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Killing $2B GreenTrip fund could drive away urban votes

There's plenty to like about Danielle Smith and the Wildrose party. Smith is smart, tough, charismatic. She will stand up for Alberta's oilsands and provincial interests. She is also strong when it comes to issues of personal freedom.

All that said, the Wildrose position on mass transit is strangely out of touch with city voters, as well as unfair to them. If it were implemented, it would be a major blow to Calgary and Edmonton.

Smith evidently wants to take us back to the uninspired Klein era, when rapid transit development stalled. The attitude of the Klein gang was that mass transit was for elitist cities with fancy pants aspirations, that no one wanted mass transit in Alberta, at least no one who counted. The vision of the day was to roll down the open highway in a big truck or SUV with not a traffic light to slow you down from Leth-bridge to High Level.

But this hugely expensive approach hit an epic pothole. You can't spend enough billions in public funds to build enough overpasses, ring roads and arteries to rid a city or a region of its congestion. And as the traffic jams got ugly in the down-town Calgary commute in the 2000s, the hunger for mass transit grew, so much so that it represented a rare political triumph for the Stelmach government to bring in the $2-bil-lion GreenTrip plan.

GreenTrip is now building transit lines in Calgary and Edmonton, with $497 mil-lion going into the new NAIT LRT line.

Premier Alison Redford has gone on the record repeatedly to voice her support for Green-Trip funding. Indeed, in her commitment to mass transit, Redford comes across as strong and as fierce as Smith does on any of her own staunch policy stances.

But Smith on transit? Way too old school.

As part of its revamping of provincial funding of Alberta's cities and towns, the Wildrose would axe the Green-Trip program.

The overall Wildrose plan is to get rid of the numerous ways the province now funds municipalities and replace it with a single plan, the Community Infrastructure Transfer. This program would distribute 10 per cent of all provincial tax revenues and 10 per cent of all budget surpluses to the municipalities.

This scheme looks sensible enough, but is Wildrose really going to ask rural areas to pay for all their roads and highways out of this transfer? More likely, the province will continue to pay for and maintain all those necessary rural transportation links, as is only right.

But, as is only right, the province should also keep paying for necessary transportation links in the cities, such as LRT. If it pays for one type of transportation infrastructure, but chops the other, that's not acceptable.

"It would be a monstrous inequity between urban and rural," says Edmonton Coun. Don Iveson, head of the Capital Region Board's transportation committee.

"The province would no doubt continue to build highways in rural areas, but the LRT is the equivalent of a highway to Edmontonians and Calgarians as far as how many are able to get to work and get to school and get to markets on it."

Smith does talk about funding some regional transit: commuter rail lines in from the outer communities, such as Okotoks near Calgary, and Leduc near Edmonton. Not a bad idea, but this notion was looked at and rejected by the Capital Region Board when it made its new plan for the region's transportation needs for the next 30 years.

A regional commuter line helps you get in and out of the city in one or two directions but not around the city.

"For bang-for-buck and maximum benefit, the thinking was that expanding LRT and linking it with express buses from the region was of the greatest mutual benefit," Iveson says.

The GreenTrip program isn't just popular with urban elitists. It's popular with folks in the towns and counties.

The vote for the LRT-region-al plan was unanimous, 24 out of 24 members, with full backing from the reps from Devon, Beaumont, Bon Ac-cord, Bruderheim, Fort Saskatchewan, Lamont, Gibbons, Legal, Leduc, Parkland, Strathcona, Sturgeon, Spruce Grove, Thorsby, Wabamun and Warburg.

Perhaps the Wildrose has calculated that it can win Alberta by isolating the Edmonton region and taking Calgary and rural Alberta, the old Klein coalition.

But I can't see how taking an axe to C-Train funding is going be a winner in Calgary. Voters there recently elected an avid pro-transit mayor in Naheed Nenshi.

Election tracker

The platforms are crafted. The promises planned. Now it is up to voters to decide which party's campaign best fits with their vision of Alberta. To help, the Journal will track the five major party's promises throughout the 2012 campaign. View the plat-form tracker online at edmonton-journal.com/election.

Campaign Calendar

Here's a look at where party leaders plan to campaign on Wednesday. Not all leaders' itineraries were available.

Liberal Leader Raj Sherman - 10 a.m. Red Deer, campaign headquarters for Red Deer North candidate Michael Dawe, 5417 Gaetz Ave., medical training announcement

- 1: 30 p.m. Edmonton, West End Seniors Activity Centre, 9629 176th St. NW, health forum panel, followed by 2: 30 p.m. announcement re: accessible seniors' services

PC Leader Alison Redford

- 9: 50 a.m. Suncor tour, Fort McMurray.

- 1: 05 p.m. MacDonald Island Library, 151 MacDonald Dr.

- 2 p.m. Holy Trinity High School, 230 Powder Dr.

- 3: 05 Tim Hortons, 9701 Hardin St.

- 5: 30 p.m. United Way, Fireside Room, MacDonald Island Park, 151 MacDonald Dr.

- 6: 30 p.m. Opening ceremonies for Father Mercredi Catholic High School Science and Technology Centre, 455 Silin Forest Rd.

- 7: 15 p.m.: Don Scott campaign office, 160 MacLennan Cres.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith

- 9: 15 a.m. Edmonton, 10800-97th Ave. NW, remarks on campaign platform

- 11: 20 a.m. Redwater, Noreen and Friends Diner, 4919 49th St., serving customers

- 2 p.m. St. Paul, St Paul's Curling Club, 4803 52nd St., curling with seniors

- 5: 35 p.m. Fort Saskatchewan, 555018 RR 200, Speaking to sup-porters at party event

What ' s your top election issue?

We are asking residents of Edmonton and northern Alberta to tell us their most important issue in the provincial election. Here are some of their answers.

