Yukon's no-cause evictions are little known, poorly tracked, and 'shocked' this former tenant

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'I didn’t realize that was something that could happen to

 us,' says Karen MacDonald

Anna Desmarais · CBC News · Posted: Sep 09, 2022 4:55 PM CT | Last Updated: September 9

Karen MacDonald had no idea she could lose her rental unit for no reason. It comes back to a little known clause in the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, which says a landlord can end a rental agreement any time, so long as they give up to three months notice. (Anna Desmarais/CBC)

Karen MacDonald's apartment in the Whitehorse neighbourhood of Riverdale was more than a rental unit. 

It was a fresh start for her and her nine-year-old son after the death of her husband in 2015. 

Stricken with grief, MacDonald found she could no longer live in the family home they shared. 

So the apartment, down the street from her son's daycare and her job as a nursing home attendant at Copper Ridge Place, came into their lives at the right time. 

"It was just such, such a blessing to have moved here," MacDonald told CBC News. 

She was devastated when, in May, her landlord left an eviction notice on her door.

"I didn't realize that was something that could happen to us, I didn't know there was eviction without cause," MacDonald said.

CBC reached out to MacDonald's previous landlord but was unable to arrange an interview by press time. 

'Enough is enough' 

In Yukon, a landlord can end a rental agreement any time so long as they give two to three months notice, depending on the length of the lease.

That means a landlord can serve a tenant with an eviction notice even if they haven't broken a condition of their rental agreement. 

The Yukon NDP, long advocates for changing the territory's rental legislation, held a couple of press conferences over the summer to raise the profile of the issue. The latest, on Aug. 26, put forward two tenants from the same rental address who said everyone in their building was being evicted so the landlord could raise rents. That's the third recent so-called "mass eviction" in Whitehorse's downtown, the NDP claims. 

"It is building after building after building of people being evicted," NDP MLA Emily Tredger said at the Aug. 26 press conference. "Enough is enough." 

The party also tabled a petition by the Anti-Poverty Coalition in the Legislative Assembly last November to stop no-cause evictions temporarily until the tenancy act can be reviewed. 

The Safe at Home office in Whitehorse. (Anna Desmarais/CBC)

Some, including the NDP and groups like Safe at Home and the Anti-Poverty Coalition, say the Yukon is one of the only jurisdictions in Canada that allows no-cause evictions.

If a tenant wants to fight an eviction, they can apply for dispute resolution at the Yukon's Residential Tenancy Office — a legally-binding process where an adjudicator makes a decision after gathering evidence from both the landlord and tenant. 

Eva Wieckowski from the tenancy office said her office saw 201 disputes filed between April 2021 and March 2022. 

The tenancy office doesn't track the nature of the complaints, so Wieckowski said they do not know how many are attributed to no-cause evictions. That means the prevalence of this kind of eviction is disputed.

Volume of problem disputed

Lars Hartling, the president of the Yukon Residential Landlord Association, said the rhetoric that evictions are happening without cause is just one of the challenges facing property owners in the territory right now. 

He said his own real estate business hasn't made investments in residential properties in the last two years. 

"There's just a ton of uncertainty in the market," Hartling said. "For every investment that's made in the Yukon, there is a landlord behind it trying to make a wise, educated decision.

"This [evictions without cause] discussion just adds to the fire and doesn't allow a certainty in the market for people to feel that they should invest here." 

If a landlord does choose a no-cause eviction, Hartling said, there's always a "back story" for why. For example, the landlord could be moving back to Whitehorse or concerned about their property. 

Hartling said the "vast majority" of tenancies are ended by tenants, not landlords, so he thinks the no-cause evictions issue is "very minute." 

Moving boxes piled up at MacDonald's home. (Anna Desmarais/CBC)

Kate Mechan, executive director of nonprofit Safe at Home, sees things differently. She believes no-cause evictions are playing a major role in homelessness in the territory. 

There are roughly 200 homeless individuals, including 60 children, in Whitehorse, Mechan said. She doesn't know how many of these people were evicted without cause, but she said it's likely a "high percentage." 

"Essentially anybody who's being evicted right now, who is, you know, of a certain income bracket or can't afford housing or is stuck in the rental market, will be homeless," Mechan said. 

Mechan gave some reasons why tenants could face this type of eviction: landlords looking to raise rents and avoid the territory's new rent cap; renovations coming to a particular unit; or landlords moving rentals to short-term Airbnbs for the summer. 

