ALF V1

Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton is backing a proposal from Ottawa for a new Pooled Registered Pension Plan, an initiative that aims to provide Canadians with a new low-cost method to save for retirement.

The federal government says the new program will benefit Canadians without an employer-sponsored plan, including the self-employed.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Morton said Alberta has been promoting and working on this type of private-sector pension innovation with B.C. for several years and the only stumbling block had been a lack of interest in Ottawa.

"This is the type of targeted solution Alberta has been advocating to address concerns that many middle-income Canadians are not saving enough for their retirement, and we are pleased the federal government is now on board," he said.

According to Morton, pooled pension plans provide a simple, low-cost, effective way of improving pension coverage for employees of small and medium business and the self-employed, many of whom cannot afford pension plans.

"Allowing private-sector providers to offer and manage pooled pension plans on behalf of multiple employers will significantly reduce costs to businesses as well as provide the financial expertise to better manage the investments and the investment risks," said Morton.

He said federal support is needed in order for the initiative to move forward because it will require changing current income tax laws and provincial pension standards.

With pooled pensions, a third party would manage the administrative aspects of the plan while employers would be responsible for determining employer and employee contribution levels, collecting and remitting contributions and keeping the administrator up to date regarding new members and employee termination.

The plan replaces a proposal put forward by Ontario and the federal government earlier this year to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), something that had the support of every finance minister in Canada except Morton.

In an open letter to Canada's finance ministers last week, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), a strong supporter of CPP expansion pointed to a recent Environics poll that found 66 per cent of all Albertans support an increase in CPP benefits while only 19 per cent are opposed.

Morton argued expanding the CPP may benefit those who are not saving enough for retirement but would also provide additional and unnecessary benefits to those who already have adequate income provisions.

"It would also hurt low-income workers, who would be required to make additional contributions during their working lives," Morton said in a June 11 press release.

The solution, he said then, was to find ways to encourage Canadians to save for their retirement over the course of their working careers, including pension innovation and supplementary pension plans.

"We should be looking for the right combination of private sector delivery with public oversight and monitoring," he said.

Changes welcomed at home
St. Albert resident Brian Endin, 66, said he is grateful for the government's about-turn on CPP expansion, a proposal he had many concerns with.

"I'm very grateful for it but the point is, an awful lot of finance ministers across this country already committed to expanding CPP," he told the Gazette on Friday.

Endin said, had the government expanded the CPP, it would have had a significant impact on many people, including those who prefer to invest, even temporarily, in building a business or in other forms of wealth building and those who want to cease pension contribution to save for a down payment on a home.

"I don't see any harm," Endin said of proposed pooled plan.

"The concerns that I had for the expanding CPP, I can't think of any of my concerns that apply to the new plan, number one because it's voluntary which means that if a person needed to stop submitting to the plan, they could ... I like that flexibility part of it," he said.

"The government needs to have oversight over pension plans so that people don't get fleeced because you've seen how absolutely and abjectly crooked the financiers and the financial market are around the world," he added.

"This would give the fed government an opportunity to have oversight which would protect everybody."

St. Albert Gazette, Sat Dec 18 2010
Byline: Lauren Den Hartog

'I take this very seriously and I expect that this will be a wake-up call.' - Thomas Lukaszuk.

Edmonton (17 Dec. 2010) - Alberta Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk says he is disgusted and disappointed with the high number of workplace safety violations in the province.

"The results have been nothing but disappointing, and frankly, I have to tell you, I'm quite disgusted by the numbers that I have seen," Lukaszuk says.

Safety officers issued 39 stop-work orders during a six-week inspection blitz of the province's construction sites.

Officers carried out 298 initial and followup inspections of 146 construction employers on 70 sites across the province from Oct. 8 to Nov. 22.

A total of 214 orders were issued. Fifty-seven orders were issued for work sites that lacked a plan or proper equipment to prevent workers from suffering injury or death if they fall.

Another 49 orders were issued for work sites that lacked proper safeguards, like coverings for openings and guardrails.

Lukaszuk vowed to continue unannounced inspections until the industry gets the message.

"The hammer is coming down in Alberta and if we continue seeing numbers like these the hammer simply will be getting bigger and bigger," he said. "I take this very seriously and I expect that this will be a wake-up call."

Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour says Lukaszuk must do more than talk tough.

"If he really wants to bring that hammer down, he has to put his money where his mouth is," McGowan argues. "He has to hire more inspectors, give them tools and resources to do their jobs and he has to prosecute employers who put their workers at risk."

