway is never built. Another possibility is expanding Kinder Morgan’s existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, but that’s also facing stiffening opposition.
Shipping to New Brunswick would boost the price of Alberta’s bitumen and provide a Canadian-made feedstock for New Brunswick’s petrochemical industry.
It’s not as though industry has to build a whole new pipeline network to move product east. One scenario would convert an existing, underused natural gas pipeline; another would see Enbridge expand use of its existing system and reverse the flow of a line that now ships oil from Montreal to southern Ontario. That scenario will still need a new pipeline to ship the bitumen from Montreal to Saint John. That’s where Quebec could yet prove to be as much of an impediment to the West-East pipeline as B.C. is to Northern Gateway.
And then you have the environmental opposition, so effective against both Keystone and Northern Gateway, slowly beginning to target any notion of a West-East pipeline.
The only thing certain here is that Alberta will not have an easy time getting more of its bitumen to market, even if the two ends of an Alberta-New Brunswick pipeline are keenly in favour of the project. It’s all the stuff in between that could gum up the works.
Still, for a few moments on Tuesday, Redford was basking in some good news as she shared the stage with Alward. And then she pulled the rug out from under her own feet.
Redford used the pipeline news conference to take an off-topic shot at Alberta’s doctors currently in contract negotiations with the province: “The only way that we would ever be able to find more money to pay doctors would be to do something like introduce a health-care premium.”
For her troubles, the premier was rewarded with front-page headlines that ignored Alward’s visit and focused on the possibility of a return to health-care premiums.
There are times Redford seems to be her own worst enemy. You have to wonder what Alward was thinking. Here he was coming to Alberta to court Redford and there she was going out of her way to court more bad press.
MLAs’ pay frozen in attempt by politicians to ‘lead by example’
EDMONTON – Alberta MLAs will not receive a pay bump in April after an MLA committee voted Thursday to freeze provincial politicians’ salaries in an effort to “lead by example” in the face of budget troubles.
The vote by the legislature’s member services committee to forego the scheduled pay increase seemed to be a foregone conclusion after Premier Alison Redford announced earlier in the day via Twitter that PCs would freeze MLA pay and the MLA housing allowance.
In one month, Redford’s government will deliver a 2013-14 budget being billed in advance as making “tough decisions.”
Until Thursday, MLAs were scheduled to see an increase on April 1 tied to the Consumer Price Index, which committee members heard would amount to about a one-per- cent increase this year.
Both PC and Wildrose MLAs on the committee ultimately voted in favour of the one-year freeze, which will save a total of about $200,000 this year, according to the committee clerk.
The largely symbolic freeze comes at a time when the government has signalled it will ask teachers, doctors and other public sector workers to dramatically scale back expectations, and even consider freezes in ongoing or upcoming negotiations.
“The rationale is clearly we want to lead by example,” PC whip Steve Young said Thursday after the committee’s vote. “We’re clearly facing some economic challenges due to everything from the (oil) differential and other kinds of challenges.”
MLAs currently take home a base pay package worth $156,311 a year, including $134,000 salary and $22,311 in lieu of a pension or RRSP.
On top of that, the premier earns an additional $83,700, while ministers with portfolios earn an extra $67,000. Many other positions also offer extra money, including the official opposition leader who is paid an additional $16,750. Other official opposition leaders earn $13,400 on top of their MLA remuneration. Party whips and committee chairmen also see their income topped up.
The question of MLA pay is always a political powder keg.
Thursday’s debate was no different as thorny political issues, including questions about the committee’s independence, pulled focus from the freeze itself.
Opposition MLAs on the all-party committee said they were shocked that Redford tweeted the announcement prior to the meeting.
Speaking Thursday morning after a press conference to announce the province’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, Redford said PC members on the committee told her Wednesday they planned to pursue the freeze, something that she supported.
“I think it would be absolutely absurd for MLAs to even be considering accepting any kind of an increase when we as government and as MLAs are talking to people about tough choices that need to be made, and that we’re prepared to make,” Redford said.
While all four political parties are represented on the members’ services committee, the PCs hold the majority.
Liberal leader Raj Sherman, who routinely leaves meetings dealing with questions of MLA pay because he believes compensation should be set by an independent body, called the committee a sham before leaving Thursday.
