All posts tagged Progressive Conservatives

Has Alberta pioneered an unlegislated ban on collective bargaining?

by David Climenhaga on April 24, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Collective Bargaining, Labour Relations with 1 Comment

“Post-secondary collective bargaining,” Alberta style. Advanced Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk and a post-secondary employer negotiator rig the deck, foreground, while a faculty association negotiators ponder what’s just happened. Actual Alberta bargaining teams may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Mr. Lukaszuk, former advanced ed minister Steve Khan.

As is well known, Advanced Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk has sent a letter to the boards of all of Alberta post-secondary institutions instructing them on what their bargaining position and final wage offer must be in negotiations with their faculty associations and staff unions.

The position can be summed up in the phrase, now frequently heard on college and university campuses throughout the province, “Zero, zero, zero.”

Oh, wait – and I mean that literally – after three years of nothing you can ask nicely for a 2-per-cent raise. If you’re lucky, and unlike Athabasca University your institution’s administration hasn’t spent its reserves into oblivion, you might get something.

This leads us to a new axiom in the Annals of Labour Relations in Alberta.

Alert readers will recall that it is an opinion expressed frequently on this blog that strikes are not permitted in Alberta unless the union is so weak that the workers cannot possibly win. This practice is already well established.

This is not mere hyperbole. It is literally true, since Alberta’s labour relations legislation, anticipating the Republican “reforms” in Wisconsin by decades, outlaws strikes by essentially all public employees – civil servants, health care workers and post-secondary education employees.

Where such blanket bans aren’t in place and a strike threatens to be effective from the perspective of working people – in the private sector as well as the public – the government directly or through the tame and toothless Alberta Labour Relations Board is willing to step in immediately to postpone or outlaw any strike the union has a chance of winning.

Strikes are only allowed to proceed when there is a strong chance the effort will fail.

Now, though, it would appear that in the matter of public sector negotiations, Mr. Lukaszuk is going for the “Full Wisconsin” and banning collective bargaining by public sector unions altogether – only without the American-style bother of actually passing legislation.

Why waste the time passing laws? This is, after all, Alberta!

So the new axiom is simply this: collective bargaining is illegal in Alberta, unless it can be shown in advance to be ineffective.

What else can we make of Mr. Lukaszuk’s statement – which is no request at all, but an instruction – in his letter that “limits on compensation and improvements in productivity are necessary everywhere in the public sector, including post-secondary education.”

“In this regard,” he suggests, it would be in the public interest for any and all future collective bargaining to result in agreements with the following parameters:

“Annual percentage wage changes over four years of not more than 0/0/0/2; and…

“Negotiated deals which include methods to achieve productivity gains by remedying any inefficiency in current agreements.”

The former point is code for a government ban on wage increases; the latter for wholesale gutting of collective agreements in the name of “productivity.” Certainly, under this formula, negotiating contract improvements that benefit working people is impossible.

This is not, of course, collective bargaining and Mr. Lukaszuk, who is a reasonably bright man, surely knows this.

But the government can confidently proceed with this program in the knowledge it would take more than four years for any challenge to reach the Supreme Court, by which time the government’s inevitable loss would be legally and politically moot.

So, let it be said here, this is an example of bargaining in bad faith on an epic scale.

Indeed, what if universities, colleges, technical institutions and their employees should come up with ways to be more productive? Well, why bother, since Mr. Lukaszuk’s diktat means there is no incentive for their productivity improvements to act as an incentive, collectively or individually.

Mr. Lukaszuk is also Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s deputy premier. Readers will recall that he was only recently slipped into the Advanced Education portfolio after the government brewed up its Bitumen Bubble misdirection. The previous minister, St. Albert MLA Steve Khan, was unceremoniously skidded, presumably for being too nice and honourable a guy. So Mr. Lukaszuk is most certainly aware that government budgets are passed on a one-year cycle – an inconvenient and unchangeable aspect of the Canadian Constitution.

So why is the Redford (un-)Progressive Conservative Government dictating collective bargaining over a four-year cycle? The answer, of course, may be summed up in a single word: politics. The four years will get them through the next election, the government obviously hopes, closing in on a half century of Tory rule.

This is what passes for “labour peace” in Alberta.

It’s said here that Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi – a Mount Royal University professor in a previous life – got it right when he said this government’s attacks on post-secondary education are a disgrace and wrote a letter to the MRU Board urging them to stand up to this government on the question of program and budget cuts.

Indeed, every post-secondary board in this province should do that – though it’s doubtful any of them will have the courage.

Speaking of courage, if this government had any real courage, they’d brush the boards aside and “negotiate” these contracts themselves – it’s what they’re doing anyway. Of course, if they did that, they’d have to take responsibility for whatever happened next.

Count on it, though, when that time comes, this government will be back knocking on the doors of public sector unions, social program supporters and progressive voters, respectfully asking for their sympathy and assistance and trying to scare the bejeepers out of them with tales of what a Wildrose government might do.

Oh, please!

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Never mind the pundits: Alberta Premier Alison Redford has plenty to celebrate today

by David Climenhaga on April 23, 2013 in 2012 Provincial Election, Alberta Politics, Alison Redford with No comments

Alberta Premier Alison Redford, second from right, with Environment Minister Diana McQueen and Culture Minister Health Klimchuk, watch as Deputy Premier Tom Lukaszuk celebrates the Progressive Conservative Party’s victory on this day last year with a sip of champagne. Actual PC cabinet members may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: the real Premier Redford, swearing the oath of office.

Today is the first anniversary of Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s unexpected but comfortable election victory.

If you follow Alberta politics, you’re bound to have been reading a lot of stuff lately about how unpopular Ms. Redford is just now and how she really has no reason to celebrate.

“There is no cause to party,” the Edmonton Journal’s political columnist wrote gloomily, recommending against her drinking anything more expensive than Baby Duck.

He, like everyone else at the moribund local rag and its similarly declining Postmedia counterpart in Calgary, has been touting a self-confessedly iffy Leger Marketing on-line-panel survey that suggests Ms. Redford has no friends.

