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In its first deficit budget in 16 years, the Alberta government anticipates dipping $4.7 billion into debt in an attempt to keep Albertans working through the recession.

Central to the budget is the province's capital plan that has $7.2 billion in infrastructure spending in 2009-2010, which is part of its three-year commitment to spend $23.2 billion building roads, schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure.

Bill Stewart, president of Merit Alberta, the province's open shop association, said he believes the budget will maintain momentum for Alberta.

"It's a reaffirmation that the government has committed to its infrastructure commitments it has made to Albertans," he said.

"There has been an ongoing need for infrastructure investment and the government appears to be stepping up to the plate."

The investment is a $1 billion or 4.5 per cent increase from the previous three-year total and will allocate $5.8 billion for provincial highways, $5.6 billion for municipalities, $3 billion for health facilities, $2.9 billion for schools and post-secondary facilities, $1 billion for affordable housing, $1.7 billion for climate change initiatives and $325 million in contributions for federal stimulus programs.

Although the government ramped up spending by $1 billion over its previous three-year capital plan, the majority of the increase will be spent on carbon capture initiatives.

Municipal infrastructure and provincial highway projects saw a $621 million and $457 million increase, but other parts of the plan saw decreases in spending compared to 2008-2011 levels.

Premier Ed Stelmach's Conservative government anticipates that this year's $7.2 billion infrastructure investment will support more than 80,000 jobs across a province struggling from lower energy revenues and the effects of the global recession.

Stewart said that he believes the province's decision to slash infrastructure spending in the wake of the post-9/11 market contraction was a mistake.

"This (the recently announced infrastructure spending) will come at a good time - there are more contractors that are out there bidding for work now, so it's a pretty competitive environment," he said.

But not everyone in the province sees the budget in a positive light.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), said that while he was pleased the government resisted the temptation to revisit Klein-style cuts, he felt the budget fell short of the mark in helping Alberta's unemployed, particularly those in construction trades.

"Our big concern is that, despite it's packaging, this is not a stimulus budget - it is almost a carbon copy of last year's budget," he said.

Daily Commercial News and Construction Record, Fri Apr 17 2009
Byline: Stephen Dafoe

The Alberta Federation of Labour is disappointed, but not surprised that two hundred full time Petro Canada employees have been laid off.
President Gil McGowan says it can be blamed on the stall of the Fort Hills Oilsands Project.
But he also expects more layoffs due to the merger of Petro-Can and Suncor.
The company says the layoffs have nothing to do with the merger and can be blamed solely on the delay in the Fort Hills project north of Fort McMurray.

CHQR Newsroom, Wed Apr 15 2009

Union leaders questioning the entry of foreign workers into Canada are potentially inciting public opinion against newcomers, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said yesterday.

The statements angered Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan who accused Ottawa of setting up foreign workers to be exploited.

Following a speech to a small audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Kenney said McGowan's criticism of the use of non-Canadian workers and the need for them "was playing on some old and really unfortunate sentiments.

"I wish this individual was a little more reasonable and restrained ... the union leadership needs to be a little more responsible."

AFL officials have argued the use of foreign workers undercuts and drives down wages.

Kenney said they're doing work Canadians are unwilling to perform and said his government, despite the recession and rising unemployment, will maintain its practise of encouraging immigration and foreign labour.

"We've actually made the politically difficult decision to maintain historically high levels of immigration ... the worst thing we could do is starve employers who are growing during these economically difficult times," said Kenney.

McGowan accused Kenney's ministry of "washing its hands" of temporary foreign workers once they arrive and who are routinely abused by their employers.

"We're the ones who set up an advocacy office to help workers who are exploited -- we're the ones picking up the pieces," said McGowan.

"I find it galling Kenney's trying to wrap himself in the cloak of virtue."

Kenney said his government is stepping up its monitoring of foreign workers' treatment while making it easier for the newcomers to become permanent residents and citizens.

But McGowan said of a rapidly-growing number of the workers, only 3% of them are eligible for permanent residency.

"It creates an underclass of workers," he said.

Edmonton Sun, Wed Apr 15 2009
Byline: Bill Kaufmann

When it comes to employment, new figures from Statistics Canada show that Alberta has fallen further and faster over the past six months than any other province.

