File photo of Wildrose leader Danielle Smith. Smith says the decision of Alberta’s culture minister to cancel the Shen Yun Performing Arts shows after the local hosting organization went public about unprofessional treatment at the hands of Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium management is an example of PC “bullying.” (Dave Cournoyer/Wikimedia Commons)

In their first session as the official opposition, the Wildrose Party took the Tories to task in the Alberta legislature Monday, calling the cancellation of future Shen Yun Performing Arts shows in the province an act of “bullying.”

Shen Yun, a New York-based classical Chinese dance company that performs around the world each year, has been coming to Alberta since 2007. The group was slated to perform at both the Northern and Southern Alberta Jubilee auditoria in 2013.

However, Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk abruptly cancelled future performances at both venues after the local presenters went public with concerns of “professional misconduct” at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary.

“It’s another classic example of ‘keep your mouth shut, otherwise we’re going to punish you.’ … This is not setting the proper tone for a brand new government,” said Wildrose leader Danielle Smith at a press conference on Monday.

“It’s a bullying issue.”

Culture Critic Blake Pederson called on Klimchuk in Parliament on Monday to apologize to the Falun Dafa Association, which presents Shen Yun in both cities, and reinstate the 2013 shows.

“The culture minister’s rash cancellation of next year’s performances means Shen Yun will have no venue large enough to accommodate it and effectively bans Shen Yun’s world class performances from Alberta,” said Blake.

In response, Klimchuk called the dispute a “contractual issue” and a “safety issue”—referring to a safety net placed over the Shen Yun orchestra pit that was demanded by Southern Alberta Jubilee management.

There was no net installed at the Northern Alberta venue, however, or at any other venue the show performs at around the world. The net was also not listed in the contract between the Calgary venue and organizers.

However, for the first time, Klimchuk said she will ask her officials to meet with the Calgary Falun Dafa Association to see whether the issue can be resolved. Premier Alison Redford echoed Klimchuk’s stance.

“This is an issue with respect to whether or not netting should be up around a stage and the management of the auditoriums believe that to be the case. … That is the primary concern and it is the only issue that it is going on,” Redford said.

Safety Claims a Red Herring‘

The Calgary Falun Dafa Association cried foul at a press conference after the legislative session, saying the safety claims were a red herring, and wondered why the Minister has only now agreed to a meeting, after repeated requests were ignored.

“We are disappointed that the minister has been mis-portraying that this is an issue solely about safety and a contractual issue, making the suggestion that the government is pro safety and our organization is weak in regards to safety. That’s really untrue. We are talking about professionals who are trained in the highest form of their art and certainly safety at all the performances is an important part of their work,” said spokesperson Jenny Yang.

“Unfortunately the minister’s office and the auditoria have been completely unwilling to discuss any remedies, and are rather disrespectful in that process. … It is that behaviour and that attitude which is not isolated to the net but has become the norm of how the ministry and the auditoria management are dealing with Shen Yun.”

Yang said the problems at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium started in 2010, and reached a peak in 2012 when a technical mistake by Jubilee staff caused a major lighting error during the performance. In addition, the door to a makeshift change room for Shen Yun’s female performers was accidentally opened by a male staff member, exposing the young women as they undressed to other male staff.

Yang says when these concerns were raised with Jubilee staff they were met with dismissal, condescension, or laughter.

In a letter to Klimchuk earlier this month, Winnipeg-based human rights lawyer David Matas said the use of the net was first imposed by the Calgary Jubilee’s management in 2010, even though no reference was made in the contract to any such net.

“This has been so even though liability waivers were offered and performers held personal injury insurance. There would have been no liability for the theatre in case of injury due to absence of a net,” he wrote.

Chinese Regime Pressure

The Falun Dafa Associations of Calgary and Edmonton have also raised concerns that the cancellation of the 2013 shows is a result of pressure from the Chinese Communist regime ahead of Redford’s trip to China next month.

The regime has repeatedly tried to stop Shen Yun from performing in Alberta and at many other venues around the world due to Shen Yun’s mission to revive traditional Chinese culture, which has been systematically destroyed in China to make way for communist rhetoric.

In 2010, Southern Alberta Jubilee management told the local presenters that they had indeed received letters and phone calls, presumably from the Chinese regime, that were clearly meant to create animosity towards the hosting organization with the ultimate aim of cancelling the shows.

Yang says the Falun Dafa Association’s original demands were simply to have the net removed from the orchestra, as it made the performers feel as if they were “performing in a cage,” and to ask for improved relations at the Southern Alberta venue.