No commitment to review residential tenancy act 

NDP Leader Kate White said her party raised concerns with the Residential Landlord and Tenancy Act as consultations took place in 2012. Chief among those concerns was no-cause evictions. 

But she said those concerns weren't acknowledged by the government — or now, 10 years later, as the same problems persist. 

"It doesn't make sense because there's an opportunity for the government to close that loophole and protect people, and they're just not doing it," White said. 

A statement from Renée Francoeur, communications advisor for Yukon Cabinet Communications, didn't commit to reviewing the act. 

Instead, her statement said ending no-cause evictions would mean passing an amendment in the Legislative Assembly — in what she calls a "lengthy process." 

The NDP could have tabled amendments in either of the last two sessions, the statement continued, but the party did not. 

"It's clearly not that much of a priority for them," the statement ends. 

There is no legislative procedure that gives members a timeframe where they must review a bill, according to Dan Cable, the assembly's clerk. 

Cable estimates small amendments take a year before they come into effect. 

More comprehensive reviews or bill redrafts could take at least three years, he continued. 

Yukon tenant association in the works 

The only reason MacDonald can share her story publicly, she said, is because she's found a way out. 

She and her son will be living with her fiancé in a home that he owns — a "backup," as she puts it, that many other Yukoners don't have. 

"A lot of people that I've been connected with so far have been really afraid … of retaliatory evictions," MacDonald said. "And in this market, the idea of potentially damaging, endangering your housing — it's incredibly intimidating." 

MacDonald is now in the early stages of creating a Yukon tenancy association that can step in for renters who are struggling to keep their landlords accountable when things go sideways. 

• IN DEPTH
  How the Yukon's years-long housing crisis confounds leaders at every level of government

• 2 Yukoners describe struggle to find suitable, affordable housing

The organization will also teach tenants about the rights that they do and don't have under the Yukon's current legislation, MacDonald said. 

"There is a lack of knowledge of how vulnerable tenants are and how little protections they have," she said, "because I was shocked."

More Canadians planning to leave their jobs in the next 12 months: StatsCan

Hilary Punchard, BNN Bloomber

The latest jobs data from Statistics Canada shows that more Canadians are planning to leave their jobs in the next 12 months.

In the August Labour Force Survey, 11.9 per cent of full-time employees said they are thinking about leaving their current job, which is 5.5 per cent higher than January’s data.

Brendon Bernard, senior economist at hiring lab for Indeed.com, said this data could represent Canadians wanting to leave the labour force, but it also includes workers wanting to change jobs.

“I think there's a bit of a catch-up that we'd kind of like expect to see in those numbers, especially given that opportunities have been quite plentiful in the Canadian economy,” Bernard said in an interview Friday.

Bernard added  that the lack of job hopping and quitting over the past year could be one reason why “Canadian wage growth has taken a bit longer to ramp up than it did in the U.S.

“But, if job seekers are starting to be a little more fluid now, that's another factor that could cause some (wage) pressure in the labor market,” Bernard said.

Average hourly wages gained 5.4 per cent compared to the same time a year ago, which

 is up from 5.2 per cent in July.

Bernard said he’s been “expecting stronger wage growth momentum for a while,” but it’s coming at a time where the Bank of Canada is “really doing whatever it can to bring down inflation.”

“I think like there's going to be a bit of a tug of war between the momentum in the headline figures we're seeing and what's going on in pay.”

Statistics Canada reported overall employment levels fell for a third-straight month in August, as the economy shed 39,700 jobs.

The jobless rate climbed 5.4 per cent, from the record low of 4.9 per cent a month ago.

Workers falling behind as some firms see record profits: Labour leaders

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

A record labour shortage and rising wages may seem like good news for workers, but labour leaders say employees aren't seeing the gains that corporations are experiencing amid sky-high inflation. 

Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske says workers are feeling the pinch as the cost of living rises.

Canada's year-over-year inflation rate was 7.6 per cent in July, while wages grew by 5.2 per cent over that same period. 

Meanwhile, Bruske says corporations in industries like oil and gas have been posting record profits. 

Addressing that imbalance, she says, is one of the priorities of the labour movement going forward. 

"It's making sure that we actually meet the affordability crisis by addressing inflation and by having governments look at the gigantic profits that many employers are reaping right now," Bruske said. 