“One, we should not be discussing MLA pay,” Sherman said. “Two, the premier should not predetermine the decisions of the committee. The discussions here are a waste of time. It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
NDP leader Brian Mason raised a point of privilege on Redford’s early announcement.
“It is inappropriate and, in fact, a violation of the members’ rights, for the premier to be predetermining decisions of these committees,” Mason said. “We can’t stop the PC majority from doing what the PC majority wants to do. But we should not and cannot have the premier pre-judging the deliberations of a committee.”
The debate over the freeze also reignited arguments over whether MLAs have received a raise, or not, in the last year.
During the spring election, Redford announced her government would abolish “transition allowances,” worth about $25,000 a year for an average MLA. Up until that point, MLAs’ average package of pay and perks was worth $169,000.
Then in November, the PC-dominated member services committee voted to add an extra $11,000 for MLAs to direct to their RRSPs. That’s eight per cent more than the $145,000 MLAs elected in the spring thought they would earn, which is why opposition parties have called it a pay increase.
After trying to amend the MLA pay-freeze proposal to last longer than a single year, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith voted in favour of the freeze. “We do need to show leadership as MLAs. We needed to freeze our wages this year,” Smith said.
But Smith also said the freeze was not particularly meaningful in light of the pay bump the committee approved in the fall session, and said the Wildrose will make an announcement on that issue in the near future.
“Ms. Redford has now absolutely no credibility when she talks to public sector unions. She’s gone to war with the doctors, she’s going to war with front-line workers, she’s going to war with teachers and it all goes back to the bad decision she made in December to allow her committee to vote in an eight-per-cent MLA pay increase,” Smith said. “This is just window dressing.”
NDP leader Brian Mason cast the lone vote against the freeze Thursday. In doing so, Mason said he was not arguing that MLAs should receive a raise. Instead, he said he was trying to alert people to a “race to the bottom” by the PCs and Wildrose.
“I am saying this is symbolic of what the Wildrose and the PCS have in store for the people of this province and that is deep service cuts and the wage freezes, if not rollbacks,” Mason said. “Another in a series of broken promises by this PC government.”
With just a few weeks until the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees starts contract talks with the government on a new collective agreement for 21,000 front-line workers, union president Guy Smith said the internal MLA committee has a right to set its salaries as it wishes.
Showing leadership should not be synonymous, however, with pay freezes or cuts, he said.
“Leadership in this province would be ensuring the people of this province are looked after through their public services and that proper revenues are secured to provide those services,” Smith said. “Leadership is not about cutting the frontline services people need. That is not leadership.”
Alberta Teachers’ Association president Carol Henderson said that she has never begrudged MLAs their salaries. MLAs may be trying to set an example with the freeze, but salaries are not the key issue for teachers in their negotiations with local school boards, she said.
“We’re already not looking at huge salary increases this year,” Henderson said. “Our teachers are already saying salaries are not the issue. It’s the workload issue and the conditions of practice in the classroom.”
The committee ran out of time to debate a proposed freeze to MLAs’ travel and temporary housing allowances Thursday.
With files from Karen Kleiss and Andrea Sands
We HAVE property rights ????
Property rights advocate office opens today
Dave Mabell
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
[email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Premier Alison Redford will be in Lethbridge this morning for the official opening of the province’s first property rights advocacy office.
Lethbridge lawyer Lee Cutforth was appointed late last year to head the new agency, now operating in a street-front location in the city’s Provincial Building.
The premier will be joined by Jonathan Denis, the province’s solicitor general and minister of justice.
After naming Cutforth to a three-year term in December, the justice minister pointed out selecting an official advocate and opening a property rights office were among recommendations made by a task force that toured the province last year.
“Property rights are fundamental to our province, and the advocate will ensure individuals, municipalities, government and industry are aware of the principles enshrined in our legislation,” he said.
Southern Alberta property owners’ concerns about land use and ownership were frequently raised during last spring’s provincial election. They’re cited as one reason the governing Conservatives lost many southern seats to opposition Wildrose candidates.
Denis’ officials describe the new advocate’s job as working with Albertans “to provide them with impartial and independent information to deal with issues that could affect their property rights, and help them find the appropriate resolution mechanisms when disputes arise.”
