Old Kate Snivels

Old Kate the voice of the Republican arm of the Conservatives over at Sniveling Dead Animals was whinning again, or is that whinnying, about how the media has a liberal left bias in Canada.

Really could have fooled me. Watching CPAC with its cross country coverage of Talk Shows during the elction one gets the feeling that every single radio host must be a subscriber to the National Review in order to get hired. And being a loud mouth right winger is defined as 'controversial'. I would think that with such a plethora of right wingers on talk shows it would be more controversial to have a left wing host.

Last time I checked the Sun chain was right wing, and the Canada.com chain carries both liberal and conservative commentators. The National Post is the very essence of the voice of the right. The Globe and Mail also has its fair share of Right Wing nutbars. Macleans now is the Alberta Report reborn. Go here for a break down of the Election coverage and its Conservative Bias.

So the if the media is the mirror that Kate wants to see her reflection in it certainly is there. Mirror Mirror on the wall who is the most right wing of all. While the Left in Canada is the real political force that is on the outside, with small circulation publications like Canadian Dimension and from Kats home province; Briarpatch.

And even CBC has the likes of Ezra Levant on to comment, has a columnist from the right on its web page and hired Rick Anderson of the Reform party to be its masked insider commentator on the Canadian Election.

Old Kate also wants to see taxpayers quit funding liberal think tanks. How about if we quit funding the more influential right wing think tanks like the C.D. Howe Institute, The Fraser Institute and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.
The media in Canada has gone through a seismic shift since the eighties when Lubor Zink was the lone voice of the looney right wailing about the liberal left media, ok him and Peter Worthington.

So where has Kate been? Even in Saskatchewan the Canada.com papers there spin the editorials and opinion pages to the right.

But hey Kate isn't satisfied until we have Faux news here. With its ever objective Bill O' Reilly as a commentator. You see to the right wing its only free speech if you can lie, slander and denigrate your oponents while saying, don't you agree.

Without acknowledging error, O'Reilly modified false Abramoff claim; attacked "organized terror" from "far-left websites"

Summary: Bill O'Reilly modified his previous false claim that lobbyist Jack Abramoff donated money to both Republicans and Democrats, saying: "His personal donations were to Republicans." However, O'Reilly made no admission of his previous error, and went on to attack "far-left websites" for "put[ting] out a fatwa" against him and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, further claiming the websites engage in "organized terror."

On the January 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly modified a false claim he made three days before that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff donated money to both Democrats and Republicans, saying: "His personal donations were to Republicans." In modifying his claim, however, O'Reilly made no admission of his previous error, nor did he apologize for having berated a caller to his nationally syndicated radio show for correctly noting that Democrats received no money directly from Abramoff. O'Reilly went on to attack the "far-left websites" for "put[ting] out a fatwa" against him and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell and and to claim that the websites engage in "organized terror.

Also see:

Much Ado About BCE

CTV is NOT the CBC

CTV/G&M Showing Conservative Bias

CTV Liberal Bias

This is Fearmongering?

The Revolving door at the National Pest

Macleans the New Alberta Report

It's A Family Thing

Tags
Canada
Politics
blog
right wing
Fox News
media

We Need a Living Wage

NEO LIBERALISM A FAILURE IN CANADA

Public Policy wonks, both from the left and right, the soul of capitalism; the TD Bank, and Stats Canada all agree that for twenty boom years of capitalism in North America, Canadian workers still have yet to benefit.

The famous trinkle down effect of tax cuts, (royalty rebates, outsourcing, privatization, acquisition and mergers, end of inheritence taxes,ETC.) all that stuff about allowing the market to determine its own future, ends up with that old cliche being true; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It is quite apparent from the empirical data that despite the bluff and bluster of the free market hacks like the Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies etc.to the contrary, the working class has suffered a drought waiting for the trinkle down effect for over twenty years.


MILLIONS OF CANADIAN WORKERS STILL WAITING FOR THEIR PAYDAY

Tax cuts have produced no measurable effect for the average Canadian family for twenty years. And in fact have contributed to the continuing immizeration of Canadian workers. When Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Chief Economist for the TD.Bank agree on this empirical fact, when will the Conservative right wing admit that their policies do nothing for us but lots for our bosses.

Directly tied to the rights Neo-liberal agenda has been its relentless class war against the working class as a whole and specifically against the weapon of the working class; unions. Cooresponding to the low pay regime of neo-liberalism is also the decline in unionization as another Stats Canada study for this same time period shows.

The battle field of class war has been the introduction of just in time production techniques, team management, flexible working conditions, into the social fabric of all workplaces, private and public. The result of this was an successful campaign to reduce wages even in the unionized sectors as Safeway workers can attest to. Capitalism created a new part time low waged workforce to replace its permanent workers with in the 1980's. Since then it has been full out class war.

This resulted in the broader right wing campaign of contracting out, outsourcing, privatization, as well as the layoff of thousands of public sector workers during the 1993-1996 deficit hysteria, have resulted in a low waged economy.

This combined with technological innovations and mass layoffs, the dumbing down of work and skills, has not resulted in the decline of the falling rate of profit.
It has only temporarily allowed for extensions of the boom in the boom and bust economy of the business cycle.

In order to maintain its high rates of profit the capitalist class war has been to keep wages low, reduce the workforce and create a new culture of piece work or contract work. The result has been that while profits are made, and obscene profits at that, and worker productivity has increased, wages have not.

When you have less workers you have increased productivity. When you have low wages you have increased productivity. If there is a productivity decline in Canada its not because of the low waged work force, it is because the capitalists have failed to re-invest their record profits in their business and in its technology, resulting in decline productivity.

There is lots of cash flowing, usually into someones pocket like Enron, Worldcom, Nortel, Hollinger, Tyco, etc. etc. ad nauseum, but of course not in wages and benefits for workers.

Stanford and the TD Bank are joined by the right wing business think tank the CD.Howe Institute in their criticism that the tax breaks and priming of the pump by the state in its money give aways to Corporate Canada have not resulted in investments in R&D, technology or even improving working conditions. Thus Corporate Canada is directly to blame, as are the various levels of simpering compradour governments provincial and federal, for Canada's lack of competitiveness in the marketplace.

WHOA. STOP THE PRESS!

This should be screaming tombstone 72 pt headlines across the nations print media, it should be featured as the lead newsstory on the electronic media. And it isn't. Here is empirical evidence that the twenty year campaign of neo-liberalism has failed Canadians and benefited the wealthy few. Despite all the rhetoric and propaganda to the contrary. The facts show that the business boom in Canada is a direct result of a low wage policy. That tax cuts have increased profit but not productivity. That this is a NATIONAL SCANDAL of Adscam proportions.

