| EUB spies on landowners
The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) has spied on landowners and may have violated lawyer-client privilege. The landowners were attending an EUB hearing into a controversial proposal to build a power line between Calgary and Edmonton. They and their lawyers were watching the hearings on TV in a separate room when the EUB sent private investigators in. As a result, the landowners say, the investigators overheard their confidential conversations with their lawyers. David Sheremata, an EUB spokesperson, confirmed that the board’s security personnel went undercover at the hearing, adding that it was done because some landowners had previously tried to disrupt hearings. "(The investigators) were not there to gather confidential information," he says.
Two years ago, the EUB agreed with the Alberta Electric System Operator’s recommendation to build the line, but is still reviewing a proposal by AltaLink for constructing and maintaining it. The landowners feel the EUB is ignoring their concerns over the line.
Bashing the Boom
Most Albertans are not benefiting from the boom, and low-income Albertans are suffering because of it, says a new report by the Parkland Institute, a left-wing think-tank.
The Parkland argues that due to rising inflation and housing prices only the rich and corporations are truly benefiting from the boom. From the beginning of 2006 until now, the price of new homes rose by 65 per cent in Calgary. Between October 2005 and October 2006 the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment rose by 18.5 per cent. Calgary also has the highest inflation rate in the country.
Despite the raging economy, 56,000 Albertans are still on social assistance, Calgary’s homeless rate has grown by 458 per cent since 1996 and at least 20,000 people in Calgary have a family income of less than $15,000 and are paying more than 50 per cent of their income on housing. The Parkland Institute points out that when factoring in inflation, hourly wages are not increasing and social assistance rates are at 50 per cent of the level they were in the 1980s. The minimum wage is also not keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile, according to Statistics Canada, corporate profits reached their second consecutive record high in 2005 and average revenues for 10 oil and gas companies that Parkland analyzed increased by 26.5 per cent over 2004.
Diana Gibson, research director of the Parkland Institute, says she’s hopeful the report will "spark a broader debate about the fact that the majority of Albertans aren’t benefiting from the boom.
"To some extent we’re going to have oil and gas development. The question is how much and for whom. I think the debate needs to happen as to why we’re extracting these resources at such high environmental costs. If the purpose is to make Albertans better off in the short and long term, policies need to be put into place to ensure that we maximize the return from corporations on oil and gas and that we convert that into current and future benefits for the average Albertan," she says.
Neglected parks
After almost 20 years of "neglect" the provincial government needs to do a better job of managing its provincial parks, says the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS).
CPAWS recently released a report that looked at the ecological integrity of the province’s parks network. The report says current protected areas need to have protected wildlife corridors linking them so they don’t become "ecological islands in a sea of agricultural, industrial and motorized recreational use." CPAWS is also critical of the government for allowing a "host of permitted industrial and recreational uses both within and bordering protected areas." CPAWS says the cumulative impact of various activity is "compromising the ecological integrity of the Alberta parks network." Unlike within federal parks, oil and gas development, cattle grazing and off-highway vehicle use are often permitted in provincial protected areas.
CPAWS also criticizes the government for not creating enough new protected areas to ensure representation of all the natural regions in the province. For example, the Foothills Natural Region only has 1.4 per cent of its area protected from industrial development.
The report praises the government for recently increasing funding to parks, but says years of funding cuts have led to a lack of scientific monitoring, inadequate management plans and too few enforcement officers. It recommends that the government strengthen its legislation to ensure that the ecological integrity of parks is protected. |
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