Between October 2008 and March 2009, Alberta lost more than 73,000 full-time jobs. This was partially offset by an increase in part-time employment (22,000 jobs) - but left Alberta with a net loss of 51,400 jobs over the period.

Between March 2008 and March 2009, the number of unemployed people in Alberta has jumped by 72 per cent - the highest increase in the country.

During the same period, the number of unemployed in Ontario increased by 36 per cent and in B.C. the number jumped 69 per cent. By contrast, the number of unemployed in Manitoba increased by 17.5 per cent and in Saskatchewan the figure moved up by only 15 per cent.

Alberta's unemployment rate (5.8 per cent) is still substantially lower than the national average (8 per cent) but higher than Saskatchewan (4.7) and Manitoba (5.1).

The Alberta Federation of Labour believes that both the provincial and federal governments can and should be doing more to keep Albertans working and help those who have lost their jobs.

In particular, the AFL sees the Alberta government's recent budget as a missed opportunity. The budget promises to keep operational and infrastructure spending at roughly the same levels as last year.

"Albertans - especially those working in the construction, manufacturing and energy sectors - are having a hard time staying afloat," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. "The good news is that the government hasn't thrown them an anvil as Ralph Klein did during the last recession. But they haven't thrown them a life preserver either."

McGowan says that Alberta continues to have the fiscal capacity to do much more to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

He also says the Stelmach and Harper governments need to be more transparent about where federal stimulus money will be spent. And he says changes desperately need to be made to the Employment Insurance system because only 1 in 3 unemployed Albertans are currently entitled to receive benefits.

"In January of this year, there were 93,500 unemployed people in Alberta - but only 29,000 of them qualified for benefits," says McGowan. "With the unemployment rate in Alberta climbing rapidly, we simply can't afford to have a system that leaves two-thirds of unemployed Albertans out in the cold."

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For more information call:

Gil McGowan, AFL President       office: (780) 483-3021    cell: (780) 218-9888

EDMONTON - Next week's provincial budget needs to emphasize getting unemployed workers back to work and keeping those who have jobs at work, say the leaders of some of Alberta's largest unions.

To achieve these important goals, the unions today presented a proposed stimulus plan for Alberta that they developed with help from economists working with the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute.

"Albertans are depending on their political leaders to respond to the worldwide economic downturn with policies that protect working people and their families from the worst impacts of the recession," said Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

"Klein-style cuts are clearly not the answer. We went down that road during the last recession and we know that it just made a bad situation worse."

Doug Knight, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees agreed: "This government needs to resist their ingrained temptation to cut budgets when a crisis like this takes place. Clearly, the economy and all Albertans will benefit from increased stimulative spending in areas like health care, social assistance and post-secondary education."

Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta, says that sectors like health care are just now starting to recover from the damage caused by years of cuts under former premier Ralph Klein - and she says if Albertans value their public services, we can't afford to return to policies that caused such pain and chaos.

"The downturn in the economy may actually be creating an opportunity to address the chronic shortage of nurses and other health care workers that has been plaguing our system," says Smith. "But that can't happen with a shrinking budget" or even a hold-the-line budget."

The union report, entitled Sink or Swim: A Labour Stimulus Plan to Keep Albertans Afloat, was released today in Edmonton at an apprentice-training facility operated by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

The setting was chosen to highlight how provincial spending can help Albertans working in both the public and private sectors weather the growing economic storm.

The report shows that job losses and bankruptcies are up dramatically in Alberta and predicted that "Alberta is likely to suffer the greatest downturn in GDP growth of all the provinces in Canada." It also showed that the Alberta government has among the greatest "fiscal capacity" in North America to finance a stimulus package.

The report concluded that three key goals should drive any Alberta stimulus plan:

- Instead of balancing the provincial budget every year, government should instead focus on balancing budgets over a 7 to 12-year business cycle.

- Program cuts should not be implemented, since they would increase job losses and, during the recession, government programs will be needed more than ever by Alberta families.

- Stimulus should be in the form of targeted spending in parts of the economy known to create jobs, not in unproductive tax cuts that favour a wealthy minority.

