Fall Post 2006

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A PUBLICATION OF THE PARKLAND INSTITUTE

STEWART STEINHAUER

In loving memory of my father...

Unearthing the real history of residential schools While Scott’s “prescribed course of study and training,” which my father completed “creditably and with diligence,” was designed to “kill the Indian and spare the man,” in some schools up to 60 per cent of the students died during the school year.

To my father’s everlasting credit, he at least physically survived his mandatory education.

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ot long after my mother died, her executor, my older sister, was rummaging through our late mother’s things when she came upon our late father’s Indian School Diploma: “This is to certify that Herbert Steinhauer, pupil no. 64 of the Edmonton Residential School, having completed the prescribed course of study and training creditably and with diligence, is hereby granted an honourable discharge from the said school. In testimony whereof we have subscribed our names hereto at Ottawa this 17th day of June, 1930.”

At the bottom are the signatures of Russell Ferrier, Superintendent of Indian Education and Duncan C. Scott, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs.

I shuddered upon seeing Scott’s signature at the bottom of the so-called diploma. This was a man who used the term “Final Solution” two decades before Hitler popularized it. He also publicly stated that he wanted to “kill the Indian but spare the man,” and his means for doing so was Canada’s Indian

INSIDE THE POST

Residential Schools. He was the top unelected official in Canada’s Indian Department for many years, during which time he had the full support of church and state to apply his Final Solution to Canada’s “Indian Problem.”

Duncan Campbell Scott was an artist and the liberal darling of Canada’s elite power group. Then, as now, most artists needed a day job and Scott’s day job was the routine commission of genocide.

My younger sister is a medical doctor working in Calgary who was once appointed to head a committee of stakeholders tasked with studying health delivery to Calgary’s aboriginal population and to then make recommendations to the Calgary Regional Health Authority. Her group worked for two years, made a series of recommendations, were thanked for their efforts, and then told that, due to a shortage of funding, the study would have to be shelved for the moment. The Calgary Regional Health Authority’s interest in doing the study had been sparked by the final report released by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People.

Wondering what else had been shelved, she delved back into history and ALBERTA Albertan’s demand action on Public Education, page 3 Information underload, page 4 Letters: Canada supports corrupt Afghan regime, page 4 Filibuster tactics aren’t serving Albertans, page 5

came upon a similar study with similar recommendations from 1970. That study was triggered by the outcry following the Trudeau/Chrétien 1969 “White Paper.” So she wondered: what else might be tucked away on the shelf? Digging deeper, she came upon Bryce’s 1908 report to Scott, submitted after Bryce had toured every Indian Residential School in Canada.

Duncan Campbell Scott was an artist and the liberal darling of Canada’s elite power group.

Then, as now, most artists needed a day job and Scott’s day job was the routine commission of genocide.

Bryce was no “bleeding heart liberal” and agreed completely with Scott’s public intentions to “kill the Indian and spare the man,” but what he saw inside the so-called schools shocked him. He reported annual student mortality rates ranging from a low of 30 per cent to a high of 60 per cent.

See RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS/ page 3

The waiting game, page 5 Proposed bill could worsen Canada’s farm-income problem, page 6 Column cancellation a shame for journalism, page 6 LABOUR Graduate students seek workplace protection, page 7

Development concerns grow in the heartland Residents’ questions about emissions, groundwater and human-health effects, go unanswered SHANNON PHILLIPS

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dmontonians hear about runaway development in Fort McMurray almost every day. But some of the largest industrial expansions in North America are happening on our city’s doorstep, in an area dubbed the Industrial Heartland.

Located north and east of the city, small towns like Bon Accord and Redwater are about to welcome $16 billion in oilsands upgrading projects over the next decade. The province has also just completed a study proposing an $8 billion refinery –Canada´s largest– for Redwater.

Metro Edmonton is quickly becoming home to some of the most intensive petrochemical development on the continent, the kind of development other North American cities have rejected.

While the province and the municipalities forge ahead, the people who live in the Industrial Heartland are still asking questions about emissions, noise, groundwater and human-health effects.

The Industrial Heartland is 330 square kilometres of mixed parkland dotted by rivers, lakes and small towns that have grown into Edmonton´s suburbs.

See DEVELOPMENT/ page 11 OIL & ENERGY Collecting rent from resource extraction, page 8 Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark, page 9 HEALTHCARE Private health insurance is back on the table, page 10

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editorial the

Post

Too late for a Plan?

Volume X, N˚6, Fall 2006

What is the Parkland Institute?

Parkland Institute is an Alberta wide research network that examines issues of public policy. The Institute is based in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta and its research network includes members from most of Alberta’s academic institutions and other organizations involved in public policy research. It operates within the established and distinctive tradition of Canadian political economy and is non-partisan.

Parkland was founded in 1996 and its mandate is to: · Conduct research on economic, social, cultural, and political issues facing Albertans and Canadians. · Publish research and provide informed comment on current policy issues to the media and the public. · Sponsor conferences and colloquia. · Bring together the academic and non-academic communities. · Train graduate students.

Opinions expressed in this newspaper reflect the views of the writer, and not necessarily those of the Parkland Institute.

Readers are invited to submit letters and articles, which may be edited for style and length.

Information on up coming events and conferences may also be submitted. The Parkland Post is organized and admininistered as an editorial collective.

Coordinating Editor: Caitlin Crawshaw Director: Gordon Laxer Executive Director: Ricardo Acuña Research Director: Diana Gibson Program/Admin Coordinator: Cheri Harris Promotions/Outreach Coordinator: Mary Elizabeth Archer Administrative Assistant: Katia Michel Design: Flavio Rojas

The opportunity to plan for the environmental, social and economic impacts of Alberta’s boom may have come and gone

RICARDO ACUÑA

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t is mind-boggling how many times at conferences, in studies and research papers, in the Post, and in various print, radio and television media over the last two years, which Parkland has publicly called for the province to develop a sustainable, long-term plan for dealing with the current boom before the impacts become irreversible.

So you can imagine our surprise when the Premier stood up on his last day in the legislature and said that the reason his government never articulated a plan is that nobody could have anticipated that we would need one. But now that he is aware of what is happening, the Premier assures us that a plan is in the process of being developed.

The concern is that it might just be a case of too little too late.

Alberta’s housing crisis is no longer looming, but rather fully upon us.

Schools, hospitals, municipalities and other public services are already forced to decide between paying the heating and electricity bills and paying qualified staff. What was an infrastructure deficit five years ago is now an all out infrastructure disaster - with labour and transportation costs easily causing the cost of these projects to double or triple.

Those are the reasons that this past spring Parkland shifted from simply calling for a plan and vision for the future of our province and natural resources to actually calling for a moratorium on new oil sands developments until such a plan could be drafted and implemented.

Any such plan or strategy must have as its main goal to adequately and fairly address the environmental, social and

Canadian Publications Mail Agreement 40065264 ISSN 1206-9515

Alberta’s housing crisis is no longer looming, but rather fully upon us. Schools, hospitals, municipalities and other public services are already forced to decide between paying the heating and electricity bills and paying qualified staff. What was an infrastructure deficit five years ago is now an all out infrastructure disaster –with labour and transportation costs easily causing the cost of these projects to double or triple.

This past summer, when a coalition of environmental organizations publicly echoed Parkland’s call for an oil sands moratorium, the Premier responded by saying “to have a long-range plan would be an interventionist kind of policy which says you either allow them or you don’t allow them (to proceed). The last thing we want to be is an interventionist government.”

Also this summer the Premier spent an entire week in Washington encouraging the U.S. government and Ameri-

Ricardo Acuña is the Executive Director of the Parkland Institute.

