ALF V1

EDMONTON - Faced with the "almighty task" of leading Alberta's largest civil service union through some of the toughest challenges it has faced in nearly two decades, Guy Smith will be officially sworn in today as the new president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

"The number of things we have to deal with is immense, but I'm excited," said Smith, a longtime union activist and counsellor at the Yellowhead Youth Centre in Edmonton.

"Although it's an almighty task, we have to be resolute in taking on the defence of our members who are being negatively affected by cuts.

"Basically, it's across the board; in health care, in education, in government services, in boards and agencies."

Smith, 47, won a clear victory in an election Friday at the union's annual convention, putting an end to Doug Knight's more than three-year term.

Knight was elected in a 2006 byelection after Dan MacLennan stepped down. Knight was reelected to a two-year term in October 2007.

AUPE spokesman David Climenhaga called Friday's the vote a clear victory for Smith, and an indication the membership "felt the time was right for a change."

Knight was a vocal critic of the planned bed closures at Alberta Hospital, a cause Smith says remains at the top of his lengthy to-do list.

"We've got to keep the momentum building, so that's a focus for us, but at the same time we have other issues."

Chief among them is Premier Ed Stelmach's Conservative government, which Smith contends appears intent on taking out the current economic crisis "on the backs of workers and public services."

The province has said it will ask teachers, nurses, doctors and other public sector workers to voluntarily accept a two-year wage freeze as part of its plan to control spending, a request the AUPE and other unions roundly rejected.

Smith said concern is growing among his members, who are coming to him in droves with stories about wage freezes, hiring freezes, cutbacks, rollbacks and contracting out.

AUPE represents more than 72,000 people --most of whom work in the public sector-- including the provincial government, health-care employers, and educational facilities.

"It feels like it did in the 1990s under Ralph Klein," said Smith.

"It was a terrible time, and those of us who went through it are not going to be fooled by government again."

Smith said he intends to be more visible and more active in his role as president--with the media and with union members. Among his goals is to visit more work sites across the province to mobilize workers at a grassroots level, one of his key election platforms

He said public sector workers have a role to play in the debate about the future of public services all Albertans rely on.

"When our members are losing jobs, Albertans are losing services, and we believe they will support our efforts to protect quality public services," said Smith.

The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said Smith is the right man for the job in these tough economic times.

"His election is significant, especially in the context of what's going on," said Gil McGowan, who represents 137,000 public and private sector workers from 27 unions.

"Given all the rumblings about budget cuts and wage rollbacks coming from premier Stelmach and his ministers, it's clear that all public sector workers and their unions are in for a difficult few years."

Edmonton Journal, Sat Oct 24 2009

Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour

Good evening and thank you all for coming.

We've organized this rally tonight to send a message to Telus. And based on the size of the crowd tonight & it's a very strong message.

As many of you know, our rally here in Edmonton is just one of three big rallies being held tonight in support of locked-out Telus workers.

Right at this moment, union members and union supporters are also gathering outside the Telus tower in Calgary and the Telus' headquarters in Burnaby in B.C.

These rallies are the culmination of a week of hard work by the TWU, the Alberta Federation of Labour and the B.C. Federation of Labour.

Over the past few days, our two federations have convened meetings of almost all the major unions in Alberta and British Columbia.

Yesterday afternoon, for example, leaders from dozens of unions gathered at the AFL office.

We had leaders from the United Nurses of Alberta. The Canadian Union of Public Employees. The Communication Energy Paperworkers. The Health Sciences Association of Alberta. The United Food and Commercial Workers.

We were also joined by construction trades unions like the Carpenters, the Plumbers and Pipefitters, and the Electrical workers and by independent unions like CSU 52 and NASA from the University of Alberta.

Similar meetings have been held in Vancouver and Victoria.

The result of all these meetings is that, starting today, under the banners of the AFL and BCFL, we'll be launching a two-province, multi-union campaign of support for locked-out Telus workers.

Our campaign will be coordinated. It will be sustained. And it will be escalating.

The key to our campaign will be our members.

Here in Alberta, we have 120,000 union members from 29 unions affiliated to the AFL.

We also have support from building trades unions representing 40,000 workers and from various independent unions representing nearly 100,000 workers.

All tolled, here in Alberta, we have enlisted the support of unions representing about 250,000 workers.

And it's not just us. In B.C. Federation of Labour has signed up unions representing nearly 500,000 workers.

Telus may think they're taking on one union representing 13,000 workers. But they've miscalculated.

Starting today, they're going to up against the full weight of the entire labour movement in two provinces.

Together, we represent hundreds of thousands of working people and their families - and that means hundreds of thousands of Telus customers or potential customers.