Alberta has the lowest per-capita number of safety inspectors of any province in Canada, McGowan notes.

NUPGE Newsletter, Fri Dec 17 2010

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has shelved plans for a modest enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan and instead is pitching a new private-sector pension plan to help Canadians prepare for retirement.

The initiative, to be called Pooled Registered Pension Plans, is revealed in a letter Flaherty sent to his provincial counterparts in advance of a meeting of finance ministers in Kana naskis on Monday.

The surprise move was welcomed by Alberta, which has long opposed an expansion of the CPP. But it drew conflicting reaction from other quarters -- including those who charge the federal minister has caved to the demands of business -- and set the stage for a vigorous debate among finance ministers next week.

"It's a multi-jurisdictional challenge to get a consensus on the CPP," Flaherty said at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday. "There are no quick or easy solutions on CPP. Several provinces have concerns that remain unresolved."

It is a significant shift for Flaherty, who just six months ago was touting enhancement of the government-run CPP. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach. praised his change of heart.

"The fact the federal government has backed off increasing CPP contributions is good news because at this critical stage -- given that we have a fragile economy, businesses are struggling -- it would have been another significant contribution in a tax on behalf of our private sector," Stelmach said, speaking in Calgary.

Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton, who was unavailable for an interview, said in a news release that Ottawa's previously proposed solution of expanding CPP "was a shotgun approach that would have been ineffective and economically damaging."

He noted that Alberta has been promoting this type of private-sector pension with British Columbia for the past three years.

"The one stumbling block for broader implementation had been a lack of interest in Ottawa," Morton said, suggesting Ottawa's change of heart came from provincial prodding.

In Ottawa, the Liberal and NDP accused Flaherty of failing to show leadership and of buckling to pressure from the business community. Closer to home, Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said he believes Ottawa has given in to a lobby effort from those companies that sell financial services to Canadians.

"It's hard to look at this flip-flop as anything other than a huge Christmas present for the banks and the private investment industry," he said.

CPP expansion would give Canadians a lower-cost vehicle for investing retirement savings, compared with private options, McGowan added.

Despite the criticism, Flaherty said his proposal is what's best for the country. Flaherty said it is critical to provide a private pension plan for those workers, and also to encourage people in their 20s, 30s and 40s to start preparing for retirement now.

It is estimated six in 10 Canadian workers in the private sector have no private pension plan. Furthermore, only one-third of Canadians make contributions to RRSPs.

The federal finance minister described his scheme as a major step forward that would spur pension plans to provide more retirement security for Canadians -- especially for those workers who are self-employed or who work for small firms that don't offer pension plans.

Under the proposal, a company could arrange for a regulated financial institution to operate a plan, thereby reducing the cost and complexity for small businesses to participate. Similarly, for self-employed workers, the PRPP would be "accessible" without having a connection to an employer. They would simply have the option to participate in a "large-scale, pooled-pension plan" that is administered by a private-sector financial institution.

Flaherty said he hopes it will be in place within one year. "It's clear that it will work."

At the finance ministers' last annual meeting in June, Flaherty and the provincial treasurers focused on ways to improve the pension system and they are expected to return to the topic next week. At that time, Flaherty said a solid majority of the provincial ministers had endorsed the idea of increasing CPP contributions from employers and employees to boost the value of the benefits when they retire. Flaherty acknowledged at the time that support for the direction was not unanimous. But he then indicated he was optimistic there would be enough provincial backing to make it happen.

But at the news conference Thursday, he signalled this option is on the back burner because of provincial opposition. Changes to the CPP require the support of two-thirds of the provinces and two-thirds of the population.

In recent months, the business community had also strongly complained that an increase in CPP contributions would amount to another tax burden.

Canadian Federation of Independent Business Alberta director Richard Truscott said the CPP proposal would have been acceptable if it simply meant a pension premium increase for employees, and had not included employers still struggling with the economic downturn. Employees should shoulder more of the burden, he said, as it boils down to deferred personal savings.

"For employers, it's simply a payroll tax. There's no net benefit," he said.

Truscott said groups advocating for a CPP premium increase "seriously underestimate the impact on the economy."

In Ontario, the provincial government said that while it also likes the proposed private pension plan, it shouldn't be used as an excuse to drop enhancements of the CPP. Dwight Duncan sent a letter to other provincial treasurers and Flaherty urging them not to give up on enhancing the CPP.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Flaherty's move away from the CPP toward a "private option" displays a lack of leadership.