Well, it’s true, I guess. The popularity of Alberta’s premier does seem to have rather slumped of late – although probably not as badly as the doubtless politically charged members of Leger’s panel indicated – and her Progressive Conservative government likewise seems to have a penchant for making many more enemies than friends.

If there’s anything to this Leger poll – which the Calgary Herald cautiously noted in its story on the survey is “a non-random Internet survey” that “does not report a margin of error” – the news wasn’t particularly good for anyone else either, at least anyone else the Journal or the Herald is likely to advise readers is a credible and serious candidate.

So if, as the poll suggests, 60 per cent of Albertans disapprove of the job Ms. Redford is doing, nearly 40 per cent disapprove of the work of Opposition Leader Danielle Smith as well. Ms. Smith is doing better with her own supporters, the poll suggests, with 39 per cent who approve, versus 26 per cent who approve of Ms. Redford. But … yadda-yadda … Feel free to read it for yourself if you care all that much.

In reality, the situation Ms. Redford and her government find themselves in is akin to that experienced by all of us who have discovered to our astonishment we’re not as young as we used to be. To wit: Growing old is for the birds, but the alternative is worse.

And the alternative for Ms. Redford last year, it could be argued, was a fate almost worse than death, that is, political death!

A year and a couple of weeks ago, tout le monde political Alberta had written off Ms. Redford and her Tories and were already typing up the obituaries, not to mention the longer one for the four-decade-plus PC regime started by Peter Lougheed.

The really important reporters, of course, were writing up glowing tributes to Danielle Smith, Tom Flanagan and the other Great Minds behind the Wildrose Party, which we were all persuaded was about to win a huge majority.

So let us not forget the reason the Alberta political punditocracy was writing off Ms. Redford and the PCs last year in almost exactly the same words they’re writing them off now was public opinion polls that looked an awful lot like this latest survey.

Instead, as we all know now, Ms. Redford posted a respectable 61-seat majority government and got the last laugh, or at least the next-to-last one.

Since political life is better than political death, I’d say Ms. Redford has something to celebrate right there.

What’s more, plenty of Progressive Conservative MLAs who expected to lose their seats are still safely ensconced in their Legislative sinecures. So, no matter how worried they are about where Ms. Redford is taking them next, neither they nor any others in the party, are very likely to take the chance of skidding the premier at her mandatory PC Party review next November.

So there’s a second reason for her to celebrate – she’s probably safe at least through to the next general election in 2016, or whenever.

Of course, she may lose then, as everyone seems to think now that she will, with voters complaining about the shards of broken promises that litter the streets of Alberta’s cities and towns.

But are you really certain that, three years hence, Alberta voters will even notice, let alone care?

The truth is, it could happen, and the Opposition will try mightily to ensure it does, but Alberta voters have a long and undistinguished history of ignoring broken promises, incompetent government and bonehead mistakes before returning Progressive Conservative governments to power by comfortable majorities.

Is anyone who doesn’t have a partisan point to make really confident enough to predict the same thing won’t happen again in 2016?

We should also be careful what we wish for. Ms. Redford still has three years to keep those promises, and, what’s more, some of them aren’t worth keeping. Do you still want – as Ms. Redford promised on page 29 of her 2012 policy platform – to “recruit foreign temporary workers”?

The fact is, Ms. Redford and her government have plenty to celebrate today. So why wouldn’t they say, “what the hell,” and pop the corks on some champagne?

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Close enough for government work: Alberta Tories manage to hold their centre-right turf

by David Climenhaga on March 7, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Legislature, Alberta Politics with 2 Comments

Finance Minister Doug Horner preps Albertans for yesterday’s budget. Actual Alberta finance ministers may not appear exactly as illustrated – but that’s the trick, isn’t it? Below: The real Doug Horner.

All in all, I guess, you could make a good case this was a pretty lousy budget.

It’s deeply confusing, as without any doubt the Alberta government intended, and there are a couple of real disasters lurking in its pages – got kids in post-secondary education, anyone?

But in the aftermath of the Alberta Budget Speech read this afternoon by Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Doug Horner, who was wearing his new flip-flops at the time, you have to admit it was a pretty slick example of expectation management.

The usual suspects on the left and the right quickly attacked Mr. Horner’s budget with the usual feigned ardour, as they are expected to do, and from either perspective they probably got it right. But so what? You’ve got to know plenty of their supporters were breathing a sigh of relief and reckoning they’d just dodged another bullet.

NDP Leader Brian Mason, sounding a bit like a broken record, called it a “broken promise budget.” Undoubtedly he’s correct – the question is, will Alberta voters buy Mr. Horner’s and Premier Alison Redford’s explanation that things have really changed? The answer: Probably.

Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman called it a “bankrupt budget” – he meant, morally, presumably, because you can’t call any entity with the kind of cash flow Alberta has bankrupt, exactly, even when you’re feeling the uncomfortable pressure of a bitumen bubble passing through.

So are they morally bankrupt for running a cynical but effective campaign, then changing everything? Almost certainly! But will Alberta voters care in three years’ time? Unless something big changes, almost certainly not.

Opposition Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith called it the “back-in-debt budget,” trotting out the standard hard-right line that we’re spending beyond our means, a position that may not get a lot of support here, but that admittedly has a certain constituency in this province.

So are we back in debt? Sure. Will anybody care? Well, the Wildrose brain trust can try to make Albertans care and, who knows, maybe some of them eventually will. Or not.

Many more of the usual suspects, from a couple of well-known unions to right-wing Astroturf groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, rolled out some fairly predictable cris de coeur. The Edmonton Journal even sounded a bit like the official arm of the Wildrose Party, trotting out portentous phrases like “opaque, obscure and cynical.” Well, yeah!

But there’s no escaping the sense the Redford Tories cynically but deftly stage-managed the whole thing by rolling out a number of terrifyingly dire hints and rumours in advance – tough decisions, sharp break with the past, significant restraint, yadda-yadda – then announcing actual budget details that seem on their face considerably less drastic.