We're going to show them that the flip side of union power is consumer power.

The first component of our campaign will be the leaflet that is being circulated through the crowd tonight.

It's just one piece of paper & but it carries a powerful message.

Our members have been asking what they can do to support you. Now were giving them the information they need.

At this point, we are NOT asking people to boycott Telus services.

Instead, we will be asking our members to do three things.

First, we're asking people to discontinue some of their Telus land line services. And the leaflet tells people how to do that.

Second, we're asking people to discontinue some of the cell phone services. And the leaflet tells people how to do that.

Finally, we're asking people to report service complaints to the CRTC so we can demonstrate that Telus managers are lying when they service has not been disrupted.

The unions who have signed up for our campaign are not just giving passive support. They have committed to get these leaflets out into the hands of their members.

Your message will be mailed, faxed, and e-mailed to hundreds of thousands of people.

And this is just a start. We've got more ideas up our sleeves. This is just the first shot across Telus' bow - it won't be the last.

At this point, I'd just like to say a few words about our friend Darren Entwhistle.

In the days before this lock-out began, he was talking tough.

He told the media and he told investors that he was going to bust the union. And he said the first place he was going to break you was here in Alberta.

Well, we're here tonight to say show the world that Entwhistle was wrong.

This line is solid. Telus workers are solid. TWU is solid. The Alberta labour movement is solid.

And you know what? It's not just union members who Entwhistle has misjudged. He also misjudged other Albertans.

We don't take kindly to what this man, this Rambo CEO, has done.

In five or six short years, he's taken a company that was built largely with taxpayers dollars, a company that had a proud history of service, a company that had a long record of positive labour relations and he's poisoned it.

He's poisoned customer service and he's poisoned the work environment.

So tonight, we're here to say that we want a fair contract for telus workers. But we're also here to say, "we want our company back!"

For me, this is all kind of personal.

My Dad worked in this tower for nearly 25 years. I was an AGT kid.

Unlike Mr. Entwhistle, my dad was never a millionaire. But he was proud of the work he did.

He had a good union job. And, as a result, he was able to pay the mortgage and raise a family. He was able to plan for his retirement and even have a little left over to take me and my brothers on a few vacations.

That's what this dispute is really about. It's about defending family sustaining jobs, community sustaining jobs.

Telus makes its money here, in our towns, in our cities, from our citizens.

As a result, it has an obligation to give something back by investing here and maintaining good jobs here.

But Mr. Entwhistle's contract - the one he's tried to ram down you throats - would allow him to contract out jobs, to strip benefits, to send work down to the southern United States or to the Phillipines.

Tonight we're here to say "no" to this kind of corporate irresponsibility. We're here to say "no way" to the Entwistle way.

I'd like to conclude tonight with two promises and a predication.

On behalf of the Alberta Federation of Labour, our Executive, our members and affiliates, I promise that you will not stand alone.

We will be with you for however long it takes to get the kind of fair agreement you deserve.

We also promise that we will use our people power to make Telus feel the heat.

As far as my predication goes, let me say this.

The problem with this company has never been the workers. And the problem is not your old contract. The real problem is Darren Entwhistle and his Rambo-style management.

Through our collective efforts, and by keeping your picket line strong, we're going to help Telus investors see the light.

And six months from now, I predict that you'll be back at work with a negotiated contract. And Darren will where he should have been three years ago - out of work!

Together we can make it happen. Thanks for coming. Solidarity!

 

CALGARY _ If anyone wants to see Alberta´s oilsands upgrading industry get a boost from the government as quickly as possible, it´s businesses in Alberta´s industrial heartland, just outside Edmonton.

But the utive director of Alberta´s Industrial Heartland Association said Tuesday there are good reasons for the province to start up its bitumen royalty-in-kind initiative two years later than originally planned.

"Obviously we´d like to see construction sooner than later, but we also want to make sure it´s the right project, and the best project for the region," Neil Shelly said Tuesday.

Under the bitumen royalty-in-kind program, the province will take its royalty payments from producers in bitumen, the thick, heavy oil squeezed out of the oilsands, rather than in cash.

The province would then supply up to 75,000 barrels per day of that raw product to an Alberta-based project, which would process it into value-added products like gasoline or diesel.

It´s seen as a way to ensure oilsands-processing jobs and investment stay in the province, rather than flow south of the border, where many refineries have been retrofitted to handle the heavy crude from northern Alberta´s vast oilsands operations.

When the initiative was first announced in July, any upgraders taking part in the program were required to be up and running by 2016. But on Monday, the Alberta government said it had decided give participants until 2018.

