By Sarah O’Donnell, Edmonton Journal November 9, 2012 7:12 AM

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Original source article: After decades in power, Alberta Conservatives meet in Calgary to talk renewal

• 9:23 pm, November 8th, 2012

Alberta premier Alison Redford speaks during a press conference at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, Alberta, on November 8, 2012.

Credits: IAN KUCERAK/QMI AGENCY

JACKIE L. LARSON | QMI AGENCY

EDMONTON — After a week of deflecting criticism over transparency issues — and many incoming questions to her cabinet on the floor of the legislature — Premier Alison Redford took a shot at the Wildrose Party on Thursday.

“I will remind people that during that election that other political parties sometimes wouldn’t let their candidates speak, sometimes put gag orders on their candidates, asked their candidates to put down $1,000 bonds and in some places sent campaign organizers and party officials to speak on behalf of party policy,” she said.

Redford said she has a front row of confident ministers who know their department and who can deliver the substantive answers opposition questioners are entitled to.

“I will not simply accept the fact that every time an MLA stands up and says this is a question for you, premier, that that therefore requires me to answer the question. We’ll continue to answer the questions as we feel appropriate,” she said.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said Redford isn’t keeping her promise about accountability.

“Despite her talk about openness and transparency, she’s not walking the walk. She talks an awful lot about raising the bar and we have yet to see that.”
Smith threw the doors to the following weekend’s Wildrose convention session open to the media.

“Of course they’ll be open,” Smith said, adding that she’d like to see the premier adopt a policy like the British where once a week for a half-hour she takes questions.

As to her Progressive Conservative party’s decision to bar the press from discussions on 13 proposed party constitutional amendments at this weekend’s annual general meeting in Calgary, Redford explained the secrecy, saying debate within the party has been “vibrant.”

“We’ve decided that we want to make sure that all delegates can have a free and open and frank discussion,” she said.

The provincial Tories’ constitutional rules committee is looking to scrap the “preferential” system that saw Redford come up the middle to beat out Gary Mar in the party leadership vote a year ago after a three-way minority split that included finance minister Doug Horner.

The same system upset the apple cart on 2006 front-runner Jim Dinning, when Ed Stelmach took more of Ted Morton’s support.

The new system could keep the contest between the top two candidates in lieu of a 50% majority, and would have pitted Redford against only Mar, or Stelmach against Dinning.

Redford said she knew there was discussion about a change to that system, but that it wouldn’t affect her and that she hadn’t given it much thought.
“Party leaders will decide what suits them best for the process,” she said.

Redford fielded reporter questions on MLA pay and perks in the wake of Monday’s majority Tory vote in the all-party member services committee to double the amount to be handed to MLAs to use either for an RRSP or as part of their taxable income.

The sum represents almost a month’s salary per year, the same amount pitched (and then retracted) as a transition allowance by Tory caucus whip Steve Young, causing an uproar in recent weeks after Redford herself barred the idea of a transition allowance in a pre-election promise.

“On Monday, we saw the culmination of six months work, so it wasn’t some magic change from Friday to a Monday, it was the culmination of committee work by an all-party committee over a six-month period,” Redford said.

“I do think it’s appropriate to have an RRSP, and for an employer to make a contribution to that and an employee, so that’s what we ended up with.”

By: Tim Cook, The Canadian Press

Posted: 10/22/2012 10:55 AM | Comments: 191 | Last Modified: 10/22/2012 5:03 PM

Alberta’s Wildrose party Leader Danielle Smith makes a campaign stop in Calgary, Alta., Friday, April 20, 2012. Smith says it was a mistake for her to tweet that properly cooked tainted meat could feed the homeless. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

EDMONTON – Alberta’s Opposition leader says she was wrong to suggest on Twitter that beef recalled over E. coli concerns could be cooked properly and fed to the poor.

The Wildrose party’s Danielle Smith drew scorn when she agreed with a Twitter user who asked if there was a way the beef, which has since been dumped in a southern Alberta landfill, could be saved and prepared safely for the hungry.

“We all know thorough cooking kills E. coli. What a waste,” Smith tweeted in the weekend.

On Monday, she changed her tune. She said she still believes throwing away any meat cleared by inspectors was a waste, but she understands that there is so much public concern over safety there was no choice but to get rid of it.

“It was a mistake,” Smith said at the legislature when asked about her tweet. “I guess I would have to say that, if you can’t explain something in 140 characters, you probably shouldn’t try to talk about it on Twitter, so I have learned a lesson there.”

