Listen to the people? Nope.

Premier Ed Stelmach has instead decided to limit debate on Bill 46 to one hour and ramrod through the bill though by this Thursday.

“That will bring the total amount (of debate) spent on Bill 46 at this stage to five hours,” said Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, who earlier asked the government to extend the session instead of cutting off debate.

Closure means that time limits will be put on debate and, no matter the opposition to Bill 46, or concerns by opposition parties, the Bill will pass this Thursday.

Opposition members, have called for an all-party legislative committee that could hear from all affected organizations and concerned citizens, but instead has chosen to rush Bill 46 through and hope that we’ll all forget about it over Christmas.

Here’s an article Canadian Press:

Some are calling it a propaganda war.

The Alberta government, taken aback by reaction to a proposed law that will reshape how energy and utility projects are approved, is now pushing hard to sell its merits.

For Premier Ed Stelmach’s Progressive Conservatives, facing an election in 2008, the stakes are high. The loudest grumbling about Bill 46 has come from landowners in the Tory heartland of rural Alberta.

They fear the new law would strip their right to appear at hearings into various projects, including utility corridors that would dot hundreds of farms with transmission towers.

The government spent $26,000 last week on ads in 133 rural newspapers promoting the merits of the legislation, which the government is ramming through the legislature with closure motions. Landowners are fighting back with a publicity campaign of their own.

“We’re going around telling people that what the energy minister is saying and what Premier Ed Stelmach is saying does not equal what’s written in the bill,” says Joe Anglin, a Rimbey landowner who’s leading the protest.

Anglin, who has been nominated to run for the Green party in the upcoming election, has been organizing town hall meetings in Alberta’s heartland for months. He gives a convincing video presentation on how the legislation will squeeze people out of the review process for energy and utility projects. One recent gathering drew a crowd of 350.

“We’re calling it The Campaign of Truth,” said Anglin.

The new law would create two separate regulators to replace the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board – an agency that had already sparked suspicion after it was caught hiring private detectives to spy on landowners at utility hearings. After a damning report by the privacy commissioner, the board disbanded its security unit, parted ways with its head of security and accepted the resignations of three directors.

The board ended up scrapping the entire approval process for a proposed power line between Calgary and Edmonton, forcing the proponent, AltaLink, to start over. AltaLink spokesman Leigh Clarke says the new legislation strikes an appropriate balance between the rights of landowners and those of project builders.

“I think the proof will be in the pudding when we get into some new hearings,” Clarke said in an interview from Calgary.

But Anglin, one of the landowners who was spied on, says the “propaganda” campaign the government has started is going to worsen the mood in rural communities when people realize the message is not true.

“The ad says if one directly affected person requests a hearing, a hearing must be held. That’s wrong. It doesn’t say that in the legislation,” he said.

The Consumers Association of Canada is upset that funding for groups that regularly intervene in regulatory hearings may be curtailed under the new legislation.

“We think this bill should be shelved for now,” says association lawyer Jim Wachowich. “Anything they do has far-reaching consequences for not only rural landowners but also urban Albertans who pay a power bill.”

Bill 46 may also be seen as the latest credibility test for Energy Minister Mel Knight. The sometimes combative Knight was caught out after he sided with the energy regulator when news first broke of the spying scandal.

Knight’s reputation was also bruised after he said last spring that royalties were at the right level in Alberta. Internal reports dug out by the auditor general later revealed that energy ministry bureaucrats had been recommending for years that royalties should be increased by at least $1 billion a year.

Political analyst David Taras says he doubts that the premier would second-guess his energy minister before an election. But Knight’s hold on the important energy portfolio is looking less than secure.

“He’s been on the wrong side of issues,” said Taras, a professor at the University of Calgary. “Dollars to doughnuts, he’s going to be out of that portfolio (after an election).”

Knight recently put forward two dozen amendments to deal with some of the concerns raised by landowners, but says he has no intention of pulling back the legislation for further review.

“You get to the point where you’ve watered down the legislation to the point where it isn’t as functional as the legislation we have now,” he said outside the assembly.

Stelmach says the province can’t afford to delay legislation that would streamline the regulatory process to clear a backlog of project applications.

“I believe there’s something like 60,000 applications for … anything pertaining to energy and utilities,” the premier told reporters. “We know we’re going to need some transmission corridors, so now’s the best time to put the legislation in place.”