It takes about two years for a new project to go through the regulatory process in Alberta. And if it´s a large development, construction could take three or four years.

"The initial time lines they initially had on this one were a little more constrictive on that, and it kind of eliminated a whole group of potential new players that couldn´t invest in the region," Shelly said.

"It would have made it more difficult if not impossible for these new entrants to apply to the program."

That´s not to say there won´t be downsides that come from the delay.

Shell Canada Ltd. is currently the only company building a major project in the region. Once the expansion to its Scotford upgrader wraps up some time next year, there may not be any reason for skilled labourers, who were so scarce during the boom, to stay in the area.

"We spent a long time building up that skills base," Shelly said.

"If there´s no projects on the go in the area after next year, we potentially could lose that skills base and it we´ll be back at square one again when the projects are ready to go in 2016 or 2018."

Potential participants in the program have until Jan. 27, 2010 to file their applications, and a decision on which projects will be approved would likely be made toward the middle of the year, Alberta Energy spokesman Jerry Bellikka said.

"If you want to get to full capacity and use 75,000 barrels per day, it´s going to take some time, longer than first estimated, in order to bring those projects in," he said.

"It´s the realities of the market place ... You can´t force companies to build things faster than they´re able to build them."

The royalty-in-kind program fell short even before the province announced the delay, said the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

"The fact that they´re pushing it back another two years, frankly, doesn´t surprise us," said Gil McGowan.

"And given the paltry effort that the program provides, it´s really not going to change the big picture."

TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) and Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) are both working on major crude pipelines that stretch from Alberta to various markets in the United States.

Together, those two projects will see more than one million barrels of oil leaving the province daily, McGowan said.

And major oilsands players like Imperial Oil Ltd. (TSX:IMO) and Suncor Energy Inc. (TSX:SU) have talked about making their new projects bitumen-only, and foregoing building multibillion-dollar upgraders in Alberta.

"For those who are not familiar with the oilsands industry, 75,000 barrels per day may sound like a lot. But it´s really little more than a in the bucket," he said.

"Based on this government´s hands-off approach to the oilsands for them to point to this BRIK program as some kind of silver bullet, it´s almost laughable."

The AFL wants the Alberta government to take bolder steps, like restricting exports of raw bitumen, granting leases to producers on the condition they process their bitumen in Alberta and creating a Crown energy corporation.

"Two years ago it was easier for the provincial government to shrug off the need to more jobs in the value-added oilsands sector because we had such a booming labour market," McGowan said.

"Now that our unemployment rate has shot up so dramatically over the last year, it´s hard to be so cavalier."

Oilweek Magazine, Tues Oct 20 2009

Wrong Way! Stelmach vows to proceed with attacks on health care ...

• In his recent televised address to the province, Premier Ed Stelmach vowed to press on with plans for major changes in health care - but he declined to explain what those changes would involve. The AFL believes the government's "reform agenda" essentially boils down to privatization, lay-offs for health care workers and more downloading of costs onto patients and their families. That's why we're supporting the Friends of Medicare's "Wrong Way" campaign aimed at stopping yet another Conservative push to privatize our public health care system. Learn how you can help keep Medicare public!

EI fails working people - especially in Alberta

• As the global recession drags on, more and more Canadians have joined the ranks of the unemployed. Unfortunately, the federal government's Employment Insurance (EI) program is failing to provide a safety net for many of those who have lost their jobs. In fact, a study released last month by the AFL shows that less than 40 per cent of unemployed workers in Alberta are eligible to receive EI benefits. Albertans have to work longer to receive fewer benefits than any other workers in the country - and the majority of Alberta's unemployed receive no EI benefits at all. For the publication ...

Alberta leading in the wrong direction on pension reform

• The recession has proven that Canada desperately needs pension reform, but a proposal for a government-sponsored supplemental pension plan being floated by the Alberta and B.C. governments may actually make a bad situation worse. That was the conclusion of an actuarial analysis commissioned by the AFL and conducted by the Vancouver-based pension firm PBI. After crunching the numbers, the consultants found that the so-called ABC plan would, in most cases, generate only a paltry amount of income for pensioners. AFL president Gil McGowan warned that, in addition to being inadequate, the ABC plan would likely distract attention from discussion on more substantial proposals for reform. Read the full text of the analysis ...

Privatization by stealth

• How would you like it if someone sold your property out from under you without even asking your opinion? That's exactly what happened when Edmonton City Council voted behind closed doors to sell large chunks of the power generation assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton through the City's utility company, Epcor. Now a majority on City Council has voted to bar the public from all future privatization decisions related to Epcor. Frustrated Edmontonians are encouraged to get involved with the new citizen's group, Our Power, which formed over the summer to demand that the public - as owners - be given the final say on all privatization debates. Our Power's latest effort is to get enough signatures on a petition to force a plebiscite on privatization during the next municipal election. Find out how you can get involved! For more information ...

