Alberta Hansard — 1 March 2004, Evening sitting (20:00) (Legislature 25, Session 4)

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Alberta — Debates (Hansard)

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 237 Legislative Assembly of Alberta Title: Monday, March 1, 2004 8:00 p.m. Date: 2004/03/01 [The Speaker in the chair] The Speaker: Please be seated. Mr. Marz: Mr. Speaker, could we revert to introductions? [Unanimous consent granted] head: Introduction of G uests The Speaker: Please proceed. Mr. Marz: Thank you, Mr . Speaker. To night members o f the Alberta Special C onstable Association made a presentation to the standing policy committee. Four of them are with us tonight.

The other four – Paul Badger from Strathcona county, Darlene Roblin from the municipal district of Foothills, Terri Miller from Clearwater county, and Faith Wood from Airdrie – had more pressing things to do. The ones that were able to join us tonight are John Armstrong, special areas, Jay son Ne lson from Mo untain View coun ty, Mike Woods from Lacombe county, Bruce Mackenzie from the county of Stettler. Would you please give these special constables the warm welcome of the Assembly. The Speaker: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Riverview. Dr. Taft: Thank y ou, Mr. Speak er.

I hav e four i ntroductions tonight, and they ’re in the m embers’ gallery. I’ll start of f with Darlene Williams, who has one child in Belgravia elementary and a second who will be starting school soon; Be th Hendrickson, who has a child in Belgravia elementary as well; Erin Rowe, who has two kids, one i n kindergarten and one i n grade 2 a t Parkallen; and the grandfather of these children, Howard Rowe. They are all parents and grandparents who are here because they’re concerned about the funding for public educati on and are int erested i n watchi ng the proceedings of the Legislature.

I’d ask them to rise in the gallery, and we could all give them a warm welcome. Thank you. head: Motions Other than Gover nment Motions Education Funding 501. Mr. Griffiths moved:

Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the govern- ment to phase out the education portion of property taxes over a 1 0-year period, gra dually s upplementing the loss from alternative sources thereby freeing up financial resources for municipalities to adequately provide required services. [Debate adjourned February 23] The Speaker: The hon. Member for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Mr. Marz: Thank you, Mr. Spe aker. I t’s a pleasure to ris e this evening an d join the deba te on Motion 501, spons ored by the Member for Wainwright.

Alberta continues to be in a very unique economic position compared to o ther provinces in Canada. As an example, earlier this month the Minister of Human Resources and Employment showed tha t his depart ment had seen a ne t gain of 47,900 jobs in Alberta i n 2003. This rate surpassed all other provinces. Alberta ’s econom ic grow th along w ith sustaina ble financing for program spending has earned accolades from financial institutions and envy from other governments.

To some people Motion 501 may threaten Alberta’ s success by eliminating a sizabl e por tion o f the ta x reve nue necess ary f or Alberta’s education system. Mr. Speaker, this idea can be looked at from two different per spectives. On one hand, Mot ion 501 could drastically lower taxes for A lberta property owners. This motion could also lea d to a r eformed tax c ollection sy stem a nd more accountable local gov ernments. This s hift in tax ing policy could address many municipal issues by increasing available funding and helping them achieve long-term goals. On the other ha nd, Mr.

Speaker, some may wonder if this is a reasonable way to help muni cipalities. This m otion isn’t talking about a few million dollars. As it stands today, if we handed over the e ducation portion of property taxes to municipalities, local governments could see a province-wide increase of approximately $1.4 billion in a single year if they took it all. Alberta’s tax base is alrea dy low compared to other provinces. Some would say that the r eason for this is b ecause Alberta, unlike other provinces , ha s t he luxury of colle cting roy alties f rom nonrenewable resource revenue.

I won’t de ny that hi gh oil and natural gas p rices make up a grea t deal of the resourc es in the provincial coffers, but Alberta also collects a substan tial amount through other taxes . Alberta’s tax revenue for the 2003-04 fiscal year is projected to be just under $10 billion. The school property tax accounts for approximately 12 per cent of the total am ount, which is a very significant portion. Personal and corporate income tax accounts for over 70 per cent of Alberta’s total tax revenue. Eliminating the education portion of property tax would cost the Alberta government over $1 billion each year.

This shortfall would have to be made up in other areas. In the event that oil and natural gas prices fall, there would have to be another opt ion for sta ble funding. One would assume that the Alberta government would look to the taxpayer. The taxpayer could play less of a role if we remain committed to sound fiscal policies. The concept of eliminating the education portion of property tax is feasible without causing great harm to our bottom line. In the immediate future the government needs a diverse tax base to fund key programs and address immediate issues.

In the future I don’t think that the funding needed to address the issues of the day needs to come solely from the taxpa yer. After Alberta’s capital account is fully funded, less money will be needed for infrastructure. Once the stability fund is fully funded, Alberta w ill have a sizable amount of funding to survive inevitable dips in the energy market, and after Alberta’s debt is paid off, the province will save millions each year in payments in debt-servicing costs.

I’d agree that it might be too soon to eliminate almost $1.4 billion from Alberta’s operating budget by eliminating the tax collected from property owners. I’ve no reason to believe that this process would be simple or quick. This motion isn’t asking government to eliminate the education portion of property taxes over a single fiscal year. Doing so would no doubt cause financial pressure. This plan should be carefully thought out and phased in over time, say five to 10 years afte r the provincial debt is paid of f.

I think offsetting revenues would acc ommodate that cha nge, and I don ’t think we should lock ourselves into, particularly, a 10-year program if budgets allow us to move quicker. I also think it would be interesting to see what local governments would do under a new tax collection structure. Motion 501 urges the government to eliminate the education tax from property taxes and does not say what would happen to the exist ing tax system. If the amount collected from property owners is significantly decreased,

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004238 then it may be in the best interest of the Alberta government to create a more accountable tax collection system f or local governments. Municipal g overnments are creatures of the pr ovincial g overn- ment . . . The Speaker: Hon. member for O lds-Didsbury-Three Hills, I’m sorry to interrupt, but under Standing Order 29 we’ve now reached a point where five minutes is reserved for the mover of the motion if he chooses to proceed to close debate. The hon. Member for Wainwright. Mr. Griffiths: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise this evening to close debate.

I’d like to begin by than king all those members who spoke for or opposed to the motion. I actually don’t think there were very many people really opposed to the intent of this motion but, r ather, to whe ther or not this was going to occur over a 10-year period or immediately. This motion if it’s passed will serve two main points; that is, to continue the mov e that w as started in 1994 to r educe the g overn- ment’s dependency on property taxes t o fund edu cation. Mr.

Speaker, that’s the philosophy of this government, that everyone in this province receives the same an d equitable e ducation lev els regardless of the resources available in that municipality. It will also achieve the second main goal, Mr. Speaker, which is to allow municipalities tax room in order to expand their tax base so that they can provide services which they’ve found they experience now with the downloading of some services on them and also, and most importantly, new demands on growth, on new infrastructure – new roads, new sewers and water systems – because our economy is growing so fast.

Thank you very much. I hope everyone supports this motion. [Motion Other than Government Motion 501 as amended carried] The Speaker: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Highlands. 8:10 Health Care Premiums 502. Mr. Mason moved:

Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the govern- ment to eliminate seniors’ health care premiums immediately and phase out premiums for all Albertans within three years. Mr. Mason: Thank you very much. It ’s an honour for m e, Mr. Speaker, to move Motion 502 on behalf of the New Dem ocrat opposition and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Albertans of all political persuasions who believe that the health care premiums are an expensive, inefficient, and regressive lump-sum tax.

While t he elimina tion of hea lth care pr emiums has bee n the position of the Alberta New De mocrats for as long as health car e premiums have existed, last month we decided to launch a new campaign urging Albertans to pressure the government to get rid of them once and fo r all. We’re calling our campai gn Scrap H ealth Care Premiums: It’s Good Medicine. In our campaign we point out that health care premiums are a n unfair tax that hurts seniors, middle-class families, and working Albertans. The New Democrat opposition proposes to scrap them because Albertans deserve a better deal.

In our campaign to scrap the health care premiums tax we put out that we are one of only two provinces with health care premium s. The other is British Columbia. Eight other provinces and three territories fund the health system using more progressive sources of government revenue. In the past several months groups from across the political spectrum have called for either a reduction or elimination of health care premiums. The A lberta taxpayers’ federation is on record as favouring the elimination of health care premiums. The provincial Liberals have also recently adopted this position. Dr.

Taylor: They just copied you, Brian. Mr. Mason: What else is new? Well, since the last election I guess they’ve had a different position. Reducing health care premiums at least for seniors finds support even on th e gover nment bench es. The Member for Ed monton- Manning suggested only a few weeks ago that seniors’ health care premiums should at lea st be elim inated. He deserve s credi t fo r raising this issue shortly af ter his el ection, and I hope that he w ill continue to fight against this unfair tax, not limiting the elimination just to seniors. That, Mr.

Speaker, is why it’s disappointing to hear the Minister of Health and Wellness say in the House this week that while there’s no immediate plan to increase health care premiums, they will need to be increased in the future. The minister’s statement is no doubt code for the fact that while health care premiums won’t be increased before the election, they may well be increased after the election. The New Democrats have been prepared to say how they’ll make up the more than $900 million in yearly revenues generated through the health care premiums tax.

W e’re not prepared to sho rtchange our hospi tals, schools, or other im portant ser vices by scrapping health care premiums without replacing the lost revenue. As part of our campaign to scrap health care premiums as expressed in Motion 502, there’s a plan for how to do it without jeopardizing funding for these important services. The New Democrats would pay for the elimination of health care premiums by cancelling the multiyear corporate tax cut which will cost the Albe rta Treasury $1 bi llion on ce fully implemented.

A phased elimination of health care premiums as called for in Motion 502 would cost about the same amount. Again I want to emphasize that it is only a reduction in the general rate for larger corporations that we would cancel. The New Democrats would retain all of the reductions for the small business tax rates as well as the increases in the small business exemption subject to the lower rate. One econo mist that we cons ulted with told us that a $1 cut i n health care premiums would have bigger economic spinoffs than a comparable $1 cut in corpora te taxes.

Muc h of the ben efit of corporate tax cut s flows to shareholders outside Alberta, while a two-adult family which no longer has to pay the $1,056 per year in health care premiums is going to save more of this money consuming goods and services at home, thereby stimulating greater economic activity and job creation. I’m sure that that approach is going to find favour with the Member for Drayton Valley-Calmar, who’s worried about jobs. Motion 502 calls f or seniors’ health care premiums to be elimi- nated imm ediately. Until 1994, Mr.

Spe aker, s eniors w ere not required to pay health care premiums at all in recognition of the fact that the y lived on f ixed incom es and in a lmost all cases had no employer to mak e contributions on their behalf as many working Albertans do. At t he same time that seniors were first required to pay health care premiums, they were promised that e ven if he alth care premiums rates were increased for other Albertans, they would not be increa sed for seniors. Two y ears ag o, when hea lth care premiums were hiked 30 per cent, the promise to not hike seniors’ health care pre miums was a lso broken.

Seniors’ hea lth care premiums were also hiked, to $1,056 for a senior couple. Seniors have been hard hit by this government with the almost 50 per cent in long-term care accommodation rates. Copayments for

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 239 prescription drug coverage were increased from 25 to 30 per cent a few years ago. Uni versal eye care and de ntal benefits wer e also eliminated two years ago. So it’s only fair that seniors’ health care premiums be elim inated immediately. T his wou ld involve a $90 million reduction in revenue, little more than half the $161 million revenue reduction that would result from the further planned corporate tax reduction scheduled for April 1, 2004. Health care premiums are a very economically inefficient tax, Mr. Speaker.

When the massive adm inistrative and com pliance costs associated with this tax are considered, it becomes very clear that not only are health care premiums r egressive; the y are also ver y wasteful. Alberta Health and Wellness spends more money chasing down people who can’t pay their prem iums th an i t spends on administering the rest of the public health in surance p lan itself. About $15 million per year is spent administering this complicated premium tax. In t he fiscal year 2002-03 $50 million in premiums were written off because Albertans were simply unable to pay them.

One in four individual health care premium accounts is in arrears. Money spent tracking down Albertans who have difficulty paying their premium s could be be tter spent on improvi ng health c are delivery. Grassroots members of the Progressive Conservative Party have passed resolutions at past policy conventions calling for an end to health premiums. We were amazed, Mr. Speaker, when we read that, but there it is, and I would advise t he government to listen to their grassroots because in thi s par ticular c ase I think they’re onto something.

In previous sessions of this Legislature members of the Conservative caucus have introduced legislation and proposals that would have ended the collection of health premiums. The Minister of Seniors has consistently promised seniors’ groups that he believes that premiums should be eliminated, at least for seniors, as soon as possible. It is unfortunate that the Premier and the minister are unwilling to listen to Albertans on this issue and are in fact considering further hikes in this reg ressive and unfair health tax .

Burdening ha rd- working Albertans and middle-income seniors while proceeding with an extremely generous tax cut for a lready profitable corporations sends a clear signal to Alber tans, Mr. Speak er. This government continues to listen only to what it wants to hear. It continues to tilt the so-called Alberta advantage to high-income earners and larger profitable corporations while asking average Alberta families to pay more. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ll members of the House to support Motion 502. Thank you. The Speaker: The hon. Member for Calgary-West. Ms Kryczka: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure to rise in the A ssembly this evening and add m y comments to the discussion and debate surrounding Motion 502. As we have previously heard tonight, Motion 50 2 proposes to wipe out health care premiums for all seniors and within three years for all individu- als in an attempt to alleviate hardships endured by some Albertans. As many of my colleagues are already aware, the care and well- being of seniors is of great concern to me.

I feel we must always be mindful of the important contributions they have made and continue to make to our families and our communities, and we should provide for them the appropriate programs and necessary supports. I also acknowledge that this province has an aging demographic and an increasing proportion of elderly individuals. The number of seniors moving into Alberta is also growing. As of April of last year, 2003, 10 per cent, or 1 in 10, of the province’s total population were seniors, and it’s projected that by 2025 we will have 20 per cent, or 1 in 5.

The seniors population will grow to this number, and there will necessarily be an increasing demand on the province to provide adequate supports, health and other, for seniors in our province. So we should be thinking about the future when we go into this kind of discussion. However, Mr. Speaker, I’d also like to point out that just over half of all seniors over the last year did not have to pay any health care premiums at all be cause they qualified for a n exemption due to a lower level of income. So wha t you’re asking for we are alr eady providing to lower level seniors.

Moreover, some additional seniors only paid half their premiums because they qualified for a pa rtial exemption. So the government already recognizes that lower income seniors and Albert ans ma y not be in the posit ion to aff ord health ca re premiums, because we’ve responded to that. Most definitely, we feel that there should not be a financial impediment for these people to access health care services, so this is not totally a new idea that you have. The province already sets exemption thresholds so that those who need the a ssistance have t he opportunity to receiv e it.

The government implem ents a f ormula to determine the am ount of premium that is to be paid or not paid by Albertans. 8:20 According to our government’s philosophy, we provide support for those most vulnerable in society. Health care premium subsidies are not only available for seniors but also for low-income Albertans and are divided into four categories depending on if you’re single or have a family, with or without children. It’s my understanding that the rationale for the pr oposed moti on and the eli mination of premiums is to ease the burden for seniors and low-income Alber- tans.

However, as I just said, exemptions are already provided to compensate seniors and those with lower incomes. In other words, about 60 per cent of seniors already either do not pay anything fo r their health care premiums or only partial or 50 per cent coverage. I think that a better way to help those who struggle would be to examine our exem ptions sy stem. It seem s logica l to me, Mr.

Speaker, that if t he objectiv e is to help those who e xperience financial difficulty, it may be beneficial to revie w once a gain and possibly further increase the threshold levels, because that has been done just recently by this government. This could provide exemp- tions for more Albertans in lower inco me categories, and it would ensure that premium deductions are based on incomes rather than by age.

If the cost of health ca re premiums is a burden for some finan- cially strapped Albertans, then raising thresholds would help those individuals and families who w ould more l ikely bene fit fro m a subsidy rather than a blanket or a unive rsal exemption. T he main group of Albertans who would benefit most from a total premium elimination would be middle and higher income earners as they pay the full premium. As I said earlier, this government’s philosophy is to as sist the m ost vulnerable. Now , I know t here are those who would say that I am mean spirited and that I don’t care, but I am a caring Conservative.

We must also keep in min d that not all Albertans would benefit from the elimination of health care premiums. Low-income earners, as I said, are already exempt, while those who pay only a portion of the premium would only receive a partial benefit. So this begs the question: how would this motion really benefit low-income seniors as they are already benefiting? Mr. Speaker , many Albert ans have their health care insurance premiums or a portion of them paid by their employer. These individuals would only benefit if the employer decided to pass the savings on to their employees.

Therefore, there’s no guarantee that these Albertans would even see any of these savings.

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004240 I would also like to make the argument that health care premiums serve as a reminder to Albertans that health care services cost money. As mentioned many times here and in the past, many Albertans view health care services as essentially free, and this is not the case as $20 million a day is spent on funding our health care system. Albertans need to realize that health care services – and they want the best – are expensive, and premiums serve as a good tool to help those who would forg et t hat.

Wit hout th e pr emium remi nder it may b e forgotten that with each visit to the doctor there is a cost, actually a large cost, as we all know, invo lved. Or if we do n’t know, we should know. Health care is not free, and any misperception in this line of thought is dangerous as it does lead to overuse of the system. Granted, it is cruc ial that he alth care servic es are a vailable to Albertans. However, we must not forget the costs associated. Mr. Speaker, the province continues to recognize the importance of priority spending in health care.

Funding for health care services for ’03-04 will reach $7.35 billion, which increased by 7.4 per cent over the previous year. Health spending remains the largest expenditure for this government. It is projected for ’03-04 that health expenditures will account for 35.3 per cent of the total budget. Now, some provinces in Canada u se up to 50 per cent of their budgets for health care. What could you give up in Alberta to cover health care costs as high as 50 per cent? This province funds its health care system through three methods: federal transfer paym ents, general revenues, and health insurance premiums. Mr.

Speaker, health premiums account for a significant portion of healt h expenditure s. Las t yea r the health pre miums brought in roughly $913 million in revenue, and this equated to 13 per cent of health care costs. This year that figure will likely exceed $1 billion. May be if the federal government would inc rease their transfer payments by 13 per cent, as is reasonable, why then perhaps we could consider your motion.

Realistically, if prem iums ar e elim inated, our sy stem w ould require money to come from other areas in our budget, and $1 billion would have to be cut from our programs and services to make up the difference. Then we could really talk about cuts and not in glasses and dental, as the Mem ber for E dmonton-Highlands refer red to inaccurately. The extended health benefit was a universal program that offered only 30 per cent coverage to all seniors, but now – and it folds in with our government’s philosophy – it provides a hundred per cent coverage for low-income seniors.

And if you don’t have 30 per cent of what it costs for a new set of false teeth, then I guess you don’t get your false teeth, although we do hav e the spec ial-needs benefit. Of course, premiu ms could be eliminated, and t he lost rev enue could be replaced through other means, and that could mean perhaps an increase in taxes. Maybe that’s another option. Albertans could possibly see taxes go up in order to make up the shortcomings, and from past debates in this province any increases would be met with furious opposition. Mr. Sp eaker, in order to ta ke money out of the health budget, reforms need to take place.

We’re talking about a significant amount of money being eliminated. One billion dollars can’t just be dropped out of the budget without Albertans feeling the impact. This money can’t be just taken away without changes to the entire health system. It’s not that simple. R eforms will need to occur to account for the dollars. The eli mination of premiums could possib ly be pa rt of health care re forms, but that w ould h ave to be a part of a total package that would consider this change. The province recognizes the importance of he alth reforms.

The annual increase in spending for health care has grown at a faster rate than the provi nce’s overall revenues. If this trend cont inues, the province will not be able to sustain t he increases. As a result, the government is in t he process of reforming the health care system. The Premier’s Advisory Council on Health was established to review the system and make recommendations for meaningful reform, and the full implementation of the recommendations will be completed by December 2004. The Speaker: I must regretfully inform the hon. me mber that this portion of her speaking time has now left us. The hon.

Member for Edmonton-Riverview. Dr. Taft: Thank you, Mr. Speak er. I appre ciate this opportunity, and I am pleased to support this particular motion. The Liberals and the New Democrats have both held this posi tion for I don’t know how many years but a long time for good reason. I think there are a few points that are worth clarifying right off the bat. This is not a premium; this is a tax. If it was a premium, there would be some corresp ondence to risk. Th ere woul d be some correspondence to benefit. There would be some choice in whether or not you pai d it.

This has nothing to do with an i nsurance premium; this is a tax. That’s reinforced by the fact that this actually doesn’t flow into the health care system directly. It flows simply into general revenues. So this is a tax that should be cut. It’s a tax that should be eliminated. It’s simply a verbal sleight of hand that it’s called a premium instead of the proper title, which is a tax. I also note f rom the most recent third-quarter fiscal update that this is in fact a very subs tantial t ax.

We make almost the same amount from health care premiums as we do from crude oil royalties, and that’s with crude oil priced at e xtremely high l evels. This is telling us that we have become heavy handed in our taxing through this particular avenue and that we should eliminate this tax. This is a tax cut that would serve all Albertans. As the Member for Edmonton-Highlands pointed out, it’s a tax cut that would leave money in Alberta, in the hands of people who will spend it here, in the pockets of employers who employ people here.

This would be a signifi cant fa vour to sm all busines ses whe n they prov ide this benefit, paying the health care premium to their employers. It would be a significant benefit to institutions like universities and regional health authorities and school boa rds, who pay the partial or entire cost of this for their employees.

So, again, there are benefits across the board here. 8:30 I listened to the previous speaker’s comments on who benefits and who doesn’t benefit and who’s hit by this tax and who gets exemp- tions, and I think it’s really worth driving home the point that this is a tax that hits the working poor and the middle class the very, very hardest. The way the exemptions are set up is that you have to be almost destitute to qualify. If you are, say, working at an $8 or $9 or $10 an hour wage, just enough to earn more than $16,000 a year in taxable income, then you have to pay the full am ount.

What that translates to is that a family with children e arning $35,000 a year spends about 3 cents of e very dollar they bring in in heal th care premiums. It’s a 3 per cent cream off the top for the working poor. A family, say, where one of the parents is at hom e and one of the parents is working at Wal-Mart or as a secretary in an office or some position like that that doesn’t pay terribly well gets hit paying 3 cents of every dollar of income in this premium. On the othe r hand , a wealthier fam ily earning $100,000 a year spends only about 1 cent per dollar of income on this tax.

You can see who this is hurting the most. It’s hurting people who are lower middle-income earners. In fact, the irony here is that the wealthier the person, the more likel y thi s tax is to be p aid for as par t of a benefits package. So it’s kind of a double benefit for the wealthy and a double bind for the working poor.

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 241 Alberta is one of only two Canadian provinces that charge these taxes, and it is a tax that has been going up dramatically under this government. It’s y et another e xample of the m any flaws of the Mazankowski report. Based on a recommendation from the Pre- mier’s Advisory Council on Health, the government actually boosted health care pre miums a stunning 30 per cent in 2002, a huge ta x increase. Can you imagine?

A tax increase from this government of 30 per cent when they have the opportunity to eliminate this tax and at the same time – and this will appeal to the Premier’s new chief of staff – lay off a s ubstantial number of civil servants because those civil servants will not be required any more to implement this tax. So win/win: reduce the bureaucracy; make a tax cut. In fact, most Albertans are quite prepared to pay for their health care system through general revenues, through the normal taxes they collect, and would be delighted to have premiums eliminated.

The question comes up: where would a government offset this tax cut? Well, this government hasn’t worried before about offsetting tax cuts, a nd it is in the enviable position of r unning substant ial surpluses year after year as a result of very generous natural gas and other natural resource revenues. In fact, they’ve been recording an average of about a two and a quarter billion dollar surplus per year for the last eight years. So one option is simply to offset the reduced revenue through the surplus.

Another option is to forgo or reverse the flat tax that was introduced in 2000 and has cost the government about one and a half billion dollars a year in lost revenues, almost all of which is an overwhelming benefit to wealthy Albertans. In fact, it se ems that just about everything this g overnment does is a n overw helming benefit to wealthy Albertans. There is a pattern here. There are also other ways w e co uld rea rrange g overnment priorities. We could, for example, forgo the $33 million t hat this government uses to subsidize the horse racing industry.

Or we could forgo the many m illions that have been spent on committees studying health care reform and on and on and on. The re were six new ministries crea ted in 2001 by this governm ent to add ex tra employment for its M LAs, and that has c ost about $46 million in extra salaries. So this is not a difficult problem. There are savings to be made by eliminating health care premiums. I would like to hear the debate from t he other gov ernment members. The speaker from Calgary-West made a number of points which are well worth rebutting, and I’d like to hear where everybody else stands on this issue.

Our position is absolutely clear. We will support this motion. We have been for years opposed to health care premiums. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Speaker: The hon. Member for St. Albert. Mrs. O’Neill: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise today and speak to Motion 502 as pu t forward by the Member for Edmonton-Highlands. First I’d like to recognize the good intentions beh ind this bill, especially how it relates to Alberta’s seniors population.

Obviously, it is the goal of government to make continued efforts to improve the standard of living of the people they represent, and one of the ways we do that is by lowering taxes a nd reducing f ees. How ever, government is also responsible for making sure that the services it is responsible for are both effective a nd su stainable. Elimina ting health care premiums for all seniors immediately and phasing out all health care premiums for all Albertans would affect the number o f dollars that are available for health care and seniors’ programs.

The idea in and of itself is a good one, but the fact is that it costs money to maintain a high-quality health care system, and Albertans are very proud owners of such a system. According to the Maclean’s report last year, those of us in the capital region have access to the best health care system and service in Canada. The overall ranking was based on va rious criteria such as life expectancy, heart attack and stroke survival rates, as well as local services and preventable admissions. But that quality isn’t limited to this region alone.

Every year more than 250,000 surgeries and diagnostic tests are performed in Alberta’s rural and urban hospitals. Seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and one MRIs were done between April 2002 and March 2003, up 12.5 per cent from the previous year, and during the same time span heart surgeries jumped by 5.4 pe r cent. Fiv e thousand, one hundred and eighty-one joint replacements were performed, an increase of 6.4 per cent. I do not believe that we have a crisis in the delivery of health care services, but I do believ e that w e have a c risis in the sustainable funding of health care services.

It costs over $20 million each day to operate Alberta’s health care system, and the costs climb higher with each passing y ear. The re are num erous rea sons for the increasing costs, and there is great justification for those costs, such as our population increase, greater health needs of our people, an older population, and more diagnostic technology. This system has become bigger as Alberta’s population continues to boom.

Cos ts are r ising to m aintain the quality of our ever- expanding system, and it is irrespons ible to elim inate a f orm of funding which helps the province deliver these types of services without having some sort of plan as to how the shortfall would be met. The cost of health care is expected to rise 8 to 10 per cent across Canada this year. Meanwhile, government revenues are growing by less than half that amount. What this essentially means is that money is being pulled away from other departments and other ser vices in order to pay for the health system we so value.

Alberta health care premiums bring in $913 m illion in rev enues each year, which is equivalent to about 13 per cent of total health care expenditures. Now, I know that there are going to be some who will point out that health care premiums do not directly flow back into the health system, and that’s true. Howev er, whe n health ca re spending receives the most funds of the total taxes collected by the Alberta government, it’s easy to see that health care premiums are necessary in order for the system to be properly funded.

And while health care premiums flow i nto general revenue, monies flow f rom general revenue back into Alberta’s health care system. The title of this fee is a ques tion of seman tics. The real ity is, howe ver, that if this amount, just shy of $1 billion, is not collected in this manner, it will have to be obtained some other way. 8:40 Now, the motion itself focuses firstly on seniors and asks that they be exempt immediately from health care premiums. Those who live on a fixed income c an be burdened by monthly expenditures, and health care premiums can be one of those burdens.

This government has recognized this, and m ore than hal f of our seniors do not pay health care premiums. Of the 323,000 seniors living in Alberta i n April o f 2003, 164,000, or 51 pe r cent, did not pay hea lth care premiums, and an additional 20,000 seniors pay only part of their health car e prem iums. El iminating these pre miums in genera l, especially in a manner that puts age before more important factors such as income levels, is the wrong approach. I prefer to increase the exemption levels for seniors.

To exempt all seniors from having to pay health care premiums would simply download a burden onto Alberta’s younger families. The second part of the motion calls for health care premiums to be phased out over three years. Obviously, the motion is recognizing

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004242 the value of health care premiums, or it would simply ask that all health care premiums be e liminated, period. B ut a tim eline is included in the motion, I sense, because the member realizes that if the money is not com ing in through health c are premiums, then either the government would need to raise the necessary funds using other methods such as incre ases to pe rsonal incom e tax, or the government would need the time to figure out how to rid the system of nearly $1 billion in services.

I believe that health care premiums assist in significantly sustain- ing our highly valued public health care system. Our health regions have made s trides in e ncouraging the u se of emer gency ro oms exclusively for incidents that truly warrant immediate attention. In fact, Alberta is an international leader in deliver ing he alth and educational servic es using t elecommunications technolog y. Initiatives such as 408-LINK help us to understand our health care needs and the most appropriate actions to be taken in serving them.

Having the health car e charge related to the paycheque is an open way of collecting the necessary dollars needed for the health ca re system. Again, I would like to reiterate: if the money were not being collected in this manner, it would have to be found in other areas. As a point of i nterest, I would poi nt out that Albe rtans pay the overall lowest taxes across this country. As A lbertans we do pay health care premiums, granted, but we do not pay a provincial sales tax, and we do not pay a h igh rate of personal income taxes.

This goes back to my point that if health care premiums are eliminated, these funds would have to come from somewhere else. If we truly want to get rid o f health care premiums, then we need to find new ways of funding health services in Alberta. This has been a focus of our provincial government for a number of years. If we want to get rid of health care premiums, we must be willing to discuss substan- tial and signif icant ways of funding ou r beloved publicly funded health care system.

In additio n, we need th e federal gove rnment to honour their funding share of implementing the f ive princi ples of th e Canada Health Act. One has to wonder whether any health care premiums would be required if the federal government paid their committed and commitment share. Mr. Speaker, the moti on put for ward by the hon. Mem ber for Edmonton-Highlands is adm irable bec ause it doe s attem pt to alleviate a cos t faced by Al bertans, but at this point i n time t he motion is somewhat premature. Righ t now h ealth care pr emiums play a sizabl e role in g enerating funds for Alberta ’s health care system.

Removin g them p uts mo re str ain o n a syste m that is expected to becom e only more expensive in t he future unless we reform how we fund our very valuable public health care system to make it sustainable and affordable for our seniors, for ourselves, and for the generations to come. Thank you. The Speaker: The hon. Member for Calgary-Buffalo. Mr. Cenaiko: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise today and speak to Motion 502, sponsored by the Member for Edmonton-Highlands. I’m very pleased to speak to this issue again as it is one that will never go away.

Motion 502 urges the govern- ment to get rid of health care premiums. Now, I know that it urges the government to phase it out over three years for everybody other than seniors, but I think that we can safely say that the intent of this motion is to rid this province of health care premiums altogether, an idea promoted by the opposition in this province for many years. This is an issue that many of us have debated time and time again. I will say that, yes, I would love to support this motion.

I would love to stand before you and say that we can do away with our health care premiums because we can afford it, but I can’t say that. I know that we have premiums for a reason, and like it or lump it, they are here to stay for a little while longer. Mr. Speaker, health care premiums are a very important part of our health care system. For some people they are a burden. Some Albertans do have difficulty paying the premium, but what I don’t think people in this province r eally understand is that we are struggling ourselves to foot the h ealth care bill in Alberta.

Health care is a top priority for Albertans, and I think this government does a great job, with the resources it is gi ven, ensuring that our he alth care system is decent if not fantastic. Throughout the years as health care has become larger and more comprehensive, this government has met the challenges that have been thrust upon it. One of these challenges is not getting the proper amount of funding from the federal government. I know tha t you might stand up and say : oh, sure; y ou’re blaming the feds for our woes. It’s true .

T heir lack of fore sight on this issue has really caused a lot of problems for this province as well as other provinces around the country. Every day the price of health care seems to increase i n Alberta. We see more and more people moving to this province from around Canada, and they expect to receive excellent services while we send $24 million a day to Ottawa. However, when these people come to our province, they aren’t bringing with them the infrastructure that they used to have. No.

They expect to use ours, and that is com- pletely fine except that this powerful growth is putting a strain on all of our top priorities. Health is included. Alberta is having a tough time keeping pace with the amount of activity that this province is seeing in regard to growth. So when the topic of premiums comes up, everybody seems to always want to get rid of them. What I think everybody seems to forget is that these premiums bring almost a billion dollars into our health system. That is a significant amount of cash, that is desperat ely needed for our system.

Let u s imag ine that we did cut the premiums from Albertans. What if we decided, yes, that not paying premiums is a good idea? Where would that leave us? Well, I think that we could safely say that we would be without a few luxuries in this province. You have to remember that $1 billion is a large part of our health budget, and we wo uld have to recoup that cost somehow because, as you al l know, health ca re is not free no matter what y ou think. So what luxuries should we be without in this province?

Of course, maybe calling them luxuries is a bad moniker, but if we were to eliminate close to $1 billion f rom our budget, they would have to be c oined luxuries. If we look at the current budget, what do we see that we would not be able to af ford if we cut pr emiums out com pletely? Currentl y health care premiums bring in approximately $913 million.

So we’d need to cut funding for the departments of Economic Development, International and Interg overnmental Relations, Revenue, Seniors, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, the Solicitor General, and Sustainable Resource Development just to make up the shortfall that would occur if no one in this province paid premiums. Of course, if we put this into perspective in regard to Motion 502, we see that premiums would be totally eliminated in three years.

I can almost guarantee that our health costs will be far higher and the amount eliminated from premiums will be far greater than what we see today. 8:50 So I put this back to the hon. member: what would he like to see us cut? What portion of our budget would he like to see tossed to the wolves, as it were, and what services would he deprive Albertans

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 243 of? Would it be the entire budget of the Solicitor General? I’m sure Albertans could do without our police. Or would you have all of our aboriginal programs cut? I mean, they don’t really need our help; do they? That is what Albertans must realize: we just cannot cut premiums without some s ort of plan to find rev enue to susta in our health system. We all know how Albertans react when there are cuts made. Think back to when this government had to cut 1 per cent from every department in 2002, 1 me asly per cent.

T hat is bar ely a surface scratch, but the opposition was up in arms yelling, screaming, and kicking trying to save their precious services. So how wo uld we g et away with just cutting almost $1 billion from our budget? We wouldn’t get away with it. Something l ike this cannot be dropped; it cannot just h appen. There needs to be a well-developed and very well-thought-out plan to make up th at revenue. So how would we make up that revenue if we weren’t able to cut anything? Maybe we would star t delisting certain s ervices. Maybe we would have to bring in more private health care options for Albertans.

Or maybe we could just raise taxes, which would fly in the face of our Alberta advantage. Mr. Speaker , I’m no t saying that I disa gree w ith the m otion sponsored by the hon. member. In a province that is proud of having very low taxes, I think premiums are a bit of an anomaly. But health care is not free, and if we got rid of premiums, we would be sending the message that heal th care is free. Oh, would n’t it be lovely if health care were f ree? Let me assure you that ther e is nothing I would like to do more than get rid of premiums.

But, again, I am not in support of something that has the potential to cripple not only our health care system but our other programs and services as well. Like I said before, health care is not free. I know that we all feel that it is public health care and that it’s paid for by government, but we can not over look th e fact tha t it ’s the t axpayers’ money and premiums that are paying for that system. To remove such a large amount of money out of the sy stem without a pl an would be disastrous. So, Mr.

Speak er, you c an see why I have r eservations about supporting this motion, but my reasons do not stop there. Currently, we are trying very hard to reform our health care system to try and make it sustainable for many, many years to come. The system is in the midst of chan ges that should be completed by the end of this year. The cha nges stem from the Premi er’s Advisory Council on Health report, and t he change s that are occurring should help alleviate some of the difficulties the system is facing. The recom- mendations being implemented will do a lot for our system.

I know that one of the rec ommendations was for Albertans to continue to pay for health care through something similar to premiums to ensure that they realize that health care is not free. Mr. Speaker, health care is not free, but we do provide millions in subsidies to low-inc ome se niors and l ow-income Alber tans who cannot afford these premiums. I think that it would not be a good idea to implement something like this motion is urging now, because we are in the midst of a great debate ove r changes to the sy stem. Making a radical change like the one asked for in Motion 502 I think would be irresponsible.

It lacks focus and vision. If we were to eliminate premiums for seniors, who do you think will be payi ng for th eir healt h care? It is we ll known t hat this province is aging, and to remove premium s on the basis of age I think is a very poor way to do things. Currently in Alberta there are approximately 330,000 seniors, and less than half of those seniors pay the full premium. Mr. Speaker, until we can come up with a proper plan to be rid of premiums, I think they should be here to stay . I ur ge all hon. members to vote against Motion 502 this evening. Thank you. The Speaker: The hon.

Member for Edmonton-Strathcona. Dr. Pannu: Thank you, Mr. Speak er. I ris e to join the debate on Motion 502. At the very outset I would like to urge all members to support this motion, which eliminates seniors’ health care premiums immediately while pha sing them out for othe r Albertans in three years or less. I have listen ed in vain , I’m afraid, fo r p ersuasive and sens ible arguments against the motion by government members.

What I’ve heard instead are purely ideological or philosophical arguments, as the Member for Calgary-West would prefer to call it, in fav our of corporate tax cuts combined with specious and fallacious rationaliza- tions that levying a health tax on individuals and families somehow makes people more aware of the cost of health care or that it makes health care m ore sus tainable in this provinc e. Far f rom it, Mr . Speaker. Every Albertan knows that health care is not free. This is a completely specious argument that’s being made again and again by government members.

Albertans k now full well tha t health ca re costs money. The question is whether it should be paid for by a regressive, lump sum tax disguised as health care premiums or from corporate taxes and other more progressive sources of government taxes and revenues. Health care premiums are one of the most flawed taxes levied by this government. My coll eague the Member for Edmonton-Highlands has pointed out a number of these flaws. I need not repeat them. I’ll briefly describe some more flaws of health care premiums to add to the list.

The healt h care premium tax is cos tly to a dminister, with $50 million per year spent writing off premium arrears and an additional $15 million spent on administering them. Add the two of them: $65 million right there. Health care premiums are unfair to middle-income seniors and the self-employed, who it is not p ossible to include in an employee benefits plan.

In recent years senior citizens have been hit not only with a 30 per ce nt hi ke in health care premiums but also a 50 per cent hike in long -term care fees, an i ncrease in the copayment on their prescription drug coverage, and the l oss of universal eye care and dental benefits. Scrapping health care premiums immediately is the least we can do for Alberta seniors living on fixed incomes.

Because health ca re p remiums are not a true prem ium but a regressive tax cleverly disguised as a health premium, these premi- ums cannot be de ducted as a health ex pense on tax returns in t he same way that extended health and dental benefits can. If an employer pays a pr emium in whole or in part on behalf of an employee, this is considered a benefit and ge ts added to the em- ployee’s income, on which tax must be paid. Scrapping health care premiums also puts an end to this unfavorable tax treatment.

Health care premiums are a pa yroll tax, now speaking from the side of em ployers, that adds t o th e cost of doing busines s in this province. Employers are required to deduct and remit premiums on behalf of their emplo yees, adding t o the cost of the red tape. Scrapping premiums will cut payroll tax co sts for employers l ike hospitals, school boards , universit ies, m unicipalities, comm unity agencies, and businesses large and small. Worst of all, health care premiums are plain and simple unfair to middle-income earners.

A two-adult family making $35,000 per year pays exactly the same $1,056 in health c are premiums as a family making $100,000, $150,000, $200 ,000, or more a year. Everyone who now pays health care premiums would benefit from scrapping this tax, but m iddle-income fam ilies, inc luding midd le-income seniors, would experience the most relief. In fact, a family making $35,000 would see their total tax load cut by one-third when health care premiums are fully eliminated. That is significant tax relief to hard-pressed families, Mr. Speaker.

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004244 In September 2000 the the n Prov incial Treasurer and the Pre- mier’s incoming chief of staff committed the Conservative govern- ment to cut corpora te taxes in half, thereby permanently reducing provincial government revenues by over $1 billion after four years. The original four-year time frame of the corporate tax cuts has been extended . . . The Speaker: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, but the time limit for consideration of this item of business has now expired. head: 9:00 Government Bills and Orders Committee of the Whole [Mr.

Tannas in the chair] The Chair: I’ll call the Committee of the Whole to order. Bill 2 Black Creek Heritage Rangeland Trails Act The Chair: Are there any questions, comments, or amendments to be offered with respect to this act? The hon. Member for Edmonton- Highlands. Mr. Mason: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I did w ant to make a few comments with respect to this bill. This bill will allow vehicular access to a recently decla red environmentally protected area, an access that is currently prohibited under the Wilderness Areas, Ecological Reserves, Natural Areas and Heritage Rangelands Act.

The bill proposes to allow a throughway to both off-highway and highway vehicles to specif ically allow “acce ss to and egress from the Bob Cre ek Wildl and.” The bill a lso provides for the erection of signs and notices mark ing trails , acces s way s, and boundaries. The trails named speci fically in the act are the Bob Creek trail and the Camp Creek trail. However, the bill is worded rather generally enough to leave it open ended whether or not other trails can or will be added. I just want to indicate that I have some very serious concerns and reservations about this bill.

The concern is that the nonconforming uses could remain prohibited and could set a bad prec edent for all protected areas. There are other ways to deal with exceptions that are necessary, such as those by ranchers and so on who do need to access t he area and have traditionally done so, by giving special permits to access the trails. That would ensure that the traditional uses could be met, and the access by people who need to be there for economic reasons and historical reasons would be able to continue.

I’m advised, talking to individuals in the area, that the Bob Creek trail has been maintained as a road for some time, a long time, but that the concern is more the Camp Creek trail. It currently has n o status as a road. I think, Mr. Chairman, the problem is that we have the potential for an incre ase in use of these trails. I just wa nt to indicate that there are ways to do this and provide access to this area for those trad itional uses withou t openi ng it up for ge neral use.

Once you allow the vehicles on these trails, you’re going to have a lot of trouble enforcing it, and particularly the cuts that we have seen to enforcement staff and budgets . . . Dr. Taft: Are there any enforcement staff left? Mr. Mason: Well, we don’t even know, Mr. Chairman, in fact if there are any significant res ources that re main av ailable to the department to patrol and pr otect these areas.

So you’re going to allow these four-wheel drive vehicles in there, you’re going to put a bunch of signs up, a nd the people that do the protection are com- plaining that they can’t even afford the gas for their vehicles to do their job. That’s how bad the department has been cut. So really the fear here is that you’re going to increase the recre- ational use of the se trails . Ostensi bly the bi ll is to pr ovide for traditional access for economic activities that have long existed. I think there are w ays to do that wit hout breaking the principle of prohibiting these kinds of vehicles in this type of area.

So I think, Mr. Chairman, that with that I will indicate that we’ll not be suppor ting this bi ll and ur ge government members t o take another look at this. I think there are, as I have said, effective ways to meet the needs of the community in this area who do require the access while maintaining some protection for the area from increased recreational use, which I fear is inevitable if this bill is passed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chair: You’re ready for the question? The hon. Member for Edmonton-Riverview. Dr. Taft: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is a piece of legislation that is symbolically significant as a representation of thi s govern- ment’s attitude tow ards wi lderness a nd towards pr otecting l and that’s in its natural state or at least is close to its natural state. We’re addressing here a block of land in southwestern Alberta just north of the Oldman River, I believe. Absolutely beautiful country. I’m not sure I’ve been to this exact location, but I have spent time down in and around this area. It’s rolling rangeland with some wooded area and open prairie, and it is quite gorgeous with the Rocky Mountains on the horizon to the west.

It’s also very importan t trad itional land for aboriginal people. This is not, I think, terribly far, for example, from Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Well, it would be certainly in the same general area. Dr. Massey: It’s in the province. Dr. Taft: I’m getting heck led by m y own m embers. Ah, ye s. Respect. Now, it’s interesting to g o back and l ook at a littl e bit of the history, the backgr ound to the Blac k Creek heritage rangela nd, which was designated in that somewhat infamous program called the special places program in 1999.

The special places program started off with, I think, a world of good intentions and ran into an awful lot of compromises, and we may yet be seeing some of those play out here. Now, I understand that the management plan for this area has been actually drafted, and it stat es the f ollowing, and this is a quote, I understand, from the management plan for the area. The primary goal of the Wildland and the Heritage Rangeland is as follows: To prese rve the natural heritage (i. e., soi l, flora, fauna, landscape featur es, and natural /ecological proce sses) of th e t wo protected areas in perpetuity.

And this next point is crucial. Other provi ncial pr otected are as prog ram go als (i .e., heritage appreciation, outdoor recreation, heritage tourism) are of secondary importance with resp ect to th e p rotected areas. The heritage appreciation and outdoor recreation goals may be met, but only to the extent that their attainment does not conflict with or impinge on the preservation goal. 9:10 Now, the question here is: will Bill 2 as it is proposed impinge on the preservation goals of the man agement plan f or this are a?

It seems to me that it will in fact impinge because it’s going to allow an increase in off-highway motorized vehicle transportation into this area. It’ll increase vehicle access to the Bl ack Cr eek heritage

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 245 rangeland, and inevita bly, it s eems to me, tha t’s going to lead t o degeneration in the natural condition of this special area. So unless I hear i nformation otherw ise from the sponsoring minister – it’s none other than the Member for Edmonton-Mill Creek – I think we’ll have to oppose this piece of legislation. I mean, it’s well known t hat off-highway v ehicle activity has a detrim ental impact by and large on wildlife habitat. We’re probably all familiar with the kind of disturbance and damage that’s done to the soil and to creek beds where these roads cross creeks.

It c ertainly is noisy. It disturbs wildlife, increases air pollutio n, and can c ause, in fact, significant soil erosi on. I saw some phot os from last fa ll of soil erosion in an area north of t he area we’re discussing right now resulting from off-highway vehicle use, and i t was actually quite dramatic and quite disturbing. Now, I suppose that if there were some absolutely overwhelming justification for this, I’d consider it, but I think that in some ways we not only need to think locally and act locally; we need to think globally as we ll here. W e are in a world in w hich wilderness is being eliminated.

Wil derness is being lost around the plane t. In fact, there are some pe ople who h ave put forward pretty powerful arguments that nature as it has been know n throughout the e ntire existence of humanity has now en ded. The whole idea of genuine nature is no longer a reality. It is simply a historical idea, meaning that there is no part of t his planet a ny more that is unt ouched or unaffected by human activity a nd that indeed we have gone from allowing natural processes to shape the course of the earth’s health to having that overwhelmed by human activity.

So the whole idea fr om a gl obal perspective that wilderness i s rapidly diminishing has to be considered here. We in this country, this incredible country of ours, Canada, and this wonderful province of ours, Alberta, still have corners of this land that are about as wild as any you are going to find in the world. We ought to be steward- ing that land; we ought to be protecting it; we ought to be thinking of generations ahead and the value that untarnished natural land will have in perpet uity. I’m afraid this bill doesn’t respect that idea.

This bill threatens yet more wilderness in Alberta and is something that I think our children and grandchildren will look back at and say: wasn’t that too bad; we lost that gorgeous piece of nature. So I do look f orward to the comme nts from the mini ster, the Member for Edmonton-Mill Creek to see how he justifies this bill, see how he explains it to us, and how he can attempt to convince us that opening up yet another little corner of Alberta’s nature to quads and motorized vehicles is a good idea, because I don’t believe it is. I don’t want to consume any more time than is necessary here, Mr.

Chairman, but unless I hear something quite remarkably convincing from the minister, I’m going to be opposing this bill. Thank you. The Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I’ve contin- ued to follow this debate in Hansard and while I’m able to be in the House, and there was something that the Member for Highwood had brought up that sort of caught my attention last time when he was talking about the lack of snow in the area.

Therefore, my discussion about whether it was appropriate for snowmobilers or not was somewhat of a m oot point becaus e there w asn’t any snow, and I thought: okay. I went looking for a better description for my own purposes of where this area was and what it was like and didn’t have to look too hard because we’re getting ver y good in Alberta on having information available on web sites. This is from an Alberta government web site.

It’s on the special places, called A lberta’s Commitment, from page 31, and I’m just going to read this description because it quite struck me and, I think, was the deciding factor in my decision not to support this bill. So, if I may, it just says that one of the most noteworthy accompl ishments of Special Places is the designation of o ver 30,000 hectares in an ar ea known as the Whaleback. The largest undisturbed montane landscape in Alberta is now preserved in Bob Creek Wildland and Black Creek Heritage Rangeland.

A series of spi ne-like ridges, the la ndscape of the Whaleback alternates between open grasslands and forests of pine, spruce, fir and aspen. Limber pine over 575 years old and 400-year old Douglas fir have been recorded. The snow free, Chinook-swept grasslands are winter range for mule deer and Alberta’s largest elk herd while the list of predators includes cou gar, wolf and grizzly bear.

Then it goes on to talk about there being over 80 species of birds there, that “many rar e pl ants have been recorded,” and of great interest is that with the co-operation of indu stry, the Whaleback is permanen tly preserved free of mining, oil and gas development and logging. Forestry tenures were relinquished and oil and gas rights donated to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Grazing lessees also supported inclusion of their leases in the protected areas.

So there’s been a lot of work, a lot of meeting of the minds, from sectors that may traditionally be see n to be in opposition t o one another, and I was quite struck by that. Given that it is a ve ry special place in Alberta – and I listened carefully to what the minister brought forwar d as reb uttal to the concerns that have been raised – I’m not satisfied by his points that this is reason enough to step away from our previous commitment to protect this area.

I’m aware that my colleague the Official Opposi- tion criti c on t he env ironment and on parks and fores try and sustainable resource management has also spoken at length raising her concerns a round this. We have had a feedbac k lo op in the community, both the interested constituency of environmen tal enthusiasts but also from the area. We always seek out what their opinion is on anything, and we’ve not had a very positive response coming from there. Given all of that in context, I’m not willing to support this bill.

I even looked at whether it was possible to amend the bill to make it more palatable, and I don’t see opportunity for amending without, you know, tota lly scratching t he bill, w hich is going against t he whole point of an amendment. So at this point I’m not willing to support the bill. Thank you. [The clauses of Bill 2 agreed to] [Title and

preamble agreed to] 9:20 The Chair: Shall the bill be reported? Are you agreed? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Chair: Opposed? Carried. Bill 3 Architects Amendment Act, 2004 The Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offered with respect to this bill? The hon. Member for Olds- Didsbury-Three Hills. Mr. Marz: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to make a few brief comments in support of the bill and to summarize it a bit. Bill 3, the Ar chitects Amendment Act, 2004, is a measure that strengthens the profe ssional sta ndards for the archit ectural a nd

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004246 interior design communi ty. I was pleased to hear supp ortive comments on the bi ll from other members during second reading, and I’ll take that support as affirmation that we are on the right track with the proposed a mendments contai ned within t his legislation. Through different amendments contained i n this bill, the licensed interior designers would find a greater inclusion within their related industry. I’d like to touch on some of these amendments and briefly explain the benefits, as I see them, that would result. Bill 3 proposes that licensed interior designers be defined under

section 2 of the Architects Act, w hich references the d efinition contained in the act’s interior design regulation. Defining this group in the act represents the main intent of Bill 3 as it makes the act more inclusive and at the same time provides greater legislative transpar- ency. This is a measure that ha s been reque sted by the Alb erta Association of Architects. Also under se ction 2 is a definition of restricted practitioner. Under

section 3 licensed interior designers would be authorized to perform specific architectural services as defined in the Architects Act’s supporting regulations. The proposed amen dment would reflect what is currently happening within the industry.

Section 4 would se e a lice nsed interior designer elected to t he Alberta Association of A rchitects governing council. This would ensure that licensed interior designers would be r epresented in the association’s decision-making process. Also, it would improve the communication process between the association and licensed interior designers. The current act contains no provisions to authorize the develop- ment of regulations specifically relating to the registration, educa- tion, training, professional conduct, and practice of interior design. This would be alleviated in the change found within

section 5 of the Architects Amendment Act, whic h establis hes regul ation-making powers. Amendments under

section 7 and

part 8 establish the registration, certification, and licence renewal req uirements of APE GGA members who are authorized to become restricted practitioners under the act. Thus, they would be included in the Alberta association and the Alberta register of members. There’s little doubt in my mind that these amendments would strengthen professional standards as they relate to the licensed interior designers and restricted practitioners.

The industry is healthier when regulat ory bodies are giv en the authority to ensure that members meet proper educational require- ments and provide their customers with a sa fe, comp etent, and ethical service by following the prescribed code of conduct. I’d like to conclude my comments by once again acknowledging the contribution of the archit ect profession in helping to de velop these amendments. The co-operation between the staff of Alberta Human Resources and Employment and the Association of Archi- tects’ representatives was key in bringing forward recommendations to improve the Architects Act.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll take my seat, and I’ll look forward to hearing the comments of other members. The Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I know that the Official Opposition cri tic cove ring this a rea, m y colle ague f rom Edmonton-Gold Bar, has already spoken in support of this bill. We have sent it out t o our usual feed back loop, and no one raised any concerns with it.

The Official Opposition has certainly been on the record in the past as being supportive of self-regulation for certain kinds of profe ssional associations covering scope of practice and various housekeeping matters. At this point no one has raised with us any concerns about the bill, and I’m willing to support it at this time. [The clauses of Bill 3 agreed to] [Title and

preamble agreed to] The Chair: Shall the bill be reported? Are you agreed? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Chair: Opposed? Carried. Bill 4 Blind Persons’ Rights Amendment Act, 2004 The Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offer ed with re spect to thi s bill? T he hon. Mem ber for Edmonton-Riverview. Dr. Taft: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Lest any of us think that nobody follows what we do in here, actually there are people who pay close attention to what we do in here. One of them phoned me after my last round of comments on this bill and gave me some very useful and interesting information.

This is a person who has worked closely on th is pi ece of l egislation for man y years, h as some expertise in guide dogs and in service dogs and how they’re trained and how they’re handled, and in fact relies on a guide dog for her daily life. She pointed out to me that, obviously, she fully endorses Bill 4 and that per haps instead of extending or expanding this bill and sweeping service dogs into the same legislation as guide dogs, we may want to consider separate legislation for service dogs. Service dogs, of c ourse, can be trained f or all kinds of things.

They can be t rained to help p eople who h ave troub le balanci ng. They can be trained for people who are prone to seizures. But they can also be trained to be quite aggressive. There are in the United States service dogs who are trained to help people who are having problems with sta lkers, a nd if the w rong person a pproaches th e person being helped by the s ervice dog, the se rvice dog will snarl and growl and, if need be, I guess, attack the potential stalker. That can be a problem in some public arenas, as you can well imagine.

So we need to perha ps consider the full range of services that service dogs provide w hen we c ome to re gulating t hem and pr oviding legislation. We also need to be very conscious of the different standards of training that dogs a re provided. There a re different organizations that certify dogs. There’s the international federation of guide dog schools, which has, I understand, quite stringent standards specifi- cally for guide dogs for blind persons.

There are other dog schools and dog training associations for different kinds of service dogs, and unfortunately there ar e people ar ound who h ave no lice nce, no particular background at all w ho claim tha t they are effective at training service dogs or e ven guide dogs. Of course, the danger there can be that if these dogs are not properly trained, somebody’s life can be put in danger.

If you’re a blind person relying on your dog to help you across the street or if you have health problems or whatever other issues, the dog can mean life or death to you, and if the dog isn’t properly trained, the consequences can be tragic. 9:30 These are some of the issues we need to be aware of, and we may want to look in the future at something like a service dog act or an assistance animals act, because they’re not always just dogs. They could be deve loped in conjunct ion with a blind persons’ rights amendment act or some other legislative framework.

There certainly are many issues very closely connected to what we’re debating in Bill 4 that need t o be consider ed. I don’t w ant to hold up Bill 4

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 247 while those other issues are considered, but in the future I hope that the government pays attention and looks at bringing forward other legislation to address other kinds of assistance animals. With those comments I’ll wrap up and loo k f orward to other comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I just w anted to use this opportuni ty to ask the ministe r who is s ponsoring this bill, the Minister of Community Development, once again if he can give the Assembly a clear understanding of when we would see what should be the companion legislation. A number of people have spoken about their, in my case, disap- pointment that we didn’t get the other kinds of service and assistance animals included in this legislation. Fine. I’m willing to accept that this act remained pure, if you like, in that it was really dealing with the needs of blind persons a nd their guide dogs.

I’ m perfect ly willing to accept that, but there were many of us who were waiting for the update or were waiting to bring us into the new millennium with clear legislation around service and assistance animals. My concern was that we’ve now seen the update on the guide dogs and Blind Persons’ Rights Act and no com panion leg islation, so when do we see the companion legislation? Are we going to have to wait another 20 years for that? I’m trying to prod the minister a bit here, but really this is an incomplete picture that we now have.

We have resolved one small bit of this issue and have not resolved a whole other large area. I also want to pick up on s omething that my colleague, the hon. Member for Edmonton-Riverview, said and maybe help to bring him additional information. He was mentioning the service animals that are specially trained to assist individuals who are being stalked or in a position of imminent severe threat. Usually someone has threat- ened to kill them and has every intention of carrying that out, and there are dogs that have been specially trained – you do hear of them mostly in the United States – to protect that person.

So the concerns expressed by m y colleague that somehow they would be snarling and snapping at somebody in a public setting – strictly speaking those animals were trained to stay with the individ- ual they are there to protect, and they are only to react if that person is going to be killed, essentially. The threat of them being killed is very high com ing from a particul ar individua l, and t he animal is trained to react to that parti cular menace coming at them.

It does allow that individual to get out in society in the same way that guide dogs allow persons with visual impairment to get o ut and move around in the world and do their business and that seizure dogs help people get ou t and move around and do what they need to do, and they’ll be alerted if a seizure is coming by the animal.

The whole point is that peopl e can ge t on with the ir lives, a nd these specially trained protection dogs are so that those individuals that are under extreme threat for their lives, in fact, can still go out and, you know, have coffee with a friend, do their grocery shopping, or go and gas up the car and do some of those things that everybody else gets to do, but because these individuals are under dire threa t, they may not be able t o do that. The dogs protect them, and they only react to the one individual.

So it’s a highly specialized area of service dogs, and these dogs don’t go after anybody else in a public area. They are there to save someone’s life, and it’s a very specific reaction. Again, part of the frustration here is that we didn’t get the second bill that would have cov ered and outli ned acce ptable tra ining standards, some sort of identification, and where in public various assistance animals would be welcomed or would be allowed to go with their owners.

I was looking for the complete range of animals: those that are signal animals, for example, that can detect oncoming seizures in individuals or other kinds of health related issues; those that are an assistance animal, you know, for working with kids with autism or somebody in a wheelchair where they can pick up things that have bee n dropped by t he individual s; and the protecti on animals that I just described. We didn’t get anything for all of those kinds of animals, so we’re still in limbo with them. T hey’re not allowe d and acce pted and protected in public spaces like the guide dogs are.

That just simply wasn’t address ed, and there’ s no inform ation com ing from the government about when we could expect that. I’m certainly willing to support Bill 4, but I need to k now when the rest of this comes, when we get the companion act that’s going to come. So that’s my plea to t he sponsori ng minister, to please move as quickl y as pos sible. I w ould like to s ee it in this spring session, at the latest in the fall session, but let’s have an answer from the minister. Where are we in the planning process with this second bill?

I mean, I know that it takes the government some time to get all of their ducks in a row and to ha ve this f low thro ugh their process. Where are we? If this is not going to happen this year, then stand up and tell us because there’s been a lot of interest and a lot of people that are asking for this. We’ve supported this Bill 4 f or the blind per sons. We’d like to know when we’re going to get what we’re waiting for, which is the rest of the service and assistance and signal animals. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. [The clauses of Bill 4 agreed to] [Title and

preamble agreed to] The Chair: Shall Bill 4 be reported? Are you agreed? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Chair: Opposed? Carried. Bill 1 Alberta Centennial Education Savings Plan Act The Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offered with respect to this bill? The hon. Interim Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Dr. Massey: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had the opportunity to speak to Bill 1, the Alberta Centennial Education Savings Plan Act, at second reading, and now, as is the practice, we have an opportu- nity to go through the bill clause by clause and to look at some of the provisions. I wanted to start with the

preamble, Mr. Chairman. The

preamble is one that I think most of us would have difficulty disagreeing with except, I think, for the

interpretation or the action that seems to flow from those belie fs. That’s really what th ey are, three belief state - ments. The first one is that the Alberta government recognizes the benefit of postsecondary education. The extrapolation from that, of course, is the bil l that we have be fore us to en courage young Albertans to continue to postsecondary education. We have in front of us a financial scheme that’s supposed to do that. Unfortuna tely, it seems to be incons istent with some of the other actions that the government has taken, and I think, in particu- lar, it’s the failure to have in place a long-term plan for the financing of postsecondary schools in the province.

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004248 9:40 The result of the lack of that plan is that we have the yearly – I’ve used the word “crisis” before, and “crisis” may not quite be the term.

But each year as in stitutions prepare their budgets and, faced with fewer and fewer resources of the government, are forced to turn to students and increase their tuition, there’s not a crisis but certainly an air of distress and a lot of political action with respect to students to try to make the government aware that if they really did recognize the benefits of postsecondary education, they would make it easier for those stu dents already attending those ins titutions and m ake it easier for those people in those institutions that are responsible for postsecondary education a nd responsible for provi ding programs.

That would m ake it e asier f or them, and that w ould be a true reflection that the y r ecognize the benef its of a postsecondary education. [Mr. Lougheed in the chair] The second

whereas in the

preamble indicates that the government “wishes to raise awareness of the benef its of post -secondary education among children and their parents.” I think I mentioned the last time I spoke to the bill that there has been a great effort on the part of the government, and in particular the Minister of Learning, to remind individuals w ho attend posts econdary schools and graduate from them how much the y pers onally gain from that education. I think that there have been numbers tossed around with respect to the return on investm ent you g et for inv esting in a postsecondary education.

The other piece of that has really not been very prominent in the government’s awareness campaign, and that’s the benefits that we all as a comm unity enjoy because students ar e succes sful at our postsecondary schools.

That goes for everything from the kinds of medical doctors and nurses and health care workers that we graduate and we all are able to draw upon when need arises to the engineers that help design bridges and highways and the kinds of structures we need for the t ransportation syste m that w e all use to th e socia l workers who help thos e in our com munity who are vulnerable or who are in distress and need help: a whole host of professionals that add to life in our community, both essential and the amenities that we enjoy.

There seems to have been little effort on behalf of the government to raise awareness of that kind of benefit of postsecondary education among citizens. I think it’s unfortunate, and if the wish is to raise awareness, as this second

whereas in the

preamble indicates, I think that t here could be a grea t deal m ore done w ith respec t to the benefits to the broader community of encouraging youngsters to go to postsecondary schools. The third

whereas is one t hat we ha ve some trouble w ith, and that’s the gove rnment wishing “to encourage parents to plan and save for their children’s post-secondary education.” Now, no one will object or I don’t think talk against parents p lanning for their youngsters to go to postsecondary schools, but the whole notion of saving and how m uch of the savings are go ing to be nee ded by parents I think is troubling. We’ve seen the withdrawal of support for postsecondary schools, the rather dramatic withdrawal in the last decade.

The cuts that postsecondary institutions took in 1994 were the largest of a ll the bu dget cuts , 20 per cent , and ma ny of t he institutions have never recovered from that withdrawal of funds. To turn around and to indicate to parents through actions like this – if the m essage is, “You’re going to have to pay more because government is going to pay less,” I think it’s an issue that needs to have wider debate than what is stimulated by this

whereas clause in Bill 1. So I ’m concerned about the message that that puts out t o parents, and I’m concerned about th e message to g overnment in terms of their responsibility for providing for postsec ondary education. It wasn’t that long ago, Mr. Chairman, that Canada and a number of nations gathered at the UN and agreed that they would extend tax- supported education for students past 12th grad e. They would extend a tax-supported education a year at a time until students had, first of all, a two-year college degree or diploma without having to foot the bill and then eventually a four-year degree.

It may not happen im mediately, Mr. C hairman, but th ere’s no question in my mind that a number of years down t he road that’s exactly where we’ll be. A s the importance of postsec ondary education becomes more and more critical t o the succe ss of a knowledge economy like ours, an information economy, the need to have our students complete those programs is going to become more, and what better way to en courage students to contin ue past hi gh school than to make that as part of the tax-supported system? I think that it is eventually where we’re going to have to go as a society.

If you look at the grants that are outlined and who’s eligible for them – I think that I men tioned this be fore at second reading, the whole notion of a c hild only be ing eligible if they were born to a resident in Alberta in 2005 or any subsequent year and the inherent unfairness of that for students who were born a year or 16 years previous to that. Many of them are going to be going on to postsecondary s chools, and t hey are n ot go ing to have th e same opportunity as the A lbertans who by accident of bir th are born in 2005, and I think that sends the wrong message to those students.

I also think that it’s a shortcom ing i n terms of planning with respect to the centennial. We would hope that people wouldn’t look back on the centennial as the year that they were left out of a plan by the government that w ould have allowed them to pu t aside some money, if they so desire d, for thei r education. So I think the unfairness of the bill is unfortunate, I guess, to say the least. 9:50 The n otion unde r

section 3(1) of paying a grant of a hundred dollars into a registered education savings plan. There’s still a great deal of discussion and a great deal of information about registered education savings plans. I heard a presentation on television just recently where parents were being encouraged to not use th e registered education savings plan but, instead, to put that money into a registered mutual fund that acted exactly the same way but ended up paying far g reater retur ns with respect to the money that wa s invested.

So whethe r the registered education savings plan is the best vehicle to carry this money and to make it grow I guess has been questioned by people , and I’m not sure tha t I’ve he ard a ful l discussion of the alternatives that the government looked at before they happened to settle on this plan. I realize that given the federal law in this area, that made it attractive to piggyback on. Again, I’m not convinced that the alternatives have been explored. I dealt with the matter of eligibility, Mr. Chairman.

I think it’s a plan that on first blush looked good but on closer examination has some flaws that I think warrant more questions and certainly without some amendment I don’t think deserves to be sup ported by this House. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The Acting Chair: The hon. Member for Calgary-Egmont. Mr. Herard: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just thought I might try and respond to some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Edmonton-Mill Woods. When I was listening to what he had to say in dealing with raising awareness of the importance of

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 249 postsecondary education, the hon. m ember spoke of doctors and nurses and teacher s and socia l worke rs, and I w as quite f rankly surprised that he didn’t speak to any o f the sk ills, any of the apprenticeships, or any of the college-applied degrees and so on that are also part of this. In other words, any approved postsecondary institution is then qualified to use these funds to further education. Whether or not your passion may be pro fessional or in the ar ea of skills, you should be able to follow your passion.

Another comment that the hon. member m ade was that he was concerned that the notion of sav ing for f uture educa tion wa s troubling because he felt that perhaps it was a signal that government would pay less. We ll, I think, Mr. Cha irman, t hat savi ng for a postsecondary educ ation is really a joint responsibility between parents, students, and government. I don’t think saving is ever a bad idea.

With respect to the unfai rness that was broug ht up again w ith respect to the fact that it starts in our centennial and goes on beyond, I’m wondering what benefit it would be for a 17 year old or an 18 year old to get a $500 co ntribution for posts econdary education. Really, the bottom line here is the magic of com pound interest as well as the top-up, with respect to the federal government, of 20 per cent. What better return on investment is that? If we look at the n umber of chil dren we have in th is province, there are 560,000 in K to 12.

That means we must have another 200,000 that are from zero to age five. So you are looking at, you know, 700,000 to 800,000 kids. Divide that into $20 mil lion and what do you get? About $25. Would that entice anybody to open an RESP? I don’t think so. With respect to whether or not R ESPs are the best vehicle, the guidelines are federal guidelines, and I think the hon. member knows that you can find all m anner and ty pes of RE SP plans, including some that invest in mutuals.

So I don’t know that the hon. member understands that you can go to any RESP dealer of your choice, and therefore you have a whole gamut of types of investments that you could in fact invest in. Thank you very much. [The clauses of Bill 1 agreed to] [Title and

preamble agreed to] The Acting Chair: Shall the bill be reported? Are you agreed? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Acting Chair: Opposed? Carried. [Mr. Tannas in the chair] Bill 7 Senatorial Selection Amendment Act, 2004 The Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amendments to be offered with res pect to this bill? The hon. Membe r for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much. I’m pleased to be able to rise in Committee of the Whole to add my c omments on Bill 7, the Senatorial Selection Amendment Act, 2004.

Actually, I welcome the discussion that’s caused by t he introduction of this bill because I think there does need to be a discussion in Alberta about democratic renewal. Of course, sen atorial reform, senate selection reform, is part of that package that needs to be considered. The other ones that often are in the mix at the same time include the election process, whether we need to look at changing how we actually elect people. We have a first past the post system currently. You often h ear proportional represe ntation talk ed of as a viable alternative.

The other day on the radio I he ard someone talking about a mixed system, which would have been a version of propor- tional representation plus a n additional v ote. You would , in fact, cast two votes, an additional vote for the party of your choice. You could vote rep-by-pop for the individual person in your constituency, and then you could cast another vote that indicated your preference for the party.

So if you thought the individual was doing a very good job and wante d to support them , if y ou had an incum bent, for example, but you really had to hold your nose over the overall party platform, you could reconcile those two things. 10:00 So there ar e still a number of other cre ative solutions that a re coming up around elect ion processe s. I think t his has to be ad- dressed, and sometimes people laugh at me and say: “Oh, no, no, no. That’s not going to happen.

Whoever is in power is never going to let go of the system that keeps putting them back in power.” But I would argue that there com es a point w hen the cre dibility of th e party that wins is seriously impinged. At what point? When 50 per cent of the population, 40 per cent of the population, 30 per cent of the population are the ones that are voting? At that point what kind of credibility does the government have when they stand up and only 35 or 40 per cent of the population voted? Well, how d oes tha t giv e th em th e gre at, yo u k now, right to govern? It doesn’t.

At that po int I thi nk even go verning parties, even parties that have monstrous majorities in the House, like the current situation in Alberta, even those parties will ha ve to start to look at c hanging the syste m and cha mpioning a change f or the system, because nobody believes them any m ore. Nobody gives them any k ind of high r egard bec ause so f ew peopl e actuall y participated in putting them there. That links to another issue that I keep running into, and that is that we are not engaging young voters.

A number of people have done work on this and I’m of course now trac king all of this, but what we’re finding is tha t the current crop of young voters – in other words, 18 to 30, let’s say – are not learning to vote. Generally, what we have is that lots of people, when they turn 18, don’t vote in their first couple of elections because they’re busy and they don’t feel that they really have a l ot of infl uence and th ey’re not really paying attention. They don’t have a lot at stake and stuff in the decisions.

Then they, you know, st art a fa mily, or they buy a hous e or property, and they get a bit more interested in how the laws that are passed and the people that are passing them affect their individual life. They become engaged in the process, and they start to vote. What we’re finding with this group of younger voter s now is that they’re not learning to vote. T hey didn’t vote at 18. Th ey’re not voting at 22. They’re not voting at 26. It’s not happening. They are not engaging in this system.