Other parts of the report call for building a bitumen upgrader to protect Alberta's value-added sector; greening the economy to create job opportunities; using less-expensive public financing to build projects that benefit the public; and maintaining or increasing funding for socially beneficial programs such as education, health care, transition training and social assistance.

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For more information, contact:

Elisabeth Ballermann, HSAA (780) 991-1274 (cell)

Don Boucher, CEP (780) 920-1892 (cell)

Tim Brower, IBEW (780) 989-7259 (office)

Doug Knight, AUPE (780) 265-6655 (cell)

Gil McGowan, AFL (780) 483-3021 (office) (780) 218-9888 (cell)

Dennis Mol, CUPE Alberta (780) 918-3061 (cell)

Heather Smith, UNA (780) 425-1025 (office) (780) 940-9974 (cell)

For the April 3rd press conference, click here.

Alberta's temporary foreign worker program has no oversight and is mired in so much bureaucracy that employers are allowed to treat hopeful immigrants like indentured labour.

That's what a federal committee travelling Canada to examine immigration issues heard in Edmonton yesterday, during a lengthy meeting in which several interest groups blasted the provincial and federal governments.

'INHERENTLY EXPLOITIVE'

"Alberta's temporary foreign worker program is inherently exploitive and treats people as disposable. I can assure you Canada's reputation in foreign countries has suffered a great deal," Yessy Byl told the committee of MPs.

Byl is a TFW advocate with the Alberta Federation of Labour, and her comments were echoed by other groups, including the Mennonite Centre for Newcomers and Ukrainian Canadian Social Services.

All agreed that TFW programs would not be as burdened if the federal immigration department wasn't so maddeningly inefficient.

"Of the hundreds of workers I've dealt with in the last two years, almost all have come here not to work but to emigrate. They are using the TFW program because our immigration system is so dysfunctional," Byl said.

"I don't think we have a clue as to how great this problem is. There is currently no system by which we can legitimize the workers that we so desperately need," she said.

"In the meantime, brokers and employers bringing these workers here are running around unchecked, illegally charging recruitment fees, housing workers in homes with up to 14 other people and making huge sums of money renting out houses.

"People are being lured here with the promise of $12 an hour jobs only to arrive and find themselves on the wrong side of the poverty line."

Other speakers said Canadian embassies in eastern Europe make it notoriously difficult for people to enter Canada.

HARD TO EMIGRATE

"On the one hand we have this great campaign encouraging foreigners to emigrate to Canada, yet on the other hand we have an immigration system that makes that increasingly difficult," said Bill Diachuk of the Ukrainian group.

Committee chair and Conservative MP Doyle Norman appeared to sincerely listen to the concerns, while other committee members from all federal parties asked presenters to suggest solutions to the problem.

Those included amnesty for illegal immigrants with established jobs and establishment of watchdog groups to protect the rights of foreign workers.

Edmonton Sun, Wed Apr 2 2008
Byline: Brookes Merritt

Entrenching Exploitation: The Second Report of the Alberta Federation of Labour Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate

In November 2007, the AFL Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate released "Alberta's Disposable Workforce" which examined the working and living conditions of temporary foreign workers in Alberta, documenting serious exploitation and abuse at the hands of employers and the government. In the months since, a lot has changed in Alberta, but much has stayed the same. The exploitation of foreign workers continues, even though the context has shifted significantly. With the boom turned to bust, it is important to update Albertans on the state of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

The minimum wage in Alberta is going up on April 1 from $8 per hour to $8.40. The Alberta government has put in place a system where the minimum wage is tied to the "average weekly wage index" from Statistics Canada. Every April 1 the minimum wage will automatically increase to keep pace with other increasing costs and wages in the province.

"Alberta's experiencing a time of great prosperity," said Premier Ed Stelmach in a press release. "Wages have increased about five per cent and we're ensuring minimum wage earners are sharing in this growth."

About 70,000 Albertans or 3.5 per cent of the province's working population are paid at minimum wage. Most Albertans make much more than minimum, with the province's median pay at $20 per hour according to Alberta Employment and Immigration spokesperson Stephanie Francis.
Most minimum wage earners are employed by the food service and hospitality industries according to the Alberta government. In 2006 nearly half of such earners were 15-19 years old.