Of course, we don’t really know yet. Maybe ever.

But faced with a hard-right obsessive about debt and spending, a centre-left ready to view any cuts in health care or social programming as a major betrayal, and influential groups walk away from any exercises in coalition building, Mr. Horner managed to leave both sides’ supporters feeling as if they might have just been had, but disinclined to start rushing to the barricades.

There’s still some potential for mischief there – the government’s fight with Alberta’s physicians could still cause them some grief, but they’re sure acting like it works for them. It might not be smart to bet against them on that one!

No one’s conducted an opinion poll just yet – Janet Brown! Tony Coulson! C’mon down! – but it’s said here that in their opaque, obscure and cynical way, the strategic brains behind Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party managed to hold their centre-right ground a little longer.

And the centre right, if you haven’t happened to notice, is territory quite a lot of Albertans will vote for.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Two polls show how, and maybe why, Alberta’s Tory coalition is crumbling

by David Climenhaga on March 5, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Polling with 7 Comments

Weakened but still standing: The mighty Tory edifice. Don’t panic. This is a metaphor! Below: Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

It’s interesting to juxtapose the results of two new polls on related but different topics that were released yesterday – a Think HQ poll of Alberta voter intentions and an Environics poll of Albertans attitudes about taxes and public services.

The results of the former were published in the afternoon by CTV; the results of latter were released in the morning by the Alberta Federation of Labour, for which the survey was done.

If you believe them, the Think HQ numbers show support for Premier Alison Redford and her party alike falling through the floor.

Environics’ results show extremely strong support among Albertans for a return to a progressive income tax, higher corporate and wealth taxes, and higher petroleum royalties.

Looking at the polls in more detail, the Think HQ survey indicates support for the far-right Wildrose Party has shot up to 38 per cent, leaving the Tories of Premier Alison Redford in the dust with the support of committed voters at only 26 per cent.

That would be a drop of 18 per cent since the PCs won a 61-seat majority on April 23.

The poll indicated the NDP had the support of 16 per cent of respondents, and the Alberta Liberals that of 13 per cent. (NDP support was concentrated in Edmonton, where it sat at 26 per cent, in a statistical tie with the Wildrose at 27.) The seatless Alberta Party posted 3-per-cent support.

According to Think HQ’s analysis of the numbers, the PC election coalition that saved Ms. Redford’s bacon in April is eroding from both ends of the political spectrum.

It tells something about the state of political reporting in this province that neither CTV nor the Globe and Mail bothered to report the NDP or Alberta Liberal provincial numbers in their first runs at this story.

The poll was even harsher on Premier Redford’s personal popularity, indicating 58 per cent of respondents disapprove of her performance and 33 per cent approve.

By contrast, the spreads of other leaders’ ratings were much closer: Danielle Smith, Wildrose, 43 per cent disapprove, 46 per cent approve; Raj Sherman,  Alberta Liberals, 40 per cent disapprove, 37 per cent approve; Brian Mason, NDP, 35 per cent disapprove, 40 per cent approve.

Think HQ’s conclusions were based on a survey of 1,214 self-selected members of an “online research panel” between Feb. 12 and Feb. 16. The company says the poll has a margin or error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent.

Turning to the Environics numbers, 72 per cent of respondents said they favour returning to a progressive income tax and abandoning Alberta’s so-called flat tax, a relic of the Ralph Klein era that is not flat at all, but blatantly favours the wealthy.

Environics said 78 of the poll’s respondents favoured higher taxes on corporate taxes and taxes on high-income earners. The pollster also said 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Albertans are not getting their fair share of royalty revenue.

Respondents identified several spending priorities, including creating a provincial strategy for long-term care for seniors (70 per cent in favour) and protecting publicly funded health care against for-profit health care (57 per cent).

Environics used a telephone survey of 1,014 adult Albertans from Feb. 14-24 and says the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Now, anyone who has read this blog for long will know that I am not a fan of Think HQ’s methodology and that I have more time for the polling methods used by Environics.

Since the on-line panels like Think HQ’s tend to be drawn from the politically hyper-engaged, I don’t entirely trust this one’s conclusions. That is to say, I think it highlights an undeniable trend, but I seriously doubt Wildrose support has reached 38 per cent, or that Redford Tory support has plummeted to 26 per cent – just yet, anyway.

If I were to guess, I’d put the support for both parties in a dead heat, probably in the low 30s. Who knows, support for the NDP might be even higher – you have to be an eternal optimist to be an Alberta Knee-Dipper like me.

But whatever you think of Think HQ’s methods, the direction it has identified is clear – and real.

The high level of support for public services, public programs and the taxes needed to pay for them identified by Environics are also real – as anyone who talks to living and breathing Albertans knows.

It is said here these attitudes explain a lot about why Ms. Redford’s winning coalition from last April is crumbling, at least on the left-hand side.

Both polls strongly suggest that Albertans aren’t buying what Alison Redford is trying to sell. Both polls strongly suggest that plenty of Albertans are not happy about the fact she’s not keeping her promises.

Given the political position most often taken by Alberta Diary, some readers will find this conclusion tendentious. Fair enough, I guess. Indeed, some non-Albertans may also find these two polls’ conclusions contradictory.

Moreover, there’s still plenty of time for the Redford Tories to pull their fat out of the fire again. Even the way her government handles this week’s upcoming budget on Thursday could make a big difference.

Still, it’s said here that taken together the polls show the Wildrose Party’s departed strategic guru, Tom Flanagan, got it right. To wit: If voters on the left abandon the Progressive Conservatives and return to their traditional political homes, the Wildrose Party has a chance to grasp the brass ring.