The NDP have been pressing the federal government to extend the windfall tax levied on financial institutions to oil and gas companies, as well as big box retailers. 

But some economists are weary of windfall taxes over concerns they could scare away business investment.

According to analysis conducted by David Macdonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, after-tax corporate profits reached a historically high percentage of the total Canadian economy output in the second quarter of this year.

In contrast, Macdonald found workers' compensation as a share of gross domestic product trended downward, falling to the lowest level since 2006.

"It's pretty clear that we're seeing record high profits, and record high proportion of our economy is going to corporate after tax profits as opposed to workers wages," Macdonald said.

The economist says the current windfall tax is "very limited" and suggests expanding it to the entire corporate sector. 

Ottawa and District Labour Council president Sean McKenny says there are some businesses that undoubtedly took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but seeing the high profits of some corporations has been frustrating for workers. 

"That bugs workers in general, because, again, the fairness is not there," McKenny said.

Private sector wages up six months in a row as employees push firms to counter inflation

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 09 2022


Wages in the private sector have risen for the sixth month in a row as workers demand higher pay to help fight the soaring cost of living. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Wages in the private sector have risen for the sixth month in a row as workers demand higher pay to help fight the soaring cost of living, findings of a monthly survey suggests.

Companies in key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction as well as wholesale and retail— which largely rely on casual labourers — have reported higher pay demands between March and August.


The pay raises have, however, been marginal at a time when firms largely hired to “boost client services and complete work on time” amid falling sales, according to Stanbic Bank Kenya’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI).

“Firms that saw an uptick [in pay] mostly attributed this to higher compensation offers due to the rising cost of living,” analysts at Stanbic Bank and American analytics firm, S&P Global, wrote in the PMI report for August. “Despite picking up slightly from July, however, the rate of staff wage inflation [in August] was only mild overall.”

Inflation — a measure of the cost of living over the last 12 months— climbed to a 62-month high of 8.5 percent in August, the fastest since 9.21 percent in June 2017 when the country battled a biting drought.

The deepening cost-of-living crisis this year has largely been exacerbated by Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine which disrupted global supply chains and affected the availability of items such as wheat, edible oil and fertilizer, thus raising their prices.

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That has been compounded by below-average rainfall since last year which has hit agricultural output, including staple maize, and a weakening shilling against the globally bullish US dollar in a net import economy.

Unlike back in 2017 when the Treasury largely allowed waiver of import duties to smoothen the purchase of key food items such as maize, rice and milk powder from abroad for several months, the government in July entered into a month-long subsidy deal with maize millers.

The Sh4 billion deal, which targeted to halve the price of a two-kilogramme packet of maize meal which had crossed Sh200 for the first time, failed to benefit the majority of consumers who struggled to access the subsidised flour.

Manufacturers last month flagged rising labour costs as a key driver of operational costs in an economic setting of depressed sales amid the fastest climb in inflation in more than five years.

cmunda@ke.nationmedia.com

Hard bargain: Unionized workers prepare to battle for big pay hikes amid super-charged inflation

Unions winning hefty increases as Bank of Canada chief warns employers not to dole out whopping, multi-year salary hikes

Author of the article:Joe O'Connor
Publishing date: September 2, 2022 • 

Mark Hancock, CUPE president, speaks during a rally in Saskatchewan, in 2019. 

PHOTO BY LIAM RICHARDS/SASKATOON STARPHOENIX/POSTMEDIA FILES
Article content

Mark Hancock thought he wanted to become a teacher, a career path he imagined would be a much better fit than the two potential avenues his high-school’s aptitude test spat out.

“The test came back with funeral director or hotel manager,” he said, from his hometown of Port Coquitlam, B.C., where he’s sitting in a one-bedroom apartment that has a bare bones home office three steps from the coffee maker in one direction, and three steps from the balcony, where the 57-year-old heads for cigarette breaks between work calls.

Hancock never did become a teacher. But as national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) — the country’s largest union with more than 700,000 members — he represents the interests of tens of thousands of education workers as well as paramedics, health-care workers, airline staff, librarians, hydro crews and municipal employees, right down to the “rink rats” who keep the teenage “hooligans” in check during public skating hours on city rinks

“I did a couple years on rink patrol,” he said. “We had these ugly green jackets, so people could tell us apart from the other teenagers.”