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) criticizes the wage increase as being too low, recommending a minimum wage of at least $10 per hour. In a press release the AFL said a higher minimum wage would have a "ripple-through effect" that would raise wages throughout the province.

Government spokesperson Francis said the amount of increase was "about keeping the balance between minimum wage earners and employers."
The increase will briefly bring Alberta's minimum wage to the fifth highest in Canada, third among the provinces. Ontario will have the highest minimum wage for adults, which will go up to $8.75 on Mar. 31. That will edge out Nunavut at $8.50. But minors and liquor servers have lower minimums in Ontario.

Other provinces and territories of note:
- Yukon will go up to $8.58 on Apr. 1. Yukon increases its minimum every year to keep pace with the consumer price index from Statistics Canada. This is a different index than what Alberta uses.
- Manitoba will raise its minimum to $8.50 on Apr. 1.
- New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador have equal or lower minimum wages, but both provinces are set to increase them this spring.
- Saskatchewan will raise its minimum to $8.60 on May 1.
- The lowest minimum wage in Canada will be in Prince Edward Island at $7.50.
- The NWT's minimum wage will remain steady at $8.25.

Barb Wyness of the Union of Northern Workers said they have proposed a $10 per hour minimum wage in the NWT, to be recalculated annually to keep pace with StatsCan's standard of living index.

Slave River Journal, Thurs Mar 27 2008

Edmonton- A recent poll showing that Albertans overwhelmingly prefer subsidies for renewable and clean energy sends a message to the Stelmach government that its upcoming budget should include plans to develop a green economy for Alberta.

The poll (click here for PDF)was commissioned by the Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) and conducted by the polling firm Ipsos Reid shows that when asked to choose, Albertans overwhelmingly prefer subsidies for renewable and clean energy in the future compared to oil and gas. The poll shows that 78 per cent of Albertans prefer subsidies for renewable and clean energy options in the future while only 11 per cent prefer subsidies for oil and gas development.

"This poll shows that Albertans see the potential a green economy holds for Alberta, and they want the government to get involved and lead us there," said Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour. "Albertans know that we can have a strong economy that doesn't sacrifice our environment."

The poll also showed:

• 66 per cent of Albertans feel more government action is needed to solve environmental problems facing Alberta;
• 79 per cent of Albertans feel it is possible to have a strong economy while protecting the environment; and
• 91 per cent of Albertans think it is more fair that companies causing environmental harm should pay the costs of clean up.

"This poll supports what environmentalists and economists have been saying for years; it's time to invest in the future rather than the past," said Mike Hudema, Climate and Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. "It's time the Stelmach government brings in a budget that invests in people and in building safe, vibrant and sustainable communities in Alberta. A green investment strategy would allow Alberta to diversify its economy, to stabilize it and to put thousands of people to work building our green energy future."

"Albertans have a much better sense of direction than the government when it comes to where this province should be going," said Lindsay Telfer, Prairie Director with the Sierra Club Canada. "Instead of subsidizing the oil and gas industry, we should be building a green future led by renewables, green industries and conservation."

"We can put tens of thousands of Albertans back to work, building a cleaner and healthier province," said David Thompson, author of a forthcoming report on green jobs. "A smart stimulus package will create good, green jobs and take us in the right direction for the future." The green jobs report will be released by the AFL, Greenpeace and Sierra Club in late April.

Editors: About the ACEE 2009 Poll on Environmental Education and Market-Based Instruments (MBIs): This poll was commissioned by the Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE), which works to advances environmental education in Alberta to help build a more sustainable society. Funding for this work was provided by the Land Stewardship Centre of Canada, the government of Alberta, and anonymous donors.  The poll was conducted by Ipsos Reid Public Affairs between January 12th and 21st, 2009.  For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 801 adult Albertans was interviewed by telephone.  With a sample of this size, the results are considered to be accurate to within  +-3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population of Alberta been polled.  The margin of error will be higher within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population.  The data were weighted to ensure that the sample's regional and age/gender composition reflects that of the actual Alberta population aged 18 or older according to 2006 Census data.

