Alberta NDP to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2018

The Alberta provincial New Democratic Government (NDP) led by Rachel Notley is following through on a promise made during last year's election campaign that the minimum wage in Alberta would be raised to $15 an hour.

The NDP government will be phasing in the increases. On October 1 this year, the minimum will rise by a dollar to $12.20 per hour. On Oct 1 the next year, it will increase to $13.60 per hour. On October 1, 2018 it will reach the full $15 per hour.

The government claims that the increase in the minimum wage will help reduce the wage gap between men and women in that 62 percent of minimum wage earners are females. Brenda Brochu, president of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters said: "This is a historic opportunity to reduce the wage gap across the province. A woman who works all day to support her family should not have to take a second job or go to the food bank to meet her basic needs.” The government estimates that there are about 300,000 Albertans who earn the minimum wage and about 38 percent of them are families with children.

In spite of opposition from some business groups, the government claims the hike will not have a significant impact on Alberta businesses and not all businesses opposed the move. Duchess Bake Shop co-owner noted the value to his business of paying a living wage:“We have benefited greatly from paying higher than minimum wages through very high staff retention thereby saving on training, maintaining efficiencies and creating a workplace people want to be part of. Everybody’s lives have a fundamental worth, and if they are spending their energy and time to work and benefit society, then they are deserving of a fair wage.”

However, the Edmonton and Calgary Chambers of Commerce issued a joint statement maintaining that "with the increasing rates of business closures and bankruptcies, its the wrong time to add to the burdens faced by Alberta businesses with a significant increase in the minimum wage." Janet Riopel, President and CEO of the Edmonton Chamber said that the Chamber supported a fair wage but warned that the rapid increase of the minimum wage could cause harmful and unintended consequences to the very workers it was meant to help as businesses cut staff or reduced hours in order to be able to pay the increased wage.

NDP Labour Minister Christina Gray dismissed the concerns of some business groups saying: "Restaurants Canada and some of the well-funded lobby groups have been heard through this process and they were part of our consultations. I absolutely listened with interest. And through the consultations we listened to small businesses, as well as employees who are low-wage earners, people who are lobbyists for various sides. We believe making sure every Albertan has a fair wage is most important."Jan Reimer, executive director of Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, said the increase is significant, saying: "We know that income security is the primary determinant of individual and community health. Alberta's plan to increase minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2018 could be one of the most significant policy changes for Canadian health this decade." Gray said that the increase will help ensure that every Albertan will be able to afford rents, transportation and food. On the other side, Arthur Ruddy, director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business complained that the government's consultation with business groups was only for show saying: "What's frustrating is the headline of the release that says 'minimum wage brings hope to hard-working Albertans.' Entrepreneurs are hard-working Albertans, They get a slap in the face while the economy is still reeling from a recession." The government had already raised the minimum wage by a dollar last fall.

Gray said that the plan phased in the wage increases giving employers time to adjust while giving lower income Alberta families some of the help they need. Among the industry groups opposing the raise are Restaurants Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Leader of the opposition Wildrose Party Brian Jean said that the hike comes at the worst time as Alberta lost 24,000 jobs in May. Interim Progressive Conservative leader, Rick McIver, also opposed the raise saying it came at the wrong time and would result in even more job losses.

Some in Alberta oil patch support NDP provincial government climate plan

In a secret deal with four top companies operating in the oil-sands, together with four environmental organizations, the Alberta NDP government climate change plan includes a hard cap on emissions from oil-sands production.

The new plan represents a breakthrough in that corporations, environmentalists, and the government came to an agreement instead of criticizing each other. However, the plan will no doubt cause divisions within the oil patch, NDP supporters, and environmentalists not part of the deal. When Alberta premier,Rachel Notley, announced the deal:

 Four oilsands leaders — Murray Edwards, the billionaire oil investor and chairman of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.; Steve Williams, president and CEO of Suncor Energy Inc.; Lorraine Mitchelmore, president of Shell Canada; Brian Ferguson, president and CEO of Cenovus Energy Inc. — stood behind Notley Nov. 22 as she announced an aggressive climate change plan for Alberta. In addition to imposing a $3-billion a year economy-wide carbon tax and phasing out coal-fired electricity generation, the plan strictly caps the oilsands’ share of provincial emissions at 100 megatonnes per year, from about 70 megatonnes today.The plan will be part of Canada's offering for the UN climate change conference taking place in Paris. Notley said:“I’m hopeful that these policies, taken overall, will lead to a new collaborative conversation about Canada’s energy infrastructure on its merits, and to a significant de-escalation of conflict worldwide about the Alberta oilsands."

