Presto Shills For Big Oil

Presto Manning was on CTV Question Period this morning shilling for Big Oil and whining about the Alberta Royalty compromise produced by Eddie Stelmach.

CTV's Question Period: Preston Manning, Fmr. Reform Party leader

Presto was following up on criticisms he made earlier this week in a comment piece he wrote in one of them 'damn eastern newspapers'; the Globe and Mail, aka Canada's National newspaper. Preston Manning: The Stelmach royalty uncertainty principle Which of course is owned by the same folks who own CTV.

Presto has upset folks even on the right like Neil Waugh at the Edmonton Sun. Whose side is Presto on?

Presto engaged in some political prestidigitations on Question Period about how this will hurt Eddie in the polls when the election comes. And as usual with the rose coloured glasses of the Calgary right wing he predicted that it won't benefit the Liberals or NDP or even the would be right wing rump parties, but rather it would be because conservatives will stay home.

Manning added it's becoming increasingly unlikely that Stelmach and the Conservatives will win another election unless the "government demonstrates a capacity it hasn't shown thus far."

"I don't see votes going to the Liberals or the NDP, I think their biggest danger is another 150,000 people staying home who voted Conservative the last time," he said.

Well at least they have homes. It's not just the royalty deal that is driving a stake in the heart of the Tired Old Tories it's stories like this Halloween surprise.

Drastic rent increases at a Fort McMurray complex are renewing calls for rent control.

"The province needs to step in. Every other province has some form of rent control," said Rob Picard, angered by his skyrocketing rent.

On Halloween night, Picard was spooked by an 86% increase to his rent. The three-month notice means the rent on his two-bedroom 700-square-foot apartment in the River Park Glens, also known as the Syncrude Towers, is jumping from $1,425 per month to $2,650.

"I work for Suncor. I make good money, but I can't afford this. The illusion that this is Fort McMurray and everybody can afford this is just wrong," said the heavy equipment operator.

He's not the only one complaining.

Gunner Antos has a two-bedroom apartment in the same building and will see his rent go from $1,500 a month to $2,700. Those prices could even drive highly paid workers away.

"They're crying for workers and they're raping us," said Antos.

"You've got people who have jobs living in tent cities. They have people with jobs living in the bush."

Service Alberta spokesman Eoin Kenny said the government is not looking at rent controls at this time.

The apartment building has about 500 units, although some are individually owned.

"With this type of hit, even though I work for Syncrude, I may be forced to take a room this late in life," said Gerald Morrison, who has lived at the complex for more than 20 years.

"I always thought Fort McMurray was fair and square, but they're gouging now."

The landlords left a note on apartment doors Wednesday afternoon saying the change will be effective Feb. 1.

Mr. Morrison said his three-bedroom apartment is going from $1,800 a month to $2,950 - without utilities - despite a leaky roof, carpenter ants and unpainted walls. Two years ago, his rent went from $1,100 to $1,500, and then to $1,800 last February.

David Campkin said the one-bedroom apartment he and his wife share rose to $2,250 from $1,450. He said the unit's condition is "absolutely appalling" with a carpetless concrete floor and none of the promised security.

The provincial Residential Tenancies Act passed in April requires landlords to give tenants three months' notice before raising rent once a year. River Park Glen appears to have met the conditions.

There is no ceiling on rent increases in Alberta, where a sizzling economy is attracting workers from outside the province and making affordable housing scarce. A government-appointed committee suggested rent controls to Premier Ed Stelmach earlier this year, but he rejected the recommendation.

Lets do some quick math shall we. 500 units X $1500=$750,000. Rolling in the dough while not providing tenants with repairs. Can you say high rise slum lord.

Another whiner from Alberta is Harpers pal the ex-CEO of Encana, Gwyn Morgan
who also published a comment attacking the royalty compromise in that same eastern rag. The irony is that populism was what got Presto elected and made the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party possible. And Gwyn makes the same case that Presto does in attacking Farmer Ed.

Populism tramples principle in Alberta

GWYN MORGAN

From Monday's Globe and Mail
October 29, 2007 at 6:30 AM EST

Experience has taught me that populist politics are seldom principled. It's not that populists don't want to do what's right and best; it's just that if a choice has to be made as to which has priority, what is popular wins.

