ALF V1

EDMONTON - With an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, Alberta currently fares better than any other Canadian province. But despite being fairly insulated from the economic turmoil plaguing the rest of the world, our oil-rich province's economy is not without problems.

Unlike south of the border, though, Alberta's biggest labour worry is that there are actually 114,000 more jobs than people to fill them.

So in an effort to help find solutions to that predicament, the Alberta Coalition for Action on Labour shortage, comprised of 19 groups and businesses, has been formed. Its key message is that it should be easier for people to come and work in our prairie province.

"If you look at the issue of labour shortages, the problem is getting worse, not better," said Tim Shipton of the Alberta Enterprise Group.

"Right now...the governments seem to be talking at each other and not engaging in a conversation about the issues and finding productive, positive ways forward," added Richard Truscott with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

To reverse that trend, the coalition believes the government should help by easing immigration restrictions.

On the provincial front, they say to write to the Minister of Human Services, Dave Hancock, who tells us he's already in agreement.

"While we need to make sure that every Albertan has an opportunity to get the skills they need to participate in the economy, even with that we're going to need others."

It's a realization that some local businesses can support.

At Edmonton's All-Weather Windows, Paul Taylor said they're really starting to notice the talent pool shrinking as the number of job applications aren't keeping pace with order forms.

"It's just harder to get the right people into the organization," he said.

And while they remember this pattern from the last boom, this time, experts say there's a big difference: this boom isn't expected to be about western Canada's oil industry, but rather, it is due largely to an aging population and too many retirees.

Not everyone agrees with the new coalition's views, though. The Alberta Federation of Labour believes the problem facing Alberta is what it considers to be the government's failure to set a reasonable pace to oilsands development.

"If these employers really want to be able to man these projects, then they should talk to the government about approving 5 or 10 projects at once instead of 65 multi-billion dollar projects going on all at the same time," said the AFL's Gil McGowan.

He considers the coalition's solution of loosening immigration restrictions to be a short-term solution which will have long-term consequences of lowered wages.

McGowan said a better alternative would be for projects to be stretched out over longer periods of time "so that our existing Canadian construction labour force can do the work and then we can have 23 to 30 years of good employment for our trades people as oppposed to 5 years of intense development by temporary foreign workers followed by a bust, because I believe that's where we're headed."

While the groups may disagree on how to achieve change, both agree on that finding political solutions is especially important now, before the problem becomes even more widespread.

Global TV Edmonton, Fri Mar 2 2012

A reasonable pace of oil-sands development would mean more jobs for Albertans, says AFL

Calls to expand the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program in Alberta are a move to unfairly drive down the wages earned by working Albertans, says the province's largest labour group.

"Blowing the doors off the TFW program is not the solution that Alberta needs," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, which represents 145,000 workers.

"Only six months ago, in a report titled Impact of the TFW Program on the Labour Market in Alberta, the Alberta government recognized that the TFW program was bad for our economy. We could soon have 100,000 TFWs in Alberta. How many more do we need?"

In September 2011, Conservative MLA Teresa Woo-Paw said in the report: "... I have concluded that we cannot continue to use the TFW Program to fulfil our province's long-term labour shortages. Doing so has significant, negative impacts for the long-term growth of our economy. Although temporary foreign workers (TFWs) have a place in our economy, the TFW program is not a long-term solution to Alberta's labour market needs."

The AFL president offered real solutions to the labour shortage, rather than the expansion of the TFW plan sought by a coalition of business groups including the Alberta Chamber of Commerce and the Alberta Enterprise Group.

"The government need only follow the advice of former Premier Peter Lougheed and set a more reasonable pace of development in the oil sands. Instead of approving dozens of oil-sands projects at once, a reasonable pace of development would create more value for Albertans, keep the cost of development down for oil-sands companies and mean that the labour needs could be met by the existing labour force in Canada," says McGowan.

"Not only would we have enough workers, we'd be creating good jobs and long-term jobs for Albertans for decades, instead of creating short-term jobs for TFWs," he says.

