Bill 11 Livestock Industry Diversification Amendment Act, 2011

April 26, 2011

Mr. Anderson: That was an excellent, excellent speech by the hon. Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar. That’s where I live when I’m in Edmonton, Edmonton-Gold Bar. That was a great speech.

I’m going to start tonight by getting something on the record immediately. I’ve talked about this previously, but since we’re going to be in here together for the next couple of hours, a few hours, five hours, I guess, tomorrow, likely, I think there needs to be an understanding of where I’m coming from on this bill. My parents always taught me growing up that when someone makes a mistake, they need to fess up to it. They need to correct it. They need to admit to it, and they need to try to make up for it or make restitution for it as fast as they possibly can.

In 2009, when this bill was passed, I spoke in this Legislative Assembly in favour of Bill 36, no doubt about it. My good friends over there have put it on YouTube. It’s there for the whole world to see. I absolutely spoke in favour of it, and I did so of my own free will and choice. I could sit here in this Assembly and say: “You know what? I didn’t have enough time.” And there’s truth in that. I didn’t have enough time to look over the bill. I don’t think any of us did over there. It was rammed through very quickly, very short time period, very thick bill, and I don’t think we had anywhere near the time we needed to consult with our constituents, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I could say that. That is an excuse. [A cellphone rang] That’s not me, by the way.

I could also say that I trusted the opinion of the minister and the Justice minister at the time as well as the Premier. I thought that they had more thoroughly reviewed the bill and gotten expert legal opinion on it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and I trusted them. I could use that as an excuse, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse.

I could also say that when I was over on that side of the House, all votes were whipped. We all know that that’s the case, especial-ly for any kind of important legislation or any kind of government legislation.

An Hon. Member: No.

Mr. Anderson: Yeah, I know. It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe.

I could say that that’s why I voted for the bill, but I’m not going to say that.

I voted for the bill because I made a mistake, and I want to apologize to the people of Alberta for standing up in this Assembly and speaking in favour of a bill that absolutely is a harmful bill, is not what Albertans want. I made a mistake. I fess up to it fully. No questions asked, no excuses.

Our former Premier, Ralph Klein, taught Albertans, I think, a lot of things. One of the things he taught us, one of his lasting legacies – and he’ll have a lot as opposed to the current Premier – is that when he made a mistake, he acknowledged it. Whether it was a personal issue or whether it was a policy issue, he’d say, “I made a mistake,” and he would back away. He would say “Sorry,” correct it, and move on. That is what made that man so popular in this province. Even though no doubt everyone agrees that he made quite a few mistakes, by and large he stepped back when he made a mistake. He listened to the people of Alberta. He would step away, and he would say: “You know what? I made a mistake there.” Obviously, you can’t make up for all your mistakes, but he would sure try, and that made him popular and beloved by most people in this province. There is a lesson to be learned from that politically. There was a reason he was able to be so popular for so long, because when he made a mistake, he was willing to say sorry and make up for it and make restitution.

In contrast we have this government, which is absolutely unable to admit when they have stepped on a snake and made a mistake. They just physically cannot seem to be able to do it. It’s like it’s beyond their capacity. I don’t know where that started, but for some reason it’s the case. We saw that with the royalty frame-work. We saw that, clearly, it was an absolute disaster. It was a botched policy that cratered thousands of jobs in this province, sent billions of dollars fleeing to Saskatchewan and British Columbia and the United States. It did so at the beginning of a recession, when we needed all hands on deck and all the economic stimulus possible. They had every excuse in the book to say: “You know what? We made a mistake to jump on this too quickly. We’re entering a recession. We need to stabilize things. We need to take another look.” No. Full steam ahead, no questions asked, and Albertans suffered because of it.

I don’t care what the bloody intentions of the government opposite were in that regard. Yeah, there were a few of us in that caucus that spoke out against that royalty framework, but every single time we did, we were shouted down, belittled, told to just relax, et cetera, et cetera, ignored, ignored, ignored. They went forward with that new royalty framework, and it was an absolute mistake. They started to back away from it slowly but surely, step by step, eight different changes, and they still wouldn’t admit that they had made a mistake, and they still don’t today. They blame it on the former finance minister, Dr. Oberg, or whatever. I mean, it’s just incredible. Just admit that a mistake was made and move on. Make up for the mistake. So there was the royalty disaster.