The second matter of principle Mr. Stelmach's government has violated is reneging on oil sands royalty commitments under which capital has already been invested. Except in the case of Syncrude and Suncor, the money was invested without a contract binding the government to honour the terms.

Nonetheless, investors rightly see this unilateral change as a clear case of doing what is popular rather than what is right. And in terms of doing what is best, the damage to Alberta's reputation certainly illustrates the wrong choice.

Industry is still in shock, but the computer models used to compare before and after investment feasibility are grinding away. Companies with investment opportunities outside Alberta will be looking at them a lot closer. The natural gas drilling and development service sector was already suffering, so expect an even worse downturn. New project decisions in the oil sands will have to factor a much higher government take into a business already replete with risk.

Mr. Stelmach states: "I'm confident we've made the right decisions for today and for Alberta's future."

As for me, I continue to believe that populist politics are seldom principled.

Populism is what kept Ralph in power for years. Of course in Ralph's case that was populism that benefited the oil boys in Calgary. So that was principled.



SEE:

Income Trusts; Predatory Capitalism

Stelmach's Royalty Give Away

Made In Calgary Homeless Plan

The Sky Is Not Falling

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Made In Calgary Homeless Plan

No rent controls. A bungled boondoggle of subsidies to renters. And now a corporate committee to deal with homelessness in Alberta sometime in the next decade.

Alberta's government has announced it's forming the Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness to help end the problem over the next 10 years.

Premier Ed Stelmach says in a release that while that may be an ambitious goal, it's one that the government needs to strive for to help those in need.

The secretariat, which will include representation from across the province, is expected to be working by April.

It will be headed by Yvonne Fritz, the government's associate minister of affordable housing and urban development.

The government says issues such as a budget and membership will be worked out over the next few months.

Last January, a committee that includes some of Canada's biggest corporate leaders formed with the aim to wipe out Calgary's homelessness problem over the next decade.

Calling any announcement on the issue a good one, Calgary Homeless Foundation president and CEO Wayne Stewart said he's hoping Stelmach will focus on long-term sustainability.

Stewart said his group has been working on a 10-year plan to eliminate homelessness in Calgary and expects to release its preliminary findings in January.

This is not a solution to the problem of affordable housing it is just another Tired Old Tory form of the old poor laws updated for the 21st century. Where the old poor laws produced workhouses run by the Church, we now have corporate philanthropists coming up with housing solutions, but no cheap housing while the condo conversions boom and tent cities for the homeless spread across the province.

Premier Ed Stelmach unveiled an initiative Monday to build 11,000 new affordable homes in Alberta over the next five years.

Eleven thousand homes is a drop in the bucket. What we need is the end to condo conversions, rent control and the creation of mass public housing NOW; town houses, row housing and apartments subsidized by the provincial and federal governments.

About 2,600 people in Edmonton and 3,400 in Calgary don't have a place to live, according to the last count of the homeless population in 2006.

Both major cities have seen an increase of at least 20 per cent in their homeless populations since 2004.

Add to that the fact that Syncrude alone is looking to hire 5000 workers to live in Fort McMurray a 11,000 homes across the province is a joke.

Not only is the oil boom in Alberta causing a labour shortage, but Syncrude faces a host of retirements, with an attrition rate of eight to nine per cent, he said.

"We're trying to get up to 5,000 employees," said House, adding the company now employs some 4,600 people.

Exciting as all this might sound, he was finding few takers at the CASTLE event.

"Housing cost is the number one deterrent," said House.

In labour-starved Fort McMurray, he said, "you can work at a Burger King and make $15 an hour.

"But in order to afford the housing, you'd better work a lot of hours," he added. "A person making $15 could not survive alone."

SEE:

This Is Better Than Rent Controls?

Stelmach's Robber Barons

And New York Has Rent Controls

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This Is Better Than Rent Controls?

Instead of accepting the Government appointed Public Panel on Affordable Housing recommendation that the province introduce rent controls, the government instead did what it loves to do; create a subsidization fund. And as usual with the these kind of Tory schemes this of course was so loosy goosey that it was open to abuse. Not by the users but by the bureaucrats in charge.

And while the internal audit by the department found no fraud, which is irrelevant, what they found was business as usual in this Tired Old Tory government.

