Latest news with #DanielleSmith
CTV News
2 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
‘Excess of 100 priority projects': Sask. Premier Scott Moe behind federal bill to remove project hurdles
Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe speaks to the media during a scrum after a televised leaders' debate in Regina, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has given his support for federal Bill C-5. 'All projects can move forward in Saskatchewan,' Moe told reporters Wednesday during a meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Lloydminster Alta./Sask. 'The very fact Bill C-5 has been introduced is an admission this hard work does have to happen,' Moe added. Bill C-5, which the Liberals have coined the 'One Canadian Economy' bill, proposes to recognize provincial regulations with the aim of making it easier to improve the mobility of goods and services, as well as labour. It also seeks to speed up the development of major projects deemed to be in the national interest. It's the provisions proposing to grant cabinet new powers, with the intention of centralizing approvals for new natural resource projects that are being heavily criticized as undermining Indigenous rights and environmental protections. There's widespread concern among opponents that if Bill C-5 becomes law, projects could be greenlit without adequate consultation, something prairie premiers have been calling for quite some time. 'If we have to build another pipeline with federal taxpayer dollars, that would be a failure of the process,' Premier Smith said Wednesday. 'The federal government simply cannot put so many barriers in the way that all the private sector proponents are scared out of the realm.' 'And the only way for them to come in is to build at six times the original cost. That shouldn't be the only way things get built in this country,' she added. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith address the media during a joint press conference in Lloydminster on Wednesday, June 18. (Chad Hills/CTV News) Prime Minister Mark Carney has pushed the bill ahead in the House of Commons with the possibility it is passed before the end of the week. 'This legislation is enabling and creates the possibility of these projects,' Carney said Thursday during a press conference. 'It creates the possibility [and] a very clear process, which has at its heart consultation.' Indigenous leaders have been critical of the bill. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told CTV's Power Play its passing may override environmental protections. 'Seven days is not enough time to look at a big bill like this that impacts,' she said. 'First Nations aren't about stalling anything. In fact, they want prosperity, but not at the expense of their inherent rights.' Carney believes the legislation respects Indigenous rights. 'At the heart is, not just respect for, but full and full embrace of free, prior and informed consent,' he said. 'It has to be seen in parallel with very major measures this government is taking to, not just support those partnerships, but also to finance, equity and ownership in these nation building projects. [Including] Indigenous peoples, groups and right holders.' Business experts recognized the concerns of the legislation but welcomed the move in the midst of global uncertainty. 'This is a bit of an authoritarian approach to things,' national leader of economics and policy practice, PwC Canada Michael Dobner told BNN Bloomberg. 'But we are in an economic emergency situation.' Moe says there are dozens of projects waiting in the wings for approval which are facing federal barriers the bill aims to remove. 'We don't have one or two or three projects that are a priority,' he said. 'We have literally in excess of 100 projects that are a priority for [Saskatchewan] to continue to be a wealth creator to a strong growing nation of Canada.' The House of Commons is scheduled to adjourn for the summer Friday, and the Senate is slated to rise by next Friday, June 27. Parliamentary business in both chambers would then be paused until September, barring an emergency recall. - With files from David Prisciak, Luca Coruso-Moro, Rachel Aiello and Joshua Santos
CTV News
4 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Opposition, unions back up 63% of Albertans against provincial pension
Aerial shot of the Alberta legislature on Monday, May 26, 2025. (Cam Wiebe/CTV News Edmonton) Survey results on a provincial pension plan show many Albertans are dead-set against what Premier Danielle Smith has been pushing since stepping into office. On Wednesday, the province quietly released raw data from a survey done nearly two years ago showing only 10 per cent of respondents were for an Alberta Pension Plan (APP). But Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan said the results of the survey aren't what's surprising. 'What's really significant is that the UCP government seems determined to proceed with this crazy notion to pull Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), despite clear opposition to this idea,' said McGowan. 'This poll is just the latest evidence that Albertans are dead-set against this idea. 'Albertans should be outraged by our premier's continued refusal to take no for an answer.' Premier Smith has touted an APP will be of benefit to Albertans, who she says are disproportionately represented in the CPP. A LifeWorks report from 2023 calculated that Alberta would be entitled to 53 per cent of the CPP — about $334 billion — if it leaves. Other economists, however, have estimated Alberta's share to be closer to 15 to 20 per cent. 'The CPP isn't perfect, but it is one of the best and most secure and stable pension systems in the entire world,' said McGowan, adding that he's spoken to thousands of AFL members who want the province to keep their hands off their pensions. 'It's not Danielle Smith's money. These are the retirement savings of literally millions of Albertans. People are relying on them and they don't want our provincial government to be playing political games with their retirement security.' The CPP is currently working on an enhancement that will increase the maximum pension by more than 50 per cent for those who make enhanced contributions for 40 years. The maximum level of earnings protected by the CPP was also increased by 14 per cent over 2024 and 2025. NPD leader Naheed Nenshi also wasn't taken aback by the results or the way they were released. 'This government held these results from Albertans for nearly two years … and this is just very typical of this government.' said Nenshi. 'They lie, they cheat, they hide information from the public to get their ideological work done.' Naheed Nenshi Leader of the Alberta NDP Naheed Nenshi speaks to media about the Alberta 2025 budget in Edmonton, on Thursday February 27, CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson (JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS) Nenshi said the UCP government spent some $9 million on advertising to convince Albertans the APP was the right thing to do, but when they were asked to release the results, they consistently refused. 'The Information Privacy Commissioner forced them to release the results, and this is what came out: everyone hates it,' said Nenshi. 'And that's obviously why the government didn't want to release this information, but taxpayers paid for it — they have the right to see it. The opposition leader said the real reason Smith wants an APP is to control investments and use pension funds to invest in things that align with her interests, not the interests of Albertans. 'I think the government needs to take the loss and move forward,' said Nenshi. CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal said an Alberta plan would cost more and deliver weaker investment returns and smaller pensions. 'I know Smith likes to flirt with separatists, but the CPP is one of the strongest reasons for Alberta to remain in Canada,' said Uppal. 'The premier needs to abandon this idea and stop threatening the retirement security of Albertans.' Moshe Lander, a senior lecturer at Concordia University in Montreal, told CTV News Edmonton the issue of an APP is likely very low on the federal finance minister's to-do list. 'I don't think it's a priority at all until there's a clear sign that Alberta has voted for independence,' said Lander. 'They have so many other things to worry about that are now and that are legitimate. This is not one of them.' A statement from the federal department of finance said a separate provincial pension plan would mean Albertans would no longer enjoy the same economies of scale, pooling of risk and investment advantage that is currently available through the CPP. SUB: 10 per cent of Albertans are still on board with an APP One Alberta senior said she'd much rather go with Alberta than the federal government on a pension plan. 'You look at Quebec and the power they have and they have their own pension plan,' said Irene Moyer. 'I think Alberta would be way better off.' Moyer is skeptical of the federal government's spending and said Ottawa holds Alberta hostage. 'I'm going to be fine because of my age, but I look at people coming up and I wonder if there will even be a pension for them.' A respondent to the survey said Alberta deserves a better deal than what it's been given by the federal government. 'Alberta has always overcontributed to CPP … with no thanks from Canadians,' said another comment from a survey respondent. 'Enough. Leave CPP.' Results from the survey show 63 per cent of respondents were against the APP while 12 per cent were unsure. Fifteen per cent of the responses were incomplete. The province said it will continue to engage with Albertans on an APP through the Alberta Next panel despite the survey results. Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith speaks to media prior to the First Minister's Meeting in Saskatoon on Monday, June 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith speaks to media prior to the First Minister's Meeting in Saskatoon on Monday, June 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards The Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance did not provide a new statement to CTV News Edmonton and reiterated comments made Wednesday. The Alberta Pension Protection Act guarantees the CPP won't be replaced with an APP unless Albertans approve it in a referendum. With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson and Nicole Lampa
National Post
11 hours ago
- Politics
- National Post
UCP Needs to Listen to Albertans and Leave the Canada Pension Plan Alone: CUPE
Article content EDMONTON, Alberta — A survey of 93,000 Albertans conducted by the provincial government has a very clear message: don't touch the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). The results were released by the government after a lengthy request for information by the Edmonton Journal. Article content CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal says she was not surprised the survey showed 63% opposition to leaving the CPP, and only 10% support for an Alberta plan. Article content Article content 'There is no case for leaving the CPP,' said Uppal. 'An Alberta plan would cost more, and deliver weaker investment returns and smaller pensions.' Article content Uppal called on the UCP government to abandon all plans to take Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan. Article content 'I know Danielle Smith likes to flirt with separatists, but the Canada Pension Plan is one of the strongest reasons for Alberta to remain in Canada. The Premier needs to abandon this idea and stop threatening the retirement security of Albertans.' Article content Article content Article content
CBC
14 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Moe, Smith call for federal support of energy projects, end to some industry regulations
Social Sharing The premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta met Wednesday in Lloydminster — a city that straddles their shared boundary — for a joint caucus meeting. As they've done in the past, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta's Danielle Smith called for federal support for energy projects and the abandonment of some industry regulations — this time seated side-by-side. Their demands are outlined in a joint statement released after Wednesday's meeting. Those include an end to federal interference in the development of provincial resources. "The national self-sabotage that has happened over the last ten years has to end," Smith said. Moe said this moment is a chance for Canada to take its place as an energy superpower. "This is an opportunity that I would say is unlike any opportunity that I've seen in my lifetime for each of us as Canadians. And I'm, you know, very hopeful and excited on where this conversation will go in the next number of months," he said. Moe said he is optimistic about Prime Minister Mark Carney's nation building plans. Smith said she too is hopeful, but wants the two provinces to have more of a say. The premiers want the feds to eliminate the proposed oil and gas emissions cap and repeal any federal law regulating industrial carbon emissions, plastics or the commercial free speech of energy companies. "If I understand where the Prime Minister is attempting to go, if he very soon is able to announce a project list that has 20 or more substantial projects on it that include mining projects and transmission projects and power projects and pipeline projects, I think that would send a pretty big message to the world about the direction that we're going," Smith said. But Alberta's premier said legislation should also encourage private sectors to invest in big energy projects. Moe shares that view. "Policies certainly matter. And the policies are much larger than a single pipeline that might have to be built," he said. Along with oil and gas pipeline access, the two premiers are also demanding the exploration of export potential in critical minerals, agriculture, and forestry product. Moe says Canada's top priority should be building an energy corridor that connects the northwest coast to the coast of Hudson Bay. "A port-to-port corridor in Western Canada connecting northwestern Pacific ports to the Hudson Bay would provide the opportunity for us to have access to Asian [and] European markets for years into the future, for generations into the future," Moe said. Concerns with Bill C-5 The joint press conference comes after the Liberals passed a closure motion Monday morning to speed through study and debate of Bill C-5 by week's end. Multiple MPs and premiers were critical of the swift timeline. Government House leader Steven MacKinnon defended the bill's timeline, arguing that the government has public buy-in since the bill delivers on major campaign promises from the recent election. "We just had the ultimate democratic test, and you know what we heard?" he said. "Get this country moving. We need a response to the threats coming from down south." The legislation would give the federal cabinet the ability to set aside various statutes to push forward approvals for a small number of major industrial products, such as mines, pipelines and ports, if the government deems them to be in the national interest. The government expects to pass the bill by the end of Friday. Moe and Smith said if Prime Minister Mark Carney wants Canada to have the strongest G7 economy, he needs to repeal policies like the West Coast tanker ban and net-zero electricity regulations.
CBC
15 hours ago
- Health
- CBC
Hospital-based decision making raises privatization fears, hope for efficiencies
The Alberta premier's announcement of her intent to restore local decision making to public health facilities is highlighting a philosophical divide in how to best manage the province's stretched health budget. Premier Danielle Smith published a video online Tuesday, saying decisions about hiring health-care workers or replacing hospital furniture belong with individual health centres, not Alberta Health Services (AHS) managers. "Soon, each facility will have an empowered leadership team supporting our sites, responsible for hiring, managing resources, and solving problems without sending every request into the vortex," Smith said in the video. The shift is part of a massive restructuring of health-care in the province, in which the government has broken the oversight of care into four new agencies and stripped AHS of decision-making power. A government news release Tuesday afternoon said the change will go hand-in-hand with a provincial shift to "activity based funding," beginning next year. The government will fund some facilities based on the number of procedures they complete along with safety measures, such as readmission rates, instead of allotting a global annual budget. Although the premier said the shifts will lead to faster patient care, health policy experts say they have looming questions about how it will work, and warn the transition further opens the door to private, for-profit companies running public hospitals. "They're trying to create some sort of a market — a competitive market to provide acute care services, and … arguably have different providers compete with each other," said John Church, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta. Church, who has authored books on the creation of Alberta Health Services and evolution of health administration in the province, says the announcement could herald a shift to the way Alberta's health system was run before amalgamation into health regions, and then a single health services provider. In an interview Tuesday, Church said the government moved away from local hospital control in the 1990s because facilities were frequently running out of money and returning to the government to ask for more. The fragmented system was time consuming and expensive, he said. Church said the province may try to control those costs by either selling off individual health facilities or contracting private operators to run them, assigning a fixed contracting cost and giving the operators the flexibility to run them as they wish. Handing control of critical public services to the private sector is risky, he said. Church pointed to a private surgical centre in Calgary that faced bankruptcy in 2010, prompting the province to swoop in to prevent mass cancellations. In 2023, the Alberta government rapidly reversed course on privatizing lab services when private operator Dynalife was on the brink of insolvency. More efficiency or more risk? Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at MEI, an independent public policy think tank, is more hopeful about the potential of site-based decision making in combination with activity-based funding. "I think we're going to see some actual change," she said on Wednesday. "I'm very excited about the fact that these two things are happening together." MEI believes competition incentivizes adaptability and innovation, Wittevrongel said. She pointed to health systems in Quebec and Australia using activity-based funding that had decreased wait times for diagnostic imaging and colonoscopies, and reduced some procedure costs. University of Calgary medicine and health economics professor Dr. Braden Manns is more skeptical. The former senior AHS administrator said Alberta moved away from local hospital control because facilities were competing for a fixed number of health professionals working in the province, which drove up costs. Manns said there was also inconsistency in medical treatments across the province, which meant not all patients were getting the best evidence-based care.. He said despite the premier's statements, local hospitals did have the ability to make hiring decisions — until the government froze health spending and AHS was forced to centrally approve all hiring decisions to control costs. Although competition and free markets may generate cheaper and better laptop computers, it doesn't make better medicine, Manns said. "It's different in healthcare, where you have to provide coverage for everybody and you're not paying out of your pocket, you're paying out of the taxpayers funds," he said. "We need to make sure that everybody gets care." Privatized, competitive care in the U.S. is among the most expensive in the world with worse patient outcomes, he said. "That's not the system we should be trying to emulate," he said. What does local control mean? Steven Lewis, a health policy consultant and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in B.C., says it's unclear from the government's announcement what new decision-making authority a hospital will have. "It's always politically attractive to say to local communities 'You're going to have more power now,'" Lewis said. The test of that purported autonomy will come when a facility leader wants to add or eliminate a program that the oversight body, Acute Care Alberta, wouldn't have chosen to do, he said. Lewis questioned whether health facilities will now hire CEOs, or have new local boards governing decision making. "It's kind of like reading hieroglyphics," he said about the lack of details. In a Wednesday email, Kyle Warner, press secretary for the minister of hospital and surgical health services, said there are no plans to add administrator positions at hospital sites — but he didn't answer questions about local boards or the scope of facilities' decision making power. Warner said hospital-based leadership will be piloted at a single site to start, but the government hasn't yet chosen where. He said the government has no plans to lease or sell AHS facilities to private operators. "Private hospitals are illegal to own and operate in Alberta, and Alberta's government has no plans to change that," Warner wrote.
