Alberta Hansard — 19 November 2003, Evening sitting (20:00) (Legislature 25, Session 3)

20031119

Alberta — Debates (Hansard)

November 19, 2003 Alberta Hansard 1759 Legislative Assembly of Alberta Title: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 8:00 p.m. Date: 2003/11/19 [Mr. Shariff in the chair] The Acting Speaker: Please be seated. head : Government Bills and Orders head: Committee of the Whole [Mr. Shariff in the chair] The Deput y Chair : We’ll call the com mittee to order. Hon. members, before we proceed, may we briefly revert to Introduction of Guests? [Unanimous consent granted] head : Introduction of G uests The Deputy Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thank you ver y much, Mr. Chairm an.

I am very pleased this eve ning to introduc e to y ou and through y ou to all members of the Assembly a very excellent group that’s joining us in the public gallery. This is the 25th Edmonton Christ Church, Cubs and Scouts. You can see them there. There are a number of them joining us, and they are accompanied tonight by their leaders Mr. John Simpson, Mr. Dwayne Hick, and Mr. Lance Bard. Also with them is Ms Clarkes. She’s the parent helper that is along with the troop this evening.

So we’re very excited to have them joining us in the public gallery tonight to watch what we do here, and I would ask them all to please rise and accept the warm welcome of the Assem- bly. Bill 43 Post-secondary Learning Act The Deputy Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amend- ments to be offered with respect to this bi ll? The hon. Minister of Learning. Dr. Oberg: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As promised this afternoon, I would now like to have the table officers distribute the amendments, please. I would lik e them dealt with as one amend- ment.

The Deputy Chair: While the amendments are being circulated, I just want t o mention for the record that we shall refer to these amendments as amendment A1. Hon. Minister of Learning, you may proceed now. Dr. Oberg: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we all know the purpose of Bill 43, what I would propose to do thi s evening is go ove r the amendments that are being passed out right now. I would also like to go over the regulations, especially as the regulation on tuition fees is something that is of very much importance to the students that are here tonight and very much important to each and every one of us.

First of all, on the proposed amendments, Mr. Chairman, the first amendment essentially changes the definition of an applied degree. This was after consultations with the colleges and techni cal insti- tutes. They wanted a new definition, and subsequently that has been incorporated into Bill 43. The second amendment that is on the list before you is to allow the academic staff association to nominate one of two faculty members on the board of a university. The second member will continue to be nominated by the g eneral faculties council. Mr .

Chai rman, after consultation with the faculties councils it became very clear that the general faculties council does not re present al l of t he fa culty. Indeed, there are sections of the faculty that are not represented by the general faculties council, and what this will enable them to do is to have representation at the board level in much the same way as the student associations or the nonacademic staff associations do. The next amendment that is in the bill is moving the powers of the general faculties council, and we are keeping all of the powers of the general faculties council in the act.

As you know, in t he previous Bill 43 these were moved to regulations. We are now putting them back into legislation. Number 5, the academic council. This basically clarifies that the minister establis hes adm ission requir ements for appre nticeship students and that the boards must establish a process for progra m quality reviews. Mr. Chairman, we feel that it’s extremely important to keep the quality of the apprenticeship program up. We also feel that it’s extremely important that the qualifications for apprentice- ship are done on a provincial level as opposed to an institutional level.

This amendment has been done with a great deal of consulta- tion with the affected institutions, and they’re very much in favour of it. The next one is about the dispos ition and development of land. We are sti ll taking away the expropr iation powers of la nd of the universities. Included in the original B ill 43 was the ability to extend the same rights t hat univers ities hav e to colleg es and technical schools. U pon ta lking to the colleges and technical schools, they did not want these rights, and therefore they have been taken away, and they will continue to be under the MGA.

Included in the legislation is the clarification that a regulation must be put in place to govern the process involved with consultation of community groups, and that is going to be worked on with the communities and the municipalities in regard to universities. Another issue t hat has com e forw ard is pens ions, and quite literally upon proclamation of this act all existing pension plans will be considered valid and rem ain in eff ect. Thi s is in res ponse to concerns from the Auditor General, Mr. Chairman. The academic staff.

It will be clarified that compulsory arbitration is the on ly allowable d ispute re solution mechanis m to resolve collective bargainin g i mpasses. This is very im portant because, again, in talking to the faculty associations, they did not want to lose the right to st rike, even though they had bargained the right away some 20 to 25 years ago.

We have changed that wording, and just for interest sake when I asked the faculty associations exactly why they had bargained away that right, interestingly enough they said that they could not attract top quality staff if the right to strike was there, and that w as why all ins titutions in Alberta have bargained away the right to strike with the ex ception of Mount Roy al. This will now essentially make the bargaining process the same in all of the jurisdictions: universities, colleges, and technical institutes. Student associations, Mr. Chairman.

The amendments show that the student associations’ powers are all now in legislation. The other issue that wa s causin g some consternation with the student associations was the ability for the boards to call for an audit. We have now clarified that under the amendments, the boards cannot do the audit. The audit must be called for by myself as minister, and it must only be for financial irregularities. The question comes: why even do it for that? Well, we’ve had experience with two different student associations at one of the colleges in Alberta that literally absconded with the money.

Whether it was legal, whether it was by throwing a party for their friends o r lots of other things, the se are moneys that are checkoffs by the students, so if there are financial

Alberta Hansard November 19, 20031760 irregularities, then there must be the ability for the minister to have these audits. The other thing that has been added here because of the concern from the s tudents’ associations about boards e ffectively running them out of mone y by continuing to a sk for a udits, the minister and the department will pay for any audits. 8:10 The other issues with that, as I’ve said, are that all of the student association powers will be included in the leg islation and, indeed, are included in the amendments.

Another one, the dissolution of all assets, liabilities, and organiza- tions, will be de alt with through an OC . This is as opposed to a ministerial order. It will be dealt with by the Lieutenant Gover nor in Council. Mr. Chairman, the landmar k purpose of this bill is actually the campus Alberta board of a ccreditation and co-ordination, and this was the body that was to oversee degree granting privileges for the technical schools and colleges and universities.