ACEE is an independent organization and is not participating in the upcoming green jobs report. It will make its polling findings on market-based instruments available to anyone who wants them. Its polling findings on market-based instruments are available at http://abcee.org/about-us/MBIs

EDMONTON – Without aggressive government intervention, Alberta will almost certainly miss out on the opportunity to create thousands of high-quality jobs in oil sands upgrading and petroleum refining.

At the same time, an historic opportunity to diversify the Alberta economy and build a more robust value-added petroleum industry will be lost – probably forever.

Those are the main conclusions of a report released today by the Alberta Federation of Labour.

The report, entitled "Lost Down the Pipeline," reveals important new information about the state of oil-sands employment and the future oil-sands development in Alberta, including the following:

• Despite the global recession, energy companies are proceeding with aggressive plans to dramatically expand both U.S.-based bitumen-refining capacity and American-bound bitumen pipeline capacity.
• Energy companies are in the process of spending about $31 billion (US) to build, re-tool or expand at least 10 refineries in the U.S. for the specific purpose of upgrading and refining raw bitumen from the Alberta oil sands. These refineries will have the combined capacity to upgrade and refine about 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of raw bitumen from Alberta.
• At the same time, two major bitumen pipelines – the Keystone and Alberta Clipper – are nearing completion. Together, they will have capacity to move about 1.4 million bpd of raw bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the U.S. Mid-West. In addition, six other pipelines are being planned that will have the capacity to move 2.3 million bpd of Alberta bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
• To put these numbers in context, output from the Alberta oil sands today totals about 1.3 million bpd. By 2020, Alberta's bitumen output is expected to rise by 2 million bpd to bring total production to 3.3 million bpd.

"Government and business leaders have left the impression that once the global recession ends, it will mean a return to business as usual in the oil sands," says AFL president Gil McGowan.

"But nothing could be further from the truth. What our research shows is that American refineries will have the capacity to process ALL of the expected increase in oil-sands output from Alberta. As a result, unless the Stelmach government steps in much more aggressively than it has, the raft of upgrader postponements we've seen here in Alberta will almost certainly turn into permanent cancellations. We'll be losing literally thousands of jobs down the pipeline."

The AFL report considers the two solutions put forward by the Stelmach government – new pipeline tolls and a scheme to collect bitumen in lieu of royalties – but concludes both are ineffective and doomed to failure. To make matters worse, the report shows the Stelmach government has actually been undermining the real competitive advantage that would make bitumen upgrading and refining profitable in Alberta.

"The government's own consultants have been saying for years that Alberta's real competitive advantage when it comes to refining is easy access to cheap feedstock in the form of cheap bitumen," says McGowan.

"But by actually promoting the construction of bitumen pipelines to the U.S., the government has been helping to build a bigger market for bitumen in the States which, in turn, has had the effect of reducing the price differential between bitumen and conventional crude oil. So, in an effort to get a few extra dollars per barrel for bitumen, they're giving away the advantage upon which we could build an entire new value-added industry."

The AFL report concludes that the real solutions lie in re-learning the lessons of the Lougheed government which used a mix of regulation and government ownership to create a multi-billion-dollar, value-added petrochemical industry based on natural gas.

In particular, the report recommends that the Alberta government follow Lougheed's example by using regulations to prohibit the export of raw bitumen and by using government resources to create a publicly owned energy company with a mandate to advance the interests of Albertans. The report also recommends that the government take the lead in building an upgrading and refining "super complex" based on a government-commissioned (but ignored) blueprint developed by the respected energy consultant, David Netzer.

"The real question we're left with after reading this report is this," says McGowan. "Will we re-learn the lessons of Lougheed and embrace a more aggressive role for government in the oil sands, or will we stand idly by while the 'market' decides to send our jobs and our economic opportunities down the pipeline?"

