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On Stelmach’s plans for school boards

By Michael Cormican

RE: Stelmach administration continues push to eliminate elected school boards, Alberta Liberal Caucus Release

This is worth giving serious thought since it has been history since the last Provincial Election what the Alberta Government did with the Health Authorities; did away with them. If you have not read Naomi Klein’s book ‘Shock Doctrine’ it would be well-worth the time since she outlines what the Republicans have done in the US too and it’s all history now too. Is that what we want for health and education. I can give you the bare facts what they have done not only in Lethbridge area but across the Province in health since the ’70s. As of last year compared to 1973 hospital beds have been cut from 1:200 to 1:580 as of last year. They continue to mouth about costs supposedly “escalating … unsustainable etc”; yet where’s their answer to almost a billion dollars unaccounted for in health care? Thanks to the Auditor General for bringing it to our attention. A billion would sure care for a lot of people by paying for salaries and other needs.

Long and short, I and independent experts have stats that knock their contention taken from the same reports they use to try scaring us and unfortunately it works with some people. Consistently over the past 40 years, Health Care in Canada has been almost half that in the US of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) 8% to 15.5% respectively. See where it has got the US. From 1981 to 2007 it had only increased in Canada from 5.25% approx of the GDP to just about 7%. We must remember how much more sophisticated health delivery has become over those years and so well it should since we want and expect the best especially when it comes to matters of life and death and it is not much different for Alberta. Issues that affect costs from Province-to-Province is degree or level of sophistication i.e. specialized centers in some Provinces that are expected/relied on to provide for others or areas of others closer to the neighboring center of excellence; and so well it should be. Such practice is part of the reason for “Confederation”.

As some of you will realize from news today the government has created the conditions that are now called “crisis” as in the area of ER (Emergency Care). people are backed up there because beds in more appropriate areas of the system are not available to move people into. Longterm care has been down-graded. I have heard from several with experiences of inadequate care to their loved ones and which is quite understandable to me having worked in it. However, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to realize when the staff to patient care is 1:10 in DALs (Designated Assisted Living) the average max of care each patient can receive is 5minutes per hour allowing the 10 difference to add up to an hour for reports, getting from room-to-room, eating, personal breaks, dealing with family, physicians and others and writing reports. Let’s think about it; in an 8 hr. day that would be approximately thirty five (35) minutes total to get the person up, assist in personal care, feed, wash etc. What about the person needing the most attention i.e. lift out of bed etc? No wonder some people get less care as reported by families, latest being today. Obviously the average level of care needed has got to be greatly increased. Is that the way you want to end your days. Some things that will help i.e. increase staff, get rid of wanton waste, bonuses and manage the system. health and education were never meant to be a business. Sure apply business principles as best we can but let’s remember that we are dealing with people at the vulnerable stages of life; first to prepare them as best we can for life ahead and then assisting them to continue in dignity as life draws to a close.

Some of us may sound like broken records and nay sayers but everything we have predicted has come true to date. Don’t let it happen in education too. Speak-up; talk to your MLA and discuss your concerns with them and ensure they have your concerns in writing as well as the opposition to ensure they are accountable.

Twitter and the ALP

By Jody MacPherson, VP, Communications

The Alberta Liberal Party and the Alberta Liberal Caucus are working together to provide you with one source of fast-breaking news on Twitter, one of the fastest growing social media tools. As of Monday, October 25, all Alberta Liberal news will be “tweeted” via @albertaliberals. To view, go to www.twitter.com/albertaliberals.

With the growing influence of social media as a tool to galvanize supporters, it’s time for Alberta Liberals to join the conversation. During the recent municipal election, there were weekly reports with updates on each of the Calgary mayoralty candidates successes on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Those weekly stats showed Naheed Nenshi’s growing support, but many discounted social media saying that the people on Twitter and Facebook would not get out and vote. This theory is now under question with Mayor Nenshi’s victory on October 18.