Urgent Action

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Send Old Dutch a message!
Workers at the Old Dutch potato chip plant in Calgary have now been locked out by their employer for more than 200 days - and winter is fast approaching.

Please remind all your locals, members, friends and family to stop buying Old Dutch products until the company agrees to the very basic contract provisions that the workers are asking for.

Also, please head down to the picket line and let the workers know that the rest of the labour movement is still behind them! The picket line is located at 3103 - 54 Avenue SE, Calgary.

Events

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Parkland Institute's 13th Annual Fall Conference
Crisis and Opportunity: It's Time for a Progressive Economy

November 20 - 21, 2009
University of Alberta, Edmonton

Last year Alberta was in a boom and then the world economy collapsed.
What happened?
What do we do now?
Information is shock resistance.

This conference is about providing the information and the ideas that can be used to promote a better future for the common good.
http://parkland.arts.ualberta.ca/

Did you know ...

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Over the past ten months, unemployment in Alberta has more than doubled. No other province has seen a faster spike in joblessness.

Unemployed Albertans:

October 2008 - 78,300
August 2009 - 158,000

Unemployment by region (Sept 2009 vs. Sept 2008):

Edmonton Region: 7.7% vs. 3.7%
Calgary Region: 7% vs. 3.8%
Red Deer Region: 8% vs. 4.6%
Lethbridge-Medicine Hat: 7% vs. 3%
Grande Prairie Region: 9.1% vs. 5.1%

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach will take to the airwaves this week to deliver a plan to return the ailing province to a balanced budget in a "reasonable period of time."

The pre-taped speech, which will air across the province tomorrow night, comes as Mr. Stelmach faces threats both from the faltering economy, which has doubled provincial unemployment in a year, and newly emboldened political foes. With the upstart Wild Rose Alliance Party gaining traction - and, in a September by-election, a first legislative seat - and his own Conservative Party leadership up for review next month, political observers say the address is a pivotal one.

Mr. Stelmach has spent recent months "in the shadows looking bad," said Peter McCormick, a professor of political science at the University of Lethbridge. "He just has to step forward and be the guy. Mr. Alberta has to show up and reassure the party supporters that he's on top of it."
Mr. Stelmach taped segments of the 18-minute edited address at his office and home farm over the past few days, working to craft what aides promised is a "meaty" speech filled with specific new proposals.

"There's a four-point plan pointing the way forward to a balanced budget. It's clear and concise and comprehensive," said Tom Olsen, the Premier's spokesman. "Ed Stelmach's government has a plan to move forward."

With the plunge in oil and gas revenues driving the province to a nearly $7-billion deficit this year, the address will tilt heavily toward the economy. But, Mr. Olsen said, it will also touch on health care and seniors, a subject that has already generated heated debate after a leaked report pointed to the possible closing of 9,000 long-term care beds in the province.

"The Premier will underscore his commitment, as he has time and again, to a publicly funded health-care system," Mr. Olsen said.

But many expect Mr. Stelmach to use the provincewide pulpit to veer right, in hopes of using a fiscal-cutting agenda to take ground from the rising conservative Wildrose party, which elects a leader three days later.
"Mr. Stelmach grew up politically in the mid-nineties. He knows how to cut. He knows the success that can bring, or at least the perceived success," said Keith Brownsey, an associate professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary. The rise in Wildrose popularity "allows him to do exactly that."

The possibility of a public-sector wage freeze or cuts to health and education, the government's biggest budget items, has already struck fear in those who lived through the austere days that former premier Ralph Klein used to wipe out the province's debt.

"We're afraid that the Stelmach government is considering a return to Klein-style cuts, even though that would clearly be a bad move, in that it would make a bad economic situation in the province much worse," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

Bold moves could be risky for Mr. Stelmach, who is still half a year from unveiling the province's next budget. Yet he may be keen to take a page from Mr. Klein, who launched a tradition of annual television addresses in 1994, just days before unveiling a cost-slashing budget.

Alberta at the time was facing a bulging debt and a multibillion-dollar deficit.

"We knew that a budget was coming that was going to be explosive. And so the calculation was made to get ahead of it," said Rod Love, who served as Mr. Klein's chief of staff.

A televised address only works if it is used to explain something new, he said.

"You have to have a reason to focus the debate," he said. "You just can't go on and say what you've been saying before."

Yet Mr. Stelmach may find himself limited by the fact that any dramatic change could reflect badly on his leadership, which began during the heady, free-spending boom that ended last summer.