So if we don’t do something now t o bring them into par ticipation in this democracy, they will neve r participate, which I think bodes very ill for us in the future if we end up with an entire – what’s the word I’m looking for? – age grouping that doesn’t participate at all in the democratic process. We’ve got a problem. So with the current voting system a lot of them say: “Well, I don’t think my vote counts. You know, I don’t feel that I participate. I don’t think anybody listens to me.” You know, I felt that way. I was in my 30s before I actually voted for someone that won, and that’s a bit frust rating.

I mean, that wa s hanging in through a l ot of elections. It was actually municipal elections. That was hanging in

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004250 through a lot of e lections where I voted for people that just never won. You think: “Well, what’s the point? My vote doesn’t count here. Nob ody r eally cares about my input.” I guess I’m just stubborn in that I stuck it out so long that I actually started to get to a point where people that I was interested in were winning, and they were engaging enough other people to win. Mr. Herar d: Was the first t ime you did that w hen you v oted for yourself? Ms Blakeman: No. It was municipal. The idea that we’re not engaging those younger voters I think is a huge issue.

They understand that with the first past the post system they’re not getting the representation that they expect to see. I mean, look around. We’re not very representative of our population at this point. We’ve got to make this system better so that we are more representative of the people that actually live in our constituencies. So we have a whole issue around the election processes and what is going to serve us better. There are also issues around citizens’ initiatives, and there are two parts to that.

One is the idea of recall, and the second is what’s most commonly called citizens’ initiatives; that is, the citizens’ ability to bring legislation or a bill or an idea, a concept, before the Legislative Assembly so that it is seriously considered. It doesn’t mean that the Assembly has to pass the bill, but it does mean that it has to consider it and debate it and look at it. Again, that’s a way, because people feel that their elected r epresentatives a re not pay ing attent ion to them. There’s an issue that they want brought up, they keep coming back to it, and they can’t get it on the floor to be debated.

So that’s where we get these kinds of citizens’ initiatives where, you know, you get so many signatures on a petition that supports the introduc tion of a piece of legislation or an idea to be debated , a certain percentage of the population, a nd i n fact t he bill is put in front of the Assembly and is debated, and if it passes from there, it’s a different problem. I’ve always found it very interesting that this Assembly, in particular the governing party in this province, will not support those kinds of citizens’ initiatives. Now, I think there probably is a problem around MLA rec all.

Watching what’s gone on in our s ister province, our neighbouring province of B.C., that hasn’t been a particularly successful experi- ment. It seem s to have been driven more by , you know, a small group of dedicated people that really, really didn’t like their MLA and, you know, set out to get them, and it . . . Chair’s Ruling Decorum The Chair: Hon. members, it is becoming more and more difficult for the chair to hear, even with the aid of this marvellous instrument, over the loud chuckles and enthusiasm of some of the conversations.

If you want to carry on a lively discussion, would you please, with the whip’s permission of course, go out into the chamber next door or at least keep it down low enough so that we can hear the speaker, because there’s only one speaker being recognized at this time, and it’s definitely the Member for Edmonton-Centre. Debate Continued Ms Blak eman: Thanks very much. So wha t we’re talking about here is all the different possibilities for democratic renewal that we could be discussing as we look at this bill which is brought forward, the Senatorial Selection Amendment Act, 2004.

So far we’ve talked about election processes. We’ve talked about citizens’ initiatives. We’ve talked a little bi t about actua l Senate reform. This b ill is not w hat it could be , and I wi sh that it w ould have been much more, because this is a rich discussion and, in fact, goes to the ver y heart of who we are as Canadi ans, that c onstant striving for representation, access, and equality. I think that’s what the Senate represents. I was one of the lucky people that got to participate in the Shaping Canada’s Future Together cons titutional discussions that went on across Canada in 1992.

I wa s specifically chosen to participate in the one that happened in Calgary that was centred on the Senate and reform of the Senate. People from across the country were brought together for I think it was five days to look at every aspect of reform of the Senate and what that c ould possibly look like and what we thought the best idea was. These constitutional conferences were set up in a very interesting way.

Each morning we had presentations made to the entire group of us that really brought out all of the arguments that existed, and we sort of had two or often three sides of an argument laid out for us by learned people, experts in those particular areas. We all listened to this, and it cut through a lot of the blather that you sometimes get in those kinds of conferences where you have people that really aren’t very well informed about it kind of mouthing of f about the ir key thing.

But there was no excuse for that in this case because we all now had presentations from learned people, and off we went into our breakout sessions to discuss what had been put in front of us. Of course, we all had the workbooks, and we supposedly had gone and consulted with our various constituencies. Whether that was a geographic constituency or a constituency of like-minded people or shared interests, which is what I was representing, we should have consulted with them on the various questions and then brought that into the discussio ns that we had.

I was really fired up by these discussions because to me it opened up a whole possibility of a way of life and a way of democracy that had never occurred to me. I got quite exci ted by t he possibilitie s of hav ing more represe ntation. More of what I saw when I walked down the street could I see in an elected Chamber, in an elected Senate, and that was really exciting to me and energizing to me. 10:10 We did look at many of the same things that I brought up here, that sort of: well, if you’re looking at an elect ed Senate, then what would the elections look like? Could it be proportional representa- tion?

Would it be a mixed first past the pos t and proport ional? What became possible there in our discussions was that, you know, you could have a younger person elected. You could have some- body that was under 30 that would get elected to the Senate, especially if you were looking at proportional representation.

What we were talking about was the standard way of looking at proportional representation in which people cast their vote and then the votes w ere added up and, you kn ow, proportionatel y the top whatever number of people elected were from a certain party, and the party would have a list, and they would then designate which of their people got the designated number of seats. Of course, that is both the huge step forward an d the huge drawback because would you, could you trust the parties to actually be fair and representative in the way they pu t together thos e lists?

Wou ld th ey have, you kno w, every second person be a woman, which would be representative of Canada? We’ve got approximately 50-50 here, so we should have 50 per cent of the people in the Chamber be women. Would there be a certain pe rcentage of people of different race? How f ar do you carry it? Do y ou look at se xual or ientation? Do you look at religion? What else could you bring into the mix here? We also looked at how many se ats were appropriate across Canada. We’re very interesting in Canada because our north takes

March 1, 2004 Alberta Hansard 251 in the territories but it also takes off basically the top half, top third, top quarter of each province. So there is a constituency of the north that needs to be represented. If we’re going to look at a second kind of representation of various constituencies trying to achieve that equality across the country and that represen tation across the country, then the north was a particular constituency that needed to be brought into the mix.

In the end the Shaping Canada’s Future Together constitutional session that was held in Calgary wasn’t successful in coming up with any particular direction that everyone could agree on. Interestingly enough, here we are 14 yea rs later and we’re still talking about it, and we can’t agree on much here. Just to go back and look at what’s actually being presented in this bill and whether it touches on any of the areas that I’ve just covered, it doesn’t. What it’s really looking to do is extend the current act to 2010 because as it stands now, it will expire at the end of this year, December 31, 2004.

So it does n’t open this up, it doesn’t look at any other kinds of democratic renewal, and it doesn’t discuss any of the o ther things that we could be disc ussing ar ound senato rial reform, which is just a huge disappointment to me because it’s such an exciting area. Again, if we really wanted to engage some of our younger voters, here’s the way to do it. Here’s the opening. If we want to talk about a whole new world that could be challenging and accessible to people under 3 0, this i s it, and we’r e not do ing it. We’re n ot discussing it; we’ re not opening it up; we ’re not eng aging the younger voters.

There are some of them sitting in this room that are our faithful pages here. You know, I’m sure they’ve got lots to say. Probably there’s one of them that wou ld be interes ted in be ing a Senator if that was a possibility for them. That’s the kind of vision that we needed to look at. You know, how is it possible to get someone that’s under 30 representing one of these seats? How could we do that? That would be so exciting. But, no, none of it’s considered inside of this bill. We’re just talking about extending the date for the same old thing that we’ve a lways been talking about.

So, you know, the Alberta Liberals voted against the Senatorial Selection Act in ’89 and the Senatorial Selection Amendment Act in ’98, which this one is now extending. The agony for me on this one, the agony and the anger, frankly . . . Mr. Mason: The ecstasy? Ms Blakeman: No, there’s no ecstasy in this. It’s the agony and the anger. The A lberta L iberals, t he Official Oppos ition, are s trong believers in a triple -E Senate and especially in Senate reform, but this is not the way to do it, and we’re not going to support same-old, same-old here. The whole idea was to get a different take on this.

So this is just disappointing considering all the other things that are going on, all the ot her possibilities that we have to engage the voting public and the nonvoting public that could v ote and aren’t and, you know, to look at other k inds of dem ocratic renewal and democratic reform that we’re going to have to do. I think it would be much more exciting and fun and getting out ahead of the pack if we could actually grapple with this one and do it. What an exciting thing to be involved with. But instead we have: well, let’s just take the same old thing and make it 2010 instead of 2004.

That’s just a huge disappointment. We need to look at meaningful Senate reform. We’ve got three vacancies this year, and this is when we could be having it where it would actually do some good for Alberta to have that discussion, but it’s not happening. I often hea r Senate r eform talked about b y members in this Chamber, members of the government, as a diversion tactic, which I think is pa rticularly sad giv en all I’v e said a bout, you know, exciting possibilities to move forward into the future.

To see it sort of flogged as a diversionary tactic to get away from the other things that the government doesn’t want direction or focus on is even more disappointing. I understand at this point that there are others interested, and I’d like to adjourn debate on this bill. Thank you. [Motion to adjourn debate carried] The Chair: The hon. Deputy Government House Leader. Mr. Zwozdesky: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would move that the committee now rise and report bills 2, 3, 4, and 1 and progress on 7. [Motion carried] [The Deputy Speaker in the chair] The Deput y Speak er: The ho n.

Me mber for Clove r Bar-Fort Saskatchewan. Mr. Lougheed: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has had under considerat ion certai n bills. The comm ittee reports the following: Bill 2, Bill 3, Bill 4, and Bill 1. The committee reports progress on Bill 7. The Deputy Speaker: Does the Assembly concur in this report? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Deputy Speaker: Opposed? Carried. The hon. Deputy Government House Leader. Mr. Zwozdesky: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Given the hour, I would move that the A ssembly now s tand adjour ned un til 1 :30 p .m. tomorrow. [Motion carried; at 10:20 p.m. the Assembly adjourned to Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.]

Alberta Hansard March 1, 2004252

Document details

Collection	Alberta — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	20040301
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	L25 S4 20040301 2000 01 han.pdf
Language	en
Format	json
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	5d73ea0d24b05185e72c9667459436fe8ba56f3e

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