2013 Fact Sheet 3_Alberta Economy Booming
Fact Sheet 3_Alberta Economy Booming_2013Nov27
3 0f 6 fact sheets issued
Northern Gateway deal could shortchange Alberta
Pipeline tolls are deductible from royalties; agreement could cost Alberta taxpayers
Edmonton – The Alberta Federation of Labour is warning that Albertans could be shortchanged for their natural resources if the province goes ahead with the pipeline deal Premier Alison Redford struck with her counterpart in B.C.
Under Alberta’s royalty framework, pipeline tolls are deductable from the funds that oil companies pay for the right to extract the province’s resources. Unless this is clarified, every penny that is paid to B.C. under the deal would be one less penny that goes to pay for public services in Alberta.
“The Northern Gateway pipeline is a bad deal for Canadians, this loophole could make it an even worse one,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said. “If Christy Clark is worried about B.C.’s revenues, she should work with Premier Redford toward creating more good-paying value-added jobs, rather than crafting a deal that could raid our coffers.”
An additional toll paid by companies shipping raw bitumen through British Columbia for refining in China will translate into fewer royalties paid to Albertans.
“It is entirely inappropriate for a neighbouring province to attempt to grab value from the resources that belong to Albertans,” McGowan said. “This deal could make Alberta’s budget deficit worse, it will undermine public services…on top of which, the Northern Gateway pipeline will funnel good-paying upgrading jobs out of the country.”
The benefits of the pipeline have been greatly overstated. Enbridge forecasts that the pipeline will bring only 228 permanent jobs across the entire pipeline, with the vast majority of them – 183 jobs – in Kitimat, B.C. Alberta will get a mere 24 permanent jobs from pipeline operations.
“Rather than ill-considered resource revenue grabs, Clark and Redford could provide incentives for in-province upgrading and refining of Alberta’s oil sands,” McGowan said.
-30-MEDIA CONTACT:
Olav Rokne, Communications Director, Alberta Federation of Labour at 780.289.6528 (cell) or via e-mail [email protected]
Extend EI coverage for all Southern Alberta flood victims: AFL
Edmonton – Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan has called on the federal government to extend EI coverage for all those affected by floods in Southern Alberta.
Only about 22% of unemployed Albertans are eligible for EI and the waiting period is 2 weeks.
McGowan wrote to Minister Diane Finley today and asked her to immediately undertake the following:
- Waive all waiting periods for those who qualify for benefits.
- Extend EI benefits to small business owners affected by the flood. Many of the establishments under water in Inglewood/Mission, downtown Calgary, Bragg Creek, Medicine Hat, Banff/Canmore, Kananaskis and High River are in fact small businesses. Establish a special benefits class for small business owners whose businesses are not operational for up to (at least) four weeks and waive all waiting periods.
- Extend EI coverage to workers on commission and others – such as those who work for tips – who rarely qualify for EI. Many of the workers affected by the floods are employed by small business and work on commission or for tips. Extend EI coverage to those workers for their commission/tips income as reported to the CRA for the 2012 tax year.
"Almost all of Alberta's first responders are union members and they're working hard in health care and emergency services delivery, remediation and restoration to help deal with the aftermath of the flood," says McGowan.
"We're hoping the federal government recognizes that not all workers have access to EI benefits. Extending them in these circumstances is the right thing to do for the people of Southern Alberta."
-30-
Read letter to Minister Finley
MEDIA CONTACT:
Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour at 780-218-9888 (cell)
Internal budget document contradicts misleading mail out
Province does not collect fair share for conventional oil and gas
Calgary – Alberta is close to last place in collecting a fair share of royalties from conventional oil and gas.
Government budget documents obtained by the Alberta Federation of Labour show the province leading the race to the bottom on oil royalty rates. This stands in stark contrast to claims made by the Redford government in a taxpayer-funded mail out about the state of the economy in Alberta.
“Alison Redford wants us to believe – is willing to spend $350,000 trying to convince us – that her government is getting a fair price for Alberta’s natural resources,” AFL president Gil McGowan said. “The numbers show it isn’t true, and no amount of spin will make it true.”
The budget document includes a chart showing that every U.S. state is ahead of Alberta in collecting a fair share. The measurement used – called Combined Royalty and Tax Measure (CRTM) – is a composite of various forms of revenue collection and is a widely used measurement for the public share of oil and gas revenue. Every U.S. state has a CRTM of more than 50 per cent, while Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are at less than 40 per cent.