It’s almost a shame that Dr. Flanagan, who celebrates his 69th birthday today, is not longer with his party to have his prescience acclaimed.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Despite neocon flameout distraction, Redford Tory bumbling dominates Alberta news

by David Climenhaga on March 3, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Canadian Politics, Labour Relations with 2 Comments

Neocon Icarus Tom Flanagan (appropriately covered, thank goodness) at right, falls to earth after flying too close to the sun. Preston Manning hovers nearby. The flameout of actual neoconservative avatars may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Health Minister Fred Horne, Education Minister Jeff Johnson, and retired judge John Z. Vertes, who are the people this post is really about.

Even word that Tom Flanagan, the Icarus of Canada’s neoconservative movement, had flown too close to the sun and was coming down to earth in flames was not enough to save Alberta’s crisis-prone Progressive Conservative government from more pain!

One would have thought Premier Alison Redford would have been cheered when the principal architect of the Opposition Wildrose Party’s brush with victory last April appeared at a seminar to defend users of child pornography and thereby assured his own political and professional demise.

After all, he was very nearly the cause of her party’s destruction.

But instead, most local mainstream media continued to focus on the only-slightly-less-startling condemnation of Ms. Redford’s Progressive Conservative Government by retired Justice John Z. Vertes, head of the province’s tightly controlled and far-from-independent inquiry into health system queue jumping.

Local media also enthusiastically covered the education minister’s (mis)use of teacher email addresses, especially the fact it is now being investigated by the Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner, to try to bypass the collective bargaining process by negotiating directly with union members.

So despite whatever satisfaction they may have felt at Dr. Flanagan’s long fall to earth, the neocon guru’s very bad day Thursday didn’t really offer the Redford Tories much respite from their self-inflicted troubles.

It was a different story in Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s so-called Conservatives went from rubbing their hands with glee at the morning prospect of tormenting the New Democrats over the defection of a Quebec MP to the Bloc Quebecois to playing embarrassing defence for Dr. Flanagan’s outrageous commentary by mid-afternoon.

Getting back to Mr. Vertes’ surprising accusation, the retired judge’s charge that Health Minister Fred Horne was interfering with the Health Care Preferential Access Inquiry’s independence, such as it is, was the most damaging blow to the government on the day Dr. Flanagan was flaming out.

On Thursday, Mr. Vertes said publicly at a session of the inquiry that Mr. Horne had refused to grant him the extra time he needed to properly probe the matter of health system queue jumping in Alberta, some instances of which have actually been uncovered by his efforts.

This was a dangerous moment for the government, it is said here. The government set up the inquiry with limited powers, headed by a judge who had retired from the bench, in order to avoid the risk of the independent and powerful judicial inquiry Ms. Redford had promised back when she was fighting for her political life.

But until Justice Vertes called Mr. Horne’s bluff by speaking out at his own inquiry, there was every chance the Alberta public could have been fooled, or at least uninterested enough not to distinguish between a real judicial inquiry and a commission that reports to the health minister.

By yesterday, Premier Redford had seemingly recognized the danger, undercut her minister and told the Canadian Press that if Mr. Vertes required more time, well, he should have it – but, please, could he wrap up the inquiry by the end of April? Still, one wonders what Mr. Vertes threatened behind the scenes to get the job done.

Meanwhile, negotiations with the province’s teachers continued to descend into recrimination and bitterness.

Also yesterday, it was revealed the government has all but declared war on teachers in an email sent by Education Minister Jeff Johnson to Alberta school trustees that stated: “Provincial negotiations are over. The incentives I offered are off the table. Further, be aware that any negotiated deals must include wage freezes for three years and no more than a 2 per cent increase in the fourth year. Anything else is simply not sustainable for our education system and will not be funded by government.”

It’s hard to imagine what the government hopes to achieve with a tactic that is a textbook example of bargaining in bad faith and which is certain to inflame rank-and-file teachers, possibly enough to drive them to the picket lines.

For the time being, however, the Alberta Teachers Association has determined to respond like grownups to Mr. Johnson’s provocation. They will launch an advertising campaign to make their case timed to coincide with next week’s provincial budget, which if it’s effective will infuriate the government further.

Meanwhile, Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton launched her investigation of Mr. Johnson’s earlier effort to spam 30,000 teachers with an official email that tried to go around their union bargaining committee.

Ms. Clayton’s effort is directed at finding out how Mr. Johnson got the email addresses, which are supposed to be private, not if he used them in violation of the province’s labour law – a question that comes within the purview of the toothless and employer-friendly Alberta Labour Relations Board.

For his part, Johnson maintained his first emails were a fine idea and he plans to continue sending them, then upped the ante with his inflammatory note to the trustees. This shot was reminiscent of his cabinet colleague Mr. Horne’s maladroit handling of negotiations with the province’s doctors – another fight that seems to have been left on the government’s back burner for the moment.

Well, there’s no defence like a good offence, one supposes, although that particular strategy will tend to keep the issue in the public eye, which in turn makes the government look ham-handed and incompetent.

So, notwithstanding the assistance unintentionally rendered to them by the elderly and possibly confused Dr. Flanagan, late of the University of Calgary and the Wildrose Party, the Redford Tories seem to be doing everything possible to ensure negative attention returns to them as quickly as possible.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

One single Alberta government bargaining agency is likely to end badly for Redford PCs

by David Climenhaga on February 24, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Labour Relations with 4 Comments

Premier Alison Redford, in lab coat, centre, and her Progressive Conservative cabinet get ready to bring Consolidated Bargaining to life. Actual Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Albert Einstein, the well-known genius, and Charles Darwin, who gave us the idea for the Political Darwin Awards.

Chances are good the Alberta government’s announcement it will consolidate all bargaining with all unionized provincial public employees into the hands of a single lead negotiator will end badly for Premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative Party.

This is a government that has never understood the meaning of the phrase “unintended consequences” and that has a fatal attraction to the idea of grand unified schemes that are supposed to solve all its problems forever – and never do.

This is the government, after all, that under premier Ralph Klein had the bright idea of gaining control over hospital boards by consolidating them into huge regional health authorities that would run the public health care system in a way the government could avoid taking any political responsibility for unpopular decisions.