Calgary Herald, Fri Dec 17 2010
Byline: Mark Kennedy and Kelly Cryderman

Canada's finance ministers are meeting in Calgary this Sunday at the Delta Calgary Airport hotel before they head to Kananaskis for their Monday meeting on pension reform. Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty has pulled a fast one by trying to take CPP expansion off the table at the last moment - a Christmas gift for the banks and insurance companies - but many provincial finance ministers are not happy. And neither is Santa Claus.

Santa Claus (aka Gil McGowan, AFL president) will be on hand at the airport to welcome them to Alberta. He will give presents to the provincial ministers who support CPP expansion, and a well deserved lump of coal to Flaherty and Morton. But what is Santa without his helpers? Please come out and help us greet the ministers in style! We will be meeting up in front of the Delta Calgary Airport Hotel at 2:00 pm Sunday, December 19th. We will have Santa hats for people to wear and Christmas cards for them to give out. Let's make sure the last message finance ministers get from the public before their meeting is in support of CPP expansion! If you can make it, please RSVP to Jerry Toews at [email protected] or phone 780-483-3021.

Send Flaherty and Harper one last message:

The Canadian Labour Congress has asked us to forward the following appeal:

"Finance Minister Jim Flaherty appears to be softening his support for an expanded CPP in the lead up to the finance ministers meeting this weekend in Kananaskis.

We need your help. Forty years of a private sector voluntary solution have not worked - Canadians don't need the banks and financial industry getting another opportunity to gouge them out of their hard earned savings. Canadians need leadership from their government. I urge you to send one final message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, reminding them that they publicly supported an improved CPP. Tell them that we want to see action at Kananaskis and our plan to gradually double future CPP benefits is the best plan to help the majority of Canadians save for their retirement."

Report on Temporary Foreign Workers in Alberta (December 2010)

The AFL Round Table on Temporary Foreign Workers - On November 18, 2010, the AFL gathered over 50 participants for a day-long workshop on temporary foreign workers (TFWs).

"It was not supposed to happen."

Those are the words of Mariana Krsek, whose three-year-old daughter Michelle died 16 months ago, crushed by sheets of metal blown off the roof of a Calgary skyscraper that was under construction. She was walking innocently with her family near the Calgary Tower when she and her father were struck.

No, it should not have happened. Both regulations and common sense require construction workers to secure equipment and materials. But has the industry learned anything from Michelle's death? Apparently not.

Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk says the tragedy was a factor is his decision to launch a crackdown on workplace safety violations this fall. Inspections of 73 commercial construction sites uncovered an appalling 214 violations. Lukaszuk says he is disappointed and disgusted. The results of the six-week blitz serve as a bleak reminder that Alberta still has a long way to go to improve its workplace safety record.

During the past decade, work accidents have killed 1,285 employees, making this province one of the most dangerous places to work in Canada. In 2008, there were 5.9 deaths per hundred thousand workers in Alberta compared to the national average of 4.2 deaths. The Alberta Federation of Labour claims Alberta spends less per worker on workplace safety than most other provinces.

Lukaszuk vows that "the hammer is coming down." That is refreshing to hear. He has promised to expand the blitz next year to include residential construction sites. That's a good idea. But it is one thing to talk tough and very much another to take steps to fix the problem. This is the minister who promised to publish the names of the companies with the worst safety records, but delivered a Pablum of statistics that were virtually meaningless to the average Albertan and that deliberately excluded information about safety violations.

After prodding by the auditor general and a series of in-depth stories on workplace safety by the Calgary Herald, Premier Ed Stelmach has vowed to take action to improve the province's workplace safety record. Lukaszuk says he is ready to move forward with a plan to empower safety inspectors to issue on-the-spot tickets for safety violations -- an idea explored and abandoned by the former Klein government six years ago. Five other provinces -- B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia -- already empower their inspectors to hand out immediate tickets rather than dragging violators to court under occupational safety or Criminal Code laws. The Alberta Construction Safety Association supports the idea. They have recommended that construction workers caught breaking the rules get fined $250, while their bosses would get dinged $500 for failing to ensure the safety of their employees.

Lukaszuk says the results of the safety blitz have reinforced his resolve to introduce the fines. Hopefully he will introduce a fine program that is more than the slap on the wrist suggested by the safety association. Perhaps he should bring in a system more along the lines of the British Columbia model, which assesses fines ranging up to hundreds of thousands of dollars based on the size of the company. If this province is serious about improving the safety of workers, and innocent people such as little Michelle Krsek, it has to swing a bigger hammer at offenders and put more resources into inspections and workplace safety programs.