What has happened is when w e went out and talked to the universities and technical schools on this, it became very apparent that they did not want this body to be involved in the co-ordination. They felt that it would be very difficult for a member of the University of Alberta, for example, and a member of NAIT or a member of a different postsecondary institution sitting on a board to co-ordinate and decide whether Grant MacEwan should or should no t have a degree. They felt t hat that was adding a de gree of politicization that was not necess ary and, indeed, was actually detrimental to the process.

So what we are doing, Mr. Chairman, is the campus Alberta board of accredi tation an d co-ordination ha s now bee n changed t o the campus Alberta quality council. W hat literally will happen is a n institution will come and ask the minister: can we have this degree? The minister w ill th en say yes, or the minister will say no. If the minister says no, then that application is dead.

If the minister says yes, then it will go on to the campus Alberta quality council where their new job, then, is only to determine the quality of that degree, and it will only be granted when the quality is sufficient to appease the people that are on the campus Alberta quality council. There are also numerous House amendments, and indeed there are some probably 10 or 15 pages of House amendments and insignifi- cant other amendments that are also here as well. I now want to concentrate, Mr. Chair, on the tuition fees.

What we have done in the amendments to Bill 43 is we have established two different ways that we have controlled tuition fees, and they’re for two distinct institutions. The first one states that where a public post-secon dary instituti on’s revenue from tuition fees in a fiscal year is equal to or less than 30% of its net operating expenditures in that fiscal ye ar, the maximum al lowable annual increase in tuition fees for that post-secon dary in stitution in the following year must be set in accordance with the regulations. I will give you the regulations here very shortly.

This is identical wording to what is in the existing acts with regard to the tuition fee policy. We have then added a second section, and this is: where a public post-secon dary instituti on’s revenue from tuition fees in a fiscal year exceeds 30% of its net operating expenditures in that fiscal ye ar, the maximum al lowable annu al incre ase in tuition fees for that post-secondary institution in the following year is the Alberta Consumer Price Index plus 2%, which must not result in a decrease or be greater than 5%. This has been agreed to.

One of the reasons for this – I think we all are very familiar with the princi ple that w e feel that parent s and students should put in roughly 30 percent or up to a maximum of 30 percent, but what has happened in our postsecondary institutions is that we have some institutions that are incredibly efficient and have actually decreas ed their ex penditures, de creased their costs of operation, and subsequently what has occurred is that they have been unable to raise their tuition fees. The best example of this, that I cited today in question period, was the University of Lethbridge.

We see the University of Lethbridge sitting at number 40 of roughly 50 universities across Canada. It has the 40th least expensive tuition fees. The tuition fees are somewhere around the range of $600 or $700 less than their equivalent institu- tions. Subsequently, they have not b een able to raise their tuition fees to keep pace with the other institutions because they have hit the 30 percent expense cap, and they have hit that by good management, and I truly feel that we should not inhibit instit utions from being good managers. So, Mr. Chairman, that is what is included in the amendments.

In the regulations what we have said is that the maximum allowable annual tuition fe e increa se for i nstitutions under the 30 pe rcent threshold, which is what I just talked about, for the ’04-05 academic year will be $276, which is again identical to what the procedure is at the moment. In subsequent years the maximum allowable annual tuition fee increase is adjusted by the Alberta Consumer Price Index, again exactly similar to the way it is right now.

The other point that I actually have not told the students’ associa- tions about when it comes to tuition fees is something that they have been asking me about for a significant amount of time, and what that is is quite simply the fees that universities and colleges and technical schools have been charging, and what we have in the regulations are fees that also must be included as a tuition fee. Therefore, they must be includ ed in the ca p. They must be included in the tuition f ee procedures that I have identified, and I will tell you what they are.

Fees that are payable to complete programs are approved by the board and are payable by students for m aterials and services that facilitate instruction but exclude fees or materials that are retained by students and so on down the road. We have put the tuition fees into the policy. So, Mr. Chairman, that will be, again, in regulation. It is going to be re gulated. Again, this is something that is in direct response to what t he students h ave asked us.

They identified an excellent issue, that many institutions to get around the tuition fee cap that wa s there quit e simply just r aised the fee s, and I did not agree with that. The students’ associations obviously did not agree with that eithe r, and now t hat will be included in the tuiti on fee guidelines, tuition fee regulations. Mr. Chairman, I would like to at this tim e table the pro posed regulations, if I may.

I’ll table the requisite number of copies of the regulation so that, again, they can be fully looked at by the students’ associations and every other interested party in the postsec ondary education system. In essence, those are the amendments that are before you. There are several in the am endments that are nonconsequential amend- ments. Ther e are ap proximately 20 pa ges of amen dments, so we certainly will have time to go throug h them. T he one point tha t I would really stress, Mr.

Chairman, is that each and every one of the public postsecondary institutions is com pletely in favou r of these amendments, is completely in favour of Bill 43. I really do believe that it is time that we got on with the business of allowing colleges and technical schools to grant degrees. I think it’s absolutel y time t o do it. The degree-granting status must be there for quality of degrees as opposed to just the institution. Again, we have complete concurrence with the unive rsities, the technical schools, and the colleges. So, Mr.

Chairman, I would now like to adjourn debate and allow the opposition parties and the affected associations and institutions a chance to look at t he am endments that we re put on the f loor, a chance to look at the tuition fee regulat ions that we re put on the floor.

November 19, 2003 Alberta Hansard 1761 8:20 I must add one thing. We have been given advice that we cannot table the actual tuition fe e regulations in that form, so you have a slightly modified form of it, but the intent is certainly there. So, Mr. Chairman , it’s a great day for postse condary education that these are in, and it’s time to move on with it. It’s time to make this system the great system that it is and continue to make it greater. Thank you.

I would move to adjourn debate. [Motion to adjourn debate carried] Bill 41 Alberta Corporate Tax Amendment Act, 2003 The Deputy Chair: Are there any questions, comments, or amend- ments to be offered with respect t o this bill? The hon. Minister of Revenue. Mr. Melchin: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have under consider- ation Bill 41, Alberta Corporate Tax Amendment Act, 2003. There are no amendments to the bi ll to be o ffered at thi s stage. I would like to just make a couple of comments in respect to some questions that were asked at second reading. The first one, the rate reductions.

There was a ques tion aski ng why we hav en’t moved as f ast or ahe ad with the plan t o create corporate income tax reductions down to as low as 8 percent. Those were always subject to affordability. This one brings it down to 12 and a half percent. Next y ear’s proposal is to go to 11 and a half percent on the general rate. It was asked how much money oil and gas companies saved in royalty tax deductions and credits last year. In the 2003 Alberta Energy annual report $83.2 million in Alberta royalty tax credits was paid last year.