Her retreat didn’t stop her critics.

NDP Leader Brian Mason suggested Smith has so little regard for poor Albertans that she’s OK with feeding them tainted meat.

“I kind of share the view that it’s a terrible waste of food, but the idea it’s OK to give it to poor people and it’s not OK to give it to the rest of the population reveals an attitude that I find quite distasteful,” said Mason.

“I think people who are poor who maybe go to food banks deserve the best quality food as the rest of us.

“It represents an attitude toward poor people that is at best condescending.”

Tonnes of recalled meat from the shuttered XL Foods Lakeside packing plant at Brooks, Alta., has been dumped in a nearby landfill. There has been no definitive quantity given, but the recall involved 1,800 different products in stores right across the country.

A further 5.5 million kilograms of beef stored at the plant’s warehouses will either be rendered or cooked at a high temperature to kill any E. coli. The meat was not part of the recall as it never left the plant.

Some food-safety experts have suggested that the recall was overkill.

Dr. Jean Kamanzi, a former director at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, has called it “collective hysteria” on the part of a rich country that can afford not to take risks with its food.

Kamanzi, who now is responsible for food hygiene in Africa for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Program, pointed out that any E. coli in beef could be killed by cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 71 C.

“The meat we’re now throwing into the garbage, which contains this so-called E. coli, if you take it and cook it like you’re supposed to, there’s no problem,” Kamanzi said in an interview with The Canadian Press earlier this month.

“It’s edible. These are good proteins.”

But the food inspection agency noted that recent research suggests most Canadians don’t use digital thermometers when they cook.

Sylvain Quessy, professor of meat hygiene at the University of Montreal, said XL was left with little option but to throw all the recalled meat out to make sure people still have confidence in their food.

“There are a lot of consumers that would be concerned that some of the product might be contaminated,” Quessy said. Those who help feed low-income people say that while they can appreciate the thought behind Smith’s tweet, food safety must still be the priority for them.”

No one at the Brooks food bank wanted to talk about the recalled beef. But Jessi Evanoff with the Alberta Food Bank Network Association said food banks work with the CFIA and have guidelines on what is safe for people to eat.

“Although her heart is in the right place … in this particular case, in my opinion, just as an overall safety issue, it doesn’t make sense to bring it into the food bank,” Evanoff said.

“It is a shame in some regards, but I think just from a consumer perspective or a client perspective, there’s some concern over XL beef products now, even taking them in and bringing them into their homes, regardless of whether they are cooked properly or not.”

— With files from Dean Bennett.

CP  |  By Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press Posted: 11/01/2012 5:52 pm EDT Updated: 11/01/2012

EDMONTON – Alberta’s bridges are not falling down, but the province needs to do a better job inspecting them, the province’s auditor general reported Thursday.

Merwan Saher said his recommendation to the Transportation Department is simple: “You have a well-designed (inspection) system. Use it.”

Saher, in his latest report, said his team found that Alberta’s 4,400 bridges are not in imminent danger of collapse but work needs to be done to make sure they stay that way.

“The risk of unsafe bridges is unnecessarily high,” he said.

“The department can’t demonstrate that bridges are maintained to their standards.”

The government contracts out basic bridge inspections to private contractors, but Saher said they found that half the inspections were being done by inspectors whose certification had lapsed.

Inspections done by people who have let their certification lapse can’t be entered into government records. But Saher said the department overrode those safeguards to allow the non-certified inspections to be put into the database.

He said the timeline for inspections was followed in three of four regions, but said in the fourth region, 150 inspections were done a year late.

He said the department developed a spot audit process to monitor the quality of inspections, but didn’t follow it consistently. When spot audits were done they revealed inaccurate inspection ratings, he said.

Also, Saher found that the department doesn’t have a way to deal with those contractors who deliver shoddy inspections.

Transportation Minister Ric McIver said his department was made aware of the concerns months ago when a draft report from Saher was circulated.

He said they have already taken action to make fixes, particularly in making sure all inspectors have up-to-date certifications.

“They all have (their certifications) now, I can assure you,” said McIver. “And we have put systems in place that it will be checked on an annual basis.

“It’s administration, but it’s really important administration. We weren’t checking the boxes on a regular enough basis, and we are now.”

Saher also said he’s worried about future budgeting for bridge repairs.

The department says it will need $900 million over the next decade to replace bridges but right now is budgeting for only $25 million a year.

The department, said Saher, told him that the plan to address the shortfall in the short term is to close bridges or reduce the maximum weight of the trucks travelling over them.

