Nikki Haley details speaking fees, corporate board position in disclosure

Story by Maeve Reston • Monday
The Washington Post

Nikki Haley details speaking fees, corporate board position in disclosure

© Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post

Republican White House contender Nikki Haley earned at minimum $1.2 million and as much as $12 million delivering a dozen speeches across the globe from March of last year through January, according to a personal financial disclosure report that she filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration before stepping down in 2018, reported receiving payments ranging between $100,001 and $1 million for each of the 12 speeches she made before a wide array of groups over the 10-month period ending in January, shortly before she announced her presidential bid in February.

The presidential hopeful also received a salary of between $50,001 and $100,000 from Great Southern Homes, a company based in Irmo, S.C., that billed itself as one of the largest home builders in the Southeast. She served as a board member for Great Southern Homes from July 2021 to December 2022 and reported holding company stock valued at between $250,001 and $500,000.

Great Southern Homes this year became part of a new publicly traded company called United Homes Group. Haley is currently serving on the board of United Homes Group, according to the disclosure.



Some past GOP presidential candidates who were serving on corporate boards stepped down from those roles before entering the race for the nomination — including Mitt Romney, who left the board of directors for Marriott International in 2011 before running for the White House.

In 2014, as he prepared for a presidential run, former Florida governor Jeb Bush resigned from all of his corporate board memberships, as well as the nonprofit boards on which he was serving — including his education foundation.

When it comes to Haley’s paid speeches, the engagements serve as an illustration of how her turn on the world stage in the Trump administration raised her international profile. The former South Carolina governor spoke to companies and groups across the spectrum from finance to global affairs, including an address to Barclays Capital Asia in Singapore, one to Canadian Friends of the Jerusalem College of Technology in Toronto, a speech to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Montreal, and one to Water Street Healthcare Partners in Chicago. The last paid speech Haley delivered before she announced her run for the Republican presidential nomination was to the National Automobile Dealers Association in Dallas.

Candidates running for president are required to file an annual Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure report with the FEC within 30 days after becoming a candidate — or by May 15 of that calendar year, whichever date is later. The forms allow candidates to report the value of their assets and income in wide ranges, making it difficult to discern the exact value of their financial interests.

Haley reported receiving between $100,001 and $1 million in royalties for her book “If You Want Something Done.” She also received a salary of between $100,001 and $1 million from an asset holding company known as Little Engine, which was described on her disclosure as a corporation jointly owned by Haley and her husband and incorporated in late December 2018.

Haley received consulting fees between $100,001 and $1 million from New York-based Prism Global Management, a global tech investor and private fund manager. Her disclosures note that her consulting agreement with Prism provides for a potential partnership interest in the future.

She reported salary within the range of $50,001 and $100,000 from United Against Nuclear Iran, a New York-based nonprofit organization for which she serves as a senior adviser

Death threats, racist messages to Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal and family reported to police
Story by Michael Rodriguez • Monday, May 15, 2023

Calgary Skyview MP George Chahal says his office has been targeted by disturbing and hateful threats.© Provided by Calgary Herald

Calgary’s lone federal Liberal representative, George Chahal is speaking out after a string of voicemails left at his constituency office — chock full of racist and homophobic slurs — called for the MP and his family members’ deaths.

The Calgary Skyview MP and former city councillor posted to Twitter two clips of voice messages his local office received recently, stating a need to fight back against “growing” hatred.

“I’m appalled by this incident, but also resolute to stand against this hate that’s being promoted by a few in our society,” Chahal told Postmedia on Sunday. “We all are accountable as elected officials to ensure that we stand up and call out and fight against this bigotry, hate and discrimination that we’re seeing.”

The audio, totalling more than four minutes, contains multiple back-to-back voice messages from what appears to be one man, laced with homophobic and racial slurs.

“Hey George, just a reminder you’re an ugly, trash, n—– f—– traitor, and I hope your entire family receives what’s getting to them with corporal punishment one day,” the caller said. “You should all be hanged and exterminated for your treason — thanks.”

Similar pejorative language is used in each of the messages, many of which accuse Chahal of treason for “selling us out” to China and one telling him to “get out of my country, you f—–.”

Chahal said while this is a particularly vile example, these kinds of threats and hate have increased since he moved from municipal to federal politics in 2021 and it’s something many who hold public office face — specifically women and people of colour. The Calgary Police Service is investigating the incident, and Chahal says he’s also made a report to the parliamentary sergeant-at-arms.

“I am being targeted because of my political affiliations and my race and what I stand for,” he said. “This individual and many others have over the last number of years have been targeting many elected officials who hold similar views to myself — it’s concerning. I’m also concerned about the politicians that are inflaming these types of actions here in Canada.”

More security for George Chahal’s constituency office

Chahal said he’s had to bolster security measures at his office so his staffers feel comfortable going to work and upgrade his home security system to ensure his family’s safety.

“My family is always on edge when an incident like this happens. We’ve had a number of people target me at my home, and here at the office as well,” he said. “All Canadians should feel safe to be able to go to work or be in their own home, and should not fear their ability to just be a regular person in our society. … This is unfortunately on the rise and has significantly risen over the last number of years here in Canada.”

Additionally, Chahal said his daughter and niece were followed home after a day of door-knocking during the 2021 campaign .

“This is so unfortunate there are so many incidents that I can point to since I’ve been campaigning and elected as an MP. That is a very concerning and very disturbing trend,” he said.

Chahal’s staff say the messages were left over the course of a single night in March, shortly after Chahal spoke to the Hill Times about recent controversies surrounding China’s meddling in Canadian elections.

In the piece, Chahal contested the notion that volunteers of political campaigns suspected of receiving Chinese aid should be interviewed, saying it presumes guilt and could discourage minorities from being active politically.

Chahal was elected MP for Calgary Skyview in 2021 after a single term on city council.

mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @MichaelRdrguez

Saskatchewan government pausing tire recycling plans, reviewing procurement practices

Story by Saskatoon StarPhoenix • Monday May 15, 2023

A worker cleans equipment used to make interlocking patio tiles at Shercom Industries manufacturing facility near Saskatoon. Representatives of Shercom have raised concerns about a decision by Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan to enter into a contract with a U.S.-based company to set up a tire-processing facility in Moose Jaw.

© Provided by Star Phoenix

The provincial government is tapping the brakes on changes to Saskatchewan’s tire-recycling market.

The province announced Monday that Premier Scott Moe has engaged Cam Swan, a former deputy minister of environment, to work with the Ministry of Environment and Tire Stewardship Saskatchewan (TSS), the industry non-profit that oversees used tire collection.

Swan is to “review procurement practices and assess future needs of tire recycling and processing, and to provide recommendations to the Minister,” the announcement states.

The review is to be completed sometime this summer. In the meantime, a request for proposals for a new tire processor for the northern portion of the province is to be put on hold.

TSS recently awarded a contract to U.S.-based Crumb Rubber Manufacturers (CRM) for a tire processing facility to be set up in Moose Jaw. The move came with a guarantee that CRM would receive all used tires collected in the southern portion of the province, as opposed to the previous system, which allowed dealers to choose where used tires went.

TSS CEO Stevyn Arnt previously said the move was meant to reduce freight costs and lower the environmental impact of shipping tires from southern Saskatchewan to the outskirts of Saskatoon.

The arrangement drew strong reaction from Shercom Industries, which has for years operated Saskatchewan’s only tire processing facility in the Corman Park Industrial Area a few kilometres north of Saskatoon. Shercom’s contract with TSS expired in 2020; the last in a series of short-term extensions ran out at the end of April.

With the supply of used tires nearly cut in half, Shercom president Shane Olson last week said his company had cut dozens of jobs, as its multimillion-dollar tire processing operation was no longer viable.