Further analysis will be required to determine the tax savings from the royalty tax ded uction, but th at’ll give them the general information as to the quantity. The policy questions regarding the Alberta royalty ta x credit program are questions that should likewise be and could be posed to the Minister of Energy. We are looking at quantifying the benefits relating to the program, though, as the Auditor General suggested. The federal government has revised the income tax, and they’re changing various aspects of the resource taxation regime. They’re phasing out the indeductibility of Crown royalties.

They’re phasing out the national resource allowance deduction, including the Alberta royalty tax credit, in calculation of income. This w ill all be done over a period of years. So we are reviewing the federal changes and considering implica tions to the re source t axation regime in that respect. As for the royalty tax r ates, if it is the Alberta royalty tax credit rate that is re ferred to, the Alberta royalt y tax credit ra tes are calculated based on a blended oil and gas reference rate provided by the Minister of Energy that is inverse to the oil and gas price.

This ensures that the Alberta royalty tax credit is paid when oil a nd gas prices are low and less when oil and gas prices are high. The Alberta royalty tax cre dit r ates ca n vary b etween a mi nimum rate of 25 percent to a maximum of 75 percent. So due to the high oil and gas prices, the Alberta royalty tax credit rate has been about 25 percent since 2001. There were some questions asked about why the appeals commit- tee is being a bolished.

The g eneral anti-avoidance rules a ppeals committee has actual ly never been use d in Albert a, and there are other appeals that can be used through t he normal objection a nd appeals process provided under the Alberta Corporate Tax Act, so this was really a duplication. T he one committee was never used, and as such we’re re pealing th ose p rovisions deal ing wi th th e general anti-avoidance rules. There were some questions in regard to how much money the insurance industry would save under t his tax rate reduction. An analysis would have to be done. I don’t have that infor mation presently available.

I think those are all the comments that I would offer at this stage, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. The Deputy Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to speak in Committee of the Whole on Bill 41, Alberta Corporate Tax Amendment Act, 2003. Just a couple of points and a few questions for the minister at the end of that. I’m kind of tor n here, ac tually, because I remember in the ’97 election campa igning to ha ve the m inimum wage raised a nd, to balance that, the business tax fall to 4 percent.

So I’m not unhappy about seeing t he 4 percent the re, certainly on be half of the sm all business owners and entrepren eurs in Edmonton-Centre. But I’m always questioned and I continue to be concerned overall about why we’re looking at so many tax credit, rebate, tax reduction programs when, on the other hand, we have the government saying: we don’t have enough money for this, and we don’t have enough money for that. The explanation that I often hear is: well, you know, trickle down.

We put a sweat-soaked loonie in every body’s pocket, and the y’ll spend it, and that m akes the economy go round, m ore commonly referred to, I think, as Reaganomics, with the trick le-down theory that with tax reductions people will spend the money. In this ca se it’s businesses. But, frankly, if that was the case, I think everybody in the U.S. w ould be a m illionaire, and I really don’t see that the trickle-down theory worked very well there. So I listened carefully to the member, and I know he was sort of head down and going through his notes.

It was actually a little hard to hear him ; he was so focuse d on what he was doing . I’m s till questioning how the g overnment feels that it ’s balance d that, because I don’t think they have, especially in light of some of the unresolved crises that we’re dealing with right now, like deregula- tion, like investment in education, things like that. More specifically, I’m interested in what plan exactly the Revenue minister has around justification of forgone revenue.

This is an issue I’ve raised previously with him, but if we are not going to collect that money, if businesses are going to not remit $435 million worth of taxes this year and in allowing them that, how does the govern- ment see this as being advantageous? In ot her words, I’m looking for the proof that this so-called trickle-down theory does work. I f they’re not remitting those taxes, then it’s forgone reven ue to t he government, and we’re supposed to be getting something from that. It should be measurable, and I’m looking for that measurement from the government.

I keep asking, and I don’t believe that I’ve seen it, but I’ll put that before the minister again. I was listening as carefully as I could as he rapidly went through his response t o some que stions that ha d b een asked around the royalty tax deductions. I would prefer to go and read the Hansard and not re-ask the questions to the minister, but I suspect that unless the minister is going to adjourn, this is going to pass out of commit- tee, and then I’m trying to ask these questions in third reading, which is a bit more difficult because the time has passed.

Once again, I’m asked those questions by citizens on the street saying: what happened? We used to have this incredible royalty tax that was set up with the oil industry. You know, Syncrude’s name

Alberta Hansard November 19, 20031762 is always bandied about. T here seem to be a ll these hol idays and reductions and tax credits and what ever we’re talking about here, and again people sa y: well, what’s the d eal he re? Ho w are we getting our money’s worth out of this? How is the payback coming to Albertans? I’ m looking for – you’ll forgi ve me, Minis ter – something more than the usual rhetoric about the Alberta advantage and yada, yada, yada. I m ean, people are asking these q uestions because the i nformation that they ’re getting from the gove rnment isn’t satisfying them.

They don’t understand what’s happening. 8:30 Part of my issue with this is coming through the Auditor General’s report. One of the questions I have is: when was this whole system last re-examined? We all hear what’s now become mythology from the Lougheed years about his renegotiation of a lot of these things, but when was the last time? Was that it? Obviously not if there’s been a number of breaks and holidays and reductions since then, but people aren’t tracking it well. So when was the last time there was really a thorough look at it aside f rom th is 2001 whic h just said reduce it all?

Did that come with an entire package that looked at whether these were in fact g enerating the kind of activity that was expected to b e gen erated f rom the pr ogram? That’s what I’m looking at. In the 2002-2003 Auditor General’s report there’s a comment on whether, in fact, the Alberta royalty tax credit program is meeting its objectives. His suggestion is that there are not and there need to be measures developed to assess whether the program is in fact meeting its recommendations. For reference that’s recommendation 11.

Overall, I know t hat the Of ficial Opposition is w illing to b e supportive of what’s happening here, and I started out by saying that I wasn’t unhappy about seeing the 4 percent for small business, but people continue to be puzzled when they’re told repeatedly that there is no money for things that they wish to see money for, yet they are aware that th ere are all o f these break s and vario us pr ograms happening on the other side.