You can participate, too. Email [email protected] and include a photo of yourself holding a white sheet of paper with your issue written in big, bold letters. Also include your name, city, age and a short summary about your opinion. Or blog about it and pin it to your own Pinterest page using the hash-tag #abissues. We will repin and share your submissions.

You can view the submissions we've received so far and upload your own at edmontonjournal. com/issues.

Edmonton Journal, Wed Mar 28 2012

NDP Leader Brian Mason rolled out his party's health plan to open 1,500 new long-term-care beds, spend $100 million more on home care and cover basic dental costs for children under 18.

The New Democrats would also cap seniors' drug costs at $25 in total, instead of $25 for each prescribed drug needed. They would maintain the cap on seniors' living costs and hire "hundreds" of doctors over the next four years.

Mason said these aren't "extraordinary promises," but ways to bring down waits for emergency care and strengthen medicare.

"Come election time, every party says they are the champions of Alberta health care, but Alberta's New Democrats are always there, election time or not," Mason said, calling the NDP health platform the party's top priority.

"Medicare is suffering in Alberta because of years of mismanagement and attempts at privatization."

Mason said the PCs rolled out their plans for the Third Way after the 2004 provincial election. After the 2008 election, the government appointed Ron Liepert the bad-cop health minister who set up Alberta Health Services after firing CEOs of the former provincial health regions.

"I think this is likely to happen again," Mason said. "I think people are learning a lesson: You can't trust the Progressive Conservative Party on health care because they won't tell you the truth during the election."

Premier Alison Redford continues to flirt with privatization by saying she'll get rid of the cap on the maximum amount seniors can pay for living expenses, said Mason.

"Alison Redford's answer is American-style health care," he said. "We want to improve and expand public health care."

How much the NDP health plan would cost won't be released until later this week.

"In our view, medicare is sustainable through commitment and innovation," Mason said. "The government doesn't spend its money wisely in the health-care system."

Edmonton Journal, Wed Mar 28 2012
Byline: Jodie Sinnema

Morinville – Former labour leader Trudy Grebenstein has entered the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock race as the NDP candidate. After a decade as President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3550, Grebenstein felt she still had much to offer and decided to enter provincial politics.

"I'm looking for other ways to use everything I've learned," she said, adding she's always believed in the NDP but decided to take things a step further in January of 2011. "I attended a meeting that sort of made me decide to step up. I've always worked on other people's campaigns."

That meeting, put on by the Alberta Federation of Labour, had Brian Mason and Rachel Notley in attendance. Although prior to the Jack Layton wave, Grebenstein said she was inspired by what she heard. "At that point in time I said I can't just continue to sit here and support everyone; I think from what I'm hearing I have the knowledge and ability," she said. "I know I have the ability and the energy to represent Alberta voters in the riding,"

Although an Edmonton resident Grebenstein said she has family and professional connections in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock, particularly in the Barrhead area where her husband's family resides. "We are there as often as we are at property we own in the Athabasca constituency," she said.

Plenty of issues ahead

Provincially, Grebenstein said there are many issues facing voters this election. "I think the big issue in the provincial election is utility costs [and] health," the candidate said. "I think those are two key ones. I support the NDP platforms wholeheartedly, but I think those are two that voters can relate to every time they get a piece of mail or e-mail telling them what their latest bill is."

Grebenstein believes an NDP government could solve both issues. "The NDP solution for the utilities is to have a thorough investigation as to why the costs are what they are," she said. "They also believe with the resources that we have in this province that Albertans should be getting a break."

Similarly, Grebenstein believes her party could solve many of the province's healthcare woes. "The NDP position is that we can no longer wait for this broken system to continue on the way it is," the candidate said. "We need to know a whole lot more about that investigation with regard to the doctors, and we need to diligently look at the system we have in place. It doesn't necessarily mean more money. Perhaps it needs a real close look to see how the money is being spent."

The candidate said she believes resources could be better spent in healthcare. "We have a lot of resources in Alberta. As we heard in the budget Allison Redford has now passed; now all of a sudden money is showing up," Grebenstein said. "I'm an education worker. I've been an education worker for 35 years. I'm astounded at the money that's just suddenly showing up. I went through the thick and the thin and the rollbacks and all that. And there was never enough money, never enough money. I think that's kind of what's been happening in healthcare as well."

Grebenstein, who has a parent in senior care, said she believes doctors simply are not given enough time with each patient to be able to do their best work with them.

Local issues considered

Turning her attention to local issues, Grebenstein sees Champion Petfoods and the Morinville school issue as being of particular concern to locals.

"I know that in Morinville and Sturgeon [County] there is an issue with the impact of the Champion plant," she said. "That periodically comes up."

Grebenstein said she has been following the school issue in Morinville and is not sure if she agrees with what Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk is doing regarding it.

"I've got information that makes me think that perhaps his solution isn't the best solution," she said. "I'm wondering if the school boards there – now that he's sort of stepped in and said what he thinks should happen – if those school boards there might come up with a better solution. I'd like to hear the people."

Tough battle ahead

The candidate explained one thing she brings to the table is an ability to listen, something she would continue to do as MLA. "I'm a firm believer in listening to what people have opinions on," she said. "I know a lot of people don't vote because they say they don't know the issues. I think people have an opinion about every single issue. It's just that nobody is listening to them or they've got nobody to tell. I'm prepared to be there so they can tell someone exactly what their opinion is about some of this stuff going on."

Grebenstein said she wants voters to know she does not consider herself a stranger to the constituency because of her family ties to the area. However, she realizes she has a tough fight in a constituency that traditionally votes for the PCs. She feels that fight would be tougher if Ken Kowalski were running again.