"However, these short-sighted groups prefer to focus on expanding the TFW program as a means to drive down labour costs. They want to pay workers less, even while the cost of living in Alberta is rising faster than other parts of Canada. Not happy with the massive profits they already make, they want to make even more by paying workers less," he says.

"It's not rocket science. The cure for an overheated market is not to throw more wood on the fire, it is to cool things down."

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Media Contact:

• Gil McGowan, AFL president, 780-218-9888. McGowan will be at PSAC rally at Canada Place, 9700 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, at noon today.

Coalition calls for changes that would bring more workers into the province ahead of an anticipated shortage

EDMONTON - An alliance of 19 Alberta business organizations called on the federal and provincial governments to cut red tape around labour immigration on Thursday.

"The simple fact remains that we do not have enough people in Alberta to fill the jobs today and the thousands of jobs that are anticipated," said Tim Shipton, president of the Alberta Enterprise Group. "If there is going to be any limit to the growth in Alberta, it is the lack of people to fill jobs."

The AEG, along with other associations such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Alberta Federation of Independent Business, collectively call themselves the Alberta Coalition Against Labour Shortages. ACALS unveiled four technical requests for government aimed at bringing more workers into the province.

Government statistics project a shortage of 114,000 workers by 2021 in Alberta. Premier Alison Redford, speaking during a recent tour of Chicago, said American workers could fill some of those positions.

"We are probably looking to fill about 100,000 jobs," Redford said. "When we say that their eyes just pop out because in some places down here they're at 20-per-cent unemployment. They really want those people to be able to come up."

Ken Kobly, CEO of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, another member of the coalition, identified changing demographics as a driving force behind the shortage.

"We're into the middle of a systemic shortage, not just in Alberta but across the country, because of folks like me who are going to be retiring in a little while," he said, pointing to shortages of skilled workers in Newfoundland.

"Certainly, it's aggravated by the peaks and valleys that we have in an economy, but it's a systemic requirement. Baby boomers are retiring."

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, pinned the province's workforce problems to the pace of development in the Athabasca oilsands.

"The real problem is that our provincial government has simply approved too many projects at one time," McGowan said. "No one should be surprised that some employers are finding it hard to get the workers they need."

Industry will spend more than $20 billion on developing new oilsands projects in 2012.

McGowan called on the province to approve fewer projects and reform the temporary-foreign-workers program.

"I think most Albertans would prefer 25 or 30 years of steady employment in oilsands-related projects over six or seven years of frantic development, supplemented by thousands of temporary foreign workers and followed by a bust," he said. "We're afraid that these proposals would take thousands of those jobs away from Albertans and also have the effect of driving down wages.

"While this may be a great blueprint in the eyes of business groups, this, frankly, is the last thing that ordinary working people need."

ACALS members say they only look abroad for workers after exhausting the local market.

"If there are individuals that are willing and able to work, they should put up their hands, because there's certainly plenty of jobs in this province," said Richard Truscott, Alberta director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, an ACALS member.

"Nobody in their right mind would go through all the cost and hassle of something like the temporary-foreign-worker program if there were people here in Canada that were applying for these jobs. But they're not."

T.J. Keil of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association said interprovincial migration won't meet Alberta's needs.

"If (Canadians) do want to make Alberta their home and work here, we want that to happen," he said. "But once that pool has dried up, you have to continue looking. It's a globally competitive market now."

In a news release, the provincial labour federation called the ACALS proposals "an attack on workers."

"It's bad news for temporary foreign workers under the existing program, and it's bad news for Canadian workers," said McGowan, who feels issues involving foreign workers in the province continue since the boom of the mid-2000s.

"We've seen this movie before."

Edmonton Journal, Thurs Mar 1 2012
Byline: Lewis Kelly

Election 2012 Report Card, February 2012

Over the past several months, the AFL has given each party a chance to show us where they stand ont he issues important to our members - health care, good jobs, and ending tax giveaways. Parties that share our values get our stamp of approval.

Election 2012 - Make It Count! (February 2012)

Vote for working people. Let's face it. Politicians only speak one language: getting elected!