These days, the union leader’s work outfits tend towards comfy blue jeans, running shoes and a collared short-sleeve shirt. For more formal occasions, such as labour conferences, he’ll layer on a dark-coloured sport coat worn with a sort of rumpled, working-person’s pride — minus, of course, a tie.

Mark Hancock during a recent visit to an ongoing strike in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland

. PHOTO BY CUPE NATIONAL

Those clothes are going to be logging some serious mileage in the months ahead as unionized workers — CUPE’s and otherwise — and those who employ them haggle out the particulars of new collective bargaining agreements in a super-charged inflationary time, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1980s, when the annual consumer inflation rate often exceeded five per cent.

Ever since, inflation has seldom strayed outside the Bank of Canada’s targeted range of one to three per cent. Labour negotiations came and went. Unionized workers got annual raises of two and sometimes one or even zero per cent.

All was well enough until a pandemic happened, supply chains snarled, consumer demand built up and then boiled over and fuel prices soared. Now we’re fretting over grocery bills and practically fainting at the pumps, as the year-over-year consumer price index rose 7.6 per cent in July, after rising 8.1 per cent in June.

“I think you have to put this in the whole context of workers and frustration,” Hancock said. “We lived through the pandemic — and I retreated to my apartment and did my best to help bend the curve — but so many other workers, union and non-union workers, kept going to work. Workers have had enough.”

Take the 55,000 CUPE education sector workers in Ontario — bus drivers, custodians, early childhood educators, just about everybody except teachers and management — who are calling for an annual wage hike of 11-plus per cent in negotiations with the provincial government. Or else.

Workers have had enough

MARK HANCOCK

The government is offering two per cent a year for the next four years for those making less than $40,000, and 1.25 per cent for the rest. The potential for labour Armageddon is in the air, and that’s just one situation in Ontario.

Hancock isn’t afraid of a good scrap, but he’s also old enough to remember the 1980s when inflation was last a major issue. Construct a graph charting the course of inflation versus wage negotiations through the 1970s and 1980s and what emerges is a pattern of generally higher wage settlements in high inflation years.

“It is never 100-per-cent compensation,” Anil Verma, an industrial relations professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said. “But, historically, if inflation is up five per cent, the union might win a three- or 3.5-per-cent wage increase.”

A lot can depend on where the bargaining starts, and who it involves. Consider the case of Toronto’s aquatics staff, a.k.a. lifeguards, swimming instructors, kiddie pool minders and outdoor pool staffers, who generally skew from teens to university-age in profile.

Lifeguard certification programs shut down when the world shut down in March 2020. The potential crop of new lifeguards and swim instructors, who typically replenish the ranks of those who age out and move on, dried up, as did wading pool staff. Stir in what tend to be unbearably hot and humid Toronto summers, and the lifeguard shortfall was the perfect situation for CUPE to request the city review their wages earlier this year.

Without a hostile shot being fired, the winner was … the lifeguards, who, as they survey the pool in their mirrored sunglasses this Labour Day weekend, are earning $21.19 an hour, up from $17.80. That’s a 19-per-cent increase in pay.

And the lifeguards aren’t the only ones getting paid.

Lifeguards are back on duty at Sunnyside Beach on Saturday June 5, 2021. 

Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

Thousands of private-sector janitors in Ottawa won a 6.4-per-cent hike in year one of a new deal struck in July. Federal government data that tracked seven major union settlements from March and April showed an annual average wage increase of 3.1 per cent, which is almost double what unionized workers were signing up for between March 2020 and January 2022.

“These are human services,” Verma said. “And I expect with human services, like health care and like lifeguards, where the demand for them is strong, that employers should be willing to pay them more.”

Emphasis on “should be.”

One of the things that most worries Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem, as he related during a July 14 panel discussion with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, is creating a dreaded wage-price spiral.

At a macroeconomic level, some wage increases are self-defeating for labour unions

ANIL VERMA 

It starts like this: To attract workers, businesses begin upping wages and then pass the cost of those hikes onto consumers. Higher wages stoke consumer demand, so prices go up even more. Then wages go up again, prices follow and the entire wage-price shooting match starts spiralling out of control in a self-perpetuating cycle.

“At a macroeconomic level, some wage increases are self-defeating for labour unions, because if you become very successful in gaining wages, that adds to the inflation, and then the inflation brings the economy back to where you started,” Verma said.

