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Alberta: This is fine
77 Plays4 years ago
Dave Cournoyer of Daveberta fame joins us to discuss Alberta's multiple overlapping crises. We talk COVID-19, Jason Kenney's $1.7 billion dollar whoopsie, conservative connected law firms making bank and how the smart money is on Joe Biden cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:15
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, and we're recording today here in Amiskwitchi, Wisconsin, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory. Dave Cornouye is the owner and operator of daveburton.ca, and really just one of the, like, encyclopedia of knowledge about Alberta politics. He also is a podcaster as well. Blessed are the podcasters. And Dave, Dave Cornouye is our guest today here on The Progress Report. Dave, welcome.
00:00:44
Speaker
Thanks for having me, Duncan. It's a pleasure. I'm looking forward to having a good chat today.
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah. There's lots to talk about. Uh, everything is, um, uh, I dunno, terrible. It's probably a good way to describe it. Um, and, uh, there's, there's, I dunno, maybe there's, maybe there was a time when Alberta politics wasn't all fucked up, but, um, it was before I was an adult, maybe just back w back when it was like just the PC hegemony, hegemony, just varying degrees of, of, uh, of chaos. And before that it was, it was just, uh, it was chaos, but with a lot more money.
00:01:19
Speaker
Well, I feel it must have been a pretty placid and jellied dominion when Peter Laheed was winning like 95% of the seats. But I don't know, maybe that's just me. I wasn't around. I was an infant or not even born in those days. Well, I think the placid dominion was probably going back to the long reign of earnest manning before the big oil booms took off. And Alberta had more during the Laheed era. For most of the Laheed era, we had more money than we knew what to do with, which is why we ended up with
00:01:47
Speaker
with things like the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, which is now kind of part of our political culture and almost part of our identity as Albertans.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair, though it is a rapidly dwindling, but we're not here to talk about the Heritage Trust Fund today. We are here to talk about, well, a few things.
COVID-19 Crisis in Alberta
00:02:03
Speaker
One of which, and I think the thing we have to address off the top is the COVID-19 pandemic and just how bad it is getting. You have doctors calling for a two week circuit breaker lockdown. You have health officials and doctors and nurses and various people who work in hospitals warning.
00:02:23
Speaker
about the incoming collapse and overwhelming of our acute care and hospital facilities by COVID. And it is a scary time. We're setting new records seemingly every other day for case counts. What's your general vibe about COVID-19 in Alberta right now?
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, we're headed in the wrong direction, and that is case counts going up. I saw a graph that, I mean, every news agency is coming, every news company is coming up with graphs showing new cases and new hospitalizations, and it just seems to be shooting up.
00:02:57
Speaker
It feels like eight months ago, eight or nine months ago when the pandemic began, there was a real seriousness to it. I mean, obviously it's still serious now, but I think people were taking it a lot seriously and our political leaders were taking it a lot more serious.
00:03:13
Speaker
we succeeded over the summer in terms of when they talked. Remember, there was a lot of talk in the spring about flattening the curve. And the whole idea was that we weren't going to extinguish this thing yet until a vaccine is developed or miraculously goes away, which was never going to happen. But the whole idea was to keep the spread low.
00:03:35
Speaker
so that we wouldn't face the same situation that they did in Italy eight months ago or New York City where hospitals were being overwhelmed because there were so many new cases and so many people being seriously infected by this virus. And it seemed like we had a first wave in the spring and then over the summer, people were outside, maybe it was a lot easier to socially distance, physically distance from others.
00:03:58
Speaker
we did really, we were doing, it seemed like we were doing really well. I mean, I think at one point over the summer, we were having single digit or numbers in the teens for new cases each day. And I mean, we saw over this past weekend, we had, I think that it was Saturday was 919 new cases, which is just the wrong direction. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of things going on here, but I mean, I think that, I think, you know, understandably, people are starting to feel a little tired of the changes that we've had to make over the past few months. I get that.
00:04:28
Speaker
I'm getting tired of not being able to see my friends and my family as much as I am, but it's so important that we listen to those types of guidelines. Especially if we have a provincial government that is only willing to strongly recommend that we take these mandatory measures. It's seriously important that people actually listen to them.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yes. And I think something that we have to talk about, uh, it's, we have to talk about it since it's part, it's in the script. So we have to talk about it is the response, the government response to COVID-19 and specifically the response as led by Jason Kenny. And when God was in create a character mode for Jason Kenny, did he leave the slider for human empathy at zero?
00:05:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, Jason Kenney of this past week, when it certainly seems that he's showing a lot less empathy, almost no empathy to what's happening, at least publicly. I mean, like I said before, you go back eight months ago and it seemed like they were taking it seriously. I wrote a piece last week saying that, you know, reminding people that when COVID started, Jason Kenney was out there
00:05:36
Speaker
Quoting Winston Churchill, quoting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you know, saying that we had nothing to fear but fear itself, talking about how this was his, you know, his personal battle. This is our Battle of Britain. You know, he was very much trying to project an image of himself as the commander in chief in the war on COVID.
00:05:59
Speaker
Over the summer, as cases fell, he very much shifted messages. He wasn't showing up at Dr. Dina Hinchl's press conferences anymore, where he was kind of elbowing his way to the podium. They weren't having the big press conferences at the Edmonton Airport in front of giant boxes of PPE that was being shipped across the country. It was very much a shift to almost, it was very much a forget COVID, we want to focus on that.
00:06:29
Speaker
Time to get the economy rolling again, baby. Yeah, but it's like, I mean, the key part of, I mean, the thing that's missing out of that is that until the pandemic is under control, until this virus is under control, until people have the confidence to go out and spend money in restaurants and feel confident that they'll be safe in places with other people spending money, you can't really expect that the economy is going to recover.
00:06:52
Speaker
But this really goes back to the, and I'm sure we'll talk more about this in the pod, but it goes back to the three main points that the UCP ran on in 2019 is jobs, the economy and pipelines. And they really need to try to, they're like desperately trying to salvage this. I mean, jobs in the economy, I mean, because of COVID and because of the collapse and the international price of oil, I mean, those seem to be crossed off the list really early or weren't very optimistic.