There was the health care disaster. I mean, the centralization of health care delivery and the superboard has been a total train wreck, and everybody can see that. I mean, costs have escalated out of control, double-digit increases in less than two years. There have been virtually no efficiencies made in health care due to this superboard amalgamation. It hasn’t worked, but has there been a mistake? Did Mr. Iron Hands over there, you know, Energy Minister Iron Hands make a mistake? No, he didn’t make any mistakes. Absolutely not. Good grief. Of course he made a mistake. Government made a mistake. They should back away from that and realize that the centralization of health care did not work.

We see this with the public inquiry. Mistakes have been made. Mistakes have been made with regard to the public inquiry. Clear-ly, people have been bullied. They’ve been intimated. Doctors, nurses, physicians, specialists, health care workers have been bul-lied time and time again, and there has been no admission of a mistake by this government. They’re not even necessarily in-volved in it. We don’t know. It would be nice to know. It would be nice to have a public inquiry on it. Then they could absolve their names. But no. Here we are. No mistakes. Full steam ahead. First it was: “No. We don’t need the Health Quality Council.” Then it was: “Okay. Yeah. We need the Health Quality Council but not a public inquiry.” I mean, they just don’t seem to under-stand what Albertans want, and then they don’t react to it accordingly. They don’t respect the will of the people in this regard.

And here we are with these property bills: Bill 50, a brutal bill. Absolutely no question that the Energy minister at the time, now the SRD minister, made a huge mistake with Bill 50. There’s no doubt. I know the debate that went on in caucus there. That was one of the few bills that there actually was a debate on in caucus. It was blasted through, and every single person in this Legislative Assembly except for a few who abstained from the vote voted for it. You know it’s a bad bill. You know we shouldn’t have usurped the role of the Alberta Utilities Commission. Everyone here knows that. Everyone knows the mistake that was made. Everyone knows these lines are probably not needed. We all know that, yet we barrel ahead with it.

We had a chance to repeal the bill here with a motion just the other day, the motion that I brought forward to the House. No, we’re not going to do anything. We had people here that I know voted against it in caucus standing up to vote for it here. What a joke. What an absolute joke that is, so dishonest with people’s constituents that they would vote for it in the House and against it in caucus. It’s worse than the people that are voting for it in caucus and in the House. Anyway, it’s just unbelievable.

Bill 36 is the next example. That was a mistake. I was part of that mistake. I voted for it. I spoke to it. It was wrong. Everywhere we go in this province – take it to the bank, guys – you’re going to lose dozens of seats in rural Alberta because of this bill. Take it to the bank. I mean, we could start naming names. We won’t, but I guarantee it’s going to happen because you won’t admit that a mistake has been made and that you need to correct course. Your constituents are not going to put up with it. You have a chance here to put this to a committee, do the right thing, and regain some of that lost support. Just do the right thing.

We were in Eckville the other night, as the Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar put it. It was an incredible night, and 400 or 500 people showed up. It was a healthy, good debate. There was no doubt in my mind who won the crowd that night. Then all the comments I heard from the ministers after, from the Minister of Education and others: “The fact was that it was a Wildrose crowd. You know, they put a whole bunch of Wildrose people in.” Come on. Good grief. You guys have been the government for 40 years, for Pete’s sake. You can’t fill a room? Holy smokes.

We didn’t put out any call or anything. We knew about this about 10 days ago and decided that, well, we’d better go see that; that sounds interesting. So we went. And guess what? So did 400 to 500 Albertans. And guess what? Frankly, the former Minister of SRD was booed out of the room by 500 rural Albertans. You know what? I guarantee that of those 500 rural Albertans – guarantee – 90 per cent of them voted Progressive Conservative the last election. I guarantee you that 90 per cent of the people in that room will not be voting Progressive Conservative in the next election. Take that to the bank. And their families and their friends and their neighbours won’t be either because this government won’t listen.

So I would ask the government again to learn from that very noble man Premier Klein, who came before the current Premier. When you make a mistake, admit it, back away from it, and do what your constituents want. That’s why we absolutely need to re-examine this bill, take it back to the drawing board and see how we want to proceed going forward.

One thing the Minister of SRD and the government is right on is this. Everybody wants good regional planning. No one is arguing against good regional planning, good conservation practices, making sure we take into account cumulative effects when we’re approving new projects, making sure we have enough water in the South Saskatchewan basin: all that stuff. We all agree on that. But Bill 36 and Bill 10 as an amendment to Bill 36 do not do that.

It is a central planning document; it is not a regional planning document. I don’t care. In the bill itself it specifically says that these regional commissions, that the government appoints, by the way, these RACs – what are they called? – regional advisory panels, commissions, whatever they are, are appointed by the government, so that’s not democratic to start. Aside from all that – say that it was democratic and that these were locally elected officials – they don’t have to take into account anything that these people talk about, anything that they advise, anything where they say: here’s what we advise the government to do. They don’t have to listen. The government doesn’t have to listen to a word they say.