When that didn’t work out quite the way it hoped, Mr. Klein’s brain trust dismissed the health regions’ elected boards and consolidated them into even larger and more expensive entities. At the same time, the PCs consolidated the unions in the province’s hospitals into huge region-wide bargaining units, which had the effect of giving them more power.

When that didn’t work out the way the next premier, Ed Stelmach, liked – mainly because some of the senior executives of the new and larger health regions swung their weight around too effectively – the government created a massive province-wide entity called Alberta Health Services and hired a smart-mouthed Australian economist to run it.

Well, we all know how that worked out. That’s right, not as expected.

First of all, of course, the Australian economist turned out to have a politically fatal predilection for saying what he thought while his mouth was full of oatmeal cookies.

But AHS also cost more. Its management was bloated and bad at solving problems. The government tended to get blamed more often and more quickly for its failings. Plus, it increased the strength of the unions it consolidated into single units.

Examples: Three years ago, Mr. Stelmach was crystal clear, about 20,000 Registered Nurses employed by AHS must take zero pay increases in bargaining. The nurses settled for zero per cent, two per cent and four per cent over three years. One year ago this month, hospital support workers alone proved with a half-day wildcat strike at 20 hospitals that they could bring the system to its knees.

The Alberta government may imagine consolidated bargaining can control such outcomes. In fact, it will hand more power to its employees.

Arguably, the PC government has done a little better in education and the government service. In the former field, it managed a single deal with the province’s 40,000 teachers that lasted five years and only devolved into the chaos of multi-board negotiations recently. A case can be made if they’d only tried a little harder, they could have done it all again.

Indeed, just to show that the government isn’t paying any attention, Education Minister Jeff Johnson is trying to get all the teachers and school boards back at a single bargaining table before the creation of the new consolidated bargaining shop.

Meanwhile, in roughly the same time frame, the government also maintained labour peace pretty successfully with the union for Alberta’s 21,000 direct government workers through several rounds of negotiations – suggesting that the negotiation system run by the Public Service Commission wasn’t broke, and therefore wasn’t in need of fixin’.

The PCs haven’t done nearly as well with the province’s 10,000 or so physicians, who only sort-of-bargain collectively, but who seem to have a knack for getting up this government’s nose and making it do stupid things.

So now the Consolidation Gang is going to fix the bargaining problems with health care workers of all varieties by creating a massive centralized bargaining authority – and bringing the teachers and the government workers, not to mention the employees of government boards and agencies, into the mix as well.

And they think this is going to help?

Well, we’ll see, I guess. In theory, one could argue, the idea as described by Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk has some merit. But right from the get-go it’s hard to imagine it won’t have the effect of making it very difficult for the government to point the finger at someone else if its negotiations with any group of public workers go off the rails for any reason.

So I would say Unintended Consequence No. 1 for the government is likely to be serious and swift political consequences for the bumps and potholes that are fairly typical on the road to any collective agreement.

Unintended Consequence No. 2, it is said here, will be that rather than co-ordinating public sector bargaining, the new agency will probably discombobulate it.

Fighting over control of the bargaining agenda between the government’s super-bargaining agency and the front-line human resources staff in health care, education and the government service will grow worse, and more bitter.

It’s hard to imagine that public service unions won’t be able to make that disunity on the other side work well for their members.

In health care, the government made AHS an arm’s-length, independent agency and hired people to run it. Those people will not take kindly to being told what to do, line by line, minute by minute, nickel by nickel. More unintended consequences are likely to follow.

You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but apparently it sure helps not to be a PC premier or cabinet minister. And you don’t have to be Charles Darwin to figure out what could happen next.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

A Tale of Two Provinces: B.C. NDP and Wild Rosehip Tea Party show why opposition matters

by David Climenhaga on February 20, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Politics, B.C. Politics with 2 Comments

Razzle-dazzle, sis-boom-bah, balanced budgets, rah-rah-rah! Danielle Smith and the Wild Rosehip Tea Party yell squad cheers for Alison Redford’s Tory team’s worst plays on the field. The actual Alberta opposition may not be quite as illustrated. Below: Ms. Redford and B.C. Premier Christie Clark. Why are these two premiers smiling?

British Columbia and Alberta, Canada’s two westernmost provinces, have lots in common.

Both have economies that rely heavily on volatile natural resources, well-educated, diverse and generally socially progressive populations, and Westminster-style parliamentary legislatures in beautiful old buildings.

Both are also governed by irresponsible neoconservative coalitions with misleading names that have been in power far too long, each of which has an obsession with balanced budgets and also faces a problem balancing the darned things.

The B.C. neoconservatives are called Liberals and are led by Premier Christy Clark. The Alberta neoconservatives are called Progressive Conservatives and are led by Premier Alison Redford. Apparently Ms. Clark and Ms. Redford can’t stand one another, owing to Ms. Clark’s refusal to commit political suicide to help Ms. Redford – but that will have to be a topic for another day.

There are big differences, too, of course, and I’m not just talking about the West Coast weather forecast.

Chief among them in the political arena is that there’s an opposition party in the B.C. Legislature. It’s called the New Democratic Party led by a fellow named Adrian Dix and we’re told it could very well win the next provincial general election that’s now just 12 weeks away, God willing and the crick don’t rise.

Hoist on its own petard, the B.C. Liberals must hold the election on May 14, thanks to the party’s own un-Canadian fixed-election-date legislation. The reliably neoconservative Vancouver Sun begged yesterday for the vote to be pushed back to a more convenient date, say, one when there’s a more popular neocon premier at the helm.

Here in Alberta, by contrast, we have for an “opposition” one of the offshoots of the American Tea Party – which I like to think of as the Wild Rosehip Tea Party – which acts as a cheerleading section for all the worst instincts of the governing party, the unprogressive Progressive Conservatives of Premier Alison Redford.

The Wild Rosehipsters, officially known as the Wildrose Party, are led by Danielle Smith, who used to be an intern for the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute. They believe in everything the PC Party led by Ms. Redford does, and more! Woo-hoo!