But no, the story is buried in the business and back pages of the papers. And no direct link is drawn by the reporters to how these stories all say the same thing; the Neo Conservatives are Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

They were wrong when Von Mises was in charge of the Post WWI Austrian Economy. They were wrong when Milton Friedman inflated the Pinochet Chilean Economy. They have been wrong since theier policies were applied by Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney. They have been wrong when applied by Klein, Harris and now Campbell.

And yet the right wing has not abandoned its predicatable cry for more and more tax breaks as the CD Howe Institute article shows. Never let the facts get in the way of ideology. The CD Howe report shows that investment is the problem not corporate incentives. But they still fall back to the old neo-con mantra; tax cuts.

We don't need tax cuts for corporations we need a Social Wage for all Canadians!

One of the social democratic reforms called for forty years ago was the Guaranteed National Income, which has been recently revived by European Socialists like Andre Gorz and other reformists as the Social Wage.

With the boom in profits that has occured over the past twenty years such a social wage should come directly out of businesses before tax profit. And it could easily be done when you consider most workers in Canada produce at least twice their total salary and benefits in profit.

We need a social wage in Canada of a minimum $10 an hour with a full benefits, and a portable pension plan for all workers. Whether part time, full time and those employed hourly, those on social assistance and EI, and those doing unwaged work.

Corporate Taxes Already Cut, With Few Benefits

According to the TD Bank report, which was released on April 28, Canadian corporations are showing record profits, which they aren't reinvesting. The report attributed the lack of reinvestment to uncertainty due to a volatile global political situation, but warned that “corporations cannot simply build up savings in perpetuity,” but need to invest to “maintain competitiveness”.

"Corporations cannot simply build up savings in perpetuity," the report said, warning that businesses need to invest to maintain their competitiveness.

"In all probability, merger and acquisition will remain a top priority for many Canadian companies in 2005," it said. "But we may also begin to see more in the way of dividend payouts and productivity-enhancing investment initiatives, which, so far, have underperformed profit growth."

Mr. Drummond cautioned, however, that profits will not continue to grow at the unprecedented pace they have been in recent years.

"We're certainly not going to sustain that pace of profit growth through 2005 and 2006, never mind out as far as 2008 when the tax cuts were to have kicked in," Mr. Drummond said.

In fact, a slowdown in profit growth has already started.

Canadian Labour Congress economist Andrew Jackson said that the report shows that past corporate tax cuts are responsible for the profits that aren’t being reinvested. “One is struck by the discrepancy between extremely solid corporate profitability... and the fact that real investment by corporate Canada... has not increased by anywhere near as much,” Jackson was quoted as saying.

CANADIANS LACK TOOLS TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY, THINK-TANK SAYS

Eric Beauchesne
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, May 06, 2005

Canada invests less than its competitors, particularly the United States, in ensuring its workers have the latest tools to make them productive, the C.D. Howe Institute said yesterday.

This year, it appears the amount invested in productivity-enhancing machinery and equipment in Canada will be about $1,150 less than the average in all industrial countries, and $2,690, or 23 per cent, less than the U.S.

The report from the business-backed think-tank was issued the same day the United States reported another surge in business productivity in the first quarter, bringing output per hour worked up 2.4 per cent from a year earlier. The U.S. news wasn't all good: labour costs also soared.

Still, the latest figures for Canada suggest there has been virtually no productivity growth here for the past two years. The institute argues increased investment is the key to higher productivity.

In Central Canada, however, capital investment per worker is low and declining, it said, projecting that this year the level in Ontario will be 39 per cent less per worker than in the U.S., while Quebec will 44 per cent less, and Manitoba 36 per cent less.

Pasta Paycheques
- The service industry in Alberta is becoming more competitive in this hot economy. Witness the wage list published on Joey Tomato's website, and listed in an ad for a recent job fair: line cook, $7 to $10 an hour; dishwasher, $7 to $9 an hour; hostess, $7 to $14 an hour. The real payoff is in being a manager, or shift leader: $30,000 to $150,000 a year. Aspiring restaurateurs, note: your eatery needs to dish up a lot of pasta to earn that top figure.

PERCENTAGE OF LOW-PAID WORKERS NOT DECLINING

Proportion of low-paid workers unchanged since 1981
Those earning under $10 an hour make up one of every six full-time workers: study

Norma Greenaway, CanWest News Service

May 6, 2005


The share of Canadian jobs paying low wages has not shrunk since 1981, leaving one in every six full-time workers earning less than $10 an hour, says a new study by Canadian Policy Research Networks Inc. "Does a Rising Tide Lift All Boats? Low-paid Workers in Canada "

The study, being released today, also says that contrary to popular opinion, many low-paid workers -- defined as earning less than $10 an hour -- do not graduate to higher-paid jobs over time.

"There is a tendency to say we know people earn $7 or $8 an hour, but these are teenagers flipping hamburgers, or selling jackets or jeans, and in a few years they will be out earning decent wages and we don't need to worry about them," said Ron Saunders, author of the report.

"What the data show is that -- although teenagers are very disproportionately low-paid -- the rate of low pay is actually high among all age groups."

Saunders said he's surprised the proportion of low-paid workers, about 16 per cent, has not changed since 1981, considering the economic and job gains the Canadian economy has experienced. On top of that, he said, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of the workforce with post-secondary education.

The study says that of the 1.7 million full-time workers being paid under $10 an hour, 30 per cent -- or more than 500,000 -- live in households where the collective income falls below the Statistics Canada low-income cutoff.

"These are full-time workers," Saunders said. "So we're not meeting a very basic societal objective (that) if you're working full time, you ought not to be poor."

Saunders traced the problem to the competitive pressures of globalization, which he says has prompted employers to scramble to cut costs by doing such things as hiring temporary help and outsourcing jobs, the decline in unionization in the private sector and an erosion in social support systems.

Among the study's findings:

- Of those working for low pay of less than $10 an hour, half will not graduate to better wages within five years. Most of them are women and have low education.

- Low pay is four times as prevalent among those who did not complete high school. Among university graduates, about one in 17 earns less than $10 an hour.

- One-quarter of recent immigrants were low-paid in 2000, compared with one-sixth of Canadian-born workers.

- Visible minorities are the most vulnerable among recent immigrants, with almost one-third getting low pay, compared to their counterparts who were not visible minorities.

- At least one in five lone parents, unattached individuals under the age of 40, and persons with a disability also fell into the low-pay category.

Growth in workers' wages dismal since '81, TD Bank says

CP May 5, 2005

OTTAWA -- The wage growth of Canadian workers over the past two decades has been even more dismal than suspected, the TD Bank says.

