Seven members of Alberta opposition seek to join government ranks: sources

December 17, 2014 By

The Canadian Press
December 16, 2014 09:36 AM

EDMONTON – At least half of Alberta’s official Opposition is expected to seek to cross the floor to the governing Progressive Conservatives on Wednesday, sources have told The Canadian Press.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said seven members of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith’s party — including Smith herself — want to join the government of Premier Jim Prentice.

Prentice has said any decision must still be ratified by his caucus when it meets Wednesday morning.

If carried out, the move would gut the Wildrose party, created mainly by disaffected ex-Tories and viewed as the only serious electoral threat to the government in 2016.

It would give the PCs an overwhelming 70 seats in the 87-seat legislature.

Joining Smith would be house leader Rob Anderson, who quit the Tories in 2010 to join the Wildrose.

That would leave seven leaderless Wildrose members. The party would still be the official Opposition as the Liberals have five members and the NDP four alongside Independent Joe Anglin, a former Wildroser.

The defections would bring to nine the number of Wildrose members in the Tory fold.

Last month, Wildrosers Kerry Towle and Ian Donovan bolted to the PCs, saying they were disillusioned with the Wildrose and galvanized by Prentice’s leadership. Smith at the time said Towle and Donovan showed little integrity.

Earlier Tuesday, Wildrose executive member Jeff Callaway said party brass were angry after being blindsided by the anticipated floor-crossings.

“It’s profoundly disappointing for MLAs to undertake floor-crossing initiatives for the sake of their own political self-preservation,” said Callaway.

“But the fact is the party remains. We will have a caucus after this. Our fundraising is strong. We have a good constituency association roster. We will be in the next election and we will have a slate of candidates contesting it.”

Callaway said the party still has more than 21,000 members.

One of the Wildrose legislature members not present at Smith’s meeting Tuesday was Drew Barnes, who represents Cypress-Medicine Hat.

Barnes, who said he would not cross, said the Wildrose caucus needs to remain loyal to its base and has a responsibility to hold the government accountable.

He said many upset Wildrose party members were reaching out to him.

“I’ve had hundreds of members tweet me, text me, call me,” he said. “Many of them want to continue in a very, very strong way.”

Sources said the floor-crossing would be underpinned by a written agreement that promises the Wildrose defectors will be able to run as PCs in their ridings in the next election, slated for the spring of 2016.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said that suggests the Wildrosers are less concerned with ideology and more concerned with keeping their seats.

“On both sides, it is primarily about a bunch of folks that want to keep their jobs, whether you’re talking about Tories or Wildrosers,” said Notley.

“That document does not read like a guide to grassroots democracy. That reads like a guide to clinging to power.”

The loss of Smith could be crippling to the party. The erudite business leader and former journalist was the catalyst who, over the last five years, delivered energy and mainstream credibility to an upstart right-centre party that gained followers when the Tories fumbled on issues such as land rights and fiscal conservatism.

As official Opposition since the 2012 election, Smith and her caucus mates used dogged research and Rottweiler-intense attacks in question period to expose weaknesses and scandals that helped topple two Tory premiers.

Polls, in fact, had the Wildrose leading the 2012 campaign up to the final week when anti-gay and racist remarks attributed to two candidates, along with Smith’s hedging on whether climate change existed, raised doubts on whether the party had the maturity to lead.

The party’s highwater mark came this past spring as the Tories dropped in the polls following the spending scandals that forced then-premier Alison Redford to resign.

But under Prentice, a fellow fiscal conservative, the Wildrose have gone into a tailspin that hit a peak when the Tories trounced the Wildrose in four byelections on Oct. 27.

In the days that followed, the brittle confidence of Smith and her team appeared shattered. Their poll numbers fell and Smith appeared off her game.

She asked for an immediate leadership review, only to be told the party constitution didn’t allow it.

When Anglin quit the caucus ahead of being turfed, Smith accused him of secretly taping caucus meetings. She did not have proof.

In a speech to party faithful at their annual convention last month, she blamed the mainstream media for fostering the narrative that Wildrose is negative and narrow. She said the path to power lay in blogs and engaging the grassroots through social events organized by Wildrose “fun police.”