Parkland Research Update Parkland Institute focuses on health insurance and a development strategy for Alberta’s energy sector The province is gearing up for a busy fall: Alberta’s public health insurance has just been attacked with a Chaoulli-style lawsuit (see article on page 4); the government has just released its new integrated energy strategy, which aims to keep unsustainable fossil fuels at the top of the agenda; the leadership race looms; and Premier Klein admits the Conservative government has had no plan. Parkland will be addressing these issues and more with research that connects the dots, publications that challenge conventional wisdom and events that get this information out to the public.

contact us Your comments are welcomed and may be submitted to: Parkland Institute, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta 11045 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E1 Phone: (780) 492-8558 Fax: (780) 492-8738 E-Mail address: parkland@ualberta.ca Visit our website at: www.ualberta.ca/parkland or contact the Coordinating Editor directly at: parkpost@ualberta.ca

economic impacts of the current pace of development. And because the current boom is being driven primarily by energy prices and oil sands development, any long-term plan must begin with a concerted energy strategy.

Thus far, the government’s strategy for developing the oil sands has really been no strategy at all. Instead it has been something of a neo-liberal free for all with concepts like slowing down, planning and intervention being seen as strictly verboten.

can energy corporations to invest more money in Alberta to build more megaprojects in order to get even more of our oil out of the ground and south of the border as quickly as possible.

The truly tragic part in all of this is that both of these events took place after the Premier, by his own admission, first became aware that our current pace of development and economic growth were causing problems vis-à-vis the public interest.

In reality, at this point, it does not matter whether Ralph Klein gets it or not.

What does matter is that the Premier’s comments have made it a certainty that the pace of development and a longterm energy strategy will become key issues in the race to replace him. And as the leadership hopefuls prepare their platforms, and crisscross the province to woo voters, they may actually be interested in hearing what Albertans think.

To that end, Parkland will continue to focus much of its research and programming on an economic development strategy and a concerted energy strategy for the Province. Also to that end, our tenth annual fall conference will focus on the theme “Power for the People: Determining Our Energy Future,” and will include the likes of John Ralston Saul, Julian Darley, Oystein Noreng from Norway, Gillian Steward, and numerous others.

Any long-term plan for the province must be guided primarily by the public interest, not the interest of the oil companies or the United States. Parkland is prepared to play a lead role in articulating what that looks like, but we cannot do it without your active input, participation, and help in disseminating the results of our work. Come to the conference, read our discussion paper online, and make sure to insert yourself actively in the coming debate. It may not be too late yet, but it soon could be.

DIANA GIBSON

Both health care and energy will stay in the spotlight for research this fall. Parkland continues to spearhead a national initiative for a Canadian Energy Security Strategy that includes ongoing research. This topic area will also be profiled at the Parkland annual conference this year.

On health care, Parkland has partnered with the University of Ottawa on a research initiative titled, “Globalization and the health of Canadians.” The inaugural national conference will be hosted by the Parkland Institute in February 2007. The institute will also be closely monitoring the implications of the new legal challenge being made against public health insurance in Alberta.

On a broader level, the institute will be working to create an economic and industrial development strategy for the province, which has no plan to speak of.

Parkland Institute’s 10th Annual Conference

Power for the People

Determining our Energy Future

University of Alberta Campus • November 17-19, 2006

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alberta tracted Burke and Associates to develop one of the most comprehensive surveys to be conducted on public education in Alberta .

This government has failed to develop let alone achieve a real vision for our education system.

We need concerned people to take action and insist that it is time to complete the public education picture.

BILL MOORE-KILGANNON

Albertans Demand Action on Public Education Public Interest Alberta launches education campaign

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espite Alberta’s remarkable wealth, most Albertans can clearly see that our education system has not been given the resources or supports required to develop the full potential of all students.

There are too many children falling through the cracks, and the gifts and talents of too many students are lost due to the continuing strains in our education system.

And after years of under-funding and rapid population growth, there simply are not enough schools in many communities and many of our existing schools have serious infrastructure

problems.

Yet, the provincial government has denied that our schools need more support. This is why it is vital that individuals across the province send a strong message to their government about what they know is missing or needing improvement in our classrooms and schools. This government has failed to develop let alone achieve a real vision for our education system. We need concerned people to take action and insist that it is time to complete the public education picture.

This fall, Public Interest Alberta (PIA)

launched a campaign that calls on the provincial government to develop the full potential of all Alberta Students.

There are two main components of the campaign. First, people are asked to use either a printed postcard or go to PIA’s website (www.pialberta.org) to send an electronic postcard to Minister of Education Gene Zwozdesky and their MLA about the key improvements they want to see in our education system.

The second part of the campaign asks people to fill out an independent online survey about important aspects of our public education system. PIA has con-

RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS/cont. from pg. 1

on Aboriginal People. RCAP, as it came to be called, contracted Dr. Roland Chrisjohn and Sherri Young to research and write a report on Residential Schools. When Chrisjohn and Young handed in their report, the RCAP crowd thanked them politely and hired another researcher to write a new, publishable, report.

RCAP’s new report, written by an apparently ‘objective’ Euro-ancestry Canadian, became the industry standard as the legal profession galvanized around all the money to be made prosecuting individual priests, nuns, and other residential school workers for individual acts of physical and sexual abuse. Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has described the resulting process as further abuse while being forced to re-live what for many was the worst experiences of a lifetime of bad experiences.

Meanwhile, in the background, the mantra of “aboriginal healing” plays 24/7.

Chrisjohn and Young printed one thousand copies of their report at their own expense, but it faded away. This year, Theytus Books has just re-issued it, and you can read for yourself what these authors had to say on the topic of residential schools. Having sifted through all of the arguments myself, and having a vested interest in discovering what was really going on behind the scenes, I’ve formed the opinion that all of the so-called news we hear about residential schools is, in fact, opinion.

In the 17th Century, Europeans began the genocidal assault on Turtle Island’s original Peoples by asserting that my indigenous ancestors were sub-human and incapable of forming societies or nations. Europeans then asserted that indigenous populations around the world, ever so inconveniently situated on prime real estate that Europeans coveted, were a monolithic dependent population, called variously “Indians,”“Natives” and “Aborigines.” This monolithic dependent population was apparently in

Apparently cultural genocide was okay with Bryce, but physical genocide was not. Canada’s Poet Laureate, Scott, responded to Bryce’s concerns by squashing the report, smearing Bryce’s reputation, and permanently discontinuing the position of Medical Officer, because Scott had a “Final Solution” in mind.

While Scott’s “prescribed course of study and training,” which my father completed “creditably and with diligence,” was designed to “kill the Indian and spare the man,” in some schools up to 60 per cent of the students died during the school year. To my father’s everlasting credit, he at least physically survived his mandatory education.

My dad would never talk to anyone about his residential school experiences.

Others do, though, and I’ve noticed a pattern. Here at Saddle Lake, whenever Elders start story-telling about their own residential school days, they invariably begin with a story about being subjected to horrifying, and in some cases, lifethreatening abuse for speaking in their only language, Cree. In my travels across the territory illegally occupied by the cruel nation of Canada, almost every Elder whom I have listened to on the subject of residential schools starts with a story about severe abuse for using their own first language, usually at that point their only language. Language, while not the only signifier of cultural identity, is of critical importance. Don’t take my word for it: cross the Atlantic, find a tiny nation called France, and ask the folks there - if you can speak their language.

After a policeman shot and killed indigenous politician J.J. Harper in Winnipeg in the late 1980s, Canada struck the aforementioned Royal Commission

The Indian School Diploma given to the author’s father in 1930.

Here at Saddle Lake, whenever Elders start story-telling... they invariably begin with a story about being subjected to horrifying, and in some cases, life-threatening abuse for speaking in their only language, Cree.

Chrisjohn and Young had noticed an unusual phenomenon: rooms full of legal professionals - Supreme Court judges, Crown Prosecutors, RCMP officials, and law school professors - examining reams of evidence on the topic of Canada’s greatest crime of all time, but all talking about the need for aboriginal healing. Not once did Chrisjohn and Young hear legal professionals discuss taking legal action against the Canadian State, or their allies in the residential school matter, Canada’s four main Christian Churches.