This appears unlikely to happen. CEO of Imperial Oil, Rich Kruger, and CEO Bill McCaffrey of MEG Energy Corp. were not consulted about the deal and are apparently outraged. Senior oil industry sources said they did not know who backed the deal except for the Pembina Institute. They should know now that several of the largest oil-sands producers are involved. The Oil Patch has not been able to form a united front against the government and environmentalists, One senior industry source complained that the details and financial implications of the deal had not been worked out and it was not clear how the plan could be enforced. Some members of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers(CAPP) who produce conventional oil, such as Encana Corp. are angry that the four corporations broke ranks.

CAPP president,Tim McMIllan, said the group supported part of the plan. He mentioned in particular increased use of natural gas rather than coal to generate electricity. He said that details on the carbon tax needed to be clarified. The group was going through the numbers to see what effect the plan will have on the province. Murray Edwards said that while talks with environmental groups were controversial he thought that the end result would be more positive discussions rather than the adversarial relations of the past.

Not all environmental groups agree to the deal. 350.org, based in Brooklyn NY, a strong opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, said it would continue to oppose pipelines. Cameron Fenton, who organizes anti-oil-sands campaigns from Vancouver, said: "The only way that we stop fighting pipelines is when we stop pipelines.”

Journalist and activist Naomi Klein was very critical of the deal:“In my opinion, there is no circumstance in which greens should be negotiating with tarsands operators, and I don’t think that in the current political context any green group could seriously believe they could get away with that again. The grassroots resistance is too strong."

The new policies will reward companies that are more efficient in terms of producing less greenhouse-gas emissions per barrel of oil. Those that produce more will be hurt by the plan. Energy analyst, Rob Mark said:"What I see from this policy, as we've read it, is that Alberta is going push capital towards efficiency. Whether it's a company, a reservoir or a technology. We are going to tip the scales so that capital flows away from the least efficient reservoirs, companies, technologies."

Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary, claims what is called an output allocation in the plan is actually a subsidy that will help efficient operators such as Cenovus and Devon but punish other such as Shell in the Peace River and Nexen: Tombe estimates (there are no details yet for the subsidy) that the average return to oilsands operators will be $1.50 per barrel, which will mean the most efficient operators, such as Cenovus and Devon, will pay little to no carbon tax in the early years and may even earn credits that they can sell. At the other end of the scale, Shell in Peace River and Nexen at Long Lake will pay quite a bit more, as much as $5 a barrel in the case of Nexen.

Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute, that supports the plan, claimed the plan allowed Alberta to take its rightful place on the world stage and that the world needed more of this type of leadership in jurisdictions that were major energy producers in order to avoid dangerous climate change, Greenpeace praised parts of the plan but claimed it was not enough. Forest Ethics Canada Director, Karen Mahon, and Steven Guibeault founder of Equiterre were also present with Notley at the announcement of the plan. As the appended video notes, the plan will increase the costs to consumers for gasoline and for home heating bills with possible rebates to some consumers.

Polls had it right this time as NDP crushes PC's in Alberta

The CBC decision desk has declared a New Democratic Party (NDP) majority government with the Wild Rose party the official opposition.

+ Add Image

The polls this time were right and Albertans doubts about whether the NDP would really win over the Progressive Conservatives were quite wrong. The New Democratic Party led by Rachel Notley won a convincing victory over the Conservatives with almost 40 percent of the popular vote so far. The NDP was winning or elected in 55 seats and the Wild Rose party to be the official opposition in 19 while the Progressive Conservatives held only nine seats as I write this about 11 p.m. Central Time. The NDP had just four seats at dissolution. While the NDP were expected to do well in Edmonton, they also broke through dramatically in the business centre of the oil patch, Calgary. They also did well in smaller cities such as Lethbridge. There are still many seats in which winners have not been declared but the final figures will probably not be too much different than those at present. The NDP has never won an Alberta election before or even come close to winning. A party must win 44 seats to have a majority. The best showing ever before for the NDP was in 1986 when it had a mere 16 seats.

The relatively new PC party leader Jim Prentice, made a number of serious errors. Instead of waiting until the fixed date for an election a year from now, he called an election on April 7. The PC's held 70 out of the 87 seats in the legislature so perhaps he thought he could hardly lose. His team had managed to get nine members of the opposition Wild Rose Party to cross the floor including the leader. This upset some of the progressives in the PCs. Rather than causing the demise of the Wild Rose Party it simply made supporters even more determined to defeat the PCs. They did not do that but they will become the official opposition. There was obviously no move to unite the right by voting for the Conservatives and as a result the surging NDP was able to end a 44-year-old dynasty of PC rule in Alberta.

As with many other Albertans Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi did not believe the NDP would win until he saw the numbers coming up on the TV screen and saw them leading or elected in over a dozen Calgary ridings. The NDP had not won a seat in the city since 1993. Alberta Federation of Labour president, Gil McGowan, said: “This is not going to be a union government. It’s not going to be a business government, It’s going to be a people’s government because people from all walks of life and all regions of the province voted overwhelmingly for this party.”Harold Jansen, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge along with many others gave credit to NDP leader Rachel Notley for running an almost flawless campaign that tapped into Albertans' feeling that the PC party was too much aligned with corporate interests. Given the economic situation in Alberta Notley will probably be cautious and not take any radical steps that would alienate the oil industry or other business interests.

NDP tops polls both in Calgary and Edmonton and rest of Alberta

A split among conservative voters and anger against the ruling Progressive Conservatives(PC) may lead to the New Democratic Party(NDP) winning the upcoming Alberta provincial election.

+ Add Image

The Alberta NDP has surged in one of the final polls of election 2015. In the Edmonton Sun polling company Mainstreet Technologies said that the "only possible outcome" of the vote is the "coronation of an NDP government." That prediction seems very premature. Last election the polls predicted the Wild Rose party, a breakaway group on the right, dissatisfied with the ruling Progressive Conservatives would definitely win the election. The Conservatives ended up winning. To add insult to injury the Wild Rose Party leader defected to the Conservatives along with a number of other elected representatives. One might think that this would spell the end of the Wild Rose Party but it hasn't. An Ipsos Poll a week before the election shows that 37 percent of decided voters would vote NDP with 26 percent for the Wild Rose and 24 percent for the Progressive Conservatives.

In ordinary circumstances one might expect that with a combined conservative vote of 50 percent, the Wild Rose Party voters would opt to vote Conservative. However, the Wild Rose supporters obviously are quite angry at the ruling Conservatives. Mainstream Technologies' president, Quito Maggi, notes that polling shows 75 percent of Albertans want a change in government. He said the relatively new but quite popular leader of the NDP Rachel Notlley showed in the debates that she was a viable alternative. Rachel is the daughter of former Alberta NDP leader Grant Notley. However, support for the same party does not always run through the family. Former Conservaitve premier Ralph Klein's daughter, Angie, has come out in support of the NDP. However, Angie said she had supported the NDP before and even when her dad was premier! Maggi's polling shows Wild Rose voters overwhelmingly put the NDP as their second choice rather than the Conservatives, showing perhaps that dissatisfaction with the ruling Conservatives trumps the large ideological gap between the Wild Rose and the NDP.

The NDP leads both in the two major cities and the rest of the province. In Edmonton, where Rachel Notley holds a seat, the NDP has a huge 73 per cent support level. Even in Calgary, the NDP has the lead with 35 per cent of the decided vote to 26 for the Wild Rose and just 24 for the PCs. Even outside the cities where voters tend to be more conservative the NDP is winning by a substantial margin of 39 per cent to 33 for Wild Rose and a mere 22 for the PCs. Strategic voting may mean that even more conservative votes go to the NDP at the expense of the Wild Rose party rather than what you would expect that they would vote PC since they are closer to them ideologically. However, even Albertans apparently have doubts about what is happening since 32 per cent believe that Progressive Conservatives will win the election but only 29 per cent believe the NDP will win. More polls and seat projections can be found at this site.