00:07:19
Speaker
very early in Jason Kennedy's mandate or his time as Premier. And it seemed for a while that pipelines was going to be the only one that they might be able to salvage. But now with
Government's Pandemic Policies
00:07:29
Speaker
the news down in the States, that might not even be the case. But I mean, I understand we'll talk about the pipeline stuff a little bit later. But I mean, there was a real shift away from it. And now that we're in the midst of the second wave, I think people are asking like, well, why
00:07:47
Speaker
Where where is our political leadership on this? People are confused. People want clear communication from government in terms of what to do. Yeah. And when I joke about God leaving Jason Kenney's slider for human empathy at zero when he was creating him, like, you know, I have I have the receipts like here are a here's some clips I've pulled together. Some of them are from question period. Others others are from press conferences. Let's just have a listen to what Jason Kenny really thinks about Covid.
00:08:15
Speaker
For most Albertans, the risk of death from other pathogens, accidents and traffic fatalities is actually higher than it is from COVID.
00:08:23
Speaker
There will be more infections, there will be more outbreaks, there will be clusters, there will be more hospitalizations, and sadly, there will be more COVID-related deaths. But as we learn more about this, Mr. Speaker, I challenge our public health experts and our officials to ensure that our policy response is predicated on protecting the most vulnerable in the strongest and most discreet ways possible. Because we cannot continue
00:08:54
Speaker
indefinitely to impair the social and economic as well as the mental health and physiological health of the broader population for potentially a year.
00:09:05
Speaker
through measures for a influenza that does not generally threaten life apart from the most elderly, the immunocompromised and those with comorbidities. The average age of death from COVID in Alberta is 83. And I remind the House that the average life expectancy in the province is age 82. I mean, let's put this in perspective. While we have to take the COVID threat very seriously,
00:09:34
Speaker
It is currently projected to be the 11th most common cause of death in Alberta this year. To date, we've lost approximately 340 lives, sadly, to COVID-19. In a typical year, 16,000 to 17,000 people pass away in Alberta. And so currently, this represents a tiny proportion of the deaths in our province.
00:10:00
Speaker
The reason you don't want to lock down again, is it a philosophical reason or is it because it would not achieve the goal of bringing the cases down or is it both? No, it would not achieve our goal because our goal is not to take COVID-19 to zero.
00:10:22
Speaker
So yeah, the goal is not to get to zero. Did you hear that one, Dave? Yeah. I mean, obviously the goal is eventually to get to zero in terms of not letting the virus spread, in terms of eliminating the virus. But the whole idea of flattening the curve is to at least get to zero or but limit the amount of infections that are
00:10:46
Speaker
that are being spread so that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. What I found so bizarre about Kenny's press conference on Friday is that he spent the first 10 minutes basically talking about how serious COVID was.
00:11:02
Speaker
And then, as you played in the clip, then he basically spent the rest of the press conference kind of downplaying its seriousness, talking about, you know, only 300, only there's only more than 300 deaths across the province rather, you know, comparing to all the number of, total number of people who die each year. But it just, it just seemed like the complete, I mean, the mixed messaging, first of all, I think was very confusing. But then the total lack of empathy in terms of,
00:11:30
Speaker
you know, these are real people. These are our fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers who, you know, who are grandparents who passed away and who, you know, otherwise wouldn't have. And it just seemed that it was very unempathetic. And I think that is a big problem for Jason Kenney. He just, he doesn't seem to show, I mean, they're sending out this mixed messaging on top of it, but then he just doesn't seem to show when he has the opportunity to show real empathy with
00:11:58
Speaker
with Albertans that, you know, these are real people who've lost loved ones and trying to downplay it like that. I mean, we shouldn't let COVID rule our lives and we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't let it destroy us. But obviously, I mean, you know, there are people who have had their lives devastated. And I think it's just, I mean, it does show an incredible lack of empathy that he can't seem to publicly recognize that.
00:12:21
Speaker
Listening to that series of clips, I can only come to the conclusion that Jason Kinney is willing to sacrifice your grandma and your relatives, you, to the economy so that the line can go up, so that we must all worship at the line on the graph that shows that the economy is going up.
00:12:41
Speaker
And it's, quite frankly, psychopathic. I don't know any other way to describe the way he is handling this response, but people are dying. And it's not just death, too. The effects of COVID-19, the organ damage, the brain damage, the long, quote unquote, long COVID,
00:13:03
Speaker
There's just a lot we don't know about this new virus and we could be dealing with a generation of people who are dealing with the after effects of this, but regardless of whether they, you know, whatever the final death count is, which again is enormous worldwide.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, and the way that they're framing it in terms of, I mean, whenever they're criticizing, whenever the United Conservative Party government in Alberta is criticized about how it's the approach it's taking to COVID, it's their response is to always frame it as either, you know, there are two, there are only two ways to respond to this. There are, there's what we're doing now, which is, you know, there are some restrictions, most of them voluntary.
00:13:42
Speaker
and we're asking them to follow these voluntary measures, or there's a complete lockdown and everything shuts down. Now, there are plenty of measures in between that can be taken between those two points. And I know that there are people calling for a lockdown. There's a group of physicians here in Edmonton who have written the letter and are calling for a two week, kind of two week, I think they called it circuit breaker.
00:14:03
Speaker
or circuit break in order to stop the spread because we've reached such a large wave in the second wave. So obviously there are people calling for that, but there's a whole variety of things that government can do and has the power to do.