At the same convention, Smith was out of the room when party members refused to ratify into policy a statement on inclusiveness it had passed a year earlier.

That resurrected criticism the party remained intolerant toward homosexuals and was not ready to govern.

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Alberta won’t halt woman’s fracking lawsuit

December 10, 2014 By
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Published December 9, 2014 – 7:12pm

ROSEBUD, Alta. — Alberta will not appeal a court ruling that says a woman can sue the province over hydraulic fracturing that she alleges has so badly contaminated her well that the water can be set on fire.

Jessica Ernst began legal action against Alberta’s energy regulator and Calgary-based energy company Encana in 2007, and amended her statement of claim in 2011 to include Alberta Environment.

Last month, Chief Justice Neil Wittmann of Court of Queen’s Bench dismissed the government’s application to strike it from the lawsuit.

An Alberta Justice spokeswoman gave no reason for the government’s decision not to appeal.

Ernst alleges fracking on her land northeast of Calgary released hazardous amounts of chemicals such as methane into her well and that her concerns were not properly investigated.

She says she is delighted and surprised by the province’s decision not to appeal and is looking forward to reading the government’s statement of defence.

“After seven arduous years a stunning victory stands,” Ernst said Tuesday from her home in the hamlet of Rosebud. “The truth will have its day in court.”

In its statement of defence, Encana has denied all of Ernst’s allegations.

In September, the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld another ruling that said Ernst could not include the province’s energy regulator in her lawsuit.

Ernst said she is seeking leave to appeal the September ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, nitrogen, sand and chemicals at high pressure underground to fracture rock and allow natural gas or oil to flow through wells to the surface.

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All not well with the biodiesel industry?

December 4, 2014 By

Letters to the Editor

LETHBRIDGE HERALD – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

I heard, on May 27 this year, that Kyoto Fuels’ Lethbridge biodiesel facility was under bankruptcy protection. I was incredulous. The president of Kyoto Fuels had just made a presentation to SACPA on Jan. 23 suggesting all was well with the biodiesel industry in Canada.  A little Internet searching quickly confirmed the news. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy at Industry Canada provided a notice dated April 30 indicating Ernst and Young in Calgary had been appointed the “monitor” of bankruptcy proceedings. The sad story is developing on their website, http://documentcentre.eycan.com/Pages/Main.aspx?SID=298.

I’m surprised at the lack of discussion in local media. Biofuel initiatives have been touted here for several years as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to ameliorate global warming. A search of
Lethbridge Herald archives alone indicates no less than 55 stories related to “Kyoto Fuels” since 2003. The latest reports on the SACPA session in January.  I guess no one likes to be the bearer of bad news. However, this is something citizens should be informed about. Hundreds of millions of dollars of government funding has been directed to biofuel initiatives linked to climate change action. They may be of little value and, in cases like this, appear to be completely ineffective. Indeed, global warming seems to be developing at a far slower rate than postulated over the past 25 years. Remedial action may not be warranted at all.

I am hoping Kyoto Fuels’ failure will spark some serious investigative journalism on this issue. There must be better ways to spend our tax dollars.

Duane Pendergast

Lethbridge

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How will AltaLink sale affect Albertans?

December 4, 2014 By

Lethbridge Herald

OUR EDITORIAL: WHAT WE THINK

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

It is now official — AltaLink is in the hands of Berkshire Hathaway. Last week, the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) and Industry Canada greenlighted the sale, with a price tag of $3.2 billion, which in the end gives a foreign company ownership of some very critical infrastructure in the province.  AltaLink transmits electricity to 85 per cent of Albertans, and now Berkshire Hathaway will have a large hand in shaping that process for the foreseeable future. Approval was given despite criticism from Alberta’s opposition parties, and several market observers, who raised serious concerns at the possible implications. Earlier this year, former Wildrose MLA Joe Anglin, one of the most outspoken opponents of the proposal, said it will now be an American corporation who will benefit from our “deliberately overbuilt transmission network,” which could pave the way for Berkshire Hathaway to maximize its profits by sending Alberta power south of the
border when the price is right. With few safeguards in place to control electricity sales across borders, Anglin was fearful Albertans would face a future of price instability, brought upon us through the Progressive Conservative government deregulation scheme, which has created what he called an auction like method whereby power generators set prices throughout the day.