And note that the average payment made was $827 dollars while provincial average rental rates are over $1000 per month for a one bedroom apartment. Not only a drop in the proverbial bucket, but less than what is needed for one months rent. And for the rest of the eleven months of they year......nothing. And this is better than rent controls, ha, ha!

Nearly three-in-10 claims granted from a fund to help stave off homelessness were improperly approved -- but no fraud has been found, a provincial audit has concluded.

An internal investigation into the $7-million fund -- which is expected to balloon to $21 million by the end of the year -- found more than $60,000 of the nearly $200,000 put under the microscope was handed out without proper checks and balances.

The Government of Alberta, through Municipal Affairs and Housing, introduced
the Homeless and Eviction Prevention Fund (HEPF) in response to the
recommendations of the Alberta Affordable Housing Task Force. Alberta
Employment Immigration and Industry (AEII) began delivering the program on
May 11, 2007. The program is designed to assist Albertans at risk of losing their
homes due to rent increases and to assist those who require assistance in
establishing a residence.

On July 17, 2007 Global News aired a story alleging that the HEPF was being
abused by individuals presenting inadequate and fraudulent documentation for
rent increases, eviction notices, and utility arrears, and that AEII staff were not
taking sufficient steps to verify the authenticity of the claims. On July 18, 2007,
Minister Evans asked the department’s internal auditors to undertake a review of
the administration of the fund to ensure accountability for the program’s
procedures.

2. Program Description
The Homeless and Eviction Prevention Fund (HEPF) is designed to assist
Albertans with limited resources who are at risk of losing their homes due to rent
increases and to assist those who require assistance in establishing a residence.
The authority to determine eligibility and to provide benefits under the HEPF is
provided under the Income Supports, Health and Training Benefits Regulation.Review the administration of the HEP Fund to ensure compliance with
program directives, policies, and procedures regarding client’s eligibility and
entitlements.

During this period, payments from the HEP Fund totalled $4,866,406 for 5,880 clients for an average of $827 per client


Of the 239 files reviewed from all regions of the province, 171 files (72%) were
processed in accordance with program directives, policies, and procedures. The
documentation (eviction notices, tenancy agreements, notices of arrears, clients’
bank statements, etc.) in these files and staff comments entered into LISA were
sufficiently detailed to support the HEP Fund benefits issued.

In the remaining 68 files the following observations were noted:

• There were 51 files, totalling $50,462 where there was incomplete
documentation detailing the client’s situation for the auditor to confirm that the
client qualified for benefits from the HEP Fund.

• There were 14 files where benefits issued from the HEP Fund were incorrectly
determined resulting in overpayments totalling $6,357. Included in this group
was one case where $3,923 (62% of total overpayments) was incorrectly issued
to cover mortgage arrears. This occurred within 10 days of the start of the
program which suggests the worker may have inadvertently applied the
Income Support policy which allows shelter benefits to be applied to mortgage
arrears.

• Three files totalling $5525 were identified by the audit team for supervisor
review and possible referral to the Investigation and Review Branch. It was
noted that two other files ($2524) of the 171 files processed correctly had
already been referred to the Investigation and Review Branch prior to the
commencement of the audit.

See

The Autumn Of Our Discontent

Transparency Alberta Style

Pay 'Em What They Want

And New York Has Rent Controls

Stelmach Blames Eastern Bums

He Can't Manage

Drumheller Bell Weather

Stelmach Tanks

Alberta Deja Vu

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

Income Trusts

Housing


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Sub Prime Exploitation

Subprime mortgages impact disproportionately on the working class in particular the ethnic working class in the United State. Foreclosures will result in increased homelessness in the U.S. Even those who could afford better loans were subject to denial of access to better loan rates due to systemic racism.

This is what class war looks like under modern casino capitalism. It is the Enron moment for the mortgage industry.

The White House announcement of a Mortgage forgiveness program, after the Fed bailed out the financial markets, is too little too late.

Latinos and African-Americans who bought homes or refinanced mortgages in the San Jose metropolitan area last year were much more likely than white borrowers to get subprime loans, according to a study scheduled for release today.

In its annual survey based on federally collected data, this year titled "Foreclosure Exposure," community activism group ACORN said 47 percent of Latinos who got mortgages to buy homes in Santa Clara and San Benito counties in 2006 received "high cost" loans that the group considers to be synonymous with "subprime." Nearly 32 percent of African-American borrowers buying homes got high-cost loans, while only 8.5 percent of white borrowers did.