"Now that they've refreshed their incumbent, I think that there might be a few folks who will reconsider what they've been doing," Grebenstein said. "Mr. Kowalski did a lot of good work in that constituency over the years he was there. I'm prepared to continue to do good work in this constituency. I believe that people want change and I hope that they will go out and vote for change and that they won't sit at home. That's always the issue in our Alberta elections. People have opinions but they don't come out to vote for the person that stands for what they believe in. I think that people need to go out and vote for the person that stands for what they believe in."

Morinville News, Tues Mar 27 2012

One could forgive the provincial Tories for indulging in political nostalgia this election campaign.

Gone are the days of elections past when supremacy was taken for granted — and pundits quipped that ballots were weighed instead of counted — in many Calgary and southern Alberta constituencies.

With the Redford government suffering a series of political headaches in the weeks leading up to today's election call, ridings where PC party candidates previously meandered to victory will instead see tight two or three party races.

"I remember just punching in a Klein sign and then going for beers," said one Tory volunteer on the campaign trail in Calgary. "This time, guys are having to work."

Mount Royal University political analyst David Taras said laid-back PC party riding associations that coasted even through the Stelmach years will have to start pounding the pavement, as the Wildrose will target high-profile Tories such as Ted Morton, Jonathan Denis and Ken Hughes, and winning margins could become thin.

"Calgary is the battleground," Taras said.

To claim success, "the Wildrose has to break through in Calgary. They have to break the Tory fortress."

The Liberals are struggling to compete with the long-governing Conservatives and the Wildrose in terms of both money and popular support, provincewide. The Grits will have to fight hard in what Taras calls the city's "red-zone" — those inner-city ridings such as Calgary-Mountain View, Calgary-Currie, Calgary-Buffalo and Calgary-Varsity — to keep their foot in Cowtown.

No matter what their political allegiance, many city voters will be bewildered by an array of riding boundary changes, in course with a seat redistribution that takes effect this election.

Nearly every riding has had its boundaries altered in one way or another, and some have been renamed (Calgary-North Hill becomes Calgary-Klein, Calgary-Egmont becomes Calgary-Acadia, and Calgary-Montrose is gone, taken up in part with a much-metamorphosed Calgary-Greenway).

Calgary will house two additional ridings — Calgary South-East and Calgary-Hawkwood in the northwest — bringing the city's total number of seats to 25 out of a total of 87.

Some ridings are virtually unrecognizable from the past. For instance, Calgary-Hays is geographically a quarter the size it was.

A few of the boundary redistribution choices may have Calgarians scratching their heads. The outstanding example is Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill, which begins in the city's northernmost reaches, but then moves down into the airport area, and juts into neighbourhoods such as Thorncliffe and Huntington Hills. The cluster of northern neighbourhoods including Panorama Hills, Coventry Hills and Harvest Hills is left as an island, in a riding called Calgary-Northern Hills.

Here are a few of the contests to watch with an emphasis on the south battlegrounds now in play before the April 23 vote:

Calgary-Acadia

It's the battle of the lawyers. Wildrose candidate Richard Jones began blasting Solicitor General Jonathan Denis since earlier this year. Jones has spearheaded the Wildrose campaign that has seen the distribution of thousands of coasters targeting the Tory government's impaired driving law. The Wildrose says Bill 26, which will enact a host of tougher penalties once it comes into effect, is heavy handed. The Tories say the law will save lives.

Calgary-Currie

The boundary changes see this riding shift in a major way to the west. With incumbent Alberta party MLA Dave Taylor (formerly a Liberal) retiring from politics, this race is a highly competitive contest between the Wildrose's Corrie Adolph, PC candidate Christine Cusanelli, and Liberal Norval Horner. Even though his party is far behind in the polls, Alberta party candidate and lawyer Norm Kelly is said to be a contender.

Calgary-Fish Creek

The riding has been held by Heather Forsyth since 1993, but this is the first election the incumbent will face as a Wildrose party member — Forsyth crossed the floor alongside Rob Anderson in January 2010. PC candidate Wendelin Fraser is an associate professor and former dean at the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University. Liberal Nazir Rahemtulla is an accountant at the Alberta Securities Commission.

Calgary-Glenmore

This altered riding will be carefully scrutinized as incumbent Wildrose MLA Paul Hinman fights to hang onto the seat he narrowly won during a byelection in 2009. But the Tories want back the constituency they held for almost four decades before placing third in the byelection three years ago. The PC party candidate is Linda Johnson, who worked as a constituency assistant for Jim Hawkes, the former MP for Calgary-West. Once considered fertile ground for the Alberta Liberals, the party has yet to nominate a candidate here.

Calgary-McCall

Races in Calgary-McCall are never boring. This election will be no exception, with one-term incumbent Alberta Liberal MLA Darshan Kang, who won with a razor-thin margin 2008, facing off against former church minister and airport tunnel advocate Grant Galpin for the Wildrose, and PC party candidate Muhammad Rasheed.

Calgary-Varsity

This riding could be a major test of the health of the Alberta Liberal party, with union leader and former party leadership candidate Bruce Payne attempting to hold onto the Grit seat as incumbent Harry Chase retires. Lawyer, businesswoman and former Nexen vice-president Donna Kennedy-Glans holds the Tory banner.

Calgary-West

The campaign here is already fully underway, with Wildrose candidate Andrew Constantinidis (who was once communications manager for MP Rob Anders) sending out news releases attacking former Alberta Health Services board chairman and Redford insider Ken Hughes. It's expected the Wildrose party will pour resources into this long-Tory blue riding to slay the high-profile Hughes. The big question is whether questions about the way the party handled the original, overturned riding nomination vote (which former MLA Shiraz Shariff won) and concerns about the province's health-care system stick to Hughes.

Airdrie

Incumbent Rob Anderson is a strong candidate in the riding directly north of Calgary but the one-term MLA has never been tested running under the Wildrose banner — he crossed the floor from the Tories in January 2010. PC candidate and longtime alderman Kelly Hegg is promising Anderson a competitive run.