He said the tire processing plant would be shut down completely once Shercom’s existing inventory was used up. From there, he said the company would then have to rely on rubber purchased from outside the province for its ongoing manufacturing business, which produces items including driveways, patio tiles and landscaping mulch.

Olson also stated that Shercom would not bid on the now-shelved plan for a processor for the northern half of the province, and cast doubt on the long-term future of the manufacturing business staying in Saskatchewan.

Citing 30 years of experience in the industry and multiple bankruptcies among competitors, Olson questioned the ability of the Saskatchewan market to sustain multiple processing operations.

The Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce also spoke against the TSS decision, and wrote to Environment Minister Dana Skoropad calling for a review.

Related
Operator of Saskatchewan tire recycling program changed

SASKATCHEWAN FIRE SALE
$3.2M and counting: Sales of SLGA buildings continue

Story by Regina Leader-Post • Monday, May 15, 2023

The now-closed SLGA Dewdney Liquor Store© Provided by Leader Post

The sale of 10 former SLGA buildings has netted the province more than $3.2 million — and there are currently three more properties up for grabs.

The Government of Saskatchewan announced Monday another building that housed an SLGA Retail Inc. liquor store in Fort Qu’Appelle was sold for $370,000.

Offers were previously accepted on properties in Watrous, Biggar, Esterhazy, La Ronge, Buffalo Narrows, Creighton, Carlyle, Humboldt and Moosomin — though six of those deals are still listed as pending on SLGA’s website.

The last of SLGA’s 34 stores, 19 of which it owned, closed on March 11.

Five of the buildings will be repurposed for other government organizations, the province said Monday.

Three available properties are listed for sale in Saskatoon, Nipawin and Assiniboia.

The government auctioned off the province’s remaining 35 public liquor permits in February as part of a plan to exit the business by the end of March. By the end of the month, the government said it raked in roughly $45 million for the permits.

A whole new conflict around remote work

Story by Robert Cross •

Ottawa Citizen

 Monday, May 15, 2023

April 19, 2023: Public service workers protest outside the Prime Minister's Office across from Parliament Hill. PSAC has since reached a tentative contract deal with the federal government

The tentative deal that ended the largest federal strike in decades could open a whole new conflict around remote work, a demand that came second only to wages in the two-week standoff and isn’t going away.

“It’s a strike that didn’t need to happen,” said Linda Duxbury, a Chancellor’s professor of management at Carleton University and expert on work-life balance and remote work.

She blames both the government and its largest federal union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, for failing to manage workers’ expectations about remote work, which she says is a “privilege not a right.”

“The government caused this problem by arbitrarily picking out of the air that employees must come into the office two to three days a week,” she said.

“It makes no sense when you’ve got such huge number of different jobs…. You’re can’t treat everyone the same. By trying to be fair to everybody, they are fair to nobody. People are enraged.”

In the coming days, 155,000 public servants will vote whether to ratify a deal that some fear could set the government and its workforce on a collision course. Former Privy Council clerk Kevin Lynch has questioned how it will lead to a more productive public service that delivers better services.

PSAC never got the raise it wanted to match inflation, but the four-year deal is one of the highest recently negotiated in the public sector. It will dole out raises worth 12.6 per cent – along with other sweeteners.

The agreement on remote work, however, falls short of the breakthrough PSAC wanted.

Remote work remained a red line for both parties. PSAC wanted the right to work from home enshrined in the collective agreement. Treasury Board President Mona Fortier stood firm that how and where employees work is a management right that she would not surrender.

Instead, remote requests will be assessed individually by managers and in writing. Requests that are denied will go to a joint union-employer panel for review, but they cannot be grieved.

Treasury Board has also promised to consult with unions on a review of the 30-year-old telework policy. Other union officials don’t have much faith.

“C’mon,” said one long-time negotiator. “Have you ever seen a government consulting with a union that leads to a major overhaul of anything? Let’s be real here.”

With the new deal, the first in the line of fire will be managers, who will have to juggle the responsibility and complications of remote work.

“I can’t tell you who won this deal, but I can certainly tell you who lost; the front-line and middle-level managers who all of sudden have all the onus for this on them,” Duxbury said.

Managers are already a beleaguered bunch. Duxbury said data shows those empathetic to their staff worked flat-out during the pandemic, squeezed between the must-do orders from senior management and front-line employees doing the work.

“They’re coming out of the pandemic, already burned out and what do we do? We dump this responsibility on them. We don’t give them any tools. We don’t give them any guidance. We don’t even tell them what productivity looks like for people who work at home,” she said.

Many of the issues around remote could be solved by better management. The relationship between managers and employees is all-important, but now managers are “put in the position of judging who gets to work from home. They can’t win,” said Duxbury.

If they say no, for whatever reason, they are suddenly in hours of follow-ups and grievances and committees and more committees on top of everything else they have to do.”
How to measure productivity?

It’s particularly challenging to measure productivity among knowledge workers, and the government charged ahead with hybrid work with no way track it, said Duxbury.

Its outdated classification system desperately needs an overhaul to measure productivity in jobs as diverse as carpenters and cooks to scientists and economists. What productivity means varies wildly by job, department and even the person doing the work.

Prior to the pandemic, the public service measured productivity by hours worked, and those who worked the longest and were available 24/7 were the “most worthy and promotable,” said Duxbury.

The pandemic sent everyone home to work, where employees claim they are as or more productive. They are indeed working longer hours – about 11 hours more a week, Duxbury’s studies show. But can that extra time be equated with productivity?

“Longer hours are just an input. We’re interested in output. What do you do? No one has measured that at all, so claims of productivity can’t be supported. We don’t have a clue,” she said.

Duxbury argues the strike might never have happened if Treasury Board had stuck with its original plan of letting departments decide how to make the shift to a hybrid workforce and who to bring back to the office.

Treasury Board faced lots of criticism for that hands-off approach. With more than 100 departments and agencies, the result was a patchwork, with some requiring a day or two in the office and others allowing people to work from home. Departments also didn’t enforce the various standards.

Ultimately, the government clamped down with a “one-size-fits-all” approach and created a massive uproar when it forced people back to the office two to three days a week.

“If they (had) just left it alone, and gone with departments’ plans, and given autonomy to the deputy ministers who knew the type of work being done, knew their people, and knew what was possible, probably none of this would have happened,” said Duxbury.

PSAC tapped into the fury and frustration over the government’s return-to-office order to stoke its strike vote — something it knew the government wasn’t going to give in on.

But labour observers say PSAC is facing a backlash among its members for failing to manage expectations. Already, the deal has created fractures within PSAC. One of its union components, which represents 37,000 workers, is leading a no-vote campaign against the deal.

The PSAC union representing tax workers at Canada Revenue Agency didn’t want the deal and stayed on strike. Without the leverage of 120,000 striking Treasury Board workers, it settled a couple of days later with much the same deal.

What about tensions between front-line workers who have to report to work and office workers who can work from home? Many argue this will inevitably lead to two-tier employment with those who can’t do their jobs remotely wanting to be paid a premium over remote work colleagues who get to save on commuting costs.
Will public servants become politicized?

Some worry the strike has so seriously shaken labour peace that public servants could become politicized against their employer.

This kind of politicization could play out in the next election, said Larry Savage, professor of labour studies at Brock University. Federal unions fear the election of a labour-unfriendly and cost-cutting Conservative government, but they don’t want to be “seen as helping the prime minister who pushed them out onto the picket line.” (Remember in the 2015 election, some federal unions openly campaigned against the Harper government over anti-labour legislation that took away their collective bargaining rights. The Liberals repealed that legislation.)

For the upcoming ratification vote, PSAC is positioning remote work as a major step forward to be built on in future rounds of collective bargaining.

And what about the other unions still in bargaining?

“What leverage does any other union have to get a better deal when this is all that came out of a 12-day strike?” said one longtime union leader. “After all this, do you think the government is going to say, ‘Oh yeah, ‘we’ll give you more than we gave them?’”