"Ed's used up his first couple of years in office. He's running against his own record now," Prof. McCormick said. "He can't slash without taking responsibility for the things that are being slashed."

Globe and Mail, Tues Oct 13 2009
Byline: Nathan Vanderklippe

The mayor and city councillors acted legally when they privately approved the sale of Epcor shares in April, the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench announced Friday, Sept. 25.

The court decided council could act as shareholders outside public scrutiny because "natural person powers" provided under legislation allowed for them to bypass sections of the Municipal Government Act.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, expressed dismay at the ruling. He teamed up with Civic Service Union 52 and the Canadian Union of Public Employees 30 two weeks ago to contest council's private vote to support the multibillion-dollar deal placing Epcor's power generation branch with Capital Power and offering public shares.

"We're deeply troubled by this decision," he said in a statement released the same day. "It seems to imply that there are no limits to the powers of city council to delegate important civic functions and decisions to individuals and bodies that are not accountable to the public. It's a blank cheque for politicians who want to make unpopular decisions without any public input."

However, Darrell Lopushinsky, a lawyer with the city law branch, said "natural person powers" is not an official excuse for council to do whatever it pleases.

"It means," he says, "that unless there's some statutory prohibition, a municipality, acting through city council, can do things that any natural person or corporation could do."

Such legislation was introduced to move municipalities out of the strict confines of statutes.

"The idea," Lopushinsky says, "is that municipalities are given a bit more freedom to do things, but it doesn't give them carte blanche to do whatever they want."

Still, McGowan says representatives should not act separately from the public.

"Ruling or no ruling," he said in the press release, "the fact remains that major assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton were sold off in secret and without any public consultation. The mayor and senior managers from Epcor and Capital Power can now say that what was done is technically legal, but that doesn't make it morally or ethically right."
The loss marks another failed attempt to challenge the Epcor spinoff and city council's role as private shareholder since local lawyer Bill Pidruchney tried unsuccessfully for an injunction against the sale of shares in July.

That has not discouraged McGowan from tackling the matter further. According to the press release, the union coalition plans to pursue the issue, possibly through an appeal of the court decision, or the union group could push city counillors by making Epcor's privatization a major issue in the next municipal election.

See Magazine, Thurs Oct 1 2009
Byline: Tim Cooper

In Fort McMurray, it's been a bad year for the cocaine and snowmobile dealers but boom times for the repo companies; thousands of oil sands workers are returning to places as far removed as Newfoundland, China and the Philippines; and Alberta's provincial government is forecasting a $6.9-billion shortfall this fiscal year, its first deficit in 15 years.

With the party over, how big is the hangover?

Unemployment at home and in other provinces, pay cuts for remaining oil sands workers, and lean times for certain Fort McMurray businesses are all pieces of that puzzle.

The oil sands boom brought with it a culture of big spending and decadence. It also brought tens of thousands of workers to the Fort McMurray region in northern Alberta. A century ago, writers like Jack London and the poet Robert Service immortalized the adventure-seeking gold stampeders of the Klondike. Likewise, there have been Wild West stories emanating from Fort McMurray these past years: roughnecks sharing a basement with seven others, their bed-spaces separated by sheets for walls, working 12-hour days for 21 days straight, earning $150,000 or more in manual labour.

With oil prices soaring since 2003, development in the oil sands had taken off at breakneck speed. With tens of billions of dollars being spent, and up to 45 per cent of Canada's oil now produced there, the oil sands were called the engine of Canada's growth.

Then, the engine stalled.

In 2008, the price for a barrel of crude went down by two-thirds: from a peak of $148 U.S. per barrel, to a low of $38, all within a few months. As quickly, billions of dollars were dropped from oil sands investment projections, major expansion projects were delayed, and thousands were laid off. Spending projections over the next 11 years have been cut by more than $100 billion.

Between July 2008 and July 2009, Alberta shed almost 64,000 full-time jobs and the province's unemployment rate hit 7.2 per cent in July, the highest in 13 years. Many of those who kept their oil sands jobs were forced to take pay cuts, often 15-20 per cent.

During the boom, the population of Wood Buffalo/Fort McMurray had mushroomed to 103,334, up 141 per cent over nine years. The population of the work camps built on or near the oil sands grew an eye-popping 637 per cent to 26,284 during that period.

Temporary foreign workers were recruited from countries like China, Russia, Venezuela and the Philippines. The Alberta Federation of Labour estimates that the number of temporary foreign workers in the province increased from 13,000 in 2004 to 57,000 in 2008, with many of those destined for the oil sands work camps.

