Increased forklift inspections not enough for AFL
AFL President Gil McGowan says the government's announcement of a few weeks of increased forklift safety inspections is welcome, but not enough.
"Right now the only mention of training and certification in the Alberta Health and Safety Code is sort of a vague reference that forklifts are heavy equipment and there needs to be adequate training," remarks McGowan. "But they don't spell out what that training is and there are no penalties for employers who haven't provided adequate training. From our perspective that needs to change."
McGowan says the provincial government needs to follow the lead of Manitoba and institute a mandatory system for training and certification of forklift operators.
He points out tens of thousands of Alberta companies use forklifts and it's simply not good enough to hope they will properly train their workers.
"Basically anyone can get behind the wheel of a forklift and start driving without training and without testing and from our perspective that helps explain why there are so many injuries and fatalities related to forklifts - - more than other pieces of equipment."
Back in 2008, Mitchell Tanner, 16, died on his second day on the job while on a forklift at a Rona store in St. Albert, just north of Edmonton.
QR77, Sat Feb 19 2011
Alberta government starts forklift safety blitz
Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk announced the inspection campaign Saturday at a safety training office in Sherwood Park.
But AFL president Gil McGowan said Alberta needs to follow Manitoba's example of instituting a mandatory system for training and certification of forklift operators.
This was the message McGowan said he brought to a committee that was set up by the government following the death of Mitchell Tanner, a 16-year-old who was crushed by a forklift at a Rona store in St. Albert in 2008.
The fatality report of the accident said Tanner was riding on the right side of the forklift at the time of the incident. He was fatally injured when the forklift operator turned sharply to the left and the forklift tipped over. The province did not lay charges in the death because prosecutors believed they had no reasonable chance of earning a conviction.
McGowan, who joined the government and industry safety committee, said the final draft of their recommendations was delivered to the government before Christmas. He did not agree with the draft report's recommendation that employers, as a best practice only, should train all staff who will operate a forklift up to a certain standard and test them to make sure they have necessary skills. If the training isn't required by law, the government has no way to make sure it happens, he said.
"If a training course had been offered, one of the first things Mitch would have learned is how top-heavy and unstable forklifts really are," McGowan said. "So I'm convinced that if more rigorous standards for education and certification had been in place, Mitch would be alive today."
The fatality report said one of the accident's contributing factors was that although the forklift driver was aware riders were not allowed, he had limited experience to fully understand how a forklift might react with the combination of speed, sudden movements and additional riders. As well, forklift training had not been made part of the new employee orientation before the time of the incident.
McGowan said drivers of cars, trucks, cranes, bulldozers and other pieces of heavy equipment are required to undergo equipment-specific training and prove their competency through testing. Forklifts are an exception and this helps explain why there are so many more injuries and fatalities with forklifts rather than other pieces of heavy equipment, he said.
Each year, there are hundreds of injuries related to forklifts. In 2008, there were three fatalities, as well as 310 disabling injuries and 182 lost-time claims, according to the government. In 2009, there was one fatality, 219 disabling injuries and 116 lost-time claims.
Barrie Harrison, a ministry spokesman, said in an e-mail that not just anyone can hop on a forklift. "Our legislation says workers must be trained and be proven competent."
The Occupational Health and Safety Code does require workers to be trained if they're going to operate "powered mobile equipment," but it does not call for specific courses. The Occupational Health and Safety Regulation also requires a worker to be trained in the safe operation of the equipment they're required to operate, but again, it does not require specific courses to be taken.
McGowan and Lukaszuk certainly agreed that forklifts require careful operation.
"This equipment looks fairly innocuous ... but it can be a lethal weapon if not used properly," Lukaszuk said.
Beginning Tuesday, inspections officers will be sent to sites throughout Alberta where forklifts and similar equipment are typically used, he said. "Any type of accident is a problem, but forklifts have been identified as one piece of equipment that have been very contributory to injuries or fatalities."
During this inspection blitz, officers will focus on hazards related to such things as worker training, competency and supervision, safe operation of equipment, as well as modification and maintenance of equipment.
