Edmonton-based Métis singer-songwriter Celeigh Cardinal has earned one of the highest honours in Canadian music.
Cardinal earned a 2020 Juno Award for Indigenous Artist of the Year on Monday during a special virtual ceremony after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled in-person ceremonies that were set to take place in Saskatoon in March.
Source: Celeigh Cardinal wins 2020 Juno for Indigenous Artist of the Year | CBC News
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced his recovery plan for the province last Monday. He says it’s bold and ambitious but it includes doubling down on fossil fuel development, money for infrastructure and jobs, as well as lowering the tax rate for corporate businesses. He has also promised to put $500 million into health care. Perhaps he’s going in circles — he just got through trashing health care in the province. He and others have already proven that lowering the tax rate doesn’t create jobs, but in the same tired rhetoric of old, he promised 50,000 new jobs. If this all seems a little incredible, that’s because it is.
Setting tax rates like they were twenty years ago isn’t going to work. You can’t shift all the burden to the working class when a lot of them are either looking for work, or working a job that only pays half of what it used to. There have been a lot of personal bankruptcies over the last few years and people have lost their jobs, families and homes. Staggering into a hotel drunk and throwing money on the floor while screaming at people to get to work isn’t any good. Trying to prevent all the creeps and bums from coming to Alberta to drain its’ resources can’t be solved by buying these folks a one-way ticket to British Columbia. Waiting for the next oil boom to kick in, isn’t the long term plan we need for this province.
There was a downturn of oil in the 90’s. Premier Ralph Klein worked with the federal government to devise ways to make the industry more viable. He never once inferred he was going to set up shop in Ottawa and wait for the government to notice him. He wasn’t waiting for the government to give him some money so he would get out of town. When he stepped down in 2006, one of the reasons was the party’s concern that Albertans were not getting enough money for their resources. Greed had taken over.
Some could argue the party hasn’t changed much except that some of its wealth is coming from cutting health care, firing nurses and teachers’ aids, plus making it harder for anyone smarter than him to get an education in the province. That’s a shame. It isn’t oil that’s going to save the province.
Bankruptcies rose by 50% this year over last year in Canada and the United States. In Canada there have been a lot. Here is a partial list:
There could be more in the near future. Here’s a list, of all companies that have been granted protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) since 2009 in Canada. Currently it has 391 entries. With these lists of insolvency and those granted protection it makes it hard to believe the Alberta government is expecting most of it’s revenue, over the next three years, to come from oil and gas.
On April 14, 2020 the Rabble reported, “High production costs have stymied bitumen expansion for now, and probably as long at it takes for the world to run down known conventional oil and gas reserves, which could be as much as 50 years.
“On a recent visit to Washington, Kenney lashed out at U.S. Democratic party presidential hopefuls for favouring oil imports from Middle Eastern dictatorships, and blocking pipeline access to the U.S. from Canada, its liberal democratic neighbour and long-time ally.
“No amount of name calling and finger pointing by Jason Kenney will make bitumen production competitive against low-cost producers determined to price competitors out of the market. That low pricing was a business decision, made in a competitive market.”
Joe Biden’s campaign promised to put an end to Keystone XL. Mr. Kenny might as well have kept his finger at home or found another use for it.
Three of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies are planning to become net-zero carbon emitters by 2050. And, as Energy Intelligence noted recently in an industry analysis, there are only two ways to attain the net-zero state: reduce the production of oil and gas, and capture the already emitted carbon dioxide.
When three of the biggest oil and gas companies see the change coming the Alberta government doesn’t see, the future looks worrisome. It’s already causing some uneasiness in certain sectors, including the Canadian banks that are still investing in the industry.
Premier Jason Kenney and Travis Toews outlined their economic recovery plan. The Alberta federation of Labour said, “Jason Kenney’s economic recovery plan won’t be worth the paper it’s written on if, as expected, he pairs it with a brutal attack on worker rights that strips working Albertans of bargaining power and suppresses their wages.”
