Budget 2020 and the Snake

Posted on March 8, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

On Feb 27, 2020 the Kenney government released Budget 2020. The day it was tabled it was under water, less than two weeks later it drowned.

It sank beneath the surface once and for all because of a snake (or some other creature) in a wild animal market in Wuhan, China that unleashed the coronavirus which could trigger “the most severe oil market shock in history by throttling demand from heavy industry and airlines.”

To be fair, COVID-19 was unforeseeable, however Budget 2020 is fatally flawed because it continues to promote Alberta’s one-trick pony economy and the nonexistent Alberta Advantage which will result in Albertans being worse off than they ever were.

COVID – 19

Same old, same old

Budget 2020 is a déjà vu budget; a cut and paste of Budget 2019 right down to its key economic assumptions.*

It forecast oil prices of $58 rising to $63 in 2022. The day the budget was released oil prices were around $45; less than two weeks later they were in free fall thanks to OPEC+ failing to agree on production cuts at their meeting in Vienna this weekend.  

Exacerbating Budget 2020’s lack of credibility was the UCP government’s reliance on revenue sources, like federal transfers and more investments, that are completely outside its control.

As is par for the course, there was no hint of implementing a provincial sales tax to provide a sustainable and predictable revenue source. If Alberta had a tax system like the other provinces, we’d have a $7.6 billion budget surplus this year. But no, if the budget won’t balance Mr Kenney won’t raise taxes, he’ll simply cut deeper.  

Cuts  

Mr Kenney has repeatedly said Budget 2020 represents a minor cut, around 3%, and we should consider ourselves lucky he didn’t adopt Ralph Klein’s slash and burn approach to slaying the deficit.

This is a misstatement because:

  • It fails to account for population growth and inflation which put the cuts in the 15% range.
  • The 3% cuts aren’t evenly spread across all ministries. For example, services to seniors will be cut by close to 20%, healthcare cuts are closer to 30% and post secondary cuts are a whopping 50%.  

All Albertans are feeling the impact of these cuts and they’re hounding their MLAs and taking to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction.

Waste   

The government promises to reduce waste. That’s good right, everyone hates waste, but we can’t agree on what “waste” is.

Budget 2020 is no help. It promises to engage in activities that are “nimble”, “attentive”, and not “inefficient” without explaining how these will reduce waste.     

Instead of mucking around on the edges, let’s focus on some big ticket items, like the $30 million/year War Room, and ask the energy sector’s CEOs whether the War Room has added value over and above that generated by their own public relations, investor relations and government relations departments. Heck, let’s ask the industry associations and chambers of commerce as well. If the answer is no, then we can scrap the War Room and save $120 million over the UCP’s four-year term.

Fat cat public servants

Public sector compensation is a hot button issue for those employed in the private sector who made good money when the economy was booming and are now unemployed or underemployed. They say the public sector should share their pain.

Leaving aside the obvious point that “share my pain” is not a persuasive argument, there appears to be an underlying assumption that the public sector is grossly over paid.

This is incorrect.  

Economist, Richard Mueller, researched the public sector wage premium (the percentage difference between the earnings of public sector workers and private sector workers) from Jan 2006 to Dec 2017. He found the average wage premium in Alberta is 3.7%, which is below the national average of 5.7% and concluded there’s not much scope to balancing the budget by taking an axe to public sector wages.

Of course, we could fire the lot of them, bringing public services to a grinding halt and increasing Alberta’s unemployment rate which currently sits around 7%, but that would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Unemployment

Alberta lost over 100,000 jobs in the peak of the recession and needs 85,000 jobs to get back to pre-recession levels. Of major concern is the fact that half of Alberta’s unemployed are young men with high school or less in education, consequently their skills don’t match what employers require. Roughly half of these young men have signed up for retraining, the remainder have pulled out of the work force.

This is a serious problem. One would expect Budget 2020 to focus heavily on skills development, however its policies are inconsistent and contradictory. On the one hand Budget 2020 provides funding to upgrade trade skills, on the other hand, it cuts funding to post-secondary institutions, including trade schools, while at the same time fast-tracking newcomers to fill jobs the highly skilled tech sector.