Albertans have reaped the consequences of this system, particulary during periods of peak power demand in the summer, when prices skyrocketed. Attempts have been made to better inform the public of this fluctuation, and an Edmonton-based company, Gray Energy Economics, has even created the Alberta Power Price app, which constantly provides real-time power price information.  But it appears most Albertans have simply resigned themselves to the fact
this province’s system will continue to operate in a manner unlike those witnessed across Canada, where provincial ownership or control of their transmission lines is commonplace.  It is a different world in Alberta, however, where giant corporations often rule the day, and agencies like the AUC, tasked to regulate the system, often fail to protect everyday Albertans. For its part, the AUC, in its Nov. 28 ruling, approved the sale based on its “no-harm test” for financial impact on customer rates and service quality.

The AUC maintained it will continue to regulate AltaLink in the same manner, and suggested the sale to Berkshire Hathaway would have a positive impact on customer rates, because of the financing capacity of its new owner, with
AltaLink still in the process of a large transmission build. Having the ability to purchase and sell assets is necessary to ensure continued investment in energy transmission and foster a stable investment climate, AUC continued in its ruling. That appears to be the company line anyway, similar to the assertion deregulation would create a competitive energy market, and create investment in new energy plants, two outcomes which have failed to develop.  The AUC also downplayed fears AltaLink could export electricity to the U.S., as it maintained the company is a mere conduit through which market participants purchase and sell electricity , and AltaLink simply does not buy sell or own electricity. In the same breath,
the AUC added it does not have jurisdiction over electricity commodity pricing; however, it does control pricing of transmission services. However, a quick examination of Albertans’ power bills, and the rising delivery charges and rate riders, show just how effective the AUC has been fulfilling that responsibility. In the end, it is very possible Albertans will continue to pay the price for a deregulation scheme which has simply not had its desired impacts. The sale of AltaLink, a company which generated profits of over $107 million last year, according to the Alberta NDP, is another example of a system gone awry.

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Prentice to push Energy East with Quebec, Ontario Energy East pipeline

December 3, 2014 By

The Energy East pipeline is aimed at transporting Alberta crude to the east coast.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:47AM MST

Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is scheduled to meet with his Ontario and Quebec counterparts this week to lobby for support of the Energy East pipeline.

A spokeswoman says Prentice is to meet Quebec’s Philippe Couillard on Tuesday and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Wednesday.

Both eastern premiers have a list of demands about the proposal. They want contingency plans and emergency response programs in place, consultations with First Nations and consideration of environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions.

Wynne said she reached out to Prentice last week so he understood the principles that Ontario and Quebec want considered in the approval process for the proposed $12-billion pipeline, which would carry more than one million barrels of western crude daily from Alberta and Saskatchewan to oil refineries in Eastern Canada.

After chatting with Wynne on the phone, Prentice intends to press his position in person, he said Friday.

“I start from a position that these are two premiers with whom we can do business. Two premiers who are interested in building the Canadian federation and who have put out, what they’ve put out, in an attempt to be constructive. That’s the view I will take going into these meetings,” said Prentice, who called Energy East a “nation-building” project.

“The port facilities associated with that project are not going to be in Alberta. They’re going to be elsewhere in Canada. And the turbines that are sourced for that project will be certainly fabricated in the province of Ontario — not in Alberta — so this is a Canadian project with benefits for all of us as Canadians.

“We need to remain focused on that.”

TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) has filed an application to use a repurposed gas pipeline to carry crude two-thirds of the way across the country and to build a pipeline extension that would lead to Saint John, N.B.

The Saskatchewan legislature passed a motion last week calling on Ontario and Quebec to recognize the National Energy Board as the appropriate body to review the proposal and to remove unnecessary barriers to the pipeline.

Prentice said he has read with interest the principles Ontario and Quebec have put forward if they are to support the project.

“Most of them actually are encompassed within the jurisdiction of the National Energy Board and most of them would sensibly encompass any regulatory review of something such as a pipeline.”
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Saskatchewan family struggles to deal with deaths of three children

December 3, 2014 By

The Arnals have lost three young boys in separate farming accidents that has left the family dealing with sadness, grief and suffering.