The trend is the same for those who refinanced loans - Latinos and African-Americans got subprime loans 23.5 percent and 22.8 percent of the time, respectively, compared with 9.4 percent among white borrowers.

"The racial disparity persists even among borrowers of the same income level," the report's authors wrote. Upper-income Latinos and African-Americans were more than five times as likely to get high-cost loans than upper-income whites, the study said. Upper-income borrowers were those with income of at least 120 percent of their area's median income.

Vallejo is the Bay Area's version of ground zero for the subprime loan crisis.

A significant number of residents of the largely blue-collar city of 120,000 have taken out subprime loans -- expensive mortgages issued to people with poor credit.

In 2005, almost one-quarter of mortgages in the Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan area were subprime loans, according to the Center for Responsible Lending's analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

Vallejo home prices fell 8.5 percent from November to March, according to DataQuick Information Services. For people who bought in recent months without putting any money down, that means they may owe more on their mortgage than the house is worth.

In a report called "Losing Ground," the center spotlights the Vallejo-Fairfield metropolitan area (which comprises all of Solano County) as a potential trouble spot, with one of the highest projected foreclosure rates in the country. The report predicted "that 23.8 percent of subprimes there will end in foreclosure," said Paul Leonard, director of the center's office in Oakland.

Areas with high foreclosure rates tend to share some characteristics. One is sinking home prices. Many "tend to be on the perimeter of major metropolitan areas rather than at the heart," said Leonard. "The housing prices in those areas are most subject to change. Often they tend to have a high concentration of minorities."

The people seeking help have almost identical stories, Hardy said. They bought homes using subprime loans. After a low initial rate, their monthly payments skyrocketed. Meanwhile, home prices in their neighborhoods went down, so they cannot easily sell or refinance. The result is that the homeowners owe more on their homes than the houses are worth.

Hardy said her clients tend to be blue-collar workers who earn close to the median income for Solano County, which is $75,400 for a family of four. Some of them used what are called stated-income loans, meaning a loan officer allowed them to claim that their earnings were higher than they are.

They bought homes about two years ago, using a type of mortgage loan in which they made low, interest-only payments for two years, followed by 28 years of adjustable-rate payments. Usually they did not make down payments. Once the initial two years were up, their monthly mortgage payments shot up.

"Nobody sat down with them and said if your interest rate goes up just 2 percent, here's what your house payments will be," she said. "These people all of a sudden are getting notices that in 60 days their house payments will go up $600 or $800 a month, and they say 'I can't do that.' "

"Until six months ago, we could almost always save the person's investment, either by helping them to refinance or explaining that they needed to sell and get their equity out before foreclosure," said Martin Eichner, director of dispute resolution at Project Sentinel, a nonprofit HUD counseling agency in Sunnyvale.

"But more and more, the calls we're getting are from people who bought on a shoestring and have few, if any, options to avoid the foreclosure. They haven't built up any equity and they put themselves in loans that were essentially doomed to fail with 100 percent financing and/or negative amortization."

But a series of interviews with subprime borrowers, mortgage lenders, appraisers, current and former regulators, and the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development paints a different picture — of a widespread pattern of questionable lending practices and outright fraud that has already sparked a wave of criminal and civil actions against various players in the $10 trillion market for residential mortgages.

Questionable mortgage practices can take on many forms, but the fall into two broad categories:

• Predatory lending. In this case, complex mortgage terms and interest rate risks were not fully explained as required by federal law. The borrower is usually the victim.
• Mortgage fraud. In these cases, often carried out by sophisticated swindlers, the lender is typically the victim.

As the housing market boomed in the early part of this decade, lenders proliferated with deals that often seemed too good to be true. To be sure, some borrowers - eager to "cash out" their rising home equity generated by the housing boom - were too quick to refinance at below-market interest rates and artificially low monthly payments.

SEE:

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

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Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

I found this informative post at Market Oracle which made reference to a little known fact about how Banks in Canada and the U.S. faired differently during the great depression.

The comments from Market Oracle about Americas current Housing Bubble crash, once again remind us that American Exceptionalism includes massive market failures due to speculation.

Greed is as American as apple pie.

