SOCIAL CREDIT PLATFORM
R U READY? For education that meets the needs of students and employers?
R U READY? For first class service in health care?
R U READY? For a better share of energy resource wealth for all Albertans?
R U READY? For reasonably priced utilities?
R U READY? For affordable housing?
R U READY? For Alberta business owned by Albertans?
R U READY? For a pristine environment?
Albertans are invited to review the contents of our platform and judge for themselves if these are concerns that they share in common with us. Click here to open.
Let’s Help Home-Grown Oil and Gas Companies
It seems that every other day an Alberta company is being gobbled-up by a multinational. This is particularly disheartening when we watch the control of our oil and gas industry slipping away. Currently, we see the efforts of two home-grown companies to merge and become stronger being thwarted by a multinational that wants to get into the oil and gas business to offset its costs for energy.
Cadence Energy Inc. and Daylight Resources Trust want to merge to take advantage of synergies at adjacent light oil-producing pools in northern Alberta.
Barrick Gold Corp. wants to buy Cadence so it can use its 3,600 barrels per day of oil equivalent to offset about one-quarter of its surging energy costs in its mining operations.
Should we sit back and let the selfish needs of Barrick trump over the noble goal of Cadence and Daylight building a stronger Alberta company that could eventually grow to become a major?
We must give our entrepreneurs an Alberta Advantage. Let’s collect an additional 10% in royalties from companies that are not Alberta corporations. Let’s build a fund from these additional royalties that will provide investment capital needed to grow Alberta oil and gas companies.
Let this be our first step towards regaining control of our resources, environment and economy!
Len Skowronski
PC Government Shames Albertans
For over two decades, conscientious Albertans have been urging the PC government to properly manage the development of our oil and gas resources. Our call has mostly been ignored. Now the world is taking notice of this government’s failings and Albertans are being perceived as polluters, major global warming contributors and poor fiscal planners.
Politicians in the USA are threatening to boycott our “dirty oil”. The Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) chastised us for saving so little of our resource wealth, pointing out that Norway has built a fund of $400 billion while Alberta has only $16 billion in its Heritage Trust Fund.
What has the government done to respond to these criticisms? The Premier visited US politicians, arguing that they should suppress their environmental concerns in order to sustain a reliable supply of oil and gas. $24 million will be spent to propagate the message “things are not as bad as they seem”. A third of the budget surplus will be saved.
The government has missed the point. Substantial actions rather than excuses are needed. Suspend the allocation of new leases and the approval of new projects until a comprehensive oilsands plan is developed. Limit the use of natural gas and fresh water for bitumen recovery. Capture the carbon dioxide created during the recovery and processing of bitumen and store it or use it in some other productive process.
This year the total budget surplus should be saved. At least a third of our oil and gas revenues should be saved in subsequent years.
Len Skowronski
Buy Back Alberta!
Establishing the Alberta Investment Management Corp. (AIMCo) to manage the $70 billion in the Heritage Trust and other funds could prove beneficial to Albertans provided the Alberta government leads this organization with the appropriate oversight and mandate.
First, immediate oversight action is needed to stop the building of an empire for Alberta Finance personnel. Why does this start-up investment organization need to have a staff of 150 when it has only one client, the Alberta government?
Secondly, although growing our funds through wise investment is a laudable goal, this organization should be given a larger, long-term mandate: Buy Back Alberta! Instead of participating in a $7.4-billion takeover of a power and gas utility in Washington State, AIMCo should focus on initiating and growing Alberta-owned ventures in Alberta and the rest of Canada.
We should use this capital to regain control of our resources, environment and economy by taking equity interests in all future oils sands projects, including the building of bitumen upgrading plants. Likewise, we should provide capital investment in Alberta-owned food processing and merchandising companies so that they could compete with the foreign-owned companies that now control these sectors in Alberta. Let’s help build our own Exxons, Cargills and Wal-Marts.
Given the right vision from the government, AIMCo could use the funds in its care to reverse the tide of foreign takeovers in Alberta and the rest of Canada, so that we would become “Masters in our own house”.
Len Skowronski
Two-Tiered Health-Care Coming to Alberta
So Calgary is going to have the dubious honour of becoming the place where two-tiered health-care began in Alberta. Copeman Healthcare is planning to establish a health centre that will charge clients $2900 to $3900 per year to have guaranteed access to health-care services. The CEO of this company says he loves the public health-care system. Of course he does, for the company will still be paid for medical services by the government in addition to the $1.5 million per year it will receive from the 500 clients invited to receive this preferred status.
If this business is established, we could see a rush of other doctors charging their patients an annual fee for the privilege of having them as their family doctors. Those who cannot afford this fee will face even longer wait times while the rich jump the queue.
Health Minister Liepert indicated that he will not interfere with this business coming to Alberta since the B.C. Government found it to be within the provisions of the Canada Health Act. Now, if we are just going to follow the lead of B.C. in health-care policy do we really need a Health Minister in Alberta? Liepert should show some intestinal fortitude, stand up for equal access to health-care for all Albertans and prevent this company from bringing a two-tiered health-care system into Alberta.
Len Skowronski