All that prevented inflation-adjusted, after-tax earnings from actually falling was that today's workforce is better educated, more experienced and includes more women, it said in an analysis Wednesday.

"Having a better-educated workforce with more experienced workers, more women, and a narrower male-female earnings gap are all achievements to be applauded," it says. "These are the only factors that prevented an outright and substantial real decline in Canadian hourly wages between 1981 and 2004."

In a report earlier this year, the bank estimated that the real after-tax incomes of workers rose by only 3.6 per cent over the last 15 years, markedly less than the 25.5 per cent growth in the economy over that time.

Further, it noted that Statistics Canada has reported that median wages in Canada have changed little over the last two decades despite the growing experience and educational attainment of the workforce.

However, if one takes into account that wages normally rise with experience and education, the bank now says: "The result is an even more pessimistic picture of Canadian wage growth than past estimations."

The real hourly wages of men did fall more than two per cent between 1981 and 2004, it says. However, those of women, who now account for a greater share of the workforce, rose by more than eight per cent over that time, although their wages remain lower than men's, it says.

Meanwhile, the average age of workers has increased over the two decades to 39 years from 34 years, it says, adding that because older workers tend to be more experienced, they tend to earn more.

As such, the aging of the workforce should have boosted wages, it says. Adjusting the changes in wages to take that into account, the bank calculates that men's real hourly wages have fallen by more than 10 per cent, while women's wages have increased by only 4.1 per cent.

"Just as changes in gender and age composition can skew the true rate of wage growth, so too can changes in education," it adds.

The proportion of adult Canadians with a university education has increased to more than 25 per cent from 16 per cent in 1981, it notes.

"This means that part of the reason personal income rose at all over the past few decades was that more people were graduating with university degrees, and as a result, getting better-paid jobs," it says.

However, the increase in workers' wages over that time was less than the increase in education would suggest it should have been, it adds.

"In fact, holding age and education constant, Canadians of both genders saw outright declines in their wages," it said. "Astonishingly, for all levels of education and for both sexes, workers earned less in 2004 than in 1981."

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

WORKERS SMARTER BUT NO BETTER PAID THAN 20 YEARS AGO

SURVEY POKES HOLE IN THEORY THAT BETTER-EDUCATED EMPLOYEES EARN MORE MONEY QUICKER

Sutton Eaves
Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

OTTAWA - Despite popular theory, statistics show that getting an education is no guarantee a well-paying job will follow.

A Statistics Canada study-Escaping low earnings- of low-paid labour trends indicates that while adult workers are better educated than ever, they are no better paid than they were 20 years ago.

"You have two movements: on one hand, a better-educated workforce, but on the other hand, for some groups, you have falling pay rates," said government researcher Rene Morissette.

Typically, a well-educated employee will earn more money quicker than those with lower education levels, especially as they gain experience and aspire towards higher-paid positions.

The new study pops a hole in this theory, showing that despite rising levels of education among adult workers, many still toil in low-paying jobs.

The proportion of adult workers with a university degree rose about 10 per cent between 1981 and 2004, making them better educated than their predecessors.

Still, the number of adult employees earning less than $10 an hour dropped just one per cent in that time.

All prices have been adjusted to reflect changing inflation rates.

For young, less-educated males, the findings were more stark. Comparing workers whose level of education -- a high school diploma -- did not change since 1981, Morissette found their wages have actually declined by 20 per cent since then. This category is dominated by men aged 25-34.

Morissette offered a couple of theories for the slide backwards. One correlates to the decline of wages across the globe, which forces firms to stay competitive by reducing labour costs.

"Another explanation is that the technological changes we have witnessed over the past 20 years, like the computer-based revolution, may have tended to reduce the demand for low-educated workers," he said.

Overall, wages for workers aged 16-74 rose modestly since 1981 by about six per cent.

For part-time workers, the trend was reversed so the average wage fell 14 per cent from $14.53 an hour to $12.47.

Despite the decline or plateau in worker's wages, the number of employees living in low-income households has not changed since 1981.

This is attributed to the growing number of dual-income families that, with the help of two or more employed members, keep the income level above the low-income cutoff line.

The study says the most economically vulnerable groups are people living alone, single female parents, individuals with only a high school education and recent immigrants to Canada. Twenty-five per cent of working females under the age of 40 were employed in low paying jobs in 2000. For men, that number is 17 per cent.
© The Edmonton Journal 2005

The Wild West Buyout

Crony Capitalism Alberta Style

Controversy swirls around the Alberta Legislature this week while our Fuehrer, Herr Klein is off vacationing. Isn't that always the way it is in Alberta, shit happens and the Premier is off not available for a media scrum almost like it’s planned.

This week the shit hit the fan when it was revealed that the Dark Prince of Privatization, the Premiers old drinking buddy[1], Steve West[2] was given a golden handshake of $180,000. A buyout for having been dismissed as Klein’s Chief of Staff two days after the Election debacle which saw Alberta’s One Party State reduced to an overwhelming majority of only 61 Tories from 74.

The question that has to be asked is what the hell are the taxpayers of Alberta paying Steve West for, when he was essentially running the Tory campaign. Shouldn’t the Alberta Progressive Conservative Association INC. pay their own bills? Concerned Alberta taxpayers want to know.

Only in his post for six months he spent most of that time doing electioneering for the Party of Alberta. Dismissed unceremoniously by a haggard querulous Klein he has been replaced by another Klein drinking buddy[3] and former waiter; Rod Love[4], the man who made Klein Mayor of Calgary and Premier of Alberta. If Love is Klein’s Richealu, West was his Dr. Gobblels.

“West had earned the nickname Dr. No after pulling colour televisions out of provincial jails, chopping government jobs, launching electrical deregulation and privatizing liquor stores, vehicle registries and parks. Klein said he needed a "tough taskmaster" like West in his office. But two days after the Nov. 22 election, a news release announced that West was leaving because his work was done and he wanted to return to the private sector. Although it was painted as a voluntary move, political observers have suggested West was dumped because the Tories lost seats in the election.” Macleans

West like Love had been retried from Politics when he took the job as Chief of Staff for Klein in the spring of 2004. He replaced Peter Elzinga who had stepped down to become a paid lobbyist for Suncour which was suing the provincial government, his former employer! The cronyism of the Klein government knows no bounds. And they lie about it, with perfect aplomb.

Even this week in a story about West’s golden hand shake CBC news reported that ”West was hired as Klein's chief of staff last spring when Peter Elzinga left to donate a kidney to a friend.” How humanitarian of him.