Macklem’s advice to CFIB members in July was to allow inflation a couple years to get back to his comfort zone of about two per cent, and to beware of doling out whopping, multi-year salary increases to workers.

Hancock’s response to the central-banker’s wage-spiral cautionary messaging to business: “It is BS, and Macklem should stay in his own lane.”

His point? Nobody, not even a brainy economist, has a crystal ball capable of foretelling with certainty when inflation will find its way back to the central bank’s two-per-cent happy place.

Macklem should stay in his own lane

MARK HANCOCK

In the meantime, there is plenty of contract negotiation to be done, and the high inflationary era of bygone years may offer a useful guide on how best to keep the labour peace.



Consider COLA, not the soda but cost-of-living-adjustment clauses. COLAs were commonplace in most collective bargaining agreements in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Statistics Canada. If inflation ticked up to six per cent in, say, year two of a contract deal where workers were slated for a three-per-cent raise, a COLA clause would bump it to four per cent.

Stable inflation all but did away with such clauses, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for them at the negotiating table again.

Another potential way to tackle things, Hancock said, is to shorten the contract term. Doing so means more work for negotiators, and likely more year-to-year uncertainty on both sides of the bargaining table. But if 2022 truly is an inflation anomaly, then pounding out a one-year deal and seeing what happens 12 months from now may just make the most sense.

“There are solutions there, and you don’t have to look outside the box — you have to look into the box — and see what it used to look like,” Hancock said.

Pretty wise words from a guy who, once upon a time, figured he’d become a teacher, but caught on as a rink rat and got bitten by the union bug instead.

• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: oconnorwrites

Doctors to vote on tentative agreement with Alberta government next week

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Health minister, AMA president say they are 'working

 together' to address issues brought forward by physicians

Hannah Kost · CBC News · Posted: Sep 10, 2022 

Details of the agreement were submitted for all AMA members to review on Friday, the association's president, Vesta Michelle Warren, said in a letter posted the same day. Doctors will be able to vote starting September 13. (MAD.vertise/Shutterstock)

After more than two years without an agreement, the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and the Alberta government announced Friday that they have negotiated a potential ratification package for the province's doctors.

Its details were submitted for AMA members to review on Friday, the association's president, Vesta Michelle Warren, said in a letter posted the same day.

Physicians will be able to vote on the package from Sept.13 until the 28.

Warren said it includes improvements to fees and "restores fair and appropriate mechanisms to deal with physician compensation."

"We are working together to address the serious challenges facing the health system and the issues brought forward by physicians throughout the province," Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping and Warren said in a joint statement on Friday.

"We share the same goals of stabilizing the health system including the physician practices that are part of infrastructure."

Years of tension

The newly proposed agreement comes after tension between the province's physicians and the United Conservative government began in Feb. 2020, when former Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro unilaterally ended the AMA's master agreement and imposed a new physician compensation framework.

At the time, Shandro said the changes would prevent an overrun on the province's budget. But the move sparked public outcry, a lawsuit, accusations on both sides of bad-faith bargaining and doctors withdrawing services in protest.

• Alberta doctors reject tentative agreement following year-long dispute with UCP government

• Alberta doctors 'outraged' after government rips up contract, imposes new deal

Physicians also voted down a tentative agreement in 2021 that would have had them give up the right to third-party arbitration and allowed the government to withhold payments from doctors if overspending was expected.

On Friday, the AMA tweeted that it would not be commenting on social media or giving interviews regarding the proposed agreement.

The Alberta College of Family Physicians also declined to comment until voting is complete "out of respect of due process."

Federal public service employees frustrated with 'vague' return-to-work plans

Employees gradually returning to work since early March

• • 
    
  • 
    
  •  March
• • Employees gradually returning to work since early
  • 
    
  • 
    
  •  March
• Reddi

 

Safiyah Marhnouj · CBC News · Posted: Sep 10, 2022 

Public service workers are gradually making the return to work on-site as many departments follow through on their hybrid working arrangements. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

As federal employees gradually return to the office in person, some workers and members of the public service union say they want more clarity and consistency from the Treasury Board of Canada about working arrangements. 

Since early March, federal departments have been gradually returning to on-site or hybrid work after being given the green light by the Treasury Board, which oversees the federal workforce. 

The Treasury Board said in a statement there was "no one-size-fits-all approach," and deputy ministers each have the authority on how their employees will make that return.

But with decisions in the hands of each department, some public service employees are frustrated with the lack of consistency. 