The survey can be completed until mid-October and the results will be announced later in November. The survey can be accessed via PIA’s website or directly at www.schoolsurvey.ca. Alternatively, people can call the PIA office at (780) 420-0471 and ask that a printed copy be sent to them.

Public Interest Alberta is a non-partisan province-wide advocacy organization focused on education and advocacy on public interest issues. This campaign receives support from individual and member organizations and has received advice from parent advocates, school support and custodial staff, teachers, school trustees, faculty and student groups and others.

Bill Moore-Kilgannon is the Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. need of Europe’s civilizing influence, so an international system of wardship emerged, with gems like “An Act For The Gradual Civilization Of Indians” still in effect in Canada today, though we know it by its short name, “The Indian Act.” As Hitler’s “Final Solution” raged across Europe, a Polish jurist was writing a definition for something Europeans hadn’t talked about before: genocide. Raphael Lemkin’s words in “Axis Rule In Occupied Europe,” published in 1944: Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and colonization of the area by the oppressor’s nationals.

For folks who like numbers, according to Health Canada statistics, 2,374 onreserve indigenous people died from “injuries and poisonings” in the 20-year period following Canada’s recognition - Section 35.1, Canada Act 1982 - of aboriginal treaty and inherent rights. Fifty per cent of these injuries and poisonings were suicides. One hundred per cent were influenced by addictions. In 2006, we are deep into phase two, and Indian Residential Schools were the primary site where Lemkin’s description of genocide occurred.

But have you heard this information on any Canadian news broadcast?

Stewart Steinhauer learned to read and write in an era when English was invading Cree minds, literally exterminating existing Cree vocabulary and replacing it with English. Steinhauer writes now in English as an act of selfdefense for his Creeness.

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alberta Information underload Albertans should demand transparency

NORM GREENFIELD

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t is obvious that there is a problem with democracy in Alberta.

Just look at the ever-falling voter turnout during recent provincial elections or the ‘turn-off ’ by young Albertan’s towards their elected officials and the institutions they supposedly oversee on behalf of Albertans.

Look back a little further, and you will recall that Alberta is the garden in which Preston Manning planted the seeds for the Reform Party of Canada to grow.

What’s more, the majority of the current MLA’s and their constituency associations are card carrying members. Yet, while democratic reform seems a given, it is apparently not; in fact, Alberta is sliding backwards.

Under the Ralph Klein government, secrecy and shrinking democratic practices are the norm, not the rarity. We have short legislative sittings that seem to be a hassle for our leaders, when they ought to be a serious forum for the Premier and his government to bring issues, ideas and policies to be discussed, debated and passed into law.

We have no all-party committee system here in Alberta. Instead, we have a system of one-party standing policy committees, where only the voices of the governing party are heard and where the majority of the legislative business is conducted.

It is indeed tricky for Albertans to get the full picture. The Legislature’s record

letters

of proceedings, Hansard, is an outdated system that doesn’t compare to what’s available to Canadians federally. An interested Albertan hoping to find out more about sittings in the House of Commons can search the Government of Canada’s website and search for any and every word their MP has said in either the House of Commons or during a committee hearing.

A person can watch and read all of the proceedings of the House of Commons, Senate, Committees hearings, as well as what is being told to them from outside agencies, special interest groups, bureaucrats, and research conducted for specific purposes such as to help develop good public policy.

In fact, a citizen can read every word of the presentations and comment on them. If the committee feels your input is important enough, they can invite someone to present their ideas in person. All of this is open to the public, from anywhere in Canada or the world, in fact.

This can’t be done here in Alberta.

One can search the Hansard, but results come back in awkward PDF format, requiring a person to read every word to search for the information sought. This method is archaic and disrespectful to those people that have come before the current governing party and set up our parliamentary and democratic system.

And Albertans need to ask why. When a

government starts to close its doors along with their lips, one wonders what they’re hiding.

Technologically progressive, the House of Commons’ web site allows users to watch much of the proceedings in either real time or from their archives.

This can help a person put faces to words and names, and to see exactly what MPs and Senators are doing during sittings.

We don’t seem to be able to do that here in Alberta. Is that because we might not like watching our MLAs reading golfing magazines instead of thinking and deliberating on the more pressing needs and concerns of real Albertans?

Albertans might want to throw scorn on the Senate of Canada, more commonly known as the Upper Chamber or sometimes nicknamed as the Body of Sober Second thought, but this group of people have been producing some rather interesting, intriguing and useful research and deliberation into some of the long-term plans and policies this country needs to look at and adopt in some form or another.

Ever seen that sort of work come from your MLAs? Ever been able to read what your MLA is doing, other than what is sent to the media from the Provincial Public Information Bureau?

In fact, the public information department has a good deal of control over correspondences between MLAs and their constitutents. The departments reads letters and e-mails, and though a response may be signed by the MLA, it is often coming from a writer in the department.

With this in mind, why do Albertans choose not to participate in elections? It seems they don’t really care about how their provincial government operates behind closed doors. Or have citizens become so self-serving, that unless it is something that affects them directly, they really don’t care?

Perhaps Albertans have forgotten that they are the government and that those people they send to Ottawa or the Alberta Legislature are representing them, and should be always open to scrutiny.

Norm Greenfield was born in the Vancouver area and currently lives and works in Calgary.

Canada supporting corrupt Afghan regime Thanks to the incompetence of our governing Ottawa politicians, our troops are dying in Afghanistan while supporting a corrupt regime that has little to do with democracy.

Speaking in Madison (USA), on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2006, Malalai Joya, Member of Parliament in the Karzai government in Afghanistan, had this to say: “I come from a land where our people simply see United States bringing a mock democracy because democracy in Afghanistan has meant imposition of the ‘Northern Alliance’ Jahadis.

These Jahadis murdered 65,000 civilians only in Kabul. Democracy there means white washing the criminal faces of Taliban. This democracy has merely brought Afghan people out of [the frying] pan but into the fire.”

writers! the Post is currently recruiting writers interested in the social, political and environmental issues affecting Albertans.

Enthusiasm, not experience, is the only requirement.

For more information, contact the Post's coordinating editor at parkpost@ualberta.ca

volunteers!

The Parkland Institute needs volunteers from communities around Alberta. We are looking for: distribution, web page design, media list, event organizing, promotions, fundraising and more!

To get involved call Cheri at (780) 492-8558 or email us at parkland@ualberta.ca

write us!

Irked by the state of Alberta’s environment?

Frustrated with arrogant political leaders?

Impressed by an article?

We want to hear from you! Send your praises, complaints and any other comments to: parkpost@ualberta.ca

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, Dec.20, 2005, in a speech to the Afghan Constituent Assembly, Joya stated: “President Bush owes us an apology for supporting extremist war lords, the Northern Alliance criminals.”

Joya, an outspoken critic of the new parliament, which she claims is made up of former Taliban officials, warlords, drug lords, and militia commanders, claims she has been the target of death threats. Her speeches have been widely reported by the world news media.

Excerpts may be reviewed by logging in to: http://www.malalaijoya.com/index800.htm William Dascavich Edmonton

www.ualberta.ca/parkland

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alberta Filibuster tactics aren’t serving Albertans Critical discussion on affordable housing waylaid in the legislature

LANA PHILLIPS

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n Aug.28, I attended the legislative session where Ted Morton’s infamous bill protecting those who refuse to marry same-sex couples or teach about same-sex relationships –Bill 208 – was to be debated. The plan was to gather as many opponents to the bill as possible and introduce them in the session. Opponents then planned to move into a session where they would use filibuster tactics to prevent the debate from taking place so that Bill 208 would not have a chance of approval in the brief fall sitting of the Alberta legislature.

Supporters of Bill 208 and seemingly objective observers of legislative processes (for instance, newspaper columnists) criticized its opponents for preventing Morton from having his bill heard in the time allotted for private members’ bills (Monday afternoons). What did the Liberal and NDP MLAs do to prevent this? They spent the afternoon session listing the names of opponents to the bill, and in some cases, biographical information of the individuals present.