“It’s the government’s stated goal to have one of the cheapest oil and gas royalty regimes in North America,” McGowan said. “Our government should work on behalf of Albertans who own the resource, not on behalf of oil-industry donors who want Alberta to give everything away under the smokescreen of keeping us ‘competitive.’”
Of our competitors, Louisiana gets the most out of its non-renewable resources: 60.9 per cent for natural gas and 64 per cent for conventional oil – more than 20 percentage points higher than Alberta.
Alberta’s revenue problem has become an area of ongoing public concern in light of the provincial budget of 2013, which brought in drastic cuts to services despite the province’s booming economy. Over the last ten years, Alberta has repeatedly cut royalty rates despite the findings of the 2007 Royalty Review Panel, which showed that the province does not collect enough for its oil and gas.
“The government knew that the 2013 budget deficit was on the way. Their projections showed that cuts to royalty rates would result in a deficit, but they went full-steam ahead with those royalty cuts,” McGowan said. “The reason their brochure has gone over like a lead balloon – and the reason audiences have applauded our cinema ad – is that Albertans know that we’re giving away billions to the super-rich.”
The AFL released an internal government document earlier this year that showed the last year’s deficit was not caused by the so-called ‘Bitumen Bubble,’ but was entirely due to royalty giveaways.
AFL Backgrounder: Conventional Oil and Gas Royalties
-30-MEDIA CONTACTS:
Olav Rokne, AFL Communications Director at 780-289-6528 (cell) or via email [email protected].
Media Advisory: Rock-bottom Royalties Costing Albertan Billions
Government mail-out misleading about efforts to collect fair share for taxpayers
Alberta is nearly in last place in collecting a fair share of royalties from conventional oil and gas.
On Friday, May 9, the Alberta Federation of Labour will release internal government budget documents that show the province has one of the cheapest royalty regimes in North American.
“Alison Redford wants us to believe – is willing to spend $350,000 trying to convince us – that her government is getting a fair price for Alberta’s natural resources,” AFL president Gil McGowan said. “The numbers show it isn’t true, and no amount of spin will make it true.”
What:
News Conference tomorrow at 11:30 a.m.
Who:
McConanchie Room 1, Lobby Level
Delta Airport Hotel
2001 Airport Road NE, Calgary AB
When:
11:30 a.m., Friday, May 10
Who:
Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan
MEDIA CONTACT:
Olav Rokne, AFL Communications Director at 780-289-6528 (cell) or via email [email protected].
2011 Combined Royalty and Tax Measure Chart
The budget document includes a chart showing that every U.S. state is ahead of Alberta in collecting a fair share. The measurement used – called Combined Royalty and Tax Measure (CRTM) – is a composite of various forms of revenue collection and is a widely used measurement for the public share of oil and gas revenue.
Doing the Heavy Lifting
Canada's temporary foreign workers vulnerable to exploitation
OTTAWA—José Sicajau, a Guatemalan man of Indigenous descent, had grown accustomed to exploitative conditions after several years as a Temporary Foreign Worker growing vegetables on a farm in Saint-Michel, Quebec, less than an hour south of Montreal.
But when his boss allegedly attacked a Mexican co-worker in 2006, striking him with an aluminum pole because the assembly of an irrigation system was not going as planned, Sicajau ran out of patience.
"That was the end for me," said Sicajau, 45, speaking through a translator in November. He was in Ottawa with a delegation of human rights activists, touring the region to denounce the program that first brought him to Canada nearly a decade ago.
Some advocates for migrants want the Temporary Foreign Worker Program abolished, calling it racist and exploitative. Unions say the program is designed to weaken labour power in Canada. The NDP calls it a flawed system that takes jobs from Canadians. But business leaders say it is key to economic growth.
Canada is receiving more Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) than ever. The Low-Skill Pilot Project—a TFW stream that bars workers from applying for permanent residency—grew by over 2,000 per cent between 2002 and 2010.
TFWs now work in nearly every sector of the Canadian economy: in kitchens and hotels, in the tar sands and on construction sites.
Nearly 30,000 "low-skilled" TFWs were in Canada in 2010, according to an October report published by Maytree, a left-leaning think tank.
And changes made in 2011 to the Low-Skill Pilot Project prevent workers from remaining in Canada for more than four years. Once their time has run out, these changes to the law prohibit them from working in Canada again until six years have passed, according to Joey Caluguay, a community organizer with the Immigrant Workers Centre, a non-profit group in Montreal.
Caluguay says the TFW program should be abolished and the economy transformed so that workers are free from the vagaries of the marketplace.
"You don't create an economy where disposable workers are necessary, or where exploiting workers makes the economy run," says Caluguay, who provides support to TFWs in the Montreal area, including Filipino machinists and Jamaican landscapers.
Experts predict that in 2015, when visas expire under the new law, a huge number of migrants may remain in Canada as undocumented workers, making them vulnerable to unrestrained abuse at the hands of employers and unable to access social services, says Naomi Alboim, Professor of policy studies at Queen's University and co-author of the Maytree report.
"They're already in a very precarious position," says Alboim. "Once they become undocumented, that will increase very significantly."
In Guatemala City, Sicajau co-founded an association committed to defending the rights of migrants after his experience in Canada's Low-Skill Pilot Project. He says the number of Guatemalans in this "low-skill" stream reached 6,000 last year.
Ten years ago, he was among the first.
A farmer by trade, he worked a plot of land with his family in rural Guatemala, raising corn and vegetables before learning about the TFW program from a food-export co-operative.
He would leave his wife, children and grandchildren for months at a time to work in Canada. Then the alleged attack by his employer prompted him and his co-workers to file a complaint with Quebec's labour standards board. The complaint was rejected for lack of evidence, despite the testimony of three migrant workers, a decision Sicajau attributes to racism.
When he returned to Guatemala, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) demanded that he retract the complaint, according to Sicajau.
When he refused, he says, the agency blacklisted him. Since then, the IOM has been replaced by the Foundation for Entrepreneurs Recruiting Foreign Agricultural Workers (FERME), an association of Quebec farmers with an agency operating in Guatemala.
"We gave our everything to work here and to help support the Canadians," Sicajau says. "And as a consequence of denouncing this, we're kicked out of the program."
He added that the head of the IOM who allegedly threatened him now works for FERME.
To Sicajau, the importance of the work performed by so-called "low skilled" workers in Canada—such as farm labour—is underrated.
"Farming is very difficult because you have to work the land, you have to remove the rocks and stones, you have to plant your seeds and tend to the earth," Sicajau says. "It's sacred work that they do to put food on the table."
Adrian Smith, a Professor of law and legal studies at Carleton University and a member of the non-profit group Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW), says TFWs are vulnerable to exploitation because their visa is linked to a single employer. Rocking the boat can lead to deportation.
"You have to put up with the nonsense that the employer imposes on you," Smith says.
Some TFWs have been killed in Canada, like 39-year-old Jamaican farm labourer Ned Livingston Peart, who was crushed by an iron bin while trying to load a tobacco kiln. Others have been injured while performing dangerous work, or have grown ill from exposure to pesticides.
Indigenous people like Sicajau often find themselves pushed into migrant labour by grinding poverty, ecological destruction and political violence, Smith adds. These conditions make people willing to tolerate abusive employers overseas.
Smith argues that wealthy countries contribute to these conditions through policies like free trade agreements that allow corporations to run rampant. Canada, he says, should allow migrants to stay.
But Conservative MP Rick Dykstra defended the restrictions imposed on migrant workers when questioned by The Dominion as he paused in the lobby outside the House of Commons before a vote.
"Temporary foreign worker program," said Dykstra, a member of the House of Commons immigration committee. "It's not a path to permanent residency."
When asked to justify this policy, Dykstra said: "We need folks to do the work, and there's an opportunity for [TFWs] to fulfil that obligation."
Dykstra said he was unaware of any TFWs being abused. He also said any employer that abused a worker would be blacklisted. The "ineligible employers" list has been blank since it appeared on the Immigration Canada website in 2011.
Top industry associations have praised the TFW program for addressing what they call an acute labour shortage in Canada.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, in a July 2012 report, called labour shortages "one of the greatest threats" to potential development of energy resources, including the burgeoning oil and gas sector—although unemployment rates have remained stubbornly high, especially among youth.
The report also hailed "the proposed expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program."
Rapid tar sands development has meant the job market has been in recruitment mode in Alberta, but labour shortages have developed across the country, according to Corinne Pohlmann, Vice-President of National Affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
"The Temporary Foreign Worker Program became a very important tool for employers to fill those gaps," Pohlmann says, adding that many businesses want the process sped up.
Before issuing a temporary visa to a migrant worker, Service Canada is supposed to check whether the employer has attempted to train or hire Canadians.
The bureaucratic process made headlines in October with reports that a Vancouver-based mining corporation had recruited 200 low-paid Chinese workers after posting ads seeking Mandarin-speaking workers. Critics called this a clear signal that the company never intended to hire Canadian workers.
The story of the mine workers became a political football in the House of Commons, with NDP Immigration Critic Jinny Sims saying those jobs should belong to Canadians.
Sims did not reply to an interview request, but stated during Question Period in December that "Canadian jobs are still being given away" under the TFW program.
Nearly 30 per cent of all new jobs created between 2007 and 2011 were for TFWs, according to Canadian Auto Workers Economist Jim Stanford.
Stanford argues that the program puts downward pressure on wages because employers are allowed to pay TFWs up to 15 per cent less than the average local wage earned by Canadians.
Groups including the Alberta Federation of Labour have called the TFW program an effort to drive down wages and working conditions while bypassing unions.
According to Alboim, many of those jobs could employ people who tend to struggle with unemployment, including refugees and new immigrants. "There are people in this country for whom these jobs would be important entries to the labour market," Alboim says. She argues that the Low-Skilled Pilot Project should be abolished.
To Smith, Canada's temporary worker schemes summon memories of the 19th century, when Chinese labourers were recruited to perform the most dangerous and low-paying work on the construction of the railway.
"Over time, we have used so-called foreign labour to do the heavy lifting of this country, to develop much of the infrastructure," says Smith. "It's incumbent on us to open up our conception of who belongs, [of] who's a citizen."
The Dominion, a media cooperative, Apr. 12, 2013
Byline: David Koch, freelance writer
'It's clearly bad news'
The budget cuts to post-secondary education will not only trickle down and affect the entire Lethbridge economy, they will also have a negative impact on the quality of education and threaten the autonomy and free speech that universities are founded on.
Those were some of the thoughts of several speakers scheduled to talk at a special session of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs Tuesday evening.
The session addressed the question of whether the cuts to post-secondary education are justifiable. The University of Lethbridge's operating budget will be cut by about $12 million and Lethbridge College's operating budget by nearly $3.5 million.
Chris Nicol, economics professor and dean of Arts and Sciences, said the provincial budget and the letters of expectation that flowed to institutions in the aftermath have created both financial and philosophical challenges. He said he'd like to see the major universities collaborate more closely to craft a response to government.
"It's clearly bad news. From the financial side of things we had a written commitment from this government that certain things would happen this year and they've completely abrogated that agreement," Nicol said. "From a philosophical perspective, the Minister (Thomas Lucaszuk) almost seems to want to use the system for political purposes, tied with their own philosophy within the governing party and that's never what universities have been about."
In her role as the director of policy analysis for the Alberta Federation of Labour, Shannon Phillips sees how the cuts will trickle down.
"It's not just the support staff, the academic staff and the students and their families that this will have an effect on, but in an economy the size of Lethbridge's where post-secondary institutions are such a large employer and a large source of demand for goods and services, there are going to be spin-off effects through our city that have a great impact on the private sector, on small business, on new home starts, on home sales," she said.
Julia Adolf, vice-president academic with the U of L Students' Union, said the province's budget is not student-friendly, despite the government's assertion to the contrary. While tuition fees won't increase this year that could easily change next year.
"We could see the cap removed. We're very worried about that," she said, adding students are also worried that mandatory non-instructional fees will be hiked to compensate for the cuts.
The cuts will lead to larger class sizes, fewer course offerings and negatively affect student services, such as library hours or registrar services, Adolf said.
"They're very much talking about the homogenization of our university system and we're very scared that's going to lead to devaluing of our degrees," she said.
Bill Ramp, a sociology professor, said he has grave concerns about the cuts as they threaten the role post-secondary institutions play in a democracy. The seeming irrationality of the move may lead to an overall weakening of the system before their autonomy is eventually threatened.
"When you undermine the autonomy of universities in such a way that they threaten to become little more than a voice for the policy of the governing party of the day what you're doing is destroying another part of public space," he said. "If we're not prepared to defend free speech and autonomous research then where are we?"
Lethbridge Herald, Wednesday, Apr 10 2013
Byline: Caroline Zentner