Tanner's mother, Angela Church, declined to comment on the inspection campaign.
Roger Ethier, the owner and operator of Liftruck Training Institute of Canada, said a vital part of forklift safety is performing "circle checks." A walk around the machine looking for low tires and cracked forks is key to avoiding a lot of accidents, he said.
Ethier said when he conducts his training he emphasizes that forklifts can weigh five to seven times as much as a car and they need to be taken seriously.
It's not clear how many businesses in Alberta use forklifts, though Lukaszuk said they're very common, as they're used in everything from warehouses to major industrial sites. He could not say what proportion of forklift-equipped businesses would be inspected.
There are two other inspection campaigns planned for this year. One will focus on young workers, the other on residential construction.
Last fall, the province conducted 298 initial and followup inspections of 146 commercial construction employers in Alberta. A total of 214 orders, including 39 stop-work orders, were issued. There were no fines or charges laid.
Edmonton Journal, Sat Feb 19 2011
Byline: Hanneke Brooymans
Forklift safety inspections welcomed, but not enough says labour group: Mandatory training and certification needed to save lives, says AFL
"If the government was really committed to promoting forklift-related safety, it would follow the lead of Manitoba and institute a mandatory system for training and certification of forklift operators," says Gil McGowan, president of the AFL, which represents 140,000 workers.
"Forklifts are not toys, they are dangerous pieces of heavy industrial equipment and they need to be treated by employers and governments like other pieces of heavy equipment. Drivers of cars, trucks, cranes, bulldozers and other heavy equipment are required to undergo equipment-specific training and prove their competency through testing, but in Alberta, anyone can get behind the wheel of a forklift and start driving without training and without testing," says McGowan.
This lack of training explains why there are more injuries and fatalities related to forklifts than other pieces of heavy equipment. While increasing inspections will help, it will not solve the problems created by the absence of government enforced standards for training and certification.
"Inspections by themselves aren't the answer because inspectors won't be able to fine or ticket employers for inadequate training, because there are no laws in Alberta under which to charge them. As a result, the inspection blitz will be much less useful than it might otherwise be," he says.
In 2008, 16-year-old Mitchell Tanner died on his second day on the job while on a forklift at a Rona store in St. Albert. An AFL campaign at that time led the creation of a joint government, industry and labour panel to look into the issue of forklift safety. It drafted a set of guidelines which have yet to be released: but even once they are released, the new guidelines will be voluntary, not mandatory.
"Voluntary guidelines are not enough. We can't simply hope that employers will do the right thing. Proper training and certification have to be mandatory," says McGowan. "I know Conservatives are reluctant to get behind regulation for ideological reasons. But ideology should not be allowed to trump safety or common sense."
"Random inspection probably would not have saved Mitchell," concluded McGowan. "But real training to standards set and enforced by the government could probably have made a difference. The government still has an opportunity to do better by introducing mandatory training and certification. Unless Alberta follows Manitoba's example, people will continue to be injured and killed unnecessarily on forklifts in Alberta."
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Media Contact:
Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour @ cell 780-218-9888 or office 780-483-3021
Unions call for probe into missing billions: Auditor General asked to examine why government is failing to meet its own revenue targets
As Albertans brace for yet another budget that includes deep cuts to vital services, a coalition of unions is calling on Alberta's Auditor General to investigate why the government is failing to meet its own targets for collecting revenue from non-renewable resource extraction.
"Alberta Energy sets a target for how much it collects from resources companies in exchange for the right to develop publicly owned energy resources. But the government has failed to meet its own target almost every year," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), which represents 140,000 workers.
"The province is missing out on billions of dollars in revenue that it should be collecting. If that money was being collected, then there would be no need to even consider deep and destabilizing cuts to things like health care, education and other core services. That's why we're asking for an investigation into the government's mishandling of revenue collection: given our province's continued prosperity, there is simply no good reason why we should be looking at another austerity budget."
The union coalition - which includes the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) - has written to Auditor General Merwan Saher (click here for full text of letter), asking him to examine government policies and whether it is meeting its own targets.