Chestermere-Rocky View

Tory MLA and incumbent Ted Morton heads into this election contest in a vastly altered constituency — a change from the hegemony of farms and acreages to the west of the city he has represented in the past. The new horseshoe-shaped riding encircles three-quarters of the city and also takes in the region east of Calgary. Here the cabinet minister and twice-defeated PC party leadership candidate is running against Wildrose candidate and former TV host Bruce McAllister, who makes his home in Chestermere and is expected to attract strong support.

Highwood

The riding just south of Calgary could be the most watched of the election campaign. Popular Tory incumbent George Groeneveld has departed, leaving an opening for Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, who badly needs win a seat in the legislature to truly take the helm of her party. In a display of how important the riding is, Premier Alison Redford appeared at a High River fundraiser for Tory candidate John Barlow, a popular longtime area resident and Okotoks publisher, last Friday before the election writ was dropped.

Cardston-Taber-Warner

In a rare turn of events, incumbent Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Broyce Jacobs was beat handily by retired farmer Pat Shimbashi for the PC nomination last year. But that's no end to the drama in the riding against the U.S. border – it's by no means safe for the Tory party. The Wildrose lost in the 2008 election by just 49 votes. This time, the Wildrose party is represented by oil and gas businessman and Village of Stirling deputy mayor Gary Bikman.

Lethbridge

Against all odds, the NDP is pouring resources into Lethbridge-West and candidate Shannon Phillips, a researcher and policy analyst for the Alberta Federation of Labour. Although it's been 23 years since a NDP MLA was elected anywhere south of Edmonton, the federal NDP party did surprisingly well in the area during last year's national election. But Phillips faces a formidable opponent in cabinet minister and incumbent Tory MLA Greg Weadick. The Liberal candidate is Bal Boora. Lethbridge-East could also yield some interesting voting results, with Liberal candidate Rob Miyashiro, executive director of the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization, the underdog against Liberal-turned-Redford Tory Bridget Pastoor.

Edmonton-Glenora

This riding has gone back and forth between the Liberals and Tories over the past decade, and this time around PC party cabinet minister and incumbent Heather Klimchuk is being challenged by the area's former Liberal MLA Bruce Miller, who served between 2004 and 2008. But some say this is a true five-way contest with former school trustee and film director Sue Huff for the Alberta party, the NDP's former leader Ray Martin, and the Wildrose's Don Koziak — a former mayoral candidate — also in the running.

Edmonton-Meadowlark

Besides Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, this is likely the most dangerous race for any of the major party leaders. Alberta Liberal Leader and one term MLA Raj Sherman faces his first election as a Grit (after being booted from the Tory caucus in 2010) and is being challenged by former high school principal and MLA Bob Maskell, who wants to return to provincial politics after losing his seat to a Liberal in 2004.

Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo

A former cabinet minister, Guy Boutilier's popularity in his riding has gone almost unquestioned since he was first elected into provincial politics in 1997. But Boutilier hasn't run in an election since being ejected from the Tory caucus and joining the Wildrose party. He is up against PC candidate, and regional councillor and deputy mayor, Mike Allen.

Calgary Herald, Mon Mar 26 2012
Byline: Kelly Cryderman

Re: "Assuring Alberta's prosperity," Mark Milke, Opinion, March 25.

Mark Milke disputes Alberta Federation of Labour attacks on the province's funding of health care and education by situating Alberta's per capita funding in the context of national averages. Since Alberta is above the national aver-age for spending on both counts, he concludes that AFL complaints are unwarranted. This is dubious logic, since the national average itself is dramatically below what it should be.

Alberta is simply the best of a very bad lot.

Nationwide we have witnessed a dramatic concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few over the past two decades, not, as Milke wants us to believe, a great increase in the funding of public services. A 2011 study from the OECD showed Canada's wage gap between rich and poor at a record high, well above the 34-country average. Since the 1990s, the report says, the "redistributive effect" of Canada's taxation system has declined, and the wages of the richest 0.1 per cent have more than doubled.

The most unequal province in Canada is British Columbia; Alberta ranks third.

The corporate tax rate in Canada was 40 per cent in the boom period of the postwar era, and 40 years later, it is 15 per cent.

The oil and gas royalty rates in Alberta are unquestionably low. Last week, the Parkland Institute published a study in which it estimates the government of Alberta will forgo $55 billion in revenues over the next three years because of overly generous royalty cuts.

In other words, public services are being starved across Canada, while the rich are getting much richer; in Alberta, this is doubly so, since the province has a booming industry that could provide more tax revenues, instead of funnelling profits to already-rich multinational energy corporations.

Michael Truscello, Calgary

Calgary Herald, Sun Mar 27 2012

If Albertans employed in the energy sector ever wonder why some people underestimate the vast contributions made by the oil and gas industry to Alberta's prosperity, a new ad from the Alberta Federation of Labour provides a clue.

In a recent newsletter sent to Alberta's nurses, the province's umbrella organization for unions published a one-page ad that portrays a balding energy company executive sitting at a hefty desk with his large whisky carafe beside him. The Dickens-like figure intones, "Your provincial government would rather underfund its own education and health-care systems than charge me and my energy company an extra penny in taxes or royalties."

The ad and its accompanying website are a mishmash of error-prone assertions. Here's one in particular: "Albertans are being forced to give up the basics." Health care and education are mentioned as specifically underfunded.

Time for a fact check: On health care, in 2011, Alberta's public expenditures amounted to $4,528 per capita, second only to Newfoundland at $5,077. The national average last year was $3,778.

However, adjusted for age and sex (useful given that people at different life stages use the health-care system less or more), Alberta spent more than any other province, at $4,408 per capita; that compares to Newfoundland at $4,273 and a national average of $3,526. (In this latter measurement, I've used 2009 figures as that's the latest year available from the Canadian Institute for Health Information on this comparison.)