Kathryn May
This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

Social Services, Corrections largest sources of complaints to Sask. ombudsman
Story by Larissa Kurz • Monday, MAY 15, 2023

Sharon Pratchler, Saskatchewan ombudsman and public interest disclosure commissioner, in Saskatoon, SK on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.© Provided by Leader Post

The provincial ministries of Social Services and Corrections, Policing and Public Safety were the leading sources of complaints to the Saskatchewan ombudsman in 2022, continuing a trend lasting over a decade.

Details of the annual provincial ombudsman’s report show complaints about Social Services rose for the second year in a row, with many related to service delivery issues within the ministry’s programs.

The report, tabled at the end of April, comes as the ombudsman marks a milestone year in 2023.

The provincial ombudsman’s office opened in 1973, celebrating 50 years in operation earlier this month. Since opening, the ombudsman has fielded more than 160,000 requests for assistance from the public.

“The heart of our mandate is to ensure administratively fair processes and outcomes in provincial and municipal government programs and services,” wrote Sharon Pratchler, who stepped into the role as Saskatchewan’s ombudsman in November.

“The key to delivering on that mandate is maintaining humanity within the decision-making of systems of government.”

In 2022, the ombudsman received 3,656 requests for assistance, with 2,701 of these found to be within the office’s jurisdiction to investigate, a decrease of 4 per cent from 2021.

The largest number of requests were related to issues with Social Services, with 691 complaints marking a 6 per cent increase over 2021 and a 19 per cent rise over 2020, but less than the 884 complaints recorded in 2019.

Anecdotal details in the report indicate Social Services complaints were often related to errors in policy interpretation, such as those regarding eligibility for Saskatchewan Income Support (SIS) benefits for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.

The length of time it took to get approvals for supports was also a significant source of requests to the ombudsman.

“Even if a decision is ultimately made in favour of a citizen, if there is an inordinate delay in the decision-making, this raises both procedural and relational fairness issues for citizens, as well as our office,” the report noted.

Second in volume, with 597 requests, were complaints about Corrections, Policing and Public Safety, up slightly from 2021.

The provincial correctional centres in Regina and Saskatoon saw the largest number of complaints, with the report noting this is related to the facilities housing the largest numbers of inmates.

The majority of complaints about provincial correctional centres were filed by remanded inmates, rather than those who had been sentenced, with many complaints related to misdelivery of disciplinary sanctions inside facilities.

Municipalities continued to be the third-largest source of complaints in 2022, following a trend that began in 2016 when they came under the ombudsman’s jurisdiction, the report stated.

A total of 465 requests for assistance were related to municipal administrations or councils last year.

Health care concerns also continued to be common, although complaints related to COVID-19 were fewer than in the previous two years.

Complaints were prevalent specifically amongst older adults in relation to care facilities, Pratchler wrote. Commonly shared issues related to delayed access to services like home care or surgery, timeliness and quality of care, and lack of respect or dignity.

“Many of these individuals expressed their opinion that inadequate staffing levels were a contributing factor to their situations,” Pratchler noted.

The Public Interest Disclosure Commissioner annual report, also compiled by Pratchler, was tabled in tandem with the ombudsman’s report.

Nineteen inquiries under the Public Interest Disclosure Act were submitted in 2022, but for “the majority of the cases, it was determined that the inquiry did not fall within the mandate of our legislation,” the report noted. Five open files were carried over into 2023 from the end of the year.

Pratchler said work in 2022 has continued to focus on the office’s long-standing mandate of ensuring fair and timely resolutions, either by formal or informal investigation.

Her report notes that the ombudsman has continued to resolve more than 90 per cent of complaints within three months and 95 per cent within six months, since goals were set in 2007.

She lauded the office’s past and present staff for continued dedication to addressing public concerns with government entities over the past several decades.

“Every day, the team makes a difference in the lives of Saskatchewan citizens by listening to complaints, providing information, and by using problem solving and conflict resolution skills to achieve fair and timely resolutions,” writes Pratchler.

Related
Sask. inmate disciplinary system steadily improving, says ombudsman
Ombudsman flooded with COVID-related complaints last year
Sask. ombudsman finds fault with jails, care homes, municipalities

CANADA-UGANDA

Naheed Nenshi: A moment that changed the fabric of this country forever

Naheed Nenshi
Contributor
Follow | Contact
Updated Sept. 28, 2022

I turned 50 earlier this year. I always know how old I am because I coincide with two major events in Canada’s history: the Summit Series and Paul Henderson’s goal, and another moment that changed the fabric of this country forever. For arguably the first time, Canada extended its hand to refugees who looked different, who worshipped differently than most Canadians, but who needed help.

And nothing was ever the same again.

First some history. In the early part of the last century, as Europeans flocked to North America and particularly to the Canadian west in search of a better future for their families, a similar migration was happening on the other side of the world. British subjects in India, largely members of minority religious communities, were encouraged by the British to migrate to a land of opportunity and help the British settle the place. In this case it was Africa, and thousands of men flocked to work on the railroads, to start small businesses and to grow their families. They moved across the continent, with many (like Gandhi himself) in South Africa, some in places like Mozambique, where their families learned Portuguese, some in Congo, where they operated in French, and many in the nations of East Africa where they continued a very English life.

(An aside. In the 1930s, two sisters both boarded ships in Western India, bound for Africa, to marry men they didn't know. One was 12, one was 14. One ended up in Tanzania and learned a little English, the other in Mozambique where she learned a little Portuguese. They stayed in touch through letters as they both had many children and raised them through a lot of turmoil. And that's why my mother has cousins in Lisbon today.)

In the 1960s, as these African nations won their hard-earned independence, resentment towards the Asian communities grew. They were wealthier than the African communities, by and large, and were seen as coddled by the British, and life became a bit more difficult.

My parents, hotel staff in Tanzania, had met some Canadian aid workers and managed to immigrate to Canada in July 1971. Just before they left, my mother discovered she was pregnant but they made the journey anyway.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY IN CANADA

To this day, my sister believes I am the first Ismaili Muslim born in Canada. I don't know if that's true, but I do know my parents came to a country with very few Indians. No one knew what a mango was. But they found a few people with familiar-sounding names in the phone book (people under 40, ask your parents what that is) and built a tiny community that tried to figure out this new land together.

Just a few months later, the world shifted. A year to the day before I was born, an insane megalomaniac called Idi Amin had come to power in Uganda. On his way to killing anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 of his own people, he received a message from God, or so he claimed, saying he needed all the Asians to get out. Suddenly, tens of thousands of people who had lived in Uganda for generations found themselves stateless, including a particular young woman studying in England.

The Canadian government of the time, having just declared Canada to be a multicultural nation, had a dilemma. Most of these asylum seekers spoke English, and they were largely professionals and entrepreneurs, but they were, well, different.

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, prevailed on Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to accept these people, many of whom were Ismailis, and 6,000 of them came to Canada all at once.

My parents and their friends, just figuring out the Canadian system, suddenly found themselves looking after thousands of others, as they struggled to create new lives.

And struggle there was, combined with sacrifice, service, and ultimately success. Refugees from Uganda and their families have achieved success in business, in politics, in academia, in the arts and social services, and in media. They even read us the evening news.

This week, members of the Aga Khan’s family are travelling across Canada to commemorate this 50th anniversary and inaugurate a number of projects: a new Diwan, or pavilion, at the magnificent Aga Khan Gardens outside of Edmonton, and groundbreaking on multi-generational community hubs including seniors housing in Toronto and Vancouver, to match the incredible Generations facility that opened in Calgary three years ago. They are also signing a new agreement with the Province of British Columbia focused on combating climate change and receiving a great honour from the City of Toronto.

Oh, and that stateless young woman who was studying in England? She gets to officially greet the family in her role as Lieutenant Governor, the King’s representative in Alberta.