A Letter from a former Banking President Discussing the Housing Bubble

an article that came out in the Saturday Evening Post in November of 1932 from a former bank president in New York, three years after the crash, highlighting the economic situation of a post bubble world.

“This is a shameful and humiliating exhibition. It is uniquely bad. Across the border in Canada, there was not a single bank failure during our period of depression, and one must go back to 1923 to find even a small one. Nowhere else in the world at any time, were it a time of war, or of famine, or of disaster, has any other people recorded so many bank failures in a similar period as did we. We were not experiencing a war, a famine or any other natural disaster. All the economic tribulations we have undergone in the past three years have been man-made troubles, and Nature has continued to shower us with an easy abundance – more, indeed, than we have known how to distribute with economic wisdom.”

Of course the banks in Canada foreclosed on Western Farmers, during the depression and used the land bank to shore up their wealth. Until the creation of Canada's National Bank the commercial banks issued dollars and currency from which they made their profit. Canadians were big savers after WWI but without deposit insurance found their savings wiped out during the depression.

According to the Department of Finance, two small regional banks failed in the mid-1980s, the only such failures since 1923, which is the year Home Bank failed. There were no bank failures during the Great Depression.

The Canadian recovery from the Great Depression proceeded slowly. Economists Pedro Amaral and James MacGee find that the Canadian recovery has important differences with the United States In the U.S. productivity recovered quickly while the labor force remained depressed throughout the decade. In Canada employment quickly recovered but productivity remained well below trend. Amaral and MacGee suggest that this decline is due to the sustained reduction in international trade during the 30's.

It took the outbreak of World War II to pull Canada out of the depression. From 1939, an increased demand in Europe for materials, and increased spending by the Canadian government created a strong boost for the economy. Unemployed men enlisted in the military. By 1939, Canada was in the first prosperity period in the business cycle in a decade.

The Depression also led governments to be more present in the economy. It brought about the creation in 1934 of the Bank of Canada, a central bank to manage the money supply and bring stability to the country’s financial system.

Hard to imagine now, but not too long ago paper money in Canada was issued by commercial banks. That was before 1934, when the Bank of Canada Act established a central bank with the sole right to issue paper money. It was just one of the many roles the Bank of Canada would take on.

Creating a central bank was one of the first major things Canada did on its own after becoming more independent of Great Britain in 1931 (with the Statute of Westminster). But the Bank of Canada was not established just to assert our independence. Instead, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett was frustrated that there was no way for Canada to settle international accounts with England. A central bank could do that.

The time was ripe to set up a central bank. During the Great Depression, Canadians had criticized and mistrusted the commercial banking system. They had doubts about the efficiency of Canada’s financial structure. Pressure also came from outside our borders to create a central bank to help settle international accounts. There was no independent agency issuing notes or managing government banking.

The creation of the Bank of Canada was the result of protests against the banks by Western farmers in particular those from Alberta! Like the Wheat Board farmers demanded and got a Central Bank.

At the same time that the Canadian
government was doing nothing on the monetary
front, the chartered banks were repaying their
borrowings from the government under the
Finance Act.63 The resulting monetary contraction
exacerbated the economic downturn. The banks
became increasingly cautious about their own
lending activities as the economic environment
deteriorated. Banks may have also repaid their
borrowings under the Finance Act in response to
earlier criticism for having borrowed so extensively
prior to the stock market crash (Fullerton 1986, 36).
While the extent of the economic downturn
in Canada was undoubtedly made worse by
these monetary developments, the monetary
contraction helped to strengthen the Canadian
dollar, which reached US$0.90 by the spring
of 1932.

The government finally reduced the
Advance Rate to 3 per cent in October 1931 and
to 2.5 per cent in May 1933. (See Chart C2 in
Appendix C.)64 In the autumn of 1932, it also used
moral suasion to force the banks to borrow under
the Finance Act and reflate the economy
(Bryce 1986, 132). This easing in monetary policy
led to some temporary weakness in the Canadian
dollar, which briefly fell as low as US$0.80. The
weakness was short-lived, however.

Following the U.S. decision to prohibit the export of
gold in April 1933 and similar efforts in the United
States to reflate, the Canadian dollar began
to strengthen.65 The Canadian government’s
decision in 1934 to expand the amount of Dominion
notes in circulation by reducing their gold backing
to 25 per cent did not have much impact on the
Canadian dollar.