Their obvious question is: well, then, if we don’t have enough mone y for this, why do you ke ep giving breaks to businesses a nd the ro yalty tax c redits and the resource royalties, oil and gas? It doesn’t make sense to people. I don’t know that the minister can be expected to answer that in Committee of the Whole, but I’m going to leave it on the table for him anyway. I’m just aware that those are questions that I continue to get asked in my constituency, and it’d be interesting to have something to hand them and say: well, this is w hat the minister says in response to those questions.

Thank you for the opportunity to put that on the record. The Deputy Chair: The hon. leader of the third party. Dr. Pannu: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make some g eneral c omments on Bill 41 a t the beginni ng of its debate at Committee of the Whole. My colleague the New Democrat House leader, the hon. Member for Edmonton-Highlands, last night laid out our position very clearly on this bill. We are not supportive of the continuing handouts to corporations in terms of royalty tax credits or any other tax reductions, which is largely what this bill is about.

My hon. colleague from Edmonton-Centre alluded to trickle-down economics, the trickle-down theories of how money put at the top gradually comes to the bottom and helps everyone, lifts every boat. The b ankruptcy of that kind of reasoning is for ev eryone to see everywhere. As a matter of fact, the father of George W. Bush, the present President of the U.S., called it voodoo economics, lofted it out of the court. There’s no historical evidence that Reaganomics or trickle-down works. It’s an excuse to put more money in the hands of those who already benefit most f rom the kind of market sy stem that we have.

So voodoo economics are back in the U.S., and it’s continuing its way here in this province, a nd you know what’s happened in the U.S. In the U.S. they have ended up with more than a $500 billion annual deficit as a resu lt of tax cuts, based on the belief that somehow these tax cuts are economically stimulative. Far from it, as we have all known about the state that the U.S. economy has been in. The proposed tax c uts here w ould lead to a nother huge l oss of provincial revenues.

I spent a fair bit of time during the summer and fall with seniors, lots of whom live in my own constituency, and of course I’ve traveled around the province as well t alking to th em. They tell me that in their est imate the seniors are the group today that are paying a billion dollars more than they did in 1993. So are we taking from those seniors in order to pay for the revenues that are being lost through these absolutely unnecessary and unjustifiable tax cuts as proposed in this bill? That’s my question to the minister.

Another question that I have is: will the minister indicate to the House how much of the r evenue will be forgone if this bill p asses through the House? What percentage of it? What millions of dollars will go to the small businesses – and I want him to define what he means by small business – as opposed to the millions of dollars that will go to already fat-cat transnationals who collect the money here? There’s no guarante e they’ll spend it in this pr ovince. They ma y spend it buying up some oil company in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan or Siberia for all that I know.

The Auditor General of this province has raised some questions about the ra tionale and the ability of th is government to find out whether or not these so-called tax rel iefs, quote, unquote, can be shown to benefit Albertans and the Alberta economy either in terms of creating jobs or in t erms of creating more e conomic g rowth directly resulting from these tax cuts. So I would hope that the minister will pay some attention to these questions and bring answers back to the House with respect to the proportion of the c lose to $500 m illion that w ill be los t in p ublic revenues as a result of this.

What portion of that $500 million or so will go to the small businesses in this province ? Lots of them operate in my constitu ency a round Whyte Avenue seven day s a week, 12 months of the year, and I want to have some answers for them about how the y will benefit and how m uch they will benefit from the provisions of this bill. What portion will in fact go into the hands of corporations who already are hugely benefiting from the high oil and gas prices, as the minister himself said, at least since the year 2001?

If you are going to continue to put more pressure on our schools, on our univers ities and c olleges, asking them to g enerate more revenues on t heir own or do with less and have overcrowded classrooms or ever increasing tuition fees, is it not time for us to also look at the revenue side and say, “Maybe these royalty tax credits are no longer need ed”? As the Auditor General has also questioned, show me that they are needed. If they are not needed, if they cannot be justified, why is this gov ernment determined to continue with those?

So I would as k and ur ge the m inister to answer some of these questions on the record so that they can be examined further in the ensuing debate during this Committee of the W hole discussion of Bill 41, Mr. Chairman. With those brief remarks, I’ll take my seat and let other members enter the debate. Thank you. The Deputy Chair: The hon. Minister of Revenue.

November 19, 2003 Alberta Hansard 1763 Mr. Melchin: Thank you, Mr. Chairm an. I just t hought I woul d respond to a few comments made by the two members. There’s quite a bit of discu ssion abo ut the Albe rta roy alty ta x credit and the benefits. The Auditor General talks about wanting it to be measur- able and the like.

One could look at the royalty regime in Alberta as being created to help drive incentives to create drilling and explora- tion activity, and the program of the Alberta royalty tax credit was actually driven to be more beneficial to the smaller companies than the larger so that those companies that would have a smaller capital basis could reinvest more dollars into exploration. That’s one of the specific design criteria. 8:40 It gets capped at a certain amount per well, and therefore the large companies with larger pro ducing wells get capped in the total amount that they can receive.

So it is disproportionately favourable to the smaller companies in rates. Just as you’ve said the beneficial aspect of a small business tax rate of 4 percent, so was this structure trying to be beneficial in the royalty rates to the smaller companies versus the larger. So there are many very small companies in Alberta that are the e ngine of pr oducing and e xploring a nd prov iding reserves that eventually get acquired by the mid sizes and the larger sizes as they acquire reserves. It’s very common.

It is very true that one could look at the macro aspects and see that we have been very succe ssful in A lberta in creating oil and gas economic activity: dri lling, e xploration, producing, and the like. Where there are reserves in Saskatchewan and even B.C., they have not generated anywhere near the same level of activity, and a lot of it is to do with the broad policies, macro policies you put in to allow that to happen. Now, personally, I have reservations about rebates and credits and those types of programs.

I w ould pref er a broader rate and fewer exemptions, but I do recog nize progra ms that have been long in place. C ompanies put together their capital and their business planning and thei r financial planning based upon certain expecta- tions, certain promises, certain structures like royalty tax credits. It is very difficult once in place to r emove those, and the refore I do concur with the Auditor General’s comm ents that we w ill further examine and quantify the cost-benefit assessment of these programs as we go forward. I th ink those are very good commen ts, and we will follow up with that.