On education, let's compare consolidated provincial and municipal government spending on education, which allows for apple-toapple comparisons.

Alberta, on a per-capita basis, spent above the national average on education between 1998 until at least 2008, and perhaps beyond that year as well. (The information cited next is from Statistics Canada and the agency discontinued its comparisons after 2008.)

To add some eagle-eye clarity on overall Alberta program spending, here are the numbers: Measured per capita and accounting for inflation, such spending hit a high of $11,781 per person in fiscal 1986, dropped in the mid-1990s to as low as $6,959, and rose again to $10,489 by 2009 (all figures in 2011 dollars and adjusted for inflation). Budget 2012 estimates per capita program spending will be about $10,300 this year, so historically, the provincial government is at the high end of such spending patterns.

Those are the facts. Critically, they don't even address the question of whether Albertans are getting the best bang for their buck from their tax dollars. (That's another column.)

Despite Alberta's penchant for high per capita spending, the AFL wants significantly higher taxes and royalties. It mentions how $11 billion could be raised before Alberta's tax rates exceed that of the next lowest taxed province, British Columbia.

Problem: That estimate doesn't take into account that it is precisely Alberta's moderate tax levels and reasonable royalty rates that, in part, foster this province's job creation dynamo. It is partly why, for example, compared to June 2009 (the last month of Canada's recession) and February this year, Alberta now has 144,000 more full-time jobs. Alberta thus accounts for 28 per cent of the half million new full-time jobs created since mid-2009 across Canada, even though Alberta has just 11 per cent of the country's population.

For the record, it's not that royalty rates can never be reconsidered. Royalties are rents and owners of buildings, property or resources are entitled to charge whatever they want - but those who get greedy will kill the golden goose. It's why landlords who charge too-high rents will find themselves without tenants. The same applies to too-high royalties on oil and gas extraction.

This is a lesson everyone should have learned after Ed Stelmach's disastrous "fair share" increases on the energy sector. Stelmach's increases were reversed precisely because they made some oil and gas exploration uneconomic and killed jobs.

As for higher taxes, for decades, taxes in Alberta went just one way: up. It was not until some reductions were made in the late 1990s that Albertans finally saw some relief. It would be a mistake to reverse that, especially as it's long overdue to examine public sector wages, benefits and pensions to bring them in line with the private sector. That action is how the government should balance its books, not through counter-productive job-killing increases to royalty and tax rates.

Ironically, the Alberta Federation of Labour's call for higher taxes and royalties, if ever enacted, would kill off some of the jobs created over the past two years, including those performed by some of its own private sector members.

Calgary Herald, Sun Mar 25 2012
Byline: Mark Milke (Fraser Institute/Director of Alberta Prosperity Initiative)

Wisconsin's populist rebellion came after state GOP leaders attacked workers' rights and dignity.

March 23, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?

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"The folks that were angry about this started a recall....Not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back." -- Gov. Scott Walker, discussing the 2002 recalls that led to his election as Milwaukee County Executive.

Those words, uttered by Wisconsin Republican Gov. Walker in an ad during his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, are strikingly relevant today.

In a 60-day period during a cold Wisconsin winter, state residents collected nearly one million signatures for Walker's recall, with an election date now scheduled for June 5. That election, which will likely be very close and will almost certainly break new records for spending in the state, will end this stage of a year-and-a-half-long battle over Walker's divisive reforms, including his controversial attack on public employee unions.

When Walker first announced his plans to reform collective bargaining on Feb. 11, 2011 he anticipated the fight would be over in less than a week. Claiming the state was broke (just weeks after cutting the corporate tax rate), Walker announced Act 10 on a Friday and planned a vote the following Wednesday, leaving almost no time for public debate or deliberation. He even scheduled a bill signing at the end of the week.

Things did not go according to plan. The events of the following week were pivotal in changing the course of Wisconsin history and sparking a democracy movement across the country.

On Monday, February 14, the University of Wisconsin's graduate assistants' union and their students marched from campus to the state capitol with Valentines expressing love for their university and support for their teachers' right to bargain. Their message was clear: "All public sector workers are under attack. Faculty and staff are under attack. The UW as a whole is under attack. With these extreme acts, Scott Walker is seeking to undermine the labor peace of 50 years....You need to get active now!" Their commitment and organizing is widely viewed as essential to sparking the fire that continues to burn.

Public hearings on the bill started the following day and thousands lined up to testify. Republicans quickly abandoned the hearings but Democrats remained to listen to citizens testify through the night and into the next day (and eventually into the following day, and the next, for weeks). The state constitution requires that the doors of the capitol must stay open whenever the legislature is in session, so the capitol sleep-in began as those waiting to testify set up camp on the marble floors of the capitol. This act of occupying the capitol became a signature part of the Wisconsin protests, and helped inspire the tactics later used by the Occupy movement.

On Wednesday, public school teachers from around the state called in sick and came to the capitol to protest, shutting down schools in districts statewide. High school students marched on the statehouse to decry the attack on their teachers' collective bargaining rights. On the other side of the world, Egyptians were rising up against the Mubarek regime, and signs like "Cairo is cold in winter" and "Walker like an Egyptian" (a play off the Bangles song) were seen in the crowd.

It could have all been over on Thursday. Republicans had a 19-14 majority in the Senate and the votes to pass Act 10 without a single Democrat. As the Senate convened that morning to put the nail in the coffin of public employee unions in Wisconsin, the Democrats were...gone. The 14 Senate Democrats fled across state lines into Illinois early Thursday morning, depriving Republicans of the quorum necessary to take a vote and pass the bill. This act by the Fab 14, as they came to be known, prolonged debate on the bill, and the longer it remained on the floor, the more Wisconsinites came to realize what was really in it. The Fab 14 allowed the fight to continue.