00:14:20
Speaker
uh in order to to stop this you know to to slow down or stop the spread of the virus that doesn't necessarily need to be a complete lockdown um you know maybe i mean the the my fear is that the longer we wait and the and i think this is a fear that a lot of people feel and a lot of that the longer we wait and if
00:14:38
Speaker
case, if new cases continue to arise, we're basically going to be a position where government is forced to lock down. I mean, I think as we're seeing in the province of Manitoba right now where they had a huge second wave, I think it might even be their first wave because I don't think Manitoba had huge cases, huge amount of cases in the spring. And now the government there is forced to take very drastic measures because it got out of control. So, I mean, this is very serious and there are some very serious, very smart
00:15:03
Speaker
and knowledgeable public health professionals and doctors who are talking publicly, but it just doesn't seem like the government is really willing to heed their advice at this point.
00:15:16
Speaker
And it seems like it's coming from a political angle rather than a pure public health angle, which I think the government was doing. And I think we can give them a little bit of credit to say that they were taking more of that approach in the spring when this first started. But in the midst of all of this, Tyler Shandrow and the UCP government has also literally gone to war with the people who work and operate our healthcare system. There's this lawsuit that's been launched by the doctors.
00:15:41
Speaker
They're laying off and privatizing 11,000 frontline healthcare workers. They just promised a 4% wage rollback for everyone who works for the government. This includes nurses, lab techs, all the civil servants that went on that wildcat the other day, the orderlies, the laundry workers, the food workers. This is a government that seems unwilling to change course, unwilling to back down from its extremely aggressive agenda.
Healthcare Strikes and Grievances
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it comes down to the point where they just can't pivot.
00:16:17
Speaker
Because of the global pandemic, they are six to eight months behind in terms of implementing their political agenda, the one that they meant to implement or they planned to implement when they were elected in April 2019. They had to delay a lot of this stuff. So a lot of the changes to healthcare, the layoffs, the fight with the doctors, the plans to lay off nurses, introducing
00:16:43
Speaker
you know, large swaths of privatization. This is stuff that they had probably planned to do six months ago, but were delayed because of the pandemic. And the reason why, I mean, I think the reason why it seems like they're pushing this through so hard now is because
00:17:02
Speaker
By next April, they will have reached the halfway mark in their term in government. They reached two years out of their four-year term. We all know that governments operate on pretty much the same, it doesn't matter what party's in power, but they all operate on the same schedule, whereas you try to get your
00:17:22
Speaker
you know, most controversial policies and changes implemented in the first, you know, roughly the first two years and then you spend the next two years kind of smoothing things over and then you're in re-election mode within the year ahead of the year before the next election and the UCP is getting dangerously close to that red line where they are
00:17:38
Speaker
they're going to be implementing these and pushing through these very dramatic and unpopular policies in the middle of a global pandemic. And there is an election coming in two and a half years. And I mean, two and a half years is an eternity in politics, but two and a half years is not long from now.
00:17:54
Speaker
And when April 2023 rolls around, if the memory of Tyler Shandrow and Jason Kenney laying off tens of thousands of health care workers in the middle of a global pandemic is still fresh in Albertan's minds, I don't have any doubt that that's going to hurt them and hurt them in the polls.
00:18:18
Speaker
So I think that's part of why they're rushing this now. And I mean, one of the encouraging things that really actually lifted my spirits was to see those workers go out on Wildcat, right? And to see those workers take their future into their own hands and use, you know, ultimately one of the biggest weapons that working people have.
00:18:38
Speaker
in their backpack, which is withdrawing their labor. And I'm curious to see if there's more labor action in and around our hospitals, especially it's truly fucked up because our hospitals are like literally on the cusp of being overwhelmed. There is not a lot of slack in the healthcare system. We've spent the past 30 years, 40 years making our hospitals efficient. You know what I mean?
00:19:05
Speaker
And when you make them efficient, that means there isn't a lot of slack in the system to deal with things like a massive global pandemic, which involves, you know, having workers either get sick on the job, or if they get exposed to someone who's sick on the job, they have to isolate for 10 to 14 days. Like, it is, they have a lot of leverage if they choose to use it. And I know, I think people got scared at the, you know, the threat of retaliation, but I think
00:19:32
Speaker
When you look at the traumatic, literally the stress that they're going to be facing just over the next two weeks to four months as this thing buckles our healthcare system. And then at the end of the day, Tyler Chandra, their boss has promised to lay them off. And if they're lucky, they might get hired back at half wage with no benefits, no union, no pension.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really, I mean, the wildcat strike was huge. And I think it's important not to downplay it. I mean, we live in this media cycle where it's like, you know, there's a one day news story and then the next day we move on to the next thing, you know, next crazy thing Donald Trump says and, you know, hopefully won't be doing that for much longer.
00:20:13
Speaker
But but you know and yesterday's news seems like it happened weeks ago, but I think it's really important not to downplay how What a significant moment that was when those those workers walked off the job and went to hell the Wildcat strike I mean that is one of I mean it just shows how absolutely serious those people are I mean that
00:20:35
Speaker
No worker wants to be in a position where they have to go on strike. People want to go work their job, get some fulfillment from their job, make money and have job security so they can go and spend time with their families and do things with their families and make a home. But to be in a position where you are forced to
00:21:02
Speaker
uh you know where you feel like you're forced you're forced to and you feel like you're forced to walk off the job and and take a wildcat strike that's that's huge i mean i think that just shows how how serious those workers were and i think that it was really disappointing to listen to the response of the provincial government um i mean tyler shandro the health minister has constantly demeaned and downplayed uh the role that these that these workers are having the health care system the people who clean the hospitals the people who clean the laundry um you know which who are you know who are
00:21:30
Speaker
critical parts of the healthcare system in a normal year, but during a global pandemic, you better hope that the people who are sanitizing and cleaning the hospitals and your long-term care centers and your health centers are well-trained and they know what they're doing and they're committed to their job because this is something that's serious. There's a global pandemic, there's a virus that's spreading, and the hospitals are one of the serious places that we need to make sure
00:21:55
Speaker
are well maintained. And these are the people on the front lines of doing that. So that they would go on strike just shows how serious the situation is.