There were general comments made by both members about tax breaks put in t he context of potent ially being s upportive to t he corporations: is it not the ir fair share to pa y for more, m aybe in forgone revenues? I would remind that even when we reduced our personal income taxes, a $1.3 billio n to $1.5 billion reduc tion in personal taxes by rates, we now collect in absolute dollars, in total dollars, more in personal income tax than before the rate reduction. We have broadened the base. There are more people coming here.

There is a natural flow for people, and you can see it by those that choose to move to Alberta in great numbers many of their economic organizations. An Hon. Member: Tell us about that. Mr. Melchin: I’d love to tell a little more about that in par ticular. In a recent discussion I had with him, a noted Canadian individual – actually, this individual lived in a constituency now represented by the Member for Edmonton-Centre – talked about 100 of the top 300 companies that were in B.C. in the 1990s no longer existing in B.C., and Alberta was the primary beneficiary of that. Now, some of them don’t exist anymore.

There is some attrition, some amalgamation in the industries, but of the movement of people in capital and business and industry Alberta has been a natural attraction to say: this is a place where it’s easier to inve st, to cre ate jobs th at bene fit all Albertans. People come to Alberta because there are jobs. Our children stay here because there are jobs that they create and pay the taxes. We have more taxes, income tax a nd corporate tax, per capita in this province than the other provinces do with higher rates.

I don’t know about you, but part of the factor of creating wealth is allowing people to reinvest wealth, to let it build and grow. The Am ericans, by having had a sm aller ta x rate, have actually outproduced us by a capacity of more than 20 percent per GDP per capita, when you put it per capita. When we go talk to investment fund managers around the world and we ta lk about Canada, as we do – these are people that ca n invest and c hoose to deploy capi tal anywhere in t he world, large sums of money – they speak highly of Canada, as it’s a great place to be.

I’ve mentioned this about the New York fund managers, for example. I’ll ask them all. They will all say: “Canada is a great place, but there’s one problem with Canada. Your tax rates are still too high. It is better for us to leave our money here in the United States than to invest it in Canada.” Now, I’m not trying to tell you their words. I didn’t solicit their response. That’s their analysis of world competitive markets that we can’t ignore if we think we’re going to survive and have an opportu- nity for our children in the future.

If we want to have funds to pay for health and education, which we do, we need to create a bigge r pie. The governments don’t have to take it all. They have to allow the broad macro events. I appreciate some philosophical beliefs that think t hat govern- ments ought to d o everything and tax everything. I’m not of that opinion. The economic climate in Alberta is unparalleled in Canada. The capacity that gives us the s upport for the priority programs in this province is a resul t of many of these tax policies, so we won’t apologize for it.

We will continue to see that these rates are reduced to 12 and a half percent. Next year there a re plans to reduce to 11 and a half per cent. Those are the right directions, and they’re the directions that Albertans support. Thank you. The Deputy Chair: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thanks. Just a couple of quick rea ctions to the answers from the minister. By the way, I appreci ate the minister getting up and actually participating in the debate.

He was talking about driving the policies, driving incentives, and I’m wondering if you a ctually have per formance me asurements that a re able t o measure that driving of incentives, as you put it. At one point he appeared to be saying that the increase in the tax base was related to this reduction in the business tax. Am I follow- ing his thinking correctly, believing that the justification there is that if the business tax goes down, this is his job creation argument? Is that where that came from? I didn’t s ee those two things going together particularly.

I don’t know that the reduction in the business tax put more money in the pockets of average Albertans, but that’s the linkage I think I heard him make. Lastly, he references the ability to leverage wealth through these companies that can invest wealth and therefore make more. But to me all that does is underline the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and I don’t think that’s something we need to be admiring that exists in the United States. Is he recommending that he thinks that’s a good policy to be importing into Alberta?

So just very quickly, based on what he reacted, those were some of the questions that cam e to mind. I’m most interes ted in the performance measurements.

Alberta Hansard November 19, 20031764 Dr. Pan nu: Mr. Chairm an, with y our indulgence , I aske d the minister a specific question with respect to the revenues that will be gone by nex t year if this bill is pas sed. How many millions of dollars will go to small business? Please define what you mean by small business so that we know what you are talking about. How many millions of dollars will go to large corporations? That’s one of the questions that I asked, and I didn’t get a clear answer to it. Mr. Melchin: Mr.

Chairman, to the last question about the split of the deduction to sm all vers us large business, a good question. Actually, I apologize; I don’t have that figure with me right now. I’d be happy to provide that to you at a later time so that you’ve got that information as to the quantity and the dollar amount. Small business in this cat egory is still de fined by the sm all business tax rat e. We’r e increa sing our thre sholds gra dually to $400,000. That’s what’s coming on this.

The rates this year are going down to 4 percent and will eventually drop to 3 percent on the small business, but the sm all busines s categ ory w ould no w b e defined as those thresholds below $400,000 of taxable income. So we can quantify what the split of the tax reduction would be. 8:50 As for the question on performance measures, specifically with the Alberta royalty tax credit, that is ac tually the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy. It’s administered through the corporate tax, and that’s why the amendment is being introduced through the Revenue department.

We administer the corporate income tax, but the royalty rates and the polic y around the Alberta royalt y tax credit and performance measures are all p art of the Mi nister of E nergy’s department. I think those would be appropriate questions to br ing forward in revie w of the budget of the Minister of Energ y or otherwise in a debate. [The clauses of Bill 41 agreed to] [Title and

preamble agreed to] The Deputy Chair: Shall the bill be reported? Are you agreed? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Deputy Chair: Opposed? Carried. The hon. Deputy Government House Leader. Mr. Stevens: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we rise and report Bill 41 and report progress on Bill 43. [Motion carried] [Mr. Shariff in the chair] Mr. Lougheed: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has had under consideration certain bills. The com mittee reports Bil l 41. The committee reports progress on Bill 43.

I wish to table copies of all amendments considered by the Committee of the Whole on this date for the official records of the Assembly. I’d also like to table copies of documents tabled during Committee of the Whole this day for the official records of the Assembly. The Acting Speaker: Does the Assembly concur in the report? Hon. Members: Agreed. The Acting Speaker: Opposed? So ordered. head : Government Bills and Orders head: Second Reading Bill 45 Family Law Act [Adjourned debate November 19: Ms Blakeman] The Acting Speaker: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre? The hon. Member for Edmonton-Mill Woods. Dr.