Going to work shouldn't be this dangerous.

Edmonton Journal, Sun Dec 16 2010

Edmonton - Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has betrayed generations of Canadians by suggesting that expansion of the Canada Pension Plan should be taken off the table at the meeting of provincial finance ministers in Kananaskis next Monday, says Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

This morning, Flaherty unveiled a supplementary, voluntary pension plan run by the big banks as an alternative to expanding the CPP, despite having taken the private sector option off the table just a few months ago.

"The federal government caved to ideological pressure from Alberta and the self-interest of the investment industry," says McGowan, who says the only ones who will benefit from Flaherty's plan are the banks, who will profit from the high fees charged by private sector plans, as opposed to the low management fees in the Canada Pension Plan.

"It is clear the investment industry had a hand in this decision. The Canadian Association of Bankers called the plan a 'wonderful holiday gift' within minutes of Flaherty's announcement. They had their press releases all queued up, and had clearly been consulted beforehand," continues McGowan.

McGowan says today's federal announcement betrays the 78 percent of Canadians who want CPP benefits increased, according to a recent Environics poll.

It is also unclear whether there is in fact a national consensus on the private sector option, as Flaherty claims. All provinces, except Alberta, support modest phased-in improvements to the CPP.

"I am calling on the finance ministers of all provinces to stand up for what their citizens need and want, which is better retirement security via improvements to the CPP," says McGowan. "On December 19^th and 20^th, the rest of Canada's finance ministers must keep CPP expansion on the table."

The voluntary plan cooked up by Ottawa, Alberta, and the Big Banks will not in any way address Canada's looming retirement crisis.

"This plan exposes Canadians to unnecessary risk, and employers can opt out. Let's face it - they will, and it's a fantasy to think otherwise.

"The private investment industry has had 40 years to prove to Canadians that their products can deliver adequate retirement income. They've failed, because they are more interested in high fees and their own profits than Canadians' ability to retire in dignity."

"The CPP is the most efficient way to ensure Canadians don't live in poverty in old age. If the country's finance ministers don't stand up to the Harper Conservatives, the Alberta ideologues, and the Big Banks today, we lose the opportunity to secure a dignified retirement for generations of Canadians to come," concludes McGowan.

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Media Contact:

Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour            @ cell 780-218-9888 or office 780-483-3021

Edmonton - The Alberta Federation of Labour released a report on the results of a consultation workshop on Temporary Foreign Workers today. For full report....

The report details the proceedings of a day-long series of workshops held with temporary foreign workers, community volunteers, immigrant-serving agencies, and trade unions. The consultation was in response to the Department of Employment and Immigration's roundtables on the subject.

The workshop reported ongoing issues with unscrupulous employers, recruiters, and labour brokers. Despite provincial government consultation on how Alberta's laws protecting TFWs from abuse by recruiters, no action has yet been taken on amendments to Alberta legislation.

"Our workshop heard unanimous support for adopting the Manitoba model for better regulation, monitoring, and enforcement of both employers and recruitment agencies - a model that better protects temporary foreign workers," says Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

The AFL report also makes recommendations about fixing the government's Temporary Foreign Worker Advisory Office, adding staff to Employment Standards in order to conduct proactive inspections, and adding services to TFWs outside Alberta's major cities, where the majority of TFWs are now working.

The report also details new information on number of TFW entries to Alberta, and finds that TFW entries in 2009, despite the recession, were the same as 2007 numbers. Furthermore, TFW entries now substantially outpace new immigrants, showing that our province has now become a revolving door for a disposable workforce, rather than a welcoming place where immigrants come to build their lives.

"Our findings have shown that despite much higher unemployment, particularly among young Albertans, we continued to bring in thousands of Temporary Foreign Workers for low-skilled occupations," says McGowan. "This suggests that the TFW program was never about a labour shortage. It was - and is - about suppressing normal wage growth for the lowest-income Albertans and TFWs working in lower-skilled occupations," adds McGowan.

The Report concludes by recommending that Alberta exercise national leadership in providing a path to permanent residency for Temporary Foreign Workers. Alberta should immediately increase the number of TFWs going through the Provincial Nominee Program.

"In only four years, Alberta has gone from being a place where immigrants come to build a better life to a province where we use people for temporary work - often in abusive or exploitative circumstances, where vulnerable people don't have workplace protections - and then ship them out.