And it did. Each day of this first week, the crowds grew from around 1,000 on Monday to 25,000 on Wednesday to 40,000 on Friday. State residents who had previously paid little attention to politics and who had never participated in a protest were shocked as they came to recognize what Walker and the Wisconsin GOP were trying to do, and carpooled to Madison from towns and cities across the state. An unseasonably warm Saturday saw 70,000 people descend on the capitol square, the largest protests seen in Wisconsin since Madison was at the center of protests over the Vietnam War.

Ongoing Protest and Solidarity

But in contrast with the Vietnam-era protests and the Occupy protests to come, the Wisconsin protests were incredibly conflict-free. There were only a handful of arrests throughout weeks of demonstration and with hundreds of thousands of protesters. Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney famously told Walker his police department "would not be the palace guard" and refused to suppress the grassroots uprising. Off-duty law enforcement officers donned "Cops for Labor" T-shirts and marched alongside students, teachers, farmers, the elderly, and firefighters.

Walker had not planned it this way. He did his best to divide and conquer, attacking collective bargaining rights for teachers, snowplow drivers, nurses, and other public employees, but exempting law enforcement and firefighters. It backfired.

"Firefighters are taught that when there's an emergency you don't run away from it, you run to it," said Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the state firefighters union, at rallies throughout the protests. "This is the emergency. They're trying to burn down the house of labor, and we won't let them do it." (Mitchell, the youngest and first African-American president of the state firefighters' union, recently declared his candidacy for lieutenant governor in the recall election against Walker.)

Despite the peaceful nature of the protests and the solidarity between demonstrators and law enforcement, right-wing media went out of its way to portray the Wisconsin uprising as violent. Fox News' Mike Tobin claimed he was "hit" by a protester while taping a segment at the capitol, but it did not happen (I was there and can also attest that he was not hit). Bill O'Reilly spliced in footage from an altercation in California – with palm trees in the background – as they discussed the Wisconsin protests. Palm trees became an enduring symbol in Wisconsin of right-wing spin and misleading portrayals of what really was happening in the state.

Protests continued throughout the following weeks. During the day, the capitol rotunda was filled with drumming and chanting, and in the evening, people snuggled into sleeping bags and curled up on the floor. Ian's Pizza received orders for delivery to the capitol from all 50 states and dozens of countries around the world.

On Monday of the uprising's second week, Walker accepted a phone call from a person he believed to be David Koch, who asked how the governor's efforts to "crush that union" were going. The caller was actually a blogger from the Buffalo Beast, who recorded the conversation. Walker had reportedly refused to return phone calls with Democratic legislators, but he gleefully accepted a call from "David Koch," and chattered for 20 minutes about how he considered planting "troublemakers" in the crowd, how he would not budge or negotiate, and how he was being courageous, just like Ronald Reagan. Walker also asked that Koch have "his guy on the ground" – then-head of Americans for Prosperity Tim Phillips – organize rallies and encourage people "to call lawmakers and tell them to hang firm with the governor."

Prior to the prank phone call, many Wisconsinites had never heard of the Koch brothers, despite Koch Industries being one of Walker's top donors in 2010 and David Koch having given $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association (which in turn spent almost $5 million on the race in Wisconsin). But the Koch connection became apparent after recordings of the call went public, and Koch references soon started appearing on handwritten signs at Wisconsin rallies.

The protests reached 100,000 the next Saturday and the capitol occupation continued. The following week, the Walker administration tried to shut down the capitol and defied a court order to re-open it; Walker then introduced a biennial budget bill with massive cuts to K-12 education and the state Medicaid program, as well as eliminating in-state tuition for undocumented university students and a registry for home healthcare providers.

The week after that, in a barely announced meeting, Republican senators rapidly stripped Act 10 of "fiscal" provisions but kept the collective bargaining limits, which allowed them to pass the bill without a quorum (and without the 14 Democratic senators). The Assembly passed the stripped-down bill days later and Walker signed it into law. But Wisconsinites were undeterred. That Saturday, around 150,000 people marched on the capitol in protest and to welcome home the 14 Democratic senators who had fled the state.

Staying Motivated

The state constitution provides that an elected official may be recalled one year after taking office – which meant that fired-up Wisconsinites had to wait until at least November to start collecting signatures. But Wisconsinites remained motivated and engaged during those intervening months as almost everything in the state became hyper-politicized.

The campaign for state Supreme Court, originally expected to be a sleepy affair with incumbent Justice David Prosser almost guaranteed to win, turned into a referendum on Governor Walker, with millions of out-of-state dollars poured into the state and record turnout on election day. Kloppenburg was originally announced the winner with 200 votes until Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, a Republican activist in the state's most conservative county, announced she had failed to account for 14,000 votes, giving Justice Prosser a 7,500-vote lead that was upheld in the recount.

As the Supreme Court race heated up, the Dane County district attorney filed suit alleging that Walker's collective bargaining bill was passed in violation of the state's open meetings law, which requires that public notice of meetings be posted 24 hours in advance. Dane County judge Maryann Sumi temporarily blocked implementation of the bill in March (which the Wisconsin GOP tried to ignore), and made her order permanent in May. The prolonged court battle compelled a wide array of Wisconsinites to scrutinize the process of how bills are passed, rather than just the content, and made residents acutely aware of previously obscure provisions in their state constitution.

Sumi's decision was overturned in a contentious ruling by a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court. The behind-the-scenes debate between the justices about whether to take the case and how to rule became so heated that at one point, Justice Prosser placed his hands around the neck of fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. The ensuing controversy again thrust Prosser into the spotlight, giving Wisconsin residents another controversy connected to Walker's union-busting.

Summer saw recall elections for eight legislators who had been in office for over one year and were eligible for recall; the elections narrowed Republican control of the Senate to just one vote, making moderate Republican Senator Dale Schultz (who voted against the collective bargaining bill) a pivotal player. In coming months, Schultz's opposition would essentially kill a deregulatory environmental bill crafted exclusively for an out-of-state mining company. Walker and GOP leadership had prioritized the bill and Schultz managed to hand them a rare defeat.

