New ‘Orwellian’ legislation would make it illegal to call for public sector strikes in Alberta

Posted on December 4, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Jen Gerson | 04/12/13 http://news.nationalpost.com

Greg Southam/Edmonton JournalAUPE members in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge join together with allies from across the labour movement to protest Bill 45 and 46 on December 2, 2013, in front of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton.

CALGARY — Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s government is set to pass a bill that restricts union leaders — and, critics say, ordinary citizens as well — from calling for public sector strikes, under threat of fines of up to $1-million a day.

The legislation’s perceived attack on free speech has created odd allies, uniting the Alberta Federation of Labour and the right-wing Wildrose party.

“It’s Orwellian, is what it is,” said Gil McGowan, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. “Redford is suggesting that her government should act as the thought police.”

Expected to pass third reading on Thursday evening, Bills 45 and 46 would strip the Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE) the right to binding arbitration (strikes were made illegal in the late ’70s).

The bills also bar unions, their leaders, third parties — and, it is feared, ordinary Albertans — from counselling any kind of strike under threat of fines ranging from $500 to $1-million per day.

“These bills go way too far over the line,” said Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson. Wildrose supports increasing penalties for union leaders who organized illegal strikes, but opposes proposals to remove binding arbitration and place limits on freedom of speech.

“I think this is going to get turfed [by the courts]. This law has all the hallmarks of poor legislation. It is very vague on what is meant by the ‘threat of an illegal strike.’ It impinges on freedom of speech in unnecessary ways,” he said.

Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk disagreed with this characterization of the bill, saying that, in the context of previous labour legislation, fines could only be levelled against those who have the authority to counsel a strike — bloggers, columnists, citizens and ordinary low-level union employees need not fear punishment.

Mr. Lukaszuk said previous legislation has already decided who has the authority to “counsel” a strike; someone like Mr. McGowan, if he acted in an organized way, could be fined up to $500 if it were proven he were orchestrating an illegal strike, Mr. Lukaszuk said.

We usually see this kind of language in a context where the underlying offence is serious, like inciting property damage or a riot

However, the bills would not affect “employees who simply express their frustration with the employer,” he said. “If indeed [the Labour Relations Board] found a person was in a position to counsel and had the authority and it resulted in an illegal strike, then, yes, this law would apply.”

Carissima Mathen, a constitutional law expert and assistant professor at the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa, called the bill overly broad and “ripe for challenge.” The courts have a record of recognizing the complexity of union negotiations, and leaders need to have the ability to discuss their tactics, she said.

“We usually see this kind of language in a context where the underlying offence is serious, like inciting property damage or a riot,” she said.

The bills, which will affect upcoming negotiations with AUPE, will effectively enforce a four-year contract with workers that will see nominal wage increases, Mr. McGowan said. He expects the same approach to be levelled on nurses and other public sector unions.

“If Redford rams through these pieces of legislation [on Thursday], it will usher in a generation of poisoned labour relations in Alberta,” he said. “If she continues governing this way and behaving this way towards citizens and members of Alberta’s broader civil society, she’ll be the last PC premier in Alberta’s history … she has shattered the progressive coalition that elected her in the last election.”

National Post

Hydro Rates and Liberal Errors

Posted on December 4, 2013 by CanucksBanter

December 5, 2013 David Schreck, StrategicThoughts.com

The Liberal platform from the May 2013 election is still on their website and it is easily searchable. BC Hydro was mentioned seven times. Hydro rates only received passing reference by way of a paragraph header:

“Reducing pressure on ratepayers”
“As the BC Prosperity Fund reduces public debt, this will include reducing the debt for BC Hydro and the Port Mann Bridge by allowing us to accelerate the paydown of debt for capital projects that are helping build the province.”

Five of the seven references to Hydro in the Liberal platform were in the context of paying down its debt through the use of LNG revenues. (The other two were to continue to purchase private power and a boast about implementing audit recommendations regarding executives and their compensation.)