"The way Alberta Energy sets its targets for resource rent is shrouded in mystery and blanketed in confusion," says McGowan. After auditing the ministry in 2006-2007, Saher expressed concern over inconsistent and contradictory targets the ministry had set and called for it to "clearly describe and publicly state the objectives and targets of Alberta's royalty regimes." (For AG recommendations, click here.)
"This recommendation and others made by the Auditor General appear to have been ignored," says McGowan, so the coalition has called on Saher to investigate what action has been taken on his report.
The coalition letter says: "Our concerns about public reporting on the royalty regime stem from the Ministry's apparent failure to meet the 50- to 75-per-cent target of economic rent every single year between 2000 and 2008 - a target they loosely set for themselves and the only real, tangible target Albertans can refer to."
If the government had collected in the middle of its target range, it would have brought in additional $37 billion over the last decade, according to research by the Parkland Institute. "The government's purse isn't empty because it's spending too much - it's empty because the government isn't bothering to collect what it should - and what Albertans, as the owner of the resource, are actually owed," says McGowan.
"Albertans deserve to know how much of the value of our natural resources we are capturing," says the coalition letter. "Our quality of life and public services overwhelmingly depend on the revenues we get from Alberta's largest industries."
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Media Contact:
Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour @ cell 780-218-9888 or office 780-483-3021
February 2011: Operation Hockey; Farm deaths spur calls to change work-safety laws; fight for REAL pension reform continues; Athabasca Univ Pension Course
- Union members, human-rights activists and members of the Lubicon Cree took to the ice at the newly opened hockey rink in Little Buffalo at the weekend. The rink was built by donations and volunteer labour in a campaign called Operation Hockey led by the AFL Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee. For YouTube video ... and for Edmonton Journal article by Christina Doktor ...
Farm deaths spur calls for minister to change work-safety laws
- The recent death of three more Alberta farm workers led to several calls for the Alberta Employment Minister to extend health and safety laws to include farms and ranches. Letters urging swift action were sent by the AFL, NDP MLA Rachel Notley, the Alberta Liberals and by Wayne Hanley, national president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada. For more information ...
The fight for REAL pension reform continues
- The AFL called on the Alberta government to reverse its opposition to increasing Canada Pension Plan benefits now that Ted Morton has resigned from cabinet, after a new poll showed Albertans are still in favour, by a two-to-one margin. Meanwhile, the Canadian Labour Congress filed an Access to Information request to find out who lobbied against proposals for improving CPP. For more information and for the CLC release ...
Learn how to protect your pensions
- Union members interested in pension issues have a new opportunity to learn about these issues and to prepare themselves for a role in pension governance. Athabasca University is offering a course that exposes students to the fundamentals of pensions. The course can be taken from home by anyone who wants to know more about how our retirement income system works. It is ideal for people who sit as union-appointed trustees on pension boards or are thinking of doing so, but will also be of interest to people new to pension issues. For more information ...
Urgent Action
Register NOW for the EDLC School - You have until Friday, February 18, to register for the Edmonton and District Labour Council School, which takes place February 25-27. For details or to register or go to the EDLC website.
Events
- February 17 - Parkland Institute Annual Fundraising Gala
- February 18 - Deadline 2011 Edmonton and District Labour Council School (www.edlc.ca)
- February 20 - UN World Day of Social Justice
- February 21 - Alberta Family Day
- February 25 - Deadline for nominations for 2011 AFL May Day Solidarity Award
- February 25-26 - 2011 AFL Equity Conference, Calgary
- February 25-27 - 2011 EDLC School (www.edlc.ca)
Did you know ...
- 1899: The Lubicon Cree are bypassed by Treaty 8 negotiators, so do not receive treaty benefits and a reserve has never been established.
- 1986: Inquiry Judge Davie Fulton files a report that supports the Lubicon. The Alberta government refuses to discuss his recommendations and he is fired by the federal government.
- 1990: The United Nations finds Canada in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights over its treatment of the Lubicon people.
- 2005: The United Nations urges Canadian government to resume negotiations with Lubicon.