ALEC and Koch in Wisconsin

Also in summer, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) published the Web site ALECexposed.org, releasing over 800 previously secret "model bills" from the American Legislative Exchange Council and documenting known ALEC member corporations and legislators. ALEC, described as a "corporate bill mill," allows corporations like Koch Industries and ideological interest groups like the National Rifle Association to hand state legislators changes to the laws that benefit their bottom line and further the right-wing agenda. ALEC "model bills" promote privatization of education and Medicare, environmental deregulation, "tort reform," union-busting, and more.

Many first heard of ALEC during the height of the Wisconsin protests when University of Wisconsin history professor William Cronon, a self-described political moderate, published a blog post raising questions about ALEC's role in Walker's reactionary anti-union bill. His posting prompted the Wisconsin Republican Party to submit an open records request for Cronon's emails, an effort widely perceived as an effort to harass and silence the professor.

With the publication of ALECexposed.org, the out-of-state corporate and ideological influence on elected officials in Wisconsin and elsewhere became clear. Walker was an ALEC member when he was a state legislator, and he appointed other ALEC members to key administrative posts. The leaders of both the Senate and the Assembly were active ALEC members. Multiple ALEC bills were spotted in Wisconsin legislation. In addition to Walker's attack on public sector unions, everything from voter ID and anti-consumer bills and narrow tax breaks for tobacco companies to concealed carry and "Castle Doctrine" laws, telecommunications deregulation and more, were discovered to have ALEC roots.

ALEC is also closely tied to the Koch agenda, particularly the family's anti-union zeal. Starting in November, as recall proponents started gathering signatures, the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity (AFP) started running ads supporting Walker and his "reforms." The ads started again in January with a $700,000 TV ad buy, plus an unknown amount on Internet banner ads. Sources say AFP has spent $3 million in the state on its "It's Working!" campaign.

Last month, the real David Koch told a Florida newspaper that "we've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more."

Koch also sees the recall election as a focal point in a national showdown over union rights.

"What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He's an impressive guy and he's very courageous," Koch said. "If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power."

The recall election is scheduled for June 5.

alternet.org, Fri Mar 23 2012

Critics predict increasing backlog in ERs

New figures from the province's health authority show the wait for nursing home beds has worsened this year despite the fact Alberta Health Services has increased the number of long-term care spaces.

While a document that AHS provided to the Herald this week laid out a 150-bed reduction in 2012, an official said Thursday they have actually added 152 spaces across the province with round the clock nursing.

Roman Cooney, AHS' vice-president of communications, said the authority has opened 470 nursing home beds and closed 318 spaces so far this fiscal year.

"These beds are continually being refurbished to meet higher standards," Cooney said in an e-mail.

"In addition, over the next three years, we will open 150 additional net new long-term care beds."

Despite the increase in spaces this year, AHS figures show the queue of ailing seniors stuck in hospital or struggling at home while they waited for a nursing home bed grew by 14 per cent to 215 people in the first 10 months of this year.

The AHS figures show the situation is especially dire in Calgary where there were 95 people waiting in January for a vacancy.

Opposition parties predicted Thursday the backlog in Alberta's hospitals and ERs will worsen unless the government opens more nursing home beds to accommodate those seniors in the queue.

"It's complete incompetence," said Liberal health critic Dr. David Swann, "that is jeopardizing the health of our seniors and contributing to the crisis in our hospitals."

While AHS' plan would hold the number of nursing home beds at or slightly be-low 15,000 for the next three years, the authority is hoping to open 3,000 additional supportive living spaces over the same period which offer less nursing care, require residents to shoulder the cost of drugs and medical supplies, but which cost the health-care system less.

New Democrat seniors critic Rachel Notley said the plan aims to force sick seniors to shoulder a larger share of their health-related costs and live in facilities that may offer them an inadequate level of care.

"It's unfair, but it's also absolutely penny wise and pound foolish," Notley said.

"These patients will end up in much more expensive ER and acute care beds because they are the last resort."

Facility operators said the situation is worse than AHS' figures reveal because many of the 1,279 seniors on the waiting list, who the authority says are suited for supported living spaces, actually need to be in a nursing home.

"People are being placed there who don't belong and we're struggling to care for them with inappropriate and insufficient staff," said Bruce West, executive director of the Alberta Continuing Care Association.

"The government may have a vision of people aging in place and what supportive living can be but that's not what's available right now."

To deal with the current bed shortage, West said the province should designate at least 25 per cent of the new beds it is opening each year as long term care spaces.

"The health minister said he's flexible, that the new spaces coming on stream are built to offer a range of care," he said.

"Let's deal with the crisis now and add the RNs that are needed to ensure seniors get the prompt medical attention they need."

A recent health quality council report found up to eight per cent of the province's hospital beds were clogged with patients who should be in nursing homes or supportive living facilities.

Dr. Paul Parks, the past-president of the Alberta Medical Association's emergency medicine section, said the long waits in the province's ERs won't get shorter until the hospital backlog is cleared.

Parks said he has struggled to get reliable and consistent figures from AHS or the province about the number of nursing home beds in the province.

Health Minister Fred Horne said a few weeks ago that there were approximately 14,550 beds, while Seniors Minister George Vanderburg stated recently there were only 14,092 beds.

If AHS' 152 new beds are added to their stated capacity of 14,550 at March 31 last year, there should be 14,702 beds open today. Cooney did not reply to a request by e-mail to confirm that number.

"The bottom line is we have roughly the same number as we did two decades ago, but there's another 1.3 million people in the province and that population is aging fast," Parks said.

"I can't fathom how that is going to work."