Having opened Pandora’s box, the principle of reducing Hydro’s debt through the use of resource or other government revenue needs to be fully explored. Reducing the debt pressure on rate payers through such payments can be thought of as little more than repaying what amounted to a shift of debt from government to Hydro; that is what happened when Hydro paid water rentals and dividends to the province when those funds could have been used to reduced Hydro’s debt.

BC Hydro’s total revenue in the 2012-13 fiscal year was $4.9 billion. In that fiscal year, Hydro paid $348 million in water rentals as well as $509 million in dividends to the province, which amounted to 17.5% of the corporation’s total revenue.

Many families who use natural gas to heat water and their homes have very low electric bills. Reasonable attention to turning off the lights can result in monthly bills of under $40 for such families, but those who use electric baseboard heaters and electric hot water tanks face much higher bills, averaging over $200 per month.

For those families a rate increase of 9% on April 1, 2014 and another 6% on April 1, 2015 hurts. If they have wage earners who work in industries that will be facing millions in increased costs because of the 15% two year rate hike, they could be looking at job losses.

Boards of education and hospitals were told by the government to find “savings” elsewhere in their budgets to pay higher Hydro rates; schools and hospitals may have to cut services and layoff staff to pay the higher electric bills!

Premier Clark’s Liberals would have you believe the rate increases are necessary in order to make up for decisions made by the NDP more than twelve years ago. Even their strongest supporters can’t believe that nonsense. After more than a decade the Liberals must accept responsibility for their decisions and many of those decisions were massive mistakes that inflicted billions in unnecessary costs on Hydro.

BC Hydro’s power distribution was stripped away into BC Transmission Corporation in 2003 only to see the experimental company dissolved and reabsorbed by Hydro in 2010 under the inappropriately named “Clean Energy Act“.

Will McMartin described how many Liberal friends benefited from that failed experiment which cost rate payers $65 million. That was small potatoes as Liberal waste at Hydro goes.

The Clean Energy Act excluded many pet projects from independent review by the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC). Energy economist Marvin Shaffer warned that the Act would cost BC billions, and he has been proven right.

The Act essentially required Hydro to buy high and sell low. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013 Hydro paid Independent Power Producers (IPPs) $760 million (annual report page 45) for 10,675 gigawatt/hrs of power, an average cost of $71.23/MW/hr. Average power cost for Hydro was $17.96/MW/hr for 62,529 gigawatt/hrs of power. The Liberal’s concept of “self-sufficiency” required Hydro to buy expensive IPP power as if every year were a drought, even if it didn’t need the power.

The Clean Energy Act was really an Act to promote the profits of IPPs and to strip BCUC of its regulatory role in protecting ratepayers. Section 7 of the Act removed the following projects from BCUC scrutiny:

the Northwest Transmission Line, a 287 kilovolt transmission line between the Skeena substation and Bob Quinn Lake, and related facilities and contracts;
Mica Units 5 and 6, a project to install two additional turbines and related works and equipment at Mica;
Revelstoke Unit 6, a project to install an additional turbine and related works and equipment at Revelstoke;
Site C, a project to build a third dam on the Peace River in northeast British Columbia to provide approximately (i) 4 600 gigawatt hours of energy each year, and (ii) 900 megawatts of capacity;
a bio-energy phase 2 call to acquire up to 1 000 gigawatt hours per year of electricity;
one or more agreements with pulp and paper customers eligible for funding under Canada’s Green Transformation Program under which agreement or agreements the authority acquires, in aggregate, up to 1 200 gigawatt hours per year of electricity;
the clean power call request for proposals, issued on June 11, 2008, to acquire up to 5 000 gigawatt hours per year of electricity from clean or renewable resources, and

Section 17 of the Act imposed the smart meter program and exempted it from BCUC review.

It is hard to say whether some of the projects listed above would have proceeded if they had to satisfy BCUC. If some had not, ratepayers might not be looking at a 15% rate increase over the next two years.