- 2007: UN Rapporteur on Housing visits the Lubicon community and witnesses families without access to potable water and poor sanitation conditions, The Rapporteur called for a moratorium on oil and extraction activities until a settlement is reached.
Canada must rethink the value of shipping oil south
The battle to stop the Keystone XL pipeline is being fought on three fronts - in defence of the environment, in defence of jobs, and in defence of Canada's own energy security.
The 9,600-kilometre pipeline is designed to take black bitumen from the Canadian bitumen sands (oilsands) and ship it due south to planned refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
So far, as more Canadians and Americans wake up to the environmental challenges of our oil economy, the bitumen sands' carbon footprint is making most of the headlines. Canada will not be able to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets unless we control the growth of bitumen sands. If the Keystone XL pipeline is approved and starts transporting one million barrels of black bitumen per day, it will no longer be possible for us to control that growth.
But the project has other negative implications that are not getting the same exposure. For example, many Canadians remain blissfully unaware that, despite having plenty of oil right now, our country could experience real shortages if it were to ship huge quantities to the U.S. Furthermore, taking raw, unprocessed bitumen from Canada and sending it to spanking new oil refineries in the U.S. is the equivalent of shipping millions of raw logs to a place where others can cut the two-by-fours and create the wood furniture. Like in forestry, the best jobs are in processing. If we ship our raw bitumen off to the U.S., the Americans will get the good jobs and we will be left with the massive mess left behind by the bitumen sands.
The first Keystone, built by TransCanada Corp., cost Canada thousands of jobs. An analysis by the Informetrica think tank demonstrated that besides exporting 400,000 barrels of heavy crude per day, the Keystone also shipped out 18,000 high-paying Canadian jobs.
The new project, Keystone XL, is twice the size of TransCanada's first Keystone. The proposed pipeline will shoot out 900,000 barrels of heavy crude in a one-way ride to the U.S. Canada is expected to lose more than double the 18,000 jobs that are already gone.
The Conservative government has ignored our argument that the export of raw bitumen also exports thousands of jobs to the U.S. However, when seeking support for the project last December, Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis told a conference of American businessmen that the pipeline would create 342,000 jobs in the U.S.
In our appeal of the National Energy Board decision to greenlight the project, the Canadian Energy and Paperworks union (CEP) - which has some 35,000 members in the oil industry - presented a compelling case. The union argued that it is in Canada's best interest to stop Keystone XL, keep the good jobs at home, and safeguard our energy needs.
To do that we need to process the oil in Canada, using various upgrader and refinery projects in both Alberta and Ontario. This requires that we develop an infrastructure to connect eastern Canada to the supply of oil in the west.
Creating a pipeline located entirely in Canada would also restructure the way oil and gas are being delivered on this continent. Right now, oil travels thousands of kilometres south of the border before it re-enters our country around Sarnia. This means that most of Canada remains vulnerable to off-shore oil supply disruptions. It's worth noting, too, that we are virtually alone among oil-producing nations in not having the means to supply our own needs.
Canada is locked into a staggeringly lopsided deal with the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The deal stipulates that Canada can never cut back on the volume of oil that it ships south. No matter how desperate our needs might become, we are trumped by Brian Mulroney's gift that keeps on giving - to his American friends.
Despite our arguments, it came as no surprise when the board swept aside our case and rubber-stamped the construction of Keystone XL. That's because there is a cozy connection between the oil lobby and the Conservative government. Many board members come straight from the energy sector, and for the past several years the board has said yes to every major export pipeline project put before it.
The Keystone XL project is stalled right now because the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. seem to be listening to the environmental argument. U.S. regulators have asked for a delay while they take a closer look at the project. And they are asking exactly the right questions about whether the Keystone XL pipeline is in the best interests of the U.S.
But is anyone other than the labour movement raising the issues of jobs and energy security for Canadians? The Keystone XL pipeline is not in our best interests either.
It's time for Canadian political leaders to get some backbone.