They were joined at the camps by many more from out of province: Canadian shift-workers on rotations (for example, working 14 days then taking 14 days off) flew in to work and flew home for their days off, often at their employer's expense.

- - -
Fort McMurray has been called Little Newfoundland. No wonder: In 2006, Newfoundlanders made up 17 per cent of the population of Fort McMurray's population. In 2007, oil companies set up their own charter flights to ferry workers directly from St. John's to their own private airstrips in northern Alberta. This year, oil sands flights to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have been cancelled.

The 20,000 Newfoundlanders who had found work in the oil sands represented a major chunk of the labour force of their home province, which has a population of about 509,000. With many of those workers returning, even with Newfoundland's own oil boom ramping up, unemployment there jumped by a Canada-high 3.6 per cent between July 2008 and July 2009, to 17.1 per cent.

To make matters worse, Newfoundland newspapers have reported on hard drug habits making the trip back home with oil sands workers.
Diane Keough is a hotel bartender in Fort McMurray, newly arrived from Newfoundland. Her husband has been working here for two years. When asked whether she knows many Newfoundlanders who have been laid off, Keough does some quick mental tabulations: "At least 28," she says.

- - -
A survey of the work camps showed a population drop from 26,284 to 22,000 from 2008 to 2009.

The camps shrank for three reasons: First, residents mainly worked on expansion projects, which have stalled while existing operations have, for the most part, kept pace. Second, foreign workers are given permits based on local worker shortages. With the recession, those permits have dried up. Finally, flying workers in and out from all corners of Canada is an expense the oil sands operators could cut while maintaining a locally based work force.

As the return migrations began, the cuts have not always been clean.
Workers who had been sending money to families in their home countries found themselves now needing return airfare.

Ramazan Nassery, who works at Fort McMurray's YMCA Immigration Settlement Services, dealt with many of the foreign workers on their way out. "There were lots of problems. They sent their cheques home, so they didn't have any savings.

"When they were laid off they'd be forced out of the work camps, so they had nothing, no dishes or blankets even. There were some cases where people woke up with a job, and by the end of the day didn't even have a place to stay that night and we'd have to find places for them to stay in the community."

Nassery says that almost half of his clients were from the Philippines.

- - -
During the the oil sands boom, stories came out about the rowdy antics of the roughnecks, young men making more money than they'd ever seen before and learning ways to spend it.

One study found that in the past three years, the number of energy industry employees seeking counselling for drinking problems was up 481 per cent.

Constable Sean Sexsmith, of the Fort McMurray RCMP detachment, confirms that cocaine is the drug of choice. All the companies have mandatory drug testing as a condition of employment, but there are always ways to cheat the drug tests - "clean" urine is available for purchase in Fort McMurray.

Industry insiders (who asked not to be named in this article) tell of parallel oil-drunk behaviour within the business itself: the wastefulness of the oil companies, inefficiencies, outrageously priced contractors, all taken in stride while the money flowed.

Because the cuts targeted the work camps, the city of Fort McMurray itself actually managed the downturn quite well. Beautiful new subdivisions ring the city, and the building continues apace. The effects are obvious here nonetheless. Everyone feels the tightening of the money taps, the euphoria is gone. On Franklin St., the once rowdy strip is near empty; bars are quiet, and the prostitutes have gone on sabbatical.

Earl's is a trendy watering hole and eatery chain in Western Canada. At any other location, patrons are dressed to the nines, metrosexuals and high-heeled women. At Fort McMurray, the metrosexuals mix with the muscle shirts and mullets. The crowd is three quarters male. The bartender says things slowed down just around Christmas, and it has been the slowest year in ages.

The Globe and Mail recently reported on the drop in sales in Fort McMurray liquor stores, particularly among the high-end liquors. Patron Tequila and Grey Goose vodka now gather dust on the shelves. Liquor Stores Income Fund, the largest private retailer of liquor, reported some store sales down 4.8 per cent in the first half of 2009.

There's a "vice" associated with the boom that wasn't as well reported.
"Chris," a manager with a technology and equipment suppliers to the oil companies who asked not to have his name published, noted: "Every guy who works here has new trucks, sleds, quads, boats. The toys are non-stop. I've never seen anything like it. It's not normal when you drive to a guy's house and he's got a trailer and he's got a quad, a snow machine and a boat and they're all brand new."

During the bust, the toy dealers have felt the pinch, too. At Four Seasons Power Sports, sales staff tell of years of 10-per-cent-plus growth - and then 2009 came, and things slowed immensely.
Now, the party has morphed into a new twist on the key party. "The banks were getting keys turned in for houses, boats, trucks, everything," Chris says. "Everything was bought on credit."