Smart meters cost over $1 billion and there is no evidence of any significant savings. The cost of site C is anyone’s guess but some suggest it could reach $10 billion. Even Hydro’s 2011 estimate pegged it at $7.9 billion. Remember all that power is designated for producing LNG in BC and we’ve yet to see whether LNG can be sold at a profit for the province, let alone at rates that will pay off all provincial, Port Mann and BC Hydro debt. Nevertheless, the Liberal platform promised to accelerate the paydown of debt at BC Hydro, BC Ferries and the Port Mann Bridge once the core provincial debt is paid down.

While not acknowledging their mistakes, the Liberals could argue that (except for Site C) they are mostly water over the dam, or is that water under the bridge. One way or another, the promised pay-down of Hydro’s debt is a long way in the future and it needs money now. Of course part of the reason it needs money now is to continue paying the government almost a billion dollars a year in combined water rentals and dividends.

A background note to the government’s news release on the rate increase said government would be: “Reducing dividend payments to the Province over five years starting in Fiscal 2018 to allow BC Hydro to keep more cash for infrastructure investments.”

Those paying 9% more next year and another 6% more in 2015 might notice that the government’s promise to stop draining so much from Hydro doesn’t take effect until after the 2017 provincial election. When you think about it, much of what the Liberals promised for the May 2013 election won’t be seen or proven until after the 2017 election. It all requires a great deal of faith.

Reform Act, 2013

Posted on December 3, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Michael Chong, P.C., M.P. Wellington-Halton Hills

On December 3, Michael Chong, P.C., M.P. Wellington-Halton Hills introduced to the Canadian Parliament a private member’s bill, Bill C-559, Reform Act, 2013: An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms).

The following is a backgrounder behind Bill C-559 put out by Mr. Chong.

On December 3, 2013, Michael Chong, Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills, introduced the Reform Act, 2013. The Reform Act is an effort to strengthen Canada’s democratic institutions by restoring the role of elected Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

The proposals in the Reform Act would reinforce the principle of responsible government. It would make the executive more accountable to the legislature and ensure that party leaders maintain the confidence of their caucuses.

Responsible government was introduced to Canada in the 1840s by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, reformers whose contributions to responsible government are commemorated in a monument behind Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Together, they led the first responsible government in Canada. Responsible government is the principle that the Executive Council (cabinet) is responsible and accountable to the elected Legislative Assembly (House of Commons), and not the appointed Governor.

Since Confederation, numerous and gradual changes have eroded the power of the Member of Parliament and centralized it in the party leaders’ offices. As a result, the ability of Members of Parliament to carry out their function has been curtailed by party leadership structures. The Reform Act proposes to address this problem by restoring power to elected Members of Parliament.

The Need to Reform Parliament

In Canada’s single-member district plurality (first-past-the-post) system, Canadians directly elect Members of Parliament to represent them in the House of Commons. This is the only franchise (excepting the occasional non-binding ad-hoc consultative Senate elections) that Canadians exercise at the federal level.

It is important to note why the role of the Member of Parliament is so vital to our system.

In many systems of government, citizens exercise three franchises, three votes. For example, in the United States, citizens exercise three votes at the federal level: A vote for the President, a vote for a Senator and a vote for a Congressman or Congresswoman. So, citizens have three avenues to pursue their democratic representation.

But in Canada, citizens exercise only one franchise, one vote: A vote for their local Member of Parliament. And they rightfully expect that their local member be responsive to their views.

It is for that reason that the role of the Member of Parliament in the Canadian system is so critical.