Cutforth was selected after a nation-wide competition, the minister said. Denis cited community service as well as Cutforth’s southern Alberta farming roots as assets he’ll bring to the role.
Born in Lethbridge and raised on the family farm near Barons, he earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Lethbridge and his law degree at the University of Saskatchewan. He’s since practised law in Saskatoon and then Lethbridge, working on criminal cases as well as municipal, family and real estate law.
Cutforth serves on the Lethbridge Regional Police Commission and previously chaired the city’s subdivision and development appeal board. He also ran for city council in 2010.
His landowners’ advocacy position is an Alberta-first, Cutforth says.
“This is the first one I’m aware of,” so there are no models to follow. Part of his job has been working with justice department officials to get things started.
“It’s a complaint-based service,” he says. “We don’t have a mandate to go out and make our own case.”
With most of the province’s rural land used for agriculture, Cutforth says he expects to hear about conflicts between farmers and energy producers.
“There’s a lot of drilling,” across southern Alberta and much of the province.
With a head office in Lethbridge and a satellite location in Edmonton, the new advocate expects to spend many hours on the highways. While his staff will keep regular office hours, Cutforth expects he’ll often be meeting landowners across the province at times that meet their needs.
Just how much time he’s in Lethbridge will depend on how many calls he receives from other areas.
Thomson: A revealing jolt of candour on the power-rate paradox
By Graham Thomson, Edmonton Journal January 31, 2013
EDMONTON – Something remarkable happened in Alberta politics this week — on Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. to be precise.
A cabinet minister answered a journalist’s question without equivocating or evading or talking vaguely about “tough choices.” The minister even managed to display a sense of humour. That’s headline-worthy news in these pre-budget days of long faces, short explanations and a widening deficit.
The refreshingly blunt politician was Energy Minister Ken Hughes, who on Tuesday released the much-anticipated report from the Retail Market Review Committee that has been navigating the labyrinthian system that is our deregulated electricity market. The expert panel had been asked to put a particular focus on the options Albertans have to purchase power for their homes.
Right now as consumers we have two options: sign a fixed-rate, multi-year contract with an electricity provider; or stay without a contract on the floating default rate, officially called the “regulated rate option” or RRO.
The expert committee’s exhaustive 390-page report strongly argues that to foster real competitiveness in the marketplace, the government should finally scrap the old RRO, thus forcing everybody to sign electricity contracts.
Hughes was asked if he, as a homeowner, has signed on to a long-term electricity contract.
“A very interesting question,” he replied, pausing for a moment before offering this confession: “I never, before becoming energy minister, spent the time to try to understand my electricity bill. I find it complicated.”
Hughes admitted he has therefore stayed on the old RRO system. “I don’t have a contract.”
It was a stunning admission. Not only does the energy minister find his electricity bill complicated, he has not signed on to a power contract, something the government was pretty much urging everyone to do when the retail end of the electricity system was deregulated a decade ago.
But Hughes is not alone. It turns out 65 per cent of Albertans have refused to sign a long-term contract and have stuck with the old RRO.
That’s the reason Hughes has rejected the recommendation to scrap the regulated rate option. He realizes the public backlash he’d face if he was to tell two million Albertans that he’s forcing them to sign contracts with electricity providers.
Hughes is sticking with the status quo, despite what his expert panel recommends.
Consequently, we have this strange oxymoron in Alberta politics: a government that deregulated the electricity market for consumers but refuses to truly deregulate the market because even the government’s ministers don’t seem to understand or trust a truly deregulated market.
And it’s just not the current bunch of government ministers. In 2005, then-premier Ralph Klein admitted he hadn’t bought an electricity contract, despite endorsing the contracts just two years before. In fact, almost nobody in the government caucus had bought into the contracts in 2005, including the energy minister at the time, Greg Melchin.
They were all on the regulated rate option that was scheduled to end Jan. 1, 2006. That date was supposedly carved in stone and, as part of their sales pitch, electricity retailers were telling homeowners to sign up for long-term contracts before the regulated rate ended and left them at the mercy of wildly volatile prices on the open market.
About 100,000 Albertans, or seven per cent of Alberta customers, signed up. The other 93 per cent, like the majority of government MLAs, seemed unsure and confused by deregulation and stuck with the system they knew, the RRO.