More and more Albertans understand the value of having a stronger opposition. They know that if we have an effective opposition, we can hold the government accountable and take them to task on their broken promises. As consumer advocate Wendy Armstrong said in the Edmonton Journal recently: "I don't think you can hold people accountable, whatever party they're with, after an election ... unless you have strong opposition. Otherwise, everything goes behind closed doors." Having a healthy opposition also ensures that different points of view are represented and that all Albertans have a voice.

Click HERE or above to read the full article.

Deron Bilous, ND Candidate, Beverly-Clareview
Mon, Feb 27, 2012

OTTAWA — New Democratic Party leadership candidate Brian Topp, who has accused perceived front-runner Thomas Mulcair of having a plan to make the federal government "addicted" to oil and gas revenues, will officially unveil his major Alberta backers Monday.

Topp will announce the endorsements of Edmonton Strathcona NDP member of legislature Rachel Notley, Edmonton Public School Board trustee Sarah Hoffman, Lethbridge West provincial candidate Shannon Phillips, and Melanee Thomas, 2004 and 2006 NDP candidate for MP for Lethbridge.

"While Brian clearly has the ability to speak persuasively to voters in his home province of Quebec, I'm impressed with his grasp of Prairie political sensibilities," Notley is to say in a statement prepared for Monday's announcement.

Topp has sharpened his attack on rivals, and especially Mulcair, in advance of next month's leadership vote to replace Jack Layton.

Both Topp and Mulcair propose a so-called "cap-and-trade" systems that, by putting a price on carbon, is intended to work as an incentive to get companies in carbon-intensive sectors such as energy to come up with ways to lower emissions.

And while both men originally said revenues from that system would be funnelled into renewable energy projects in the region where the money is collected, Topp accused Mulcair Friday of shifting gears.

Topp pointed to Mulcair's comments at last month's debate in Halifax, when the Quebec MP was asked about Topp's plan to raise taxes to fight the deficit and fund NDP social programs.

"The cap-and-trade system that I propose . . . will produce billions of dollars of revenue," Mulcair responded.

"That's the modern way of doing it."

Topp, in an interview Friday, said Mulcair is suggesting that cap-and-trade money should go into general government revenues.

"In my view revenues inside our cap-and-trade plan need to stay in the plan" to fund green energy options in areas like solar, thermal and wind power, he said.

"And secondly I don't think we want governments to become carbon addicts. We don't want to restructure public finance so that the government is dependent on revenues raised from carbon production, which is something we wish to significantly reduce."

Topp also said Friday that of the revenues collected in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, where Canada's oil and gas industry is based, "all or substantially all" of this money collected should stay in those provinces.

Mulcair said essentially the same thing in December when he unveiled his environmental policies.

His policy document promised that a Mulcair government's cap-and-trade system would generate "billions" of dollars that would be used to "invest in green renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure and energy saving technologies."

In an interview in December Mulcair was asked if his plan might be viewed in the West as a replay of the hated 1980 National Energy Program that used the tax system to redistribute the West's oil and gas wealth.

"No, anything but, because don't forget that the money from this system would be used first and foremost in the areas where it would be collected," Mulcair replied.

A spokeswoman for the Mulcair campaign rejected Saturday that assertion that the candidate has shifted position.

"Investments funded by these revenues would, for obvious reasons, be concentrated in the regions where those revenues are produced," Chantale Turgeon said in an email.

"We would, for example, be displacing coal in areas such as Alberta and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia and, of course, Mr. Mulcair's long-espoused vision of a pan-Canadian green renewable energy network would be concentrated in the regions where the greatest effort had been made to reduce emissions."

But she said that priority "does not preclude the option of using additional revenues generated by a more comprehensive cap-and-trade system to fund other priorities in addition to green initiatives, nor does it change our commitment to ensure that such investments are concentrated in the same region where those revenues were generated."

Just over 10,000 of the 128,351 NDP members are in Alberta, making it a second-tier province in the hunt for votes among the seven candidates.

B.C., with 38,735, and Ontario, with 36,760, are by far the party's hotbeds. Quebec is a distant third at 12,266.