There is a high probability that social media will become another measure of a candidate’s (and a party’s) success during the upcoming provincial election. In much the same way people count election lawn signs as an indication of a candidate’s popularity, social media followers, fans and other online connections are likely to be added to the mix. Expect to see weekly charts and graphs comparing candidates success on social media. These numbers will be used, along with the traditional polls, as a measure of a campaign’s success.

This is why Alberta Liberal Party members should consider entering the online world of social media. As a first step, you might want to consider setting up a Twitter account at www.twitter.com. It’s free and all you need is an email account. Then, you can become of “follower” of the Alberta Liberal Party to get our latest breaking news and links to media coverage and other information. You can also have our messages sent to your mobile phone and receive notifications of each of our “tweets.”

Our leader and some of our MLAs are already using Twitter. Why not join us?

Alberta Liberals @albertaliberals
David Swann @davidswann
Kent Hehr @kenthehr
Harry Chase @chasemla
Darshan Kang @darshankang

Up next on this blog: Face the facts on Facebook.

David Swann’s speech to the AUPE Annual Convention

AUPE Annual Convention

Speaking Notes for Dr. David Swann, Leader of the Official Opposition

October 14, 2010

Introduction

Good morning, and thank you so much for the opportunity to join you at the convention today. I consider it a great honour.

Values

So why am I here today? Well, it’s because I believe that you and I share some common values. We may not all share the same politics – some of you may even be crazy enough to support the Wildrose – but I believe there are certain universal ideals that we’re all working toward.

Alberta Liberals believe, for example, in fair play. To me that means a decent salary for an honest day’s work. People who believe in fair play recognize that not everyone comes into this world with the same opportunities; not everyone has a supportive family, or the simple good luck to find a decent job or avoid hard times. The power of civilization is that it gives us the ability to take care of each other. That’s why we support proper funding for public health care, public education, public libraries – all the institutions that allow a society to grow and thrive, to maintain health.

Alberta Liberals believe in truth and transparency. That includes telling the truth on a day to day basis, but it also has larger implications – I believe in the importance of scientific truth, for example, because without the hard data that science provides, you can’t come up with policies to push our society along the right path. There’s a reason so many people are upset about the federal government’s decision to axe the mandatory long-form census; we realize that good science leads to good policy. Transparency and Integrity are crucial in life and in politics.

Alberta Liberals also understand the power and potential of free enterprise, its ability to create wealth and opportunity. Hard work and the freedom to innovate are the engines of success.

And we believe in the absolute necessity of long-term planning. Our society is complex, with today’s decisions playing out over the course of decades and even centuries. Development of natural resources, education, economic development – all of these issues require leaders to plan for the long haul. We’re long past the days when we can afford to ride the rollercoaster of boom and bust. Our health and education systems require stable funding. Nor can we simply spend our resource wealth without addressing the long-term consequences.

Our caucus members come by these values honestly. I’m a physician; another of our MLAs was a nurse; we have a former boilermaker in our caucus, a lawyer, a writer and researcher, an actor, a teacher, a key fundraiser for the Calgary Children’s Hospital…people from many religions and walks of life. We share these values because we’ve lived them, and we’ve seen how they benefit the entire community. And these values inform our vision of the province: leaders with integrity helping people live in a healthy environment creating a healthy economy for the long term. Or as it says on the cards on your table, in four words: health, enterprise, foresight, integrity.

You don’t join the public service without sharing these values or some form of that vision. I’m here today because I feel, like many of you I’m sure, that the mainstream Alberta values we share are under threat. The issues you face on a daily basis – and I hear about – are evidence of that threat.

Working Albertans are facing tough times right now. Alberta still lags behind other provinces when it comes to worker health and safety, and it’s hard to trust the Workers’ Compensation Board when we know that there are government incentives to deny or reduce claims. Workers are being asked to do more work for less money. Administrative changes in the public sector come so fast and furious that workers live in a constant state of anxiety. Centralization is removing decision-making power from the hands of the people who need it most – the workers in touch with local issues. Outsourcing is exerting downward pressure on wages and benefits. With the government racking up huge deficits, workers are justifiably worried about their pensions.

