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Education Crisis in Alberta News Stories
Campaign Against Privatization of Public Utilities: Power, Water, Teleco's
(R)EDMONTON: Radical Edmonton Network News and Announcements
Poverty and Homelessness in Edmonton
City of Edmonton Studies Privtization of Municipal Services
Edmonton Journal Budget Stories Special
How does the so-called "global culture"
affect the arts in local communities?
That's the central question being chewed over at a
symposium in Edmonton this week called Global Culture
and Arts Communities. One of the big themes this week
is finding a way for local cultures to survive in the age of
the Internet.
Global Culture & Arts Communities Symposium Begins today at the
Timms Centre for Perfoming Arts University of Alberta and online
On Line discussion of Arts and Culture in Alberta and in Cyber space click above to hear reports and join the discussion.
The Edmonton Arts Council and the University of Alberta Faculties of Arts and
Extension present Global Culture & Arts Communities, at the Timms. Registration
deadline is October 8, 1999. Please call (780)424-2787 for more information.
Last year, 32 families lost a loved one to a
work-related motor vehicle tragedy. These tragedies, coupled with the
thousands of on-the-job motor vehicle injuries that occur each year in
Alberta, have devastating human, emotional and financial impacts.
With the aim of reducing this devastation, Alberta Infrastructure, the
Workers' Compensation Board - Alberta (WCB), Transport Canada and the Alberta
Trucking Industry Safety Association (ATISA) have undertaken a partnership, in
cooperation with the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the Calgary-based Canadian
Sleep Institute, to examine driver fatigue in the transportation industry.
A public ceremony and reception is currently being organized for Their Excellencies, the Right Honourable
Adrienne Clarkson, C.C., C.M.M., C.D., Governor General of Canada and John Ralston Saul, C.C., for
their first official visit to Edmonton on October 16, 1999.
Students at St. Mary School in Westlock will
use their ingenuity and creativity to haul hundreds of bags of
wheat to the Agricore elevator in Westlock next Tuesday all in an
effort to support poor and hungry people in the developing world.
Delegates to a conference in Jasper this week will explore the impacts that
inflation and deflation might have on life in Alberta in the next decade.
The program for the annual conference of the Alberta Congress Board is built on
the theme Weighing the Future of Business, Labour and Government.
City officials are probing an incident in which a Calgary Transit manager
allegedly had two of his employees help him do renovations to his home
during their work day.
If reports prove true, the long-serving supervisor could face anything from a
verbal reprimand to dismissal, depending on the severity of the infraction,
said Jim Lambert, co-ordinator of facilities and right-of-way for Calgary
Transit.
An Alberta entrepreneur is taking his fight against Alberta
Treasury Branches to the Ontario Court of Appeal, arguing that ATB is
operating as an illegal bank.
Monier (Moe) Rahall is contesting the legitimacy of ATB, which is
owned by the Alberta government, in a battle that first flared up when
ATB pushed him into bankruptcy in 1995.
Since then, Mr. Rahall has tried to discredit the Edmonton-based
financial institution, including publishing a book in 1997, Banksters and
Prairie Boys, that levelled allegations of corruption against Alberta's
Progressive Conservative government and ATB.
Ground will be broken tomorrow in Old Strathcona for a statue
commemorating the eight Edmonton firefighters killed in the line
of duty this century.
The statue will show a fireman on a ladder saving a girl from
flames.
Yolande Redcalf says she is prepared to die. The 32-year-old
mother of two, a member of the Sunchild First Nation in Alberta, has consumed
only water since Aug. 31, she said in an interview. She won't eat until a public
inquiry is held into how her community's chief and band council spend federal
government funding, she said by telephone from her reserve.
"I really feel it's time to look into what's happening on reserves.
The devil may come knocking on Sunday, Oct. 31, but no one will answer in
Moncton, N.B.
He could also find himself left waiting on the dark doorsteps of homes in Cardston,
Alta., and several other communities across Canada that have decided to have
Halloween trick-or-treating one day earlier.
In many cases, the decisions have been taken by municipal councils acting on
requests from religious organizations who consider Sunday the Sabbath.
They argue today 's Halloween traditions, even those carried out in jest, are
inappropriate for that day.
One of Hollywood's hottest actors has launched a blistering
attack on Calgary and small-town Alberta. After filming a movie in the area, Dylan
McDermott, the Emmy-award winning star of The Practice, described Calgary as a
"boot camp" and said areas around the city are "hick towns."
McDermott made the comments to reporters from across North America as he
promoted his latest movie in Hollywood over the weekend, the Calgary Sun
reported in a story from Los Angeles.
The actor had spent the summer in southern Alberta filming the western Texas
Rangers. The man who gave a popular voice to Western Canada's
blue-collar oilpatch workers has died. Lloyd Gilmour, who founded The
Roughneck magazine, died at his daughter's home in Calgary Friday at the age of
83.
Gilmour, who also worked as a writer with various Alberta newspapers, founded
The Roughneck in 1952 in Edmonton as the province began to feel the impact of
one of its early oil booms.
- A new provincial party whose philosophies are close
to those of the federal Reform party will hold its first policy
convention next month.
John Reil, Alberta First president and an Edmonton-area elk farmer
and small businessman, expects policy convention participants to
ratify many positions that Alberta First's founders have already
adopted informally.
Change for Children Association (CFCA)
Page design � Copyright 1997 Eugene W. Plawiuk.
OCTOBER 18-24,1999
Sounds of shattering glass and
creaking walls being ripped from
their foundations filled an inner-city
neighbourhood as five condemned
houses were levelled Tuesday.
"It's about time," said Const. Elvin
Toy of the Edmonton city police. It
was on his referral that the Safe
Housing Authority ordered the
houses torn down near 96th Street
and 107A Avenue.
Calgary junior TVI
Pacific Inc. is taking
its fight against
protesters plaguing a
remote Philippines
mining project back
to court this week.
In the next few days,
TVI expects a
regional municipal
court to grant the
exploration company
a temporary
restraining order
barring
demonstrators from the Canatuan site on the island of Mindanao in
the southern Philippines. It will be the company's third court order in
as many months to remove protesters. The exploration property has been the target of protests since TVI
acquired the site in 1994. Some members of the local indigenous
group, the Subanen, claim to have ancestral rights to the
500-hectare site. Meanwhile, small-scale miners who have worked
the property for the past 15 years claim to have squatting rights. The
two groups have won the support of local church leaders and a
coalition of environmental groups, including industry watchdog
MiningWatch Canada of Ottawa
A leadership contender for a new provincial party which bills itself as "the true
conservative alternative" says Alberta needs its own pension plan.
Neil Wiltzen, a Calgary small business owner, is the first candidate to throw his
hat in the ring for the leadership of the Alberta First party. He says retirees can
no longer count on Canada Pension Plan benefits to look after them so Alberta
should create its own provincial plan.
One of Canada's largest generators of greenhouse
gases is cultivating a partnership with American farmers in the hope of
reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The firm trumpeted the deal to buy 2.8 million metric tons of carbon
emission reduction credits as the largest of its kind involving the storage of
carbon dioxide in soil.
But an environmental think-tank that's been following TransAlta's plans to
reduce emissions was surprised by the news.
The idea of offering credits for farming techniques is not widely accepted in
the scientific and environmental community and would be difficult to monitor,
said Rob Macintosh of the Pembina Institute.
Comment by Judy Rebick
The United Alternative is dead. Long live bigotry and
intolerance, Preston Manning seemed to be saying in his
very long response to the Throne Speech.
The real Preston Manning finally stood up. I half
expected him to put his glasses back on midway through
the extraordinary presentation. Manning demonstrated
what the Progressive Conservative leadership has always
known. Underneath that civil reserve lies a good
old-fashioned Alberta redneck.
Seventy years to the day, October 18, Albertans are joining the rest of Canada in recognizing Persons Day. The day is
celebrated annually and marks the anniversary and victory of the Persons Case when the British Privy Council ruled women in
Canada would be legally recognized as "persons" and therefore eligible for Senate appointments.
The Persons Case struggle was led by five courageous Alberta women - Henrietta (Muir) Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise
McKinney, Emily Murphy and Irene Parlby. The "famous five" gained acclaim for their outspoken views of the time and waging
their battle that made it possible for women to participate fully in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society.
The Famous Five who won the historic battle to
have Canadian women recognized as persons also had human flaws,
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson said Monday.
That was a diplomatic reference to feminist activist Emily Murphy's
controversial views on race and eugenics - the science of improving
the human race through selective breeding. Clarkson unveiled five
larger-than-life bronze statues at the downtown Olympic Plaza
honouring Murphy, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir Edwards,
Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby. In 1927, they paved the way
for women to sit in Canada's Senate.
The Klein government, once the country's most virulent critic of
Canada's climate change policy, is about to introduce measures that
will put it at the forefront of provincial efforts to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
According to a copy of the government proposal shown to Southam
News, Alberta will adopt an action plan to highlight what's possible by
applying voluntary, technology-driven solutions to the problem of
rising emission levels.
OCTOBER 11-17,1999
While women in Canada struggle for access to
corporate boardrooms, Afghani women are forced to wear veils,
African societies practise female circumcision and most Carib- bean
nations have yet to enact sexual harassment legislation.
The predominantly white, middle-class Canadian women attending
an international women's rights conference in Calgary are getting
some eye-opening reminders about where they sit in the human
rights pecking order, hearing from speakers about violence against
women in India, a women's right movement in Eastern Europe still in
its infancy and a flourishing tourism sex-trade in the tropics.
"I envy the Canadian woman a great deal," says Margarette
Macaulay, chairwoman of the Caribbean Association of Feminist
Research and Action. Ms. Macaulay is scheduled to speak today at
the conference, titled Global Perspectives on Personhood: Rights
and Responsibilities.