Realizing the public was suspicious of the long-term contracts, the Klein government then extended the RRO deadline to July 1, 2006, and then extended it another five years — infuriating some of the Albertans who signed up for expensive, long-term deals and discovered they couldn’t get out of the contracts.
Klein’s response? “I don’t want to sound insensitive,” said the man who had at one time been touting the contracts. “But buyer beware.”
It was a comment that fed into the public distrust of electricity contracts and all but killed the credibility of deregulation — that and pushy salespeople who, if they were like the two guys who came to my front door in 2005, tried to browbeat or frighten customers into signing up. The contracts these days are more flexible, offer competitive rates and allow customers to cancel their deal with a month’s notice. But old suspicions die hard.
The government will argue the credibility of deregulation is still alive but when it comes to believability and trust, the government’s deregulation plans for residential consumers have about as much life as a Drumheller dinosaur.
Most Albertans have either rejected or ignored deregulation. Or they’re simply confused by the whole thing.
I admit I’m one of the majority.
I’ll sign on to a long-term electricity contract — right after the minister of energy puts his signature on the line.
Alberta faces $4B budget deficit, Moody’s report states – Fiscal crisis blamed on huge drop in resource revenues
By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal February 1, 2013
EDMONTON – Alberta’s spring budget will plunge the province $4 billion into the red, says a report issued Thursday by Moody’s credit rating agency.
The report gives Albertans an early hint at the damage falling bitumen prices could do to provincial coffers, five weeks before provincial leaders release the 2013-14 budget on March 7.
“Obviously the large fall in resource revenues is a negative reflection on Alberta’s credit, as is the fact that they have a very large reliance on resource revenues, which is a pretty volatile revenue stream,” Moody’s analyst and report author Jennifer Wong said in an interview Thursday.
“However, we do note that Alberta is virtually debt-free, which allows it to absorb (economic) shocks.”
Wong said the report is an attempt to bring clarity to investors in the wake of Premier Alison Redford’s television appearance last week, in which she warned Albertans the province is expecting to earn $6 billion less in resource revenues than it earlier anticipated.
Redford and her ministers in recent weeks have repeatedly warned Albertans that an oil glut in the United States means lower prices for Alberta bitumen, falling royalty revenues and “tough choices” ahead.
Details have been scarce, however, and the government will not say what programs and services will be cut.
In her report, Wong writes that “all else equal, a fall in revenues of this magnitude would mean a deficit of $4 billion for 2013-14, or about eight per cent of revenues.”
Finance Minister Doug Horner declined to comment on Moody’s deficit figure Thurdsay, because he hadn’t read the report and wasn’t clear on the agency’s assumptions and projections.
“I met with Moody’s last fall when I was in Toronto and met with the other credit ratings agencies and investors in the United States,” Horner said. “I can tell you that our financial situation is extremely strong in their eyes as well.
“Even with deficits, the credit rating agencies have maintained our pristine triple-A credit rating better than any in Canada. I’m very mindful of the fact that what I want to see after this budget is the fact that Alberta will have the strongest financial position of any jurisdiction in North America.”
Mel McMillan, an economics professor at the University of Alberta’s Institute for Public Economics, said he doubts a deficit will impact the province’s triple-A rating.
“Most of (the $4-billion deficit) will likely be (taken from) the sustainability fund,” McMillan said, referring to Alberta’s $5-billion savings account. “But what do we do if we have a $4-billion deficit next year?”
He said if Albertans want to sustain provincial spending, they will have to find additional sources of revenue.
“Perhaps resource revenues will recover — I call that the cross-the-fingers approach — but maybe they won’t. We just don’t know. In the meantime, do we go into debt? Do we increase taxes?”
Liberal leader Raj Sherman said “the common-sense middle is to cut wasteful spending and address issues of revenue and taxation.
“That’s where the Alberta Liberals stand,” he said.
NDP leader Brian Mason said if the estimate is correct it is “a major failure on the part of the Redford government.
“She made three promises, none of which I think she is going to be able to keep. The first was to balance the budget in 2013-14, the second was no tax increases, and the third was no service cuts.
“Good luck with that, Alison.”
With files from Sarah O’Donnell