I’ve learned from counselors and child and family workers of unacceptable caseloads and their reluctance to speak out due to fear of retaliation by this government. I have personal experience with such intimidation!

Frankly, even employers lose out thanks to our lax labour laws. I know plenty of employers who realize the value and the potential of their workers, but who can’t help them realize that potential thanks to a lack of resources for extra training and succession planning, for example.

Why are public sector workers facing these challenges? I believe it’s a combination of ignorance and ideology. We have a government that doesn’t know how to deal with the boom and bust cycle, and an attitude that doesn’t recognize the value of people. Faced with red ink, they see cutbacks as the best solution, rather than planning for the long term.

And now we’re faced with the rise of a political party even further to the right of the Tories, the Wildrose Alliance. There are some things everyone should know about Danielle Smith and her Wildrose Alliance. For example, they don’t believe unions should even exist. That’s not spin from me – that’s a position she’s taken in writing. She believes that unions are self-serving entities that punish good workers and protect bad ones, that destroy workplace morale, and harm the environment they operate in. That’s a direct quote from one of her newspaper columns. So the Wildrose flat-out believes that unions are evil. The PCs, as you well know, think that unions are, at best, a nuisance they have to put up with.

Liberals, on the other hand, believe that unions can reflect the highest aspirations of humanity: the desire to look out for each other, to work together toward a common goal, and to make our province a better place. I think that this shows the place where a group like the AUPE and the Alberta Liberals can work together. We share fundamental values. We don’t see government or unions as organizations that push down on people, that do things to people; they are the people coming together to achieve great things.

Getting Involved

For some time now I’ve felt that the only way to stop Alberta from drifting away from the mainstream values that have served us so well is for people who share those values to start acting – preferably acting together, but at the very least, getting more involved in politics. Join a constituency association. Find a candidate you can support and volunteer for him or her. Donate money or services. And convince everyone you can to learn the issues and to vote on election day. Alberta has an awful lot of people who share our mainstream values – they just don’t go to the polls. Imagine the difference we could make if just another ten percent of people who share our values went to the polls to vote.

I don’t care if you’re a Red Tory, a New Democrat, a Green, a Liberal, even a moderate Wildrose Alliance supporter, if there is such a thing. If you share the universal values I outlined earlier – compassion, fairness, integrity, hard work, foresight – then I think we all have an obligation, a duty, to work together for a better tomorrow. Alberta is a good and wonderful place to live and work and raise a family. But we can be better than merely good. We should aspire to greatness, and by that I mean an Alberta without poverty, without homelessness, without preventable, senseless worker deaths and injuries, without unfairness and cover-ups. A place where every student earns their high school diploma, and most go on to postsecondary studies. A province with a functioning public health care system with reasonable wait times, a province where seniors in assisted living can enjoy quality, dignified care.

The current government always says they’re building the best healthcare system in the world, and “someday” we’ll have it. Well, I can’t wait for “someday” anymore. I don’t think anyone here can. It needs to be today. We have the resources; all it takes is the will to make someday today, to have the promise of Alberta realized so that we actually live there.

Contracts Question

I should wrap things up by answering a question from AUPE President Smith, who asks what the Liberal position is on public disclosure of contracts between the Alberta government and private enterprise. Well, the Official Opposition is in favour of much greater openness and transparency across the board, which is why we pushed so hard for a lobbyist registry, for example, and why we want to close the loopholes in the half-baked registry the government was finally forced to create. And our 12 Steps to Clean Government is a call for wide-sweeping change. With regard to contracts, our basic philosophy remains the same. All citizens have a stake in how their tax dollars are being spent, and openness means that Albertans will know whether or not they’re getting proper value for contracted work.

What I think is crucial is greater public disclosure at the beginning of the contract process; we want to avoid situations where good public sector jobs are outsourced as a fait accompli, with workers being offered their old jobs at a fraction of their old salaries. That’s unfair, underhanded, and any government I lead won’t be a party to that kind of shady dealing.