00:22:07
Speaker
And how serious they're taking it, but you're right. I mean, you know, what they're essentially doing is they're, they're, these people are going to be laid off. Their jobs are going to be contracted out to private companies who are going to make a profit off of it. And they're going to offer these people, you know, at least if, you know, for a time, if they're not, you know, if, if they're, if they're not unionized, um, you know, they'll like, very likely have lower wages. They very likely will have, will have lower, you know, less benefits and, and, you know, I doubt they would have a pension. Um, so you're basically asking people saying, you know,
00:22:35
Speaker
you're not worth what we're paying you now. And I think these are not the highest paid people in the healthcare system for the most part. They're not making big doctor money.
00:22:46
Speaker
These people are making 35, 40, maybe 50, 55 at the outmost if they've been there for 20 years. And these people are the fucking troops, right? Again, you said it. If they are not cleaning the hospitals, if they are not doing the laundry and cleaning the sheets and the scrubs that everyone is wearing, everyone just keeps getting sicker. And again, and you want someone, some scab who's getting paid half
00:23:13
Speaker
half of the salary of someone else who doesn't give a shit to show up and do that. It boggles the mind how badly the UCP and Tyler Chandra have fucked up this pandemic and people are noticing. These people need to be able to do their jobs so that nurses and doctors can take care of the people who are real. That's really what it is because otherwise the responsibility falls. It's not like this work just doesn't get done. It falls on other people to do it.
00:23:40
Speaker
Definitely. I think we've exhausted all of the things we wanted to say about COVID. There's another huge, huge story that has come out that I feel has not necessarily gotten the attention it deserves, maybe because Donald Trump, the American election finally happened, Donald Trump is probably out. There's always COVID, this COVID disaster that's unfolding, but the Auditor General's report
00:24:06
Speaker
Uh, I mean, who among us hasn't had a $1.7 billion whoopsie, you know, on your first year on the job. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. It's a, yeah, no, this, this is something that, that should have gotten a lot more attention and I think we'll get more. I mean, it seemed like it was like a one or two day blip. Um, the legislature currently isn't sitting this week. So I expect when MLA is returned.
00:24:27
Speaker
next week, I think the NDP will probably talk a lot about this because it seems to be, for the most part, the first Auditor General's report that is almost entirely focused on the UCP government, whereas the Auditor General's report that came out last year was stuff that overlapped with the old NDP government, so the NDP weren't really as eager to talk about that because it did talk about some of their feelings as government.
00:24:51
Speaker
But this is this is some, you know, there are some clear, clear mistakes, clear scandals, I would say, that the opposition can be pinned on the United Conservative Party. So I think I think next week we'll hear we'll start to hear a lot more about this. But it's I mean, the timing of it when it was released, I think it was basically released the day before the US election. So, you know, there was a, you know, there was a bit of attention to it. And then it was almost entirely, you know, talking about down in the States.
00:25:18
Speaker
So there's a bunch here. So where do you want to start? Pick, pick the, pick the scandal. Well, I mean, I, you know, there's, there's everybody's favorite punching bag, the, uh, uh, you know, punching bag that, that, that pours out with scandal. Uh, the war room, war room, war room, baby. Yes. I mean, it's not the biggest dollar figure, but it is, uh, everyone loves reading fucked up war room stories. So it's the most true to character of the, uh, of the Canadian energy center.
00:25:43
Speaker
Just, yeah, bumbling, incompetent grift. Okay, yeah, so the auditor general found improper hiring practices, freely awarded sole source contracts without documentation, spent money without board approval and paid contractors before their contracts were signed. That's what the auditors found. Again, I think to the total dollar figure here was like one or $2 million was spent kind of improperly, but still the hilarity continues.
00:26:11
Speaker
And I think it really, I mean, it does. And I think it really highlights the lack of, I mean, the lack of proper oversight, which is what the other general highlighted, but also the lack of transparency of this, of this basically publicly funded
00:26:27
Speaker
public relations, a government funded public relations agency. We've known- They're an independent startup, Dave. Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, that's it. Yeah. That was the tweet in response to the Auditor General's report. I mean, what independent startup hasn't received a $30 million startup funding from the government of Alberta- But for the next four years. For the next four years. Yeah. No, this is, I mean, the Canadian Energy Centre is a
00:26:52
Speaker
It is a public relations subsidy for the oil and gas industry that I think the oil and gas industry is less and less eager about because of these scandals that continue to keep creeping up. We learned when it was set up last year that it is exempt from FOIP, so there's no way for journalists or different organizations to actually look in and hold the Canadian Energy Centre accountable. We know that it's being run by
00:27:29
Speaker
a former United Conservative Party candidate, former VP of the Progressive Conservative Party. Mike Milke, former press secretary, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a civil servant at the PAB for a while. You know, Fraser Institute alumni and the author of the UCP's election platform. I mean, yeah, Mark Milke is just like a Fraser Institute ghoul. Yes. Yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
essentially political appointees. Tom Wilson, who's a longtime conservative and a
00:27:55
Speaker
I mean, this is basically a partisan political organization that's operating as a subsidy for the oil and gas industry. And it continues to bumble along, and there doesn't seem to be any transparency. And this is a government that, I mean, I've said this before, one of their key characteristics is
00:28:24
Speaker
never admit they're wrong, and they never apologize for anything. And I mean, I wonder how long the Canadian Energy Centre can bumble along before it finally, you know,
00:28:37
Speaker
has outlived its usefulness or outlived, or have been too embarrassing for this government. And there's some speculation that it's going to be gone before Christmas. Never, no. We will have the worm around as long as Jason Kenney is in power. It's a can't be promised, promise made, promise kept.
00:28:58
Speaker
What's the problem here? Not to go back to talk too much about COVID again, but when we hear these issues about lack of proper oversight and the amount of money that the war room is spending, and yet at the same time, we have the government saying, oh, we can't afford to hire new teachers to make sure classroom sizes are smaller. They're laying off health support workers. They're laying off nurses. They're getting into this big fight with doctors.