Massey: Thank you, Mr. Speak er. I’m pleased to hav e the opportunity to make a few comments about Bill 45, the Family Law Act. I’d like to address the bill from the unique perspect ive of a relatively new grandparent. The last four years have been a bit of an eye-opener in terms of looking at the world through the perspective of a grandparent.

It is from that perspective that I would like to look at Bill 45 and to base my comments on some of the work that was presented by the Alberta grandparents association in their presenta- tion to the family law reform project of Alberta Justice in Edmonton on September 30, 2003. In their document they make a number of points that I think are extremely important from a grandparent’s and a grandchild’s perspective with respect to Bill 45.

Their overall judgment of the sections in the bill that affect grandparents is that Bill 45 really puts the onus on grandparents to take actio n for access in extra ordinary fashion, a nd the rights of grandchildren having a ccess to th eir grandpar ents are even more restricted in intact f amilies where the grandpa rent is re quired to obtain leave of the court prior to bringing application for access.

It seems that this onus on the grandparents is contradictory in terms of the years of res earch that describe the benefi ts to childre n and to parents and to grandparen ts wh en that gr andparent/grandchild relationship is nurtured and protected. It’s of major concern to that association and, I expect, to grandparents across the province. They supplied som e statis tics on the num ber of g randchildren living with grandparents where there are no parents present, and in Alberta in 2001 that amounted to 7,00 0 grandchildren , no t an insignificant number of youn gsters who are re siding with their grandparents.

So the association has a concern that grandparents are being pressed to unnecessary and extraordinary action to preserve the relati onship with their grandchildr en, and they base thei r observations on five I think rather strong beliefs. One is that grandparents provide a very stabilizing force in times of family crisis and that they actually reduce the reliance on public services in situations like this.

They indicate – an d some research will support it – tha t child deve lopment is fostered by socializing with grandparents, the kind of financial and emotional support that they get, the passing on of history and traditions, that that relation- ship is a source of strength for children in times of cr isis, and that grandparents are the one s that ca n provide tha t strengt h. There’s some research that indicates that those relationships with grandpar- ents affect relationships with their own grandchildren and grandchil- dren two generations later.

They indicate that in terms of developmental issues, research has found that it’s that unconditional love that grandparents bestow upon children that aids i n the deve lopment of their sel f-esteem and efficacy. I think that if you tal k to any g randparent, Mr. Speaker, they’ll confirm that one thing that you do learn, that all of us learn from grandpar ents is un conditional lo ve, what it means to give unconditional love. They point out in their presentation the positive psychological effect that this has on children, on their grandchildren. The fifth poin t that th ey make with re spect to the benefits of

November 19, 2003 Alberta Hansard 1765 children havin g acces s to grandparents is the continuity that grandparents provide in relationships. With divorce rates and with economic hardships and drug and al cohol abuse, grandparents are for many young c hildren the only stabiliz ing forc e. Again, that relationship can reduce the reliance of families on public resources. I think the five sort of beliefs, that are supported by research in some cases, that the grandparents put forward are worthy of consideration, particularly when we look at the principles and in fact, when we get into committee, the specific provisions of Bill 45. 9:00 I think the

summary is that grandparents and others will be able to apply for access to children, and the test that must be satisfied for grandparents goes well past the usual best interests of the child. It includes a requirement that grandparents and others prove that the child’s health would be jeopardized if access is not granted, and this, I think we would agree, is a test that’s unnecessary and maybe really a very difficult test for persons t o satisfy, especially if the child is very young. At second reading we’re to look at the principles.

I think that the Alberta grandparents association has put forward some very sound principles that should be reflected in the legislation. When it comes to Comm ittee of the Whole, I would al so hope th at we might consider some of the specific amendments that they have suggested that would take away some of the less attractive aspects of Bill 45 as far as grandparents in the province are concerned. Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. The Acting Speaker: Under Standing Order 29 does any member have any questions for the hon. Member for Edmonton-Mill Woods? The hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona. Dr.

Pannu: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a few brief observations on Bill 45, the Family Law Act, as we begin the debate in second reading. The New De mocrat caucu s has al so rec eived some representations, some expression of concern by parent organizations and by some individual parents who have called in to ask us to draw the attention of this Assembly to the provisions of the bill which will make it more difficult than is presently the case for grandparents to have access to their grandchildren. Even in the case of families which are intact families, the issue is complex; there is no doubt.

There is the question, particularly when it comes to families that are healthy, that are intact, of the rights of the children themselves. The r ights of parents clearly are also important and have to be respected, but gran dparents see some unnecessary new obstacles they’re asked to jump over, if you wish, in ord er to sati sfy the authorities to have access to children.

The question of the psychological health of children in addition to their physical well-being certainly is an issue that needs the most careful attention of this H ouse when debating thi s bill and deba ting th e provisions which are designed to regulate ac cess to childre n by grandparents and other interested relatives and persons.

I haven’t had, I must confess, enough time to look through the bill as amended, which was given to us this afternoon by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, before it ca me up for discu ssion tonight, so I will have perhaps more to say on it later on during the debate on this bill at the committee stage. At this stage I just wanted to share with the House some of the concer ns that w e have he ard about from grandparents who see the provisions of the bill as a bit too restrictive from the point of view of some concerned grandpar- ents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Act ing Spea ker: Any que stions for the hon. Mem ber for Edmonton-Strathcona under Standing Order 29? There being no ne, the hon. Me mber for Calga ry-Lougheed to close debate. Ms Graham: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just briefly to respond to the comments made by the members for Edm onton-Mills Woods and Edmonton-Strathcona about grandpa rents’ right to seek access by way of a contact order when the situation is an intact family.

Yes, it is a very difficult situation, and the policy decision was made to try and strike a balance, because the considerations are a little different in an intact family where there is no contact between grandchild and grandparent versus one where the contact is due to a separation of the guardians , the parent s, or perhaps the death of one of th e guardians or parents. Of course, the test is always the best interests of the child, but the thinking was that it was not unr easonable in an intac t fam ily situation to require a n application to be made for leave before the full application could be brought.