Several requests to adjourn the session to discuss matters of emergency importance were heard, considered, and denied. Then, when the actual business of

the day began, MLAs began asking questions to get information on government activities and studies of socially relevant topics. However, I found myself wondering why the legislature would waste time on filibustering tactics when there was a quite worthwhile debate just waiting to happen.

No, I’m not talking about the debate on Bill 208, although the list of opponents to the bill read like a ‘Who’s who’ of local gay and lesbian community members. I applaud the work that is being done to preserve gay and lesbian rights in Alberta. Bill 208 is dead, at least until the next legislative session, when it will most likely come up in its third incarnation in an effort to make it more palatable to open-minded citizens of this province.` What I’m really talking about is the crisis caused by the province’s lack of an affordable housing strategy. In the time period allotted for requests to adjourn the session for emergency debate, Ray Martin, MLA from Edmonton BeverlyClareview, asked the legislature to adjourn to discuss the severe shortage of affordable housing in Alberta. He also proposed that the government create a ministry of housing in order to focus specifically on this severe problem and develop a plan to address it. The need for a debate on the issue was eloquently argued, but because the debate would request the MLAs to decide on the ministry of housing, the Speaker of the House declined to adjourn the session for the debate. This was a decision he made after denying another request for an emergency adjournment because so many people present were there to watch a debate on Bill 208.

He acknowledged that opponents to the bill were doing their best to make

The waiting game It’s time Canada recognizes that health care is a right PEGGY MORTON

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he temporary retreat of the “Third Way” in Alberta and the silence from Stephen Harper on his “wait time guarantee” has temporarily taken the spotlight off health care in Canada. But now is the time for health-care activists and unions to be pro-active. This means presenting real solutions and opening up discussion about what’s really behind the wait list guarantees and strategies.

In June 2005, the discussion around wait times reached a new intensity as a result of the outcome of the Chaoulli case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that private health care and insurance for services insured on the provincial health-care plan was constitutional.

Following this decision, the Charest government in Quebec introduced Bill 33, which allows private insurance for

sure that the debate would not happen.

Then when he had a chance to divert what would have been a completely useless afternoon into a meaningful debate on ensuring safe, affordable homes for Albertans, he decided to stick to the “letter of the law” and deny the motion.

ings that house their programs. Yet, just the other week I saw someone sleeping in a box on their property. Bissell is doing great work, but it is not enough.

People are dying because they have nowhere to lay their heads at night.

More emergency shelters are not the answer. More affordable housing, income supports, and help dealing with issues like mental and physical illness, addictions, and disabilities are absolutely the answer.

Instead of allowing private members to propose bills that serve their own interests and beliefs instead of those of their constituents, perhaps the government should consider listening to the

Despite the fact the province has spent a major amount of money on the Canada-Alberta affordable housing initiative ($67.12 million with matching funds from the Federal government), there are still people sleeping on the street.

Why would he have done that? He had already stated his awareness of the tactics being used by the opposition. Why not find a way to allow a constructive debate on a vital issue that will become even more pressing as the winter months come? Why was valuable legislative time being spent on trivia meant to stall a debate on even more trivial matters?

Thousands of people in our province are homeless or in danger of becoming so.

I want to know why, and I want to know that my province is doing something about it. Despite the fact the province has spent a major amount of money on the Canada-Alberta affordable housing initiative ($67.12 million with matching funds from the federal government), there are still people sleeping on the street.

In Edmonton, the Bissell Centre just received $2.6 million for the improvements they’ve been making to the build-

needs of the people they serve. There is both a strong need for affordable housing is not in question. But the need of a bill to protect the rights of those who choose to discriminate against the rights of gays and lesbians, under the guise of protecting individual rights, is very much in question.

Private members have a privilege in Alberta that they don’t have in other provinces: the right to introduce bills that will impact life in ways that matter.

No member should be allowed to abuse that right by introducing trivia that must be allowed just because of the letter of the law, and by the same token, no vital debate on issues that are a matter of life and death to any Albertans should be prevented just because someone wanted to follow the rules. The debate needs to happen. Action needs to be taken. But the opportunity to act for affordable housing has passed until winter sets in yet again.

knee, hip and cataract surgeries. Under Bill 33, if the public system does not provide surgery “in a timely fashion,” the patient can go to a private facility and be reimbursed by the provincial health insurance plan. Comparatively, the Third Way changes introduced by Ralph Klein were aimed, amongst other things, at removing the provincial legislation which is a barrier to the expansion of private health care.

The health-care guarantee promised

by Harper in the January 2006 election provides for further growth of a parallel private system. Although it deals with only a few procedures, in these areas a patient who doesn’t get timely care in the public system could seem private care and be reimbursed by their health insurance. Since no new funding is available in the public system to meet the new timelines, what is really being guaranteed is the growth of a parallel, private system.

Lana Philips is a freelancer writer living in Edmonton, Alberta. Her writing has been published in Our Voice, as well as the new national women’s magazine Cahoots Magazine.

See WAITING GAME/ page 10

need a speaker?

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labour Proposed bill could worsen Canada’s farm-income problem Bill C-300 would damage farmers’ dwindling market power KEN LARSEN

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or over a century, farmers have faced a fundamental economic problem: those to whom they sell their output are organized as a small number of corporations and those from whom they buy their inputs are similarly a small number of large firms.

Two American firms (Cargill and Tyson) slaughter and package 90 per cent of Canada’s beef. A handful of millers process wheat into flour. Three grocery chains control over 70 per cent of the retail grocery market. These giant companies are the customers that thousands of individual farmers must deal with to sell their product. On the input side of the farm gate, there are only a handful of suppliers of farm machinery, chemicals, fuels, and seeds which farmers use to create the raw product for the profitable food processing and retailing sector.

The now chronic farm-income crisis is largely a manifestation of this imbalance between the thousands of farmers and the handful of giants they have to deal with. Compared to these giants, there is no such thing as a large farm.

Due to the limitations of technology and biology, it is essentially impossible to create a sustainable farm that can bargain equally with these giants. It is here that the United States, Europe, Australia, and Canada radically diverged in farm policy after the Second World War. In Europe and the United States, this inequality of market power was taken as a rule of nature. Their solution was to provide substantial production subsidies and support prices to farmers so they could continue producing raw products for others to process and profit from.

Their farmers receive an income sufficient to keep them producing, and their processing companies became multinational powerhouses based on abundant and cheap raw farm products.

Canadian and Australian farmers chose to remedy this defective market structure by working together to form farm marketing boards. If one of the multinational giants wants to purchase western Canadian wheat or barley, the only place they can go is the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). The CWB acts as an agent for farmers: it sets a price, negotiates with the customers, arranges handling with the elevator companies, and delivery with one of the two American railways. The grain farmer then gets paid the world price for his grain.

This arrangement gives farmers bargaining power to negotiate freight and handling with the railways on the 350,000 or so grain cars which go to the west coast each year. A customer like the CWB has more negotiating power with the railways than a farmer shipping six or even 50 cars of grain to port. According to Federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser’s 2002 Audit, the CWB was well run and very efficient. The CWB’s annual financial statements show that over 98 per cent of the Board’s revenue is returned directly to western Canadian farmers.

Those who worship at the shrine of free enterprise have difficulty accepting responsibility for the failures of 30 years of deregulation to create farm prosperity. The food processors and retailers, not to mention the railways and the chemical and machine companies, have a vested interest in turning the public’s attention away from the defective design of the market place.

For these companies a little ‘freedom’ has resulted in extraordinary profits - all, unfortunately, at the expense of farmers. This defective market system, one in which thousands of individual farmers are played off against each other by a handful of processors and retailers, was once closer to being balanced. Farmers, years ago chose to compete on an international basis with other countries by forming their own collective sales department.