As political observer Rich Vivone says: “how the story is spun is more important than the story being told. Nobody spins as well as these guys.” Spin is polite terminology for political lies. Like the debt and deficit lie, the lies about electrical deregulation they lie well to cover their obvious cronyism.

West had been formerly the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Minister of Resources, Minister of Transportation and Public Works and had a stint as Provincial Treasurer.

As Alberta's Minister of Municipal Affairs, Steve West, known as the dark lord of privatization, made sure everything in his prevue was for sale. He oversaw the privatization of; the provincial Liquor Board the ALCB, our provincially funded public radio and TV stations; CKUA and ACCESS TV, as well as the Public Works department which was responsible for Highway Construction and Maintenance in Alberta.

He slashed government workers jobs replacing them with contract workers; he froze wages and benefits for those lucky enough to remain. He was Klein’s unfailing hatchet man.

"It is important to contrast this to Steve West's treatment of other people," Liberal Leader Kevin Taft said. "When he was a cabinet minister, Steve West turfed 900 ALCB (the former Alberta Liquor Control Board) employees without any severance whatsoever and it did not matter how long they worked. They were gone without sympathy, without respect, without dignity."

As one writer said of West at the time:

“In the real world, privatization isn't about money, it's about principles. Alberta's own Steve West set a tough benchmark when he cost Albertans billions of dollars by selling off government-owned land during a recession simply because it was there. Today, Steve West may not be admired for his intelligence, his concern for the public purse, or God forbid, even his business sense, but he is admired for his unwavering belief in privatization.”

West and Klein used the debt and deficit hysteria of the 1990’s to create what is now known as the Klein Revolution; the privatization and outsourcing of government services, and cuts to services to the average Albertan.

In reality the provincial fiscal shortfall which caused the temporary deficit of 1993-1994 was the result of Alberta’s already low tax base for business and its royalty holiday to the oil industry. And though it did have a debt problem, as did many governments and corporations during this period, that debt will now be paid off next year due to surpluses produced by the rising cost of oil.

The push to privatize was Steve West’s ideological conviction, not because there was any fiscal need to or benefit from doing so. Even their right wing supporters have acknowledged this.

“The province has run budget surpluses every year since 1994-95 and is rapidly paying down its net debt; this year, buoyed by surging oil and gas revenues, it is expected to post a surplus of at least $5 billion. This string of budget surpluses and the related drop in its stock of outstanding public debt have given Alberta a great deal of fiscal manoeuvring room.” Fraser Institute, 2001

As provincial Treasurer in 2000, West oversaw the shifting of the tax burden from Alberta business to the average Albertan. He declared the creation of a provincial ‘flat tax’ of 10.5 % for Albertans, another ideological solution to buoy up capitalism in the province, in order to sell the huge corporate tax cuts the government was making.

That year there was a tax shortfall, which forced the government to make it an 11% flat tax, and to again cut services for Albertans while business laughed all the way to the bank.

As the right wing think tank the Fraser Institute, cheerfully reported at the time;

“by 2004 the general corporate tax rate in Alberta will be less than half of the rates levied in the other three Western provinces;

• its corporate tax rate on manufacturing and processing income will also be less than half of the comparable BC and Manitoba rates, and considerably lower than the (variable) rates charged in Saskatchewan;

• Alberta’s small business tax rate will be the lowest in the country; and,

• Alberta will continue to enjoy other important business tax advantages over BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, notably in the sales tax on business inputs (Alberta does not have a sales tax), the capital tax (Alberta doesn’t impose one on non-financial enterprises, and intends to remove its capital tax on financial institutions next year), and fuel taxes.

Taxes on business in the other provinces were noticeably higher even before the unveiling of Alberta’s tax cut plan. With Alberta’s proposed reforms, the disparities in overall business tax burdens will widen dramatically— unless the other provinces respond.”

West’s most successful privatization effort benefited privately owned Trans Alta Utilities, a company where the Alberta Government has historically put to pasture its retired cabinet ministers[5]. On their behalf he convinced Klein to deregulate electricity in the province.

“Privatization in Alberta was all but dormant until Klein realized he was in danger of being exposed as the neo-liberal he really is. Everything that could be usefully privatized – liquor stores and registry offices – had been, but the ideologue Steve West was able to convince Klein that Alberta’s stable electricity industry needed to be deregulated,” wrote columnist, Hamish MacAulay at the time.

The deregulation of electricity was controversial at the time, being opposed by both public utilities like the City of Edmonton’s EPCOR and private utilities like Tory Bag Man Ron Southern’s ATCO. Even business opposed the idea of deregulation, as much as the socialist NDP did.

So far deregulation has cost Alberta consumers millions in increased costs, has not produced infrastructure expansion(5) but has allowed Trans Alta to market electricity across Canada and into the U.S. which was its purpose all along.

A Calgary CIPS forum in the fall of 2001 on how the electrical industry in Alberta has experienced significant changes in the form of deregulation "Alberta is leading Canada and many other countries in this area. Dawn Farrell, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development at TransAlta Utilities, will discuss this question, based on her extensive experiences in the industry. Dawn will discuss how TransAlta re-invented itself within the Alberta context, what strategic decisions were made and why, and how, in hindsight, all of these decisions were the right ones.[6] “

Deregulation may have been right for TransAlta but for the rest of the us, “Deregulating the electricity market cost Albertans $3 billion. Alberta started selling off its energy interests in 1998. In the aftermath of that move, prices tripled.”

So who benefited from this Wild West scheme, besides TransAlta? Ironically it wasn’t the private sector as he had hoped, but the public utilities.

“Jaccard, former chair of the B.C. Utilities Commission and an adviser to governments in Asia, Europe and South America with respect to electricity deregulation, says in his commentary on the Alberta electricity scene that from the very beginning Alberta's plans to introduce a competitive power market had problems. After all, nothing is perfect and maybe it's progress, not perfection that counts in the long run.

That observation will, unfortunately, be of little solace to the hundreds of industrial, commercial and business power consumers who warned then-energy minister Mike Cardinal and his predecessor, Steve West, the energy minister/godfather of deregulation, that the government's plan to move to a competitive market on Jan. 1, 2001 was problematic. Electricity consumers, after all, are the ones footing the electricity bill and in those areas of Canada where low electricity rates have historically been used to attract and stimulate large industry, their fears are real.

As Jaccard points out, there were signs of impending problems with Alberta's deregulation as early as August 2000, when the government's much-touted power auction raised a mere $1 billion instead of the $3 billion to $4 billion that had been projected by industry observers.