McIver said they will work on the funding.

“We got a warning, if you will, from the auditor, when we’re budgeting for repairs to bridges we need to make sure there are adequate resources to keep those bridges safe,” he said.

NDP Leader Brian Mason said closing bridges is not the answer.

“Those bridges are there for a reason. You don’t just downgrade them or shut them down because you don’t want to maintain them,” he said.

Mason also said the government needs to revisit contracting out the inspectors and look at hiring them in-house to make sure their certification and other training stays current.

Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said the report reflects problems at the top of the department.

“There’s a lack of oversight,” said Sherman.

“Our economy can’t function if we don’t have good infrastructure, and we can’t have good infrastructure if we don’t monitor the infrastructure.”

Saher also went after McIver’s department on reimbursing employees for driving their own cars and trucks at work.

Saher said the department missed a chance to save taxpayers $450,000 by delaying a decision to have employees who drive a lot on the job to lease cars or use government vehicles rather than getting reimbursed 50 cents a kilometre for mileage.

He said some employees were getting an extra thousand dollars or more every a month this way.

McIver said the program was delayed by paperwork and approvals, but said they have already taken action on it.

“We have a couple of managers now driving government-owned vehicles and 50 more vehicles on order,” he said.

Mason said the car issue “may be small, but these things do add up.

“When (taxpayers’ money) is wasted like that, it’s a failure in trust on the part of this government.”

KEITH GEREIN, EDMONTON JOURNAL : Thursday, November 08, 2012 7:35 AM

EDMONTON – Alberta opposition leaders say they are growing increasingly frustrated with a recent trend of Premier Alison Redford refusing to answer them in question period each day.

According to Hansard, the official record of the legislative assembly, Redford has risen to answer just over half of the questions so far directed her way during the fall session. The rest have been deflected to her ministers, while a handful have been ruled out of order by Speaker Gene Zwozdesky.

The trend has become particularly acute over the last four sitting days, when the premier responded to 18 of the 53 questions asked of her.

While that ratio might make for a decent baseball average, Redford seems more intent on playing dodge ball with their queries, the opposition leaders say.

“I think Albertans expect the premier will be brave enough to stand up and take questions from the opposition. It’s a shame she’s not,” said Wild-rose Leader Danielle Smith, who is entitled to the first three questions each day as head of the official opposition.

“She’s talked a lot about accountability, transparency and raising the bar, and we just haven’t seen that. It seems like any question we ask about accountability issues, she refuses to answer and defers to her ministers.”

This week, in particular, Redford has shown signs of being exasperated by opposition inquiries.

She replied to just one of the 14 questions put to her on Wednesday, and only after Liberal Leader Raj Sherman urged: “Premier, please get up and answer this question.”

Earlier questions from the Wildrose — on a controversial new MLA retirement benefit and an alleged shortage of prosecutors — were handled by ministers and deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, as were questions from NDP Leader Brian Mason.

On Tuesday, Sherman was again the only one to get a response from Redford, who answered all three of his questions but none of the other nine she received from the Wildrose and NDP.

“You know, Mr. Speaker, I’m so pleased to stand and answer that question, which is actually on government policy,” Redford told the chamber in reply to Sherman’s query about big city charters.

Smith said Redford’s behaviour amounts to a lack of respect for Albertans, since the Wildrose is asking the questions coming from constituents. Smith said her party has received more than 1,000 emails and calls in the last day about the new MLA retirement benefit approved by a PC-dominated committee.

Large donations to the Tories made by Oilers owner Daryl Katz, his family and associates has also been a favourite subject of attack.

“Part of what I would observe is that she only seems to stand up and speak when she can wax eloquent about nothing at all,” Smith said. “She doesn’t really want to talk about anything substantive and we are asking substantive questions.”

However, some Tories have suggested opposition MLAs might get more of the premier’s attention if they did a better job of playing by the house rules. They note Zwozdesky has frequently scolded members — particularly the largely rookie Wildrose caucus — for delving into prohibited areas such as PC party finances or referring to individuals who are not in the house to defend themselves. Question period is supposed to focus on government policy, he said.

Redford was not available for an interview Wednesday, but press secretary Kim Misik said the premier was throwing more questions to her ministers because she has confidence in their expertise.

“The ministers are the men and women who are in the best position to answer specifics. They have the expertise, they deal with these issues day in and day out and it is their mandate to be able to answer those kind of questions.”

Asked under what circumstances the premier will answer a question, Misik said it can differ from day to day.