You know, it’s great that they say, “Oh, we’ll take it under advisement,” and “We’re doing consultation.” No. That just means that the central planning government is going to talk to local people, a few people that they appoint, about what they think should be in the plan. That’s not democracy. That’s not regional planning and decentralized decision-making. That is socialistic central planning, and it’s wrong. It’s not what we should be doing. There’s no doubt we should be giving these folks tools. One of the reasons I voted for the bill in the first place was, quite frankly, because I like the idea of transferable development credits and these types of things, but I like them as tools. They should be tools that municipalities and regional authorities have to use in order to compensate landowners. It should be a tool in the tool box, et cetera, and those are good. Let’s talk about giving the municipalities and giving these local authorities those tools in their tool box. That’s a good part of the bill.

Where we went way wrong on this, where the big mistake was made, clearly, was by enshrining all power to plan land use in this province in the hands of cabinet ministers behind closed doors. We have 13 individuals that, essentially, have dictatorial power over every land-use planning decision in this province. They can do whatever. Shake your head, Minister of Education, but every single decision has to comply with the regional plan. Whatever you say from cabinet, you may allow them to do stuff, you know, by your good graces, allow the municipalities to have some autonomy and do some things, but it’s completely at your discretion. If you want to come down with the hammer and plan, you can do it. You’re allowed to do it, and they have to comply. That’s just the way it is. Every landowner, every company, every individual, every municipality has to comply with what the government says the planning should be in that area.

Everyone should know that intentions don’t matter in this case. Do you honestly think that I think or that any of us over here think that the master plan of the former Minister of SRD, the Member for Foothills-Rocky View, who’s running for leader right now, is to take and expropriate people’s land and not give them any compensation? Clearly, it’s not. There’s no way I believe that, and I won’t ever believe it, but the problem is that he’s not always going to be SRD minister – clearly, he’s not right now – and neither is the current SRD minister.

When you give people power, politicians will abuse the power. When you create a position of power, it can be abused, and we have given the cabinet unfettered power to plan every piece of land in this province. It’s ridiculous. There’s no check or balance. They say that you can appeal these decisions of the cabinet. No, you can’t if the cabinet will say what you can and what you can’t appeal, and they appoint the committee that’s going to hear your appeal. I mean, it’s just asinine to say that the cabinet doesn’t have total power in this case.

Anyway, it’s very frustrating to watch. If Eckville taught us anything – and it’s not just been Eckville. Look, 300 people came out to Crossfield, for crying out loud. I went to a meeting in Trochu. There were 250 people in Trochu. I went out to Beiseker as well for a different meeting that Joe Anglin, the former Green Party leader, put on. He put on something, and it was a little different. It was on the power lines, but this was in the middle of the day in Beiseker. There were over a hundred people there. It was incredible.

I mean, how can you deny those numbers? The people don’t want these bills. They don’t want them. Your intentions could be good and wonderful and all that, but they don’t want them. They’ve looked at them. They’ve had time to look at them. They don’t want them. This will be your Achilles heel for the next year until the next election. I guarantee it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. All you have to do is stand up and say: “Look, you know what? We’re going to do some more consulting with the people of Alberta. We’re going to put this thing to a committee, and we’re going to have all kinds of experts through to talk to the committee to thoroughly vet this bill, to thoroughly vet Bill 36, and see if it needs to be repealed or if it needs to be taken back to the drawing board or what have you.”

The other thing that’s amazing to me has been the arguments that I’ve heard from the SRD minister regarding the original Bill 36 and then its changes regarding section 11 of Bill 36. I’m just going to read the bill with regard to this. Section 11 says that “a regional plan may, by express reference to a statutory consent or type or class of statutory consent, affect, amend or extinguish the statutory consent or the terms or conditions of the statutory con-sent.” Okay? It’s in Bill 36.

Now Bill 10 changes Bill 36, and instead of “extinguish” the statutory consent, it’s “rescind.” They changed the word to “rescind.” So now it reads: a regional plan may, by express reference to a statutory consent or type of class of statutory consent, affect, amend, or rescind the statutory consent or the terms or conditions of the statutory consent.

Okay. Now, what is a statutory consent? There’s this argument that I keep hearing from the SRD minister, who says: well, statutory consent doesn’t apply to a land title. It doesn’t apply to any kind of land title or interest in land in that regard. Well, that’s malarkey. Look at what statutory consent means. It’s in the definition of Bill 36. I’ll come back to this point many times.