By: Chris Purdy The Canadian Press, Published on Sun Nov 30 2014

RAVENSCRAG, SASK.—When one of her children was killed six years ago, Anne Arnal never dreamed she would have to go through the same pain again.

And again.

Three of her six children — her freckle-faced, youngest boys — have died in separate accidents on the family’s farm.

Arnal says most people can’t fathom the grief she and her family are suffering. “I could never imagine how or why I would be asked to have to do this,” she says.

“You try to figure out whether you’re supposed to gain something or whether you’re supposed to change somehow or what you’re being tested for . . . and I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Clifford Arnal grew up on the family homestead near the village of Ravenscrag in southwestern Saskatchewan, where flat prairie turns into rolling hills and valleys. He and his wife raised their children there, and it’s where he and his brother and father spent decades harvesting crops and herding cattle.

Now the place is a reminder of his dead boys.

He hasn’t been back to the farm since he buried two of his sons last summer. He took a construction job and his wife, who has stayed at the farm, makes the five-hour drive east to visit him in Estevan, Sask.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to go back home, he says. “It destroyed an entire generation that should be running that farm . . . There’s no future there now that they’re gone.”

Blake Arnal was the kind of kid who broke up fights on the school playground, played volleyball and badminton and, when he was home, worked hard to help out with the farm. He owned some of his own cattle and, in his early teens, started saving money so he could one day study agriculture at university.

On March 25, 2008, he was on an all-terrain vehicle, trying to tag a newborn calf, when the quad went over a ridge and crashed onto an icy creek below. He died instantly from a blow to the chest. He was 14.

Sean and Lyndon Arnal grew up best buddies, who chased rabbits and raised pigs and often fell asleep together on a basement couch.

Sean, with a keen interest in cattle genetics, could often be found reading livestock catalogues. He bought his first pickup truck a year before he got his driver’s licence. Lyndon was a goofball and a chatterbox. Once, during a family trip to Toronto, he was so struck by seeing homeless people that he asked to tour a Salvation Army shelter and handed over the $60 he had in his pocket.

The two brothers were together on July 23, 2014, riding a tractor towing a baler home. The machinery was going down a hill when it crashed and the two died.

Sean had just turned 16. Lyndon was 10. They were buried together in the same coffin.

Cliff Arnal says all his children were part of the farm from a young age — Sean swung from a Jolly Jumper attached to the roof of a combine as a baby. He started driving a tractor at 11. Blake was running a combine by the time he was 8, the same age Lyndon was when he first got behind the wheel of a semi-trailer.

When Blake died in 2008, the father heard rumblings in the community that he, as a parent, was to blame. He says he had hired a farm worker to supervise Blake, who was a careful driver.

Anne Arnal says keeping her kids from farm work wasn’t an option, even after Blake’s death. Sean and Lyndon were energetic boys and she didn’t want them growing playing video games in the basement. They wouldn’t have been the people they were supposed to be, she says.

Cliff Arnal believes the computer on the tractor Sean was driving failed so that when the machine went into neutral, he was unable to steer it. The RCMP says they investigated but found no suspicious circumstances.

The family’s sad story reflects statistics of farm deaths involving children — most are boys killed by tractors and all-terrain vehicles. A study by the Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting program shows an average of 104 farm deaths each year and 13 of them were children.

The surviving Arnal siblings all work or study elsewhere. Chantal Henderson, a 26-year-old nurse in Swift Current, Sask., is the oldest. Dylan Arnal, 24, lives in East End, Sask., and does farm work for a neighbour. Olivia Arnal, 18, is studying business at the University of Regina.

With no children at home, and a husband who can’t stand to be there, Anne Arnal says days on the farm can be quiet.

When Sean and Lyndon died, a friend who’s a doctor visited her every day for two weeks to see if she was suicidal. She says she has learned to keep busy and find purpose.

She doesn’t know if she’ll leave the farm for good. For now, she’s dealing with her grief the best she can — by keeping it in an imaginary box.