In the economic circumstances of the time,
and given similar developments in the
United States, this move was viewed as appropriate
and elicited little market reaction (Bryce 1986, 143).
The Canadian dollar returned to rough parity
with its U.S. counterpart by 1934 (Chart 3) and, at
times, even traded at a small premium. With the
U.S. dollar depreciating against gold and the pound
sterling, the Canadian dollar returned to its old
parity with sterling.

Not surprisingly, as the 1930s progressed
with little sign that the Depression was ending,
pressure began to mount on the government to do
something. In addition to concerns about the
adequacy of the Finance Act, there was also
widespread public distrust of the banking system,
largely because of the high cost and low availability
of credit.

Farmers, especially those in western
Canada, who were suffering from a sharp fall in
both crop yields and prices, were particularly
critical of banks and consequently very supportive
of the formation of a central bank. They hoped
that a central bank would be a source of steady and
cheap credit.

With effective nominal interest rates on farm loans in
excess of 7 per cent, real interest rates were very high
—about 17 per cent in 1931 and 1932, owing to
sharply declining consumer prices.

In July 1933, the government set up a
commission with a mandate to study the
functioning of the Finance Act and to make
“a careful consideration of the advisability
of establishing in Canada a Central Banking
Institution . . . .” (Macmillan Report 1933, 5).66
Lord Macmillan, a famous British jurist and known
supporter of a central bank, was chosen by Prime
Minister Bennett to chair the commission.
The other members were Sir Charles Addis, a
for mer director of the Bank of England;
Sir William T. White, the former wartime Canadian
Finance Minister and banker; John Brownlee,
Premier of Alberta; and Beaudry Leman, a
Montréal banker.

Public hearings began on 8 August 1933,
and the final report was presented to the government
less than seven weeks later on 28 September. While
the commission voted only narrowly in favour of
the establishment of a central bank, its conclusion
was never really in doubt. The two British
members of the committee, joined by Brownlee,
voted in favour of a central bank, a position
supported by both the Conservative government
and the Liberal opposition.

When we look back at the monetarist policies put in place during the Depression and those in effect today one gets a disturbing sense of Deja Vu.


SEE:

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

Historical Memory on the Eve of the Election

Calgary Herald Remembers RB Bennet

Origins of the Capitalist State In Canada

Rebel Yell

A History of Canadian Wealth, 1914.

Radical Capitalists Not So Radical

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Same Old Olympics

So what else is new.

Chinese activists and intellectuals have published an open letter to "Chinese and World Leaders" on numerous dissident websites demanding that China honor its commitment to respect human rights at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

For this reason they cannot share in any “pride” in China’s glory as the Games’ host country; for them, “these glories are built on the ruins of the lives of ordinary people, on the forced removal of urban migrants, and on the sufferings of victims of brutal land grabbing, forced eviction, exploitation of labour, and arbitrary detention.”

Regardless of where they are held, urban poor are displaced, developers rule and it's all glossed over in the name of Sport.

The Olympics are the ultimate reflection of the Society of the Spectacle.



SEE:

Scabs Cause Olympic Cost Overruns

The Curse of Bruce McNall

Pro Sports and Criminal Capitalism

Criminal Capitalism-Sports-Soccer

SKYDOME: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORTS

NFL IN TORONTO

As American As Apple Pie

The End Of The Leisure Society

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Stelmach's Robber Barons

Speculators, the lowest and sleaziest form of capitalist, in Alberta's hot housing market, are now the beneficiaries, not of social embarrassment and ridicule as they once were, but of the protection of the State.

Moral betrayal at Monarch

Shock that low-income housing is sold after being built on subsidy

The Stelmach government needs to close a loophole in its tenancy law that let owners of Red Deer's Monarch Place bypass a mandatory one-year's notice before turning the affordable-housing project into condos, said Red Deer-North's Conservative MLA.

Tenants in Monarch Place believed they'd have 12 months before their homes became condos. But they instantly became condos in July; once the units are sold, tenants have 90 days to clear out.

How, many want to know, can this happen?

"You can convert a rental premise to a condominium without any notice to the tenants, as long as you're not asking the tenant to leave in order to accomplish the condominium conversion," says Eoin Kenny, a spokesman for Service Alberta.

"In this case, they weren't asking the tenant to leave. They were merely selling the suite."