After decades of work, the CWB was finally implemented by Conservative Prime Minister R. B. Bennett. The farm community’s efforts had not only created a marketing board system but, in the west, it had also created the largest cooperative grain handling system on the planet. With the passage of a series of federal laws, including the Canada Grain Act, the Crows’ Nest Pass Freight Rate Agreement, and the Canadian Wheat Board Act, “a Magna-Carta” for grain farmers was created.

Yet, over the past 30 years and despite the strenuous objections of the farm community, the neo-conservatives have systematically dismantled or undermined most of these protections. The latest attempt to divert attention from a defective market place, and further weaken the market power of farmers, is Bill C 300, introduced by Conservative Jerry Ritz. It is another attempt by the agri-business sector to take a greater share of the economic pie from those whose power is weakest: the farm producer. Independent academic studies have demonstrated that the CWB is worth an extra $2 million per day to western farmers. Previous attacks on the CWB were simply naked grabs for revenue by the usual suspects: the private grain handling companies and the foreign-based flour millers.

It is another attempt by the agri-business sector to take a greater share of the economic pie from those whose power is weakest: the farm producer.

KEN LARSEN When is a western farm paper not a farm paper? Answer: when it bows to the international grain lobby.

For two years the venerable Western Producer has carried a column by the agrologist and freelance writer Wendy Holm. Over those years she had done yeoman’s (yeoperson’s) service to the agricultural community by speaking out in an informed and forceful way on issues close to the hearts and pocket books of western farmers.

She has been fearlessly critical of Liberal government policy on BSE and other issues. Yet when she attended a rally in Saskatoon this summer sponsored by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the National Farmers Union, her column with the Producer was unceremoniously dumped. Her crime? That afternoon she went to a meeting hosted by federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl and asked some questions on their plans for the Wheat Board.

In a CBC radio interview, Barb Glen, the Western Producer’s editor, claimed that some were “confused” about Holm’s role. Apparently those poor confused souls Glen is so concerned about chose not to understand the meaning of “freelance columnist.”

This is the second time the Western Producer has dropped an editorial writer who has stepped on the toes of the international grain trade. Some years ago its editor was dismissed for questioning the role of a very prominent lawyer from a firm working for the railways, in a transportation review process. In a similar fashion, Holm, and many other informed observers in the farm community have come to the conclusion that the Western Producer bowed to pressure from an international grain lobby that hopes to see the end of the CWB and with it farmers’ market power.

Holm says it most directly on her web site: “My column was cancelled in response to inappropriate pressure from the Minister’s office and those who have a vested economic interest in breaking the single desk selling authority of the Canadian Wheat Board,” she writes.

Today the steak is the same, but the sizzle is different.

Continues on next page

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Column cancellation a shame for journalism

Determining our Energy Future

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Wendy Holm (centre) in a farm project in Cuba.

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labour Now the issue is cloaked in the rhetoric of freedom and choice. Both fine sentiments, but completely ignoring the imbalance in market power between farmers and the five grain companies that control 80 per cent of the world grain trade.

Ritz’s bill, which reflects the Harper Conservative government’s biases, seeks to obscure the removal of the collective bargaining rights of farmers under the guise of “dual marketing.” Western farmers understood the illusion of dual marketing long ago.

Indeed, the Federal Government, when it passed the 1935 CWB Act, did not, because of pressure from the private trade, proclaim the single desk provisions of the Act until after a disastrous and failed experiment with dual marketing. In that case, the CWB would set an initial price for grain and the private trade would immediately under-cut the Board’s price. The Federal government was left to make up the resulting shortfall in Board revenues.

Ritz’s bill, which reflects the Harper Conservative government’s biases, seeks to obscure the removal of the collective bargaining rights of farmers under the guise of “dual marketing.” Western farmers understood the illusion of dual marketing long ago.

After several years of financial hemorrhage, the section of the CWB Act establishing the single desk seller status of the CWB was proclaimed for the 1943 crop year. This status was reaffirmed by votes of Parliament every five years until it was made permanent in 1967. In all those votes, only once, in 1947, did two MP’s, both from Ontario, vote against the single desk. Every western MP, from every political party, voted in favour of the CWB’s single desk.

Since then, the structure of the international grain trade and the agri-food industry has in fact become even more concentrated. Mr. Harper and Mr. Ritz may seek a return to a mythical free-enterprise past, but most western farmers have a more realistic understanding of the world they work in, and understand the importance of the CWB to their farms and their communities.

They also understand section 47.1 of the CWB Act, which requires a farmer vote before extensions or exclusions are made to CWB marketing powers. As one prominent farm writer said of Bill 300: “Apparently innocuous to the uninformed, Bill C-300 will deliver up the CWB’s head on a platter to the concentrated American wheat lobby, led by multinational grain interests.” With it will go the hard-won rights of Canadian farmers to collective bargaining.

Ken Larsen is a graduate of the University of Alberta. He is a full-time farmer. For the past 30 years he has produced grains, forages and cattle west of Red Deer, Alberta. He continues to be actively involved in rural issues on behalf of his community.

Graduate students seek workplace protection University research assistants often face low wages, no benefits SHANNON PHILLIPS

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anadian graduate students are joining forces with Canada’s largest union in a bid to extend workplace protection to research assistants.

The Canadian Federation of Students’ Graduate Caucus and the Canadian Union of Public Employees are co-sponsoring the first national meeting of university workers, in October. The Montreal conference will plot a strategy to bring union protection to the thousands of Canadian graduate students employed as research assistants, as well as address tactics to combat increased corporate presence on campuses.

Research assistantships are increasingly common for graduate students, as Canadian universities devote more of their energies toward producing commercially viable and industry-sponsored research.

Many argue research assistants are beginning to form the new underclass of the post-industrial economy. They are typically low-paid, have few, if any, job protections, and few benefits. Many expect someone with or near a PhD would command a good salary, after so many years of training and expertise. But that’s not the case. Often, highly educated research assistants earn less than $20,000 per year working far beyond a standard work week.

Research assistantships used to be viewed as an apprenticeship for fulltime, tenured work in the academy. That is no longer the case. Many research assistants perform these duties for a few years, trying to cobble together enough to continue their studies, pay off student loans, and earn a place in their competitive fields.

Research assistants do not enjoy academic freedom or whistleblower protection. Research misconduct and abuse of employees can go unreported by research assistants, given that they are often employed by their academic supervisors and advancement hinges on maintaining good relationships. International students can compromise their visa status if their relationship with their supervisor sours. Research assistants can also lose access to their own data or research if they assert their academic rights –compromising their own professional credibility.

search misconduct, published by Nature, found that 33 per cent of respondents had engaged in at least one questionable research practice during their career, including falsifying data, overlooking others’ flawed data, or inappropriately assigning authorship or credit. Comparable studies have not been carried out in Canada.

Research assistants also have to navigate a mixed bag of university-level regulations related to ownership of knowledge, conflict of interest, and codes of conduct. While those procedures may seem reasonable on paper, they are not always followed through in practice. The length of time taken to investigate complaints Sponsored research is the biggest academic growth area at Canadian universities. Growth of sponsored research at Alberta universities is the fastest in the country - increasing 39 per cent in fiscal 2005.

Research assistants are unionized at McMaster and Ryerson universities. At York University, teaching assistants are unionized, but research assistants are not –a situation that may change soon as graduate students and faculty are represented by CUPE 3903. The local resolved in September 2006 to begin an organizing drive to extend their representation to research assistants.

Alberta’s university graduate students and faculty gave up their right to strike and to unionize three years ago, when they allowed the provincial government

Many argue research assistants are beginning to form the new underclass of the post-industrial economy. They are typically low-paid, have few, if any, job protections, and few benefits.

Many expect someone with or near a PhD would command a good salary, after so many years of training and expertise. But that’s not the case.