HOW CANADIANS THINK ABOUT PLURALISM

But for me, the greatest legacy of that decision to bring in the Asian Ugandans is how it has changed the way we Canadians think about pluralism. Just a few years later, we welcomed more than 100,000 refugees from Vietnam (Calgary’s civic dish is bánh mì, feel free to fight me on this!) and have been a place of safety and hope for people from every corner of this broken world.

We are far from perfect, and we have a long way to go to create a truly anti-racist society, but it's worth noting that even in our increasingly brittle public discourse, there is little to no anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In Québec, politicians are still defining the acceptable and flirting with xenophobia. Premier François Legault is the author of the disgusting Bill 21, and implied that immigration was linked with violence but then quickly called immigration “a source of wealth” while promising to cap the number of immigrants.

But in the rest of the country, mainstream politicians do not trade in that kind of language. Even the recent Conservative Party of Canada and United Conservative Party leadership race in Alberta, which have both seen the parties seemingly shift sharply to the right, candidates have avoided the kind of anti-immigrant language similar parties have used across Europe and in the United States, despite the electoral success of such policies in places such as Hungary, Sweden, and Italy.

I like to think that's because we have come to a consensus after these 50 years, that a pluralistic Canada is a stronger Canada, that a welcoming Canada is a better Canada. It's not easy, and we have to fight for it every day, but it's a fight worth having.

Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi wrote this opinion column for CTV News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with then-Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi in his office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday Nov. 21, 2019. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

   

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Notley and Smith offer competing health care promises as new poll suggests NDP lead

New polling data shows NDP ahead in Calgary

Author of the article: Michael Rodriguez
Published May 13, 2023 • Postmedia

NDP leader Rachel Notley announces her party's plan to attract more frontline healthcare workers to the province during a campaign stop in Calgary on Saturday, May 13, 2023. 

Gavin Young/Postmedia 
Article content

Alberta’s leading political parties made competing vows related to health care on Saturday, with the United Conservatives promising investments into care for women and children as the New Democrats pledged hefty recruitment bonuses to attract more health workers to the province.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said if her party gains power in the May 29 election, it would earmark $70 million annually to give $10,000 signing bonuses for doctors, nurses and other health professionals in what she called an ambitious but “critical short-term measure to keep our hospitals open and ensure Albertans in need of care are getting it.”

She also promised an NDP government would add 10,000 university spaces in a variety of health-care programs — at a cost of $375 million over three years — and develop plans to streamline international credentialing and provide income supports to make it easier for foreign-trained health-care workers to find jobs in Alberta.

Notley framed the commitments as part of the party’s solution to the “health-care crisis.” She noted Friday evening emergency room wait times of more than 12 hours at Calgary’s South Health Campus and Peter Lougheed hospitals.

“Today, I come before Albertans with an ambitious plan to make this stop,” she said. “Danielle Smith and the UCP will say this can’t be done, but that’s because they just don’t have the determination. What they do have is a plan to sell off our hospitals to corporations. What we have is a plan to staff them.”

UCP Leader Danielle Smith vowed an expansion of the conditions for which newborns are screened at birth, funding for testing, educational supports, and programs for children with autism and other complex disabilities, and the development of a provincewide midwifery strategy. The party would also provide a $10-million legacy grant to the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation to fund women’s health research.
“Women and children have special health needs that need to be met if we’re going to improve health outcomes,” Smith said. “Whether it’s increasing funding for obstetrics and midwives, working to expand newborn screening or supporting important research, today’s announcement will help more Albertans lead healthier lives.”

UCP leader Danielle Smith speaks during a press conference in Calgary on Thursday, May 11, 2023. PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG /Postmedia

Smith said doctors, midwives, and nurses would also be eligible for the UCP’s recently announced Alberta is Calling signing bonus and graduate retention tax credit “so we can attract and retain more practitioners in Alberta.”

Under those programs, eligible newcomers would receive a $1,200 payment after their first full year of living here, and graduates from an accredited Alberta post-secondary institution could be eligible for up to $10,000 in credits if they stay in Alberta and find work in an in-demand field. The UCP criticized the NDP’s announcement as a “copy” of those recently announced policies.

Parties continue trading barbs on health care

“Rachel Notley and the NDP may talk a good game on health care, but their actions will inevitably undermine it,” said Smith.

Notley criticized the UCP’s track record on health care, saying it makes any bid to attract health workers a tougher sell.

“Alberta’s NDP is committed to restoring a trusting relationship with all health-care professionals,” Notley said Saturday. “With the UCP, we’ve got a government that ripped up the doctors’ contract right after they got elected, threatened to fire thousands and thousands of frontline health-care professionals and very recently referred to physicians as Nazi sympathizers. With that setting, it is hard to imagine Alberta succeeding in a recruitment campaign in competition with other provinces.”

The UCP has touted its recruitment success, noting that Alberta added “over 1,400 new internationally trained nurses” in April, citing the number as a record. That claim is disputed by the United Nurses of Alberta union.

The UCP and the NDP have butted heads on health care throughout the campaign. Last week, Notley called Smith out over a resurfaced video clip from a 2021 event where the then out-of-politics Smith floated the idea of privatizing major Alberta hospitals. In the wake of that criticism, Smith has repeatedly reaffirmed her party’s commitment to public health care.

“The only card that Albertans will ever need to access health care is their health-care card. Any NDP attack to the contrary is completely and utterly false,” Smith told reporters Saturday.

While vowing that the party has no plans to sell off hospitals, Smith has said a UCP government would continue contracting surgeries to private facilities in a bid to clear the surgical backlog.

NDP ahead in Calgary: poll

New polling numbers released Saturday by Abacus Data show the NDP ahead in a provincewide survey, including notable gains in Calgary. The data, based on a survey of 885 eligible voters from May 9 to 12, shows roughly 43 per cent favour the NDP, while the UCP sits at 35 per cent. Abacus’s last poll in April had the two parties neck-and-neck at 36 per cent.

Among decided voters, those numbers are even more stark. The NDP holds a 10-point margin over the UCP, 51 per cent to 41 per cent, according to Abacus. And in Calgary, widely perceived as the election’s main battleground, the NDP sits at 42 per cent support, up six points on the UCP’s 36 per cent.

The NDP has a sizable 33-point margin in Edmonton (56 per cent to the UCP’s 23 per cent), while the UCP holds an 8-point lead in other areas of the province (43 per cent to the NDP’s 35 per cent).

“We knew that this was going to be a tough election,” said Smith. “I mean, we went for two years polling behind the NDP … I was so pleased to see going into the election that we’ve narrowed the gap. We do have a lot of work to do to get people to understand just how important this election is that we don’t go back (to the NDP).”

Notley was largely unfazed by the new poll.

“When it comes to horse-race polls, there are good polls or bad polls, they will change,” said Notley. “It’s trite, but it’s really true: the only poll that matters is the one that people participate in on election day.”

Abacus Data says the margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @MichaelRdrguez

Notley promises southern Alberta health-care support at Lethbridge campaign rally

Story by Erik Bay • May 9, 2023

Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley speaks at a campaign rally in Lethbridge on May 8, 2023.

© Global News

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley started the second week of the provincial election campaign in Lethbridge on Monday, sharing how her party plans to address the city's health-care concerns, if elected.

Notley unveiled the Lethbridge Teaching Clinic at a campaign rally Monday evening.

The model would recruit seven medical students and 20 family medicine residents to serve southern Alberta.

"It would make perfect sense to put it here in Lethbridge when we know there's so many folks in the city who don't have access to a family doctor," Notley said.

According to Notley, it's part of the NDP's family health teams plan, which promises to build 40 new family health clinics across the province.

"We would look to making sure one of those clinics was here in Lethbridge, but we would design it in particular and then put in the extra funding to allow for the teaching component of it," Notley said.