It opened Thursday night and marks the 70th anniversary of
Canada's Persons Case, a 1929 feminist landmark in which five
Alberta women led by suffragette Emily Murphy successfully
lobbied the Privy Council in England to overrule a Supreme Court
of Canada decision that "persons" as defined in the British North
America Act did not include women.
A decision by an Alberta insurance company to stop
selling auto policies in an area with a predominantly aboriginal population has
plenty of precedence in North America, says an insurance expert.
Norma Neilson, chairperson of insurance and risk management studies at
the University of Calgary's school of management, said geographic
discrimination occurs everywhere.
Two-thirds of the daily operating supplies for a giant firm like Syncrude Canada
come from firms with less than $25 million in annual revenue.
But those small and medium-sized companies also find it hardest to get funds to
stay competitive, according to the partners in a study unveiled Friday.
The Northern Alberta Resource Sector Supply Chain Study was conducted by
nine University of Alberta business students, with the support of the Alliance of
Manufacturers and Exporters Canada and Alberta Research Council. The team
traced the supply lines for Syncrude, which spent $275 million on operating
equipment in 1997.
USWA LOCAL 5220 STRIKE AGAINST ALTASTEEL OVEROCTOBER 4-11,1999
More than 150 scaffolders at Nova Chemicals
Ltd. illegally walked off the job Wednesday to protest unsafe working
conditions.
The Head of Alberta's largest public sector union says the provincial
government's opening contract offer is nothing less than "insulting."
About 18,000 General Service employees, members of the Alberta Union
of Provincial Employees, were offered a one per cent pay raise for the
coming year plus a variable bonus on September 30th, the first bargaining
meeting for their Wage Reopener, according to AUPE President Dan
MacLennan.
Quebec is losing another head office. Celanese
Canada Inc., fully owned by Germany's Hoechst AG multinational,
is shifting its headquarters to Edmonton next March.
A government-run amateur sports agency has had its
knuckles rapped for giving tax receipts to parents who use the
organization to funnel cash gifts to their children to avoid
paying tax.
See Airline Mergers or Airline Strike? for more stories.
Alberta's Justice Minister David Hancock, will consider a proposal from jail guards
to ban smoking in all provincially run correctional facilities.
A motion to be drafted at an upcoming meeting of Alberta guards will demand the
existing smoking policy, which allows prisoners to light up in their cells and other
designated areas, be replaced with a complete smoking ban, said Dan
McLennan, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
The head of Alberta's largest public-sector union
says the provincial government's opening contract offer is "insulting."
About 18,000 members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees have
been offered a one-per-cent pay raise for the coming year, plus a variable
bonus, says union president Dan MacLennan.
"It's insulting," he said.
His members want their share of the province's substantial budget surpluses.
SEPTEMBER 27-OCTOBER 3/99
Click here for full story
The abductors sent no ransom demands, nor any conditions of release, said
Mimenza. The kidnappers sent a "request" that indigenous people and the
environment be better treated by the government and businesses.
AT Plastics will cut its workforce and take a $5-million to $6-million restructuring
charge, the company said Wednesday.
Production problems at its new $170-million Edmonton copolymer plant, plus
higher costs for feedstock, have hammered the company's revenue; it expects to
report a loss for the year. AT's board voted Wednesday to suspend payment of
its regular quarterly dividend.
"Half the restructuring charge will be for workforce reduction costs," said Jim
Donaghy, vice-president of finance. AT Plastics (TSE:ATP) has 760 employees at
plants in Edmonton, Brampton, Ont., and two U.S. sites. At least 300 people
work at the company's plant in east Edmonton.
Although it frames the question more subtly than this, Ottawa wants our opinion:
Would extending the child tax credit to the middle classes buy off complaints
that tax policy is biased against parents?
To find out, leaky officials have let it be known the idea will be part of next
month's speech from the throne. With an unfamiliar and rather unsettling sense of
responsibility, we Canadians must carefully consider our answer.
After consultation with its customer
representatives, ATCO Gas has applied to the Alberta Energy and Utilities
Board for approval to decrease its current gas rate.
If approved, the gas rate for customers living in northern Alberta
including the City of Red Deer, will be $2.868/GJ as of November 1, 1999. The
winter period ends March 31.
The current rate is $3.091/GJ.
(insert Twilight Zone soundtrack here...Labour News Editor)
Forged letters threatening to blackmail two B.C. mining firms
unless they pay off a Calgary-based environmental group are
being investigated by the RCMP.
The typed letters, using a fake Alberta Wilderness Association
letterhead, threaten to take legal action for alleged environmental
crimes, unless the firms cough up money for the nature-loving
cause.
"The AWA is willing to let the matter drop in return for a suitable
cash donation," the letter reads, after accusing the companies of
environmental infractions.
Siew Hue Choo lives on a diet of rice and
vegetables to save money.
Her clothes are borrowed from friends and she
works at a candy store on top of her full-time
studies.
But the 23-year-old math student still struggles
to get by every month and also pay about
$6,000 for tuition -- the amount levied on
international students at the University of
Alberta.
Choo says it would be impossible for her to attend the university if a proposal
to double international tuition is approved.
"You're just becoming another marketing tool for the corporation. I mean,
how much does Nike contribute to society? Nothing. They just make running
shoes. How pathetic to want that on your body." said Sam
Sheinin who works at Bear's Skin Art. He said the trend is just a reflection of
society's lack of imagination.
SEPTEMBER 20-26/99
NO WTO CAMPAIGN
September 26-30
Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin will be attending meetings of the
World Bank and IMF. Debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries
will be on the agenda of these meetings.
Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative
416-462-1613
fax 416-463-5569
asks everyone to contact
Paul Martin before he leaves for Washington, urging the Canadian government to keep its
March 25 commitments to cancel 100% of the debts owed to Canada by
hurricane-ravaged Honduras and by a limited number of very poor countries,
and to press the G7 to go beyond the confines of the Cologne Debt
Initiative. Sample text available from CEJI
10545 - 92 Street, Edmonton, AB T5H 1V1
Phone: (403) 448-1505 Fax: (403) 448-1507
Email: CFCA
Injured worker Frank Pagnotta has nearly abandoned hope for
a public inquiry of the Workers' Compensation Board - so the
protester is bundling up for winter.
The 38-year-old Edmonton man whose hunger strike in front of
WCB offices this summer put him in the public eye, told The
Sunday Sun he expects bad news from Human Resources and
Employment Minister Clint Dunford on Oct. 1.
The Ecuadorean army has
tracked the abductors of seven
Edmonton pipeline workers
deep into the equatorial rain
forest, but "it could take a long
time to find them," Canadian
ambassador John Kneale said
Saturday.
An Edmonton lawyer is putting Ottawa and the Catholic church on trial for physical and sexual abuse she
claims her native clients suffered at residential schools in Alberta.
Ending the statutory release of prisoners would be a disastrous mistake, says
Graham Stewart, executive director of the John Howard Society.
He said Friday that proposals to force the majority of inmates to serve their
entire sentence in prison would dramatically drive up the crime rate and prison
costs.
"I'm really alarmed when I hear propositions being made that statutory release
should be eliminated,'' he said Friday at the 27th Canadian Congress on
Criminal Justice held at the Shaw Conference Centre.
An Alberta prison on an aboriginal reserve is
considering bringing in private American corrections firms to help run its
programs and operations.
Three representatives of Texas-based firms that design, build and operate
prisons were touring the Pe Sakastew federal minimum-security prison on a
reserve near Hobbema, Alta. on Thursday.
The men were invited by Roy Louis, chairman of the facility's citizen
advisory committee.
Canada's competition watchdog has asked the
quasi-judicial Competition Tribunal to order the divestiture by Superior
Propane Inc. of its recently acquired competitor, ICG Propane Inc.
Robert Lancop, assistant deputy commissioner in the federal
competition bureau's mergers branch, said yesterday the acquisition
creates a monopoly in many Canadian markets, and "we are not in the
business of sanctioning monopolies.
SEE CANADA LABOUR NEWS FOR COMPETE LINKS TO THIS AND OTHER LABOUR RELATED SUPREME COURT STORIES
The Stoney Nation, wracked by controversy in the past few years, has fired
its tribal administrator.
The news comes one day after Judge John Reilly's scathing report which
blamed reserve social conditions for the suicide of a 17-year-old boy.
Once among North America's toughest fighting men of the Second World War, the daring exploits
of the Devil's Brigade have finally been recognized by the government of Alberta.
Canadian oilpatch officials scoff at an
author's claims the KGB targeted the
Strathcona oil refinery and other oil and
gas facilities for sabotage during the
Cold War.
But security and counter-terrorism
specialists here and in Toronto say
British author Christopher Andrew's
claims are credible. Skepticism about
such things makes us an easy target for
shady activity, they say.
SEPTEMBER 13-19/99
Alberta's natural gas-driven economy will have to run on a lot less fuel in
coming years once the province's huge reserves are tapped out, warns a
University of Calgary economist.
Alberta should consider ending its status as the last province without a sales
tax, says a University of Calgary economist.
Ken McKenzie, an economics professor, said Friday the government should
explore a consumption or sales tax, if it really wants to bring about dramatic
gains through tax reform.
SEPTEMBER 3-12
Edmonton and Alberta fire officials are scrambling to determine if their fitness
tests comply with a Supreme Court of Canada ruling against sexual
discrimination.
They stressed Friday that their tests are different from the ones in British
Columbia criticized by the judges.
The Supreme Court ordered B. C. to rehire and provide full back pay to a
female forest firefighter who was fired after she failed a running test in 1994.
The judges unanimously concluded the woman was capable of doing her job
and that the tests were wrongly designed with male physiology in mind.
See Canada Labour News For Full Coverage of this and other Pro-Labour Rulings from the Supreme Court
Premier Ralph Klein says he wants a flood of foreign investment and a
massive increase in free trade over the next five years to assure the province's
prosperity.
He'll court Japan's most powerful and influential investors with promises of a
favourable business climate and low taxes when he joins Prime Minister Jean
Chretien on a Team Canada mission starting today, Klein told The Journal.
The message will be simple and clear, he said. "Folks, if you want to invest in
Canada, Alberta is the place to invest."
Cardinal River Coals could be
forced to lay off many of its
workers in two years unless its
proposed Cheviot mine
receives speedy approval from
environmental review panel
meeting today in Hinton.
The new mine will replace the
nearby Luscar Mine, which is
expected to run out of coal
within four years. Construction
of the new mine has been delayed by court action brought by environmental
groups. The Cheviot mine would take at least three years to begin operations.
"We will start laying off people by early in 2002 unless we get approval," Bill
Hume, Cardinal River's general said Wednesday.
Hume, Hinton Mayor Ross Risvold and union leader Robin Campbell took
turns Wednesday slamming environmentalists during a news conference and
tour of the Luscar Mine and the proposed Cheviot site near Jasper Park.
For pipefitter Gary Peters, Monday's 10th
annual Labour Day barbecue at Giovanni
Caboto Park was an opportunity to give
thanks for 40 years of working. Thousands of people, many of them inner-city residents without jobs, stood in
lineups 200-deep all day Monday as 5,000 burgers, 3,000 hotdogs, 6,000
drinks and 9,000 oranges were served by bus drivers, plumbers, letter
carriers and truckers.
There was no irony in the thousands of jobless who had gathered on a day to
celebrate labour, said retired Edmonton bus driver Ernest Bastide, now
president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. "The labour movement has
always been involved in social-justice issues. We're trying to improve the lot
of the nation," Bastide said.
"We're not doing a good job taking care of the working class and the poor in
a province as rich as ours. But we do a good job taking care of Syncrude and
other large corporations," he said.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada has filed an application to represent
approximately 180 journalists and other newsroom staff at the Edmonton Journal.
The application for certification was filed with the Alberta Labour Relations Board yesterday, and the Board has scheduled a
hearing for September 14, 1999.
The Hansells would like anyone sincerely interested in helping rebuild a
country to contact them at 295-8403 or e-mail them at
[email protected].
High natural-gas prices will create massive revenues
for Alberta over the next two decades, but will also hurt the poor, says
Resource Development Minister Steve West.
West has advised a Tory legislature committee that U.S. demand for
Alberta gas is expected to hike prices by three to four per cent per year for
the next 20 years.
While the increase would be a boon to the province, it would hit
low-income wage earners extra hard, West said.
They've been given termination notices, but some Eaton's workers aren't ready
to give up their jobs just yet.
The sale of Zeidler Forest Industries Ltd. opens the door to the
potential return of the ousted International Woodworkers of
America, a union official said.
Six years ago, the IWA Local 1-207 was decertified in a labour
vote ending a bitter, seven-year strike by about 130 Zeidler staff.
Two days ago, West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. of Vancouver said
it will acquire Edmonton-based Zeidler for an undisclosed price.
Robert DeLeeuw, IWA financial secretary, said the purchase is a
good deal for Zeidler's 600 staff.
"The IWA is in some of the West Fraser mills in B.C.," said
DeLeeuw. He said some Zeidler staff who are former members
of the union remain in contact.
"We still have people in there who phone us once in a while," said
DeLeeuw.
Should the West Fraser deal go through, the union would wait for
contact by Zeidler staff and then assess how many may be
interested in unionization, said DeLeeuw.
Zeidler was started by William Zeidler in 1934 and has stayed in
the family, which has become a generous contributor to charity in
Edmonton.
But chairman and CEO Midge Zeidler told staff that because her
children live abroad there is no one left to carry on the tradition,
so she decided to sell.
The deal is expected to close by the end of October.
Zeidler operates a plywood plant in Edmonton and a veneer plant
in Slave Lake.
Its Alberta assets include timber cutting rights of about 500,000
cubic metres per year adjacent to West Fraser's existing Alberta
operations.
Zeidler also owns a veneer plant in McBride, B.C., but West
Fraser said it would like to sell that asset.
Russ Clinton, senior vice-president of corporate development for
West Fraser, said the status quo will prevail at Zeidler.
"We intend to maintain all employees," said Clinton.
The Zeidler strike was marred by violence.
Sixty Edmonton staff walked out in 1988, but only 40 remained
when the union was voted out and 33 went back to work.
About 95 Slave Lake staff set up picket lines earlier, in 1986.
Only a portion of them returned to duty as well.
The IWA now represents 1,500 Alberta forestry workers at
companies like Weyerhaeuser, Daishowa and Canfor.
Government employees who work with the mentally and physically
handicapped are raising an alarm about the effect which proposed funding
cuts are likely to have on the quality of care these people receive.
According to sources in the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, deep
cuts to Services to Persons with Disabilities will severely reduce the
contact clients have with the community; in some cases, it could be
reduced to zero.
Speaking on behalf of workers, who are prevented by a 'gag'-order from
speaking on these matters, AUPE Representative Brett Donaldson said
that the Edmonton Region of Family & Social Services is planning to cut
the Program by 10 per cent, which will affect the Eric Cormack Centre
and 13 community group homes that provide in-residence care.
"We are told that groups homes, for instance, can look forward to losing
one of three staff positions, which could only mean the person who takes
the clients out into the community," said Donaldson.
The President of the Union that represents government employees hopes
that the latest Cabinet shuffle means that his members can look forward to
a new approach from their employer.
According to Dan MacLennan the proof will come out over the next few
months at the bargaining table.
"We know that government can work, if it's given half a chance, and we
intend to give new Ministers every opportunity," said MacLennan.
"There's been a lot of restructuring and downsizing over the last few years,
and our members have borne the brunt of it. From that point-of-view, it's
probably a good thing that the people who presided over the cuts are
either gone or moved into new positions."
"However, the new Ministers had better start paying attention right away
to what our members are saying. We're going back to the bargaining table
for most of them, and they're firmly convinced that they have a lot of
catching-up to do, after all the wage cuts and downsizing."
Grande Prairie-Smoky MLA Walter Paszkowski is among 14 provincial ministers with new portfolios today after Premier
Ralph Klein made a major cabinet shuffle.
The former Transportation and Utilities minister will now lead the department of municipal affairs into the next millennium. He
says his experience in municipal government, 11 years as mayor and town councillor in Sexsmith, will now come in handy.
"It'll be different - I'll be meeting with municipal people again," said Paszkowski.
The municipal affairs department has also seen some shift in responsibility, now in charge of building codes and freedom of
information and privacy, moved from the eliminated labour department, while accountability for disaster services has followed
Paszkowski from his old portfolio. Consumer affairs and registries now fall under government services, a new department.
Ed Stelmach will replace Paszkowski as minister of infrastructure, an amalgamation of transportation and utilities with public
works supply and services.
Premier Ralph Klein put the finishing touches on a huge
government reorganization Wednesday, bringing an old face back to his cabinet
table and pulling up a chair for a former Liberal adversary.
Mike Cardinal, once a controversial minister of social services, came back from
three years in the political wilderness to take charge of Alberta�s forests.
Edmonton got a second voice in cabinet Wednesday, as Premier Ralph Klein
named former Liberal Gene Zwozdesky to a junior post as associate minister
of health and wellness.
Zwozdesky was elected as a Liberal for Edmonton-Mill Creek in 1993 and
served as treasury critic before jumping to the Tories last fall. He joins
Whitemud MLA David Hancock, who has been elevated to justice from
intergovernmental affairs.
Klein had been under pressure to name someone else from the capital region
and Zwozdesky said he will work to ensure Edmonton has a greater voice in
government. "It's important that there be a balance, not just between urban
and rural, but between the major cities," Zwozdesky said.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, who pioneered the era of smaller, leaner
governments, is expanding his cabinet and shifting his focus from budget
cutting to the "human economy."
In his first major restructuring since 1993, Klein boosted the size of his
cabinet Tuesday by two ministers and made a number of changes within
various departments designed to achieve specific results, such as better
learning and improved health.
All 19 ministers now in cabinet will stay, some with different responsibilities,
and two new members will be added from the backbenches. Klein will reveal
today who gets which portfolios, but Journal sources say David Hancock,
Edmonton's lone cabinet minister, will be elevated to the high-profile Justice
portfolio from Intergovernmental Affairs.
The Alberta government has just gotten bigger.
Premier Ralph Klein has announced the creation of seven new
government departments and three new associate ministries.
The ministers assigned to each
portfolio will be announced
Wednesday.
The ministries of Learning, Children's
Services, and Human Resources and
Employment will replace Education,
Advanced Education and Career Development, Family and
Social Services, the Children's Secretariat, and Labour.
Scientific Research will now come under the new department
of "Innovation and Science."
The responsibilities for transportation, public works and
school buildings will fall under the new "Infrastructure"
department.
Three associate ministries have been created, for forestry,
aboriginal affairs and "Health and Wellness."
In all, the number of cabinet positions has increased by two,
from 18 to 20. Klein says the restructured cabinet will not
cost any more to run than the previous structure.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, who pioneered the era of smaller, leaner
governments, is expanding his cabinet and
shifting his focus from budget cutting to the "human
economy."
In his first major restructuring since 1993, Klein boosted the size of his
cabinet Tuesday by two ministers and made a number of changes within
various departments designed to achieve specific results, such as better
learning and improved health.
Liberal Leader Nancy MacBeth called the reorganization "a smokescreen to
hide the problems this government hasn't dealt with at all."
She compared the size of cabinet with the 27 members of former premier
Don Getty's cabinet, which Klein had criticized as too big.
"It's interesting that the size of cabinet has gone from 21 in 1993 (including
standing policy committee chairs) to 26," she said. "Ministry expenditures
have gone up 18 per cent in those years. How much more do they want them
to go up?"
She also slammed the amalgamation of Education and Advanced Education.
"It's a huge, huge ministry, and it mixes some things that will be very
difficult, especially when education is in such disarray."
New Democrat Leader Pam Barrett called the changes "cabinet creep" and
called it an excuse for Klein to reward Tories with high-paying posts.
The changes mark a move away from government cost-cutting toward
bolstering the human side of the
economy, said political scientist Allan Tupper of the University of Alberta.
"It shifts the emphasis off the debt and deficit and onto a new economy
consisting of human capital," said Tupper.
Amid reports that the most recent sitting of the Legislative Assembly Alberta was a "snoozer" New Democrat Leader Pam
Barrett pointed out her party�s successes. She added that Klein�s Tories are "blinking" much more than they ever did, when
they face public pressure. "The Tories are blinking so fast, they can�t tell which direction they�re moving in," she said. "Come to
think of it, I can�t tell which direction they�re moving in either."
Rada Baljak, a life-long Calgary-born Liberal, was hoping
Wednesday to hear Prime Minister Jean Chretien better explain why her tax dollars
are being used to support the bombing of her family in Yugoslavia.
Before taking her seat at a $350-a-plate Liberal fund-raising dinner, Baljak
marched outside the Calgary convention centre with about 50 people protesting the
NATO bombing campaign. SEE LABOUR RESPONDS TO WAR IN KOSOVO (updated daily)
It's jobs, jobs and more jobs this summer at the Edmonton Hire-A-Student
office.
"We have way more jobs than we have students," says public relations
co-ordinator Kelly Nicol.
Nicol says there are 2,700 vacant employment listings posted for students.
The Hire-A-Student office received 200 job postings each day the week it
opened and is still getting a large response from potential employers. "There
are a lot of career-oriented jobs," says Nicol.
The average rate of pay is $8.40 an hour, which is a dollar higher than it was
last year.
Nicol says she thinks the large influx of jobs is due to the fact the economy in
Edmonton is doing well. A lot of students may also have had jobs lined up
before they finished school. As well, she says more employers know about
the Hire-A-Student program.
Most post-secondary students, says Nicol, are looking for a full-time position
that will allow them to save money for the school year. A solid 65 per cent of
job postings are for full-time positions.
The bloom is off Calgary's tourism rose, as it has been nipped by the
frostbite of less corporate travel and lack of promotional funding, says the
president of the Calgary Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Local hotels have already noted that business is down substantially in the
first few months of this year.
"Last year was a record-breaking year for the (Canadian) tourism industry
and Calgary lagged and continues to lag," bureau president Wayne
Peterson said Tuesday.
Peterson also blamed lack of provincial funding for tourism promotion funds
and the reorganization of Travel Alberta.
Pat Nelson, the province's economic development minister, pulled the plug
on the organization handling Alberta's tourism promotion in early 1998 after
it was criticized by the provincial auditor general.
Travel Alberta was reorganized after public input and is now negotiating
contracts for tourism promotion campaigns.
But Peterson said, "The window of opportunity is fast closing for 1999. It's
almost June, and the year is half over. The delay has been really costly."
The Alberta Human Rights Commission is
investigating the police department in Lethbridge after a former employee
complained she was the victim of racial and sexual discrimination.
Police Chief John LaFlamme said Wednesday commission investigators are
conducting interviews with department employees over the next couple of
days.
LaFlamme wouldn't say what the complaint was or who was involved. He
initially told the media the complaint was over sexual harassment, but later
admitted that was erroneous and amended his statement.
The Honourable Anne McLellan, Minister of
Justice, Attorney General of Canada and MP for Edmonton West, on behalf of the
Honourable Pierre S. Pettigrew, Minister of Human Resources Development
Canada, today announced Government of Canada funding of $346,565 for two
literacy-related projects.
The Government of Canada is participating, through the National Literacy
Secretariat (NLS), in these partnerships with the University of Alberta. The
projects address literacy issues affecting adult learners.
``These projects demonstrate the commitment of the Government of Canada
and its project partners to ensuring high literacy rates,'' said Minister
McLellan. ``Active involvement on the part of academic institutions is
important to the partnerships we need to forge if we are to advance literacy
in Canada.''
An Edmonton-based wilderness group says an ancient aboriginal gathering
place north of Fort McMurray deserves more than "postage stamp" sized
protection from Alberta.
Community Development Minister Shirley McClellan unveiled the Alberta
government's intention to designate 177 hectares of Cree Burn Lake as an
historic resource by late summer.
But Gray Jones, executive director of the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee executive director, said that protection doesn't go far enough.
"It is just a postage stamp," said Jones, adding at least 500 hectares are
needed to "preserve the integrity" of Cree Burn Lake's ecology and
archeology.
"You have to look at the context. Cree Burn Lake is what I call an
eco-musee. Eco-musee means a living museum: it's a place where natural
history and human history converge. It's been a gathering place of the Dene
for 8,000 to 10,000 years."
The historic designation would provide Alberta Environmental Protection
staff, who are responsible for the Cree Burn Lake area, a legal means to
restrict all-terrain vehicle users and campers from damaging the ancient
tool-making site.
What the designation doesn't include, however, is the namesake lake, which
miffs both Cree Burn Lake Society members Harvey Scanie and Lorraine
Hoffman.
While the government says excluding lakes is common, Jones isn't so sure.
He alleges oilsands mining adjacent to Cree Burn Lake will create
"devastating effects" on the land because the oilsand plants use large
amounts of water.
Terry Malanchuk and Edward Sandberg just want to live their life together
like every other couple; quietly, peacefully and out of the spotlight.
But in light of last week's Supreme Court decision expanding the definition of
spouse to encompass same-sex couples, they agreed to talk publicly about
the small and significant ways the ruling will affect their lives.
"It's about bloody time," Malanchuk said over the long weekend.
A Calgary club that will provide seriously ill patients a safe, reliable supply of
high quality marijuana to alleviate their suffering will be open by the middle of
June, says a pot crusader.
Grant Krieger, convicted last December of marijuana trafficking, says he
stopped visiting his probation officer in March because he questions the
legitimacy of any law denying him access to a drug that helps him cope with
his multiple sclerosis.
A Regina judge gave the 44-year-old Calgary resident an 18-month
suspended sentence in January and ordered him to report regularly to a
probation officer.
Krieger, who could be hauled back to court on a charge of breach of
probation, said he is lying low while he lines up sources of supply for his club,
Universal Compassion Club.
"I was nothing more than a political prisoner," Krieger said.
"Society doesn't have the right to tell me how to heal my body or what I may
or may not use in the healing process."
Owen Hart likely unhooked a
harness by accident, causing the pro wrestler to free fall
to his death, police said Tuesday. But family members
remained skeptical about whether the truth around the
failed stunt is coming out.
"It would be very convenient and Owen can�t defend
himself," his father Stu Hart said.
"I would say it would be 50-50 if they would be
completely honest. They could be quite deceptive."
The World Wrestling Federation star plunged nine storeys, head-first, to his death
Sunday. He was to be lowered from a catwalk into a ring in front of 18,000
spectators in an arena in Kansas City, Mo.
Premier Ralph Klein says it's too early to say whether the
government will comply with Thursday's Supreme Court of
Canada ruling granting spousal rights to same-sex couples.
Alberta pulp mills are demonstrating that
increased pulp and paper production and improving water quality can go
hand-in-hand.
Ongoing industrial effluent monitoring required by the provincial and
federal governments shows that efforts undertaken by pulp and paper
manufacturers have been very effective in protecting the environmental quality
of Alberta's waterways.
Provincial government statistics indicate Alberta pulp and paper mills
have steadily increased production since 1990. At the same time, the mills
have steadily decreased average daily loading rates for all commonly measured
effluent parameters.
The municipality and its employees have a deal which has both sides
smiling.
Wood Buffalo council approved the three-year deal last night which the
Canadian Union of Public Employees local 1505 ratified May 12.
"I think both sides are happy," said Deputy Mayor Phil Meagher.
"They tried an issues approach instead of position approach to bargaining."
The new contract will see the 200 members get a two-per-cent raise
retroactive to Jan. 1, and another two per cent June 30. On Jan. 1, 2000
and 2001, they'll get 2.5 per cent and two per cent respectively.
Other compensation included the return of the Blue Cross direct billing
card, increase in shift premiums and the ability for management to pay
above the job pay level to attract staff when the market is tight.
Summer students no longer have access to sick leave and temporary
employees can only get it when they work over 1,500 hours in a 30-month
period.
CUPE's last contract expired Dec. 31, 1998.
An organizing committee is speeding up plans for Grande Prairians to seriously talk about poverty.
At a meeting earlier this week, the committee decided to hold the "round table on poverty" sooner than later.
"We firmed up the planning committee and made the decision to hold the round-table on poverty in the fall," says Don Harper,
executive-director of the South Peace Social Planning Council.
The goal of the round table process is to bring together sectors of communties to work toward improvements in the lives of
people living in poverty.
The biggest reorganization of departments since Ralph Klein became premier
is expected to be announced next week along with a cabinet shuffle,
government sources say.
By HANK ZYP Western Catholic Reporter
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe thinks
westerners are coming around to the idea of Quebec sovereignty, despite
hearing some Albertans accuse his party of ethnic cleansing.
"The perceptions of sovereignty here is very different than a year ago,"
Duceppe said Thursday, the fourth and final day of his western tour.
"People are now discussing negotiating the debt. Before now, they were
saying there would be no negotiation at all. "
Duceppe noted westerners now use the term "sovereignty" rather than
"separatism" -- which he heard plenty during his visit to the West last year.
That, according to Duceppe, is progress.
Alberta�s provincial court judges will tuck an estimated
$25,000 in back pay into their robes next month after a court ruled that they can
collect a 19 per cent raise.
The Alberta government is appealing a January ruling that it acted unconstitutionally
last year in rejecting some of the salary recommendations made by a judicial
compensation commission.
The commission recommended boosting the annual salaries of Alberta judges to
$152,000 from $128,000, making them the highest-paid provincial judges in the
country.
The province wanted to hold off on the raises until the Court of Appeal rules. But in
a judgment released Thursday the Court of Appeal said the $25,000 increase for
each judge must go ahead.
It said continuing to pay a salary found unconstitutional could do irreparable harm.
Canada�s aerospace industry is so successful that it may be
out-growing the country, an industry conference was told Thursday.
"Some say Canada�s aerospace industry is so successful that Canada is now too
small for it," Daniel Verrault, vice-president of the Aerospace Industries Association
of Canada said in opening remarks to the Western Aerospace Conference in
Edmonton.
The $16-billion a year industry is posting record-breaking growth.
It recently edged out Japan to become the fifth-largest in the world in terms of sales
and is closing in on Germany for the number four spot, said Dave Caplan, president
of Pratt and Whitney Canada.
Caplan said if Canada plans to hang on to that status, it must fix tax, education,
human resources and regulatory problems that threaten growth.
One of the keys to meeting skills shortages is finding cost-effective ways to deliver
lifelong training for workers before they enter the workforce, said Gary Wolfe,
president of Alberta Aerospace Association.
Advanced Education Minister Clint Dunford said Alberta has to find ways to use
down cycles to help fund and encourage retraining of workers who would
otherwise be laid off.
"The key is to be able to forecast those cycles, who is going to need people where
and when. We need a clearer understanding of this business cycle before we can do
that."
Alberta is willing to work with industry on innovative models that encourage, rather
than subsidize, Dunford stressed.
A study by Alberta Economic Development released Thursday suggests Alberta�s
low-tax, low-cost environment means electronics and avionics companies can save
up to 36 per cent in annual operating costs by operating in this province.
Please find enclosed the agenda of the Leader of
the Bloc Qu�b�cois, Gilles Duceppe, for the week of May 17, 1999, when he will
be on tour in British Columbia and Alberta as part of the Bloc Qu�b�cois forum
on partnership. Times and activities are subject to change. Please note that
times are local.
Workers who serve in the 'caring' occupations are most likely to suffer
injury, disease, or even death at the hands of the people who they serve.
These problems will be the focus of discussion by health & safety activists
at a two-day Occupational Health & Safety Conference sponsored by the
ALBERTA UNION OF PROVINCIAL EMPLOYEES that kicks off in
Edmonton tomorrow.
According to Conference Moderator, AUPE Vice-President Peggy
Hoffman, the Conference is part of the Union's strategy to attract more
attention to the growing amount of violence against workers in the
workplace.
"Unfortunately, this is a problem that has been kept under covers," said
Hoffman. "Events such as the National Health and Safety Week tend to
perpetuate the idea that most workplace injuries occur because of 'slips,
trips, and falls,' in effect, something that workers do to themselves."
"This is not the case at all. Most injuries and deaths are not 'accidental';
they occur because of unsafe workplaces and situations in which workers
have very little control."
"This is clearly illustrated in the growing incidence of violent acts against
Alberta workers. WCB statistics show these have been increasing steadily
since 1990. In 1998, there were 1064 assault claims filed at the WCB,
compared to 977 claims in 1997, and 542 � about half the number � in
1990."
"The vast majority of these 'accident events' involve persons in care hitting,
kicking, beating or biting the person who is taking care of them. There is
also growing concern about diseases such as Hepatitis or the HIV virus
being transmitted through bodily fluids in the course of these attacks."
"Hospitals and acute care centres are the top list of workplaces where this
happens, followed by long term care facilities, cities, rehabilitation
services, Alberta Government health, social and field services. Guards and
watchmen are the people most often assaulted, followed closely by
medical staff, government, personal service and social service workers."
"This is why our Union has organized this Conference. The theme is
'Stemming the Violence in the Workplace', and we'll be deciding what
further action we can take to protect our members at work."
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles
Duceppe tapped into Western dissension Wednesday
by pointing out Albertans and Quebecers share a
disdain for the federal Liberal government.
"Despite our differences, we have many things in
common," Duceppe told a business group during a
luncheon in the heart of Reform country.
"Here, as in Quebec, the majority of people did not
vote for this Liberal government," he said. "Canada is
under an Ontario Liberal dictatorship."
Peppering his speech with the word "partnership," Duceppe urged westerners to
celebrate his party�s prediction - a sovereign Quebec.
The Independent Assessment Team (IAT) has advised
Alberta Energy Minister Steve West that draft Power Purchase Arrangements
(PPAs) will be completed on May 31, 1999 and made available to stakeholders
for review and comment. After this review, the final report and PPAs will be
submitted to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) early in July.
``These arrangements are an important step in the transition from the
regulated system Alberta had to a competitive marketplace for the electric
industry,'' said IAT's Keith Anderson. The IAT is led by
PricewaterhouseCoopers, international consultants on electric industry
restructuring, together with Charles River Associates (CRA) of Boston and
Market Design Inc. (MDI) of Washington, DC, specialists in auction design. The
IAT is appointed by the Minister under the provisions of the Electric
Utilities Act.FACT SHEETS ON THE PPAs AND AUCTION ARE AVAILABLE ON THE IAT'S WEB SITE:
www.pwcstt.com
Look for: What's New: May 18, 1999 Newsbriefing background materials.
The day after the Alberta government
passed contentious Bill 31, the Agricultural Dispositions Statutes Amendment
Act, angry ranchers and farmers, along with representatives of the oil and gas
industry, descended upon the Western Premiers' Conference at the Royal Tyrrell
Provincial Museum. Arriving mostly on horseback, the ranchers are upset with
provisions in the legislation which include eliminating the role of the
Surface Rights Board in resolving disputes and the breaking of lease contract
rights without compensation.
``Despite the government's assurances that grazing leases would be
respected, Bill 31 takes away fundamental rights and our ability to be
stewards of the land,'' said Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association
spokesman, Tim Andrew. ``More importantly, they are terminating the role of
government agencies like the EUB and the Surface Rights Board which have
protected us.''
International trade
disputes and demands for more federal education
spending topped the agenda of the annual meeting of
Western premiers Wednesday.
But a mounting dispute with angry cattle ranchers took
centre stage and threatened to put conference host
Premier Ralph Klein on the defensive.
A group of at least 200 ranchers and cattlemen -
including more than 65 cowboys on horseback - rallied
outside the famed Royal Tyrell Museum in this community nestled in the wild
Alberta badlands.
They are upset with Bill 31, legislation which would see government coffers - not
the ranchers - receive close to $40 million a year in compensation from petroleum
companies for access to exploration and drilling sites on Crown land leased to the
cattlemen.
"We�re given compensation for oil and gas development on these leased properties
in order to make up for the loss of use, adverse effects and inconveniences of
having industrial development in a fragile landscape," said Tim Andrew of the
Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.
Klein said the bill was passed in the Alberta legislature but won�t be made law until
ranchers, energy companies and the government discuss how oil and gas
compensation will be shared by the farmers and government.
The next time you log on to Syncrude's
internet website, (http://www.syncrude.com), you'll find a brand new look,
complete with a number of new features.
Coincident with its enhanced web presence, Syncrude has made a commitment
to subsidize community internet access at the Fort McMurray Public Library
with a $30,000 contribution over three years. The contribution will enable the
library to cut in half the fees for public access to the internet. An
estimated 3,200 residents used the library's internet access last year.
``We hope this commitment will reduce economic barriers local residents
may face in getting access to the internet,'' said Eric Newell, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of Syncrude. ``The internet is the world's fastest
growing communications and information medium and it's especially vital to
people who live in remote areas such as Wood Buffalo. We must be connected to
the rest of the world, so I'm pleased that Syncrude has struck a new
partnership with the Library to encourage public use of computers and the
internet.''
Syncrude Canada Ltd. today released its
annual report on the world wide web.
The report shows that annual Syncrude Sweet Blend shipments were 76.7
million barrels, the 17th annual record in 20 years of operations. Total unit
costs, at $13.57 per barrel, were the lowest in Syncrude's history. Capital
expenditures were a record-breaking $481 million dollars, almost 35 percent
higher than the $355 million invested in 1997.
The spring sitting of the Alberta legislature may be
remembered more for what it didn't accomplish -- as was the case last
session and the session before that.
The Natural Heritage Act, a centrepiece of the current session that would
streamline dozens of environmental laws, was left to languish on the order
paper as the session wrapped up Tuesday night. Twice last year, the government was forced to yank key legislation -- Bill
37, which would regulate private hospitals -- amid public distrust about what
the Tories would do with that power.
So deep was the fear, the government never got around to reintroducing
what critics referred to as Son of 37. It remains in limbo.
Several hundred ranchers and members of the oil
and gas industry and other interested parties plan to let Premier Ralph Klein
know how they feel about Alberta legislation drastically changing the face of
Crown grazing leases when Provincial Premiers meet near Drumheller this week.
Reform MP Peter Goldring wants to get out of the inner-city landlord
business after a tenant called health authorities into a dispute over leaky
plumbing.
Before he became an MP, Goldring and his wife, Lorraine, bought about 10
rental houses in the inner city as a "sort of pension plan," he said.
But once he got into politics, he ran into tenants who were using his position
as the MP for Edmonton-East against him, he said.
"It was my intention to putter and paint when I could, but things have changed
a little bit. We've got for-sale signs on them exactly because of this. My
conscience is clean on these properties."
The latest dispute is between the Goldrings and Bev Nilson, who on May 2
moved into one of the Goldring houses at 11460 95th St.
With its deficit gone and the economic outlook strong, the
Alberta government is under renewed pressure to spend, Premier Ralph Klein said
Monday. Economic growth is placing demands on health, education and other
services.
It has weakened the resolve even of the Klein revolution�s staunch supporters, he
told the Fraser Institute.
Even his predecessor, former Conservative premier Don Getty, criticized the Klein
government for breaking the health care and education systems last month before
receiving the Order of Canada.
The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, where Klein is the patron saint of fiscal
conservatism, awarded him a third-straight fiscal performance award.
It�s given to the Canadian premier or U.S. governor with the best record based on
economic data.
"I don�t have to tell you which premier comes out on the bottom of this list," joked
institute head Michael Walker.
It was one of many jibes aimed at B.C. Premier Glen Clark, most of them from
Klein himself.
The NDP premier, said Klein, was Alberta�s unofficial economic development
minister.
"We�re absolutely thrilled, to be honest, with the work Glen Clark�s been doing to
promote Alberta�s advantages to Canada and the world," he told the luncheon
audience of more than 600.
Five years of intense debate and
negotiations end today when the province
grants full environmental protection to
28,000 hectares of southern Alberta
wilderness known as the Whaleback.
Alberta intends to protect the unique and
undisturbed montane landscape and
forested ridges, 130 kilometres southwest
of Calgary, under its Special Places 2000
program.
Most of the site will be designated a
wildland, blocking road access, logging,
mining and recreational development from
the ecologically pristine area.
Opposition parties are dismissing Premier Ralph Klein's musings about
slashing the number of city MLAs as "political posturing" that would put him at
odds with the courts.
The premier's proposal to chop the number of city MLAs is empty rhetoric
because the courts wouldn't let him do it, Liberal Leader Nancy MacBeth
said Monday.
Government-run VLTs and casino slot machines are cutting into bingo
revenues, while inflexible regulations handicap the ability of bingo halls to fight
back, charity groups say.
Gaming regulators won't influence a committee reviewing Alberta's
$50-million bingo industry despite their mistaken effort to make changes
ahead of the review, the committee is promising.
The testimony of a Crown witness may have thrown some doubt on the case of two Hythe-area men accused of oilpatch
vandalism.
Edmonton criminal lawyer Paul Moreau hinted to that conclusion after the witness testified at the preliminary hearing of his client
Wiebo Ludwig.
Ludwig, 57, and Richard Boonstra, represented by lawyer Richard Secord of Edmonton, each face 18 conspiracy and mischief
charges in connection with incidents in the northern Alberta oilpatch.
"The evidence we heard from the witness was of extreme significance," Moreau said outside Grande Prairie provincial court
Friday.
"The Crown obviously wants the weekend to consider the effect of it. It may certainly have a direct impact on the disposition of
the case one way or the other."
A publication ban was issued on the evidence.
Two jets broke Canadian aviation rules coming within less than
2,000 feet of each other over northern Alberta after a fatigued air
traffic controller briefly zoned out, the worker's union says.
The Canadian Air Traffic Control Association, which represents
the country's 2,100 air traffic controllers, said yesterday the
controller has been disciplined as a result of the incident about 10
days ago.
"Basically he had a situation where two aircraft came too close
and he was removed from active duty, pending investigation,"
CATCA vice-president Tony Rushton said yesterday.
The NATO bombing in the Balkans must stop immediately, urged the
majority of people who attended a public forum in downtown Edmonton on
Saturday.
The emotionally charged forum, sponsored by the Edmonton Multicultural
Society, attracted about 150 people -- including many of Serbian descent --
to the Stanley A. Milner Library.
Besides urging an end to the bombing, those at the forum passed several
resolutions, including one calling on Parliament "to start negotiating for peace
in the Balkans or else get out of NATO."
Another resolution called for Canadian troops involved in the NATO
operations in the Balkans to return home.
There was applause for speakers who denounced the bombing campaign and
several choruses of boos during remarks by an Albanian-Canadian, who
supports the bombing.
Edmonton and Calgary could lose some MLAs after the next election,
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein hinted Saturday.
"We are considering it," he told listeners on a radio call-in show, after
someone asked whether his government is looking at trimming the size of
Alberta's 83-member legislature.
Klein indicated he's not willing to eliminate ridings in the province's rural areas
because some are so large it takes a day or two to traverse them.
b>
A mining company is trying to revive a contentious
open-pit coal mine project just outside Jasper National Park that was
quashed by a court last month.
Cardinal River Coals Ltd. filed notice Friday to appeal a Federal Court of
Canada decision which overturned previous approval from Ottawa for the
Cheviot mine.
Fred Munn, project manager for Cardinal River, said the operator is
working on two fronts to get the mine back on track.
Along with the legal appeal Cardinal River is talking to government agencies
to try to reconvene a federal-provincial environmental panel, he said. The
company wants the panel to deal with four issues cited by the court in its
ruling.
"Our preference would be to have the panel reconvened and deal with
those four issues," Munn said.
The court ruled that a federal environmental assessment must consider all
industrial development in a region -- not just the project under review.
It said the panel didn't consider key information and should have done more
to get it.
Environmentalists hailed the decision as a major victory.
Though it protected 28,000 hectares of the Whaleback this
week, Alberta's Special Places 2000 program remains a
washout, environmentalists say.
Critics of the provincial program say it has offered only
limited protection against development and set aside only
a portion of Alberta's environmentally sensitive lands.
"Special Places was a commitment to establish a network
of protected
areas based on scientific principles and, in those terms, it has been a
failure and we expect it will continue to be a failure," said Dave Poulton of
the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
While a 1989 United Nations' report on sustainable development said all
governments should protect at least 12 per cent of their land from growth,
Alberta has set aside less than 11 per cent -- and most of that belongs to
existing federal national parks such as Banff and Jasper.
A national safety group said today that Alberta
needs to do more to reduce the number of truck drivers killed or injured in
big truck collisions.
Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways (CRASH) was responding to
news reports of a truck driver who died in hospital following a semi-trailer
collision earlier this week.
``About as many truck drivers get killed in Alberta as in Ontario, even
though Ontario has three times the population and far more trucking activity.
On average, there are 15 truck drivers killed and 450 injured annually in
Alberta and this is far too high,'' CRASH Executive Director Bob Evans said
today.
Nortel Networks, Canada�s largest
telecommunications equipment maker, is cutting 1,000
jobs and selling plants in North America and Europe as
it focuses on software development instead of
manufacturing. The restructuring, first outlined in
January, will have a big impact on Nortel�s Canadian
operations, which employ 23,000 people.
About 400 are expected to lose their jobs through
attrition, early retirement or layoffs. In addition, Nortel
plans to sell plants employing 2,000 other workers.
Nortel�s payroll-cutting may come as an ugly surprise,
considering how the high-tech company constantly
carps about its inability to find enough skilled workers.
"But it�s only certain types of people who are becoming more in demand," said Paul
Holman, industry analyst at Dominion Bond Rating Service in Toronto. "These are
the software people, the Internet people."
Workers who make printed circuit boards, for example, have a much dimmer future
because their jobs can be handled by robots.
"The idea of a guy labouring over a board is gone," Holman said.
That�s why Nortel plants and repair centres in the Ontario cities of Belleville,
Brockville, Toronto and Mississauga will be sold, along with assembly operations in
Calgary and the Montreal area.
The community feeling the most pain will be Belleville in eastern Ontario, where
Nortel is the third-largest employer with 1,100 workers.
Nortel will maintain its research and development and customer support units, but
will eliminate 350 Belleville jobs and sell its circuit-board manufacturing unit, with
370 more. Other manufacturing duties will be moved to other Nortel plants.
If buyers can�t be found for the manufacturing plants, the company may close them.
Nortel�s announcement left "workers and their families in shock," said Buzz
Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union.
Nortel Networks unveiled major restructuring plans Thursday
which brought both good and bad news to the company�s 3,000 Calgary
employees.
In a strong vote of confidence for the city, Nortel chose Calgary as one of seven
sites in the world where it will develop and test high-tech telecommunications
software. But as the company prepares to shed its role as a manufacturer of basic
telecommunications hardware, Nortel announced it is cutting jobs and closing
plants.
In Calgary, Nortel predicted as many as 50 jobs, mostly manufacturing positions,
would be eliminated when a plant that produces Northstar telephones is moved to
Mexico.
Nortel said it plans to contract out much of its assembly, repair and production
duties around the world.
A Statistics Canada survey on the financial health of
Canadians is an unwarranted breach of privacy and people should think twice
before taking part, Alberta�s information watchdog warned Wednesday.
"Personally, I would not participate in this survey if approached," said Information
and Privacy Commissioner Bob Clark.
"The amount and level of personal information being asked is unreasonable and
Statistics Canada must be made aware of this."
Approximately 2,500 households in Alberta have been randomly selected by
Statistics Canada to participate in the Survey of Financial Security. It will measure
the income, assets and debts of Canadian families.
Maryanne Webber, director of income statistics for Statistics Canada, said it would
be difficult to trust the data if Albertans didn�t participate.
About 1,000 Suncor Energy employees will find out May 18 if the tentative
agreement reached last week between their union and their bosses will be
ratified.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 707 and
Suncor have been working on the deal since Feb. 1, said CEP
secretary-treasurer Roy Young.
"Suncor and CEP agreed we would not be making statements to the press
during the negotiations or on the details of the agreement until it's been
ratified," he told Today this morning.
"We started negotiating in February, and a lot of work went on in the last
seven days of negotiations. It was yesterday morning that we reached the
tentative agreement."
The threat to air safety ``reached a new high''
over Alberta during the past week after several air traffic controllers were
ordered to work extended shifts with insufficient rest time, the controllers'
union said today.
Tony Rushton, Vice-President, Technical, of the Canadian Air Traffic
Control Association, which represents the country's 2,100 air traffic
controllers, said that last Friday ``two controllers in Edmonton were ordered
to work a 16-hour shift that ended at 7 a.m. and to return eight hours later
for another full shift.''
The Alberta government is violating its own human rights law by paying pension
benefits to widows and widowers based on their marital status, says the report
of an Alberta Human Rights Commission investigation.
But Social Services Minister Lyle Oberg says he's not planning any changes to
the Alberta Widows' Pension Act until a final ruling is handed down on the
matter. "We'll see what happens," he said Monday.
Investigator Darryl Aarbo concluded the program "discriminates on the basis of
marital status" because it pays higher benefits to widows and widowers than
divorced or single people can obtain under other government programs.
"We are aggressively chasing the new capital we need to continue
our four-year plan but have not yet concluded a transaction," Kevin
Benson, Canadian's president and chief executive officer, wrote in
a recent memo to his 17,000 workers. "We continue to monitor
cash carefully but we do not believe that we will run out of
resources or go broke in the next year."
Yet, as the Calgary-based company prepares to release its
first-quarter results this morning, some analysts are not so sure. It is
expected to announce a loss of between $100-million and
$140-million, and some analysts say that will draw cash reserves
perilously low.
"They're right on track for another cash crisis," said one analyst,
referring to 1992 and 1996, when the company restructured to
stave off collapse.
Calgary Herald management is dictating the contents of union
bargaining updates, say frustrated employees trying to hammer out their first
contract.
"The headline today is CENSORED," said Joy Langan, national negotiator for the
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, after a bargaining
session Monday.
Premier Ralph Klein says there's a role for opposition MLAs to play in a
parliamentary democracy - providing it's constructive.
After telling a Conservative policy conference Saturday he sees "no
justification" for the official Opposition Liberals to exist, Klein softened his
position somewhat Sunday. But Klein said he didn't regret making the
comment, even though Liberal Leader Nancy MacBeth denounced him for
being undemocratic.
Liberal Leader Nancy MacBeth is under no illusions
about what it will take to topple the Alberta Tories and Premier Ralph Klein,
but she says her party is well on its way to facing that herculean task.
MacBeth -- a former Tory cabinet minister who lost out to Klein for the
party's leadership in 1993 -- and about 200 party faithful have gathered in
the heart of Klein's southern Alberta stronghold for their annual convention
today and Sunday.
Much of the convention's activity is aimed at strengthening the party's
constituency associations and beginning preparations for a provincial election
that is still about two years away.
But a poll conducted after the March 11 provincial budget contained some
disheartening numbers for MacBeth, who trailed Klein by a massive margin
as to who would make the best premier.
"There is a need for us to come hard at this government," she said. "We
know we have a big mountain to climb, but we're ready to work on that."
In her keynote speech Friday night, MacBeth scolded the Tories for "their
nonchalant write-offs of debts owed by powerful corporations, like Alpac
and Millar Western while they deny money for schools and hospitals."
Alberta has the highest rate of gun ownership in Canada, a sobering statistic in light
of this week�s tragic school shooting in Taber, Alta.
About 39 per cent of homes in Alberta contain a gun, according to figures from the
Department of Justice. That�s half again as many as the Canadian average of 26 per
cent, the Globe and Mail reported Friday.
New Brunswick has the second highest gun ownership rate with 35 per cent of
homes containing a firearm, followed by Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, tied at
32 per cent.
Though gun law opponents have been quick to dismiss any link between the
abundance of firearms in Alberta and Wednesday�s shocking shooting in the small
farming community of Taber, the troubling question is being raised.
Two students were gunned down in W. R. Myers high school; one died, the other
was seriously injured. A 14-year-old boy has been charged with first-degree
murder and attempted murder.
The provincial government needs to make numerous changes to its laws
before it complies with the UN convention on the rights of children, says a
legal research group.
In January, Premier Ralph Klein wrote a letter to Prime Minister Jean
Chretien supporting its ratification by the federal government in 1991.
While other provinces had endorsed the convention, Alberta withheld support
out of concern it could erode parents' rights.
Klein said Alberta legislation had been reviewed to ensure it complies with the
document and it "more than meets the standards set out."
But a study by the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre released Tuesday
indicates there are still problems, said Linda McKay-Panos, the group's
executive director .
Alberta union employees at Finning (Canada),
have approved a three-year contract which provides for a 6.6
percent wage increase and a $300 signing bonus. The 820 members
of Local Lodge 99, International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers, voted in favour of the new settlement which was
unanimously recommended by its bargaining committee.
The wage agreement calls for 1.5 percent in the first year, 2
percent in the second and 3 percent in the third year. The
settlement also provides for increased Company contributions to
the health benefits plan, pension formula and tool allowance
program. The Company and union agreed to a five percent reduction
in wage rates for new apprentices to meet current provincial
standards.
An American organization that teaches civil disobedience is
coming to the city in September to help launch a new wave of
"in-your-face" protests against the environmental policies of
the provincial government.
The Ruckus Society, http://www.ruckus.org/
which has put on training camps for
organizations such as Greenpeace and Earth First, boasts a
large number of arrests for people who attend its camps and
then participate in protest campaigns.
Environmentalist Brian Staszenski says Albertans are "angry
and fed up" with the Klein government's environmental
record.
An Edmonton agency is facing closure over a shakeup in
provincially funded job placement programs.
Options for Women has been helping unemployed women
with job and career counselling for 17 years. Now executive
director Celia McDonagh says the agency could shut down
because the province won't fund job-placement services
targeted to women or other specialized groups.
Options used to receive federal funding, but a labour market
agreement between Ottawa and the provinces shifted
responsibility to Alberta Career Development.
Department officials have told McDonagh the province won't
fund job-placement services specifically aimed at groups such
as women, youth, or older workers. To receive contract
funding, job-placement services must accept all participants.
Jean Sheppard
shudders as the April
breeze wafts the
stench of hydrogen
sulphide-laced natural
gas from a cluster of
pipeline valves toward
her and her husband,
David.
The valve cluster,
located 400 metres
from the Sheppards'
log house, is a
junction in a pipeline
system that gathers
natural gas containing
up to 32% hydrogen
sulphide, or H2S,
from wells scattered among the foothills of the Castle River area,
about 200 kilometres southwest of Calgary. And it has become the
focal point of a dispute between the Sheppards and a major
natural-gas producer.
In a hearing late last week before the Alberta Energy and Utilities
Board (AEUB), the Sheppards demanded Shell Canada Ltd., the
system's operator, replace a defective pipeline and move the cluster,
known as Junction J.
The Sheppards say Junction J and defects in one of the lines that
serves it have transformed their idyllic rural retirement into an
annoying, at times frightening drama of frequent gas flaring, constant
maintenance work and vehicle traffic, and occasional whiffs of the
lethal sour gas.
Six employees at the Beaverlodge Research Farm walked off the job this week as part of a nationwide series of rotating strikes
by seven groups of General Labour and Trades.
The 14,500 disgruntled workers, represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), are demanding wage
increases and the end of different rates of pay in different provinces for the same positions.
"They haven't had a raise since a three per cent hike in 1992," said PSAC representative Joanna Miazga.
The employees has also been without a contract since 1997.
Rotating strike action began on Jan. 18, but picketers in places like Edmonton have picked up the pace.
"In front of Canada Place, we've been running 24 hour pickets, seven days a week, for the last three weeks," explained Miazga.
"So they're pretty serious."
Racism is alive and well in the province, claims the Alberta
Federation of Labour, and it wants to help change that.
About 30 unionists from across the province met at AFL
headquarters in Edmonton Saturday -- the International Day
for the Elimination of Racism -- to discuss the problem of
"systemic racism" in the workplace and even in the ranks of
its own unions.
Racism is alive and well in the province, claims the Alberta
Federation of Labour, and it wants to help change that.
About 30 unionists from across the province met at AFL
headquarters in Edmonton Saturday -- the International Day
for the Elimination of Racism -- to discuss the problem of
"systemic racism" in the workplace and even in the ranks of
its own unions.
The Alberta government's opposition to gay marriages was
criticized Saturday during a forum to discuss racial
discrimination.
University of Alberta research associate Reva Joshee said
the issue is an example of "systemic discrimination" that
needs to be addressed like other forms of inequality.
About 80 people attended the gathering to celebrate the
International Day to Eliminate Racial Discrimination today.
This annual event commemorates the March 21, 1960,
killing of 67 anti-apartheid demonstrators by police in
Sharpeville, South Africa.
The Edmonton Police Service is outpacing its Calgary
colleagues in the hiring of more women, visible minorities
and aboriginals.
Statistics from the human resources departments of both
services show the Edmonton advantage.
The provincial government should shelve proposed
legislation to change Alberta's wilderness protection system
until concerns about it are settled, speakers told a rally
Saturday.
The Natural Heritage Act will reclassify the current
protected areas structure with a system of ecological
preserves, wildland parks, provincial parks, heritage
rangelands and recreation areas.
But critics say the proposed act would allow logging, mining
and oil and gas development to be introduced or renewed in
parks and wilderness preserves.
Once a stock-market darling, Fracmaster Ltd.'s fall
from grace hit a new low Friday as the Calgary oilfield
service company declared itself insolvent and received
court protection from creditors.
It will be 15 years this Aug. 12 since Lenny Breau was found dead
at the bottom of a swimming pool in Los Angeles. The coroner's
initial verdict was "misadventure." Within a day, it was revised to
murder.
Breau had been strangled before his body was put in the water. And
so ended the life of a brilliant jazz guitarist, only 43 years old and
already a legend. The case remains unsolved to this day -- not for
lack of a suspect, but for lack of evidence.
The Genius of Lenny Breau, an expansive new Canadian
documentary directed by John Martin, identifies the suspect openly,
and with the clear sanction of the Los Angeles Police Department. It
reveals publicly what Breau's friends and admirers in the jazz world
have long believed privately.
Even left unproven, it's a startling disclosure. But this two-hour film,
which premieres Tuesday on Bravo!, is more than a mere whodunit;
it's a celebration of an extraordinary, self-invented musician who
quietly revolutionized the way the guitar could be played.
Alberta Treasurer Stockwell Day
introduced sweeping tax reforms
Thursday that will include an
eventual savings for single-income
families of thousands of dollars a
year.
Federal prison guards here are calling for the removal of
three of their top union officials who recently crossed a
picket line to attend a ceremony honouring the new warden
at Edmonton Institution.
The blue collar workers on the picket line belong to the
Public Service Alliance of Canada which has been on
rotating strikes since mid-January.
Speaker from Nicaragua gives Alberta High School students a personal portrayal of child labour problem
deregulation of the electric industry, which began in 1995, is still unfolding and will result in more competition and
customer choice. Municipalities are also still waiting for a provincial stance on municipally owned pubic utilities.
Lee said Grande Prairie will also keep a close eye on Edmonton and Calgary city councils which have been bandying about
selling their utility entities.
About 80 environmentalists demonstrated in front of the
legislature building Thursday for a noon-hour protest that
coincided with similar events in Toronto and Halifax to mark
a national day of action on endangered species.
After a second futile meeting with Labour Minister Murray
Smith, the president of the Alberta Pine Shakes Homeowners
Association says lawsuits could soon be filed as thousands of
people try to recoup their losses over rotting roofs.
Edmonton Journal Budget Stories Special
Kim Trynacity was coming to a new job in Edmonton when
CBC reporters last threatened to strike in 1996, and wasn't
sure if she'd end up walking a picket line or gathering news.
An eleventh-hour settlement ended that dispute and the
possibility of the first strike by reporters and other CBC
employees belonging to the Canadian Media Guild.
Trynacity, a television reporter, is now a guild
vice-president.
She'll be the union's main local spokesperson if the 90 to
100 radio and television reporters and editors in Edmonton
strike as threatened today at 10 a.m. Negotiations were
expected to go all night.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein turned comedian Thursday night
at his annual fund-raising dinner, unleashing a bizarre volley of shots at several of his
provincial colleagues.
Klein - who earlier in the day announced his government is considering legislation to
allow gay and lesbian couples to be allowed to register their partnerships but not to
marry - began his speech by saying he feels pretty good about the state of the
province and his job.
About 10 local representatives from the city, county, chamber and local business got together Wednesday behind closed doors
to discuss a united front for an upcoming public meeting on the plight of Grande Alberta Paper.
Mayor Gord Graydon said the group, which supports the $900 million GAP mill - a project put on hold due to a possible
timber shortage - wants to make sure as many people as possible show up at the Muskoseepi Park Pavilion Monday for the
meeting.
GAP's biggest concern is the size of the Chinchaga area to be protected as a part of Special Places 2000. The North Peace site
recommended by the Chinchaga local committee affects its forest management agreement areas and GAP says it will reduce its
timber supply enough to make the proposed pulp and paper mill unfeasible.
The city is asking the province to host a regional meeting in Grande Prairie to help address affordable housing needs.
The community development committee Monday - after reviewing a letter from Municipal Affairs Minister Iris Evans outlining
provincial initiatives to tackle Alberta's affordable housing needs - requested the city approach the province about hosting the
meeting.
How does Suncor Energy create value?
That's the question posed on the cover of Suncor's 1998 annual report filed
Wednesday.
Company president and CEO Rick George said creating value involves
strategy, performance and growth.
Liberal MLA Sue Olsen says a video of her asking
questions in the legislature is being used to silence Alberta
Justice staff who have sexual harassment concerns.
A tape of her questioning Justice Minister Jon Havelock
about sexual harassment during last fall's sitting was shown
to court security officers in Edmonton, Olsen said Tuesday.
Edmonton Journal Budget Stories Special
Last-ditch talks are continuing between the CBC and the
Canadian Media Guild to avert a national strike Friday that
includes more than 90 Edmonton television and radio
journalists.
"We're encouraged that talks are still going on," said Kim
Trynacity, vice-president of the Edmonton local of the guild.
"We had hoped it wouldn't reach this stage.
"There is a chance a settlement will be reached before the
strike deadline," said Trynacity, also a reporter for the local
CBC TV news show at 6 p.m.
The Department of National Defence trucked about 1,000
FNs to Edmonton for use in a sculpture which received a
$250,000 federal Millennium Bureau grant and is intended to
provoke discussion on the nature of violence.Bromley and fellow sculptor Wallis Kendal plan to open their
display at the Edmonton Art Gallery Jan. 20, 2000. It will then
go on a world tour. Information on the gun sculpture project is available on the
Internet at www.ihuman.org
A leaking landfill should convince St. Albert city council to
steer clear of reviving a controversial bypass highway idea,
environmentalists said Tuesday.
Methanex shuts down Medicine Hat plant
Methanex today announced the shutdown of its
260,000 tonne per year methanol plant at Medicine Hat, Alberta.
Trimark Investment Management Inc.
(``Trimark''), Toronto, Ontario, announced that 772,800 common shares
(``Shares'') of Athabasca Oil Sands Trust have been acquired by mutual funds
sponsored by Trimark (``Trimark Funds'') in open-market purchases through the
facilities of The Toronto Stock Exchange. Trimark Funds now hold in aggregate
3,872,300 Shares, or 14.3 per cent of the issued and outstanding Shares of
Athabasca Oil Sands Trust.
Alberta's new budget improves Alberta's quality-of-life
programs without sacrificing fiscal responsibility, Premier
Ralph Klein said Saturday on his province-wide radio show.
Health and education got healthy budget increases because
citizens felt it was time, the Conservative leader said.
A group of Alberta native bands, backed by aboriginal groups in
two other provinces, has launched a lawsuit against the federal and
Alberta governments to challenge the 69-year-old agreement that
ceded control of natural resources to the provinces.
The move is the most significant development yet in natives'
attempts to get a share of billions of Western Canadian resource
dollars.
At issue is the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement of 1930,
which gave control of Crown lands to provincial governments - land
that the native bands say they never surrendered in the first place.
Community league officials confirm they took city police
advice and cancelled a hall booking for a fund-raising event
for a couple facing marijuana-growing charges.
Certified General Accountants are urging
Alberta's Minister of Finance to eliminate the .5% flat tax on taxable income
and the 8% surtax. ``These taxes were introduced to eliminate the deficit, and
with that accomplished there is no need for government to continue digging
into taxpayer's pockets,'' said John Carpenter, BA, FICB, FCGA, Executive
Director of CGA Alberta.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein hinted Tuesday there
may be new laws for removing VLTs after a judge ruled the province
overstepped its bounds on the issue.
"We've got a real problem," said Klein. "There might have to be some
legislative changes."
Unionized county workers ratified a new collective agreement Monday by a three-vote margin.
On Tuesday, Strathcona County council unanimously endorsed the package, ending the worst
municipal labor dispute this decade.
Sixty-seven full-time regular workers in the departments of public works, vehicle maintenance,
water and sanitation and materials management in Local 118 of the Alberta Union of Provincial
Employees voted 57 to 43 per cent in favor of the collective agreement, which runs from Jan. 1,
1998, to Dec. 31, 2000.
The union members had been threatening to strike unless Strathcona tendered wage hikes that
brought their earnings closer to those of employees in the City of Edmonton.
Not so Red Neck Alberta
privatization of Alberta Parks continues
Privatized water company
See Province takes budget on the air
RCMP have found a means to curb the problem of panhandling in Pincher Creek.
The RCMP have come up with a little used section of the Criminal Code which allows them to lay charges against people who
are loitering and/or molesting people on the streets, says RCMP Cpl. Barry Leith.
Last year, more than 9,000 workers in Alberta
were injured in their first six months on the job. One third of them were
under 25 years old. Ten young workers died from their injuries.
Local
committee releases Chinchaga report
Everything from low oil prices to La Nina
is blamed for the downturn in Alberta's oil
and gas sector. But the bottom line is still
the same -- loss of jobs.Unemployment hit Gay Robinson of Calgary
like a stray bullet -- it was unexpected,
devastating, and fatal to the life that she knew.
"You always think it's going to happen to
somebody else, not you," says Ms. Robinson, who lost her job as
communications advisor at Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. Ltd.
immediately after its merger with BP Petroleum Co. PLC. After nearly
four years with the company, in a job she loved, the separation on Jan.
14 came quickly, glossed over by the usual corporate speak.
A federally appointed task force will urge the government Monday
to strike a market-style trading system for pollution credits to bring
Canadian greenhouse gases in line with international climate-control
standards.
As a secondary option, the task force will propose Canada impose
a so-called "carbon tax" on fossil fuel producers -- an idea that,
according to some estimates, could quadruple the price of coal and
double the price of gasoline.
New Democrat Leader Pam Barrett was welcomed back on
the job by other MLAs Monday after returning from a
six-week leave.
MLAs from the other two parties thumped their desks in
recognition of Barrett's return to the legislature after she
stood in the assembly to introduce a New
Democrat-sponsored bill dealing with health care.
Calgary Police Chief Christine Silverberg was the target of a
potentially lethal letter bomb for two simple reasons -- she's
a woman with a gun who happens to be Jewish -- says a
Calgary criminologist.
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