In the last year, two well-respected American periodicals reported disturbing findings on research misconduct in the United States. In spring 2006, Science Creative Quarterly found half of graduate students admitted to willingness to fake data in order to achieve marketable results, and 13 per cent of those surveyed knew of an undisclosed case of research misconduct. An exhaustive 2005 survey of 16 different types of re-

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to outlaw collective job action through traditional labour unions. U of A research assistants are covered by an agreement between the Graduate Students’ Association and the university’s administration. A new agreement took effect on Sept. 1, 2006. The agreement guarantees research assistants and average of 4 per cent over three years, as well as 75 per cent parental leave benefits, a new bursary program, and increased child care supports.

Shannon Phillips is a Lethbridge-based freelance writer and activist.

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oil & energy

Collecting Rents from Resource Extraction JOHN W. WARNOCK

The advantages of state ownership

Natural resources are a free gift from nature. All governments wish to obtain at least some revenues from the extraction and use of renewable and non-renewable resources. Today, these resources are commonly owned by the state, and governments have responsibility for controlling their extraction and use.

T

hus, in a democratic society governments should be seeking to maximize their share of the economic rent (defined by economists as “excess profits”) over the life of any resource development project. Economic rent should be re-invested in the local economy, including a substantial share to the local indigenous communities, and a large amount saved for the use of future generations.

Economic rent is most easily captured when resource development is through state-owned enterprises. The success of these national enterprises (known in the oil industry as National Oil Companies or NOCs) depends on the degree of democracy that exists in the province or country.

In an advanced industrialized democracy, NOCs are successful and efficient companies. Norway’s Statoil and Petrobras in Brazil are two leading examples. In Saskatchewan, the stateowned public utilities have been very efficient and innovative and provide excellent services. We know that the crown corporations that were created in the past in the resource sector –including the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Mining and Development Corporation and SaskOil– were all well-run and provided greater returns to the general population before privatization. In sectors of the economy which are dominated by large foreign-owned corporations with monopoly power, local, democratically controlled, state enterprises offer a very good alternative.

Between 60 and 100 countries have had state-owned oil and gas companies at one time or another, and they have a wide variety of histories. For example, in Mexico it was normal for PEMEX, the NOC which has completely dominated the oil and gas industry, to be used as a patronage instrument by the Institu-

tional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Furthermore, it was government policy to require PEMEX to pay 65 per cent of their annual revenues to the federal government. Revenues from PEMEX provided 35 to 40 per cent of the federal government’s revenues and greatly contributed to providing foreign exchange.

But these two policies left PEMEX with inadequate retained earnings to develop new oil and gas resources.

In Argentina, the Peronista governments required YPF, its local oil and gas NOC, to pay 68 per cent of its annual revenues to the government, which left it with inadequate funds for expansion.

Furthermore, both Mexico and Argentina dictated that their NOCs should heavily subsidize the retail price of oil products, which cut into their revenues.

Why did this happen? In both these cases the general policy was determined by the rich and powerful who controlled the government. Revenues from the NOCs allowed government to avoid imposing taxes on private corporations, wealth or individuals with high incomes.

It is also much easier to collect rent when resource development is through joint ventures with private corporations.

In these cases, because of direct financial and management participation in the operation, the costs and revenues are known to the government. Many governments in oil producing countries have utilized production sharing agreements; it is common practice that the government takes a share of the oil or gas that is produced. But because the government does not have a direct equity position in the private firms, they do not really know the details of how the companies are operating. Thus, in Venezuela, the new government of Hugo Chavez sent auditors to examine the books of the private corporations who had production sharing agreements, and

they reported wide spread tax avoidance.

The advantages of having a NOC and government control of the industry was demonstrated during 2005 when there was a rapid increase in the price for oil and gas and windfall profits which bore no relationship to the cost of production. In the OPEC countries, the governments and NOCs had term contracts with the foreign-owned private oil corporations (known in the industry as IOCs). Under these term contracts they were able to raise their prices for contract holders to match the increase in world prices. Thus in OPEC as a whole prices increased from their 2004 levels by 40.9 per cent for the first nine months of 2005, and the income to OPEC countries increased 46.4 per cent over the same period. In contrast, in Canada and the United States almost all of these windfall profits went to the private corporations.

It is much more difficult for governments to recover a large part of the economic rent when the natural resource is being developed by private corporations.

It is most difficult to gain a major share of the rent when development is by large foreign-owned transnational corporations who operate on a world-wide basis and are vertically integrated. The secrecy of operations, transfer pricing, and the increasing use of offshore tax havens, pose a serious problem for governments around the world. These practices were well demonstrated in the cases of Enron and Yukos.

It is much more difficult for governments to recover a large part of the economic rent when the natural resource is being developed by private corporations.

It is most difficult to gain a major share of the rent when development is by large foreignowned transnational corporations who operate on a world-wide basis and are vertically integrated.

Governments have an additional role to play in resource development. Resource extraction can be very destructive to the local environment, often involving the production of toxic wastes.

Furthermore, those working in the industry can be exposed to harmful and life-shortening products. We know this only too well in northern Saskatchewan where uranium mining has been devastating to the environment and the health of workers. Governments need to establish and enforce strong regulations to protect the environment, communities and workers.

John W. Warnock recently retired from teaching political economy at the University of Regina. His study, Selling the Family Silver: The Oil and Gas Industry in Saskatchewan, will be published by the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in November 2006.

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oil & energy Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark

Klein has propelled Canada’s ‘America-first’ energy policy

Eastern Canadians needs from domestic supplies.

But, as on other subjects, Klein had not thought things through. On Aug. 31, his last day in Alberta’s legislature before stepping down as Premier, Klein admitted that his government had no plan to address the severe problems –labour shortages, a housing crisis, massive cost overruns– caused by Alberta’s tar sands boom.

But ‘No plan’ Ralph has a knack for turn-of-phrase. He inadvertently captured the essence of Canada’s current energy policy 25 years ago when he was mayor of Calgary. “Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark,” he said in reference to the National Energy Program.

Today, thanks to Klein, Harper and his Liberal predecessors, Canada has an America-first energy policy. We should all be screaming about this. Better still, let’s get out Pete Seeger’s song book and raise our voices to the Canadian version of “This land is your land, this land is my land.”

Gordon Laxer is a national board member of the Council of Canadian and the director and co-founder of the Parkland Institute.

GORDON LAXER What do Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Paul Robeson have to do with guaranteeing the United States access to Alberta’s tar sands, while the Eastern Canadian ‘bastards’ freeze in the Dark?

Nothing –except for the Alberta government’s summer hijacking of the “Alberta at the Smithsonian” celebration in Washington to promise the U.S. secure access to our oil supply.

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fter Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways records died in 1986, the Smithsonian got his prized collection, which recorded a generation of American folk singers, including Seeger, Guthrie and Robeson. Asch also donated a complete set of Folkways recordings to the University of Alberta. The 2006 Smithsonian festival celebrated its connection with Alberta.

Into this opportunity stepped Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, telling U.S. power brokers how good a ‘resource plantation’ –Ralph Nader’s term for Alberta’s giveaway policies– Alberta is for U.S. interests. Using the festival as a backdrop, Klein reassured Americans that “they need to look no further than Alberta to seek that security of supply” that they so ruthlessly pursue.

“Alberta supports the goals of energy integration right through to Central America and the Caribbean,” he added.

Premier Klein also invited Vice-President Dick Cheney to tour the tar sands this fall, last summer’s planned visit having been postponed. Klein told Cheney that a high-profile trip would help Republicans win votes from Americans worried about buying Middle East oil and that Alberta was Canada’s only Republican ‘red’ province. The latter was a slur on Albertans, who, a 2004 poll showed, would have voted 2 to 1 for Kerry over Bush, better even than Democratic Massachusetts, in the Presidential election, if they had had a vote.

The Smithsonian-Alberta celebration also coincided with Prime Minister Harper’s first state visit to Washington.