The NDP says the Lethbridge clinic's construction has an estimated $10-million price tag and would operate at a predicted annual cost of $18 million.

Lethbridge-East UCP candidate Nathan Neudorf calls it similar to his party's measures.

"It's interesting to hear they are announcing things we've already started in motion," Neudorf said.

In January, the UCP announced $1 million to explore the feasibility of establishing physician training centres outside the province's two major cities, including one at the University of Lethbridge.

"That's the future, getting out kids into our schools to fill our positions, because after they've done their seven to eight years of training, they've sort of become established in our community," Neudorf said.

The United Conservatives are also funding expansions at Chinook Regional Hospital.

About $11.2 million is earmarked for the renal dialysis program, while $2 million is meant to design a catheterization lab.

"There's lots of people that we need to draw here. Having the facilities that they can fully practise what they went to school for is a big part of that," Neudorf said.

Last month, the NDP promised $20 million to support new interventional cardiac services and enable catheterization in the city if elected.

Smith suggested police violated Criminal Code by enforcing Alberta COVID-19 rules: video
Story by Lisa Johnson • Monday, May 15,2023

Danielle Smith answers questions during a news conference in Calgary on May 13, 2023.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal

As Alberta’s election campaign enters its third week, UCP Leader Danielle Smith is dodging questions about her past comments suggesting police broke the law by enforcing COVID-19 health measures.

Video unearthed from last September, before Smith won the UCP leadership to replace former premier Jason Kenney, was reported on by Press Progress Sunday. During the Facebook live discussion, Smith emphasized the importance of “good political leadership” that should not have given officers such “latitude,” pointing to charges against religious pastors who refused to follow pandemic measures.

“You are not allowed, under the Criminal Code, to disrupt a service,” she said.

“I have to wonder whether or not some of those officers are the ones who broke the law in doing so,” Smith said.

In another March 2021 video published by the Western Standard and recently shared by Press Progress, Smith made similar comments, suggesting that preventing someone from delivering a sermon can result in two years in jail.

“Why isn’t someone taking a Criminal Code violation against Dr. Deena Hinshaw for authorizing this?” asked Smith.

At an unrelated news conference Monday, Smith was asked by a reporter what she would say to Albertans who have questions about why she thinks members of law enforcement should be arrested for enforcing public health orders.

Smith didn’t directly answer, but blamed the Alberta NDP and attacked Leader Rachel Notley’s record in office.

“I know that the NDP are going to constantly be bringing up grainy videos, the things that I’ve said in the past or other candidates have said, and the reason they’re doing that is because Rachel Notley was the worst premier this province has ever had,” she said, pointing to jobs lost during Notley’s four years in government. Smith did not take follow-up questions and the UCP did not immediately respond to requests from Postmedia Monday.

Her party leadership campaign promised amnesty for those fined for violating COVID-19 orders but, since taking office , Smith said she learned politicians cannot offer pardons under the Canadian justice system.

Smith was plagued with criticism last week over her past comments comparing 75 per cent of vaccinated Albertans to Nazi supporters, and expressing her refusal to wear a Remembrance Day poppy because of her disagreement with politicians over COVID-19 rules.

Her connections to street pastor Artur Pawlowski, who was found guilty for his role in inciting violence and prolonging the Coutts border crossing blockade, also made headlines during the first week of the campaign.

Related
Danielle Smith apologizes for 2021 video showing her comparing vaccinated to Nazi followers

GraceLife Church pastor loses constitutional challenge of COVID enforcement measures

Smith referred, in the past videos, to the case of pastor James Coates, whose GraceLife Church west of Edmonton was fenced off after it repeatedly held services in defiance of public health orders.

While Coates claimed the conduct of the health inspector disrupted the service and amounted to state interference in the practice of religion, a provincial court judge dismissed that argument in 2021, saying nothing about the conduct of Alberta Health Services or the RCMP violated Section 176 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits obstruction of a religious service.

“The argument to the contrary conflicts with the facts of the case. Section 176 does not dig a moat around places of worship, preventing enforcement of laws that are being repeatedly broken,” Judge Robert Shaigec stated at the time.

Notley said at an unrelated NDP conference Monday that Smith’s comments show why the UCP can’t be trusted.

“The idea that you would call into question police officers who are enforcing the law and that they would somehow be at risk of being accused as criminals by the premier for doing their job is exactly the kind of threat to the rule of law that Danielle Smith represents,” said Notley.

Notley and Smith are set to debate each other on Thursday and Albertans will go to the polls in a general election May 29.

lijohnson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/reportrix

Fact check: Did Alberta really lose 183,000 jobs under Rachel Notley?

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • May 13, 2023

NDP Leader Rachel Notley’s handling of the economy, specifically jobs, is the UCP’s main attack point.© Radio-Canada

In a February advertisement, the United Conservative Party claims Rachel Notley's NDP government lost 183,000 jobs during its four years in government. Is it true?

"[Rachel Notley] wants you to forget that her NDP drove us into massive debt and lost 183,000 jobs," says the video posted to YouTube by the UCP on Feb. 7

No, it's not true.

According to the labour market data from Statistics Canada, when the NDP came into power in May 2015, there were 2,274,500 Albertans employed. Four years later in April 2019, there were 2,316,900 — a net increase of 42,400 jobs.

Employment in Alberta under the NDP

Even the trend-cycle that smooths monthly variations in statistics and irregularities shows an increase in the number of employed people in Alberta from the beginning and end of the New Democrats' term.

According to Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, another way to calculate employment is based on Statistics Canada's Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours.

This report accounts only for salaried positions, and therefore could exclude those who are self-employed. And if a person has two jobs, they're counted as two people.

According to this survey, Alberta counted 2,058,539 salaried workers in May 2015, and 2,032,528 four years later — a loss of roughly 26,000 jobs. That's a significant difference from the 183,000 job losses highlighted by the UCP's ad.

Difficult economic times

However, Alberta's four years of Rachel Notley weren't all sunshine and roses from an economic standpoint, either. During her first 14 months as premier, close to 85,000 jobs were lost, according to Statistics Canada

Related video: Here's the Alberta leader's debate in 5 minutes (cbc.ca)

Duration 4:57  View on Watch

Global News Decision Alberta: Morning talk with NDP Leader Rachel Notley

7:51

cbc.ca  Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley face off in Alberta leaders debate

2:41

The Canadian Press   UCP’s Smith and NDP Alberta’s Notley go head-to-head in provincial election debate

2:11

The main reason can be found in the fall of oil prices, which began in the second half of 2014, explains Alberta Central economist Charles St-Arnaud. After peaking at over $105 US, a barrel of oil fell to $30 US at the start of 2016.

Numerous energy companies made layoffs. The unemployment rate reached 8.9 per cent in July 2016.

"It doesn't matter which party formed the government. Considering the shock we had with the decline in oil prices, we would have had a recession anyway," said St-Arnaud. "The economy contracted by 3.5 per cent in both 2015 and 2016, so a decent decline in economic activity and of course led to big job losses."

Politicians had even less influence because the impact came from outside the province, he added.

Data from Statistics Canada shows the number of people employed in Alberta gradually increased after the mid-year low in 2016. The rest of the economy adapted to the new reality of a low oil price, St-Arnaud said.

Better increases under the United Conservatives

Employment rates were much stronger during the four years of the UCP, despite the pandemic's impact on the labour market.

Employment in Alberta under the UCP

According to data from Statistics Canada, when Jason Kenney came into power, roughly 2,307,000 Albertans were employed. In April, under Danielle Smith, there were roughly 2,443,100 — an increase of about 136,000 jobs in four years.

St-Arnaud still doesn't believe that the two economic crises are comparable.

He said the drop in oil prices was a major economic moment that dramatically changed the economy by impacting projected investments in the sector, whereas the pandemic had a different, more temporary impact.