“You will notice she does rise at specific times when there is a voice that can be lent on policy issues that concern her or that she can add a little something.”

However, both Sherman and Mason said Redford should be taking a more active position since it is her policies that the government is now implementing.

“The cabinet ministers are to a large degree carrying out her decisions, so to force them to answer the questions is not the most courageous,” Mason said.

Mason said that of the three PC premiers he has served with, Redford’s behaviour in question period stands out. He said both Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach answered virtually all the questions put to them in the early part of question period, and Klein even stuck around to answer additional queries.

As for Redford, “she is out of there like a shot,” after the first five rounds of questions, Mason said.

“It’s almost like she doesn’t want to be in the legislature,” Sherman said. “When a party leader asks a question, when it’s leader to leader, you gotta stand up and answer that question.

“Question period is when Albertans get to see their leaders and see what’s happening with their democratic institutions.”

Edmonton Journal

By Darcy Henton, Calgary Herald November 6, 2012

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

By Darcy Henton, Calgary Herald November 6, 2012

EDMONTON — The Redford government’s proposed one-stop energy regulator bill pits landowners against oil and gas developers and needs significant changes before it will win support from Alberta’s Official Opposition, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said Monday.

Smith said Monday her party will propose 12 amendments to the Responsible Energy Development Act to ensure it protects landowners, communities and the environment and removes tensions between industry and landowners.

The Wildrose will push the governing Tories to send the Bill 2 to a standing all-party committee on resource development to fix the flaws in the legislation she called a “Franken-bill” in the Assembly last week.

“We welcome the underlying intentions of this legislation,” she said. “We believe a one-stop shop for approving resource development is a good idea, but the foundation of that idea needs some work.”

She said that as it is written, Bill 2 is taking Albertans down the same path as controversial land bills — Bill 19, Bill 36 and Bill 50 — that had to be sent back to the House for amendments.

“We will have landowners who will be going to town hall meetings and they will be raising these concerns publicly as well as in the media about their rights not being respected,” she said. “And why would we go through that? What I am worried about is if you create an attitude of combat or hostility between these two key players, it is actually going to make it harder for the energy industry to be able to get their land agent out there negotiating access.”

Smith said the government hasn’t learned its lessons from the earlier land bills that critics say eroded landowners rights while setting aside land for development of public projects and power transmission lines.

“We sincerely hope that the premier and the energy minister will be open-minded about slowing this whole process down,” Smith said. “We simply cannot keep making laws haphazardly and ending up back here years down the road trying to fix the messes that they create. This government’s sloppy approach to legislating has become one of its defining characteristics.”

Smith said the bill is clearly needed to streamline Alberta’s regulatory process because Alberta has plummeted dramatically in its standing in energy investment surveys because of its red tape. She gave examples where Saskatchewan made regulatory changes for companies in hours or days while it took Alberta months and years to make the same changes for the same companies.

The Wildrose leader said her party will seek references in the bill to restore the need for projects to be in the public interest “having regard to the social and economic effects of the project and the effects of the project on the environment.”

It wants to restore external appeals to the Environmental Appeal Board that have been killed in Bill 2, restore notification of landowners and notification of hearings and ensure there is transparency and accountability in decisions, she said. The Wildrose seeks to have an all-party committee, rather than cabinet, choose the chief commissioner of the new regulatory body and it wants an amendment to establish 180-day timeline for decisions. It also wants an all-party committee to choose the regulator’s board of directors to represent landowners, the environment and industry.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

By Dean Bennett, CP November 5, 2012

EDMONTON — Proposed new energy rules will leave landowners with no meaningful say or right of appeal when pipelines, oil wells or other projects are put on their land, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said Monday.

Smith said her party is in favour of fast-tracking regulatory processes under Bill 2, but not at the expense of landowner rights.

“We simply cannot keep making laws haphazardly and ending up back here years down the road trying to fix the messes that (the Tories) create,” Smith told a legislature news conference.

“These concerns are fixable.”

Smith said her caucus will put forward 12 amendments to address the concerns.

Similar problems, she said, have led officials under Premier Alison Redford and predecessor Ed Stelmach to pull back pieces of legislation for redrafting.

“I don’t think they learned the lesson of the three previous bills,” said Smith.

“This is the problem that happens when the government gets a super-large majority. They think they can do anything they want.”

Bill 2, the Responsible Energy Development Act, is currently being debated in the legislature.

It is designed to have all coal, oil, gas and oilsands projects approved through one arm’s-length regulatory body.

The bill is to simplify and speed up approvals for projects such as oil wells that are built on private land, while also respecting the rights and concerns of the landowner and the environment.

But Smith said Bill 2 fails to make sure that those rights and the public interest be part of any regulator decision.

She also notes that under the bill, appeals will no longer go to an independent body — the Environmental Appeal Board — but rather will be handled in-house by the regulator.

“You can’t have an appeal process where the regulator is judging whether or not it made the right decision in the first place.”

Smith also said there needs to be timelines so that approval processes don’t drag on for months on end.

She said Alberta already has that reputation and industry is concerned.

“You don’t know if it’s going to take a year or two years or more to get your approvals,” she said.

“We’ve talked to industry and generally they think somewhere around six months is the right amount for most energy development.

“But it’s up to the legislature to set those targets.”

Energy Minister Ken Hughes said the bill will deliver safeguards for landowners and the environment, while speeding up the process.

“That’s why we’re bringing about the changes to the regulatory process, so that we have a more competitive process,” he said.

“But also we’re not prepared to compromise on environmental quality one iota.”

NDP critic Rachel Notley said they will be offering up eight amendments to clarify similar concerns.

“I think (the act) compromises the interests of landowners. It compromises the interests of the environment as a whole. It’s going to mean that we rush to approval and we eliminate or minimize oversight by the public at a time when we desperately need it,” said Notley.

Kent Hehr of the Alberta Liberals said while he has to examine all 12 Wildrose amendments in detail to say which he would support, he agrees with Smith in principle.

“Everyone needs an opportunity to be heard and this legislation doesn’t do that,” said Hehr.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Original source article: Wildrose urges changes to energy regulator bill to protect landowners

By Matt McClure, Calgary Herald November 6, 2012

CALGARY — The province’s electricity watchdog says tens of thousands of Albertans endured rolling outages this summer because power stations shut down unnecessarily during hot weather.

The Market Surveillance Administrator report released Monday suggests utilities be penalized by the province’s system operator if their generating units fail again due to poor maintenance.

While the investigation found there was no attempt to manipulate prices and gouge consumers during the July 9 blackouts, a senior adviser said four of the 10 generating stations that shut down that day had heat sensors that were poorly calibrated.

“They were set to trip too low,” Richard Penn said.

“There is a requirement that you carry out these routine checks, and we’re thinking that if you haven’t done that then you should be penalized.”

As temperatures soared to 30 Celsius in some parts of the province, and business began another work week, demand peaked that day at 9,885 MW — a record for Alberta.

The average pool price for power was $411.43 per MW, more than 10 times what it had been any time in the previous month.

The Wildrose opposition raised suspicions about market manipulation when so many generators went off-line in quick succession, but the report found that some utilities actually missed out that day on the chance to sell electricity at top price.

“There were a few media stories suggesting there were shenanigans going on,” Penn said.

“This wasn’t a strategic shutdown but a series of technical shutdowns.”

The rolling blackouts darkened homes and businesses in Calgary, Edmonton and Lethbridge for several hours that afternoon and evening as the Alberta Electric System Operator directed local utilities to shed 200 MW. It was a desperate effort to keep the entire electrical grid from overloading and collapsing.

The report found AESO correctly predicted high demand that day, but its long-term forecast failed to adjust for the fact that many of the province’s coal and gas plants would not be able to operate at peak capacity in the hot weather.

Harry Chandler, the Market Surveillance agency’s top administrator, said better modelling wouldn’t have allowed TransAlta to shutter its 330 MW Sundance 3 plant near Wabamun that week for scheduled maintenance.

“If you had sharp long-term tools, you might have been able to anticipate this, and the AESO would have said don’t take that outage right now, postpone it a week,” Chandler said.

Over the course of the day, 10 generating units accounting for more than 1,400 MW of energy were forced from service for various periods.

The report said AESO’s own investigation of the incident has already led to the submission and approval of a “number of corrective action plans by generators” to prevent a similar shutdown in future.

An AESO spokesman refused to provide details on those plans, but she said the grid operator accepted the watchdog’s findings.

“We have no concerns with the operating issues MSA has covered,” Ally Taylor said.

“We will release our own report into the incident sometime late in the year.”

Energy Minister Ken Hughes said the province is still studying the watchdog’s report.

“Every time there’s a circumstance like that, we’re looking for ways to learn,” Hughes said.

With files from Darcy Henton, Calgary Herald

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Original source article: Report blames blackouts on poor maintenance, not market manipulation