The NDP has been accused by the Tories throughout the campaign of supporting a "radical" environmental agenda that is hostile to the energy sector and especially the oilsands industry.

Ottawa MP Paul Dewar has waged an aggressive campaign to pick up Alberta supporters, visiting the province five times and planning to return two more times before the March vote, according to spokesman Joe Cressy.

Among his supporters is Alberta's lone NDP MP, Linda Duncan, as well as one of the party's most high-profile 2011 candidates, Lewis Cardinal.

Peggy Nash has visited Alberta once and is endorsed by Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, and Gordon Laxer, a professor at the University of Alberta.

B.C. MP Nathan Cullen has the backing of a nominated candidate in this spring's provincial campaign, Deron Bilous of Edmonton.

Mulcair, Niki Ashton and Martin Singh didn't respond to requests for their top Alberta endorsements.

The Windsor Star, Sun Feb 26 2012

EDMONTON - With a provincial election expected this spring, voters are going to be wooed by politicians using "creative language" to promise improved health care when they're elected, consumer advocate Wendy Armstrong said Saturday.

But they won't tell you what will suffer because of those changes, because promises aren't always kept, she said.

"I don't think you can hold people accountable, whatever party they're with, after an election ... unless you have strong opposition. Otherwise, everything goes behind closed doors."

Armstrong made the comments after taking part in a panel discussion at a conference looking beyond acute health care hosted by the Alberta Federation of Labour, Public Interest Alberta, and a coalition of seniors' organizations.

She wasn't the only participant expressing concern. Ryan Geake, who works with adults with disabilities in Calgary, told more than 300 delegates a set of policies called the Community Inclusion Framework disappeared from the government's website sometime in the last six months.

The policies, which outlined what the lives and services of disabled Albertans should be, had been agreed upon by disabled groups, community groups, parents, families and the government, he said.

"This is gone and no one will tell us where it's gone, so if you want to destroy a system, I think I'm learning the very first step is to destroy the values of that system that were said to be important and take them away so people don't have a way to discuss what's going on."

He also said the IQ level at which people with a developmental disability can receive services was changed, making it harder for some to qualify.

"It's another great way to do some cost containment in this province on the backs of disabled folks."

However, after an uproar the move was amended so it wouldn't affect people already receiving services, he said.

But Armstrong said many people are afraid to speak up about such issues.

"There have been times when I've been afraid to speak up too, and this is wrong. We need to have these discussions out in the open. People shouldn't be punished for speaking out in public."

Government officials couldn't be reached for comment.

Speakers mentioned the Health Quality Council of Alberta report released last week, which detailed how the creation of Alberta Health Services in 2008 led to confusion and widespread instances of physician intimidation and muzzling.

The government is expected to release details this week about a judicial inquiry into the report's findings.

Edmonton Journal, Sat Feb 25 2012
Byline: Chris Zdeb

Wildrose agrees with the Alberta Federation of Labour and the New Democrats

VANCOUVER, Feb. 24, 2012/ Troy Media/ - In an early February announcement with a local candidate near Edmonton, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith added her voice to those who want to offer "incentives" to attract investment for more refineries in Alberta. Smith said if elected Premier she would "make it more attractive for the private sector to invest in locally upgrading our bitumen product."

Shannon Stubbs, the Wildrose candidate in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville who accompanied Smith, urged the province to consider spearheading new upgrading technology – this as if companies are not already doing just that.

Singing the same tune

Amazingly, the Wildrose Alliance Party now apparently sings the same misguided tune as the Alberta Federation of Labour, New Democrats, and members of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party who, in a 2010 policy vote, urged the government to use incentives to ensure more bitumen produced in Alberta is upgraded here.

According to the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), and using 2010 statistics, about 58 per cent of the bitumen produced in Alberta every day is already upgraded to synthetic crude oil in the province. The remainder is exported to upgrading and refinery facilities closer to where the refined products (gasoline and diesel and heating fuel, for example) will ultimately be consumed.

The ERCB expects that the proportion of bitumen that is upgraded in Alberta will decline. This is largely because most of the increase in bitumen production will come from in situ (well) operations which in most cases are too small to justify investments in on-site upgraders). Instead, bitumen from various sites is collected and transported by pipeline to facilities capable of handling larger volumes.