“I open it a little bit every day and I have my little bit of sad time and crying and whatever I need to do. Then I shut that box . . . I don’t have to throw it open and cope with it all right now.

“I’ll carry that box forever.”

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Alberta Energy Regulator says pipeline spills 60,000 litres of crude into muskeg

December 3, 2014 By
By Staff The Canadian Press
November 30, 2014 Updated : November 30, 2014 | 1:33 pm

RED EARTH CREEK, Alta. – The Alberta Energy Regulator says close to 60,000 litres of crude oil have spilled into muskeg in the province’s north.

An incident report by the regulator states that a mechanical failure was reported Thursday at a Canadian Natural Resources Limited (TSX:CNQ) pipeline approximately 27 kilometres north of Red Earth Creek.

The report says there are no reports of impact to wildlife and that a cleanup has begun.

Red Earth Creek is over 350 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Carrie Rosa, a spokeswoman for the regulator, says officials have been delayed reaching the scene due to poor weather in the last few days.

No one from Canadian Natural Resources could be reached on Saturday for comment.

In April, a pipeline owned by the company spilled 70,000 litres of oil and processed water in the region.

The Alberta Energy Regulator said at the time that the spill northwest of Slave Lake was not near any people, water or wildlife.

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AltaLink sale to Berkshire Hathaway approved by AUC

November 30, 2014 By

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Pincher Creek Voice

Chris Davis

On November 28 the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) released their decision to approve the sale of AltaLink to MC Alberta, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska and led by longtime CEO Warren Buffet.

 According to an AltaLink press release “This is the final of three approvals required for the sale; the other two were received earlier this year from the federal government. We are pleased with the decision of the AUC. We expect the transaction to reach financial close as soon as possible.” Previous to the AUC decision the sale was found to be acceptable by the Competition Bureau of Canada and Industry Canada.  The AUC found that “customers will be at least no worse off after the transaction is completed and that the no harm test has been satisfied”.

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LTE: Say no to the AltaLink power lines

November 29, 2014 By

Opinion Letters

Pincher Creek Echo

In this Letter to the Editor Mr. Smith details why he hopes to see a stop put to the planned transmission line. File Photo.

In this Letter to the Editor Mr. Smith details why he hopes to see a stop put to the planned transmission line. File Photo.

My wife and I are to be directly impacted by the proposed AltaLink transmission line therefore I would like my voice heard in this discussion. Not only is this huge line not needed, it would be constructed by a foreign-owned, Calgary-based company for profit. There is no urgent need for this transmission line that has a sole purpose of moving Alberta generated electricity into BC where it is subsequently sold to the northwestern United States for carbon tax credits.

At the recent AltaLink information open house I was told by Matt Gray of the Alberta Electric System Operator’s corporate communications department that wind turbines contribute about seven per cent to the overall electrical grid. He did not specify if “about” was 6.5 or 7.1 per cent. Every one of those wind turbines require back up generation because even in the south the wind does not blow all the time and there is no way to store the miniscule amount of electricity produced. The peak times electricity is required is in the heat of summer when the wind rarely blows and in the dead of winter when gusts coming off the Livingstone Range is too much for the turbines to handle.

Because the Alberta Government has a policy that every wind generator has the right to be connected to the electrical grid we, every Albertan from Fort McMurray to Pincher Creek, pay for the construction of these lines. Don’t just complain about your power bill complain to your MLA, he or she is responsible for picking your pocket with an unneeded, overbuilt transmission line.

The proposed transmission line is to run right through a Bald Eagle nesting area. We have seen in the past AltaLink’s concern for our wildlife with its misplaced Snake Trail area transmission line where hundreds of waterfowl were slaughtered by a line constructed on top of a staging area for migratory ducks, geese and swans. No fine was levied against AltaLink that I am aware of. Will the company then be allowed to kill eagles with impunity?

Thanks to the brain trust of the Municipality of Pincher Creek our once beautiful gateway to the Rocky Mountains is a grotesque mishmash of unsightly and unneeded wind turbines.

Say no to this abdominal tribute to corporate greed. Warren Buffet is rich enough already.