One of the items that he should have been called out on by a reporter was when he said, “For those rightly concerned about the fiscal future, Mr. Toews will be tabling a frank update on the provinces finances later this summer. Albertans will have tough choices to make about how to get our finances back in order.”
You can hear Mr. Kenney say it in this captured audio clip around the eleven-minute mark.
A new bill from the Alberta government aims to the end the province’s ban on the private purchase of human blood.
The bill will repeal the province’s Voluntary Blood Donations Act introduced by the now Opposition New Democrats in 2017.
Other provinces ban the sale of blood plasma. When it was banned for sale in Alberta the NDP argument was :
Currently, Canadian Blood Services collects plasma, but only has the capacity to create approximately 20% of the plasma products needed for Canada. They have indicated that the introduction of pay-for-plasma sites in other jurisdictions have decreased the amount of donations coming from volunteers.
Donor compensation may lead to a disconnected and fragmented national blood system. Without legislation there is also a risk that the voluntary blood donor pool that Canadian Blood Services relies upon to support our national blood system will be depleted. This may happen if donors are financially motivated to donate to a private collection clinic instead of donating voluntarily to Canadian Blood Services.
Canadian Blood Services was created to operate and manage the blood supply for the provinces and territories. Canadian Blood Services currently coordinates, collects, tests and processes blood components, and dispenses blood components and blood products to Canadian hospitals.
The federal government was going to outlaw the sale of blood plasma with Bill S-252. The last time it was debated in Parliament was September 2019. It went before the senate but wasn’t passed. Premier Jason Kenney and his government are free to appeal the ban in Alberta.
One of the reasons it even made it this far is plasma being sold across Canada became infected with HIV.
After the devastating tainted blood scandal of the 1980s, in which nearly 30,000 Canadians were infected with hepatitis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Canadian governments promised to never let such a tragedy happen again. A Royal Commission into tainted blood found that profiteering and lax standards contributed to the entry of tainted blood into the blood supply.
Canada’s oil and gas sector has lost billions since the pandemic spread to Canada. Alberta is losing a lot of revenue too. It’s estimated that this sector is ten percent of our GDP. The pandemic can’t be blamed for a lot of it as a price war between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia continues.
A federal multibillion-dollar bailout package was announced as well as a $200 million loan to Alberta’s Orphan Well Association to help fund re-mediating the land where abandoned wells are located. These loans come with certain conditions the companies must agree to, with an increasing interest rate and warrants the government can convert to cash up to 15% of the loan. They also must agree to better reporting on environmental issues and have the possibility that the government can place an observer on their board of directors.
These agreements are certainly advantageous to the government as a source of additional income and tighter controls on environmental damage and pollution. It’s noted that a system similar to this could be applied to other loans, guarantees and bailouts. Not only federally, but provincially as well.
A good example could be the Northern Pulp’s mill in Pictou Nova Scotia. The provincial Liberals have announced they will offer up to 10 million to help the company with their cleanup of the site, which includes a pond full of effluent and toxic waste. This is not the only instance.
In March 2010 the government loaned them $75 million so it could purchase 475,000 acres of land from the company that previously operated the Abercrombie Point mill, Neenah Paper. But this isn’t the only time…
It was estimated last year that the company owes the Nova Scotia government over $85 million. Taxpayers have been left on the hook for much of it, and with rumours of it shutting down for good, it could mean even more liability for Nova Scotia, which is owned by a family of Indonesian billionaires.
Collecting interest on these loans, as well as having an observer sitting on their board of directors, would have saved the government money and prevented such a toxic environmental mess.
The bailout packages being offered to oil and gas corporations in Alberta are referred to by the government as bridge-loans. It doesn’t stop there. These loans are being offered to all big Canadian businesses to help them stay afloat during the pandemic.
Companies receiving them must submit a climate plan and how their businesses will become more sustainable.
If these types of loans are implemented after the pandemic, it could get us closer to having corporations and the environment co-exist, and provide a solid step towards an energy transition.