By securing long-term sales agreements with companies with U.S. upgrading/refining complexes, the producers avoid investing in upgraders but gain reliable cash flows with which to finance further oil sands development. Their preference for this approach signals that they regard investing in upgraders in Alberta as way too expensive.

Smith seems to have reversed her earlier position regarding subsidies for refining. On the North West Upgrader, last November, she remarked that "there's no need to expose taxpayers to this kind of risk . . . . Billions of dollars could [instead] be spent on high priority items for taxpayers". Rather suddenly, it seems, she has conveniently forgotten that taxpayer funds for subsidies to entice risky investment must come from somewhere.

In so doing, the would-be premier and her advisers ignore this basic economic principle: extracting money from taxpayers to support projects that are not commercially viable usually results in a misallocation of resources. To make it clear, the proposal would rob "Martha and Henry" (as former premier Ralph Klein liked to describe average Albertans) to fund special incentives for obviously reluctant investors in one sector of the economy.

The capital cost of a stand-alone 100,000 barrel-a-day upgrader (i.e. not in conjunction with bitumen mining operations) is estimated at $5 billion or even higher because of high construction costs in a province that already has a tight labour market. To ensure that the percentage of bitumen upgraded to refinery-ready synthetic crude here in Alberta does not decline would be a very costly venture.

The Wildrose Party and others who argue for refining subsidies fail to appreciate the economic loss that the provincial economy would have to bear as a consequence. This is because those of us who would have to pay for the subsidies through provincial taxes would have less money to spend on other goods and services. Moreover, with skilled labour already in tight supply because of oil sands project construction, wages would ratchet higher, thereby fueling inflation and making some projects too costly to proceed.

It's a business decision

If bitumen producers determine that it makes more economic sense to build upgraders in Illinois, Ontario or some other location than in Alberta there must be good reasons. These likely include factors such the availability of skilled workers, lower wages, lower materials costs, lower state and local taxes, scale economies, and the regulatory climate.

There are issues facing the energy sector in Alberta: Non-market barriers such as regulatory processes and procedures that are unnecessarily time consuming and costly for starters. Smith, the NDP and the Alberta Federation of Labour should concentrate on those and not artificially-created issues followed by artificial 'incentives' – subsidies – just to entice more bitumen upgrading refining in Alberta.

Gerry Angevine is an energy economist with the Fraser Institute.

Troy Media, Fri Feb 24 2012

Tories acting to benefit pipeline companies and foreign oil interests, says AFL

The Conservative government's withdrawal of support for an upgrader clearly shows its priority is exporting raw bitumen instead of creating real value for Albertans, says the province's largest labour group.

"The government is focused on ripping and shipping our raw resources out of the province – and as they ship out unrefined bitumen, they are shipping good jobs down the pipeline," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), which represent 145,000 workers.

"The oil sands are owned by the citizens of Alberta and they deserve to get a fair return on the sale of those resources. Upgrading in the province would not only keep good jobs here, it would build our economy and increase government revenue," he says.

Teedrum Inc. and the majority of Alberta First Nations today announced the government of Alberta has suddenly decided to withdraw prior conditional support for the construction of a $6.6-billion refinery in the Alberta Heartland region.

"Not long ago, the Tories compared shipping raw bitumen out of the province to a farmer selling off its topsoil. It set a target of refining 72 per cent of our bitumen within our borders. It's clear from today's announcement that the Conservative government has abandoned that policy," says McGowan.

Recent research by the AFL shows that the percentage of oil-sands bitumen upgraded in the province will actually drop to 52 per cent by 2016 – a far cry from the earlier target. Click here for accompanying table and graph.

"The majority of Albertans want to process more of our bitumen here, but the Conservative government doesn't want to listen to them. They appear to be more intent on acting as the sales departments for pipeline companies and foreign oil interests than doing what's best for Albertans," says McGowan.

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MEDIA CONTACT: Gil McGowan, AFL president, 780-218-9888