Conclusion

Thank you again. I look forward to a day and welcome your help in creating a place where Alberta’s workers enjoy just and fair labour laws, safer workplaces and above all, a more progressive, caring and sustainable society.

I look around and I see power in this union, power to make the Alberta we all deserve. That’s part of your job every day. Don’t forget that you have that power.

Thanks very much and enjoy the conference.

Employment Opportunity with Alberta Liberal Official Opposition

RESEARCH ANALYST

The Alberta Liberal Caucus is searching for the next highly motivated, organized and innovative member of our Research team. If you are looking to apply your research skills and enhance your awareness of issues facing Albertans, and have a keen interest in the political process, this opportunity may be for you!

Reporting to the Director of Research, you will provide analytical support for the Alberta Liberal Caucus and its elected members.  Working independently, and also as part of a team, you will be responsible for the identification, collection, analysis and interpretation of information and data about policy, budgetary and legislative trends in assigned portfolio areas, and on emerging issues and areas of public policy. The information will be presented in briefing notes, summaries and correspondence to support the MLAs.  You will also provide support on inquiries from the general public and constituency offices on policy matters.  In conjunction with the Communications Unit you will also assist in the development of news releases, brochures and newsletters from a policy perspective.  During sittings of the Legislature, you will assist in the development of Official Opposition Private Members’ Bills and Motions as well as prepare briefing notes for all Bills, Motions and budget debates.

Using your strong research and communication skills, you will analyze qualitative and quantitative data and confer with various internal and external stakeholders. As the successful candidate, you will demonstrate strong analytical skills, the ability to meet deadlines and the capacity to work in a team environment. Your attention to detail will help you to excel in this position.

This position operates in accordance with Caucus and Legislative Assembly Office policies and procedures, Standing Orders, FOIP Legislation and direction from the Director of Research and Chief of Staff.

Skills and Qualifications: An undergraduate degree in Political Science or a related field is required; course work in statistics and/or advanced research methodology is an asset. Experience with research and project management is essential. Equivalencies will be considered.

Salary: Commensurate with education and experience. The Legislative Assembly offers a comprehensive benefits and pension package.  Applicants are encouraged to forward their resume in confidence to:

Director of Research, Alberta Liberal Caucus
201 Legislature Annex, 9718 – 107 Street
Edmonton, Alberta   T5K 1E4

Resumes may be submitted electronically to:  liberal.correspondence@assembly.ab.ca

Or via fax to:  780.427.3697

Closing Date:            This position is available immediately. The competition will remain open until a suitable candidate is found.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only individuals selected for further consideration will be contacted.  For more information on the Alberta Liberal Caucus, please visit our website at www.albertaliberalcaucus.com.

Letter to the editor: Tough to applaud nurse staffing ‘yo-yo’

Re: “Hiring more nurses is a cause for celebration,” by Dr. Stephen Duckett, Opinion, July 31.

Stephen Duckett should leave the partisanship to the politicians.

Rather than singling out the Alberta Liberals and trying to dismiss them for exposing his, and the Department of Health and Wellness’s, poor decision-making and their “on again, off again” management style, Duckett should instead focus on his job — to deliver better patient outcomes and enhance the efficiency of the system, not jump to the defence of a government that is notorious for its poor planning.

Hiring more nurses and nursing grads is indeed reason to celebrate, but this yo-yo approach, or as MLA Kevin Taft calls it, “the roller-coaster,” has to come to an end.

I recently had to wait for close to six weeks to get a biopsy done at a hospital here in the city.

No one would give me a reason why a 15-minute procedure was so difficult to schedule. I was finally told people were “let go” and had moved on to other jobs, and now that the government wanted to hire them back, none were available or wanted to return.

I was eventually referred to a different hospital and got the biopsy done in a timely manner, but the experience left me shaking my head.

If you ask me who I trust more to fix the health-care system, it certainly won’t be Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett or the PC government.