There’s certainly not a denial of access by grandparents in this situat ion to apply but just a higher onus t o satisfy the need because of the potential ram ifications of such an application to the parents in an intact situation. I agree. I sympathize with the Alberta grandparents association and the position that they have taken. Well, I can’t say any more than that I do sympathize, but I do believe that the policy dec ision that has b een mad e has str uck a good balance in a very difficult situation, trying to choose the best for all parties concerned. So with that, Mr.

Speaker, I’ll conclude my remarks and ask you to call the question. [Motion carried; Bill 45 read a second time] head : Government Bills and Orders head: Committee of the Whole (continued) [Mr. Shariff in the chair] The Deputy Chair: We’ll call the committee to order. Bill 45 Family Law Act The Deputy Chair: Are there any comments, questions, or amend- ments to be offered with respect to this bill? The hon. Member for Calgary-Lougheed. Ms Graha m: Thank y ou very much, M r. Ch airman. It is my pleasure this evening to open committee consideration of Bill 45.

At the table there is a large package of amendments to this bill which I would request be distributed at this time. 9:10 The Deputy Chair: The amendments are being distributed currently, and for the record we shall refer to these amendments as amendment A1. If you’ll just hang on for a minute while the amendments are being circulated. Hon. member, you may proceed now. Ms Graham: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that you have declared that the package of amendments would be marked A1, and that is my request, that these am endments be considered as one package and voted on as a single unit.

Due to the extensive nature of these amendments, which have been realized after very extensive input from Albertans since the bill was introduced last spring, I

Alberta Hansard November 19, 20031766 would like to give all members adequate time to review the contents of the am endments as contai ned in A1, a nd thus it wou ld be my request and I do mov e that the re b e adjournm ent of deba te on committee consideration of Bill 45 until we sit again. [Motion to adjourn debate carried] Mr. Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I move that we rise and report progress on this bill. [Motion carried] [Mr. Shariff in the chair] Mr. McClelland: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has had under consideration and reports progress on Bill 45.

I wish to table copies of all amendments considered by the Committee of the Whole on this date for the official records of the Assembly. The Acting Speaker: Does the Assembly concur in the report? Hon. Members: Concur. The Acting Speaker: Opposed? So ordered. head : Government Bills and Orders head: Second Reading (continued) Bill 44 Personal Information Protection Act [Adjourned debate November 19: Mr. MacDonald] The Acting Speaker: The hon. Member for Edmonton-Centre. Ms Blakeman: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.

I’m grateful to the Assembly for allowing us to continue the debate in second reading for Bill 44, the Personal Information Protection Act. I think one of the things we have to be careful about with this bill is that once privacy has been violated, it cannot be restored. Once violated, it cannot be unviolated. So it behooves us to be extremely cautious in the areas that we allow this bill to move forward on. One of the other things that I think is really important with this bill is that we create certainty.

Certainly, the request that I’ve had from the business community is: we just want to k now what it is w e’re supposed to do, because we’re supposed to do it in six weeks, by the 1st of January. Some of them have been having seminars on what the federal legislation is and are preparing themselves to achieve the bar set by the federal legislation on January 1, 2004, if, in fact, this provincial legislation doesn’t supercede it. Just a s a refresher, the deal is that the provinces can pass their own legislation as long as it meets or exceeds the standards that are set by the federal legislation.

Therein lies the rub. Who decides whether it meets or excee ds? That’s where we start to get into the interesting ne gotiation points here. But what I’ve heard very clearly from the business community is: just create certainty for us, please; we need to move on here. The other thing that I have experienced in working with collection of people’s personal information.

In that, we’re talking about things that identify them, so either personal identifying information like a date of birth, personal appearance, address, phone number, contact information in other words, sex, marital status – and the list starts to get ev er lo nger there – but identif ying inf ormation, where i f somebody looked at i t or thought about it, if the y read it in the newspaper, could they figure out that it was you? Could they track you back to your add ress? Would they know that the person with this name and particular gender is their neighbour?

So identifying information is what we’re talking about here. The problem with collecting personal information about people is that it always tends to ge t away from u s because there’s always a great reason to use the information for just one more reason than you collected it for.

It is overwhelming, the temptation to use it, because once the information is already there, what does it harm to just use it for one more really, really good reason: to extend a special offer to somebody, to give them something free, to let them know informa- tion about something that we’re sure – and I’ll underline that – they would want to know about. Well, gosh, that other pers on has already collected all the inf ormation. Why do n’t we just use it ? That would be so handy. And that’s where the problem is.

So the issue here is that once the information has been collected, the individual needs to have given their consent that it be collected, and it can only be used for what it was collected for. I think that’s the very minimum standard that we need to be seek ing to achieve here. It is a struggle because we have so many different reasons to want to use som ebody else’s list, someone else’s information, or indeed for us to use the information. We collected it for a particular reason, and gosh, wouldn’t it be perfect if we could use that information for this other reason as well?

You know, we collected it because people contacted us and said that they wanted information on bills and motions we were debating in the House, but we’d love to send them a Christmas card t oo. Well, we didn’t collect the information to send them a Ch ristmas card. A lovely thing to do, and doesn’t it seem kind of silly that we couldn’t send them a Christmas card? What a nice thing to do. But we collected that information, and we had their permission to use it to give them information on bills and motions.

So you can see how easy it is to just slide right along there and start to use that information for something outside of the reasons we collected it for. That’s what makes this legislation so important and the onus on us to be very vigilant with how we allow it to be used so important. Of course, the question is always: well, is the glass half full, or is the glass half empty? Is this good enough or not? We are creating essentially new leg islation her e, or rathe r we’re extending it to a whole sector that’s never had any experience with it.

To a certai n extent the sectors that are already involved in protection of privacy have had for a long period of time some familiarity with it. Specifi- cally, there I’m talking about government and health sectors. You know, they’re used to having personal information and having some onus on them to be careful with it. That has not been the case, and I think it coul d be argue d that it was exactly the oppos ite in the private sector.

That’s what all the mail houses were about and a ll those interesting way s that people had to c ollect that mailing information and then get you on a mailing list and send you flyers for a hundred things. 9:20 One of the good things that I see in this legislation – but I don’t at this point think it’s enough to outweigh the things that I’m critical of – is that the disputes under Bill 44, under a n Alberta version of personal information protection, could be adjudicated by the Alberta FOIP Commissioner, so locally resolved.