Opposition House Leader Rob Anderson presented a petition to the legislative assembly on Monday and Tuesday with 6,000 signatures from Albertans, calling on Klimchuk to reinstate future Shen Yun shows.

Jenny Yang, a spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Calgary, says Alberta Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk’s decision to cancel Shen Yun’s shows in Alberta was in retaliation for going public with concerns. (Epoch Times File Photo)

Alberta Premier Alison Redford needs to rein in Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk after the latter’s “iron-fisted” response to public criticism, says a Calgary group.

Klimchuk cancelled all Alberta bookings of Shen Yun Performing Arts after the Calgary presenters of Shen Yun went public over ongoing difficulties with the management of the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.

While there were no issues at all with shows at the Northern Alberta Jubliee Auditorium in Edmonton, Klimchuk cancelled bookings there as well. When asked about the decision, she offered little explanation before changing the topic.

“When the letter went out, cancelling the shows, I knew that I had to kind of do that,” she said in explanation for cancelling the Edmonton shows. She later said she cancelled the shows to be “consistent.”

Klimchuk neglected to inform the hosts of the Edmonton shows of her decision to cancel their bookings.

On several occasions, management has encouraged us to cancel our show, and the minister has now taken that step herself.

—Shar Chen

While the Calgary shows are hosted by the Falun Dafa Association of Calgary, the Edmonton shows are hosted by the Falun Dafa Association of Edmonton, two separate organizations with different personnel.

Shar Chen, a representative for the Edmonton association, said she was taken aback when she heard indirectly their show dates at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton had been cancelled.

“We felt very shocked because first of all, we had no issue with the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton. They cancelled our dates without contacting us directly. They put it in a letter to the Calgary association,” said Chen.

In that letter, Klimchuk said she was unwilling to resolve the issue because the groups went to press with their concerns and alleged they had not attempted to contact her office or Katherine Huising, the director of the auditoria.

We are calling on Premier Alison Redford to show that the Alberta government will not similarly give in to foreign influence.

—Jenny Yang

In the same letter, however, Klimchuk said she reviewed all communication between her office and the group, which had attempted to contact her office over a dozen times.

In an interview with The Epoch Times after writing the letter, Klimchuk suggested she was unaware of the ongoing issues because she was not minister before October last year. She said, however, that she had asked her assistant deputy minister (ADM) to investigate.

Jenny Yang, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Calgary, said the ADM’s office had contacted her and said a meeting would be arranged, but her subsequent efforts to contact the ADM’s office to set up that meeting were ignored.

Pressure from Chinese Consulate

Yang said Klimchuk’s decision to cancel the shows is clearly retaliation for going to the press with concerns about a string of issues at the Calgary auditorium, and that it raises serious questions about whose interest the minister is serving.

“Minister Klimchuck’s conduct makes less convincing her assertion that there is ‘no linkage whatsoever’ between her actions and pressure received from the Chinese consulate in Calgary,” said Yang, referring to Klimchuck’s comments that pressure from the Chinese consulate had no impact in her decision.

Yang said that they heard from Huising in 2009 that the minister’s office had received pressure to cancel Shen Yun. Since then, Yang said the treatment by management at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium towards Shen Yun and the Calgary association has “rapidly deteriorated.”

“On several occasions, management has encouraged us to cancel our show, and the minister has now taken that step herself,” Yang said.

The position the minister has taken, Yang added, is not reflective of someone who wants to resolve the issue in the interest of the public and all stakeholders.

“Actually this is exactly what the Chinese consulate wants,” she said.

The Chinese consulate in Calgary has a history of interference in the province, including its widely covered efforts to interfere in Travel Alberta’s plan to sponsor Shen Yun in 2008.

In an email obtained by the Canadian Press, an official from Travel Alberta said the agency was forced to cancel plans to support Shen Yun after pressure from the Chinese consulate in Calgary.

Yang wants to be certain the same is not happening again.

“We are calling on Premier Alison Redford to show that the Alberta government will not similarly give in to foreign influence and is committed to resolving this issue in the interest of Albertans and the province,” she said.

When approached for a response, a spokesperson from Redford’s office distanced the premier from the decision and deferred questions to Minister Klimchuk, saying Klimchuk alone had made the decision to cancel the shows and was responsible for the file.

Deteriorating Professionalism

Problems for Shen Yun and the Calgary hosts began in 2010 when Shen Yun managers noted deteriorating professionalism from the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium management.

During performances this April, a severe technical malfunction marred one show, while a male stage crew member opened a loading dock door that was acting as a wall for a changing room, exposing the young women changing inside to several male crew members.

“When confronted over these and other lapses, auditorium management was condescending and unapologetic. For several years, the theatre has also refused to compromise on the placement of an intrusive orchestra pit safety net that impedes the performance,” a statement by the Calgary association says.

Klimchuk has deflected concerns raised by the groups by framing the issue as solely about safety and disagreement about the presence of a net over the orchestra pit.

While Calgary’s Jubilee has had a net since 2010, Edmonton’s has not, despite insistence that the net in Calgary was a non-negotiable and essential safety feature. Klimchuk said the Edmonton Jubilee will now be getting a net as well.

“The safety net is being installed as we speak,” said Klimchuk Friday.

Both the Calgary and Edmonton associations say no other venues in Alberta have the proper stage conditions for Shen Yun to perform.

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This file photo shows a worker installing a Sinopec logo at a new Sinopec station in Beijing. Green Party leader Elizabeth May says China’s large stake in Alberta oil is putting Canadian national security at risk. (Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty Images)

As foreign ownership of the Alberta oil sands increases, the leader of the federal Green Party warns that China’s large—and rapidly growing—stake in Alberta oil is putting Canadian national security at risk.

In a period of 18 months between 2009 and 2011, Chinese state-owned companies invested $15 billion in the oil sands, according to a study sponsored by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE).

Green leader Elizabeth May says this is cause for alarm because these companies are owned by the Chinese Communist Party, and the more Beijing controls Canada’s natural resources, the more influence it can exert on federal policies.

“There’s really no separation between the Chinese Communist government and their capitalist enterprises—they’re the same thing. In that light there are concerns with national security,” she said in an interview.

“This is the kind of concern that should be reviewed in advance of Chinese investments.”

In recent years Chinese companies have been aggressively investing in Canada’s natural resources, especially the oil patch.

Since 2010, notable investments include a $1.25 billion share of Penn West Petroleum by the China Investment Corporation, and the purchasing by Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation of Opti Canada for $2.34 billion.

Sinopec recently took over Daylight Energy Ltd. for $2.2-billion, and Petro-China became the owner and manager of the MacKay River oil sands project to the tune of $1.9 billion.

In the largest deal to date, state-owned Sinopec Corp. purchased a $4.65-billion piece of Syncrude in 2010, securing a 9 percent stake in the company.

Sinopec, which is also a partner in Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project, has a long history of major scandals involving allegations of corruption, human rights violations, and environmental pollution. It is also known to enthusiastically engage in business with oppressive regimes around the world.

May said the 9 percent share is enough for Sinopec to get a seat on the Syncrude board, which gives them veto power and an ability to indirectly represent the interests of the Chinese regime.

“It gives the Chinese government quite a significant level of control over decisions that should be made by Canadians and the Canadian national interest,” she said.

“It’s not a company where the corporate behaviour would suggest that Canadian norms will be observed.”

A recent shareholder analysis released by environmental group ForestEthics Advocacy shows that close to three-quarters of oil sands production is now foreign-owned.

According to Statistics Canada, the oil and gas sector in Canada has nearly double the amount of foreign investment compared to the national average. In addition, over half (51.1 percent) of all oil and gas operating revenue in Canada goes to foreign entities.

Other Sectors

Chinese state-owned companies are gaining a foothold in other sectors as well.

Bell and Telus recently signed contracts with massive Chinese tech firm Huawei, raising fears that the deal could compromise the security of Canadian communication systems, making them vulnerable to espionage.

Australia and the U.S. have both blocked the Chinese firm from telecom projects due to security concerns.

And on Monday, Chinese company Wanda Group announced it will buy AMC—the second-largest theatre chain in North America—for $2.6 billion. The acquisition is being seen as part of the Chinese regime’s efforts to expand its global influence through soft power.

Headquartered in Dalian, Wanda is a subsidiary of China National United Oil Corporation Co. Ltd., according to Bloomberg Businessweek. AMC has hundreds of multiplexes in Canada and the U.S.

Given the increasing Chinese investment in Canada, especially in the oil sands, May wonders why she is the only MP questioning the associated risks. She says a strict screening process to review foreign investment in Canada is urgently needed to protect the national interest.

“We really need to have had, in the Investment Canada Act, a proper, consistent national security screen before foreign investments from any country are made in Canada,” she said.

“Prime Minister Harper explicitly refused—in 2009 when amending the Investment Canada Act—to include a clear, criteria-based definition of national security or to include a national security review.”