David Swann, a family physician and emergency room doctor, would make an excellent premier, one who gets it and gives a damn.

Taft, an accomplished economist, by his side, crunching the numbers and bringing long-term, stable, predictable budgeting to a health department plagued by uncertainty and lacking clarity and direction for years, would be a competent health minister.

And for sure they would hire better managers, ones whose prime directive is to look after patients.

Mo Elsalhy, BScPharm, former Edmonton-McClung MLA

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/letters/Tough+applaud+nurse+staffing/3375899/story.html#ixzz0wVmGYnJI

Letter to the Editor: Silly season in Alberta politics

The following letter was submitted to the Edmonton Journal:

Re: Finding political pay dirt a tricky chore, Graham Thomson, July 13, 2010

As a member of the Alberta Liberal Party I read Graham Thomson’s column with great interest and a lot of dismay.  My understanding from the motion passed at the May Alberta Liberal policy convention was that David Swann would reach out to ‘progressive party’ leaders to see if there was some common ground to begin a dialogue.

If I had been at the convention I would have voted against the motion as it was too vague and lacked direction. ( A good way to get a contentious motion passed.)  But the delegates spoke and Mr. Swann was directed to reach out to ‘progressive parties’.  And  the result…silly season in Alberta politics.

From the beginning the NDP made it quite clear that they were not interested in any type of cooperation.  The Alberta Party and the DRP have indicated they only want to make backroom deals to determine who would run in ridings they designated.

David Swann has a plan but has not given any details.  Apparently when he does he will present it to the membership.   I’m not sure if this is before or after he has made some backroom deals.

I don’t believe Mr. Swann has a mandate from the membership to make any deal(s) with other parties to determine who would run in ridings.  Neither does he have the support from the membership to consider a merger(s) to form a new party using Alberta Liberal infrastructure and funds.

If he wants this mandate he should resign as leader, articulate his plan and use it as a centerpiece of his leadership campaign.

I would not be supporting Mr. Swann.

Pat Thomas
Devon, Alberta

Alberta healthcare is not a profit centre. Alberta healthcare is a people centre.

Maureen Olivia of Calgary submitted the following letter to the Calgary Herald in response to the op-ed column by John Carpay (http://bit.ly/btA3Ab) on private healthcare:

Dear Sirs:

You have featured articles concerning vital delivery of healthcare in Calgary region, including articles with faulty logic, “Pay out of pocket and wait no more for care” – which is actually not workable.  The article advocates private healthcare and compares the delivery of healthcare for a large population to commodities, purchasing of houses, steaks and shirts, thus trivializing and degrading healthcare here in this region.  Healthcare has become a life and death issue, because public healthcare in Calgary region has been destroyed systematically for approximately twenty years, and counting, with no reasonable, moral or ethical explanation as to precisely “why”.

You do not compare worldwide international medical delivery of public healthcare for large populations to price competitive goods and services, manufacturing industries, because these “cultures” do not share the same purpose or culture or development vis-a-vis “public healthcare” on an international world-wide structured basis, and this is true in Alberta.  All healthcare today is international in delivery and scope, and monitored fortunately by the WHO and UN.

Medical public healthcare service in all countries today is not to be compared to “competitive marketplace economics”.  Taxpayers throughout the world have raised healthcare through centuries of effort and cultural and social and religious development, and public healthcare is a moral and ethical essential.

All countries, through universities, research institutes, medical faculties, develop professional public service medical staff who are geared to “serving” their countries and cities, and providing first quality healthcare procedures and programs, and this requires a particular type of culture and focus and staff.

Medicine, medical research, public healthcare services are driven by brilliant and dedicated professionals.  Public healthcare is not intended to enrich anything or anyone.  The sole purpose of public healthcare service is strictly to serve, and it is not an economic profit centre in any country regardless of political rhetoric of those who would abuse international medical standards.

