Broken Promises

You can't break promises if you don't make any.

However, Stelmach wouldn't guarantee his government will continue natural gas rebates for all Albertans

On the other hand its bad news when you make a promise you know you can't keep.

The Tories couldn't seem to do anything right. When Stelmach promised to graduate more doctors from Alberta universities, for example, the doctors themselves said the idea won't work.

When he made an announcement at a Red Deer day care centre, some angry mothers who happened to be there berated the day-care promise as meaningless.

But it only gets worse when the only promise you can keep is that insurance premiums will go up because of your governments bad law.

Premier Ed Stelmach raised the spectre of rising auto-insurance premiums Monday, saying a recent court ruling that struck down the government's cap on payouts for soft-tissue injuries could result in higher costs for Alberta drivers.

"This may have tremendous pressure on (an) increase in rates," Stelmach said during a campaign stop in Edmonton.

The comments follow a claim by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the industry's lobbying arm, that the Court of Queen's Bench ruling could increase premiums an average of $200 a year for every driver in the province

And then there are those promises your government made but failed to keep.

Neils Bach, 77, spoke for many residents of the Strathmore-Brooks riding when he begged Stelmach to start construction of a promised new 100-bed facility now.

"Mr. Stelmach, we need a new and much bigger nursing home in Strathmore. It's 15 years overdue."

Stelmach appeared moved by the plea, but couldn't give residents a specific date when construction will begin. "We'll get it built and we'll get it built as quickly as possible," he promised. "I really do empathize with your situation."

One elderly lady appeared exasperated by the delay.

"I sat in this room four years ago and heard there would be an extended-care facility open in spring 2007," said Madeline Scott.

"I'm a person of my word," the premier responded. "We allocated funds for a 100-bed facility. It's going to be built."

He said the funds have been approved and it's up to the health region to get the facility planned, designed and constructed. When he set out the process and time frame, one woman said she may not live that long.

Or making a promise sort of, maybe, sometime in the next four years we will do it if re-elected. When you could do it now with the swipe of a pen.

A former Member of Parliament from New Brunswick has launched a public battle against the Alberta's government's policy of charging monthly premiums for health care.

Gilles Bernier, who once served as MP for the riding of Tobique-Mactaquac, moved to Alberta in 2006 to start his own business. After applying for an Alberta health care card, he was surprised to find a $45 monthly fee attached. Bernier has refused to pay these premiums on principle because he says paying for health care violates the Canada Health Care Act.

"Under federal legislation, Canadians are entitled to receive free, basic health care," Bernier said. "Charging for health care contravenes the spirit of the Act and it puts our universal health care system in jeopardy. At the same time, it sets up a two-tiered system. Canadians in other provinces do not pay the fees or premiums that residents of Alberta are paying. Many citizens of this province are not aware of this and they are shocked to find it out. Like me, they feel betrayed by this government and unfair health care policy."

Now that a provincial election has been called, Bernier said the time is right to take the issue into the public forum. As the election campaign gets underway, the incumbent Conservatives of Alberta have suddenly promised to abolish the controversial health care premiums in four years.

"They know it is an issue with voters, especially new voters," Bernier said. "But four years is too long to wait for the health care Albertans should be receiving -- the same system provided to other Canadians. Health care premiums should be abolished the day after the election, not in 2012. If this election is about leadership, then Premier Stelmach should show leadership and repeal his government's policy of charging for basic health care. The decision is his to make if he wants to win this election."

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Ed's Politics Of Fear

With a green plan that makes the Federal Conservative government Hot Air Plan look good, hard to do, Farmer Ed now resorts to the politics of fear claiming that any green plan other than his non plan would end up with mass unemployment of everyone in the oil business in Alberta.

Seriously. Every single person working in the oil patch would be laid off if Alberta attempted to reduce our carbon footprint.

And again he has no proof for his assertions that the sky would fall. Oops.

"Our plan is real, is achievable and some of the commitments made by some of the leaders of the other parties would destroy 335,000 jobs," Stelmach claimed. "There's 600,000 new Albertans in this province. You want to send them back home to other provinces, other countries?"

When pressed by reporters after the encounter, Stelmach could not cite a source for the figure, which he has repeated throughout the campaign, but said there are multiple reports that have reached the same conclusion. Last week, the Tories suggested that's every job in the oilpatch.

The contentious issue at hand is a Tory policy on greenhouse-gas emissions that would see the province begin curbing carbon emissions by 2020 and decrease the 14% from 2005 levels by 2050, about 6% and 30 years behind federal targets. It has been roundly criticized by environmental groups.

The Stelmach government unveiled a new climate change plan Thursday that allows Alberta's greenhouse gas emissions to rise until 2020, and puts the province on a collision course with Ottawa over whose strategy takes precedence.

The Alberta plan -- which falls well short of what's demanded by both the Kyoto Protocol and the federal government -- was welcomed by the oil and gas industry as a good first step. But it was immediately panned by environmental groups and opposition parties.

It's the politics of fear. Which is the politics of a loser, with a loser environmental policy that makes no demands on the industry but puts the onus on individual Albertan's.