"The dynamic of the economic shock is completely different," he said. "It took a long time before oil prices recovered. We started to see a bit more health in the oil and gas sector starting [around] 2019. It started to be a bit more normal, but still not what we saw in 2013 or 2014 in those big boom years."

St-Arnaud explained that once pandemic restrictions were lifted, the economy was able to rebound and people got back to work. He noted that another major factor was the federal government's increased stimulus for post-pandemic economic recovery.

Countrywide, however, the province is doing well.

"We've had a lot of workers that came to Alberta, but the economy was strong enough, there were enough jobs to absorb those new arrivals," St-Arnaud said.

The UCP has not responded to requests for the sources of the numbers in the advertisement.

This story was originally published May 1, 2023, in French.

Fact Check: Did Rachel Notley raise taxes 97 times?

Yes, it's correct, but that number is misleading, says economics professor

Tiphanie Roquette · CBC News · 

Posted:  May 11, 2023

The United Conservative Party accuses Rachel Notley of increasing taxes and fees 97 times during her four years as Alberta’s premier. (United Conservative Party/YouTube)

Alberta UCP Leader Danielle Smith mentions in every speech that NDP Leader Rachel Notley as premier increased fees and taxes 97 times between 2015 and 2019.

Is this true?

Yes, it's correct, but that number is misleading.

"[Rachel Notley] wants you to forget that her government increased taxes 97 times. Ninety-seven times," we hear in a February 2023 YouTube video advertisement from the UCP.

But Danielle Smith made a clarification in her speeches this week.

"Rachel Notley increased taxes and fees 97 times when she was premier. Ninety-seven times," she said at her campaign launch.

The addition of the word "fees" is important — in the UCP's detailed list, taxes aren't the only increase accounted for.

In reality, 74 of the 97 elements listed are fee increases, such as the cost of filing court documents, or provincial museum ticket prices.

Alberta's 2018 provincial budget also, for example, included cost increases for Jubilee Auditorium stage rental.

The UCP listed increases for each rental category, accounting for 13 increases. Similarly, the increase in museum admission fees is distinguished by each category of entry and their corresponding ticket prices.

The UCP's list also includes five fines for traffic offences such as speeding.

Fees vs. taxes

Lindsay Tedds, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary, says it's misleading to amalgamate taxes and fees in the same list because they don't affect public finances and personal finances in the same way.

Taxes such as personal income tax contribute to the general revenue of the province, whereas fees have more of a direct connection between users and goods or services.

"The only way you can avoid taxes is to engage in illegal tax evasion behaviour. With everything else, you can change your behaviour. You can not go camping as much, you don't have to go to the museum. Those all have consequences, but it's all about aligning the user with with the cost," she said.

Tedds adds that a large portion of the fees within the list increase regularly because of inflation.

In the 2018 provincial budget, for example, the revenue from fees and permits was roughly $3.9 million, whereas the revenue from taxes was estimated at close to $23 million.

The NDP government did raise taxes during its term. Corporate income tax increased from 10 to 12 per cent during Notley's governance.

Notley's government also created new tax brackets for income over $125,000 and increased taxation of each of the four new brackets.

While Jason Kenney's United Conservative government reversed the first hike, reducing corporate tax to eight per cent, it never reversed the change for individuals.

144 tax hikes for the UCP?

The New Democrats did the same analysis of the United Conservative budgets.

The NDP lists 144 increases in taxes, fees and fines in the provincial budgets from 2019 to 2023.

This list is just as misleading, even if the NDP assures that it invoked the same methods as the UCP.

In addition to fee increases, the NDP's list also counted the tax credits created by the NDP government that their United Conservative successor eliminated.

Another example: the UCP allowed school boards to charge parents for transportation and supplies, something the NDP had waived during its years in government.

The New Democrats therefore counted this measure as a part of its accounting of fee increases over the past four years.

"All governments play this game. Election season is a silly season," said Tedds.


This story was originally published May 3 in French.

Translated from French by Lily Dupuis

Rachel Notley is Alberta’s real progressive conservative

'I disagree with him completely': Rachel Notley says of Jagmeet Singh's oilsands stance

08:10
CTV QP: Notley against cutting oilsands production

Spencer Van Dyk
CTV News Parliamentary Bureau 

Writer, Producer
Updated May 13, 2023 6:12 p.m. MDT

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley says she completely disagrees with federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s stance on oil and gas industry subsidies, because she thinks the economy driving sector needs investment to stay competitive internationally and find innovative ways to reduce emissions.

Notley told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday, she thinks the oil and gas sector needs to be “at the table” in conversations about how to reduce carbon emissions.

She added that while the oil and gas industry saw record profits last year, she still believes it needs investment, especially if Canada is going to compete with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers billions of dollars in energy incentives south of the border.

Meanwhile Singh, Notley’s federal counterpart, has long been calling on the Liberal government to “stop giving billions of dollars of public money to oil and gas companies.”

The oil and gas sector made record profits last year — reaching more than $34 billion — and Singh has said he wants to see the Liberals cancel all subsidies to the industry, including the Carbon Capture Tax Credit.

Notley, however, said she “disagree(s) with him completely on this issue.”

She said while oil and gas profits “are spectacular right now,” the sector also “suffered significant losses during (the pandemic),” and there’s a pressing need to stay competitive with the Inflation Reduction Act.

“So there are a lot of different factors that play at it,” she said. “But I do disagree with this idea that there should be no partnerships with oil and gas when we are in a position of it playing still such an important role in our economy.”

She added she disagrees with “this idea that we can just simply walk away from something that contributes such a large amount to our economy, not just in Alberta, but across Canada, on a point of principle.”

With little more than two weeks until Albertans head to the polls, both Notley and UCP Leader Danielle Smith have also pushed back against the federal government’s emissions reduction targets.

Last March, the federal government proposed targets to reduce overall emissions to 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, with the oil and gas sector having the goal of cutting emissions by 42 per cent in the next seven years.

Notley has called the targets “unrealistic.”

She said while an emissions cap is “part of the tools necessary” to achieving the goals of reducing emissions, ensuring products are sustainable, and expanding access to international markets, she doesn’t believe the federal government’s target is reasonable.

“But to do that, it has to be practical and it has to be achievable,” Notley said. “Aspirational goals can sometimes serve to be less effective than no goals, although I'm not in favor of either of those things.”

“What I want to see is practical goals, and then a very practical plan,” she also said, adding she wants to see an emissions reduction, not a production reduction.

“The emissions output must be cut, but we don't want to see actual production cuts as an effort to achieve emissions reduction,” she said. “So let's be very clear: we're not going to be endorsing production cuts. We think that we can reach emissions reductions through other means.”

SEE

THE ALBERTA NDP THE PARTY OF OIL WORKERS

THE COINCIDENTAL BIRTH OF THE NEW DEMOCRATS 

AND THE OIL INDUSTRY IN ALBERTA

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for OIL NDP 

Rachel Notley is Alberta’s real progressive conservative
By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | May 4th 2023

Rachel Notley's embrace of Alberta's oil and gas industry is all part of her value proposition to former Progressive Conservative voters. 

Photo via Rachel Notley / Twitter

Peter Lougheed was Alberta’s 10th premier, the creator of its Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and the architect of a four-decade political dynasty that would see his Alberta Progressive Conservatives win 12 consecutive elections, most of them in a walk. He went to war with Pierre Trudeau, helped defeat the National Energy Program, and fought effectively for Alberta’s place in Confederation. And if he was alive today, he’d probably be voting for Rachel Notley’s NDP.

Just ask Danielle Smith — yes, that Danielle Smith — who wrote back in 2019 that “Notley is, without question, the inheritor of the Lougheed tradition. That’s not to say he was a full-on socialist, but Notley isn’t either. I think most Albertans have been shocked to see how pragmatic she has governed, particularly as it concerns natural resources.”