Financial Missteps and Controversies
00:29:26
Speaker
Um, so there's no money for that, but there's money for the Canadian energy center. And I mean, that just shows a real kind of mixed, really, really mixed up priorities for this government. And I mean, I think it goes back to when I said they, they, they can't pivot is, you know, any, any government with, with a sense, um, would realize that maybe this isn't a priority anymore. And maybe we should focus on, on the pandemic and maybe fighting imaginary enemies like you are with the war room and the, the, um, public military.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah, we've got to talk about the inquiry just for a second because I'm going to break some news on the podcast here. So I have heard of a couple more environmental NGOs have received communications from the inquiry, the Wilderness Committee and an organization called WildSight. I'm not very familiar with these organizations.
00:30:14
Speaker
They have received correspondence from the inquiry. Again, it's in this asking them to participate mode, essentially because they have no power in BC. The Public Enquiries Act in Alberta, weirdly enough, doesn't extend to BC organizations. They've constructed this elaborate, will you please participate kind of rigmarole. It should be pointed out that it took them more than a year to actually figure out how to send letters to organizations that they wanted to talk to.
00:30:44
Speaker
But there you go. There's your breaking news. Yikes. And so the public inquiry bumbles on. It's missed its deadline twice now. Steve Allen has been embroiled in multiple controversies. He gave the $905,000 sole source contract to Denton's, the firm where his son is a partner.
00:31:02
Speaker
He openly campaigned and donated for Jug Switcher, the man who appointed him to the position. Pick your other one, pick a scandal from the inquiry. There's been, again, half dozen other ones. It is just another failure in every respect. Well, it's a public inquiry that's taken place completely in secret.
00:31:24
Speaker
There's notably private public inquiry. And again, it's exempt from FOIP. So we don't really know what's going on. There's no real accountability. And as you said, the deadlines just keep on getting pushed back and back. So this seems like something that they cannot just get rid of as easily as they could the Canadian Energy Centre, but it has become a little comical in terms of how
00:31:51
Speaker
how frequently they've been pushing back the deadline as if this thing will ever get done. You spoke about exempt from FOIP. I mean, I FOIPed the interim report, which was I think done in January. And I didn't even get a redacted page. I was just straight up, I denied. I was just given a denial. I couldn't even see the page numbers or the email addresses of who received it. What I did learn though, was that the interim report was all of 11 pages. So there's that. That's how it's going. Okay.
00:32:22
Speaker
All right, all right, enough on the inquiry as much as hilarious it is to talk about it. The AG report did turn up massive, massive fuckups. And the one that, again, I don't think anyone has really got into, we kind of did a little Twitter thread about it on progress over an account, but the crew by rail.
00:32:40
Speaker
is this massive, massive dollar figure, this massive adjustment. And as well, we just learned that the government of Alberta just straight up lied to us. Back in February, Kenny triumphantly announced that we were out of the crude by rail business. The literal quote in the thing is, we have divested all of the crude by rail contracts. The Auditor General was like, no, you didn't actually.
00:33:03
Speaker
And there's still, as the time of the writing of the Auditor General's report, 11 crude by rail contracts that are still active. And that lie ended up, because they wanted to pretend that they had cleared it all, but they hadn't. And so that lie essentially means that $637 is now back on the books. Million.
00:33:23
Speaker
Million, million, yes, is back on the books when it comes to these crude by rail contracts. And we just have no insight into what these contracts are doing. Are they still active? How much are they costing us? Is there just a huge rail yard full of government of Alberta leased, you know, crude rail cars just sitting there somewhere? We don't know. I think we should probably know that. I think the government should probably tell us what the fuck is going on.
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think this is gonna be the end of that story. I mean, I remember back months ago when, or maybe even a year ago now when Premier Kennedy announced they'd canceled the contracts. I mean, he basically stood on the roof of the legislature dome and with a sign and yelled out to the world that the contracts had been canceled. I mean, this is a big UCP point in the 2019 election when they were going after the NDP who originally signed these contracts.
00:34:20
Speaker
But so so I mean, I was I was I was very surprised to read this, because it seemed like the government had been so confident in terms of talking about and bragging about how these contracts have been cancelled, that there are still some on the books as of the, you know, as of the publishing of this, this report is, you know, it makes you wonder, well, you know, what, you know, what, what else? What else are they hiding? If this is what they've, you know, this is what they said they did. And
00:34:46
Speaker
And the auditor general is clearly pointing out, well, they actually didn't do that. How far does this go? What else are we missing? Well, the losses still haven't been fully realized, right? If there are still an 11 of those existing contracts out there and those haven't been sold off yet, then I don't think the price for those is getting any better. And especially when, as the government for the past 18 months you've been telling,
00:35:10
Speaker
everyone who will listen that you hate these things and that you're willing to sell them no matter the cost, no matter what, you're going to get a shitty fucking price for them. You've abandoned all your leverage. And so this massive financial loss is totally and wholly on the UCP government, simply for ideological reasons. They just didn't like that government had gotten into the business of moving oil around with rail cars. And because they didn't like it, we all get to eat shit and that sucks.
00:35:35
Speaker
Well, I'm interested to see how the NDP responds when the legislature comes back because this was one of their big things that Rachel Notley did when she was Premier and this was kind of her taking command of the low oil price issue and the pipeline issue.
00:35:53
Speaker
So I'm very interested to see how they handle this, whether they want to focus on this or not. I mean, obviously, because there's a lot to focus on, but this one in particular must just really sting because it was something that the UCP really hit the NDP hard in when they were in government and in the last election, and really bragged about a lot when they announced they had canceled it last year.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, consumers get a lot of credit for being financial or business managers, but really they're just as fucking incompetent as everyone else. And it really is annoying how much kind of credit they get. You know what I mean? Well, it is. I mean, this is the kind of... I mean, many people talk about it in this way, but I mean, I've heard Preston Manning of all people talk about it.