This difference is important because while the New Democratic Party in B.C. most certainly acts as a brake on the worst instincts of the neoconservative B.C. Liberals, and occasionally even pushes them in the right direction, which is the left direction, the Wild Rosehip Tea Party in Alberta always pushes the neoliberal Conservative Party in the wrong direction, which is to say politically speaking the right direction.

Still with me? I’m trying to make a serious point here.

We saw examples of this yesterday in both provinces.

In British Columbia, pushed by the NDP, Ms. Clark’s neoconservative Liberals tabled a budget that, while rich in flaws, did at least one sensible thing – to wit, it included a modest increase in business taxes to help the government meet its commitments.

The mainstream media in B.C. was crowing with delight at how the Liberals had outmaneuvered the NDP, who have been calling for a similar tax increase. (Ms. Clark also sort of outmaneuvered Ms. Redford, by actually managing to put together a budget she could claim, however fancifully, to be balanced.)

The B.C. Liberal budget, which also included a modest (and temporary) increase in income taxes among higher income earners, “captures some of the political territory that has long been occupied by the New Democratic Party opposition, by turning to corporations … to help put the budget back into black,” raved the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Personally, I think this sells B.C. voters short. Those who support a more sensible and sustainable taxation policy have to know that these increases will be out the window the instant the Liberals manage to squeak back into power, if they do, and will likely behave accordingly in the polling booth. Regardless of that, we’ll presumably know soon enough.

Meanwhile, back here in Alberta, we were having a holy-cowflops moment yesterday with the realization the latest analysis of the government’s resource-dependent revenue misestimates mean the looming budget deficit could be as high as $4 billion.

Since Ralph Klein was premier, the province has made an obsession of avoiding both tax increases and deficits, no matter the cost in crumbling infrastructure or flagging services. As a result, the Richest Place on Earth ™ exists in a perpetual state of economic crisis, and this entirely self-inflicted injury now has the potential to become a major embarrassment for Ms. Redford.

But with the Wild Rosehip Tea Party pulling the whistle cord and sitting in the driver’s seat of the province’s ideological locomotive, there’s absolutely no danger we’ll smooth out the wild fluctuations in resource prices with the application of sensibly progressive taxes.

Hell no! We’ll drive this train right off the bridge if we have to before we’ll raise the lowest business taxes in the country by even a single percentage point or give up our “flat tax” – ensuring that more cash can all head south across the U.S. border in the form of massive corporate profits. And when it comes to petroleum royalties, we won’t even collect the money we say we’re owed!

So yesterday we had the unedifying spectacle of Finance Minister Doug Horner getting up on his hind legs and telling us that public service managers were going to have a haircut, and anyone who is negotiating a collective agreement with the public sector – which is pretty well all the public employees in the province – had better get ready for a trim as well.

Remember, these public employees are in many cases the very same naïve voters who flocked to the PCs’ side last April to keep the WRTP out of power, thereby saving the government’s sorry keester in its darkest hour.

If nothing else, this should tell us all we need to know about the importance of having the right opposition here in Alberta.

If we had Adrian Dix and the B.C. NDP as the opposition, we could probably expect Ms. Redford’s Progressive Conservatives to behave like grownups. Hell, that might even be true if we have Brian Mason and his Alberta NDP as opposition.

Instead we have the Wild Rosehipsters and so the government’s key strategy is to sell out the people who saved it and reward the people who came very close to destroying it, and who furthermore still want to.

What’s wrong with this picture?

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Fort Mac Public School Board nixes four-day week plan

This just in: Pressed by mostly horrified parents, Fort McMurray’s Public School Board voted late yesterday against adopting a four-day school week to save $1-million.

The scheme would have increased the average school day by 11 minutes and cut classes for students on about half of the school year’s Fridays to help reduce the board’s $4.4-million deficit.

Most educators criticized the proposal as harmful to learning, although as this blog’s mailbag showed, the idea had some fervent supporters.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Redford to docs: There’s no raise, and you’re not getting it!

by David Climenhaga on February 7, 2013 in Alberta Medical Association, Alberta Politics with 5 Comments

The Alberta Progressive Conservative position on negotiations with the doctors explained. Yes, we’re just as confused as you are. Below: AMA President Michael Giuffre. Premier Alison Redford.

Every day, it just gets weirder and weirder.

The day before yesterday, we’re told, Alberta Premier Alison Redford waded into her health minister’s already strangely muddled negotiations with the province’s physicians to state that the only way the docs will get a raise is if the province goes back to charging health care premiums.

What’s more, she said in an impromptu news conference in Calgary, there’s no way that’s ever going to happen.

And what’s even more, she went on, there’s also no way they’re going to get a raise either. Period.

So that would seem pretty definitive, huh? There’s no raise, and you’re not getting it!

According to the Edmonton Journal, the president of the Alberta Medical Association said he was flabbergasted by the premier’s commentary and accused her of trying to derail the negotiations with the docs.

To Dr. Michael Giuffre’s observations we can only say that we’re all flabbergasted at the kind of stuff being emitted lately by Alberta’s famously brainy premier. As for derailing the negotiations, if what she said Tuesday is true, the obvious question is, What negotiations?

Other than the ones with Fred Horne, the health minister, that is, and heaven only knows what’s going on with those. Alert readers will recall that Mr. Horne has complained that Alberta’s doctors are paid $20 to $29 million more than all those other Canadian doctors, and seeing as the price of oil has unexpectedly gone and acted volatile again leaving Alberta facing the prospect of a deficit, there’s no way we can afford to pay them what he told them they had to take back in November.

So let’s all negotiate, he told them right after that, which brings us back around to Ms. Redford’s remarks on Tuesday.

Which leaves us all exactly where? Well, don’t ask me!

Like Dr. Giuffre, I’m flabbergasted. (Unlike Dr. Giuffre, I’m not going to waste time trying to use logic to pick apart Mr. Horne’s and Ms. Redford’s reasoning by adding up their sums and pointing out they’re talking about needing to raise a billion dollars to pay for a $25-million cost increase. The AMA president should know by now that telling voters “the numbers don’t make sense” just gives them a headache.)