In addition, the auction attracted only a handful of bidders, with the result that two Alberta-based, municipally owned utilities, Epcor and Enmax, were able to capture the bulk of the generation available after a number of higher-profile American energy traders dropped out of the process.

Almost one-third of the available generation did not attract bids (although a good portion sold at a second auction, adding a further $1 billion to the pool of funds available to Albertans) and an important chunk of the province's power remains inexplicably under government control to this day.

Of greater interest -- for both taxpayers and ratepayers -- is Jaccard's pricing analysis that shows most purchasers of generation (Epcor and Enmax among them) paid so little at the auction that they will most likely pay off their initial investment in just one year.

That will leave those companies free to "earn substantial profits for the remaining life of the power purchase agreements, some of which last for close to 20 years", he claims.

That suggests the government -- in its eagerness to proceed with deregulation -- sold off generation too cheaply.

Enmax, for instance, is expected to report net profits of some $250 million for the last year -- compared to $44 million in 2000.

"When distribution and other costs are added to the wholesale prices and the rebate, Alberta's net residential rates for 2001 were about 12 cents per kilowatt hour, giving the province the dubious distinction of jumping from one of the lowest to the highest electricity rates in the country," Jaccard says.” The Electricity Forum

So why are we paying Mr. West, Dr No, Dr. Death, anything since his privatization schemes have cost Alberta public sector workers their jobs and Alberta consumers millions in extra electrical costs?

“A spokesperson in Klein's office said West had been working in the lucrative private sector when he came to work for the premier.”

While Klein was away he left his cabinet Ministers to fend off the press. An obviously embarrassed Iris Evans said; "This was a contractual obligation and as such they paid it out. Do I think that settlement is significant? Yes, it is significant. But I'm not necessarily saying it is out of line with what you would get in the private sector."

Once he was out of government he became a paid insider lobbyist for business interests in the province including the Hotel Owners Association, of Alberta. Again the cronyism of this government and its ex cabinet ministers knows no limits. How does being a lobbyist/consultant to the Government qualify as a private sector job, though it is obviously lucrative.

And after his return to his recent position in the government he negotiated his own contract and pay out! Nice work if you can get it. Remember this is the guy that broke union contracts and fired staff with NO severance packages.

And when we are talking about the private sector, what exactly are we referring to here, a job a MacDonalds, probably not. Even in the private sector the payouts to top executives are limited to what they would be earning. Since Dr. West didn’t earn Albertans anything, the question is why are WE paying him instead of the Tory Party which hired him?

Cronyism Abounds in the Klein Reichstadt

Prior to the provincial election last fall you could practically hear the crash and fall of the office chairs as Tory cabinet ministers rushed out of their offices to collect huge severance packages.

As the NDP pointed out during the election on their Platinum Handshake web site:

“Energy Minister Murray Smith is not just responsible for your power bills doubling – he was indeed the architect of the energy deregulation disaster.

But now, Smith is grazing the greener pastures of plum patronage on your dime. Smith is in line for a sweet gig at Alberta’s spankin’-new Washington trade office. He’s retiring from politics, so will receive about $350,000 in severance just for quitting his job. In addition, he’ll be appointed the head Washington trade office with a cool $450,000 salary, living allowance, and benefits package.

The irony is that Murray Smith shut down a bunch of trade offices in 1995, when he was Economic Development Minister. The reason? The offices had become places where Tory cronies died and went to patronage heaven, and had become a symbol of the wastefulness of Premier Don Getty’s Tory government.”

Mr. Smith was not alone, as an Edmonton Journal Editorial pointed out, he was joined by:

“Cabinet ministers Stan Woloshyn, Halvar Jonson and Pat Nelson are all in line for a "transition allowance" of about $500,000 after announcing they won't be running in the next provincial election. Lorne Taylor will receive about $375,000.”

And Premier Klein will get a big fat pay out of half a million dollars when he leaves.

“While a premier's-office spokeswoman says the severance payments are intended to compensate MLAs in lieu of a pension, the government already contributes to an MLA's retirement savings by paying him or her half the maximum allowable RRSP contribution ($7,750 this year) to put into a retirement fund -- money that does not have to be matched by the member. An MLA like Jonson, elected before 1989, also receives pension benefits under the old plan eliminated by Klein in 1993.

The premier made the changes just before the 1993 election, in response to widespread voter concerns about generous pensions and practices such as double dipping, in which former Alberta cabinet ministers drew pension benefits while still sitting as MLAs. The bill effectively ended the formal pension plan for MLAs elected after 1989.

During the subsequent election, Klein told disgruntled voters that 35 MLAs, including himself, would receive "no pension whatsoever." Yet all these MLAs receive an RRSP allowance each year and a severance payout upon retirement. Klein will be eligible for a severance package of more than $500,000 if he retires before the next election.”

Total cost for taxpayers for rats jumping ship $5 million. Let’s remember this is the same government that fired workers and gave them no severance. Something Herr Klein should remember when he gives his pal $180,000 after firing him.

But in Alberta it’s the workers who get the goose, while those giving the goose get the golden egg.

KLEIN AIDE CONDEMNED FOR $180K SEVERANCE

Lorraine Turchansky

Canadian Press

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

EDMONTON (CP) - The man who once presided over the firing of hundreds of Alberta civil servants was condemned Wednesday as a hypocrite for taking a $180,000 severance package after six months of work in the premier's office.

Steve West, who was a cabinet minister in the days of massive cost-cutting by the Conservatives in the 1990s, returned as Premier Ralph Klein's chief of staff in February 2004.

West had earned the nickname Dr. No after pulling colour televisions out of provincial jails, chopping government jobs, launching electrical deregulation and privatizing liquor stores, vehicle registries and parks. Klein said he needed a "tough taskmaster" like West in his office.

But two days after the Nov. 22 election, a news release announced that West was leaving because his work was done and he wanted to return to the private sector.

Although it was painted as a voluntary move, political observers have suggested West was dumped because the Tories lost seats in the election.

"Steve West boasted of terminating hundreds and in some cases thousands of employees, many of whom never got any severance," fumed Liberal Opposition Leader Kevin Taft. "It's just outrageous. It's completely morally bankrupt."

Taft called on West to refuse to take the money on ethical grounds.

West was not available for comment.

NDP Leader Brian Mason called the payout "hypocritical in the extreme."

He suggested that if West is so fond of working in the private sector, he should take a severance package in line with that sector. Most corporate managers, he noted, get a month's pay for each year worked, so that would put West's buyout at two weeks.

Instead, his severance totalled more than his annual salary, which is believed to be in the range of $113,000-$152,000.

Klein is on vacation and was not available for comment. Deputy premier Shirley McClellan said she wasn't prepared to talk about the West contract because it was none of her business.