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For more information call:
Gil McGowan, AFL President @ (780) 483-3021 (office) or (780) 218-9888 (cell)

For copies of Lost Down the Pipeline, visit the AFL website @ www.afl.org

Backgrounder

Lost Down the Pipeline

I. U.S. refinery expansions, conversions and new refinery construction to process bitumen from Alberta oil sands

Refinery: Detroit Heavy Oil Expansion
Company: Marathon
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Investment: $1.9 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 115,000 bpd

Refinery: Garyville Refinery Expansion
Company: Marathon
Location: Garyville, Louisiana
Investment: $3.2 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 180,000 bpd

Refinery: Hyperion Refinery
Company: Hyperion
Location: Union County, South Dakota
Investment: $4 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 400,000 bpd

Refinery: Port Arthur Refinery Expansion
Company: Motiva (Shell and Saudi Aramco)
Location: Port Arthur, Texas
Investment: $7 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 600,000 bpd

Refinery: Port Arthur Refinery Expansion
Company: Valero
Location: Port Arthur, Texas
Investment: $2.4 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 415,000 bpd

Refinery: Tulsa Refinery Expansion
Company: Sinclair Oil
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Investment: $1 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 115,000 bpd

Refinery: Whiting Refinery Conversion
Company: BP
Location: Whiting, Indiana
Investment: $3.8 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 205,000 bpd

Refinery: Wood River Refinery Conversion and Expansion
Company: WRB Refining (ConocoPhillips and Encana)
Location: Roxana, Illinois (with refinery in Borger, Texas)
Investment: $4 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 495,000 bpd

Refinery: Toledo Refinery Conversion
Company: BP/Husky
Location: Toledo, Ohio
Investment: $2.5 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 131,000 bpd

Refinery: Lima Refinery Conversion
Company: Husky
Location: Lima, Ohio
Investment: $1.9 billion (US)
Bitumen Capacity: 146,000 bpd

Number of U.S. oil sands related refinery projects identified by AFL: 10
Total bitumen processing capacity: 2.8 million bpd
Estimated investment: $31.7 billion (US)

Sources: Environmental Integrity Project, corporate annual reports, corporate websites, media reports

II. Bitumen Pipelines to the U.S. Mid-West

Pipeline: Alberta Clipper
Company: Enbridge
Capacity: 450,000 bpd (to be expanded to 800,000 bpd in 2010)
Status: under construction

Pipeline: Keystone
Company: TransCanada Pipelines
Capacity: 435,000 bpd (to be expanded to 590,000 bpd in 2010)
Status: under construction

Total Combined Capacity: 885,000 bpd in 2009; 1.4 million bpd by 2010

Source: National Energy Board (NEB)

III. Planned Bitumen Pipelines to U.S. Gulf Coast

Pipeline: ExxonMobil/Enbridge Texas Access
Capacity: 445,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Pipeline: Sunoco Gulf Coast
Capacity: 300,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Pipeline: TEPPCO/Kinder Morgan Chinook-Maple Leaf
Capacity: 440,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Pipeline: TransCanada Keystone XL Gulf Coast
Capacity: 700,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Pipeline: Altex Energy Gulf Coast
Capacity: 425,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Pipeline: ExxonMobil Pegasus
Capacity: 30,000 bpd
Status: Proposed

Total Combined Capacity: 2.34 million bpd
Source: CAPP

IV. Survey: Albertans support a bigger role for government in oil sands

Results of Alberta Federation of Labour survey of 500 Albertans. Conducted by Environics Research, January 21-25, 2009

Q1. How important do you think it is that oil-sands processing and refining jobs be kept in Alberta?

Very important 77%
Somewhat important 19%
Not very important 3%
Not at all important 1%

Q2. Which one of the following policies do you think the Alberta government should pursue with regard to keeping more oil-processing and refining jobs in the province? Should they...

Make it legally mandatory that energy companies do more of their processing and refining in Alberta. 42%
Set voluntary targets for more processing and refining in Alberta that the energy industry would be encouraged to meet. 43%
Let the energy companies decide for themselves where upgrading and refining should be done. 12%

Q3. Which one of the following statements best summarizes your view on how the Alberta oil sands should be developed?

Energy companies are the ones who know the industry best. Decisions about when and how to develop the oil sands should be left with them. 22%

The oil sands are a publicly owned resource. The Alberta government should strictly regulate the pace of oil sand development, environmental standards and job creation. 72%