Ms. Redford’s PC predecessor as premier, Ed Stelmach, got rid of Alberta’s health care premiums back in 2008, costing the government about $1 billion in revenue.

Actually, I have a confession to make: I’ve been flabbergasted at this government ever since Ms. Redford took over. Back in March and April 2012, as the April 23 provincial general election screamed down upon us like a freight train hauling carloads to soon-to-be-sworn-in Wildrose MLAs, Ms. Redford seemed to switch course every day, and drop the ball every time she did it.

Like everyone else, I started to think that as a result a Wildrose government was pretty likely.

Then she and her Progressive Conservatives won a very nice 61-seat majority, thank you very much.

It’s all very well to blame that on Pastor Allan Hunsperger, the Lake of Fire Guy, but really people, there had to be more to it than that. Anyway, somebody had to tell on him and make sure the media heard about it.

Now it’s starting to sound like déjà vu all over again – with outrageous revelations of illegal donations to the PCs, strange flip-flops almost every day in the negotiations with the docs, untested cabinet ministers being made to walk the plank, and bad ideas like legislating teachers into involuntary servitude for a couple of years surfacing regularly, not to mention a stream of broken election promises.

And then the demonstrably smartest premier in Canada starts saying stuff like her confusing comments about the doctors’ negotiations. There’s got to be a Youtube video in this: maybe … S**ff Premiers Say…

It’s getting so – well, flabbergasting – that one can only assume that if an election were held tomorrow … we’d all march out and vote in another Progressive Conservative majority!

Where do we go from here? Well, invitees gather in Calgary on the weekend for the Premier’s one-day summit to solve all of Alberta’s economic problems.

And talk about being flabbergasted, I’m still waiting for my invitation from Finance Minister Doug Horner, my MLA. What’s with that?

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Is Premier Alison Redford’s bitter fight with the docs about money, or control?

by David Climenhaga on February 1, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Health Services, Alberta Politics, Health Care, Health Insurance with 6 Comments

Who’s in change here? Progressive Conservative MLAs get ready to supervise the work of an Alberta Health Services medical team while Alberta voters look on. Health officials, physicians and electors may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: AMA President Dr. Michael Giuffre; a space invader

Is the increasingly bitter fight between Alberta’s government and the province’s physicians just about money? It’s said here it’s more about who gets to control the health care system.

If you need evidence for this assertion, look no further than the fact just two and a half months ago Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne said he was going to impose a pay deal on the docs that would have seen their salaries keep on rising.

Premier Alison Redford is now traipsing around the province explaining that these same doctors are being paid too much – why, they get 20 to 29 per cent more than their counterparts anywhere else in Canada!

“Quite frankly, before I start asking Albertans to pay health care premiums, I want to make sure that we’re getting the best deal possible with our doctors,” Ms. Redford told supporters during a recent telephone town hall. “At the end of the day, I think that’s really where we start to save some money with respect to things like health care.”

This is the leader of the same government that just days ago was about to force the same supposedly overpaid physicians to accept an imposed agreement that included a 2.5-per-cent lump sum payment and cost-of-living increases in each of the next three years.

Naturally, the doctors didn’t think that was enough and screamed bloody murder when Mr. Horne moved to unilaterally impose the contract on them. But it still raises the question: If they were not paid enough in November, why is the same pay too much now?

For his part, Mr. Horne has since withdrawn that deal, denied he imposed anything, and returned to the bargaining table with the AMA, setting the stage for the current slanging match.

AMA President Dr. Michael Giuffre conceded on CBC radio yesterday that Ms. Redford’s percentages are essentially correct, but argued that the costs of hiring nurses, renting space and otherwise operating a medical business in boom-bust Alberta are also higher by roughly the same amount.

He couldn’t resist the highlighting the irony of the fact that back in November the Redford Government spent $130,000 of taxpayer money on radio ads to promote an imposed settlement that now seems to have become far too expensive.

Accusing the government of “slamming” and “vilifying” physicians, Dr. Giuffre assailed the premier’s “often-confusing and frequently misleading” comments about physician pay as alarming and not particularly helpful to the on-again negotiations with the docs. He suggested the government is unfairly demonizing physicians because it desperately wants to hold the line on a budget deficit burgeoning in the face of lower prices fetched by Alberta petroleum resources.

Of course, the bitterness between the government and the AMA may go back a little farther than that. Alert readers will recall that the AMA backed the wrong horse in the final days of last spring’s election campaign, when the association bought advertisements that assailed the government and all but called on voters to elect a Wildrose government. Rest assured Alberta’s PC elephant has not forgotten!

Still, if you consider for a moment that the government’s real cost-control fight with doctors may be about who is going to be the boss of the health care system, the emphasis on Alberta physician pay premiums over other provinces suddenly makes sense.

Look at this from the government’s perspective. If you cede control of the system to physicians, who obviously have a dog in the hunt, the chances you’ll ever get health care costs under control are, shall we say, diminished.

Not only are Alberta physicians generously paid, but the billing structure is highly advantageous to their financial health. So it should come as no surprise that in the background of this public fight over wages, Mr. Horne has been chatting with his counterpart in Ontario about ways to change the formula by which physicians are compensated.

But if the government proposes any change to the billing process, it is likely to be attacked by the AMA as dangerous to patients – and chances are good many Albertans will listen. Both the government and the AMA also know that if you asked the typical Albertan in the street whom he or she would rather have in control of the health care system – doctors or politicians – the answer is likely to overwhelmingly favour the docs.

Yet if the government can’t slow down the rate at which health system costs are rising, the PCs and Premier Redford are bound to come under increasing pressure from the Wildrose Party – which can promise without a shred of evidence or accountability that its privatization schemes will deliver fairer, cheaper, more efficient health care.

Ergo, the government’s simplistic but easy-to-sell attack on the AMA from its flank makes political sense while Ms. Redford’s brain trust tries to figure out how to wrest control of the system from physicians and put it in the hands of more easily controlled officials.