In fact it is not his plan nor even an Alberta plan, it is big oil's plan.

At the centre of the oil and gas sector's proposal is a plan to capture and store about one million tonnes of carbon emissions a year from natural gas. That would account for about 17 per cent of the sector's total emissions.

The proposal is still subject to feasibility studies, the industry admits, and its officials would not say whether it could be in place by the 2020 deadline. They also warned that the plan will likely be costly.

David Pryce, vice-president of western operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said more reductions could be found through waste-heat recovery, fuel efficiency programs and the elimination of gas flaring.

SEE

Liberals Empty Promises

Made in Alberta Green Plan



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Time For Public Auto Insurance

This decision couldn't have come at a better time. Once again the Tired Old Tories tried to pull the auto insurance companies fat out of the fire and in doing so of course passed a law that blamed the victims.

Taking a page out of the Republican handbook about tort law cases, and blaming trial lawyers, the Tories capped claims rather than doing anything about out of control profiteering by the insurance companies.

That law was tossed out last Friday. Already we could be seeing increases in insurance premiums while a public insurance program would actually save Albertan's hundreds of dollars per person.

The insurance industry has suggested that if the legislation is not eventually upheld, it could lead to a rate increase of $200 a year per policy holder.

Of course the Tories will appeal this decision wasting more taxpayers money and solving nothing but doing the bidding of their masters; the insurance companies. And it means they will try to kill it as an election issue. But they will be as successful with that as with their appeal.

A senior Tory official confirms that candidates have been sent a letter telling them they're not supposed to talk about the auto insurance issue since it's before the courts. (The Canadian Press)

It would have been a perfect political day for Stelmach, had a curious e-mail not arrived in my in-box.

The e-rocket was from "Alberta Progressive Conservative Campaign Headquarters" and PC candidates were ordered to "delete and destroy any copies."

In it the "Campaign Team" reminded them of last week's court decision ruling Ralph Klein's flawed auto insurance reforms "unconstitutional" and warned candidates they "must not comment on this decision."

It isn't hard to understand the political sensitivity over the goof, especially after the premier admitted yesterday that "there may be tremendous pressure on increasing rates."

Neil Waugh, Edmonton Sun.

The plaintiffs in the court challenge argued that the insurance industry in Alberta had manufactured the premium crisis by raising rates unnecessarily. They entered evidence into court that showed the insurance companies never lost money in the province; to the contrary, by the time the legislation was enacted in 2004 the insurance industry was well on its way to reaping record profits.

During the court case, Dennis Gartner, the province's superintendent of insurance during the reforms, admitted under oath that the government had no way of knowing how much money insurance companies were making.

After years of waffling, the Klein government finally acted on the controversy in 2004, imposing a $4,000 cap on soft-tissue-injury claims. Since then, personal injury lawyers among others have argued that the ruling -- seen as a sop to the well-connected private insurance lobby -- robbed many accident victims of their basic Charter rights.

Needless to say, the government disagreed, maintaining that its reforms helped all Albertans and didn't affect anyone's liberty. Furthermore, it rejected out of hand the notion that high premiums be tackled with a public auto-insurance scheme, ironically at a time B.C.'s conservative Campbell government was abandoning talk of privatizing the Insurance Corporation of B.C, having discovered that public insurance seemed to work best for taxpayers.

But last Friday, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Neil Wittmann exploded the $4,000 cap, deeming it unconstitutional. As well, he found the existing Minor Injury Regulation discriminates against a specific group of injured Albertans. Wittmann didn't mince words, either, summarily rejecting the government's contention that the legislation was designed to help victims.

Instead, he ruled, the so-called reforms unfairly sacrificed a single group of Albertans "at the altar of reducing insurance premiums."

Now, as anyone financially responsible for a teenager appreciates, the word "high" didn't do justice to premiums faced by some drivers under the old system. "Astronomical" was closer to the mark, and the relief spurred on by the 2004 legislation has been welcome. But the premium grid that did most of the work of changing such inequities is itself unlikely to be affected by Wittmann's ruling.

There will be no waiting period, as requested by the Stelmach government.

Alberta Finance has announced it is studying the ruling, but that shouldn't take long. As of today, the $4,000 cap is no more. Indeed, virtually every argument put forward by the cap-smashing plaintiffs was accepted by the court.

Without the law - and its rate-increase controls - in place the public faces the prospect of increased insurance premiums, Premier Ed Stelmach said Monday.

But opponents decried the government's stance, noting the ruling also clearly indicates that the insurance industry was enjoying record profits at the time and had everything to do with charging the public for bad long-term investments, said NDP Leader Brian Mason.

Mason's party has pledged to introduce public insurance if elected March 3, noting that the most recent Canadian Consumers Association study shows a public system like that in B.C. would save the average Alberta motorist about $400 per year.

"The premier can run from this, but he can't hide," said Mason. "He allowed an industry that was making record profits to run roughshod over the public and to deny injured Albertans their basic rights."

'SCREWED THE PEOPLE'

"Eventually this will come home to roost ... the government clearly screwed the people and took the side of big insurance over Alberta families."

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