00:36:39
Speaker
Um, you know, comparing sword and shield issues. And it's kind of just like a, a very easy, very simplistic, easy way to break down issues. What issues are your strong and you can, you know, you can hit your opponent with, with, with your sword and what issues do you need to, you know, do you need a shield with to defend on because of your weaker issues. And, and, you know, for, for a lot of reasons, and this isn't,
00:36:58
Speaker
you know, this isn't by merit or isn't really true. Conservatives do get a free pass on issues like fiscal responsibility because they are perceived as being more responsible with money. I mean, we know that's not true. You know, this Auditor General's report basically is the latest thing to confirm that is, you know, I don't think there's much difference between governments in terms of actually being fiscally responsible.
00:37:23
Speaker
Oh, it's hilarious, right? Like deficits really matter when conservatives aren't in power and when conservatives are in power. You'll notice we don't give a fucking, give any dams about the deficit. But speaking to that issue, I mean, the wholeishment and financial incompetence, that also applies to the refinery, which again, took another huge ding.
00:37:44
Speaker
from the Auditor General. And I think there was an adjustment of $735 million by the Auditor General, and just they had improperly calculated their losses, I think. And here we are, this boondoggle that just has not gone away over the past 15 dozen years since Stalmac kind of got this ball off the ground.
00:38:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the government's fiscal update last August noted that the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission lost 2.5 billion just over last year, over the surgeon refinery. So this is like
00:38:27
Speaker
This is such an ongoing thing, because as you said, this goes all the way back to the Stelmak era when the progressive conservatives were in government. I hate to use the word boondoggle, but it feels like it that stretches over many different parties. Five premiers. Stelmak, Bradford, Hancock, Motley, Kenny. Prentice. Oh, Prentice. Six. Prentice.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah. And obviously not all of them were responsible for this, but they all inherited this problem and didn't necessarily do anything to make it better. So I don't know if anybody owns, I think they all kind of own this issue in terms of the refinery. It's just been this kind of massive black hole where- Cash just disappears into the Northwest refinery.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah, which is unfortunate because it's too bad because the idea of doing more refining here if we are going to produce more oil is probably...
00:39:27
Speaker
is better than shipping it down to Texas or shipping it to China. If the people owned the asset and were gaining the benefit. But the argument made that because it was this public-private partnership, it was just a boondoggle. I mean, it was just a bad idea from the start. Unless I'm all for public corporations, if the government wants to get into business for the benefit of the people, yes, I have full support. But this wasn't originally set up like that.
00:39:53
Speaker
But the bad part is that we are taking all the losses. We gain very little of the benefit and all of the downsides. So it's really the worst of everything. That really sums up public-private partnerships. And finally, in the Auditor General's report, probably the most pointless and cruel thing that I think the UCP have ever done, and that is shifting the date that people get their ACE checks from the end of the month
00:40:22
Speaker
to the first of the month in order to play an accounting shell game to make their dollar figures seem lower at the end of the year. The auditor general looked at that and said, no. And the $100 million that they saved, quote unquote saved, by doing this was just put back on the books by the auditor general. What was your take on this, Dave?
00:40:42
Speaker
I mean, it's shameful. These are the people who are depending on assured income for this really handicap. The financial benefit of that is these are some of the most vulnerable people in our society right now. It's not like this is a gold plated benefit plan. It's below the poverty line, what they're getting.
00:41:07
Speaker
Absolutely. So I mean, I don't I do not and it seems every government who ever big every government comes to power and looks at age and they see I mean, because it is, you know, it is a huge it is a big quite a big program. But there's a reason why it's quite a big program because it is so important because so many people depend on it. And, you know, I, they just they tinker with it and they did they pull off stuff like this. And I think it's just
00:41:33
Speaker
It's, yeah, I don't understand why government would tinker with this, would do things to make it worse in order to just shift around the money for accounting purposes. Just for some cabinet minister who could show up to a treasury board meeting and say, look what I did, I saved us $100 million. Well, no, you fucking didn't. Yeah. Well, I think that demonstrates the kind of pressure that cabinet ministers are under from the premier's office and from the minister of finance to
00:42:01
Speaker
cut spending and cut funding of these types of programs. I mean, if this is what's happening in community supports, I mean, we could spend a dozen podcasts talking about other things that are happening in other ministries as well. This is just like a snapshot of what's happening. This one is just especially fucking cruel because these people are facing NSF charges, they're facing
00:42:27
Speaker
Um, you know, the, the inability to buy food and things that they need, like if you're buying a bus pass at the end of the month, you know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the simple, as simple as, as not being able to buy a bus pass at the end of the month, having to wait to the beginning, beginning of the month when you're after your bus pass has expired. Um, it is great. And in this same vein, um,
00:42:49
Speaker
We released a bit of original investigative journalism that actually came out the same day this Auditor General's report got a bit swamped, but I think it's worth bringing up here just because I think it's an important story and one that's going to continue over the rest of the UCP term. That is the fact that conservative connected law firms are doing quite well under the UCP.
00:43:13
Speaker
Our analysis shows that three conservative law firms that we put a spotlight on, Newman, Thompson, McLennan, Ross, and Denton's, so are all doing gangbusters under this UCP government. When I say friends and enemies off the top, it is because, and my enemies do listen to this podcast, and I know this because Blaze Beamer, Kenny's old
00:43:39
Speaker
unification press flak turned, I think he's a UCP press attorney now for the justice minister. When we were writing the story, we reached out to the justice minister. We had questions. You know, you can read the story for yourself. It'll be in the show notes, but like, for instance, you know, why did they choose
00:43:55
Speaker
McLennan Ross and specifically Stephen Delanski to be on the carbon tax case if Stephen Delanski has no constitutional law experience. Why did the government of Alberta pay $15,000 to the law firm McLennan Ross in trust for UCP MLA divinder tour? We have gotten, still have no idea why that happened. Blaise Beamer did not answer our questions, but he did quote some quotes back to me from our podcast. So that's how I know he's a listener. So Blaise, if you're listening, fuck you.