"Our recommendations are simply a starting point in turning the ship around, and getting back to a basic understanding of human rights, sustainable labour market policies, and safer workplaces for everyone working in Alberta," concludes McGowan.

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Media Contact:

Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour @ cell 780-218-9888 or office 780-483-3021

EDMONTON - Alberta Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk warned the provincial construction industry Tuesday that poor results during recent safety inspections may prompt a system of on-the spot fines or other deterrents.

Lukaszuk said Tuesday he was "disgusted" by the number of violations Occupational Health and Safety inspectors discovered during a fall inspection blitz of commercial construction sites.

The six-week campaign, which involved random checks at building sites between Oct. 8 and Nov. 22, is believed to be the first of its kind in Alberta. But judging by the results, it won't be the last, the minister said.

A total of 298 inspections were carried out, involving 146 companies and 73 different work sites. The blitz found 214 violations, 39 of which were considered dangerous enough to issue stop-work orders.

That means more than one-quarter of the sites inspected wound up with stop-work orders, Lukaszuk said.

"The results are nothing but disappointing; I'm quite disgusted with the numbers," he said at a news conference, held above a parkade construction site on the legislature grounds. "What this says to me is the message is not getting through. The hammer is going to be coming down in Alberta."

Fall hazards, including failures to provide protective gear or a protection plan, topped the list of violations. Lack of proper safeguards, such as coverings for openings and guardrails, was next on the list along with scaffolding violations.

"If there is no response, if we don't see improvement on the work sites, then we will be implementing new and more creative and more aggressive measures by which we will curtail those numbers," Lukaszuk said.

"All of these are egregious, because sometimes it's the most mundane violation - an extension cord lying around and people stumbling over it - that can potentially cause a fatality."

The minister said he is seriously considering a system of fines that safety inspectors could hand out as soon as they see violations. Both employers and employees could be hit.

Currently, fines are issued only through the courts, when the government decides to prosecute after serious injuries or deaths have occurred on a job site.

Liberal labour critic Hugh MacDonald and Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan both said they were not surprised by the number of violations discovered during the blitz.

"What I am surprised about is that it took the government this long to start conducting random inspections on construction work sites," McGowan said. "We in the labour movement have been begging for years for random inspections because we knew what they would find."

He said Lukaszuk's tough attitude needs to be augmented with more resources, including more inspectors with more powers and a greater willingness to prosecute unsafe companies.

MacDonald said some money currently going to workplace safety certificate programs should be diverted to enforcement of safety laws. He said the need for this is obvious, because over the last five years between 65 and 80 per cent of all job site inspections have resulted in an order being issued.

Unofficial government statistics show there have been 30 workplace deaths as of Dec. 1 this year, although some could prove to be medically related, a spokesman for Alberta Employment and Immigration said. About half of those deaths occurred in the construction industry, including a case two weeks ago in which an oilsands worker fell through a hole in some scaffolding.

Fatality numbers are up slightly from last year, the spokesman said.

The fall inspection blitz follows a November announcement in which the province vowed to take a number of steps to strengthen workplace safety enforcement, including a crackdown on companies with unpaid fines, more safety officers, and the creation of a new secretariat to deal with occupational disease.

While keeping an eye on the commercial construction sector, inspectors' plans for 2011 are to do blitzes on forklift operations, residential construction and companies employing many inexperienced workers, Lukaszuk said.

Edmonton Journal, Wed Dec 15 2010
Byline: Keith Gerein

If Alberta's workplace minister is appalled with the level of danger in construction sites, he should see what's happening within provincial farms, says a union boss.

"If government inspectors had the right under the law to investigate agricultural worksites, I have no doubt they would find at least as many violations as they would in construction," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

"In fact, I would expect they would find more."

Immigration and Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk announced Tuesday he was "disgusted" with the results of a six-week blitz that involved inspecting nearly 300 construction sites.

As a result, 214 violation orders were issued, including 39 stop-work orders.

The AFL has been calling on the provincial government to make Alberta's workplace safety laws inclusive of agricultural work.

As it stands, Alberta Occupational Health and Safety has no jurisdiction to investigate farm workers.

McGowan said 13 farm workers have died on the job in the past year, while around 160 have been killed over the past nine years.

"It's not surprising the agriculture (industry) has such a high fatality rate," McGowan said.

"It's directly linked to the fact the sector is not covered in the health and safety code."

As of September 2010, there have been 40 deaths in the construction industry this year, compared to about 15 at the same time in 2009.

Edmonton Sun, Wed Jan 5 2011
Byline: Michelle Thompson