Long-term care beds in Alberta

- People waiting for nursing home beds based on assessed medical need:

Calgary Herald, Fri Mar 23 2012
Byline: Matt McClure

Premier critical of severance deal that could hit $30 million

EDMONTON - Twenty-two Alberta MLAs not planning to run in the upcoming spring election will walk away with $10.6 million to help them adjust to life outside politics.

Representatives of all parties, including Premier Alison Redford, have criticized a platinum-plated severance package that will see Speaker Ken Kowalski, first elected in 1979, walk off with $1.2 million, and former premier Ed Stelmach leave with $991,000.

Departing MLAs Cindy Ady and Ray Prins will take away $784,000 between them, according to estimates Thursday from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The spending watchdog says the total cost to Albertans if all 83 MLAs quit or were voted out of office would be almost $30 million.

"It's been a travesty," said Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson.

"It's a joke, and everyone knows it's a joke."

The governing Tories, who gave themselves 30-per-cent raises after the last election, haven't addressed the issue because it would divide their caucus, he said.

Critics say the lucrative severance package - called MLA transition pay - likely won't sit well with Albertans already angry over revelations 21 members of a legislature all-party committee were each paid at least $1,000 a month while serving on a committee that hasn't met since 2008.

Redford said she hasn't heard from Albertans on the issue, but she expects it will be addressed in an MLA compensation review she appointed former justice John Major to undertake early this year.

"I always presumed that it would be," she said. "I would be surprised if it wasn't."

Redford told reporters she didn't think the current method of paying MLAs was a good system or very transparent.

"All of the benefits that MLAs receive need to be clarified," she said. "They need to be put together in a way Albertans can understand, and I think that has to be part of it."

The premier didn't know when Major will deliver his report. His office said it won't likely be until the end of April, which could put off its public release until after the coming election.

Liberal Leader Raj Sherman called the transition allowance "obscene."

His party wants it reduced to one month per year of service - instead of the current three months - with a maximum payout of eight years.

New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley called it "the most egregious payment out there.

"I would rather see all MLAs have access to some sort of pension fund - not some ridiculous gold-plated rich one, but something Albertans think is fair."

Edmonton Journal, Fri Mar 23 2012
Byline: Darcy Henton with files from Kelly Cryderman

The province plans to reduce the number of nursing-home spaces this year, despite new figures that show a rising number of Albertans are still stuck in hospital or at home waiting for a bed to become vacant.

Doctors are worried delays in the province's emergency rooms could worsen and facility operators are concerned ailing seniors will suffer poor care if Alberta Health Services cuts 150 spaces with round-the-clock nursing.

"I'm baffled as to how we're going to eliminate the bottlenecks in our hospitals at the same time as we're cutting long-term care beds," said Paul Parks, past-president of the Alberta Medical Association's emergency medicine section. "I'm very afraid we're on the cusp of another crisis in our ERs."

Bruce West, executive director of the Alberta Continuing Care Association, said AHS seems determined to push seniors with complex medical needs into less-expensive supported-living spaces, which may not provide adequate care.

"My concern is these patients will end up back in acute-care hospitals because they won't get the care they need," West said.

"There appears to be a disconnect between the government's philosophy and the front-line reality that we have a lot of very sick seniors."

The provincial health authority released figures this week that show the number of seniors waiting for a nursing-home bed increased 14 per cent to 215 patients during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.

More than 25 per cent of the 473 patients clogging the province's hospitals in January were waiting for a long-term care bed.

Just over nine per cent of the 1,021 seniors struggling to manage on their own around Alberta were also in the lineup to be ad-mitted to a nursing home.

The situation is dire in Calgary, where 55 hospital beds are occupied by seniors waiting for a nursing home space and another 40 seniors are coping on their own waiting for a vacancy to come open.

An AHS official said long-term care beds are being closed so they can be refurbished.

David O'Brien, the authority's vice-president of seniors' care, said normal turnover in nursing homes means space will be found for patients on the waiting list.

O'Brien said that, over the next 12 months, AHS is adding 1,000 supporting-living spaces - beds not equipped or staffed to handle residents with unpredictable behaviour, intensive rehabilitation needs or who require 24/7 nursing care - because that level of care is adequate for the vast majority of seniors in the queue.

"We're building supportive living as fast as we can," O'Brien said, "because that's the level of care Albertans want and need."

But a study published last year suggests more than a quarter of the patients the province is placing in supportive living beds may be unsafe because there is insufficient staffing and care for their complex medical needs. As a result, they were twice as likely as nursing home patients to end up in hospital or visit an ER.

O'Brien says changes have been made since the study was done to improve care at supportive living facilities by providing on call nurses who can deal with ill patients and nurse practitioners who regularly review a client's condition.

A recent report from the Health Quality Council of Alberta fingered the long list of seniors being warehoused in overcrowded hospitals for average stays of six weeks as one of the key causes of chronic, excessive waits of seriously ill patients in Alberta's ERs.

Dr. John Cowell, the council's top executive, said the province needs to reduce occupancy in its major hospitals to 85 per cent and develop accurate predictions of its growing need for both nursing home and supportive living beds to clear the backlog.

"It's critical that AHS match its resources to its needs," Cowell said, "and the numbers of people on the waiting list for long term care have me concerned that's not happening."

AHS documents show the health authority plans to hold the number of nursing home beds fairly constant through 2015 at just under 14,500 and add another 3,000 supportive living spaces to the system, but neither the health authority nor the government could provide figures this week to show whether the new capacity will match the needs of an aging population.

Health Minister Fred Horne said he hopes to have a new fore-casting model up and running later this year that will allow his staff to plan up to two decades into the future.

In the meantime, Horne said the level of care available in many of the new spaces being opened can be adjusted upwards, if that's what is required to match patient needs and to empty acute care beds.

"We have the flexibility," he said.

Calgary Herald, Thurs Mar 22 2012
Byline: Matt McClure