00:44:24
Speaker
But yeah, very much in the same vein as the Auditor General, we've got this kind of like, you know, dollars flowing out the door to friends of the Conservative Party. What was your reaction when you read this story, Dave? Well, there's always money for lawyers. You know, there may not be money for other stuff, but there's always money for lawyers. And this is a government that is, I mean,
00:44:46
Speaker
seems to have no problem spending money on law firms. And as you said, some of these law firms have some pretty direct connections to people who are involved in the conservative movement. And business is good because this government is launching a lot of lawsuits and taking a lot of legal actions. I mean, the lawsuit against the federal carbon tax is a big one. I think it's probably going to be going to the Supreme Court.
00:45:10
Speaker
Yeah, the carbon tax, it's actually been argued at the Supreme Court, and we're getting a decision in the new year. Notably, Stephen Delansky, the person who was hired by the government to be a part of that case, and Jason Kennes and the UCP's lawyer, did not make any oral arguments to the Supreme Court in that case. That went to another lawyer from another firm.
00:45:30
Speaker
Okay, I didn't realize that. But yeah, the other big thing that we discovered in this report that Newman Thompson, a firm that specializes in aggressive employer side labor law and union avoidance, they saw a huge bump in billings from the government of Alberta and some massive sole source contracts. So they averaged $33,000 a year under the final three years of the NDP. And in one year under the NDP, they made more than $529,000 in government of Alberta billings.
00:45:58
Speaker
And notably, they picked up a $700,000 sole source contract to be the government of Alberta's counsel on the Alberta Medical Association lawsuit against the government of Alberta. This is the doctors of Alberta literally suing the government over chicanery involving negotiations around their pay.
00:46:19
Speaker
Well, as I said, it's heady days to be a conservative law firm in this province because the government doesn't seem to have any moral problem spending money on these law firms. Yeah, and they're not only are they, they're just contracting out to their friends, right? But there's this incredible quote in the piece from University of Calgary law professor Nigel Banks. I'm just going to read it out here because I think it's just worth putting a spotlight on.
00:46:48
Speaker
And he has this great English accent. I'll never be able to do justice with it, but it was great interviewing him and getting his his his take on this. But the quote is this law firms have this great phrase, Rainmaker. The idea is that they may not be much good at the practice of law, but they're incredibly well connected and they bring in business to the law firms and then other people actually do the work. You love to see it.
00:47:14
Speaker
So finally, Dave, and I think this is our final segment, I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking about the US election. You can go find other podcasts who are much more interesting and better informed on that than I am. But really what I want to talk about is Biden's election and what it means for Alberta, and specifically the issue that we all fucking hate to talk about, pipelines.
00:47:41
Speaker
Uh, you know, Jason Kenney was very clearly cheering for a different result here.
Keystone XL and Alberta's Future
00:47:46
Speaker
He was very clearly cheering for a Donald Trump win, uh, specifically because Joseph Biden had been very clear in the lead up to the election that he was going to cancel a Keystone XL. And, uh, Dave, what do you think is going to happen in regards to the Keystone XL pipeline?
00:48:08
Speaker
Well, I mean, you know, as you said, I mean, Jason Kenney was cheering for Donald Trump in, you know, he might not have been out there publicly campaigning for Trump, but I mean, he basically made the government, his government made a six point or seven point five billion dollar bet on Donald Trump being reelected president of the United States in their investment in the one point five billion investment in Keystone. And then they're they're promised six billion dollars in loan guarantees for the Keystone XL pipeline.
00:48:38
Speaker
One of the big promises that Joe Biden made and one of the big promises that he made to especially the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was a focus on climate change. And that included canceling the presidential permit that allowed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. It was a permit that was denied by President Obama and then signed by President Trump when he became president four years ago. So I think it's going to be, Biden
00:49:09
Speaker
He didn't give the progressive wing of the Democratic Party a lot of the big things they wanted. He didn't accept Medicare for All. He didn't accept defund the police. He almost almost, you know, very carefully actively campaigned against defund the police.
00:49:24
Speaker
One of the big things he did talk about and he did give to that branch of the Democratic coalition was focus on climate change. The United States, as he said, is going to reenter the Paris Climate Accord and canceling the Keystone XL presidential permit. So I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on Biden to renege on this promise, but I think it's going to be very hard for him because I think that this election has shown
00:49:50
Speaker
in the past year has shown that that progressive wing is becoming an increasingly powerful voice within the Democratic Party. Now, understandably, Joe Biden is a centrist. I heard John Dickerson on the Slate Political Gab Fest last week described, I think it was John Dickerson, or it might have been Ezra Klein,
00:50:12
Speaker
describe Joe Biden as, you know, he is always at the center of the Democratic Party, he is the, he is the centrist of the Democratic Party so you know wherever the Democratic Party moves on the, you know, on the political spectrum, he's usually in the middle of that.
00:50:28
Speaker
So, I mean, I think there will be a lot of pressure on him. We've heard that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making it a priority to convince President-elect Biden not to remove the permit. Premier Kenny has talked a lot about it. I think there'll be a lot of pressure in the United States, obviously from TransCanada, TC Energy, and the pipeline building companies along the line. There'll be pressure from some of the big private sector unions in the United States, Plumbers and Pipefitters, Laborers International, the Teamsters, the Operating Engineers,
00:50:57
Speaker
They all have contracts to work on this pipeline, to build this pipeline. So there's going to be a lot of pressure on him not to repeal the presidential permit, but it's going to be a big one for him to back down. I'm just going to put it out there. The Keystone XL pipeline, there's a 90, probably 95% chance it's fucking toast.
00:51:16
Speaker
And it's toast for a few big reasons. One, Joe Biden can immediately kill it. He does not need the Senate. He does not need anyone else's say. So he as president, when he is in president, uh, expected in the first hundred days, he will revoke the presidential permit because it is something he can do without anyone else's permission.
00:51:34
Speaker
Two, the point you make about the progressive wing of the party, he pretty much told the Bernie Sanders wing of the party to fuck off. But the one promise he made was to the activist wing of the party was Keystone XL. And I think there's going to be a lot of pressure from Bernie Sanders and the squad and the associated folks with those people on Biden to do this in the first 100 days.