However, evidence demonstrates that Canadians are becoming increasingly disengaged with their elected Parliament. Recent public opinion research reveals that only 55 per cent of Canadians report being satisfied with the way democracy works in Canada,i dropping 20 per cent from 2004.ii Voter turnout during federal elections has reached an all-time low, and in the last federal election, four out of ten Canadians chose not to vote.iii

Studies have found that many Canadians are disengaged because they feel that politicians work for someone else, and are therefore indifferent to their views.iv

The Reform Act will help to re-engage citizens by introducing bottom-up reforms, giving greater decision-making authority to electoral district associations, and strengthening accountability in parliamentary party caucuses. When electoral district associations have the final authority over selecting party candidates in the electoral district, it ensures local control over who represents the district in Parliament. The Reform Act also provides greater power to elected Members of Parliament to hold their party leaders to account, thus reinforcing the confidence that caucus must have in the leader, and strengthening the principle of responsible government, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy.

The reforms proposed in the Reform Act are not new. If enacted, they would restore Parliament to the way it worked in Canada for many decades. Furthermore, many of the reforms proposed in the Reform Act are similar to current practices in other Westminster parliaments. The Reform Act would, however, codify into statute practices that are currently governed by unwritten convention.

The Reform Act proposes three main reforms: Restoring local control over party nominations, strengthening caucus as decision-making body, and reinforcing the accountability of party leaders to their caucuses. The Reform Act amends two Acts of Parliament: The Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act.

It is important to note that the Reform Act would not come into force until seven days after the next general election.

Restoring Local Control over Party Nominations

Currently, the Canada Elections Act effectively gives a party leader authority over the selection of a candidate by an electoral district association. According to paragraph 67(4)(c) of the Canada Elections Act, a prospective candidate must submit to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, proof that a party leader has endorsed his or her candidacy. Only after this proof has been submitted, can the Chief Electoral Officer approve his or her nomination as a candidate for a party in an election. This requirement was introduced when the Canada Elections Act was amended in 1970.v Without such endorsement, the name of a prospective candidate and the political party with which he or she is affiliated cannot be put on the election ballot.

In other Westminster parliaments, the leaders of political parties do not exercise this type of centralized authority. For example, in Australia’s Labor Party and Liberal Party, decisions on candidate nomination are generally made by the local party membership.vi,vii In the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party and Liberal Democratic Party, candidates are generally selected by the constituency membership or constituency association.viii,ix In these parties, the final decision on candidate nomination rests with the members of local constituencies.

The Reform Act proposes to amend the Canada Elections Act, restoring local control over party nominations by replacing a party leader with a nomination officer, for the purpose of endorsing a party candidate in an election. Nomination officers are to be elected by members of electoral district associations through a majority vote. The Reform Act ensures that decisions pertaining to candidate nominations are made locally and are binding; meaning that the decisions of the electoral district association cannot be overruled by a party leader. By restoring control to electoral district associations to nominate candidates, power is effectively restored to Canadians, since it becomes a local decision as to who gets to represent the party in an election.

In effect, the Reform Act gives local associations the final decision on which candidate will run for a political party in that electoral district. Strengthening electoral district associations would enhance local engagement with political parties by giving these associations a stronger voice in a party’s direction.

Strengthening Caucus as a Decision-Making Body

Caucus is central to the functioning of a Westminster parliament. Most parliamentary power flows from the institution of Parliament through the caucus leadership to individual caucus members. Therefore, the structure and governance of caucus, as well as the accountability of the caucus leadership to its members, becomes vitally important in the Westminster system. Those members who sit outside a recognized party caucus are distinctly disadvantaged.

It is important to draw a distinction between registered political parties (Conservative Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party of Canada, etc.) which are created and exist outside Parliament, and parliamentary parties – also referred to as caucuses or recognized parties – which exist inside Parliament. While there is significant correlation between both types of parties, they are separate in structure and governance.

It is clear that, due to a series of changes going back decades, the ability of Members of Parliament to carry out their functions has been curtailed by caucus leadership structures. This stands in stark contrast to the significant power that members have in other Westminster parliaments, such as Australia and the United Kingdom.x,xi,xii

While the Parliament of Canada Act implicitly recognizes House of Commons caucuses by providing for the remuneration of House of Commons caucus chairs, no detail is provided as to how these caucuses should be structured or governed. In particular, no mention is made of how a House of Commons caucus chair is to be selected, nor is any mention made regarding caucus membership and expulsion. Currently, the structure, governance and membership of caucuses are regulated by unwritten convention. Over the decades, this unwritten convention has evolved in a way that has advantaged caucus leadership and disadvantaged caucus members.