Themarknews.com, Tues Feb 15 2011
By Dave Coles
Farmworker fight continues for AFL
Earlier this month, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) called on Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk to yield to pressure to include paid agricultural employees under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Workers' Compensation Act. Currently in Alberta, agricultural employers are exempt from labour laws that require other industry sectors to provide employees health and safety coverage.
"It's not just farms and ranches, it's actually the entire agricultural sector that is exempt from basic workplace health and safety rules," said AFL president Gil McGowan, who represents 140,000 workers in Alberta. "If you work in a feedlot, if you work in a feedmill, if you work in a grain elevator, you're also considered an agricultural worker and exempt from basic health and safety, which I think is an important point, because it might triple the amount of people covered by the exemption."
Alberta's continuing policy to exempt the agricultural industry is a black mark on the province in comparison with other jurisdictions, according to McGowan.
"We think that the provincial government's ongoing exemption of farm workers from coverage under basic workplace health and safety is an embarrassment and a relic from the past, and even worse it puts agricultural workers at unnecessary risk of injury and fatality. Alberta is alone in denying agricultural workers basic protections under the law. "
The AFL was joined in lobbying the government and Minister Lukaszuk on the issue by various other labour and community organizations, as well as the Liberals and New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley.
"The United Food and Commercial Workers did as well, which is a union which represents agricultural workers, not here in Alberta, but in other provinces," said McGowan. "And the only reason they don't represent agricultural workers here in Alberta is because in addition to being exempt from the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which includes the Workers' Compensation Act, agricultural workers in Alberta are also exempt from the Employment Standards Code, which covers basic workplace conditions, and they're also exempt from the Labour Relations Code, which covers unionized workplaces, which means that agricultural workers don't have the right to join or form a union."
McGowan said it is hard to fathom why the government continues to push back against support for reform on the issue.
"If you look at injury rates and fatality rates, it's clear that agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations in the province. And we think that is at least partly as a result of the fact that agricultural workplaces are not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act."
In McGowan's opinion, there are at least two discernible reasons the provincial government is resisting extending health and safety legislation to paid agricultural workers, none of which have the workers' best interests at heart.
"On the ideological side, this is a government that is reluctant to regulate even when the record is clear that regulation that workplaces got safer in Alberta and Canada when governments finally agreed to bring in workplace health and safety legislation in the 1970s and 1980s. That's simply beyond question - the decline in workplace injuries and deaths speak for themselves. On the political front, I think that the Conservative caucus has caved in to pressure from the agri-business lobby, companies that like things the way they are - they don't have to take responsibility for keeping their workers safe and healthy."
The AFL is also requesting the Farming and Ranching Exemption be amended to allow for investigations into all farm-related deaths, serious injuries or injuries involving a child, which might be accomplished by extending Section 38 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, permitting a minister to convene a board of inquiry into the circumstance of an accident.
"What these exemptions mean is that even when someone is injured or killed on an agricultural work site the government's own health and safety inspectors can't go to that worksite to investigate and find out what happened, and they also can't make recommendations to fix things so that it doesn't happen again."
Little Bow MLA Barry McFarland is confident that under most circumstances existing legislation serves the best interests of Albertans and the agricultural industry.
"I think for the most part it's (health and safety coverage) already available. Where I have a problem is where you come on to the mom and pop kind of farm, and start expecting to legislate what you have to do with your own family labour - that's problematic for me. If I were to hire somebody from outside the immediate family to work on the family farm, worker's compensation is available. I've got insurance that is available for coverage."
The issue of agri-businesses and large corporate farms that employ significant numbers of paid farm workers while remaining exempt from occupational health and safety legislation is another issue.
"Where I do understand where people are coming from is what I would call a commercial farm operation where you've got multitudes of employees - more than a family business, even though it might have the perception of being a family business," said McFarland.
McFarland is in support of considering health and safety coverage be applied in situations where large numbers of paid agricultural workers are employed by a corporate farm or agri-business.
"Unfortunately, anytime someone is killed or hurt, it becomes an issue. The commercial operations, I think there should be some adequate coverage there, and maybe we've got to start looking at making sure it's done through some kind of legislation."
Making sure that smaller-scale family farms don't become bogged down is the real problem in considering a legislative solution, according to McFarland.
