“Cut the wage of public workers” crowd strangely silent after NDP’s executive pay cut

The Progressive Conservatives would have you believe that Alberta’s budget is going to turn into a Greece situation tomorrow. Often they have union busted, or at least union bruised, in the public sector, calling for hiring and wage freezes for front-line workers. But it’s not the nurse working 14 hour shifts who is bringing home the big bucks, and freezing those wages often nets the province a meagre amount compared to the budget. If the current government did that now, they’d net about $8 million.

So at first I was surprised to hear that the New Democratic Party has announced cuts themselves. But this time it came with a twist: They were targeting the executives.

Now here’s the really weird part–despite finding almost twice as much room in the budget as a result of these cuts ($16 million)–the “slash, cut and burn” crowd are nowhere to be seen.

You’d think this would have pleased the opposition. After all, just three weeks ago they were screaming that the NDP Government of Premier Rachel Notley must freeze the pay of front-line nurses, health care workers, teachers and civil servants who will be negotiating new collective agreements this year.

Back then, in an official statement, the Wildrose Party called a mediator’s recommendation of raises ranging for 29 cents to 88 cents an hour for 14,000 health care aides and licensed practical nurses represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees “a slap in the face to struggling Albertans.”

Some of those health care workers are currently being paid less than $20 an hour. Freezing their salaries for 2016 as the Wildrosers demanded would have saved the provincial treasury about $8 million.

By contrast, on Friday, the cuts made to the sometimes outrageous pay and perks of only about 270 ABC Sector executives – a hangover from the days when the ABCs served in part as a lush pasture for old Tory warhorses – will save taxpayers roughly double that.

Now, it would be entirely consistent for the Opposition to say, “good step, but not far enough.” Or even, “it was about time they stopped the gravy train!” Instead? Pretty much crickets.

There was nary a quote from the PCs (who are responsible for most of the executive pay rates to which Mr. Ceci took his axe), the Wildrosers (who are after all the Official Opposition) or the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (Canada’s self-described and routinely quoted tax watchdog) in any mainstream media report I noticed.

At any rate, tonight’s beer is dedicated to the NDP. Thanks for cutting the absurd salaries of the schleps who can afford it for once.

-Shiv

 

Conservatives blast NDP for following conservative energy plan

I’ve been blindly poking and prodding at the Mythical Centre everyone seems to insist exists in Albertan politics, insistently pointing out that our current government run by the New Democratic Party isn’t all that aggressively socialist after all. In fact, I don’t even have to go as far back as Peter Lougheed, widely considered one of the Progressive Conservative’s most reasonable and productive Premiers, to find similarities between the energy plan of the NDP and the PCs–Rachel Notley’s policy is nearly identical to that of the late Jim Prentice.

Which seems… odd… given how Canada and Alberta’s mainstream media has a never-ending lineup of pundits screaming of the coming plague over the NDP’s governance.

Yesterday, journalist Jason Markusoff published a story in Maclean’s Magazine outlining Mr. Prentice’s recommended approach to making Canada a true energy superpower, as opposed to the blustering would-be powerhouse we saw during the years Stephen Harper was Conservative prime minister.

“Prentice’s arguments are striking not only in their closeness to those of Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but also in how far they diverge from the orthodoxy of today’s Conservative Party, where Michael Chong is the clan’s black sheep for daring to advocate a price on carbon,” Mr. Markusoff wrote.

In the book, Mr. Markusoff observed, Mr. Prentice “gives Notley credit for instituting a carbon tax and suggests he’d helped lay the groundwork for her approach.” (Emphasis added.)

Mr. Prentice also credited the approach taken by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Notley with more success than the “amateurish” bullying favoured by Mr. Harper and his acolyte Mr. Kenney.

These so-called Centrists that everybody insists exists ought to then be confronted with the basic reality that Notley’s NDP is behaving a lot more like Lougheed’s PCs and not the Communist Diktatorship Post Media pundits have cooked up in their feverish imaginations.