Taft recently fired his own chief of staff, which is also a taxpayer-funded position. That severance was still being negotiated, "but it's well within what you would expect normally," he said, possibly a month or two's pay.

Dan MacLennan, who heads the union that represents Alberta government employees, said he didn't blame West personally for seeking the best possible deal for himself. In fact, he said he wished his negotiators could get those kinds of deals.

"We're bargaining with the government today and there's not a lot of money for change right now, so when the members see $180,000 for someone, they'd like to know how that bargaining worked compared to ours," said MacLennan.

© The Canadian Press 200

WEST DEFENDS HIS PACKAGE

Broadcast News

Thursday, February 17, 2005

EDMONTON -- A former chief of staff for Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is defending his large severance package.

The premier's office confirmed earlier this week that Steve West was paid $180,000 more than his annual salary -- after working only six months.

West says the money was equivalent to one year's salary, plus a payout of his benefits.

He says what he received was less than half of what he was making in the private sector over the past four years.

West received $119,000 four years ago when he retired as a member of the Alberta legislature.

He's also entitled to a member's pension of more than $27,000 a year, which he's not yet collecting.

The NDP has said the province should take its cue from the private sector when it comes to paying severance to managers.

The going rate for corporations is one month's pay for a year worked.

Watchdog says former minister's image as a 'tax warrior' is tarnished

By PABLO FERNANDEZ, CALGARY SUN

The lucrative severance package given Steve West for six months of work tarnishes a reputation he built as a "tax warrior," said a spokesman for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday. West, a former provincial government minister, was given $180,000 in severance after serving -- for only six months -- as Premier Ralph Klein's chief of staff.

Federation spokesman David MacLean called it ironic that a politician who did so much to hold the public service accountable and to cut government spending, ended up as a bureaucrat who took home "an obscene" amount of cash for very little work.

"He was so tough on spending and expected so much from government and bureaucrats and now he himself is on the receiving end of a huge lump of taxpayer money," said MacLean.

"He led the charge and gained a reputation as a friend of taxpayers ... this tarnishes that reputation."

West's approach was considered the epitome of conservatism during Klein's early years as premier and is responsible for the privatization of liquor stores and registries in the province.

West's severance package shows just how far the Klein government has strayed from its promise to be a fiscally-conservative administration, said MacLean.

"This government has drifted far from what got them there in the first place -- fiscal conservatism and respect for taxpayers' dollars," said MacLean.

Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft demanded West give the money back.

Taft said that under West's watch, transportation and utilities workers, as well as Alberta Liquor Control Board employees, were let go in the 1990s without one dollar in severance.

Earlier in the week, the government justified their actions by saying the severance package was likely part of a contract signed to lure West from the private sector to public office.

But with the number of bright people in Alberta willing and qualified to do the job, and considering the typically short career spans of chiefs of staff, a severance package of that magnitude is never prudent, said MacLean.

West did not return calls.

Alberta's Klein appoints new 24-member cabinet

Wed. Nov. 24 2004 Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Ralph Klein went back to the future Wednesday, snaring former adviser and friend Rod Love to be his chief of staff for his final term.

The premier announced the move as he rolled out a new 24-member cabinet that brings together a mix of old and new faces.

Love, who was Klein's closest adviser for nearly two decades and ran his campaigns for mayor, Tory leader and premier, replaces Steve West, who is heading back to the private sector.

Love left Klein's office in 1998 to begin a private consulting business. He also did a short stint as chief of staff for former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day.

Before Monday's Alberta election, he mused that his years with Klein had been special.

"I had a great run with him -- 19 years,'' he said. "Everything I have got in this world I owe to him.''

The Tories won the Monday vote, capturing 61 seats in the 83-seat legislature. But the victory party was subdued as opposition members reclaimed a number of Tory seats in Edmonton and even won in Klein's hometown of Calgary.

Klein said West served him well in a transition period after Love's successor, Peter Elzinga, stepped down last April.

"I am very pleased to welcome Rod back to my staff,'' he said. "With a new mandate for our government and a very important social agenda ahead for Alberta, having Rod as my chief of staff will bring proven experience to my office team.''

Alberta shifts entire $1.5 billion cost of new power lines onto consumers

EDMONTON (CP) -- Alberta consumers are on the hook to pay the entire $1.5-billion cost of building new power lines, the province's energy minister confirmed Friday.
Greg Melchin said the province rejected a 2002 Energy and Utilities Board ruling that consumers and generators should each pay half the cost of new transmission lines.
The move has outraged consumer groups and the opposition, who say electricity customers are getting a raw deal.
But Melchin defended the decision by his predecessor, Murray Smith, to overrule the EUB.
"It wouldn't be in Albertans' interests to see the generators lose money year after year, or else we'll have no generation, we'll have no electricity at all," said the minister.
The gravity of this policy decision only became clear last month, when a report by the Alberta Electric System Operator pegged the total cost of upgrading the province's power lines at $1.5 billion.
The Consumers Association of Canada said this will mean added charges on power bills for Alberta consumers once construction of the new power lines begins.
"In many respects the generators want all of the juice and none of the pulp," said Jim Wachowich, who speaks on Alberta electricity issues for the Consumers Association.
Premier Ralph Klein had said previously that he did not support the idea of consumers paying the entire cost of new power lines.
But premier's office spokesman Jerry Bellikka said the policy shift was done for transparency.
If generators had to pay for half the cost of new power lines, they would simply pass the cost on to consumers' on the power bills anyway, said Bellikka.
But Wachowich said there's no guarantee that power generators would have had the opportunity to pass on the costs.
"If a generator went out of business or was forced to sell power cheaper than it had forecast, then consumers would not see these costs on their bill," he said.
Opposition Liberal energy critic Hugh MacDonald says Albertans are already paying some of the highest power bills in Canada and this will drive costs even higher.
"Electricity consumers in this province have been sold down the river by their government and they're going to have another add-on to their bill," said MacDonald. "This is flawed ideology."
Energy Department spokeswoman Donna McColl said when consumers start paying the cost of the new power lines in five years, the average power bill will increase by about $2 per month.
But MacDonald said department estimates have been inaccurate in the past. He pointed out Albertans were promised lower power rates under industry deregulation, but instead saw their electricity bills soar.
"How can you rely on the government's word? We have seen bills go higher and the credibility of this government on electricity deregulation go lower. They should tell us what the true costs are."