He also promised secure Canadian oil supplies for the U.S. Were Harper and Klein confused about which country they were in?

Surely their first responsibility is to ensure that citizens of the great white, frigid North have access to sufficient oil and natural gas, when the next supply crunch comes. If Canadians don’t look after their own needs, who will?

Although Canada is a net exporter of oil, it imports almost 1 million barrels per day to meet 90 per cent of Quebec’s and Atlantic Canada’s needs, and 40 per cent of Ontario’s. At the same time, three quarters of tar sands oil flows south.

Overall, Canada exports 63 per cent of its oil production to the U.S. That percentage is locked in place by North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) proportionality clause, which states that Canada must continue to export the same proportion of oil and gas as it has in the past three years, even if Canadians run short.

Last year, 42 per cent of Canada’s imports of oil came from the North Sea, with 26 per cent from Norway alone.

North Sea oil is from a stable region, but it is a declining field. Imports dropped six percentage points from 2004. But, OPEC accounts for the same proportion of Canadian imports –41 per cent, with Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq heading the list. Relying on imports from these countries to keep Canadians alive in winter is risky business.

On March 8, the CCPA, Parkland Institute and Polaris Institute issued Hugh McCullum’s hard-hitting report Fuelling

Fortress America. A Report on the Athabasca Tar Sands and U.S. Demands for Canada’s Energy. The report warns that Canada is running out of conventional oil, having less than a 10-year supply, and that tar sands oil comes at too high a cost environmentally, socially and in billions in royalties foregone.

Were Harper and Klein confused about which country they were in? Surely their first responsibility is to ensure that citizens of the great white, frigid North have access to sufficient oil and natural gas, when the next supply crunch comes. If Canadians don’t look after their own needs, who will?

Responding to the report, Klein sang a different tune than in Washington. His first reaction was derision, a common response of his to criticism. “But there’s a 300-year supply of oil in the tarsands,” he quipped. However, when pressed, Klein got off message and made a remarkable promise. “If we see oil drying up and we see the Alberta supply being threatened and the Canadian supply being threatened, we can do whatever is necessary to ensure that Canada receives its supplies first.”

Klein’s encouraging comments were echoed by Alberta’s Energy Minister Greg Melchin.

“When we look at the long-term need for Alberta and Canada, those are first and paramount,” said Melchin.

What was remarkable about these comments, is that neither they nor the media asked them how they would supply Canada first, under NAFTA’s proportionality rules, and when Canada does not have pipelines in place to fully meet

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healthcare Private health insurance

is back on the table

Alberta lawsuit challenges constitutionality of public health insurance DIANA GIBSON

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ast Spring, the Tory caucus voted against Premier Klein’s ‘Third Way’ and the government announced that private health insurance would not be pursued. However, the corporate sector and their ideological allies are unwilling to let the issue drop so easily. A new campaign has been mounted in the form of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of public health insurance rules in Alberta.

This lawsuit resembles in many ways the Quebec challenge filed by Dr. Jacques Chaoulli. On June 9, 2005, Chaoulli won his private health-care crusade at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court ruled that a Quebec ban on private health insurance for services covered by the public system, when in conjunction

with unreasonable wait times, violated the Constitution. His patient, George Zeliotis, a retired Montreal businessman, joined Chaoulli’s crusade when he found he was facing a one year wait for a new hip to replace his arthritic one.

Like Quebec’s system, Alberta’s bans private insurance for medically necessary services. This court challenge is not a big surprise since Alberta was the logical next step for private health insurance advocates with plans to extend their crusade against public health care. The formal litigant in the suit is a patient named Bill Murray. However, the case is being backed by a new organization calling itself the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which has strong right wing connections. Murray was allegedly denied

The lawsuit argues that Alberta’s law is contrary to the Canadian charter and unconstitutional because it restricts access to private insurance in order to pay for the private surgeries, resulting in the government’s failure to provide timely medical treatment.

vate insurance. Firstly, the Chaoulli decision is specific to the Quebec Charter, not the Canadian Charter. Additionally, it only applies where wait lists are unreasonable. What’s more, while the court found that unreasonable wait times are unconstitutional, there is nothing that would prevent a government from reducing wait times through a public system, like what is already being done in Alberta. Private health insurance is not the only option, and in fact, not the best option.

There is significant irony in the Alberta government’s overtly satisfied response to the lawsuit, as well as the way in which the government is misrepresenting and exploiting the Chaoulli decision. Firstly, because Alberta has actually been recognized as having the best health care in Canada; secondly, because, with its embarrassment of riches, it is not possible for Alberta to cry poor on investing in the public system; and thirdly because Alberta already has one of Canada’s most comprehensive –and successful– wait list initiatives, the Western Canada Waiting List project, based at the University of Calgary.

Within the parameters of even Alberta’s democratically –challenged legislative system, there was so much opposition to privatization of public health care that the government chose not to proceed. Ironically, the government’s initiative may find success as a privately funded lawsuit. There is a plethora of solid research showing that private health insurance will jeopardize the public system, including increasing wait times. However, the Alberta government’s response to date raises serious concerns that it will not be mounting a proper defense of the public system.

The Alberta government is misrepresenting the Supreme Court’s ruling in Quebec in implying that all provinces should be relaxing restrictions on pri-

Diana Gibson is the research director of the Parkland Institute and the author of The Bottom Line: the truth about private health insurance in Canada.

to discuss with provinces, territories and stakeholders efforts that could contribute to more timely access to health-care services.”

Yet, management of wait lists doesn’t come cheap: $5.5 billion was ear-marked for management of wait lists in the 2004 federal-provincial agreement on health care, for instance. But Postl argues that the fund allows provinces more flexibility to respond to wait time priorities and allows health-care systems Canada-wide the means to measure wait times.

The emphasis on managing wait times has gone virtually unchallenged. And Postl’s report was given a positive response by some health-care activists because of his lack of enthusiasm for development of a second tier of privatized medicine. But is this not a Sophie’s choice between a public system with rationing and a two-tier system allowing the rich to jump the queue?

So long as the right to health care is not provided with a guarantee, the whole system of “wait list management” has the potential to further erode health care. In the report, Postl states that not all patients benefit equally. He implies that wait lists should reflect this. But why?

What does equal benefit have to do with

the right to health care?

Far-reaching changes are in the works.

These include a system where the patient no longer chooses a specialist, but is placed in one master list, prioritized and booked to see the first available doctor.

Implicit in this is that there are criteria for who comes first apart from ‘equity’ in waiting the same length of time. Implicit in the need for ‘management’ is that some people will go to the bottom of the list, or not make the list at all and that someone other than the patient’s physician will determine medical necessity.

What is needed is a rejection of the Sophie’s choice of rationing or privatization. It is by putting forward the necessity to provide the right to health care with a guarantee, so that it is governments who are held accountable and people have real redress, that we can make real headway.

two state-of-the-art hip replacement surgeries. The 57-year-old patient claims he was denied his choice of hip replacement surgery because of his age and was thus forced to pay for his hip surgery privately.

The lawsuit argues that Alberta’s law is contrary to the Canadian charter and unconstitutional because it restricts access to private insurance in order to pay for the private surgeries, resulting in the government’s failure to provide timely medical treatment.

But the Alberta government has not shown any concern in regards to the lawsuit, in fact quite the opposite. Minister Iris Evans appears to be fully onside with the lawsuit, stating that it’s time for all provinces to expand private health insurance and that it’s vital for all provinces to review any restrictions on private insurance in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Quebec.

This flies quite in the face of the government’s position only a few months ago when the Third Way was dropped.

At that time, Evans admitted that the consultants they had hired had concluded that allowing private insurance for queue jumping did not make financial sense.

WAITING GAME/cont. from page 5

Right from the start, the framing of the Chaoulli case meant that it was not the right of Canadians to health care that was being considered but monopoly right to open up a much larger section of the health-care “market” for profit.