"I think it's going to get reviewed, but I think the big drawback right now is making sure that they don't come on to Barry McFarland's farm, who's farming with his wife and two kids, and say look it, you've got to have all the harnesses on when you go up on your Quonset to change the light or something. And that's what happens in the private sector. But I've got insurance if you come to my place and get hurt - you're insured."
According to an AFL press release, there have been more than 160 accidental farm deaths in Alberta in the last decade.
Vauxhall Advance, Thurs Feb 10 2011
Byline: Trevor Busch
Koch Brothers Positioned To Be Big Winners If Keystone XL Pipeline Is Approved
The Keystone XL pipeline, awaiting a thumbs up or down on a presidential permit, would increase the import of heavy oil from Canada's oil sands to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day, if it gets built.
Proponents tout it as a boon to national security that would reduce America's dependence on oil from unfriendly regimes. Opponents say it would magnify an environmental nightmare at great cost and provide only the illusion of national benefit.
What's been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda.
The two brothers together own virtually all of Koch Industries Inc. - a giant oil conglomerate headquartered in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenues estimated to be $100 billion.
A SolveClimate News analysis, based on publicly available records, shows that Koch Industries is already responsible for close to 25 percent of the oil sands crude that is imported into the United States, and is well-positioned to benefit from increasing Canadian oil imports.
A Koch Industries operation in Calgary, Alberta, called Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, supplies about 250,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day to a heavy oil refinery in Minnesota, also owned by the Koch brothers.
Flint Hills Resources Canada also operates a crude oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, the starting point of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
The company's website says it is "among Canada's largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters." Koch Industries also owns Koch Exploration Canada, L.P., an oil sands-focused exploration company also based in Calgary that acquires, develops and trades petroleum properties.
Waging War on Obama
The Koch brothers are not run-of-the-mill political opponents. An investigative report last year by the New Yorker magazine on the secretive and deep-pocketed pair have shown them to be "waging a war against Obama." They have bankrolled the Tea Party movement, climate change skepticism and right-wing think tanks, such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Through Flint Hills Resources LP based in Wichita, Kan., the Koch brothers provided $1 million in 2010 to the failed effort to suspend California's groundbreaking 2006 global warming law.
After the 2010 midterm elections, they have become established at the center of GOP power, according to The Los Angeles Times. The paper reported this week that Koch Industries and its employees formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
That includes the campaign coffers of the new committee chairman, Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who though once a moderate is now leading the anti-regulatory charge in the Republican-dominated House.
Hearings in his committee began yesterday on a bill to roll back EPA's regulatory power over carbon dioxide, a power which has been affirmed by the both the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts, as well as Bush's EPA.
SolveClimate, Thurs Feb 10 2011
Byline: David Sassoon
Finding hope in a hockey rink: Project aims to improve life for the Lubicon Cree
These seemingly disparate groups have raised $97,000 to build an outdoor hockey rink for the Lubicon Cree, a community of about 500 in Little Buffalo, a six-hour drive north of Edmonton.
Despite living in a wealthy province in a wealthy country, amid the operations of oil and gas companies making mega profits, they live in Third World conditions. Many homes lack running water or indoor toilets. There is no grocery store, no gas station, no health facility and no recreation facilities.
Why, you might ask, is everyone -- the provincial government, the federal government and private corporations -- able to make money from oil and gas operations on Lubicon territory, while the band members themselves are left with next to nothing?
This journey has taken more than 100 years, beginning with the Treaty 8 negotiators failing to include the Lubicon in 1899. It was followed by decades of foot-dragging and underhanded negotiating tactics by federal authorities. No progress has been made since the Lubicon were recognized as a distinct society with land rights in 1939. Attempts to negotiate a reserve have been met with delays and disappointments.
Independent, unbiased voices, including Amnesty International, have backed the Lubicon's calls for justice, to no avail. In 1986, after an 18-month inquiry, Judge Davie Fulton filed a report that supported the Lubicon. The Alberta government refused to discuss his recommendations and he was fired by the federal government.