The Reform Act proposes amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act in order to formally define the structure and governance of House of Commons caucuses.

The Reform Act would amend the Parliament of Canada Act by adding the definition of a House of Commons caucus.

The Reform Act would also formalize the procedure for the expulsion and re-admission of caucus members. Currently, the process for expulsion and re-admission is an undefined process that can vary between caucuses and individual cases. Under the Reform Act, a caucus member may only be expelled if the caucus chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting that the member’s membership be reviewed at a meeting and the expulsion be approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting.

Expelled caucus members may be re-admitted if one of two criteria is met. One criterion for re-admission is that the expelled member is re-elected to the House of Commons as a candidate for that party. The second criterion is that the caucus chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting a vote to re-admit that member at a meeting, and the re-admission is approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting.

The Reform Act also sets out a formal procedure for the election of a caucus chair. The chair of caucus is elected following every general election, or following the death, incapacity, resignation or removal of caucus chair. The chair is elected by a majority vote by secret ballot of the members of caucus who are present at a meeting of caucus. That meeting is presided over by the caucus member with the greatest number of years of service in the House of Commons.

The Reform Act also sets out a formal procedure for the removal of a caucus chair. The chair of a party caucus can only be removed if the chair has received a written notice signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members requesting that the occupancy of the chair be reviewed at a meeting, and the chair’s removal is approved by a majority vote by secret ballot of the caucus members present at that meeting. That meeting is presided over by the caucus member with the greatest number of years of service in the House of Commons.

These measures will enhance the accountability of caucus leadership to caucus members, ensuring party leaders and their caucuses are mutually accountable by virtue of requiring the maintenance of confidence. This is particularly important in House of Commons caucuses, since it is only members of the House of Commons to which the constitutional convention of confidence applies.

Reinforcing Accountability of Party Leaders to Caucuses

By convention, leaders of parliamentary parties must maintain the confidence of their House of Commons caucuses. While this convention is frequently used in Australia and the United Kingdom, it is rarely used in Canada.

Since the 1960s, party leaders in most Westminster systems have become more powerful in relation to elected Parliaments. With a few exceptions, the checks and balances on the power of party leaders has weakened. One of those exceptions is the ability of party caucuses to conduct a leadership review, which is the most important check and balance on the power of party leaders. In the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Australia’s Liberal Party, and New Zealand’s National Party and Labour Party, the party caucuses retain the power to review their party leaders.xiii,xiv,xv,xvi Within the last two decades, caucuses in all three countries have exercised this important power.

However, in Canada registered political parties have increasingly displaced the role of caucus in reviewing the party leader. Furthermore, the by-laws of registered parties make it difficult to initiate a leadership review.

Much like caucus structure and governance, little is set out in Canadian statute regarding leadership review. The Reform Act proposes to amend the Canada Elections Act to ensure that party by-laws recognize the current caucus power to review the caucus leader, by making explicit what is currently unwritten convention. Quite simply, the bill takes the current unwritten constitutional convention and makes explicit in statute the rules and process for caucus to review the party leader.

The Reform Act proposes that a party leadership review may be initiated by the submission of a written notice to the caucus chair, signed by at least 15 per cent of the caucus members. The review will occur by secret ballot, and the result will be determined by a majority vote of the members present at the meeting. When a majority of caucus members vote in favour of a leadership review, a second vote by secret ballot occurs immediately to select a person to serve as the interim party leader until a new leader has been elected. Aside from the election of an interim party leader, the Reform Act does not specify how a party leader is to be elected, leaving that decision to the political party.