Alberta’s politicians and wealthy corporate leaders continue to attack the delivery of quality first standard public healthcare, accessible to all people regardless of economic stature – and it is an insult to all Albertans, and this insult is not even thinly veiled.  The rhetoric used against healthcare is appalling.  Excellence in public healthcare service is the backbone of any high society with respect to social and religious beliefs.  Without healthcare, you cannot work, pay taxes, and contribute.

Private healthcare, on the contrary, is a rogue movement, a corruption birthed through the publicly funded healthcare institutions worldwide, and private healthcare, no matter how you state the fact, exploits the rich who fear major illness and yet who cannot buy health back from private doctors who feed off their fears, literally stealing private healthcare dollars from the desperate rich, who their entire corporate lives never believed in public healthcare but now have no qualms about exploiting both private and public healthcare infrastructure to the limits.  The private doctors who accept wealthy patients who have been outspokenly hostile to public healthcare – those private doctors feed off anxieties and guilt of the rich who opposed international quality public healthcare here in Alberta.

It is a fact, that in each country, it takes generations and decades to build up healthcare programs by means of taxation actuarially compounded and focused to the highest standards.

It is a fact, that due to the technology of modern medicine, the rich are not rich enough to purchase continued quality healthcare for their lifetimes without accessing public healthcare institutions.

Many of the private doctors cannot compete on first international standards in the best medical institutes and hide from scrutiny in private clinics, scorning public healthcare from which they derived their educations, training and lucrative careers.  Private healthcare for sale to the rich becomes a pathetic insult even to the rich who previously scorned public healthcare but who now cannot find any real medical cures in private clinics and private hospitals, all hugely expensive and inconvenient and “not in their own backyards”.  Public healthcare is not long distance.

Public healthcare delivery to large populations works broad scale and not by elitism, so that poor and rich alike benefit from one high quality standard of excellence in the delivery of healthcare, and do not suffer from multi-tiered standards that do not fully comply with healthcare delivery geared to saving lives, improving lives, cures and new surgical and treatment techniques.

There is only one standard in public healthcare and modern medicine:  the highest.  Competent doctors and physicians do not practice one level of medicine for the rich and lower levels for the poor depending on their bank balance.  Good doctors can only function on one level:  the highest.

Public healthcare and modern medicine cannot be bought and sold short-term like shares and commodities and consumer goods, and to compare these cultures in this fashion is degrading.

Alberta healthcare is not a profit centre.  Alberta healthcare is a people centre.

All Albertans do not have much time left to ask politicians to put aside rhetoric and to rebuild public healthcare, destroyed for 20 years and counting, and to give Albertans control over one high quality system of healthcare, one that serves all people with health + care.  Healthcare is “service” for people and by people, the only purpose of which is to save lives and to improve lives.  You either have it – or you don’t.

Yours very truly,

Maureen Olivia

Note: Carpay did not identify himself with the right wing organization, the Canadian Constitutional Foundation (http://www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/) when the letter appeared in the Calgary Herald.

Reaction to the cooperation ads: A sample

Since the Alberta Liberal Party ads appeared in the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal on Wednesday, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion and feedback coming in from party members and from the general public. Here is a round up of some of the reaction:

Evan Bedford, a former Green Party candidate in Red Deer South wrote:
“I got David Swann’s letter recently, and I agree completely about the need for cooperation.  If there’s any way I can help, please let me know.”

Bob Borreson, a member of the ALP and a former candidate for the NDP wrote the following letter to the editor of the Edmonton Journal saying:
“Those of us who care about quality public health care delivered in public facilities can not afford to risk splitting our votes and electing a Conservative or Wildrose candidate. Those who want the poor, sick, and the aged to be properly cared for in Alberta can not afford more Conservative government in this province. Regardless what Party leaders may say, I as one Progressive voter in Alberta support David Swann’s proposal 100%. The time for petty rivalry is over, let all of us who want a change from Conservatism to a government that actually represents it’s people first can not afford to lose this opportunity for positive change.”
Read the full letter posted on our ALP blog.