The numbered company that bought Monarch Place -- a subsidiary of Everest Developments Ltd. in Edmonton -- never told residents its plans for the complex. Registered documents show surveyors began devising the condo plan for the firm on March 11, four months before it took possession.

Residents thought they'd get one year's notice before a condo conversion, a requirement the Stelmach government recently imposed. But 1327545 Alberta Ltd. legally avoided giving any notice, through a provision that lets it convert and sell units as long as it doesn't clear out the tenants.

Many residents say they don't know who their landlords are. Haut said he has never spoken with the buyers.

Richard Cotter, the Everest subsidiary's lawyer, said his client was unaware Monarch was an affordable-housing complex until after it made its purchase deposit and condo plans.

In July, the company took possession and sold all units to condo investors. Rent increases and for-sale signs soon arrived.

Of course there is federal and provincial funding for affordable housing, but no controls to stop it from being condo-ized.

Since the Canada-Alberta Affordable Housing Program Agreement 
was signed,more than $98 million has been allocated towards the creation
of 3,683affordable housing units throughout the province. Federal and
provincial contributions to affordable housing projects are enhanced by
contributions from other partners including municipalities, local community
housing authorities, non-profit organizations and private sector companies.

Without regulations to control condo speculators, and rent controls in place there is no such thing as affordable housing for anyone in Alberta.

Bridge to Community: The Affordable Housing Crisis in Alberta, a documentary by Brent Spiess, takes an in-depth look at the housing issues in Calgary and how the boom is leaving some people behind. But while Calgary is the film’s focal point, Spiess hopes that Albertans in general can benefit from the film and connect with the issues presented.

“We think the issues here are pretty much the same as they are in Edmonton or Grande Prairie or Red Deer or Fort McMurray,” Spiess said.

In May 2006, the average price of a resale home in Calgary was $358 214, up 43.6 per cent in one year. Similarly, Edmonton experienced a 22.9 percent increase that same year, as average sale prices hit $242 936. The market has had a tremendous effect on renters, and it was in this context that Spiess began the year-long process of making his documentary.

Like his predecessor, King Ralph, Eddie is kicking the poor and disabled when they are down.

While the citizens suffer at their hands the Stelmach regime dodders on protecting special interests like housing flippers and other real estate speculators.

leading Keynes to make his famous observation (in his General Theory):

Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. And his reference point was the 1920s, when speculation, frenzied though it already was (especially in the USA) was, by comparison with its post-World War II evolution, embryonic.

What's more important than housing for Tories? Why golf courses. That is after all where the business of government gets done.

Alberta's Progressive Conservative government allocated more than $7 million in grants to golf clubs over three years, and almost all the money went to courses in Tory ridings.

More than half of the money was allocated in 2003, the year before the last provincial election, according to public government documents.

See:

Pay 'Em What They Want

And New York Has Rent Controls

Stelmach Blames Eastern Bums

He Can't Manage

Drumheller Bell Weather

Stelmach Tanks

Alberta Deja Vu

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

Income Trusts

Housing


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Alberta, minimal government, Edmonton, housing, rental, condominium, apartment, Income Trusts, rent controls,
Canada, StatsCan, renters, housing, rent-controls, inflation, rent, housing-costs, housing-boom,

Alberta's First Killer Tornado

Twenty years ago today was declared Black Friday in Edmonton, when an F4 Tornado hit the city killing 27 people. The majority of those killed lived in Evergreen Trailer park.

It was the worst natural disaster in the city and provinces history, and unexpected since Alberta never had Tornado's before that day.

Today we have an advanced province wide emergency weather reporting system, the only one of its kind in Canada, which operates through CKUA radio.

And it has been broadcasting last night and this morning about Tornado's in the south of the province.

Climate Change, nah nothing to worry about.


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Cavet Emptor Illegitimate Goverment

There is no government like no government.

For an prime example of American Republican Libertarian forms of limited government one needs only look to Alberta.

Last weekend a fire destroyed 94 housing units, the majority were part of a new condo complex, the others were single family dwellings built too close to the complex, with little or no fire protection for their siding and outside walls. The result was mass destruction.And folks left homeless. In a boom economy with rental housing and other ownership options priced beyond most folks means.

The problem is an obsolete building code written in 1960 and based on the notion of preventing fires from spreading from building to building from inside out instead of from the outside in, Wolsey said.