00:52:00
Speaker
You know, that is a part of the Democratic coalition that has a lot of energy behind it. It has a lot of momentum behind it. It is going to be incredibly difficult for Joseph Robinette Biden to not follow through on this. And finally, the blue collar labor unions that support Keystone, the ones that you talked about, you know, at the leadership level, they're Democrats, but the rank and file, probably the majority of those folks are Republican Trump voters.
00:52:28
Speaker
And, um, you know, I think that those particular unions and those particular locations are not, uh, particularly powerful, uh, within the democratic party right now. And so, you know, when you look at that, when you look at those three things, you know, the powerful progressive wing of the party, the fact that Joe Biden can just do it and the fact that labor just doesn't have the juice at once did.
00:52:52
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think it's toast and what that means for the billion and a half dollars of equity and the $6 billion in loan guarantees. Like there is a very real possibility that our loan guarantees could be paying to rip that pipeline out of the ground. The energy doesn't have to incur any losses. Yeah, from what I understand. So like some of the, some of the loan guarantees have, um, have been made. And then there are a whole bunch that, from what I understand that, that take effect on January 1st now.
00:53:21
Speaker
Joe Biden doesn't become president until January 20th or January 21st. So I don't know, I mean, I bet you there's a lot of people at the Alberta and the Alberta government trying to figure out, well, how do we minimize the damage this is gonna make? Because that's a heck of a lot of money. And it was a heck of a lot of money when Jason Kenney announced last year that they were going to be putting 7.5 billion into this pipeline. He made that commitment at the same time as he was talking about cutting healthcare, cutting education.
00:53:50
Speaker
And, and in the world we exist in now, um, you know, where, where, you know, the, the, the, I want to say the post pandemic world, but the, but the world we're living in, in COVID, um, it, it just does not seem like the right priority for, for government to be putting this. And I understand he wanted to, you know, he wanted to show confidence at the time where the price of oil was, was collapsing and it was, it was symbolic and sending a message, but man, that's a heck of a lot of money. And, uh, and if the, if the, if the pipeline gets canceled, which I think it will,
00:54:20
Speaker
Um, you know, that's a, you know, Jason Kenny can't blame Justin Trudeau for this. He can't blame, you know, he can blame Joe Biden, but okay. Well, what good is that going to do? You know, he can't blame, uh, he can't.
00:54:33
Speaker
He can't blame the usual boogeyman and I think that he is going to, you know, the UC, this might be the big, you know, the first big financial scandal that sticks and actually really damages the UCP for that 1.5 billion just, you know. Yeah, you vaporize one and a half billion dollars, people tend to notice, especially on- That's a lot of money. That one and a half billion dollars was contingent on Donald Trump getting reelected and everyone fucking knew it.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah, it is. Yeah, the it's it's bad. It's bad, folks. And the fact I mean, there's also I mean, this isn't even a debate around the pipeline, whether the pipeline should exist. But like,
00:55:15
Speaker
Jason Kenney made a disastrous decision to throw our money at this project. And everyone knew it was a disaster from the beginning. And we're just going to be dealing with the fallout of it over the next, I would say six months or so, as it comes into focus, what's going to happen.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah, and from what I understand from the permit is if it's revoked, the TC energy will be responsible for actually removing all the infrastructure. So everything that's built down in the States basically will potentially have to be pulled out of the ground, which is
00:55:50
Speaker
I mean, that's a huge expense. And then we've got this pipeline on our side of the border that is, you know, will be a literal pipeline to nowhere. Um, and, and it's worth pointing out folks that we, we get into this, uh, in our latest progress report newsletter. Uh, we, um, we quote Johnson, a guy with Eurasia group who appeared on the arc energy ideas podcast. This is this like highly paid kind of consultant who is given incredible amounts of money by corporations to tell them what the most likely
00:56:19
Speaker
things are that are going to happen in politics. And he echoes all of the things that we're saying right here. So if you're not a member of the, if you're not getting the progress report newsletter, you should get it. But it is, if you'll excuse the product placement, but yeah, it's bad. We're a billion and a half dollars up in smoke. There's no other way to spin that really. And again, totally his decision.
00:56:47
Speaker
So Dave, um, yeah, it's the end of the pot. What's the best way for people to follow you and your work? Well, you can, you can, uh, follow me on, uh, online at, uh, well, at daveberta.ca is where the, where daveberta, the, the blog, the website is, uh, you can follow, uh, subscribe to the podcast, day of the day bird podcast, which you can find everywhere that you download podcasts. You can find me on Twitter at, at Dave Cornway or the podcast at, at daveberta. Yeah. Thank you.
00:57:16
Speaker
And DaveBreda.ca is the premier site for hot takes on the 1982 Alberta election. Oh my God, we didn't even get to talk about the 1982. So last Monday was the 38th anniversary of the 1982 Alberta general election. And I have so much to say about that. I'm going to write, I have a post that I'm writing because it all, and I'm not going to get too much into this, it coincided, the anniversary coincided with the date that
00:57:44
Speaker
MLA Rod Loyola introduced the Canadian unity motion in the legislature, which has caused all sorts of chaos because Drew Barnes is off being Drew Barnes. And yeah, so you can read all about it in a couple of days. Original content, you will literally not get anywhere else. For better or worse. Thanks so much for coming on. Folks, if you like this podcast, you want to keep hearing it. There are a few very simple things you can do to help us out.
00:58:14
Speaker
One of those is to leave a review, five stars only of course, but also beyond a review, tell your friends. If you think me and Dave chatting for an hour about politics, if you learned a bit about this, if you think your friends and family could learn a bit about learning this conversation, please share it with them, text it to them, put it on their walls, send it to them over Messenger.
00:58:31
Speaker
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00:58:53
Speaker
Put in your credit card, contribute what you can, $5, $10, $15 a month. We would really appreciate it. Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear, I'm very easy to reach on Twitter at Duncan Kinney, and you can reach me by email at DuncanKatprogressalberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Famicommunist for the amazing theme. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.