Come to think of it, this is what former premier Ed Stelmach was up to when his government created Alberta Health Services back in 2008, not that that worked out the way anyone expected.

Saying doctors are paid 20 to 29 per cent more is just easier to explain than making a complex case for restructuring the way routine health services are delivered to most Albertans, many of whom are focused on the complaint they can’t find a family doctor.

Even Albertans who understand that health care financing is a complex policy question may not connect the dots that this argument represents a strange flip-flop by the government from what it was saying just a few weeks ago.

With the AMA, whose members are not used to losing, darkly hinting that it may resort to legal action if the government won’t bow to its will, look for this fight to continue for some time yet.

But don’t be surprised if this doesn’t particularly displease Ms. Redford, Mr. Horne and Finance Minister Doug Horner.

After all, given its vocal position on the need for austerity, the Wildrose Party can hardly rush to the doctors’ defence and call for a big salary increase, and fighting with the docs at least makes it look as if the government is doing something to respond to the Opposition’s screams about the deficit.

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BudgetChoice.ca – a coercive push poll or the greatest thing since Space Invaders?

Scoffers may try to dismiss www.budgetchoice.ca, the government’s $57,000 online do-it-yourself deficit-elimination tool “as a particularly coercive push poll” intended to soften up voters for another round of cuts to the public service or maybe a tax increase, wrote commenter Tom Fuller after yesterday’s post.

“But I think it’s a stroke of genius turning the budgeting process into an on-line multi-player role-playing game,” Mr. Fuller went on. “Assuming my avatar (Chlorox, the Elf Warrior) I vote to cut services to children and seniors, and lay off everyone at Environment. For reducing expenditures by 23 per cent, I get 5,000 special bonus points, and can claim the magic axe of Steve West, lost for lo these many years. I haven’t had this much fun since I spilled the beer on my Atari and shorted out Space Invaders.”

My blogging colleague Dave Cournoyer apparently agrees, observing: “It simplifies the process, but it also works to demonstrate that with modest tax increases and minor cuts to the Legislative Assembly budget, and cuts to wasteful programs like Carbon Capture, the government could easily balance the budget without burning down the house. And I did all that as a Level 4 Dwarf with a Stockwell Day amulet. It earned me 430,000 Gold Katzs.”

Personally, I’m not a gamer, so I have no idea.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Postponing the Day of Reckoning, Alberta-style

by David Climenhaga on January 26, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Politics, Budget Deficits with 5 Comments

Alberta Premier Alison Redford beseeches the Almighty for higher petroleum prices as Wildrose Finance Critic Rob Anderson looks on. Actual Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Social democratic men of God J.S. Woodsworth (Methodist), Tommy Douglas (Baptist) and Stanley Knowles (United).

So what’s with the Redford Government’s receding horizon on tough decisions, d’ya think?

You bet they’re going to make some tough decisions. That’s for sure! The premier said so in her pretentiously titled State of the Province Address Thursday night. Again and again. So just you wait.

Heck, the finance minister was saying it for days before that.

So when will we see these actual tough decisions? In the budget on March 7? At the promised economic summit? When the bitumen pipeline to Kitimat is finished? The one to Texas? Later? Even later? Later than that? Maybe… Maybe not…

OK, people. Here’s the deal. I think I’ve got it figured out. Just remember where you heard it first.

Premier Alison Redford, Finance Minister Doug Horner and all the rest of the Progressive Conservative Legislative caucus – except, of course, the 20 or so who are continually rumoured to be on the verge of forming a third right-wing party, joining the Wildrose or whatever – are on their knees nightly praying for oil prices to go up.

Oh Lord, deliver unto us a little tension in the Strait of Hormuz, especially if it bumps the price of oil up to $200-per-bbl. for a spell!

But like the small-c conservatives to whom He has granted dominion here in Alberta, God Himself may be undecided about this – if only because He’s receiving so many counter petitions from the Wildrose prayer room.

Father in Heaven, as You said, blessed are the peacemakers….

Given their base, it must just about kill the Wildrose brain trust to be praying for peace in the Middle East, but there you have it. Under the circumstances, there’s nothing else for it, End Times, Armageddon, prophecy or no!

From the Progressive Conservative perspective, if only the price of oil will go up, Ms. Redford and her government will be absolved from ever having to make any hard decisions. God will be in His heaven and a the rest of us will vote PC, so all will be right with the world.

In the mean time, the tough decisions can just keep receding over the horizon, so that while the image of tough management perseveres, the wailing and rending of garments usually associated with actually making difficult decisions is postponed, hopefully for all of eternity.

In the mean time, we’ll look busy by having an economic summit while we wait for a bitumen pipeline to anywhere to be completed – a process that with bad luck for the Tories and good luck for the environment could take a decade or more.

On the other hand, from the Wildrose point of view, if the current mildly depressed state of energy prices will linger only a few months more – we can all agree, I think, that barring the introduction of cold fusion plants this isn’t going to be a forever thing – the Tories will continue to look increasingly incompetent or will finally be forced to put up a target at which the Opposition can take potshots.

God forbid, the Wildrosers and the Tories most certainly agree, that a fair and sustainable tax regime be adopted. That way taxpayers might actually have a stake in their government – and could an NDP premier be far behind?

All I can say is it’s enough to make one long for the days when the CCF-NDP leadership seemed to have its own direct line to the Almighty – J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, William Irvine, Stanley Knowles, Bill Blaikie, c’mon down!

So don’t expect any light, divine or otherwise, to be cast on what the tough choices are likely to be made in Alberta between now and Budget Day, March 7.

And don’t be too shocked if there are no hard choices in the Budget Speech either – only references to how they’re gonna be made, and soon, and how tough they’ll be when they are.

The economic summit will be after the Budget, but don’t be heartbroken if there are no hard decisions recommended by the lucky summiteers, whoever they turn out to be.

And so on, forever and ever, amen.

Thus endeth the lesson.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

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