The Reform Act makes registration of a political party contingent on the party’s by-laws conforming with these leadership review provisions. Registered political parties will have twelve months after the Reform Act comes into force to bring their party by-laws into compliance.

The Reform Act does not affect, in any way, the current power of registered political parties and their members to review a leader or to select a leader, regardless of what their current practises are.

Evidence shows that Westminster parliaments that operate under the rules proposed in the Reform Act, like those in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, are no more are unstable than the system Canada currently operates under. The length of time between leadership changes are about the same in both systems.xvii,xviii

Currently, party leaders exercise a great deal of control over caucuses, with the result that caucuses decreasingly function as decision-making bodies. The provisions proposed in the Reform Act would make explicit the requirement that the party leader maintain the confidence of his or her caucus, making the leader more accountable and restoring the role of elected Members of Parliament.

_________________________

i Anderson, Kendall, et al., “Lost in Translation or Just Lost?: Canadians’ Priorities and the House of Commons”, Samara Democracy Report #5, Samara Institute, February, 2013. p.2.

ii Anderson, Kendall, et al., “Who’s the Boss?: Canadians’ Views on Their Democracy”, Samara Democracy Report #4, Samara Institute, 2012. p.1.

iii Bastedo, Heather, et al., “The Real Outsiders: Politically Disengaged Views on Politics and Democracy”, Samara Democracy Reports, Samara Institute, December, 2011. p.2.

iv Bastedo, Heather, et al., “The Real Outsiders: Politically Disengaged Views on Politics and Democracy”, Samara Democracy Reports, Samara Institute, December, 2011.

v http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/bp437-e.htm

vi Australian Labor Party National Platform and Constitution, Constitution, part D. s.9. http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/australianlaborparty/pages/121/attachments/original/1365135867/Labor_National_Platform.pdf?1365135867

vii The Liberal Party of Australia is a Federation of Divisions. http://www.liberal.org.au/the-party/our-structure

viii Constitution of the Conservative Party, Schedule 7. s.15 http://www.bracknellconservatives.org.uk/sites/www.bracknellconservatives.org.uk/files/constitution_0.pdf

ix Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution Article 4 and Appendix Leadership Election Regulations. http://libdems.org.uk/constitution.aspx

x http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee

xi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Labour_Party

xii Australian Labor Party, “National Executive Guidelines for the Election of the Labor Leader”, Ballot Rules, http://www.alp.org.au/ballot_rules

xiii United Kingdom, House of Commons Library, Leadership Elections: Conservative Party, Standard Note, SN/PC/1366, 7 December 2005, pp. 7-9.

xiv Guaja, Anika, “Labor leadership spill: the rules of the game”, The Conversation, [University of Sydney], 27 February 2012. http://theconversation.com/labor-leadership-spill-the-rules-of-the-game-5575

xv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee

xvi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Labour_Party

xvii http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2012/06/keeping-party-leaders-honest/

xviii Blais, A., & Cross, W. P. (2012). Politics at the Centre: The Selection and Removal of Party Leaders in the Anglo Parliamentary World. New York: Oxford University Press.

IMPORTANT EVENT: FortisBC Locked Out Workers Rally, December 7, 2013 in Trail, B.C.

Posted on December 1, 2013 by CanucksBanter

IBEW 213 & COPE 378 Locked Out FortisBC Workers-RALLY

Saturday, December 7, 2013

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Location: FortisBC Building, 1290 Esplanade Avenue, Trail, BC

Bring your banners and flags!

Important Message From IBEW 213: Locked Out FortisBC Workers Want To Keep Communities They Work And Live Safe and Warm This Winter

Posted on December 1, 2013 by CanucksBanter

http://www.ibew213.org/news-categories/fortis-lockout

Locked Out FortisBC Members are without 33% of their annual income, but for them it’s not about the money. With Winter and Storm Season fast approaching their concern is the community.

Andrew Phillip Chernoff

The Outer Limits To The Inner Depths

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