---

[1] “Alberta, however, has a precedent. In 1992, when Gettywas Premier, Solicitor General Steve West embarrassedthe Conservative government by being involved in an altercationin a bar. It was personal, in public, and involvedliquor. When the Legislature opened some weeks later, West swore that he would not touch liquor again as long as he held public office. “ Rich Vivone

[2] “Ashley Geddes, a colleague at The Edmonton Journal, had to wait a year to get a story in print in the early '90s about cabinet minister Steve West's shenanigans in local bars. References to West's sometime drinking buddy of the day, Klein, were removed.” Mark Lisac

[3] Klein’s drinking habits have a long public history.

The stories of Klein and alcohol are endless. He drank openly as Mayor of Calgary in the 1980s. He made the St. Louis Hotel in Calgary a national institution. He drinks with reporters. When he decided to contest the Conservative Party leadership in 1992, he was asked about the drinking. His response: a guy can change. He didn’t.

[4] Love’s batting average on creating right wing party leaders is high. He also worked to get Stockwell Day elected leader of the Federal Alliance Party, ok Day was a screw up but hey that’s not Love’s fault. He went on to organize Stephen Harpers coronation as both Alliance Leader and then Leader of the newly merged Alliance/PC party.

[5] LOUIS D. HYNDMAN

Director since 1986 and resident of Edmonton, AB. He is a senior partner of the law firm Field LLP. Mr. Hyndman is a director of Canadian Urban Ltd., Clarke Inc., EllisDon Inc., Enbridge Inc., Melcor Developments Ltd. and Meloche Monnex Inc. He held several ministerial appointments before serving as Provincial Treasurer of Alberta from 1979 to 1986. Mr. Hyndman is a member of the Order of Canada and a trustee of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.

[6] DAWN FARRELL began her career at TransAlta in 1985 as a Forecast Analyst. Over the last 15 years, she has held a number of positions including Supervisor of Forecasting and Market Research, Vice President ofBusiness Development, and Executive Vice President, Independent Power Projects. Currently Executive VicePresident Corporate Development, Dawn is responsible for identifying and developing opportunities in newtechnologies, eCommerce, and Mergers and Acquisition activities. Outside of TransAlta, Dawn is a Director forMount Royal College Board of Governance, Vice Chair of the Mount Royal College Foundation, and a Member of the Calgary Foundation Investment Committee.

Alberta
Canada
del.Canada
Politics
del.politics
political

The End of Public ACCESS

Once upon a time Alberta had both a public funded radio station and TV station. The radio station CKUA was the oldest and only provincially owned public radio station in North America.
The TV station was ACCESS and is now the only private educational TV channel in Canada.

This week CHUM Ltd. purchased up all the shares of the Learning TV Network which includes ACCESS. Its part of its move into the Alberta media marketplace with its purchase of A-Channel in Edmonton and Calgary and its launch of a new FM radio station in Edmonton. This is the final act of fire sale piracy that sacrificed public access to media on the altar of privatization.

ACCESS was a crown corporation created to house both CKUA and an Educational TV network modeled on TVO(ntario) and the Knowledge Network in B.C. It used public access to cable to launch itself, and was a crown corporation.

The upper management of ACCESS were Tory good old boys owing their positions to who they knew , not what they knew. And it was this that led to the downfall for both CKUA and ACCESS. CKUA has survived as a community supported radio station. This week ACCESS was fully privatized.

This then is a tale of crony capitalism Alberta style.

CKUA The Day the Music Died
A lesson in HOW NOT TO PRIVATIZE

CKUA was surprisingly progressive in its music and news programming, even during the right wing Social Credit era, and through Peter Lougheed's Progressive Conservative ( PC) government era of the seventies and eighties. It broadcast KPFA news a decidedly left newservice and it covered Alberta politics with independent progressive news and features.
It was not just publically owned, but was opena nd remains open to community and public involvement.

I worked with CKUA in the early 1970's setting up its first ever Teen Youth radio show. Youth Radio Production was a cooperative of high school students programming on CKUA every Saturday for 1/2 hour reporting on activism in the community. We were all volunteers who had created radio shows in our High Schools using the school intercom system, those radio shows still exist in Edmonton High Schools. Several of the high school radio show programmers went on to work at making CJSR at the U of A a viable community station.

Like the CBC, CKUA was funded by taxpayers, but was not beholden to the government. For years as an educational radio station it did function as the first distance education program for Alberta Education, and it ran Question Period from the Legislature. During the nineties with the privatization putsch of the Klein government, Question Period was deemed too 'expensive' to support on CKUA and was canceled by the government. So much for democracy in Alberta.

Using a phony debt and deficit crisis to push to reform the state in the 1990's the Alberta Tories under Ralph Klein became Republican Lite. The Alberta Government turned to the extreme right, under the influence of the Reagan Republicans, Sir Roger Davies of New Zealand, the Thatcher Government in England, and with the support of right wing think tanks like the Fraser Institute in Canada and the Cato Institute in the US.

The debt and deficit hysteria was international and allowed right wing parties in power around the world to embrace "change" and propose "radical new ideas" on society and the governments they ruled. Of course there was nothing new in their ideas, it was the same old same old tired mantra of the Chicago School of Economics (Milton Friedman) and their Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises) predecessors; it was the cry of the lazzie faire; Let the Market rule- privatize, privatize, privatize.

In Alberta the so called deficit was temporary, and was a direct result of the government giving a royalty holiday to the giant oil corporations that dominate the provinces economy. It used the economic down turn affecting North America between 1993-1995 to impose wage and benefit cuts on public sector workers as well as downsizing and outsourcing, and began its campaign to sell off public assets and to privatize everything.

As Ralph Klein likes to say; "We want to get the government OUT of business." or "The government has no business being in business", sheer intellectual brilliance out of our infamous Teflon populist Premier. It's a beer hall catchphrase that sums up the neoliberal agenda of privatizing everything.

And that’s what the Klein government proceeded to do. And do it abysmally. As with the privatization of the Liquor Control Board in Alberta (ALCB), everything was put on the block and sold at fire sale prices. CKUA and ACCESS were no exception. Throughout this process of privatization, the same crony capitalism that Russia has suffered from was prevalent in Alberta too. Which is what happens when a One Party State embraces neoliberalism, it moves from state-capitalism to the state funding of capitalism.

In 1994, Alberta's Minister of Municipal Affairs, Steve West, known as the dark lord of privatization, made sure everything in his pervue was for sale. He oversaw the privatization of the ALCB, as well as the Public Works department which was responsible for Highway Construction and Maintenance in Alberta.

He was Kleins unfailing hatchetman. Like Klein, West made no bones that the government should not be in the the business of broadcasting. And he told CKUA and ACCESS to come up with a plan to run independent of government funding. He gave them a month!