This paradoxical approach does not bode well for Albertans hoping to enter or return to the workforce.

At the end of the day  

There are many ways a budget can be derailed (cue the snake in the wild animal market), but there’s no excuse for adding to the misery by turning our backs on the vulnerable and refusing to prepare Albertans, be they children or adults, for the future.  

*Much of this discussion is based on the U of C School of Public Policy panel discussion, Mar 3, 2020. Panelists: Trevor Tombe (economist), Lisa Young (political scientist), and Janet Brown (pollster). Moderator: Rob Breakenridge (770 CHQR)     

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , | 39 Comments

Bill 1 and Freedom of Assembly

Posted on March 1, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

What do the Wet’suwet’en First Nations blockades have to do with Alberta’s Budget 2020?

Everything. The blockades are the rationale (flimsy as it is) for Bill 1, Critical Infrastructure Defence Act which the Kenney government will use to quell protests when Albertans experience the full impact of Kenney’s budget cuts.  

Is this far fetched? No, let me connect the dots.

The Budget

Budget 2020 is a flawed budget relying on ridiculously optimistic forecasts for employment rates, GDP growth and (my personal favourite) the West Texas Intermediate crude price which is supposed to magically rise from $47 to $58 in time to save the UCP government from disaster.

The 2019 budget kicked off the first round of public sector cuts; Budget 2020 will go deeper and if the economy fails to reach Mr Kenney’s unrealistic goals, he’ll keep cutting until we get there or die trying.    

The list of public sector employees impacted by Mr Kenney’s fantasy budget includes doctors, nurses, teachers, people working across the government and at its arms length agencies. The list of impacted Albertans includes children, seniors, students, the sick, the vulnerable, the homeless; well, everyone.

Protest on the steps of the Legislature

And “everyone” is no longer prepared to sit around saying “this is great, more please”. 

The protests

Last week over 13,000 Albertans attended a rally in Edmonton, yesterday thousands more protested in Calgary. Ms Soapbox and her husband attended the Calgary rally. They were struck by two things: (1) the crowd was diverse: young and old, professionals and trades people, union and non-union, public sector and private sector, and (2) the crowd was defiant, fearless…and willing to talk about a General Strike.  

Mr Kenney knows the spectacle of a General Strike will do nothing for his image as a wise leader steering the province through tough economic times. Quite the opposite, it will make him look like a bumbling fool.      

So, Mr Kenney latched on to the Wet’suwet’en blockades to justify legislation he said will strengthen penalties against protesters who jeopardize public safety and damage the economy by blocking critical public infrastructure.   

The Bill   

Notwithstanding its title, Bill 1 does not address critical infrastructure, it focuses on essential infrastructure which is defined to include infrastructure relating to pipelines, coal and oil facilities, oil sands, highways, railways, hydro projects, public utilities, electrical and gas utilities, dams and radio infrastructure and the land on which the infrastructure is located and any land used in connection with such infrastructure.

While it’s easy to see how these things would support Alberta’s economy, the same can not be said for section 1(1)(a)(xvi) which is a basket clause that gives the government carte blanche to declare any “building, structure, device or other thing prescribed by the regulations” to be “essential infrastructure”, regardless of who owns or occupies it.

What’s curious about the basket clause is it doesn’t require the building, structure, device or thing to have any nexus with the economy. Mr Kenney could declare my house to be essential infrastructure if he wanted to.  

Given the basket clause’s lack of connection to the economy, anything including parks, university quads, city streets, and the steps of the Legislature, could be declared essential infrastructure by an order in council (ie. Cabinet meeting behind closed doors).

Carte Blanche

Is there a reasonable explanation for the carte blanche basket clause?

Well, let’s see what the government has said about it so far.  

Mr Panda, the minister of Infrastructure, says private infrastructure is just as important, maybe more important, than public infrastructure. He says protestors behaving responsibly and exercising their democratic right to protest peacefully will be fine, however, “if we see any more disturbances or…harm to Albertans” he won’t hesitate to amend Bill 1. Note: Mr Panda didn’t tell us why the carte blanche basket clause exists but he did give us a clue about the threshold for government intervention—it’s dropped from “harm” to “disturbance”, whatever that means.  