"There has to be a better look at how we deal with building codes as to how we protect our society," he said.

"Is this preventable? I believe it is. With minor amendments to building codes and minimal costs, we can prevent this kind of a devastation from occurring in our communities."

The governments response was little, minor, small, none at all.

The Alberta government's own public safety division recommended changing building codes more than two years ago to prevent fires like Saturday's $20-million inferno in south Edmonton.

But the government chose not to act.

Instead, it forwarded the recommendation to the National Research Council for further study via a provincial committee - although it is under no obligation to wait for an NRC recommendation before making code revisions.

In fact, a year later, the department - then under the leadership of Rob Renner - rejected an official request by the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association to address the insufficient separation between homes, saying there was no evidence to support it.

Government exists to protect citizens, except after the neo-con revolution that defined government as existing above, apart, separate from the people. The earliest forms of self government, have been about building codes and fire prevention. Whether at the municipal, state/provincial or federal level. In Alberta this responsibility has once again been abdicated by the ruling Tories.

Building codes blamed for massive fire
Condo blaze sparks call for tighter fire codes
$25-million fire calls building codes into question
Insurance industry backs tougher building codes
Heed fire's warning: improve building code
Fire chiefs say Alberta should be leader in Canada on building codes

Since the Ralph Revolution of the nineties the neo-con/neo-liberal republican lite agenda of the Fraser Institute and the right wing political business lobby the NCC have dominated conservative politics in Alberta and Canada.

Tougher code carries a price

The Tories created a myth, first they attempted under Lougheed to both expand oilsands development and diversification of the economy. The former succeeded the latter failed. Under Don Getty the diversification expanded, but it ended up a failure because it was simply the government doling out corporate welfare to businesses and lobbyists that had the best selling points, rather than realistic business plans.

Though some plans and businesses were by their nature something the state should have done as public services, such as hazardous waste disposal, due to the costs and long term responsibilities involved, as well as the continuing need for state funded research and development required for technological and industrial advances.

And as usual the left wing moonbats like Neil Waugh of the Edmonton Sun trash our glorious republican government for their obvious contradictions.

More study is needed before deciding whether to update building codes to prevent repeats of a $25-million condo development inferno, Alberta's municipal affairs minister said yesterday.

Although he said he personally favours a "proactive" approach, Municipal Affairs Minister Ray Danyluk also said the numbers aren't all in. He said the province approached the National Research Council 18 months ago and asked it to study the issue. Its next major amendment of national standards, however, isn't until 2010.

Ray's job in Ed Stelmach's Country Club Cabinet is housing and municipal affairs. Both are hot topics after Wolsey warmed up to his usual theme following the MacEwan Fireball. Edmonton houses are fire prone. Thanks to the controversial vinyl siding that's slapped on them without any fire retardant board beneath.

Wolsey talked about a "simple fix." And when asked whether the MacEwan blaze and other similar fires involving Boom-berta houses are preventable, he answered: "I believe it is."

He talked about "minor amendments" to the building code. Which is Ray's responsibility.

And if the houses around the condo blaze had something as simple as exterior grade drywall under the plastic siding "we probably wouldn't have lost any of those homes."

So here's the question I put to Ray in the flower garden.

"Are get-rich-quick developers cutting corners and building shoddy houses that could put Albertans' lives in peril?"

Which, of course, is the Monday-morning-coming-down question for many folks.

No emergency meeting with Battlin' Randy Wolsey, no read-the-riot-act session with the Edmonton Region Homebuilders Association, no task force of surly bureaucrats to prepare a report, make recommendations and get to the bottom of what's going down out on Pleasant Acres Drive and Woodside Wynd.

Instead Danyluk froze up like a rusty Lada at 40 below.

The best he could offer was that the National Research Council is apparently working on something, but it won't be ready for three years.

Once again showing this government has no use for its citizens and is in the pocket of establishment special interests.

Caveat Emptor, citizen beware you have nobody to blame for getting screwed but yourself, the government refuses to protect you or to govern for the public good. Just as they have failed renters in this province now they fail homeowners, in favour of developers.

This then is limited government in a nutshell.

See:

Pay 'Em What They Want

He Can't Manage

Drumheller Bell Weather

Stelmach Tanks

Alberta Deja Vu

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