Already in the wings CHUM created the Canadian Learning Television and got a broadcast licence with the support of the Alberta government which paid CLT $8 million annually for three years. It sold CLT, ACCESS TV's Edmonton facilities, including library material and the broadcasting and duplicating rights to those materials for $1.

Ever the hatchetman West fired CKUA's President, Don Thomas and its GM Jackie Rollans. He replaced them with a hand picked foundation board. The foundation board was created within the ACCESS coporation to run CKUA.

"Gail Hinchliffe, a Calgary-based property developer with strong Conservative party ties, served as the chair of ACCESS from 1991 and (simultaneously) as the CEO of CKUA from October 1994." Within three years Hinchliffe and her cronies had spent millions of dollars on themselves leaving the station on the verge of bankruptcy.

As the Auditor General would later report on the CKUA debacle; " Further, at times during the period from February 1994 to April 1997, some directors of the Foundation were also directors of ACCESS."

In March 1997 she and her board cried bankruptcy and pulled the plug on the station, their political agenda was clear, they had never intended to make CKUA a viable operation, they were there to plunder it and shut it down.

As Larry Pratt noted in his article in Alberta Views in 1998:

"A lawyer friend of mine says the fiasco surrounding last spring's closure and reopening of CKUA radio station made her long for a return to the days when political leaders who had betrayed the public trust would be dragged out to a city square and locked in stocks for a few days of self-reflection, preferably in February.

What really outraged her was less the revelations about financial mismanagement or the incompetence of CKUA's board than it was the total failure of anyone - board, management, government - to take any responsibility for the mess. How is it possible that no one was held accountable for the million dollars that the former directors of CKUA paid themselves and their own companies out of the station's scarce funds from 1994 to 1997, the period after it was privatized by the Klein government, in spite of an explicit ban on any remuneration for the board members?"

The CKUA Foundation board under CEO Gail Hinchliffe were predominately from Calgary, and like other privateers benefiting from this provinces crony capitalism, she was part of the Calgary Tory network. While she issued layoff notices to all the staff and after she shut down the station she still paid herself a salary.

SEE magazine reported at the time that "Hinchliffe had dual roles as board chair and CEO, and board member Larry Clausen's Calgary company, Communications Inc., handled the station's marketing contract. Revenue Canada documents showed three of the station's top executives shared some $201,000 in earnings in 1995."

Liberal MLA Lauri Blakeman revealed that " former board chair Gail Hinchliffe's company received $388,345 between Aug. 1994 and April 1997; former board member Larry Clausen's firm received $245,345 from March 1995 - March 1997; former board member and station accountant Gerry Luciani's company was paid $120,190 from July 1995 - May, 1997; and former board member Rick Baker's company, on contract to develop Friends of CKUA chapters across the province, earned $48,150 from March 1995 - Aug. 1996."

This crony capitalism is rampant in the Klein Government that rules Alberta. Under Klein's leadership the PC's became the Party of Calgary with links to the National Citizens Coalition (which moved its headquarters to Calgary), the Federal Conservative Party (which was formerly the Reform/Alliance party based in Calgary), the right wing think-tank the Fraser Institute, lobbyists for the Charter School movment, and the right wing think tank in the Political Science department of University of Calgary.

Under the leadership of both Peter Lougheed and Don Getty the PC's ruling Alberta viewed Calgary as the headquarters for corporations in Alberta and Edmonton, the provincial capital, as headquarters of the government. Under Klein the putsch to privatize the government was also an attempt to radically restructure power in Alberta, moving it from the capitol city to the corporate environs of Calgary. Even if it meant that ALCB buildings and inventory were sold off at below cost and CKUA and Access were sold off for $10 and $1 each!

The unionized staff that was all laid off called an emergency meeting and decided to shut down the station at midnight. This was a tactic never before used by media facing state intervention in their radio or TV stations. Around the world radio and TV stations have been occupied and continued broadcasting. In hindsight the tactic was brilliant. It mobilized Albertans in outrage and it was done in the middle of the provincial election!

Hinchliffe talked about running a scab radio station with volunteer announcers, but that was for naught, their were public pickets across the province at every CKUA station, and no one was going to cross the line.

As CKUA GM Ken Reagan told the CRTC last November :

"In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, when CKUA was taken off the air in 1997, what occurred was, indeed, unprecedented and, some might say, astounding. The citizenry of one of Canada's most politically conservative provinces rose up to save their community radio service. Something even more remarkable when you consider that essential services like health and education were also being cut significantly at that time. But people drew a line in the sand over CKUA radio and it begs the question: why? To be honest, I'm not sure that I have an answer. Except to surmise that over its 77-year history, CKUA has become such an integral part of people's lives in Alberta and the life of its community that, for those people who love it, losing it is not an option. And I'm not trying to hyperbolize or be melodramatic, but the love the people have for CKUA is deep and genuine."

Mass protests and candle light vigils were held and within a month a new board was created which removed the privateers and created a viable non-profit public station, which is still running the station today.

Unfortunately one of things CKUA sacrificed in its rebirth was news and critical news features. In order to be a PBS like public access radio station with telethons, it has spent several years being more music than substance.

The Klein government did nothing to change its "privatization is the cure for everything ideology". And it still engages in crony capitalism funding CHUM to run ACCESS. One of the ideological reasons given by the right wing for privatizing the State is that crown corporations are a monopoly, with no competition.

Of course ACCESS was a monopoly it was the only educational station in the province. There are plenty of private broadcasters in Alberta but none who provide this service because it is 'not profitable'. In fact without Alberta Education and other provincial governments funneling taxpayers money into ACCESS it would not be a viable private Educational TV station. And it's still a monopoly, albeit a private one!

While the public rallied for CKUA lost in the dust of the Klein Revolution in Alberta was the effects of the privatization of ACCESS. It never went off the air, it just quietly shifted from being owned by Albertans to being owned by CITY-TV/CHUM and funded by Albertans. It is another example of the public purse being used for private profit.

The most recent P3-Public Private Partnership- endeavor of the government is to fund the private construction of a ring road around Edmonton. The reason to contract out this service, paying the contractor $34 million a year for 30 years, says Infrastructure Minister Lyle Oberg its because the province doesn't own any road construction equipment. Nope they sold that off at fire sales prices of 25 cents on the dollar to the private highway construction contractors back at the same time they sold off CKUA, ACCESS and the ALCB.

Appendix to this Article

CKUA History of a privatization putsch

ACCESS- The Privatization of Educational TV in Alberta

Also See Wild West Buy Out, February 20, 2005









This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.









Canada
del.Canada

media
del.media

Politics
del.politics
political

economy
del.economy

Alberta