"We do not see a clear direction in terms of what return-to-work looks like," said Sharon DeSousa, national executive vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a union representing around 200,000 workers across the country.

She said she's heard from members of the union about a lack of answers and a sense of "instability" surrounds returning to work, particularly with how plans look different from department to department. 

Sharon DeSousa, speaking in front of the Treasury Board of Canada building at a rally, says public service workers are seeing different return-to-work plans from department to department. (Jean Delisle/CBC)

DeSousa said employees deserve to have safe and healthy work environments, adding the mental health of everyone has suffered through the pandemic. Employees need to know the government has their back, she said. 

"They need consistency, they need support, they need to ensure their health and welfare is taken care of, and they need clear communication."

WATCH | Federal workers still see 'instability' around return-to-work plan, union says

'Loose, vague directives'

Kristina MacLean, who works for the Department of National Defence, said she's currently pushing for a hybrid work model, but the lack of strong language outlining teleworking options makes it difficult. 

"We did the work, we've shown we can do the work, now it's time for everyone to be a little flexible."

MacLean said the lack of consistency across departments is a "major problem."

"Right now it's at the employer's discretion," she said. "Depending on which department you're in or what classification you are, you're getting different treatment and you could all be working in the same office."

Kristina MacLean, seen here at a rally for workers' rights, says she's worried about inconsistent return-to-work plans that are at the employer's discretion. (Jean Delisle/CBC)

MacLean said she's found the communication surrounding the return to work has been made up of "loose, vague directives" that are up to interpretation. 

"I think that puts us in dangerous territory because if it's completely up to the discretion of the employer, how are we going to protect the workers' rights?"

In its labour force survey for the month of August, Statistics Canada said it continued to see an upward trend of people reporting hybrid working arrangements, with 8.6 per cent of those surveyed working in a hybrid model. 

Statistics Canada said it doesn't have data on the number of federal public service employees currently working remotely or in a hybrid model. 

Differences across departments

CBC News reached out to various federal departments about their plans on employees returning to the workplace. The Department of Canadian Heritage did not respond to CBC in time for publication.

• The Canada Revenue Agency said it will be moving toward a hybrid work model, and will gradually increase the number of employees working on-site.
• The Department of Finance said it is adopting a hybrid plan where most employees will work a combination of in person and on-site, and is hoping for employees to eventually spend 50 per cent of their time in the office.
• The Department of Justice said it is now adopting a hybrid work model, and employees wanting to work from home will need to have approved telework agreements by Oct. 3. There is currently no department-wide minimum number of days to work on-site. 
• The Department of National Defence said it will gradually transition to a hybrid workforce over the coming months. Around 50 per cent of its employees were working on-site during the pandemic, it said.
• The Department of Public Safety said it will be adopting a hybrid model, with telework agreements defined in collaboration with employee's managers. It said the process is expected to be finalized by November 2022.
• Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) said it formally began implementing its flexible work model on Sept. 6, with many of ESDC employees continuing to work on-site.
• Environment and Climate Change Canada said it has maintained critical services on-site throughout the pandemic, and an increasing number of employees have been coming into work on a regular basis in the last few months. By September, all executives are expected to have regular and sustained on-site presence, and all employees or managers who telework must have a signed telework agreement. 
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada said a significant number of its employees continued working on-site throughout the pandemic, and over the summer employees were returning to offices across the country. Hybrid work arrangements have been adopted, and the department said it anticipates employees will be in the office one to two days a week. 
• Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada said the health and safety of its employees is a top priority as they transition to a hybrid workforce. 
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said it is continuing to transition to a hybrid workplace model.
• Indigenous Services Canada said it's planning for a return to work sites this fall, and an in-person presence will be expected one day per week or more. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said it's continuing to work on a gradual return to the workplace for the fall as more employees return to work. 
• Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada said it is carrying out a return-to-the-office plan with the majority of its employees adopting a hybrid plan, working on-site two to three days a week on average. Some employees will have more or less in-office days depending on their job function. 
• Public Services and Procurement Canada said it is progressively transitioning to a hybrid workplace. 
• Transport Canada said each employee has an individual work arrangement with their manager, and employees have an option of returning to work full-time or a hybrid plan depending on their job requirements. The work arrangement agreements must be implemented by September, and a number of employees have already been working on-site throughout the pandemic.