But Taras says Stelmach is taking risks by pushing through legislation that has caused several protests at the legislature, including a rally last week that drew a crowd of nearly 100 in frigid, biting winds.

“I think his gamble is that rural Alberta will not let the Stelmach government fall,” said Taras.

The rally attracted a noisy group of landowners, environmentalists and other opponents of contentious Bill 46 despite icy temperatures and frigid winds.

A busload of about 20 people from southern Alberta attended the rally. Many carried placards and chanted “Kill Bill 46!”

“Ed Stelmach has the audacity to tell us that this new bill protects our rights,” Joe Anglin, one of the event’s organizers, told the crowd. “It removes our rights all together.”

From the Edmonton Journal , read the rest of the article here.

Energy Minister Mel Knight announced a long list of amendments Tuesday that he plans to introduce in a few days in the hope of quieting growing protests over Bill 46.

“What I‘ve done in the amendments is address to the best of our ability the major concerns that Albertans have expressed,‘‘ said Knight.

The proposed amendments were announced only minutes after a protest at the legislature by dozens of angry landowners. They fear Bill 46 is designed to stifle them after an embarrassing spying scandal that unfolded during recent hearings into a major power line project.

Joe Anglin, a landowner who was part of a group that was spied on by private detectives hired by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, said the amendments can‘t fix the bill.

“This is a bad bill for not only people like us, this is a bad bill for industry,‘‘ Anglin told the crowd of nearly 100 protesters who rallied in the bitter cold outside the legislature.

Check out the rest of the article here.  

Stelmach told a meeting of rural municipal leaders that his government will amend Bill 46 next week to change some wording on who would qualify to take part in such hearings.

Bill 46 aims to restructure the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board as well as eliminate funding to consumer and environmental groups taking part in oilwell and power line hearings.

The premier says “you can‘t please all the people all the time‘‘ and the legislation is necessary because Alberta needs more power lines.

Click here to read the entire article.

Series of gaffes gotta be hurting the Tories in the countryside power base

When you consider that the EUB private eyes were eavesdropping on landowners opposing the 500 KV Wabamun to Calgary power line, you can understand there’s a growing fear that the sinister Tories were simply trying to do an end run around the folks angry over the pylons.

And from the way that the public appears to be cut out of the Alberta Utilities Commission hearing process, it looked like the fix was in, especially after the top Alberta bureaucrat who designed the deal left the government under mysterious circumstances up ahead of a conflict-of-interest probe by the auditor general.

It didn’t help when Tory house leader Dave Hancock tried to pretend that no amendments to the controversial AUC bill were coming, even though he knew perfectly well a couple of substantial ones will be walked onto the assembly floor next week, leaving the premier hanging out to dry for the last three weeks.

Last week Knight was still digging in his heels, blasting all opposition to the bill as “fear mongering.”

He went on to accuse “individuals inside and outside the legislature” of trying to “whip up an awful lot of angst.”

The opposition to Bill 46 radically switched when Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier waded in.

Click here to read the entire article.

Three board members of Alberta’s energy regulator have decided to retire following a scandal in which they allowed residents at a hearing to be spied upon.

John Nichol, Graham Locke and Ian Douglas have all informed the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board that they will retire at the end of November, EUB spokesman Tom Neufeld said yesterday.

“They had decided to retire already,” said Neufeld, adding that the men weren’t asked by the government to step aside.

The issue arose yesterday after Liberal Hugh MacDonald asked why the government didn’t fire the three after revelations they knew about private investigators being hired by the EUB to covertly monitor a power line hearing in Rimbey. MacDonald said Albertans were “betrayed, violated, disgusted and repulsed.”

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Three board members of Alberta’s energy regulator have decided to retire following a scandal in which they allowed residents at a hearing to be spied upon.

John Nichol, Graham Locke and Ian Douglas have all informed the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board that they will retire at the end of November, EUB spokesman Tom Neufeld said yesterday.

“They had decided to retire already,” said Neufeld, adding that the men weren’t asked by the government to step aside.

The issue arose yesterday after Liberal Hugh MacDonald asked why the government didn’t fire the three after revelations they knew about private investigators being hired by the EUB to covertly monitor a power line hearing in Rimbey. MacDonald said Albertans were “betrayed, violated, disgusted and repulsed.”

Click here to read the rest of the article.