Given that all that’s required to contravene Bill 1 is to set foot on, obstruct or damage “essential infrastructure” which can be defined by the government as anything, and given that anyone contravening Bill 1 is subject to arrest without a warrant, and if convicted, will face fines and/or incarceration, the fact that Bill 1 can be amended by Cabinet behind closed doors is a huge red flag for anyone who cherishes democracy.  

Freedom of assembly

Constitutional lawyers Jennifer Klinck and Madelaine Mackenzie recently published an op ed about the Wet’suwet’en resistance to Coastal GasLink. Their comments are equally applicable here.

They said freedom of assembly is one of our fundamental constitutional rights. “It gives marginalized groups a way to make themselves heard.” Furthermore, to respect freedom of peaceful assembly, “governments and the community must tolerate a degree of disruption, because it is the disruptive nature of public protests that amplifies their messages.” Where people choose to protest may be significant specifically because it’s publicly inconvenient. And the police’s response must be proportionate and “seek to uphold, not suppress, peaceful assembly.”   

So guess what, Albertans will continue to exercise their constitutional freedom of assembly, even if Mr Kenney scoops up every square inch of public and private land and targets every single instance of disruption, because we do not live in a police state.

Not yet, not ever.

Posted in Crime and Justice, Economy, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Teck Withdraws the Frontier Application

Posted on February 24, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

Let’s try to have a sensible conversation about Teck, shall we?

On Sunday, Feb 23, 2020 Teck Resources Ltd pulled its application for the Frontier oil sands project.  The federal government was supposed to give Frontier the green light, or not, on Tuesday. 

Jason Kenney blames the feds, saying “It is what happens when governments lack the courage to defend the interests of Canadians in the face of a militant minority.”

Mr Kenney

And here’s where it gets sticky.

Kenney’s press releases

The Kenney government issued two press releases about Teck’s withdrawal of the Frontier project. The first press release was issued at 7:40 p.m. It said “The timing of [Teck’s] decision was not a coincidence: Teck’s allusion to ‘public safety’ concerns makes that clear.”

The second press release issued at 8:03 p.m. corrected the first press release by deleting the reference to “Teck’s allusion to public safety concerns.”

Which is a good thing because Teck made no such allusions, in fact the opposite is true. In Teck’s letter to the federal environment minister, Teck’s CEO Don Lindsay says “I want to make clear that we are not merely shying away from controversy. The nature of our business dictates that a vocal minority will almost inevitably oppose specific developments. We are prepared to face that sort of opposition.”

Kenney can say whatever he wants about the “militant minority” and concerns about public safety; but know this: Teck’s CEO would disagree with Kenney’s position that Justin Trudeau’s so-called failure to slap down a “militant minority” had anything to do with its decision to withdraw its application.

So why did Teck pull out?

Teck’s letter

In his letter to the federal environment minister, Teck’s CEO makes it clear that bigger issues are at stake.

He said global capital markets, investors, and customers are looking for jurisdictions that reconcile resource development and climate change; and Teck didn’t find that here.

He reiterated Teck’s deep belief in the need to address climate change and expressed strong support for the federal carbon tax (the one Kenney’s government is fighting in the courts) and legislated caps for oil sands emissions (the ones introduced by Rachel Notley which now require the UCP government to enforce by passing regulations).

The Teck letter sends two important messages: (1) Canada, the provinces and Indigenous governments must work through the societal implications of energy development, climate change and Indigenous rights and (2) Canada will not realize its potential as a responsible supplier of natural resources “until governments reach agreement around how climate policy considerations will be addressed in the context of future responsible energy sector development.”

The bottom line in Teck’s letter is loud and clear, jurisdictions that fail to address the impact of climate change in the context of resource development will be left in the dust and the way to address such impacts is by the federal, provincial and Indigenous governments working together to find solutions.

Pointing the finger of blame and making up stories about why Teck withdrew its application is counterproductive and runs against the advice given by Teck’s CEO who said Canadians need a “larger and more positive discussion of the path forward” or it will be very difficult to attract domestic or foreign investment.

Over to you Mr Kenney.

Posted in Climate Change, Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , | 53 Comments

Family Day Alberta Style

Posted on February 16, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

Tomorrow is Family Day in Alberta.

While we wait for Jason Kenney’s Family Day announcement extolling the virtues of the family and maybe throwing in a reference to Albertans as “people of destiny” (he hasn’t rolled out that hoary chestnut for a few months) we pause to consider how Family Day came into being.  

It was Getty, right?

Most Albertans credit Progressive Conservative premier Don Getty with the creation of Family Day. What they don’t know is he got the idea from the NDP who tabled the Mid-Winter Holiday Act a year earlier. The PCs said the Act was ridiculous (what are you going to call the third Monday in February, Karl Marx Day?), inefficient (Albertans don’t want another holiday, they want to work) and expensive (businesses will have to pay their employees overtime).

Norman Rockwell “Road Trip”

They dismissed the idea…until the following year when Getty introduced the Family Day Act.

The PCs thought it was a brilliant idea. The opposition parties supported the idea of a holiday but suggested the concept of Family Day could be expanded.

Two NDP MLAs in particular; Marie Laing and William Roberts, made some compelling suggestions:

  • Put Family Day into a broader context, one that focuses policymakers on truly supporting families by enacting legislation to eradicate unemployment and poverty (particularly for women and children); address the needs of troubled families dealing with domestic violence and the stress of caring for physically or mentally disabled family members, and provide services to facilitate healthy family functioning.
  • Use Family Day to reflect on how families, and their needs and aspirations, should be considered in all matters of social action.
  • Make Family Day more meaningful by encouraging Albertans to see all citizens as “our brothers and sisters in a … community sense” who’ll work together and support each other.  

The NDP MLAs also raised the concern that the PCs seemed to be talking about Family Day from a  “politics of nostalgia” perspective, a misguided sense of what the family looked like in the 1950s when “a dollar was a dollar and people used to watch CFL football games all the time.”  They pointed out that it was the 1990s, those days were long gone.

The PC government rejected the Opposition’s comments as “nonconstructive”, “nonpositive”, “timid”, and “fearful”.  

Premier Getty predicted Family Day would be “something that is going to…play a greater and greater role in focusing on one of the traditions, one of the foundations upon which this province is built and why it is such a great province and why we must come back to those traditions and the foundation.” (We’ll check this against Jason Kenney’s announcement tomorrow).  

Kenney’s take

Tomorrow as we listen to Jason Kenney’s Family Day bromide, we will bear in mind that actions speak louder than words.

Mr Kenney’s most significant action to date has been to pass a budget that cut support for education, healthcare, seniors, postsecondary students, persons receiving AISH and Income Support and families requiring daycare. It increased the cost of car insurance and (indirectly) property taxes, while at the same time fostered a culture of victimhood and outrage that’s driving young people out of the province; all in aid of making life more profitable for corporations.

We know who holds a special place in his heart.

May we suggest he drop the pretense and simply replace Family Day with a new stat holiday; he can call it Corporation Day.

Sources: https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/hansards/han/legislature_22/session_1/19890815_2000_01_han.pdf

https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/hansards/han/legislature_22/session_1/19890619_1430_01_han.pdf June 19

Posted in Alberta Health Care, Economy, Education | Tagged , , , , | 27 Comments

The Teck Decision Provides a Lesson on Handouts

Posted on February 9, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

For a long time Ms Soapbox has been trying figure out what Mr Kenney and the UCP mean when they talk about a “hand up” and a “handout”. She knew from the context that a “hand up” was good and a “handout” was bad, but she was never quite sure why.   

But thanks to Jason Nixon’s statement on the UCP government’s position on the Teck Frontier oilsands project, specifically why the Trudeau Liberals must approve the project, the distinction became clear.    

Nixon started by saying, “I want to be crystal clear. Albertans are proud people. We have never viewed our relationship with the federal government as one based on charity, and we’re not about to start now. Albertans want jobs, not an ‘aid package’ from Ottawa.”

Environment Minister Jason Nixon

Mr Nixon was referring to unconfirmed reports that the Feds are working on an aid package to ease Alberta’s pain if they reject the Teck project.  The Feds deny the two are connected; they say they’ve been working on ways to send funding to Alberta, including an infusion of cash to clean up thousands of abandoned wells. One would think this would be a good thing because it will create much needed jobs.

In fact, this was exactly what the UCP finance minister and the UCP energy minister said when they asked for such funding in November 2019.   

The only difference between the Feds providing funding to clean up abandoned wells in November 2019 and the Feds providing funding to clean up abandoned wells in February 2020 is that in February the UCP connected the offer of assistance with the Feds’ go/no go decision on the Teck project.  

Or to put it into UCP-speak: If the federal government had provided such funding in Nov 2019 it would have been a “hand up” and acceptable, but if the federal government provides such funding in February 2020 after it’s rejected the Teck Frontier application, it’s a “handout” and must be rejected because it amounts to “charity.”

So, in the UCP world a “hand up” can be distinguished from a “handout” by an intervening event, in this case the rejection of an oilsands project. Presumably if the Feds were to approve the Teck project, the funding would revert back to “hand up” status.  

In the meantime, Albertans should take comfort in the fact that according to Mr Nixon, Albertans are too proud to accept charity; we’d rather be unemployed.

PS This lack of reason (let alone compassion) is hardly comforting given the cuts to healthcare and social services we’ll be experiencing over the coming months.

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , | 73 Comments

Why Is It Always Someone Else’s Fault?

Posted on February 2, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

When Jason Kenney convinced Albertans that our economy is solely dependent on fossil fuels (diversification is a luxury, remember) and government policy, not the global marketplace, drives our economy; he needed a scapegoat when our economy failed to grow. Cue Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau, although with the passage of time, even UCP supporters must realize it’s getting harder and harder to blame Rachel for any of this.     

If this strikes you as a stupid way to run a province, join the club.

Recently the Kenney government escalated the “blame someone else” rhetoric to something more dangerous. It characterized the federal government’s pending decision on Teck Resource’s application for the Frontier oilsands project as a litmus test for national unity.

Mr Kenney

If the feds reject the recommendation of a joint review panel* that the Frontier project be approved, Mr Kenney will argue this is proof the feds don’t care about Alberta (and the Wexiters will go berserk but that’s another post for another day).

Bargaining is a two-way street

Ironically, Mr Kenney has an opportunity to help the feds decide in Teck’s favour, but he won’t take it.

When asked about the feds’ pending decision, the federal Environment minister said the feds are looking for “concrete action on climate change” and hinted Alberta might want to reconsider its position on the federal carbon tax.

This did not sit well with the UCP government.

Apparently it’s okay for the UCP to “bargain” with the feds (the UCP promised to hold a referendum on removing equalization from the Constitution Act in Oct 2021 if there wasn’t substantial progress on TMX and Bill C-69 isn’t repealed—equalization isn’t remotely related to TMX or Bill C-69) but it’s not okay for the feds to “bargain” with the UCP by asking the province to do more to help Canada meet its net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050 in return for the feds approving a project that will generate an additional 4 megatonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

What makes the UCP government’s position even more irrational is the industry is prepared to help Canada meet its net zero GHG target by 2050—Cenovus, CNRL, and MEG made similar commitments and Suncor promised a 30% GHG reduction by 2030.**

Heaven forbid that Mr Kenney should step off his ideological perch to forge a sensible compromise.

Federal approval is not enough

To make this standoff even sillier, consider the fact that Teck’s CEO said Frontier will need 3 Ps to go ahead if it’s approved: pipelines, partners and prices. The TMX pipeline must be finished, not just started, Teck needs partners to share the risk of this $20.6 billion investment, and it needs oil prices to rise…a lot.

A quick peek at Teck’s most recent investor presentation is instructive here.

Teck is a huge mining company. Its key priorities are expanding the Quebrada Blanca copper mine in Chile, upgrading the supply chain for its steelmaking coal business, improving its innovation program and cutting costs. The Frontier project is not a key priority, it is merely one of many “future options”.

This is not surprising given that energy is Teck’s least profitable business unit. Gross profit by business unit in 2018 was: 62% coal, 22% copper, 18% zinc and minus 2% energy.

So when the Teck CEO says if Frontier is approved that’s no guarantee it’s moving ahead, he means it.    

But that’s not how Mr Kenney will paint the picture. Even if the feds approve Teck, Mr Kenney will find a way to blame them if Teck decides to forgo Frontier in favour of more profitable ventures elsewhere.

Mr Kenney has painted himself into a corner. He’s convinced Albertans that our economy will be driven by nothing but energy for a long time to come and that energy investment is driven by government policy and not global markets. Therefore, when his energy-centric government policies fail to produce the desired result because multi-national players would rather invest elsewhere, Kenney needs someone (other than himself) to blame for Alberta’s faltering economy.

Trot out Trudeau (again). And just in case Albertans are starting to understand that an economy that puts all its eggs in one basket is not sustainable in the 21st century, Mr Kenney will amp up the emotion but accusing Trudeau of sticking it to Alberta just for the fun of it.

The longer Albertans continue to believe Mr Kenney’s rhetoric, the harder it will be for us to move ahead.

*Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA)

**ARC Podcast, Jan 24, 2020  

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , | 55 Comments

In Search of Efficiencies in Higher Education…or something…

Posted on January 26, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

“The greatest waste now confronting us is not one of money but of human possibilities.” – John Maynard Keynes  

Ms Soapbox is concerned that the recent announcement by Mr Nicolaides, the minister of Advanced Education, has brought Alberta another step closer to squandering its human possibilities.

Mr Nicolaides announced the implementation of a new “outcomes-based” funding model for 26 post secondary institutions, which will tie a percentage of an institution’s operating budget to performance measures. The percentage will start at 15% and increase to 40% by 2022-23.

Mr Nicolaides said this “outcomes-based” system is necessary to ensure post secondary institutions remain accountable for the investment taxpayers make in them. It will provide more clarity to taxpayers on what the funding is meant to accomplish.  And it will ensure schools compete against themselves to achieve these goals.

Does anyone have any idea what he’s talking about?

No, of course not. Words like “accountable”, “investment”, “clarity” and “compete against themselves” are meaningless unless you see them in context.  Mr Nicolaides hasn’t provided much in the way of context, but he has discussed a few specifics.     

Mr Nicolaides and Mr Kenney congratulating themselves

20 performance metrics

Each institution will have up to 20 performance metrics, the metrics will be weighted to take into account the type of school, and if the school does not hit its target it will receive funding in proportion to what it achieves (80% of a target yields 80% of the funding for that target).

As someone who worked in the private sector for over twenty years, 20 performance metrics is way too many. The corporations I worked for issued four to five performance metrics annually. These would cascade down from the performance metrics the executives set for themselves. They usually included the following: (1) health, safety and environment, (2) overall corporate performance, (3) business unit performance, and (4) a personal performance metric. These four or five metrics were individualized by three or four targets that were measurable and relevant to my specific role.   

Institutions assessed as a whole

Institutions will be assessed as a whole, not based on individual programs or departments.

Hmmm. The University of Calgary has 108 undergraduate programs, 15 graduate study programs, an open studies program for degree and non-degree holders, and 63 continuing education programs. Pity the poor schmuck who gets stuck with coming up with the school-wide performance assessment given this range of programing. And good luck running the performance assessment document up the flag pole through the various levels of leadership, including the Board of Governors, who will be keenly interested in seeing the document before it’s delivered to the minister.    

3 year funding agreements

Funding agreements will be in place for 3 years instead of being renewed annually.

This is good news for an institution that gets full funding because it provides funding certainty for the next three years, but it’s bad news for an institution that did not get fully funded in year one because any improvements it makes over the next two years will not count.

Performance targets

The new outcomes-based model will tie funding to successfully meeting performance targets, including improving services, increasing efficiencies, developing innovative programs and research and connecting graduates with jobs.

These are wonderfully vague targets that any administrator with an ounce of creativity should be able to meet.   

Metrics

Possible metrics include graduate employment rate, median graduate income, graduate skills and competencies, work-integrated learning opportunities, administrative expense ratio, sponsored research revenue, enrolment (including potential targets for domestic students, international students and under-represented learners).

Some of these metrics are completely within the institutions’ control and are not problematic per se; but others like graduate employment rate and median graduate income are dependent on the economy which, contrary to what Mr Kenney says, is not driven by government policy but by global markets.

And while we’re on the topic of goofy metrics, how would one assess graduate skills and competencies other than by counting the number of students who graduated and who, by definition, have the skills and competencies required to graduate in their field of study.   

The purpose of post secondary education

Instead of thoughtfully considering the role of post secondary education in today’s rapidly changing world—and it’s not to ‘add value’ to students before spitting them out into the market place—the UCP government decided to graft a corporate performance management tool onto Alberta’s institutions of high learning.  

Fear not, Mr Nicolaides says, the details of his outcome-based funding model will be hammered out in consultations with educators and students by Apr 1, 2020. That’s just a little more than two months, folks.  

Ms Soapbox says good luck with that.

Posted in Education, Politics and Government | Tagged , , | 44 Comments

In the Eye of the Storm

Posted on January 19, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

Here we are in the eye of the storm, a place of relative calm surrounded by a ring of thunderstorms (known as the eye wall). We passed through one eye wall to get here and we’ll have to pass through another eye wall to get out.

This won’t be easy given the man who put us here, Jason Kenney, will be in office for another three years and is determined to stay the course. He says he didn’t go through all the work of uniting the Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives to “preside over a broken status quo.”

Ruby Slippers: one way to get out of a storm

He spent the first nine months of his term ripping up Rachel Notley’s progressive agenda and replacing it with policies that reduced corporate taxes and increased costs on everything from car insurance to school fees; and to put the icing on the cake, he cut education, healthcare and social programs to the point where everyone is feeling helpless and confused.  

But fear not, Mr Kenney predicts 2020 will be a “turnaround year” for Alberta, one in which he will make headway on his promise to deliver jobs, the economy and pipelines.  

There’s just one catch: Jason Kenney has no idea how he’s going to do it.

What? Why? How? Huh?

He’s made it clear his focus isn’t on the “how” but the “why”.

In an year end interview Mr Kenney said his government needs to communicate not just “what” it’s doing—he campaigned on delivering a smaller, more effective public service and a balanced budget because a rising tide lifts all boats—but also communicating the “why”.

He says conservatives are notoriously bad at explaining the “why” to the public, but once they explain the “why” and the people see the benefits of reform, they’ll support it.

This raises a number of questions.

Albertans already know “why” Mr Kenney implemented an austerity budget, he said the MacKinnon Report demonstrates Alberta’s public services had to be cut to fall into line with those of other provinces in order to deliver a balanced budget in 2023.  

If that’s not the “why” he’s talking about then please, enlighten us.

The real problem is that the people are not seeing the benefits of reform and Mr Kenney has no idea how his austerity budget will deliver these benefits given that the economy is driving by the energy sector and it’s impacted by global prices set by players and events outside of Alberta’s borders.   

To further confuse things, in a recent interview Mr Kenney said the future of conservatism lies in embracing the growing “reform conservatism” movement. This is an American movement which says the market isn’t always right and a growing economy doesn’t necessarily benefit everyone.  

Kenney says he’ll revisit “reform conservatism” after he’s got Alberta’s economy firing on all cylinders.

This makes no sense. How can Kenney fix the economy with old style conservatism (a rising tide lifts all boats) and then keep the economy going with reform conservatism (a rising tide does NOT lift all boats)?

But it does illustrate that Mr Kenney has no idea what he’s doing.   

This also explains why he’s throwing distractions at us left, right and centre. In addition to the $30 million war room, the $2.5 million public inquiry into anti-Alberta activities, the Fair Deal Panels, and the budget panel, there are 7 open engagements covering everything from farmer-led agricultural research to photo radar, 6 expert panels to advise on everything from auto insurance to curriculum reform and 14 panels who’ve finished their work and submitted their recommendations to the government for review. This is on top of the 16 engagements that were completed in 2019.  

(We’re reminded of the words of the Chinese philosopher Lin Yatang who said: “Those who are wise aren’t busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.”)

The UCP famously said “We understand that in order to be a compassionate, caring society, we must be prosperous first.” One can’t help but wonder what will happen when Kenney’s plan to move the needle on jobs, the economy and pipelines in 2020 comes up empty notwithstanding his $4.7 billion cut in corporate taxes and his promise to eliminate red tape—a promise described as hypocritical by the CEO of Prosper Petroleum who has taken the UCP government to court to force it to approve an oil sands project.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’ll have to fight our own way out of the eye of the storm; standing up for the public services that protect our families, our friends and our neighbours.

We won’t be able to sit around waiting for Jason Kenney to click his ruby slippers and magically whisk us back home.     

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , | 64 Comments

What Did I Miss?

Posted on January 12, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

Ms Soapbox just returned from a week in British Columbia.  As you might expect, the residents of BC are more interested in their own issues than what ails the richest and whiniest province in the country. Consequently, the only Alberta news we received from the local news outlets was the horrific crash of Flight 752 and its devastating impact on the city of Edmonton.

The downing of Flight 752 puts everything into perspective. Having said that, we cannot ignore what’s happening to our province as a result of the UCP government. So while it feels disrespectful to mention Alberta politics in the same breath as this tragedy, I can’t help but wonder, what did I miss while I was away?

Posted in Disasters, Uncategorized | 42 Comments

2020 The Year We Push Back

Posted on January 5, 2020 by susanonthesoapbox

Kudos to the citizens who parse Jason Kenney’s policies and winnow the truth from the lies. 

This takes tremendous courage given the government’s thin-skinned and overly aggressive response to criticism.  (Check its Twitter and Facebook posts, they’re replete with attacks on anyone and everyone from Calgary’s mayor to doctors, academics, journalists, union leaders and ordinary citizens).

One would expect such an over the top reaction from the Kenney government to have a chilling effect on free speech and public discourse. 

However, the opposite is true. 

Push back

When the government’s $30 million/year War Room went after the Medicine Hat News for publishing a column critical of the War Room’s activities, the paper said bring it on, its subscriptions surged and its writers, Jeremy Appel and Scott Schmidt (I’m sure there are others) gained loads of new followers on social media.     

When it singled out Steven Lee, a young environmental activist with the 3% Project, in a story featuring a parent irked by Mr Lee’s presentation. Mr Lee said he was disappointed that all the War Room could muster given its mega budget was “the normal messaging everyone else already does”.

When the War Room reacted to an op-ed by environmental activist Bill McKibben, Professor Andrew Leach took it to task for publishing rubbish (my word, not his). He urged the War Room to correct the misinformation it presented as fact.  As Professor Leach delicately put it, “Words are important, and it seems that perhaps they were not chosen carefully enough.  I’m sure it could not have been intentionally done to mislead, and I expect you’ll want to correct the record.” 

This is significant

This push back from academics, journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens is extremely significant.  Why? Because they are fighting to protect our democracy. 

Jason Stanley, in How Propaganda Works, says it’s a fundamental principle in a democracy that all citizens can participate equally in debating the policies that affect them, and the political discussion is reasonable and rational.


Falcons symbolize wisdom, vision and protection.

The Kenney government violated this principle when it earmarked $120 million over four years to aggressively protect the energy industry from criticism and set up a $2.5 million public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns.  It moved from simply promoting the energy sector (as it would promote any other sector of the economy) to attacking industry critics in a politically charged forum as a matter of ideology—anyone suggesting the oil sands are contributing to climate change is anti-Albertan—they are fair game and the government will use the weight of the state to stop them.         

That’s why the push back is so significant.  Citizens are reminding us that War Rooms and anti-Alberta energy inquiries and ad hominem attacks on critics are not normal; they’re an attack on democracy. 

They know the government and its supporters will respond with both barrels. 

And yet, they refuse to remain silent. 

They’re fighting back against the government’s efforts to silence them.  They’re fighting back to protect public services like education, healthcare and support for our most vulnerable.  And they’re showing up at goof ball panels which are nothing more than a distraction from the government’s failure to address a flawed fiscal structure.     

Citizens have taken strength from the government’s attempt to marginalize them. 

This gives me tremendous hope.

Posted in Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , | 60 Comments