Nelson: With divisive candidates like these, UCP better off without a leader

Author of the article: Chris Nelson • For The Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 08, 2022 • 

From left, candidates Rajan Sawhney, Travis Toews and Danielle Smith take part in the United Conservative Party of Alberta’s final leadership debate, in Edmonton on Tuesday, August 30, 2022. PHOTO BY GREG SOUTHAM/POSTMEDIA

Only in the bizarre world of Alberta politics could a ruling party stand a better chance of retaining power if it didn’t have an actual leader.

That’s the weird situation we’re in during these waning days of a glorious summer. Because no matter who comes out a-top of this current inside-the-party contest to replace Jason Kenney as premier, there’s likely to be a subsequent drop in general UCP support among regular Albertans.

This isn’t what usually happens, of course. Normally new leaders, alongside their respective parties, enjoy a short but sweet honeymoon period, where hope briefly trumps experience among potential voters.

This isn’t the case here in Alberta. Even those seeking to replace Kenney have now dropped any pretence this leadership contest will inspire unity by healing the party’s gaping wounds and thus readying it for the looming provincial election battle.

The split that entrapped Ottawa-knowing Kenney has actually widened, so whoever wins faces an immediate cabal of internal opposition that won’t simply dissipate because the party vote went against them. The knives won’t require unsheathing; they’re already firmly in hand, poised for use by those whose candidate doesn’t emerge triumphant when the vote is counted in about four weeks.

Were it not for that little conundrum, then the UCP might feel rather confident of actually holding onto power, given our economy is booming and those dreary COVID wars, so bedevilling for the Kenney government, are at least now relegated to the nasty skirmish level.

Ah, but then it wouldn’t be the Tories unless they managed to shoot themselves in the foot. They’ve been at it so long in Alberta it’s a wonder anyone in the party has got a single toe left to stand upon.

Long gone are those halcyon days when they could run an election campaign with the name of their leader proudly emblazoned upon every candidate’s lawn sign. And not even the entire name — yep, remember those “Ralph’s Team” banners covering front yards back in 2001, as Klein’s government won a third mandate with a stunning 74 of the 83 seats on offer, capturing 62 per cent of the vote?

Five years later, those proud if brazen signs were probably stored facedown in deserted backrooms, as the party knowingly knifed the man — yes, the one so recently heralded provincewide simply as Ralph — in his suddenly vulnerable back.

Hindsight’s 20/20 of course. But maybe the die was cast that day and all that has happened since — the splitting away of the Wild Rose bunch, the rise of Edmonton as an NDP fortress, the realization of the New Democrats’ impossible dream of actually governing — flowed from such a pivotal moment.

Regardless, those turbulent Tory waters haven’t subsided. Not in the least. In fact, we’re now approaching the Class VI rapids stage.

Yes, here we have someone now considered the leadership contender to beat, Danielle Smith, not only taking umbrage with the current premier after he slated her controversial Sovereignty Act plans but also managing to drag the Queen into the brouhaha.

Yes, Her Majesty’s representative in Alberta, Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani, drew Smith’s ire after suggesting she might not sign that same proposed legislation into law if it contravened the Canadian Constitution. (Come on, give us newspaper columnists credit: notoriety pays our bills.)

Anyhow, with all this going on, it’s a near certainty the UCP will remain as united as that 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle poured straight from its box, no matter who becomes our new premier.

Yet most Albertans, I still suspect, would rather the Tories govern than Rachel Notley’s rambunctious lot. Run a poll without any named UCP leader and the NDP would likely finish second.

But, once you fill in that blank, those Tory numbers will drift downward, no matter which name gets that ink.

Oh, how times change. Two decades ago the Tories rode to power on the back of a leader called Ralph. Today, they might ride into opposition on whoever’s name fills that slot.

Bizarre doesn’t begin to cover it.

Chris Nelson is a regular columnist for the Calgary Herald.

UCP leads NDP, Brian Jean preferred by party supporters as conservative leader: poll

The UCP's fortunes have been buoyed by a slew of good news, from the perception of a receding pandemic to a $13.2-billion surplus

Author of the article: Bill Kaufmann

Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 09, 2022 •

Brian Jean speaks to the media after being sworn in as an MLA on April 7, 2022, at the Alberta legislature in Edmonton. 

PHOTO BY ED KAISER /Postmedia file

If a provincial election were held today, the UCP would narrowly defeat the NDP, according to a new poll.

And the survey suggests that among the ruling party’s supporters, though not necessarily card-carrying members, Brian Jean would win the UCP leadership race and is considered most likely to defeat Rachel Notley’s NDP next spring.

The online Leger poll of 1,006 conducted Sept. 1-5 shows the UCP under outgoing premier Jason Kenney would capture 44 per cent of total committed voters versus 41 per cent for the Opposition NDP, according to the poll.

That dovetails with other polls in recent months showing rising support for the UCP.

It also shows UCP backbencher Jean, who’s vying for the party’s leadership against six rivals, would narrowly top that field among the party’s supporters and edges out Danielle Smith, former Wildrose Party leader and presumptive front-runner, as most capable of going on to win the 2023 general election.

The UCP’s fortunes have been buoyed by good news, from the perception of a receding pandemic to an economic resurgence capped by the announcement of a $13.2-billion government surplus driven by ballooning energy revenues, said Leger executive vice-president Ian Large.

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“It’s been a steady uptick for the UCP. We saw a big jump first in March, then in July,” he said.

“This trend is clearly heading in the right direction for the UCP … . People don’t like change when things are going well.”

The poll shows a continuation of NDP strength in Edmonton, with the party capturing 52 per cent of the vote versus 33 per cent for the UCP.



But in Calgary, the governing party leads the NDP by 44 per cent to 38 per cent. The UCP leads in the rest of the province 53 per cent to 32 per cent for the NDP.

Large said while the momentum has been on the UCP’s side, that could change dramatically depending on the fallout from the party’s leadership race, with a winner to be revealed Oct. 6.

Divisions within the party, a potentially unpopular leadership choice and policies like candidate Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Act could swing public opinion at a crucial time, he said.

“If the leadership race produces anything controversial, that’s going to affect the support the UCP’s got,” said Large.

Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt agrees. Next spring’s election will once again hinge on Calgary, where a Smith premiership would prove problematic for the UCP, he said.

“What the poll does show is a generic conservative would do quite well, but once you put a name to that it gets harder,” he said.

“Smith would be toxic in Calgary and the NDP would pick up a lot of seats.”

When asked about the poll’s significance on Thursday, UCP leadership hopeful Travis Toews said it shores up a trend in public opinion but that adopting rival Smith’s proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act puts that position in jeopardy.

“I have a deep concern about that because I believe the Conservative party holds by far and away the best solutions for the province going forward,” he said.

“Don’t take that for granted — we have to work hard, we have to be Albertans’ best choice … but we can’t take policy positions that ultimately undermine our economic and fiscal and political strength, positions that simply won’t be acceptable to the majority of Albertans.”

The Alberta Sovereignty Act would enable Alberta to ignore federal laws deemed to be against the province’s interests.

UCP leadership candidates (left to right) Leela Aheer, 

Brian Jean, Rajan Sawhney and Travis Toews at yesterday’s press conference.

 Jim Wells/Postmedia

On Thursday, UCP leadership rivals Toews, Jean, Leela Aheer and Rajan Sawhney gathered in Calgary to denounce the act as ineffective and a threat to the party’s unity and electoral fortunes.



The UCP government could face another minefield if Smith wins the leadership and pushes the Sovereignty Act, said Bratt.

“What if Smith is defeated (in the legislature) on the Sovereignty Act and we go to the polls early?” he said. “I don’t know how she can backtrack from (the act).”

The poll shows Jean would narrowly lead the UCP leadership vote across multiple ballots and 18 per cent — a slim plurality — believe he’d be best positioned to defeat the NDP, just ahead of Smith at 15 per cent.

Large emphasized those polled are UCP supporters and not necessarily party members eligible to cast leadership ballots.

But he said the result could be an indication presumptive front-runner Smith faces “a much tighter race than people are expecting.”

Bratt said the poll’s take on the leadership race is skewed away from where most of the party’s voting members reside, in the rural areas, and thus isn’t reliable.

But it does indicate Jean’s strength among party supporters beyond that smaller base, he added.

Bratt expects Smith to top the first ballot, but after that, it’s a toss-up, “because her growth ability after that is quite small.

“Where do Jean supporters go (on subsequent ballots) — to Toews or Smith? We simply don’t know.”

As a non-random online survey, a margin of error wasn’t reported but if the poll had used random sampling, its margin of error would have been plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20, says Leger.


BKaufmann@postmedia.com

Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn