Mason: “If Mr. Protti doesn’t have a conflict of interest, then who does?”

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EDMONTON – Energy Minister Ken Hughes stands firmly behind his appointment of former oil executive Gerry Protti to run the province’s new energy regulator despite growing opposition from more than 30 landowner groups, First Nations and environmentalists.

“Gerry Protti is one of the most even-handed people in the province and he will be supported by Jim Ellis, as CEO. All I ask is for people to be fair-minded,” Hughes said Friday, defending Protti’s position as chair of the new Alberta Energy Regulator which will replace the Energy Resources Conservation Board in June.

Protti, a former Encana executive, was also the founding president of the industry’s high profile lobby group, the of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Ellis, appointed as CEO of the new regulator earlier this week, is a former deputy minister in the environment and energy departments.

Unlike the ERCB, the new regulator will take on responsibility for issuing environmental permits for new pipelines and oilsand projects, as well as enforcement of environmental laws in the oilpatch — jobs now carried out by Alberta Environment.

That’s what worries many of the 30 groups who joined an earlier protest by land owners and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Protti’s close ties to the oilpatch raise concerns about possible bias in running the regulator, which must now also protect the environment, says the letter signed by the Alberta Wilderness Association, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Alberta Federal of Labour, Public Interest Alberta, the National Farmers Union and others.

The move to a single regulator means “fewer people will regulate and enforce Alberta’s environmental regulations,” says the letter.

“It also concentrates power in fewer hands so that landowner rights and treaty impacts may not be properly addressed.”

Landowners have also lost their statutory right to hearings under the new Responsible Energy Development Act. The act also narrows the definition of who can qualify for standing to participate in a hearing.

“How can anyone have faith that they will get a fair, unbiased shake when the new chair couldn’t be more of an oil industry insider?” asked Don Bester with the Alberta Surface rights Group.

“It’s time we stopped letting the fox guard the henhouse,” said Mike Hudema of Greenpeace.

Hughes dismissed the concern that environmental and landowner groups won’t get a fair hearing under Protti’s leadership.

Protti will not be involved in hearings on specific projects, that job falls to a group of s commissioners or panel members appointed directly by government. Those appointments still have to be made, Hughes said.

Also, Protti will be assisted by a board of governors of at least three people, possibly more, also to be appointed by cabinet sometime in June, Hughes said.

“They will be people with an appreciation for the diversity of issues the regulator will be faced with,” he said.“People are forgetting this is not like the ERCB, it’s a whole new governing structure.”

The new board overseeing the energy regulator will not operate like a stakeholders’ group, where each member represents a specific interest, he said.

“People on the board will act in the interest of the organization and make sure it meets its responsibilities under the act,” Hughes said.

The energy regulator will take over sometime in June but it will take a year to move over all the environmental responsibilities currently handled in Alberta Environment, Hughes added.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Clean Electricity Standard could come in 2014

EDMONTON – The Redford government is crafting a renewable and alternative energy framework that will govern wind, solar and geothermal electricity generation in Alberta starting next year.

An Alberta Energy presentation at the National Renewable Energy Forum last month shows the province plans to consult Albertans and draft a policy framework in 2013, then “commence implementation” in 2014.

Susan Carlisle, Alberta’s director of alternative energy, delivered the presentation to industry representatives in Toronto on April 2.

Lethbridge College professor Kris Hodgson chaired the panel that followed Carlisle’s presentation, during which four key players in Alberta’s wind and solar industries discussed the province’s nascent plan.

“A lot of people have been waiting for this for probably 20 years,” said Hodgson, who sits on the board of the Alberta Clean Technology Industry Alliance and advocates for wind power

. “It has been really frustrating because there hasn’t been any movement on this policy piece for some time. They’ve done a lot of great work with bioenergy, but nothing on wind and solar.”

Hodgson said discussions with senior bureaucrats suggest the centrepiece of the new policy may be a “clean electricity standard,” an intensity-based plan for limiting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector.

He said Alberta could help its international reputation by pressing ahead with a renewable energy strategy.

“This is supposed to be the year, and I think that because of all the pressure they’ve been facing with Keystone it’s strange the province hasn’t adopted renewable energy. … It would offset the incredible public relations issue they are facing with the oilsands,” Hodgson said.

The presentation shows coal and natural gas currently account for 89 per cent of Alberta’s electricity, while wind accounts for four per cent, followed by hydro and biofuels at three per cent each. The final one per cent is categorized as “other.”

Pembina Institute renewable energy director Tim Wies said the province is considering several other options, including a strategy that would require Alberta producers to generate a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources.

The province is also looking at Ontario’s Feed-In Tariff Program, which allows homeowners, businesses and private developers to generate renewable energy and sell it to the province at a guaranteed price. Production incentives are also under consideration.

“They are still at a pretty early stage of exploring which of these options would fit in the Alberta market,” Weis said. “The clean electricity standard is one that people talk about more, because it really does fit better into the Alberta market. … It is market-based and more congruent with the way Alberta produces electricity.”

While no formal timelines have been set, Weis said he has been told the framework could to go to cabinet this fall. Pembina will meet with Alberta Energy and other stakeholders to discuss the plans on May 21.

Wildrose environment critic Joe Anglin said the province is undermining renewable energy producers by building new power lines in central Alberta that will be direct current (DC) lines.

Anglin said alternative energy producers “cannot connect to DC (lines) without hundreds of millions in AC/DC converters, and that’s not going to happen. … That just boggles my mind.”

The province remained tight-lipped about renewable energy Friday.

Energy Minister Ken Hughes against said in a statement that “it would be premature to speculate on the implementation of a renewable energy framework.” Department spokesman Mike Feenstra said department officials “won’t have more to say than what’s been said.”

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EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Alison Redford is warning young schoolchildren to beware of the Opposition Wildrose party because, she says, it is committed to not building anything.  Redford, with dozens of children spread in a semicircle at her feet at an Edmonton school, made the comments while announcing construction of new schools for the area.  Redford told the children — and the parents and dignitaries seated behind them — that while her government is committed to building things, her opponents are not.  The Wildrose party and its leader Danielle Smith have heavily criticized Redford for planning to take on $17 billion in debt over the next four years to pay for infrastructure.  Redford told the children that those criticisms are false, that debt is actually an investment in necessities of life, and that the opposition is trying to score cheap political points.  The premier made similar comments to children in Calgary on Wednesday while announcing new schools for that region.

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

 By Sheila Pratt, Edmonton Journal May 2, 2013

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

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

The AER is expected to be operating by June.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every other province offers coverage, except Alberta.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal