SMERT ASS

Analyst on Russian TV drinks to the 'death' of the stock market in front of stunned host

rcohen@insider.com (Rebecca Cohen)

© Provided by Business Insider 

Alexander Butmanov holds up soda on Russian TV. @tjournal on Twitter

An analyst on Russian TV drank to the death of the stock market, surprising the host.
Russia's stock market has taken a huge hit since the West imposed sanctions on Russia.
"Dear stock market, you were close to us, you were interesting. Rest in peace dear friend," he said.

An analyst on Russian TV drank to the "death" of the country's stock market in front of a shocked host.

Alexander Butmanov, a Russian economist, was asked by the host if exchange strategies today are outdated and if he wishes to stay in his profession.

"As a last resort, I will work as Santa Claus, like I did 25 years ago," he responded.

When the host pushed him on his response, Butmanov grabbed a bottle of soda and said, "Jokes aside, let's get this done quickly."

"I say hello to Sergey Usichenko who drank 12-13 years ago for the death of the stock market. Today I drink soda," he said holding up the bottle.

He concluded: "Dear stock market, you were close to us, you were interesting. Rest in peace dear friend."

The host, clearly stunned, then said "I won't comment on this flash mob because I don't want to believe it…" as her guest took a drink.

Russia's stock market has taken a massive hit and the ruble has hit an all-time low as the West ramps up sanctions against the country and its leader in the wake of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

BRINGING IT ON HOME

Meet the Russian oligarchs with investment ties to Western Canada not named in Ottawa's sanctions

Meghan Potkins 

© Provided by Financial Post Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich walks past the High Court in London on Nov. 16, 2011.

NATO governments have pledged to crack down on the dealings of Russian oligarchs and companies, but some controversial figures with significant investment ties to Western Canada have so far evaded sanctions from the Canadian government.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has said all Canadian financial institutions are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with the Russian Central Bank. And Canadian authorities have identified dozens of Russian individuals and entities for sanctions in recent days, freezing the assets of 58 targets and prohibiting all dealings with them.

But one of the most recognizable Russian elites to have been excluded from Canada’s sanction list is billionaire Roman Abramovich, best known outside his home country as the owner of Chelsea FC, one of the world’s most popular soccer teams.

Abramovich, who had come under intense political scrutiny in the U.K., said on March 2 that he will sell Chelsea and donate the proceeds to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported . The team is only his most visible asset in the West. Among other things, Abramovich is the largest shareholder in Evraz PLC, a steel manufacturing and mining business that has facilities in Regina, Calgary and Edmonton.

Evraz has provided the majority of the pipe to the Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) project, which will expand the movement of oil and refined products from the Edmonton area to a terminal on the Pacific Coast for export. Evraz’s agreement with original pipeline owner Kinder Morgan provided 250,000 metric tons of pipe to the project.

Alexander Abramov, Alexander Frolov, Evgeny Shvidler and Maxim Vorobyev — all wealthy Russians — are also among the top six shareholders in the U.K.-based company, according to Bloomberg. None of them appear on Canada’s sanctions list.

TMX was bought by the federal government in 2018, making Evraz’s exclusion from sanctions so far a sensitive issue for Trudeau’s government.

“The steel that was provided by Evraz for the TMX pipeline was fully delivered by the second quarter of 2021 when sanctions were not in place, and the war had not yet begun,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week at a press conference.

Abramovich isn’t the only billionaire with Canadian holdings to come under media scrutiny following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

© Thomas Frey/picture alliance via Getty Images files

Oligarch Igor Makarov.

A lesser known figure with investments in Canada’s oilpatch is billionaire Igor Makarov. The Turkmenistan-born businessman and former Russian cyclist owns a 19.5 per cent stake in Spartan Delta Corp, making him the largest shareholder for the Calgary-based natural gas producer.

The company said this week in a statement that Makarov’s stake, through Switzerland-based Areti Energy S.A., does not carry any controls or veto rights. “Spartan does not have any other relationship with Areti beyond its equity ownership in Spartan nor is any such relationship contemplated now or in the future,” the company said.

An American PR firm for Areti vigorously denied to the Financial Post that Makarov has any ties to Putin.

Makarov made his fortune as a natural gas supplier to former Soviet states, eventually expanding into exploration and processing in Russia during the mid ’90s and 2000s as the founder of a company headquartered in Moscow known as Itera — a precursor to Areti, according to the company’s website. Itera was acquired by Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft in 2013.

Makarov was identified on a U.S. Treasury list of Russian oligarchs in 2018 — a list which critics have lambasted for apparently copying names from a Forbes’ list of world billionaires.

Makarov is not on Canada’s list of Russian oligarchs targeted for sanctions.

The federal government has had sanctions in place since 2014 when Russian forces invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine — more than 440 individuals and entities have been singled out since then.

Trudeau’s government has hinted that more could be on the way.

“We are looking carefully at the holdings of all Russian oligarchs and Russian companies inside Canada,” Freeland said March 1. “We’re reviewing them, and everything is on the table.”

Freeland added: “If we are truly determined to stand with Ukraine, if the stakes int he fight are as high as I believe them to be, we have to be honest with ourselves, I have to be honest with Canadians, that there could be some collateral damage to Canada.”

— With files from Bloomberg News

• Email: mpotkins@postmedia.com | Twitter: mpotkins

UNETHICAL UCP
Shandro appointment during investigation puts law society in a no-win situation: experts

A group of Alberta law professors say Tyler Shandro should have refused his appointment as justice minister while he is under investigation by the Law Society of Alberta, and Premier Jason Kenney’s cabinet shuffle puts the society in a difficult situation.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro answers media questions about the Province's COVID-19 response outside the University of Alberta Hospital, in Edmonton Thursday July 29, 2021. Sandro was taking part in a press conference where the Province announced $1 million to explore a possible stand-alone Stollery Children's Hospital. Photo by David Bloom

Lisa Johnson 

Edmonton Journal 

Writing in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law blog this week, legal experts Shaun Fluker, Nigel Bankes and Martin Olszynski said a report prepared by retired Justice Adèle Kent into former justice minister Kaycee Madu leaves important questions unanswered, and the decision to replace Madu with Shandro demonstrates disrespect for the law society’s processes.

The report, released publicly on Friday, came after the law society determined allegations about Shandro’s behaviour while he was health minister warranted a disciplinary hearing, which is yet to be scheduled . Three complaints allege Shandro broke the society’s code of conduct, including that he used his former position as health minister to obtain personal cell phone numbers of health-care workers.

“Premier Kenney should not have put the law society, a statutory body, in this invidious position and, in the circumstances, Minister Shandro should have declined the appointment,” the professors wrote.

In an interview with Postmedia Tuesday, Fluker said sanctions could taint the relationship between the minister and the body in charge of regulating the legal profession in the province, but a decision not to sanction Shandro based on the evidence it hears could create the perception “that the whole process was influenced by the nature of the office.”

“The Law Society is really placed in, one might say, a no-win situation,” said Fluker. The society is an independent body, but does report to the minister, who appoints some public members to its governing board.

Fluker said it would have been reasonable for Sonya Savage, who is Alberta’s energy minister, to continue to serve as interim justice minister while the hearing plays out.

“There’s a lot riding on the perception of the public on the integrity of the law society and the legal profession. It’s hard to overstate what that amounts to,” said Fluker.

Kenney, speaking at an unrelated announcement Wednesday, dismissed the complaints against Shandro as politicized, saying the law society is an independent, self-governing regulatory body whose complaint process is not directed by government.

After a complaint is reviewed by the law society it can be dismissed or referred to a committee or public hearing.

Kenney said the society looks at all complaints, whether they are frivolous or not, pointing to a complaint filed against former NDP justice minister Kathleen Ganley which, unlike the complaints levelled against Shandro, did not warrant a hearing.

“I have every confidence in Minister Shandro, who I think objectively is one of the best qualified ministers of justice in Alberta history,” said Kenney.

NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir said in a Wednesday statement to Postmedia no cabinet ministers were involved in similar hearings during the NDP’s tenure. Sabir added Madu’s attempt to interfere in the administration of justice is a firing offence for any cabinet minister, and neither Madu nor Shandro have been held accountable for their behaviour by the UCP government.

“Public confidence in the rule of law has been damaged even further by the UCP rewarding Madu’s egregious behaviour with another seat in Alberta’s cabinet,” said Sabir.

The Kent report concludes that Madu tried to interfere in the administration of justice with a call to Edmonton’s police chief after receiving a distracted driving ticket in March last year, but he was unsuccessful, and his call created a reasonable perception of an interference with the administration of justice.

The blog post notes that Kenney, when announcing Madu would become minister of labour and immigration, failed to disclose Kent’s most “stinging rebuke,” namely that Madu attempted to interfere in the administration of justice.

“A person reading the premier’s statement could be forgiven for thinking that Ms. Kent had only delivered a mild rebuke to Minister Madu. Nothing could be further from the truth,” it said.

The law professors wrote they found it “extremely concerning” no one in leadership positions initiated an investigation into Madu until reports of the phone call were published by the CBC, and questioned whether Madu should be subject to disciplinary action under the law society’s code of conduct.

“If it’s considered to be behaviour that is inappropriate, and may bring the reputation of the profession into disrepute, then it seems to me that that’s clearly potential grounds for conduct investigation,” said Fluker.

lijohnson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/reportrix

Opinion: Stop hijacking Edmonton's inner-city main streets for commuters

Jamie Czerwinski 


As a third-generation Edmontonian, I’m optimistic about the future of our city. Our municipal leaders talk a great game about their vision to transform Edmonton into a vibrant and sustainable urban metropolis.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Heavy traffic on 97 Street. File photo.

I recently purchased and renovated my first home near Commonwealth Stadium. I appreciated its proximity to the river valley, Commonwealth Recreation Centre, the Italian Centre Shop, and the LRT. I believed that the city’s promise to become more pedestrian-, cyclist-, and transit-friendly meant that my neighbourhood was on the right track.

That’s why I was excited to learn that the City of Edmonton had opened public consultations on its Boyle Street and McCauley Neighborhood Renewal Plan . But when I dug into the details of the plan, my heart sank.

The plan is irredeemably flawed. It focuses on secondary streets, when the glaringly obvious problem in these neighbourhoods is that, for generations, its main streets have been hijacked for use as “arterial commuter roads,” encouraging tens of thousands of commuters to speed through the hearts of these communities every single day.


The city’s failure to address this fundamental problem is a gross abdication of responsibility. Treating community main streets like “arterial commuter roads” is dangerous, unhealthy, expensive, and unsustainable. It is a slap in the face to the thousands of diverse Edmontonians who call these communities home, and it is completely inconsistent with the city’s professed values and objectives.

It’s inconsistent with the City Plan . It’s inconsistent with Vision Zero . It’s inconsistent with the Main Streets Guideline . It’s inconsistent with the Transportation Master Plan . It’s inconsistent with the Bike Plan . It’s inconsistent with Edmonton’s climate emergency declaration .

It’s inconsistent with the Climate Resilient Edmonton Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan . It’s inconsistent with the Community Energy Transition Strategy . It’s inconsistent with the Boyle Street McCauley Area Redevelopment Plan . It’s inconsistent with the Norwood Boulevard Corridor Study . It’s inconsistent with the Stadium Station Area Redevelopment Plan .

These plans all look great — their graphic design is especially bedazzling — but once again, when the city plans and budgets an actual infrastructure project, it fails to live up to its promise, and instead continues to kick the can down the proverbial road.

It’s almost as if the plan was intentionally designed to avoid the crux of the issue; how else could it be that a conversation about main-street renewal is completely absent from a neighbourhood renewal plan?

Do you know what the worst part is? I bet every single municipal decision-maker — from Mayor Amarjeet Sohi on down — knows that this is wrong, but they would rather silently condemn underprivileged inner-city residents to yet another generation of heavy traffic and broken communities than take responsibility and persuade commuters to change their habits.

How would you feel if tens of thousands of commuters were speeding through your neighbourhood on a daily basis?

If the city really wants to continue to misappropriate these community main streets as “arterial commuter roads,” then it should publicly scrap its much-ballyhooed visions of a better city and loudly and proudly declare itself the sprawling suburban wasteland it evidently aspires to be.

It should expropriate and bulldoze adjacent properties to maintain adequate clearances from these urban highways. And it should designate them as toll roads and direct their revenue to the neighbourhoods negatively impacted by the traffic and community disruption they cause.

Oh, what’s that? You don’t think those are good ideas? No, neither do I.

Instead, these main streets should be returned to the communities they were originally designed to serve. They should be vibrant, green, healthy, and safe places for residents to live, work, and play. To accomplish this, they must be freed of the oppressive burden of high-speed commuter traffic that we have collectively forced upon them for generations.

The city should immediately halt all neighbourhood renewal operations and revise their plans to ensure that main-street renewal becomes the primary focus of every neighbourhood renewal project. Anything less is completely unacceptable.

The future of our city depends on it.

Jamie Czerwinski is a data scientist and former graduate student leader at Athabasca University. He lives in Parkdale, is an avid bicycle commuter, and is a lifelong resident of the Edmonton area.

GOOD

ICANN rejects Ukraine's request to cut off Russia from the global internet

The international non-profit that coordinates management of the internet told Ukraine it will not intervene in the country's war with Russia, rebuffing a request to cut Russia off from the global internet.

© Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS/Getty Images 

A woman takes pictures during a snowfall, on January 5, 2022, the Annette cyclone will bring 20% of the average monthly amount of precipitation.

By Brian Fung, CNN Business 

Ukraine's proposal is neither technically feasible nor within the mission of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, according to a letter ICANN sent to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday.

"As you know, the Internet is a decentralized system. No one actor has the ability to control it or shut it down," ICANN CEO Göran Marby wrote in the the letter.

Marby expressed his personal concern about Ukrainians' well-being as well as the "terrible toll being exacted on your country." But, he wrote, "our mission does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the Internet -- regardless of the provocations."

"Essentially," he added, "ICANN has been built to ensure that the Internet works, not for its coordination role to be used to stop it from working."

Internet governance experts previously told CNN that ICANN was expected to reject Ukraine's plea, and that Ukraine's proposal, if implemented, could have devastating consequences for average Russian internet users, including dissidents.

The original request, sent on Monday from Ukraine's representative on ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, called for the Russian internet country code .RU and its Cyrillic equivalents to be revoked. The representative, Andrii Nabok, also said he was sending a separate request to Europe and Central Asia's regional internet registry, asking it to take back all of the IP addresses it had assigned to Russia.

Nabok argued that the measures would be another way for the world to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and that it would help internet users access "reliable information in alternative domain zones, preventing propaganda and disinformation."

Taking back Russian IP addresses could effectively have caused Russian websites to disappear from the internet because they have no assigned place to sit, Mallory Knodel, chief technology officer at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a US-based think tank, previously told CNN.

It would also mean that smartphones, computers and other connected devices in Russia would be unable to access the wider internet because they would no longer have assigned IP addresses that could identify those devices to a global network, Knodel said.

RUSSIA ALREADY RESTRICTS THE INTERNET FROM IT'S CITIZENS 

OneWeb Stops All Internet Satellite Launches From Russia's Space Complex

The next batch of OneWeb broadband satellites won't be lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this week, as tensions remain high between Russia and Western countries over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Their launch had been scheduled for Saturday.

© Provided by CNET A Soyuz rocket prepares to launch OneWeb satellites from Kazakhstan in 2020. OneWeb

Eric Mack 

CNET

The company issued a 12-word statement from London early Thursday: "The Board of OneWeb has voted to suspend all launches from Baikonur."

That was in response to an ultimatum from the head of Russia's space agency, who continues to lash out against the West's condemnation of the war in Ukraine by making threats and erecting roadblocks between Earth and orbit.

Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin said Wednesday that the agency would not carry out any more OneWeb missions with its Russian Soyuz spacecraft unless the UK sells its share in the company and OneWeb guarantees its constellation will not be used for military purposes.

The UK government teamed up with Indian telecom giant Bharti Global to acquire the financially troubled OneWeb in 2020. Despite some false starts in its history, the company aims to offer competition for Elon Musk's Starlink.

Rogozin's threat came after Musk announced that Starlink has been activated in Ukraine and that SpaceX has begun shipping new receivers into the war-torn nation.

"We have serious doubts about how OneWeb will behave in such a situation when the [UK] government is the controlling shareholder," Rogozin said on Russian TV, according to state news outlet Tass.

The UK government is actually not the largest shareholder. Bharti holds twice as much equity in the company, and Eutelsat and Softbank are also significant shareholders.

UK Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng made clear on Twitter Wednesday that the country will be holding onto its stake.

"There's no negotiation on OneWeb: the UK Government is not selling its share," Kwarteng wrote. "We are in touch with other shareholders to discuss next steps..."

Bharti didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began last Thursday, and the reaction to it has been playing havoc with space operations around the world. The ExoMars mission, developed in partnership between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, is now no longer expected to launch this year due to the fallout over European sanctions against Russia.

Russia has also halted all Soyuz launches from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana and stopped shipping rocket engines to the US.

Last week, Rogozin seemed to threaten to drop the International Space Station on the US or Europe in response to initial talk of US sanctions. True to form, Musk stepped up on Twitter to volunteer SpaceX spacecraft to take over the job of steering the ISS that's now done with the help of Russian engines.

Meanwhile, three Russian cosmonauts are set to launch to the ISS this month shortly before two different cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule.

Bernie Sanders Calls Out Political Corruption on The Late Show

Bernie Sanders appears on The Late Show‘s first live audience live show in two years to discuss President Biden’s State of the Union address.© Provided by Global TV
News
The Late Show Wins Out Over President Biden

“I much prefer to be here,” said Sanders of being on The Late Show rather than at Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. But sadly that was as jovial as he got. “This is the most difficult moment in our lifetimes.”


Over the increasingly dour situations the world is facing – war, pestilence and wealth disparity – Sanders’ calls for the American people to rally and keep moving forward. It’s important, he reiterates; “we’re losing the struggle for a planet to leave to our kids that will be healthy and habitable.”

Watch Senator Sanders empower the viewers of The Late Show:

Sanders also shouts out to the Russian protestors, who are risking their freedom and possibly lives to have their say against the Russian aggression towards Ukraine. A man of protest and civil rights, Bernie Sanders has always supported true movements against real tyranny and threats to a safe and healthy life for all levels of society.

“The Russian people are not our enemies, it is their Autocracy and the crooks and the evil people that run that country.”

Sanders’ State of the Union

When prompted for what he would tell the country were he to give a State of the Union speech, Sanders exploded with energy and passion. For him, anyway.

His target was United States government officials themselves. Specifically, the ones who prefer to line their pockets over serving their constituents.

Political corruption has become more forefront in voters’ minds, and the veil is dropping around the ones abusing their power. Sanders has always been leading the charge against them, and by the sounds of it, will continue to do so until he no longer can.

Catch up on Stephen’s comments on the State of the Union, as well as the rest of the interview with Bernie Sanders by viewing the full episode here on GlobalTV.com or the Global TV App!

And tune in to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airing weeknights at 11.35 et/pt on Global, and watch the latest episodes and clips online here on GlobalTV.com or the Global TV App!

The post Bernie Sanders Calls Out Political Corruption on The Late Show appeared first on globaltv.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A COMMA, 

I DID NOT KNOW THERE WAS CORRUPTION ON THE LATE SHOW!

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Elon Musk and Tesla face trial over CEO's multibillion-dollar pay package from 2018

Tesla and CEO Elon Musk are facing a trial over the company's 2018 CEO pay package.

Shareholder Richard J. Tornetta sued Tesla alleging that Musk's pay was excessive and that its authorization by the board amounted to a breach of its fiduciary duty.

The trial is scheduled to begin at a Delaware Chancery court on April 18, though the date could change.

© Provided by CNBC

 Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, stands in the foundry of the Tesla Gigafactory during a press event.

Lora Kolodny 

CNBC

Tesla and Elon Musk are facing a trial over the CEO's 2018 pay package, which was worth around $2.5 billion at the time it was granted.

Shareholder Richard J. Tornetta sued Musk and the Tesla board after the package was cleared. The suit claimed it was excessive and said authorization by the electric car company's board of directors amounted to a breach of its fiduciary duty.

Musk's 2018 CEO performance award consisted of 101.3 million stock options (adjusted for the 5-for-1 stock split in 2020) in 12 milestone-based tranches. The plan said Musk would be paid only if he reached those milestones, which focused on Tesla's market value and operations. Otherwise the CEO would receive nothing.

Tesla shares skyrocketed, and payouts to Musk began in 2020, helping make him the world's richest person.

Tornetta seeks to invalidate the option grant from the 2018 plan, which has netted Musk tens of billions of dollars worth of stock at present value.

The shareholder alleged that Tesla board members had undisclosed conflicts and said Musk crafted his own pay plan with personal assistance of his former divorce attorney Todd Maron, who was also Tesla's general counsel. Tornetta claimed that Tesla's board didn't disclose all the information it should have to shareholders before a proxy vote to approve the pay plan.

Maron left the company in late 2018, and Tesla hasn't had a general counsel since December 2019.

Attorneys for Musk had asked the court for a summary judgement and sought to have the case dismissed. But in a letter dated Feb. 24, court chancellor Kathleen St. J. McCormick wrote, "I am skeptical that this litigation can be resolved based on the undisputed facts. So, I am canceling oral argument on the summary judgment motions." She added, "This case is going to trial."

A trial had been scheduled for April 18, in the Delaware chancery court, according to filings first published by legal transparency database PlainSite. That date could change. PlainSite is owned by Aaron Greenspan, who previously disclosed a Tesla short position.

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment, and attorneys representing Tornetta declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

Ethics commissioner calls for reform of Alberta lobbyist rules

Paige Parsons 

CBC

© David Bajer/CBC

 Alberta's ethics commissioner is proposing a number of changes to provincial rules for lobbyists.

The province should create a communication registry for lobbyists to address what she says is a lack of transparency, Alberta's ethics commissioner says.

Marguerite Trussler's office put forward a number of recommendations for changes to the Alberta Lobbyists Act as part of a review of the legislation currently underway by the standing committee on Alberta's economic future.

The act must be reviewed every five years, and the committee is expected to submit a report with its recommendations to the legislature by September.

"Proper transparency is not in place in Alberta," Trussler said while speaking to the committee last month.

Her top request is a public communication registry that would require lobbyists to disclose direct communications and meetings with senior public office holders.

"Not having one gives rise to people asking, 'What do you have to hide?'" Trussler said, adding that creating such a registry would cost nothing and be a simple process.

Trussler said the federal government and British Columbia already have these types of registries, and that other jurisdictions are moving in a similar direction.

Another proposed change is to narrow the exemption to lobbying rules for non-profits to apply only to groups that provide tangible public services in specific ways.

This would prevent other types of non-profits from "hiding behind" the exemption, said Alberta Lobbyist Registrar Lara Draper, who is with Trussler's office.

Draper said most Canadian jurisdictions don't have any exemption for non-profit groups and calls Alberta's broad exemption a "serious gap in accountability and transparency."

Trussler is also advocating to lowering the threshold for having to register as an organization lobbyist from 50 hours annually to 20.

She told this committee this is more in line with what other jurisdictions are doing, and said she knows from her own past work as a lobbyist that fewer hours is appropriate.

"Frankly if it takes you 50 hours to get your message across you're not very good," she said. "A really good lobbyist can do a lot of effective lobbying in way less time than even 20 hours. It's not that big of a burden."

Other proposed changes to increase transparency include:

Simplifying and closing potential loopholes around "prohibited gifts";

Requiring disclosure in lobbyist registrations of gifts, favours or benefits offered to public office holders within the last 12 months;

Removing the requirement for organization lobbyists to file semi-annual renewal returns;

And shortening the time for organization lobbyists to file initial returns.

Trussler's office also proposed several recommendations to make the rules less complicated for lobbyists, along with a number of technical amendments.

Opposition from affected groups

While dozens of organizations and individuals provided written feedback to the committee, several organizations that would be affected by the change made oral presentations — most of which urged legislators not to adopt Trussler's recommendations as proposed, or even to loosen current rules.

Alberta Chambers of Commerce president and CEO Ken Kolby said changes made to lobbying rules back in 2018 created a lot of extra work for his organization and some of its member organizations, and that he'd like to see some of those changes reversed.

Kolby said his group's advocacy efforts are non-partisan, and that it and local chambers across the province were transparent before increased reporting requirements came into effect under lobbying rules.

"It does not improve transparency or accountability. It is simply unnecessary red tape that diverts limited resources from vitally important community building activities and initiatives," he said.

Among his requests to the committee was an ask to return the lobbying time threshold to 100 hours, rather than follow through with Trussler's request to reduce it to 20 hours.

The committee also heard from non-profit umbrella organizations who worry tightening up who is exempted from lobbyist rules will mean community groups won't have the resources to continue to meet demand for public service work.

After hearing from speakers, the committee passed a motion to have all the recommendations received compiled into a list for consideration ahead of beginning deliberations and work on the report.

Edmonton police deny keeping 'list' of critics after union's complaint against city councillor

Edmonton police are denying claims they keep a “list” of critics after the officers’ union filed a complaint against a city councillor.

\

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Michael Janz speaks to supporters on election night 2021. The Ward papastew councillor recently announced a code of conduct complaint filed against him by the Edmonton Police Association has been dismissed.

Jonny Wakefield 

On Wednesday, the Edmonton Police Service issued a statement regarding city integrity commissioner Jamie Pytel’s recent investigation of Coun. Michael Janz , whose social media posts drew the ire of the Edmonton Police Association.

The association’s complaint, filed by president Michael Elliott, took issue with Janz’s online engagement with “known” critics of the police service, including defence lawyer Tom Engel. The complaint alleged those critics “(misrepresent) facts about the EPS and its members.”

Pytel’s report found none of Janz’s social media activity breached council’s code of conduct, leading Janz to call the complaint “a blatant attempt at intimidation intended to silence an elected official in the first three months in office.”

Following the release of the report, writer, podcaster and former council candidate Troy Pavlek wrote a tweet claiming Elliott’s complaint “confirmed they maintain a list of ‘critics’ of the EPS.”

EPS’s statement Wednesday denied that claim.

“We are aware that the contents of the association’s complaint have been misconstrued on social media to imply that the Edmonton Police Service maintains a list of police critics and actively participates in the surveillance of the alleged critics,” spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard said in an email.

“The EPS does not participate in such activities and does not maintain a list of alleged police critics.”

Elliott, an EPS staff sergeant, is on vacation and said in a text that he would comment further Monday. However, he called claims that the police association keeps a list of critics”ludicrous.”

In an interview, Pavlek said that whether an actual list exists is a “semantic” debate.

“The intention of the complaint is very clear,” Pavlek said. “The Edmonton Police Association knows certain people to be critics of the Edmonton Police Service and they believe that it is prohibited by the councillor’s code of conduct for a city councillor to interact with those people.”

“Whether they maintain a list or whether they just instinctively dislike certain people, the intent is very clear, and the intent is what’s frightening, not whether or not they have bullet points or numbers.”

Engel, for his part, said he sent a letter to the police association demanding they provide details of cases in which he has misrepresented facts.

Michael Elliott, president of the Edmonton Police Association, speaks to media in 2021.

Policing has become ‘hyper-charged,’ former councillor says

Scott McKeen, a former city councillor and police commissioner, said the affair is an example of how “hyper-charged” Edmonton’s policing debate has become in recent years.

McKeen traced the change to the summer of 2020, when council held hearings on reducing police funding in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. That summer, council approved an $11 million reduction over two years to the police service’s annual budget increase. Another reduction came in last December , with newly elected councillors saying they wanted more funding directed to social services.

Since the budget reductions, Elliott has begun tweeting regular updates about crime and disorder in the city, including photos of seized weapons.

“There are hurt feelings on that police service right now, stemming back to those hearings,” said McKeen, who voted for the initial decrease and did not run in the 2021 election. “They feel, I’m sure, like they’ve been Edmonton’s punching bag.”

“What happens then is you see a police association getting more activist in its responses, because they’re defending their reputations,” McKeen said.

McKeen encouraged council, the police service and the police association to “dial down the rhetoric.”

The episode also comes days after University of Alberta Prof. Temitope Oriola wrote an op-ed arguing the Edmonton Police Commission has been insufficiently critical of the police service. Oriola wrote the piece in response to an op-ed by commission chairman John McDougall, who defended the police service’s response to noisy “freedom convoys” visiting downtown Edmonton.

jwakefield@postmedia.com
twitter.com/jonnywakefield