AB Today – Daily Report July 31, 2020 PROGRAMMING NOTE: AB Today is off for the civic holiday weekend. We'll be back in your inbox Wednesday morning. Quotation of the day “Boutique sideshow.” NDP Finance critic Shannon Phillips says the UCP government’s plan for economic diversification doesn't come close to meeting Alberta’s needs. Today in AB On the schedule The house is adjourned until August 27, when Finance Minister Travis Toews will deliver a fiscal and economic update. In the legislature Tours of the Alberta legislature are scheduled to resume on August 1. MLAs did not participate in the traditional end-of-sitting splash in the fountains on the legislature grounds because they are under maintenance. Premier watch Premier Jason Kenney said fear of a U.S.-style backlash prevented him from making mask use mandatory across the province. Unlike U.S. President Donald Trump, Kenney has long been a proponent of mask use and has stated Alberta is the only province to distribute free masks to the population. “I don’t want that to become a political football in Canada,” Kenney told Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid. At a recent news conference, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said a challenge faced by his city — which recently passed a mandatory mask bylaw for indoor spaces— is that satellite communities may not have the same laws. Iveson said neighbouring municipalities should tackle the question as a metropolitan region, rather than individually. Revenue picture bleak amid oil price crash, pandemic Premier Jason Kenney says the province only expects to bring in $600 million in oil and gas revenues this year, while overall revenues will plummet by $13 to $14 billion. The premier made the remarks in an interview with Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid ahead of a scheduled fiscal update set for August 27. Finance Minister Travis Toews’ office confirmed to AB Today that the premier’s numbers are in line with the ministry’s estimates. The budget had previously ballparked non-renewable resource revenues to be in the $5-billion range, accounting for about 10 per cent of the province’s projected $50-billion haul. If overall revenues drop to around $36 billion, as Kenney suggested, $600 million in resource royalties would account for just 1.6 per cent of the total. The combination of the pandemic and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia drove Western Canadian Select prices so low that at one point this spring a barrel of crude was trading at a negative value. The budget banked on US$58 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate, the world benchmark for oil prices. Prices have slowly recovered but were only averaging US$33.97 per barrel for WCS in June, an 18.6 per cent reduction year over year. In May, oil production was 14.3 million cubic metres, a 14.6 per cent drop from the year before. The number of new oil wells being drilled was down 75 per cent in April. In an interview with AB Today, NDP Finance critic Shannon Phillips said the UCP’s numbers were “fantastical projections” and “farcical” from the start. “Behind all of the big numbers, the talk around budgets and projections, there are people, hundreds of thousands of them,” Phillips said, pointing to job losses. Year over year 265,900 fewer Albertans had jobs in June, an 11.3 per cent decrease. Finance minister says corporate tax cut is not to blame Amid the pandemic, the government deferred some tax and premium payments and waived tourism levies. And with more Albertans out of work, fewer income taxes will be collected. The UCP also expedited a big cut to the corporate tax rate — it hit eight per cent on July 1, a year and a half ahead of schedule. A spokesperson for Minister Toews said neither the deferrals nor the corporate tax cut are expected to make a notable dent in revenues. “Any decrease in corporate income tax revenue as a result of accelerating the Job Creation Tax Cut is expected to be relatively small given the downward impact COVID-19 and the low oil price environment will have on [corporate income tax] revenues this year,” his office said. The government recently created the Invest Alberta Corporation, aimed at diversifying the economy and attracting new investment to the province. It also brought in the Innovation Employment Grant to replace the scrapped NDP tax credits for tech and innovation. Phillips said economic diversification should be the “centrepiece” of economic recovery, not a “boutique sideshow.” She accused Kenney of taking recovery advice from “rich dudes in a corner office” who are not facing the hardships of the pandemic in the same way as working class people. Toews is scheduled to provide a fiscal update on August 27. Topics of conversation ● Yesterday, there were 113 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed, bringing the total number of active cases to 1,408, a decrease of 22. ○ There are currently 91 hospitalizations (up three), including 18 people in the ICU (up one). ○ Five more people died, bringing the total to 195. ○ Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Alberta Health Services has sent staff to the Good Samaritan Southgate long-term care facility; however, she said AHS does not need to take over management at this time. To date, 21 deaths have been linked to the facility, including all five deaths announced Thursday. ○ The province is expanding its pilot project delivering asymptomatic testing at community pharmacies, where 10,000 people have been tested in the past month. Pharmacies have the option of providing it and must be approved. ○ The first serology testing results in early June show that less than one per cent of over 9,400 Albertans tested had Covid antibodies. This means that there were an estimated 36,000 cases in Alberta as of May 20 and swab testing caught 17 per cent of cases, compared to 12.5 per cent in British Columbia. ● The Tyee got its hands on internal government documents that shine a light on last year’s pro-TMX campaign. In emails, provincial staffers discussed how to target the social media ads (noting that it cost $700 per click to drive young users to its website), a plan to make sure no ads appeared on Grindr or other dating or hookup apps, and a strategy to ensure the the campaign didn’t show up for British Coumbian users with graduate-level education. ● The municipality of Pincher Creek managed to convince physicians to stay for 90 more days after they gave notice they would halt their hospital services on August 1. ○ The hospital was going to be strapped for staff in August because of the resignations and other physicians’ vacation plans, but Alberta Health Services says there will be no disruption in service. ○ The doctors’ threat to leave was part of an ongoing dispute between physicians and the province. ● Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson overturned an earlier decision to waive the federal impact assessment for the Coalspur Mine Ltd.’s Vista Coal Mine Phase I Project. ○ The project will also have to clear regulatory approval from the Alberta Energy Regulator in order to proceed. ○ The underground thermal coal mine is an expansion of the open-pit mine located 10 kilometres east of Hinton. News briefs Changes to oil and gas cleanup rules announced ● The government announced changes for the responsibility of oil and gas well reclamation, part of an overhaul of the province’s management of the assets. ○ Included in the new framework is a system that will assess oil and gas operators’ ability to meet obligations before new wells are approved, as well as a plan to provide “proactive” assistance to struggling operators. ○ Active site operators will also have to meet five-year rolling spending targets for reclamation. ○ Landowners stuck with orphaned wells on their property will be able to opt in to have their sites nominated for cleanup. ○ The government also plans on appointing a panel to bring post-closure well sites up to standard. NDP, labour lawyer says stripping minimum standards will hurt lowest-wage workers ● NDP Labour critic Christina Gray and employment lawyer Joel Fairchild (who declared he had no political affiliation) said that Bill 32 stripped away workers’ hard-won rights from the Employment Standards Code. ○ “Working people can’t catch a break — literally. They're cutting your break,” Gray said. ○ Specifically, changes to averaging agreements allow overtime pay to be calculated over 52 weeks, rather than 12 weeks, meaning employers can use weeks with fewer hours to calculate the average number of hours. Those averaging agreements no longer include a two-year sunset clause. ○ Rest periods have also changed, meaning employees could work up to 10 hours and only get a half-hour break. Previously, employees were guaranteed a 30-minute break on all shifts up to eight hours, and a one-hour break for longer shifts. Appointments and Employments Invest Alberta Corporation ● R. Scott Hutcheson was named chair of the newly created Invest Alberta Corporation for a three-year term. ○ Former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan was named vice-chair for a three-year term. ○ Bob Dhillon, T. Chen Fong, Ashif Mawji, Janet Riopel and Adam Waterous were named as board members for a three-year term. ○ Cabinet also passed a regulation that will compensate the CEO within a range of $184,365 to $294,435 per year. University of Calgary ● Debby Carreau was appointed to the University of Calgary board of governors for a three-year term. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act ● Madam Justice June Ross was designated as an adjudicator under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.