Doug Smith

60 Catalina Dr.

Sherwood Park, AB

*Editor’s note: Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of AltaLink is still under review by the AUC

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Two Wildrose MLAs bolt to Prentice’s PCs, leaving official opposition reeling

November 27, 2014 By
 By , QMI Agency

First posted: | Updated:

More Coverage

On Monday, the Wildrose bled. They could well bleed some more.

Kerry Towle and Ian Donovan are two Wildrose members of the legislature from the countryside where the opposition party draws its greatest strength.

On Monday, they take the walk to Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives.

The defection of Towle really hurts. She was close to Wildrose leader Danielle Smith. Now she is close to Smith as Brutus was once close to Caesar.

The Wildrose leader takes to the podium Monday afternoon with a quick statement to the salivating newshounds and no questions from them.

Smith doesn’t speak the word traitor or turncoat or Judas or a hundred other nasties.

She lets us connect the easy-to-see dots in her mind.

Smith contrasts Towle and Donovan with Wildrose MLAs Rob Anderson and Heather Forsyth.

Smith must be thinking: Oh, what a day it was, almost five years ago, right after the Christmas holidays.

Smith, Anderson and Forsyth. A trio of wide smiles.

Anderson and Forsyth left the ruling PCs. They defected from the government to Wildrose, a party with only one seat in the legislature.

The party had just won a byelection in a squeaker because people were vein-popping angry at the sitting premier, Ed Stelmach.

Your columnist can still recall Smith applauding the courage of Anderson and Forsyth back in January of 2010. There was so much hope in the small room.

On Monday, Smith is wanting to sound tough. The last month she has been in free fall.

She tells us says Anderson and Forsyth “gave up the perks for power” and did so “not for personal gain.”

Smith says Towle and Donovan did the opposite. Ouch. The Wildrose leader says Towle and Donovan will have to answer for their actions at home and in the legislature. Oh my.

On the other side of the legislature, Jim Prentice and the PCs are happier than sailors on shore leave.

Unsteady Eddie and Entitled Alison are two PC premiers relegated to the history books by many Albertans.

Plenty of people are giving Prentice and the PCs a chance, including some who until recently hailed the Wildrose as the government-in-waiting.

That group now includes two former Wildrose MLAs.

Smith and Wildrose?

They lost four byelections last month when they should have won at least one.

With the defeat Smith staggered a spacewalk, first wanting a review of her leadership by party members, a vote that wasn’t even possible according to her party’s rules.

Smith rambled about Wildrose MLA Marine Joe Anglin’s alleged taping of closed-door gabfests of Wildrose politicians but offered no proof he was doing any recording.

Anglin now sits as an independent in the legislature.

The Wildrose convention did not rouse the faithful and show a way forward. Smith’s speech was lame and meandering and blamed the media for party woes while talking about such things as Fun Police. Don’t ask.

At the hootenanny in Red Deer, party members recognized all Albertans have equal rights but then stopped short of naming where individuals needed protection against discrimination, for example, race, gender and sexual orientation.

After the vote, one Wildrose MLA walked away, muttering about the stupidity of the naysaying party members. He wasn’t alone.

On Monday, as two of their colleagues go out the door to Destination Toryland, Wildrose MLAs declare their support for what their party rejected.

Those who defected, explain why they vamoosed.

Towle says people in her central Alberta riding asked her to think about joining the PCs because she could do more with them than against them.

“I didn’t wake up and say: Well, you know, I had the wrong grilled cheese sandwich, I’m going to leave Wildrose. I feel strongly, in order for us to move forward, conservatives as a whole need to come together.”

Donovan’s songsheet isn’t a whole lot different.

Donovan says the people he represents want him back on the inside.

He also speaks of Smith’s pledge. If Wildrose loses the next election, she’s gone.

“It’s hard to follow somebody when they say they’re not sure they’re going to lead the team if they don’t win the next game,” says Donovan.

To quote an old saying, Smith dances with the one who brung her.

“Changing one person at the top does not change the government’s recurring problems of entitlement and mismanagement,” says the Wildrose leader.

“The premiers change, the problems remain. They always do. We will fight for what we know in our hearts is good for Alberta and good for Albertans.”

But is this a rallying cry or is it a swan song?

[email protected]

On Twitter: @sunrickbell

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