Smith would probably like to take back that endorsement, but Notley’s NDP continues to attract the support of prominent former members of Lougheed’s government, from MLAs like Allan Warrack and Ron Ghitter to Lougheed’s chief of staff (and later federal MP) Lee Richardson.

Notley’s appeal to former Progressive Conservatives is a product of her party’s deliberate shift to the political centre, along with her Lougheed-esque stewardship of Alberta’s resources. The federal purchase and construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, which will be completed sometime this year and in service by the first quarter of 2024, speaks to the success of those efforts.

But Notley’s appeal among more progressive conservatives is also a reflection of just how toxic Smith’s brand of conservatism is to many otherwise conservative Albertans. Her recent admission that she looks to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as role models for Alberta says everything about her politics, and how prominently the COVID-19 pandemic still figures in them.

Before he was known for banning books and getting sued by Disney, DeSantis made his name in Republican circles by making Florida the most COVID-friendly state in the union. Noem made her own bid for that title back in 2021, when she proclaimed: “If @joebiden illegally mandates vaccines, I will take every action available under the law to protect South Dakotans from the federal government.”

If Smith had been in power during the pandemic, it’s easy to imagine her saying something similar. This sort of live-and-let-die attitude is at odds with the more compassionate (and informed) brand of conservatism that Lougheed is remembered for.

But as Jared Wesley and Ken Boessenkool argued in a piece for The Line, Smith is really a conservative in name only. “Smith is not a temperamental conservative. Indeed, she is rarely an ideological conservative. Instead, her politics amount to libertarian-laced populism, directly opposed to the sort of principled, incrementalist politics Albertans have appreciated from conservative governments in the past.”

Smith is certainly no fiscal conservative, although that’s a much rarer breed than most Albertans have been led to believe. After passing the biggest spending budget in Alberta history, Smith opened the campaign by offering up a 20 per cent tax cut on incomes up to $60,000 that would cost the Treasury as much as $760 per adult. In order to pay for it, Smith plans to rely on a continuation of the recent gusher in oil and gas royalties — one that may already be in the process of evaporating, as oil prices crashed below $70 a barrel this week.

And when it comes to law and order, Smith has a track record of siding with the people trying to upend it. There’s her fawning phone call with far-right preacher (and Coutts blockade supporter) Artur Pawlowski, who was found guilty of mischief and breaching his bail conditions on Tuesday. And as Press Progress reported that same day, her support for the blockade apparently ran even deeper than that. In a February 2022 livestream with the Western Standard, Smith says, “We want to see it win in Coutts.”

The Coutts blockade, remember, included a group of heavily armed men making threats against law enforcement that included conspiracy to commit murder. But even before those charges were laid, it was clear the blockaders were interfering with the movement of goods and people across the border. That doesn’t seem to have bothered Smith, though. “This whole phrase of ‘peace, order and good government’, I think it’s become a shorthand to the federal government can do whatever the heck it wants and we just have to be peaceful and orderly about it,” Smith said.

Smith, then, is not any kind of conservative that Peter Lougheed would identify with. If anything, she and the “Take Back Alberta” group that helped elect her as party leader have more in common with the Alberta Social Credit party that Lougheed defeated in 1971. The real question for conservatives in this election is whether they still identify with Peter Lougheed or not. If enough of them do, Notley will make history as the first former premier to get returned to power — and join Lougheed as one of the most important political leaders in Alberta history.

This column is featured in my new newsletter, which you can get delivered to your inbox once a week. If you want to stay up to date on my signature, no-nonsense opinion writing, subscribe here

Who's the true conservative in Alberta's provincial election? The answer is more complicated than you might think — and it holds the key to victory for Rachel Notley. @maxfawcett writes for @NatObserver

May 4th 2023

Max Fawcett
Lead Columnist, Podcast Host
@maxfawcett

Calgary·Analysis

No, Jagmeet Singh isn't Rachel Notley's boss. But their 'union' remains rivals' target

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As UCP ratchets up scrutiny, Alberta NDP less reliant on 

federal or labour support

Jason Markusoff · CBC News · Posted: May 14, 2023 

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley lays out her jobs plan at a campaign event. Don't expect to see federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh campaign in Alberta with her, a reality that perfectly suits Notley's team. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

There was a time, a rather long time, when the Alberta NDP was little more than the labour unions' partisan mouthpiece, and the largely inconsequential cousins of the federal New Democrats.

With a more diverse — read: less union-centric — candidate roster and political positions that shuck much of what Jagmeet Singh's party stands for, the provincial NDP has arguably never been as independent from influence of its longstanding organizational partners as it is now.

And yet never before has the Alberta NDP faced such a torrent of rival accusations it's in thrall with organized labour, and had its relationship with the federal branch depicted as not cousin-cousin, but parent-child or master-slave.

Danielle Smith declares Singh is Rachel Notley's "boss" nearly every chance she gets: "I question whether she works for Albertans or whether she works for her federal leader," the UCP leader said at one campaign event. 

Marks against them

The jabs are rooted in some long-standing truths and technicalities. The Alberta NDP constitution does declare the party a branch of the Canadian party, and membership in one equals membership in the other.

And unions and the Alberta Federation of Labour have roles specified in the party's structure. Plus, there's the inescapable reality that Notley's husband Lou Arab worked with the Alberta division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees throughout her premiership, and continues to.

But these have been structural realities of the provincial NDP for decades. Ties with unions and the federal party have always come with benefits on the organizational and support side, along with headaches when big labour or Ottawa drags down the provincial party's reputation.

What's new in 2023 is the UCP leader's public focus on it. Jason Kenney and other past  Alberta conservatives loved to pin this or that left-of-Alberta federal remark on Notley's party — but the "boss" stuff is new.

Theoretically, yes, the constitutional structure of the Alberta NDP and other provincial counterparts holds that the federal branch is supreme. But there is no modern history of Singh or past leaders wielding the club to enforce obedience on a disagreeable faction of this pan-Canadian orange network.

Orange rebellion

More than four decades ago, Saskatchewan NDP premier Allan Blakeney clashed with then-federal leader Ed Broadbent. Ottawa abided by restiveness in the colonies.

The more recent examples of a Provincial Orange freely standing up to Big Orange belong to Notley. After fighting for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, she openly slammed Singh's opposition to the project, saying that he was thumbing his nose at the working people who relied on the energy economy. 

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at a 2021 federal election event in Edmonton. The party has two seats in Alberta's capital, but rivals the Trudeau Liberals for popularity in the rest of the province (and that's no sign of strength). (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

"To forget that and to throw them under the bus as collateral damage in pursuit of some other high level policy objective is a recipe for failure and it's also very elitist," she told the Edmonton Journal in 2018.

Notley swiped at Singh again Sunday on CTV's Question Period. She said she completely disagrees with the federal leader on ending support for oil and gas companies, and "this idea that we can just simply walk away from something that contributes such a large amount to our economy, not just in Alberta, but across Canada, on a point of principle."

There aren't too many disses outside of the energy file. Dismissiveness, more so.

Earlier this month, Notley said she last spoke with Singh six to 12 months ago — a long time to go without talking to one's supposed boss — and cannot remember what they spoke about. "Whether I am talking to the leader of the federal NDP, whether I am advocating in Ottawa, whether I am talking to New Democrats in B.C., Albertans know that I have always been quite ready to do whatever is necessary to stand up for the best interests of Albertans," she told reporters.

During elections, there's a perennial air drop of activists from the federal and other provincial NDP wings to lend campaign support — including Nathan Rotman, flown in from Ontario to be Notley's campaign manager. (Similarly, federal Conservative veteran Steve Outhouse temporarily moved from Ottawa to run Smith's campaign.)

• AUDIO
  Small towns with big city problems

Sure, there's plenty of points of commonality, the shared crusades in Alberta and Ottawa for a higher minimum wage and lower child-care fees. But look up and down Singh's support agreement with the Liberals and Justin Trudeau, and there's not a ton that checks both sides' boxes.