Sharon Pritchett, a co-ordinator at Fort McMurray's Salvation Army, hears of laid-off workers handing the keys to their new homes back to the bank.

"I remember there were five stories in one Friday afternoon we heard about."

Keough, the bartender from Newfoundland, says an in-law had just bought a $500,000 house in Fort McMurray before losing his job, while city councilor Sonny Flett tells of a man who had gone all-out, buying a new house, new truck, two snowmobiles and two ATVs. All lost with his job.

The business culture is changing, too. Oil companies are tightening their belts and reining in costs. Shifts are being shortened to cut overtime pay, fewer workers are flown in for their rotations, fewer consultants given free rein. According to insiders, the feel is very different now, and if the companies ramp up projects again, they will do so in a far more cautious way. Many camps are now going "dry," banning alcohol altogether and increasing the dog-aided drug searches.

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The Fort McMurray area is known for its Northern Lights, which illuminate the night sky. On my visit, the skies were cloudy, and my first glimpse of lights in the sky were the flames at the Suncor plant, Canada's first oil sands facility.

There, and at the many surrounding plants, the immense industrial tangle of metal silos and chutes are crowned by these flames, burning atop their stacks 24 hours a day, seven days a week: a beacon for workers and an ignition spark for this engine of Canada's economy, as well as a sulfurous symbol of the environmental degradation of the region.

The environment is the giant elephant in the room. It was ducks that reminded the world of the problem in April 2008 - 500 died after landing in a Syncrude tailings pond, an image that resonated worldwide.

The extraction of oil from the sands requires massive quantities of water, diverted from the Athabasca River, and natural gas to provide energy for the process. This on such a large scale that the burning of that natural gas represents a major component of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. The mining itself digs up vast swaths of boreal forest and ancient peat; although oil sands companies are required to "restore" the land, and impressive efforts are under way, this local environment will never return to its pre-mining state. The tailings ponds are kilometres-long lakes of sludge, actually visible from outer space. On top of all this, there are now questions whether contaminated water is leading to higher rates of cancer among the native community of nearby Fort Chipewyan.

With discussions in Washington on boycotting such "dirty" energy sources, and Canada's own greenhouse-emissions plan still a work in progress, this elephant might, to twist a metaphor, stomp the golden goose.

But already, the industry is gearing up for the next revival. With the combination of the recession and the industry's own efforts to rein in costs and slash contractor salaries, expenses for materials and staffing have been lowered dramatically. The twinning of Alberta's Highway 63, plans for new continental oil pipelines, and the reworking, again, of Alberta's royalty fees have all improved the investment climate.
At the same time, the price of oil has inched back up towards $70 U.S. per barrel. A rash of deals has signalled new investment coming to the sands: There was the merger of industry giants Suncor and Petro-Canada; a newly formalized relationship between Alberta and OPEC; and a multi-billion dollar investment from PetroChina.

Over the summer, plans have been announced to proceed again with several stalled expansion projects - Connacher's Algar sands, CNRL's Kirby project, and Imperial Oil's Kearl sands. But with proposals for a Clean Energy and Security Act in the United States that could severely handicap the industry, there are new concerns for the future.

Still, those concerns are overshadowed by confidence that the economic might of the region will continue to earn it a free pass from political interference.

Insiders say business will be handled more soberly this time around. But a drunk always believes that until the bottle is within reach.

Montreal Gazette, Sat Sept 26 2009
Byline: David Sachs

It's back to the drawing board, for the unions challenging the city's decision to split up EPCOR.

The Alberta Federation of Labour, along with two other city unions took the city to court earlier this month. They asked Court of Queen's Bench to determine whether city council had followed the proper process, when the decision was made behind closed doors to spin off three-billion dollars worth of power-generation assets owned by EPCOR, and sell about half-a-billion worth of those assets to the private sector. Those are assets the unions say belong to the people of Edmonton.

The court ruled that, thanks to the "natural person powers" granted to the City under legislation, members of council didn't have to abide by sections of the Municipal Government Act. Those sections say all decisions made by municipal councils have to be made in public forums.

The unions will meet next week to plot their next move.

iNews880, Fri Sept 25 2009

Ruling doesn't change the fact that Edmonton city council did an end run around the democratic process, says AFL

EDMONTON - The labour unions that launched a legal challenge aimed at reversing the secretive privatization of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of power generating assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton will meet next week to consider their options for appeal now that a lower court has ruled against them.

On September 11th, the Alberta Federation of Labour, along with two unions representing City of Edmonton employees (Civic Service Union Local 52 and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 30) asked the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench to make a declaration on whether or not Edmonton City Council had followed the proper process when they decided behind closed doors to spin-off $3 billion worth of power generation assets owned by Epcor and sell about $500 million worth of those assets to private investors.