Instead of ruling that the right to health care requires governments to provide care, the Supreme Court ruling opened the door for the growth of private facilities and greater advantage for the rich.

People want and need access a high quality, comprehensive, free, public health-care system when they need it. It is the refusal to recognize that health care is a right and to deliver it with a guarantee that is at the heart of the problem.

The “factors contributing to long wait times” are not a mystery. Reductions in the number of doctors trained, closure of nursing schools, layoffs of nurses and other health care workers, budget cuts and bed closures are a few key factors.

The solution is also quite straightforward - it requires clearing the backlogs and then providing appropriate funding to provide care when it is needed.

Nevertheless, the subject has morphed into an issue of “managing the wait lists.”

All levels of government maintain that a public health care system must ration its services. In its factum to the court on the Chaoulli case, the Martin government argued that the demand for health care is “limitless” and cannot be satisfied, therefore rationing is acceptable and necessary.

This covers up the fact that Canada is significantly below even the OECD averages, never mind the level of care provided by Cuba, for example, which never closed a single hospital bed as it accepts its social responsibility to guarantee the right to health care. In fact, Canada has 2.1 doctors/ thousand population, compared to Cuba with 5.9 and the OECD average of 2.9. It has 3.2 acute care beds/ thousand population, compared to the average of 4.1/thousand. But increased funding to health care is going into the hands of the monopolies through such things as soaring drug costs, huge expenditures on information technology and private delivery of services.

On July 6, 2006, Dr, Brian Postl, Federal Advisor on [medical treatment] Wait Times released his final report. Appointed in 2005 by the Liberal government, he aimed to “inquire into the factors contributing to long wait times and

Peggy Morton is the retired President of CUPE Local 2111 and a former health care worker. She is the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada candidate in Edmonton Centre.

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DEVELOPMENT/ continued from page 1

Sturgeon County, bordering St. Albert, forms the western and northern edge, including Morinville, Redwater, Gibbons and Bon Accord - towns that now serve as bedroom communities for Edmonton´s oilfield servicing boom. To the southeast, the Industrial Heartland is bounded by Strathcona County, encompassing several Sherwood Park petrochemical plants and oil refineries built during the first oil boom in the 1970s.

Fort Saskatchewan and the county of Lamont reach north and east, dotted with acreages and serviced by the city of Fort Saskatchewan, one of Alberta´s fastest-growing small cities, and home to Dow Chemical and other petrochemical ventures.

Residents of the Industrial Heartland are no strangers to development. The counties of Sturgeon, Lamont, Strathcona and the city of Fort Saskatchewan banded together in 1998 in order

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to solicit industrial development in their municipalities. Residents now live with pipelines, refineries, petrochemical plants, a fertilizer plant, one oilsands upgrader (slated for expansion) and a hydrogen plant.

Located north and east of the city, small towns like Bon Accord and Redwater are about to welcome $16 billion in oilsands upgrading projects over the next decade. The province has also just completed a study proposing an $8 billion refinery Canada´s largest - for Redwater.

The big stuff is yet to come. The thick sludge that oil companies stripmine in the Athabasca tar sands requires a complex refining process in order to become light, sweet crude, and the home of those refineries will be the Industrial Heartland.

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At least five new projects are on tap.

BA Energy has turned sod, while Northwest is awaiting approval. Residents have filed letters of concern about the Northwest project, but the company says it plans to receive approval by mid-2007.

After Northwest, PetroCan and Synenco await approval. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd is looking at land in the Redwater area, and French giant Total has also been rumoured to be interested in new upgrading facilities.

Anne Brown, a stay-at-home mom on an acreage in Sturgeon County, has worked on behalf of residents since May of 2000.

“We are not saying no to industry. But a cumulative environmental impact assessment seems like basic homework – we are just saying, ‘Do the homework and prove [to us] that we will be taken care of,’ “ said Brown. But she adds that municipal councillors have not listened to their constituents, who crowded a standing-room-only meeting last winter to oppose further industrial zoning in the County of Sturgeon.

Brown wrote to Capital Health´s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Gerald Preddy, in July. She asked him to meet with her group to explain rising cancer rates among women in Sturgeon County, which have gone from 122 per 100 000 women to 138 in just six years.

Cancer rates are not the only item of concern. In a May 2006 letter to the Minister of the Environment, Brown pointed to high sulphur dioxide and other particulate matter -emissions that are above provincial guidelines. The high levels were found in the environmental impact assessment for the BA Energy oilsands upgrader, but the EUB approved the project without requiring the company to reduce its emissions.

“We are not saying no to industry. But a cumulative environmental impact assessment seems like basic homework –we are just saying, ‘Do the homework and prove [to us] that we will be taken care of ” “When three families challenged their right to an EUB hearing in court with respect to the BA Energy application, their lawyer argued that the SO2 levels were twice the provincial guideline in the area of his clients´ homes. [But] the company´s legal council argued that they were only guidelines, not laws. There are no laws for SO2 in Alberta. This signifies to us, the residents of Alberta, that the emission guidelines are meaningless,” read Brown’s letter.

It´s not just the oil industry, either. Tia Bartlett lives just across the road from the Agrium fertilizer plant. Agrium is the only plant that uses fluoride, and residents have commissioned studies showing elevated levels of fluoride in vegetation. At least one livestock death - a sheep (not Bartlett’s) - has been recorded as a result of fluorosis. Bartlett says she, her family, and her horses have all exhibited health effects. “I´ve also been treated for polyps in my nose, a symptom the doctor said he sees a lot in Ft. McMurray. He´s not going to bother removing them until I move out of the area.”

Bartlett has been bought out by industry. She is moving her family and horses 20 km away.

There are 190 properties in the Indus-

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trial Heartland. Many landowners say they have been trying to get out for years, but no one is buying. Residents are now selling through a voluntary purchase plan, a fund set up by industry to buy out acreage owners. In May, The Edmonton Journal reported that 25 landowners have sold their property through the plan so far.

Bartlett is concerned that the voluntary purchase plan will rid the area of landowners, thereby erasing the need for public hearings. Without residents that are deemed “directly affected” - a definition that Bartlett says is far too narrow - public hearings are no longer necessary.

“Public hearings are when the truth comes out,” said Bartlett. “They´re the only democratic process we have.”

She adds that a cumulative environmental impact assessment would prove that industrial development affects residents beyond the narrow definition of “directly affected,” which can be as little as within a 1-km radius of a proposed development.

Alberta Environment says much is being done to monitor the Industrial Heartland as massive new developments come onstream, but the department rejects residents´ call for a cumulative impact assessment, arguing current programs are sufficient.

“When we do an impact assessment, we do a cumulative analysis of what is already out there, what is coming, and what is being planned for the future,” said Lisa Grotkowski, spokesperson for Alberta Environment.

In addition, the department says “air and water quality are being monitored with very strong programs, with a very good public communications component, making sure the public is aware of the status of their ambient air quality, and also providing programming where school children can learn about how industry mitigates the effects of air emissions.

“Alberta Environment participates in the Fort Air partnership and several ground and surface water monitoring and management programs,” added Grotkowski.

The majority of funding for the Fort Air partnership comes from industry, as does the Beverly Channel groundwater monitoring program. Of the programs cited by Alberta Environment for the industrial heartland, only the surface water program, funded through the provincial Water for Life strategy, is not paid for by industry.

Residents are moving forward with letters of concern and other applications to intervene in new petrochemical developments in the Industrial Heartland, but they are dismayed with the representation they´ve received from their municipal and provincial representatives.

“We´re just regular people, and we go into a hearing up against five or six lawyers and teams of public relations professionals,” said Anne Brown. “But we just want some answers. How much development is enough? And what are the effects of what we already have?”

The Mayor of Sturgeon County and the spokesperson for the Medical Officer of Health at Capital Health did not return calls for this article.

Shannon Phillips is a Lethbridge-based freelance writer and activist. This article first appeared in Vue Weekly.

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Fall 2006

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