In 1990, the United Nations found Canada in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights over its treatment of the Lubicon people. In 2005, the UN urged the Canadian government to resume negotiations with the Lubicon and find a solution.
Meanwhile, resource extraction in the area continued and by 2009 there were more than 2,000 oil and gas installations in Lubicon territory, leaving band members to deal with the downside of industrial operations -- declining moose population, scarce food supplies, less income from trapping and greater dependence on welfare -- while enjoying none of the benefits of increased income from operations on their land.
But today's story is not about gloom and doom. Despite the seemingly overwhelming issues faced by the Lubicon, they have found allies willing to come together to make a difference to the lives of band members. Operation Hockey was launched in July 2010 by the Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) and Amnesty International, to raise funds to build an outdoor hockey rink. This project was chosen because young band members said they needed somewhere to get together to spend time in a positive atmosphere.
Since then, unions (including the United Nurses of Alberta, the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, the Canadian Union of Public Employees 3911, United Food and Commercial Workers 401 and 1118, Canadian Union of Postal Workers Edmonton and Calgary, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, the Canadian Office & Professional Employees Union 458 and the AFL) have kicked in $58,000 toward the cost of the rink. Employers (including Harvest Operations Corp., Outsource Seismic, CCS Corporation, Roy Northern Land, Arsenal Energy Inc., Devon Standard, Triple K Trucking, Hi-Tech Reclamation, Norab Contracting and C-Six Water Hauling) added $39,000.
The band donated the land for the rink, played a vital role in fundraising, and band members have been involved in doing as much of the work themselves as possible, to make it more affordable.
Yesterday, the varying players involved in Operation Hockey celebrated by lacing up their skates and taking to the ice in a game against young band members on the newly minted rink. What better evidence can there be that seemingly disparate groups can work together in a just cause?
The project is not over yet. Another $70,000 needs to be raised to complete the rink. But the people involved in Operation Hockey are confident that this work will be completed.
Having proved what can be done when determined people work together, it is way past time for the federal and provincial governments to get their skates on and do the right thing -- negotiate a fair and just deal for these Albertans. It is time to end more than a century of injustice.
Christina Doktor is a member of the United Nurses of Alberta and is chair of the Alberta Federation of Labour Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee.
With Morton out of cabinet, Alberta must reverse position on pension reform
A new poll shows that two out of three Albertans want the government to work with other provinces to increasing CPP benefits and 77 per cent believe CPP benefit increases should be the top priority for improving retirement security for all Canadians.
"It is clear that the Alberta government is not doing what Albertans want," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), which represents 140,000 workers. "Former Finance Minister Morton led the opposition to increasing CPP benefits. He pressured Canada's other finance ministers into opting for a private pooled pension plan that will benefit banks and other finance industry professionals more than it will help Canadians," he says.
"Now that Morton is no longer Finance Minister and is no longer in cabinet, the Alberta government should revert to its earlier position, where it recognized the need for pension reform and understood that increasing CPP benefits could be part of the solution. Canada's finance ministers meet again in June. It's not too late for real pension reform. We must not miss this historic opportunity."
The poll was conducted by Environics Research Group for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It surveyed 1,012 Albertans between January 20 and January 31, with an error margin of +/- 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20. It showed that only 32 per cent of Albertans agree with their provincial government's opposition to increasing CPP benefits and that 56 per cent believe the federal and provincial governments are moving too slow in making changes to Canada's pension system. A total of 59 per cent of Albertans with an opinion are against the decision to delay CPP benefit increases in favour of the proposed private pooled pension plan.
"The Alberta government has a real opportunity to listen to its people. With Morton no longer pushing the cabinet to the extreme right, the government can withdraw its opposition to increasing CPP benefits and work with the rest of the country to improve retirement security for all Canadians," says McGowan.
"It was Morton's ideological opposition to government involvement and his unbending faith in the free market that led him to push for the private-industry option. The economic collapse on 2008, led by the poorly regulated global financial investment industry, has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the market must not be allowed to decide something as important as this."
Nanton News, Sat Feb 05 2011