The provincial NDP isn't gung-ho on many of the federal party's priorities in its agreement with Trudeau, like pharma-care and dental care or an end to fossil-fuel subsidies. And when the two party factions speak of just transition alongside climate action, they seem to make different points.

In fact, the biggest bit of federal platform borrowing by Notley wasn't from Singh. Her promise to give families a tax credit for children's sports or arts activities was a page ripped from those reliable buddies, the Stephen Harper Conservatives.

Protesters disrupted a United Conservative Party media availability held on Thursday. Conservatives eagerly identified one participant as a past federal NDP candidate. (CBC News)

But it's little surprise that Smith's team spotted a former federal NDP candidate in the disruptive protest at a UCP event and branded him a Notleyite. Despite intra-party differences, federal candidates still run provincially and vice versa, including candidates in this race in Maskwacis, Chestermere and Calgary–North East.

It used to be more routine for the Alberta NDP's candidate roster to be filled with local union stewards or labour leaders, especially to fill slates in low-hope ridings. Many surprise 2015 election winners came from those ranks.

But with the party's hopes ascendent in 2023, they've gotten more candidate recruits from outside their labour base. Even if Gil McGowan's AFL and major unions remain active players within the party, the diversified influences mean those are less likely to be the only voices Notley and her brain trust hear.

Again, Smith has raised concerns over long-standing relationships, including Notley's husband and the AFL's former role within her rival's party. "We should be very, very concerned about the influence on the NDP, not only of the unions that are embedded in their decision making process and their delegate status and choose their leader," Smith said recently, when deflecting a question about the unclear degrees of influence the group Take Back Alberta has on her party.

The Alberta NDP had to wean itself off of its heavy reliance on union donations eight years ago when Notley banned union and corporate contributions to parties. But both types of entities retained their power to spend heavily on elections with the third-party advertiser system.

Labour pains

Controversial reforms that Kenney passed have restrained the way union groups can participate in elections, but the UCP has lately raised alarms about the extent to which big labour is assisting Notley. Smith's party wants Elections Alberta to use those Kenney reforms as a cudgel against the AFL and unions, alleging they're breaking the new rules.

McGowan and others insist they're following the law, even if he brands what United Conservatives want to do with it as unconstitutional. "They're indignant that we found a way to legally exercise our free speech rights, despite their best efforts to shut us up and shut us down," the AFL leader said in a statement this week.

• ANALYSIS
  Donations from wealthy individuals more important under new Alberta election ad rules

There are no doubt moments when some in Notley's inner circle wish their union affiliates and federal cousins would pipe down, and not occasionally force Alberta NDP to have to distance themselves from erstwhile allies.

But as long as Notley's party resists any formal dissolving of the ties that bind them to organized labour and every other politician in Canada attached to the NDP, it will have to take the good and bad of this solidarity forever.

Corrections

• An earlier version of this analysis incorrectly stated that Lou Arab, the husband of Rachel Notley, has an executive role with a union group.
  May 15, 2023 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Markusoff

Producer and writer

Jason Markusoff analyzes what's happening — and what isn't happening, but probably should be — in Calgary and sometimes farther afield. He's written in Alberta for nearly two decades with Maclean's magazine, the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal. He appears regularly on Power and Politics' Power Panel and various other CBC current affairs shows. Reach him at jason.markusoff@cbc.ca

Trudeau’s oil and gas policies too harsh for 

Rachel Notley

Centre-left contender looking to reclaim power as premier of Alberta in upcoming election

Bloomberg News
Brian Platt and Robert Tuttle

Last updated May 11, 2012

Rachel Notley is running to be premier of Alberta again. The province goes to the polls on May 29. PHOTO BY BEN NELMS/BLOOMBERG
Article content

The woman who’s looking to reclaim power in Canada’s energy heartland is pushing back against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s targets for cleaning up the oil and gas industry.

Rachel Notley, who was the centre-left premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and is running for the job again, said Trudeau’s plan for cutting the sector’s emissions by more than 40 per cent by the end of the decade is too onerous. Her stance mirrors that of the country’s largest crude producers — and it’s also one that may be a political necessity as her New Democratic Party battles for votes in a province where oil is king and the prime minister is deeply unpopular.

“I don’t believe that the current drafted emissions caps that we’ve seen are realistic,” Notley said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “If we don’t get down to work and come up with a more practical cap, we are not going to be successful in mapping out a process that will get us there.

Trudeau’s government has promised to limit emissions in the energy sector to ensure Canada meets its climate targets, but hasn’t yet chosen a mechanism for doing so. His government published a plan last year that modelled a 42 per cent cut in oil and gas sector emissions by 2030, which oil executives have said isn’t possible without slashing output. More draft regulations are expected to be released within weeks.

Relations between the federal government and Alberta — whose nearly four million barrels of daily oil output makes Canada the world’s fourth-largest crude producer — are a perennial flashpoint in local politics. Notley’s 2015 victory was a rare win in a traditionally conservative province. She’s looking to defeat the United Conservative Party, currently led by Danielle Smith, in an election set for May 29.

Although Notley is generally much more aligned with Trudeau’s environmental agenda than Smith, she said the federal government is trying to move too fast on cutting oil-sector emissions. The vast majority of these emissions in Canada come from Alberta’s oilsands, which is among the world’s most carbon-intensive crude sources.

Race for premier is tight

“Using aspirational numbers to drive practical policy is not a recipe for success,” Notley said. “The key is making sure that what we put in place is practical and achievable, and it doesn’t become so oppressive that we find ourselves shutting in production.”

Notley said she doesn’t oppose a cap in principle, but she declined to provide her own emissions target, saying she’d consult with experts and industry on the matter.

“We’re not going to be unambitious,” she said. “But we are going to be realistic, and we’re going to make sure that the industry is able to continue to flourish.”

Polls suggest the race between Notley and Smith is very tight. A recent Leger survey found the New Democrats had a two-point lead over the United Conservatives, while another poll by Ipsos found Smith’s party was up by four points.

Notley is expected to sweep much of Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton, while Smith is dominant in the smaller population centres and rural areas. The election will likely come down to who wins the most districts in Calgary — where many of Canada’s energy companies are headquartered.

Notley argued that in the bigger picture, Canada’s environmental policy needs input from Alberta, and that has been prevented by the hostility between Smith’s United Conservatives and Trudeau’s Liberal Party.

“Both Alberta and Canada do best when energy policy is crafted, quite frankly, by Alberta,” she said. “So we want to be at the table, we want to be driving the conversation, and we want to be coming up with solutions that ultimately drive investment and grow our markets.”

Another of Trudeau’s signature environmental policies is a carbon tax on consumer fuels, which kicks in if a province doesn’t have an equivalent carbon price of its own. Notley said she would leave that as a federal tax, instead of replacing it with a made-in-Alberta version.

‘More money’ from Ottawa

To help push the oil sector to decarbonize, Trudeau has also introduced tax credits to defray the capital costs of building carbon capture systems. The credits are worth up to $12.4 billion over the next 10 years, federal officials estimate.

Even more public money for carbon capture might be necessary to compete with the lucrative production tax credits in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, Notley said. She declined to say if she would commit the provincial government to providing the funds.

“It really is a matter still for negotiations,” she said. “My first goal will be to get more money out of the federal government.”

Yet another federal policy that’s been the source of controversy in Alberta is an impending requirement that electricity grids be made net-zero emissions by 2035.


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Notley said Alberta can achieve the milestone at a reasonable cost if she’s elected premier and that trillions of dollars of global investment in renewable energy projects are coming over the next decade.

“It would be utterly ridiculous for Alberta to not be at the table trying to attract some of that,” she said. “So that is going to require some smart government policy, that’s going to require some incentives.”

Bloomberg.com