Ken Chapman, a former Progressive Conservative who left the party and founded the Reboot Alberta movement, wrote this on his blog:
“New developments sparked by the Liberal leader David Swann have triggered some serious conversations in progressive political circles about what to do.  Reboot Alberta has been instrumental in starting policy conversations amongst progressive thinking Albertan.  But the time has come to get more focused on the politics side of the progressive agenda. I have been in a number of conversations with progressive thinkers in the province and the MSM in the past few days.  There is a plan emerging in my mind about how to use the conversation space David Swann has opened up with his invitation.  Expect a blog post on the ideas and events peculating around shortly.”
Read this post and Ken’s previous post supporting David’s move towards cooperation.

Author, artist and storyteller Lisa Hurst of Banff wrote in a letter to the Calgary Herald:
“I commend Swann and the Alberta Liberals for having the courage to envision a new way of politics in Alberta; one that is inclusive, respectful, and forward thinking.”
Read the letter online.

Dave King, former Progressive Conservative Cabinet Minister under Peter Lougheed wrote on his blog:
“I look forward to working with all Albertans to build a progressive alternative, and I hope that most Albertans will agree all our work contributes to that, whether we work inside one party or another, or as individual citizens, or as members of important social institutions. When David and I talk, and we will, I hope the conversation will be about how to make this province great — not about how to unseat the Conservatives.”
Read the full blog post.

The CBC ran an online poll asking the question, “What do you about the Liberals reaching out to other parties to defeat the Stelmach Tories?” The results were:
Smacks of desperation: 31.13%
Smart move: 49.25%
Don’t care, they’re irrelevant: 19.63%
Of note is the fact that there were two answers offered that were negative and only one positive answer–an example of media bias?
See the poll.

Dave Cournoyer, well-known blogger wrote on daveberta.ca:
“I have to say that I am disappointed with the NDP and Alberta Party for their unwillingness to be open to discussions with the Liberal Party. Dr. Swann has taken a big political risk by offering to talk and in the low-stakes of opposition politics in Alberta it would cause negligible political harm to kindly accept the offer.”
Read the full blog post.

Letter to the Editor: No laws to protect Alberta’s farm workers

The following letter appeared in The Medicine Hat News on June 16, the Calgary Herald on June 18, the Edmonton Journal on June 20 and in the Lethbridge Herald and Western Producer on June 24.

Dear Editor,

Today will mark four years since the needless death of beloved husband, father and farm worker Kevan Chandler at a High River feedlot. Since that fateful Father’s Day, no changes have been made to prevent this tragedy from happening to another Alberta farm worker.

If Kevan worked in any other dangerous industry in Alberta or in any other province, standards would have been in place to prevent his death. Alberta has laws to protect our cows, pigs, horses, dogs and cats. No such laws for the men, women and children who work as Alberta’s farm workers.

No laws for you, says the Conservative government of Alberta.

Since 2001, five employment ministers (Dunford, Cardinal, Evans Goudreau and Lukaszuk) have refused to provide Alberta’s farm workers with government services or health and safety protections, insisting they are “striking a balance” between worker and producer rights. That is some scale of injustice they are using. In Alberta, the right to make a profit trumps the rights of these workers.

In 2001, minister Clint Dunford said he must consult with farmers. We got the Marz Committee. Fast-forward eight years. In 2009, after a rare fatality review into the death of Kevan Chandler, Judge Peter Barley recommended

Occupational Health and Safety protection for these workers. The Conservative government launched their own one-year review and consultation into this issue, which resulted in Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk saying in 2010 we must consult with farmers.

Nine years of consultation has resulted in approximately 160 deaths and many thousands of injuries, and no improvement in protection for our farm workers. Whom is this government serving? Clearly it is not our farm workers and their families.

I never knew Kevan, but I have come to care deeply for him since getting to know his loving family.

My thoughts are with Lorna, Jada, Josh and family on this sad day.

Darlene A. Dunlop
Bow Island
Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Remember+fallen+farm+worker+Father/3177677/story.html#ixzz0trxRySBL

or

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/Remembering+Kevan+Chandler+today/3168736/story.html