How’s this for democracy? When the Stelmach government starts to sweat over their Bill 46 what do they do?
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.
Instead of listening to the concerns of Alberta rural landowners, the Stelmach government has called for closure this Thursday on Bill 46.
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.
Stelmach and the Alberta Tories are ramrodding through Bill 46 – they have invoked closure on the Bill and as Neil Waugh points out in the Edmonton Sun, the Stelmach government will pass a Bill that was a failure from the beginning and will see massive outrage from Alberta’s rural landowners.
The Stelmach Tories have spent $26,000 of taxpayers money to convince landowners that Bill 46 will not violate landowner rights in Alberta.
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.
A protest against a controversial overhaul of the province’s energy regulator drew nearly 100 people to the steps of the legislature this afternoon.
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.
he Alberta government is scrambling to salvage a contentious bill aimed at reshaping the rules for public hearings into energy and utility projects _ a major issue for some landowners and utility companies.
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.
From the Edmonton Sun:
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.
From the Edmonton Sun:
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.”
From the Edmonton Sun:
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.”
From the Calgary Herald:
Under rapid fire for its controversial Bill 46 that overhauls the province’s energy regulator, the Stelmach government is set to introduce several dozen amendments that will remove some of the most contentious proposals but leave others intact.
Word of the amendments, which were obtained Wednesday by the Herald, came the same day three board members of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board announced their retirements in the wake of a spying scandal that has rocked the energy regulator.
Kill Bill 46 in Alberta 