In a decision released this afternoon, the court ruled that, thanks to the "natural person powers" granted to the City under legislation, members of City Council didn't have to abide by sections of the Municipal Government Act which say all decisions made by municipal councils have to be made in public forums.

"We're deeply troubled by this decision," says AFL president Gil McGowan. "It seems to imply that there are no limits to the powers of City Council to delegate important civic functions and decisions to individuals and bodies that are not accountable to the public. It's a blank cheque for politicians who want to make unpopular decisions without any public input or scrutiny."

McGowan says that he and other union leaders involved in the court challenge will be meeting next week to consider all of their options - including whether or not to launch an appeal.

"Ruling or no ruling, the fact remains that major assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton were sold off in secret and without any public consultation," says McGowan. "The mayor and senior managers from EPCOR and Capital Power can now say that what was done is technically legal. But that doesn't make it morally or ethically right."

McGowan says he is disappointed that the lower court judge didn't directly address the union coalition's main argument that - in the spirit of promoting democracy - the City's power to delegate decision-making power needs to be interpreted narrowly.

"We frankly continue to believe that the arguments put forward by the City and Epcor are nothing more than flimsy excuses used to justify shutting the public out of this extremely important decision. The bottom line is that they did an end run around the democratic process - and in their heart-of-hearts they all know it."

McGowan says the union coalition remains committed to stopping similar kinds of "abuses of the democratic process" from happening again. That may mean an appeal of today's court decision, says McGowan, or it may mean making the privatization of Epcor a major issue in the next municipal election campaign.

"The citizen's of Edmonton deserve better from the people they elect to represent them. Citizens deserve transparency and they deserve to be consulted on decisions of this magnitude. We're going to everything we can to make sure voters know which members of Council let this travesty of democracy unfold. And we'll be encouraging voters to hold their elected officials properly accountable."

-30-

For more information call: Gil McGowan, AFL President @ (780) 218-9888

Ruling doesn't change the fact that Edmonton city council did an end run around the democratic process, says AFL Sep 25, 2009

EDMONTON - The labour unions that launched a legal challenge aimed at reversing the secretive privatization of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of power generating assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton will meet next week to consider their options for appeal now that a lower court has ruled against them.

On September 11th, the Alberta Federation of Labour, along with two unions representing City of Edmonton employees (Civic Service Union Local 52 and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 30) asked the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench to make a declaration on whether or not Edmonton City Council had followed the proper process when they decided behind closed doors to spin-off $3 billion worth of power generation assets owned by Epcor and sell about $500 million worth of those assets to private investors.

In a decision released this afternoon, the court ruled that, thanks to the "natural person powers" granted to the City under legislation, members of City Council didn't have to abide by sections of the Municipal Government Act which say all decisions made by municipal councils have to be made in public forums.

"We're deeply troubled by this decision," says AFL president Gil McGowan. "It seems to imply that there are no limits to the powers of City Council to delegate important civic functions and decisions to individuals and bodies that are not accountable to the public. It's a blank cheque for politicians who want to make unpopular decisions without any public input or scrutiny."

McGowan says that he and other union leaders involved in the court challenge will be meeting next week to consider all of their options - including whether or not to launch an appeal.

"Ruling or no ruling, the fact remains that major assets owned by the citizens of Edmonton were sold off in secret and without any public consultation," says McGowan. "The mayor and senior managers from EPCOR and Capital Power can now say that what was done is technically legal. But that doesn't make it morally or ethically right."

McGowan says he is disappointed that the lower court judge didn't directly address the union coalition's main argument that - in the spirit of promoting democracy - the City's power to delegate decision-making power needs to be interpreted narrowly.

"We frankly continue to believe that the arguments put forward by the City and Epcor are nothing more than flimsy excuses used to justify shutting the public out of this extremely important decision. The bottom line is that they did an end run around the democratic process - and in their heart-of-hearts they all know it."

McGowan says the union coalition remains committed to stopping similar kinds of "abuses of the democratic process" from happening again. That may mean an appeal of today's court decision, says McGowan, or it may mean making the privatization of Epcor a major issue in the next municipal election campaign.

"The citizen's of Edmonton deserve better from the people they elect to represent them. Citizens deserve transparency and they deserve to be consulted on decisions of this magnitude. We're going to everything we can to make sure voters know which members of Council let this travesty of democracy unfold. And we'll be encouraging voters to hold their elected officials properly accountable."

-30-

For more information call: Gil McGowan, AFL President @ (780) 218-9888