If we’re underneath the federal legislation, then it goes to the federal Privacy Commissioner, and, you know, that’s just farther away, and they may not understand regional differences, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m much happier with it being a local mediation process or arbitration process. There have been a couple of sp eakers on this already, but I just want to go through a few things that, again, I’ve noticed in particu- lar. This was interesting. You know, we all, I’m sure, as legislators

November 19, 2003 Alberta Hansard 1767 get lobby letters from individuals, and of cour se when we start to identify that it’s exactly the same letter with the same headings on it and that it looks the same, we start to sort of discount the importance of it or at le ast we go, “W ell, you know, this is a campaign from somebody,” and we understand it in context. I have never seen form letters coming from businesses u ntil th is bill, and here we have exactly the sa me letter coming from Enmax a nd somebody else: exactly the same formatting, the same heading, word for word.

It quite made me laugh; I’d never seen that happen before. Talisman Energy: who would have thunk it? There you go. Enmax, Talisman Energy. So they must have had a little energy confab and decided to write form letters. Too funny. Anyway, just a little aside there.

You know, I have a problem with the c oncept of “reasonable person,” especially as it affects this collection and use of personal information, partly because with the reasonable person, the person on the street, there’s been a lot of effort put into convincing them of the goodness, the purity, the usefulness, even the benefits of handing over your per sonal infor mation. A ll of those loyalt y cards f or shopping conveni ence: that’s all about collecting your personal shopping habits.

How they get you to buy into this and happily tell them every single thing you purchase and what size you purchase it in is all about: “Well, you’ll get a discount. You’ll get credit points. You’ll get money off. You’ll get special sales.” We’ve now all been conditioned to this, so the th ought of the se loyalty cards is: “Oh, great. That’s a good thing. ” Yeah, w ell, then how do you turn around and say to that same person: “O kay. Let’s look at a test. You’re the reasonable person. Let’s look at the test of when we let that information out, when we collect it”?

I think that that process has already been tainted, and I don’t know that using that as a test is reasonable anymore. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s reasonable anymore. I have real problems with the grandfathering of information that was collected prior to January 1, 2004, provided that the information is used for the same – here w e go ag ain – reasona ble purpose f or which it was originally collected. How close is reasonable here? My example: “Well, we’ve got the people that submitted their informa- tion to the Legislature to use to send them information on bills and motions.

Can we get away with sending them a Christmas card?” Is that reas onable here or not ? It’s not clear e nough, and I don’t think that information should be grandfathered. I think the onus has to be to go ba ck and notify those people again, and I’ll give you a very concrete example of where I saw that happen before. When I was with the Ad visory Counci l on Wome n’s Issues, I organized the collection of a huge amount of contact information for women in the provinc e to get i nformation on the w ork we were doing around id entifying issues on the status of wom en in the province.

I think we ended up with a 5,000-name database, which 10, 12, 13 years ago was a big database. So we’d collected informa- tion from those women. In my mind we had their permission to use their addresses to send them information about the work that was being done on the status of women. As the government started to change and realign and add depart- ments toget her an d what event ually became the Departm ent of Community Development, the advisory council was sort of attached to the side of that and eventually subsumed under the Department of Community Development.

The great idea here was: that was grand; we were just going to use that database and add it into and mix it up with all the information they’d already collected on people interested in the arts and human rights and everything else that ended up under Community Development. I said, very forcefully: no. I felt a responsibility to those women, that I’d collected that information from them specifically to give them information on women’s issues, and in a lot of cases for the work that we w ere doing at the time, these were w omen that probably had som e fairly close encounter with domestic violence issues.

The thought of them now receiving flyers about do you want to take a pottery class and multicultural folk dancing was not at all what they had signed on for, and I protested the use of it. But you can see how it made perfect sense. It seemed perfectly reasonable that if the government was going to amalgamate all these departments, they would amalgamate all the databases. Of course. Why not? Because people were interested in information. Surely if they were interested in women’s issues, they would also be interested in the arts and human r ights and m ulticulturalism. Abs olutely. Sports and recreation. Parks.

Absolutely. If they were interested in one, being that kind of person, they’d be interested in it all. But that’s not why we had their permission to use their informa- tion, and you can see how quickly you slip onto that if you don’t say: that’s it, there’s no grandfathering. You have to go back to every- body and get that permission again. Start over. You have to go back and get their permission. I think there ’s also an issue arou nd the third par ty. I’m seeing some familiar things here, and to me the flaws in the FOIP legisla- tion that we have in the province are being instituted into this bill as well.

That’s around being able to not give someone access to their personal information if a th ird party gave i t or if a third party is involved. Well, I’ve heard that before. That sounds very familiar. The issue about charging for fees. The federal legislation says a minimum charge. This says – oh, here we go – is it reasonable? A reasonable charge again. Well, reasonable to who? We’ve had in the Official Opposition bills offered up of $75,000 to get information from the gove rnment. I don’t call that reasonable. I’d call it an impediment to getting that information.

I think there are a number of other examples there where too much has been borrowed from our current FOIP legislation. I also wanted to raise the issue: again, there’s too much left up to the decision-making of cabinet, of Lieutenant Governor in Council, to be put in regulations and all after the fact. I think we have to be extra careful to be transparent and accountable on this l egislation. So I’m not comfortable with that. I thi nk t here’s another issu e aro und the pri vacy r ights i n the employment information. I think there are a number of flaws that are appearing under that

section as well. So in principle I’m not sure whether I can support this bill or not. I need to be convinced that this legislation is going to be better for all Albertans than what’s already in place federally, and I think the federal one could use some streamlining, but I’m not convinced that this supercedes it. Thank you. 9:30 The Acting Speaker: Standing Order 29 kicks in. Any questions for the hon. member? The hon. Deputy Government House Leader. Mr. Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I move that we adjourn debate on this bill. [Motion to adjourn debate carried] The Acting Speaker: The hon. Deputy Government House Leader.

Mr. Steven s: Thanks, Mr. Speak er. We’ ve ma de some good progress tonight, and I sugges t that we adjourn until tomorrow afternoon at 1:30. [Motion carried; at 9:31 p.m. the Assembly adjourned to Thursday at 1:30 p.m.]

Alberta Hansard November 19, 20031768

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Collection	Alberta — Debates (Hansard)
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