Hell, Jim Prentice even answered the open-ended question I was concerned with regarding Indigenous treaty rights: (emphasis mine)

Mr. Markusoff quotes Mr. Prentice’s argument that if Canada won’t commit to serious coastal protection measures as demanded by so many people in British Columbia, “then we shouldn’t be shipping oil at all.” The late Conservative premier also advocated that Alberta help bear the costs of protecting the West Coast and include Canada’s Indigenous peoples as full partners in our national energy policy.

There remains the big question–with Jason “I don’t get caught up in the details” Kenney slated to win the PC leadership race and steer the party into an iceberg, are the Centrists everybody insists exist going to wake the fuck up and vote for the not-terribly-liberal NDP? Or are they going to continue slamming back that delicious Red Scare whipped together in the dingy basements of Alberta’s gasbag political pundits?

-Shiv

Alberta announces new Ministries of Children’s & Social Services

The NDP has announced the formation of two new ministries–the Ministy of Children’s Services, and the Ministry of Community & Social Services.

“All children deserve to be safe, secure and happy. We want to support our most vulnerable children and ensure they never go to bed hungry or scared. Today’s announcement means we will have more resources and more attention dedicated to taking care of our children and our communities. Minister Larivee will provide thoughtful, compassionate leadership as she works to fix our child intervention system. Minister Sabir will continue with the very capable leadership he provides to his ministry, which has been suitably renamed “Community and Social Services.” I welcome Shaye Anderson to the cabinet table, I know his ample community engagement experience and enthusiasm for rural Alberta will ensure his success as he navigates his new role.”

Rachel Notley, Premier

This is following accusations from the Wildrose–not entirely unfair in their nature, for once–that the state of our child welfare system was pretty abysmal.

It seems Rachel Notley is undoing Klein’s legacy.

-Shiv

Jason Kenney is literally just making shit up this time

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Jason “I don’t get caught up in the details” Kenney went to Twitter to express outrage about the provincial government’s tax plan and how it was ruining the economy because it made taxation high.

The problem with Kenney’s claim? Well, one of those pesky details he can’t be bothered with is that the New Democratic Party have a tax scheme that is still lower for all tax sectors than the Progressive Conservative posterboy Ralph Klein’s.

One wonders how taxes are “ruining” the performance of the Province which still has the lowest taxation rate in the country, even taking into account our new carbon tax.

Oh, and that “ruined economy”? Still the strongest in the country.

Can’t let pesky facts get in the way of our sabre-rattling, though. Governments don’t need details! And neither do pundits! That’s why all the papers say the province will fall apart, any second now!

-Shiv

Alberta to teach history properly — no more whitewashing

The NDP have announced they will be launching a program ahead of updates to the curriculum which involve teaching Albertan/Canadian history more accurately by including primary sources from First Nations–an uncomfortable move to genocide deniers, since the primary sources describe in great and meticulous detail the abuse perpetrated by European colonials as well as the racism that persists today. The program is to help teachers employ the new curriculum who may be uncomfortable admitting the history of brutal abuses of Indigenous populations by white Canadians.

Alberta teachers uneasy with tackling one of the darkest chapters of Canadian history in their classrooms are getting specific training.

Alberta will become the first province to establish a training regime for all of the province’s teachers to instruct in First Nations, Métis and Inuit history and perspectives.

“We know from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that there are some wounds that we need to heal,” Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday. “We all live together with First Nations, Métis and Inuit culture. It’s important for all of us to have that education — turning some unfortunate past into a positive future for all.”

The provincial government will spend nearly $5.4 million during the next three years to provide professional development to 42,000 teachers, superintendents and other school staff. The move is to complement an ambitious reworking of Alberta’s school curriculum during the next six years, which Eggen said will include more First Nations, Métis and Inuit history and perspectives.

…

Staff from the centre will highlight information and resources from Alberta in particular, said director Ry Moran. It’s important students understand what transpired in their own backyard.

Alberta had 25 residential schools, the highest number of any province, Moran said. Many were concentrated in the Edmonton and Calgary areas.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission spent six years collecting stories and evidence of systemic assimilation, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse of indigenous people at the schools. The institutions were complicit in governments’ attempt to isolate indigenous children from their families and eliminate their culture and languages.

A truth and reconciliation centre survey found 30 per cent of Canadians haven’t heard of residential schools, Moran said.

Teachers need professional development and the right resources to empower them to tackle the difficult subject in age-appropriate ways, he said.

“Some teachers are a little reluctant to teach (human rights) issues. They don’t want to make mistakes, and they don’t want to offend anybody. And they also don’t really have a full sense of history themselves,” Moran said.

The public also needs to understand the abuse and neglect still affects survivors’ children and grandchildren today, Moran said.

Colour me impressed. This is the sort of substantive change I want to see. Hopefully it isn’t the first thing to go when Alberta carries on with its tradition of shooting itself in the foot every election.

-Shiv

The Education Minister’s open letter to Alberta students

Alberta’s Education Minister, David Eggen, posted an open letter to Alberta students, reiterating the Minister’s stated declaration that all school boards would be in compliance with Bill 10 and the gender-affirmation guidelines:

A few weeks from now, you and thousands of other Alberta students will head back to class. And when you do, you have rights that your schools will respect.

You have the right to feel safe and welcome at school.

You have the right to create a Gay-Straight Alliance or a Queer-Straight Alliance, and you have the right to name your clubs this way.

You have the right to use the washroom that is consistent with your gender identity. I want you to know that I will support each and every one of you. Together, we will make sure that the rights you have, and the policies your school boards have worked on, are being lived out in your schools.

As Minister of Education, I have been working with your school boards to make sure that our schools are welcoming and caring. All boards have created new policies to support LGBTQ students and they will now come to life in your schools.

In the coming weeks, Alberta Education will be promoting new resources to make sure that schools are safe and welcoming. You can also reach out directly to my staff, who can help you ensure your rights are being respected, at studentsupport@gov.ab.ca.

As we stand together, let’s embrace the differences in one another.

We will all be better for it in the long run.

And remember: I’m with you one hundred per cent.

David Eggen, Minister of Education

I have criticized the NDP for doing a lot of ideological grandstanding with very little in the way of substantive change. After months of lobbying from reactionary groups (most of which are Catholic affiliated), the Minister releases this statement once again holding firm that no school board, Catholic or public, will be permitted to antagonize Queer students. And it’s worth noting that while the reactionary groups complaining loudly are mostly religious, the local trans community has reported antagonism from public school board administrators as well.

I suppose moving forward I’ll wait a couple months to actually see it in action. I want to see consequences for administrators who bully Queer youth before I believe the NDP’s intentions to be genuine.

And yes, I’m still writing and meeting and speaking with my MLA to write Catholic conscience exemptions out of law. Somehow I doubt that particular agenda will get anywhere. But at least by going to the forums, asking the question in front of everyone, writing in, and making meetings with MLAs and supporting staff, they are aware that some of their voting base would really like to see all public services governed by… you know, public law.

Radical idea, I know.

-Shiv

 

Edit August 17: Fixed formatting glitch.

Wildrose Party: We care about the taxpayers (unless we can antagonize the NDP instead)

The Dickweed Wildrose Party is at it again.

If you live in Alberta, you’ve probably heard of the scandalous energy clause that the NDP have been challenging in court known as the Enron Clause. As the NDP have been gradually repairing decades of PC damage, the Enron Clause is one such skeleton that the previous “Progressive” Conservative government tried to bury quietly approved–probably because it privatizes energy sector profits but socializes the business risk to consumers. But the most notable thing about the Enron Clause isn’t merely its unprincipled consequences–it was buried so deep passed so quietly that the NDP didn’t even know of the Clause when they raised the penalties for exceeding carbon emission targets for energy producers.

On Aug 18, 2000 a regulation (Reg 175/2000) was filed with the Registrar of Regulations.  It contained the AEUB’s Order approving the original PPAs plus “errata” letters setting out mathematical changes and the Enron Clause.

This regulation was not supported by a Ministerial Order or an Order in Council—it just materialized out of thin air. 

A month later Cabinet passed a regulation burying Reg 175/2000 (and the Enron clause).  It said Reg 175/2000 was available in printed form to those who wanted it and it was too big to go into the Alberta Gazette.

Let’s think about that for a moment.

Yes, the Reg containing the PPAs and Enron clause can be purchased from the Queen’s Printer for $246 or ferreted out of a legal data base if you have a subscription and an experienced law librarian handy—but you need to know the Enron clause exists in the first place before you can go looking for it and you won’t know it exists because you can’t read about it in the Alberta Gazette or search for it on CanLii, a standard free legal database.

So good luck trying to find it.

It appears the only people who knew about the Enron clause were those who were involved in the PPA auction (including Enron), the AEUB and Klein’s Cabinet (none of whom are in the Legislature today).

When the NDP finally discovered this loophole that had been built by the PCs, they promptly sic’d their lawyer attack dogs on it to challenge the clause as unlawful.

It makes perfect sense that the PCs are loudly complaining about the NDP challenging the Clause in court, considering it was a product of their posterboy, Ralph Klein. But as the Dickweed Wildrose Party has on multiple occasions stated it intends to “unite the right,” it makes little sense for them to also oppose the NDP’s challenge. This is a prime opportunity to discredit the PCs and move so-called moderate conservative voters to your reactionary party.

Instead, the Wildrose does what it always does: Knee-jerk reactions and unsubstantiated whinging into the microphone, cuz the ‘dippers are eeeeeeevil. Strange that people buy their whole “we’re on the side of the taxpayers” schtick, considering the Wildrose are trying to antagonize the closure of a scummy corporate loophole that would leave taxpayers holding the bag for bad business decisions.

-Shiv, Fashionable Communist, Annihilator of Man

Breaking news: Wildrose concurs with decent idea; Shiv is shocked

In a “pinch yourself to make sure you’re awake” moment, the Dickweed Wildrose Party has conceptually agreed with the NDP to place a limitation on how much any given company can donate to political parties, even if they disagree on the exact limit:

Each party had made submissions to the legislature’s special committee on ethics and accountability, which is reviewing provincial election laws along with whistleblower and conflict of interest legislation.

Alberta currently has a $15,000 annual limit on donations to parties and a $1,000 cap on donations to a single constituency association, with a limit of $5,000 total to constituency associations, with those amounts doubling in an election year.

The amounts are among the highest in Canada and far exceed the federal donation limit, which is currently $1,525 to a party and $1,525 in total to constituency associations.

In the NDP’s proposal, the party calls for a $4,000 cap on total annual donations to Alberta political entities, while the Wildrose party wants a $5,000 limit on contributions to parties.

Jessica Littlewood, the NDP MLA who chairs the ethics and accountability committee, said she wouldn’t speculate about the impact of the parties’ submissions on the committee.

But while no decisions have yet been made about amounts, there is a consensus among committee members that lowering the donation limit is a priority, she said.

With America’s big money giving us a splendid example of why it’s important to keep a leash on corporate lobbyists, I am thrilled to see my provincial government agree on a problem. I don’t think I care about the difference between a $4,000 cap and a $5,000 one, but the fact that the Wildrose Party isn’t immediately flailing in their seats is… remarkably restrained, by their standards.

So credit where credit’s due, I guess: Good job Wildrose Party, for not whining about the NDP’s good idea, even if the finer points of the policy have to be settled.

This was, for the record, another of Notley’s campaign promises. She seems to be doing pretty well so far. Only issue I’ve got my eye on is how she handles negotiations with First Nations affected by her pipeline proposal(s).

-Shiv