May also questions the decision to aggressively market oil resources to Asia while roughly half of Canada continues to rely on imported oil from world markets such as Saudi Arabia, Africa, and Venezuela.

“Eastern Canadians are buying oil at world prices while Canada is exporting most of its oil to the U.S. at lower prices. So we’re buying high and selling low. There are many layers on which our current approach to oil is devoid of any notion of the national interest,” she said.

“It’s selling out our resources to a foreign power that will remain under their control.”

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Audiences members give a curtain-call standing ovation to Shen Yun performers at the Sunday evening performance at Calgary’s Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. (Jerry Wu/The Epoch Times)

EDMONTON—After the local hosts of a classical Chinese dance company raised complaints in the media about professional misconduct at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Alberta’s Minister of Culture and Community Services Heather Klimchuk responded by cancelling the group’s future performances at both province-operated Jubilee auditoriums.

Shen Yun Performing Arts has performed in Calgary each year since 2007. But after the Calgary Falun Dafa Association, which presents the performances there, went public on April 16 with ongoing complaints about how the performers were treated, Minister Klimchuk informed the group that it should look for other venues at which to perform.

“The Shen Yun Performing Arts show carries a tremendous reputation in our province; however I must request that you find other venues for future bookings, including your 2013 dates at the Northern and Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditoria, which have now been released,” she stated in a letter to the group.

We have been requesting a meeting with officials in the ministry for years to address our valid concerns but have been ignored. — Jenny Yang

Klimchuk said she was concerned that the presenters brought their complaints to the public.

However, Jenny Yang, a spokesperson for the presenting organization, said in a statement that going to the media was resorted to only after repeated requests for a meeting with someone from Alberta Culture failed.

“The Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium is a taxpayer-funded venue whose purpose is to serve the public and enrich the cultural experience of Albertans. When a world-class arts company feels that it can no longer perform in Calgary due solely to the conduct of auditorium management, we believe that is an issue in the public interest. We informed the media of the situation only after our repeated requests for meetings failed,” Yang said.

“That the Minister would act punitively against us for raising a public issue to the media is unbecoming of someone in her position. This is all the more true of performances in Edmonton, which are hosted by our sister organization, and where there are no complaints concerning the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.”

Problems began in 2010 when Shen Yun managers noted deteriorating professionalism from auditorium staff. During performances this April, a severe technical malfunction marred one show, while a male stage crew member opened a loading dock door that was acting as a wall for a changing room, exposing the young women changing inside to several male crew members.

“When confronted over these and other lapses, auditorium management was condescending and unapologetic. For several years, the theatre has also refused to compromise on the placement of an intrusive orchestra pit safety net that impedes the performance,” the statement says.

In a letter to the presenters, Klimchuk said she was not notified of problems, but the Calgary Falun Dafa Association says it requested a meeting with the Minister of Culture nearly a dozen times since 2010.

“The Government of Alberta should be accountable for what happened in the theatre. We have been requesting a meeting with officials in the ministry for years to address our valid concerns but have been ignored. We felt we had no choice but to raise these issues with the public,” said Yang.

“We are requesting that the Southern Jubilee Auditorium apologize to Shen Yun for the misconduct, invite them to return, and to remove the net over the orchestra pit for future performances,” she added.

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A whistleblower watchdog is vowing to keep an eye on Alberta premier Alison Redford’s promise to introduce whistleblower legislation, and says success depends on the premier setting the right “tone” for her government.

After winning the provincial election and swearing in her new cabinet, Redford promised a sweeping review of laws—“taking the best examples from the world, including whistleblower legislation”—that would help Albertans access information about their government.

This week, the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR), an Ottawa-based charity that works to protect whistleblowers, wrote an open letter to the premier urging her to create strong laws to protect those who speak out about corruption or wrongdoing.

“The ultimate success of this initiative will lie mainly in your own hands, by setting the ‘tone from the top.’ Little will change unless your own actions as premier demonstrate that employees in Alberta are encouraged to report wrongdoing that threatens the public interest, and that your government will not tolerate any reprisals against them,” reads the letter.

David Hutton, executive director of FAIR, said in an interview that Alberta’s concentration of corporate power in the oil economy makes legislation to support whistleblowers even more important.

“I think it’s very appropriate, very valuable that Alberta would do this,” he said.

“We know that corporations don’t always act in the public interest. If there’s a choice between the public interest and making a buck, it’s pre-determined which way a corporation will go. In that kind of setting it’s doubly important that you have effective ways of ensuring that the corporations and the government that’s overseeing them are at least obeying their own laws and not engaging in misconduct or criminal acts.”

Canada Behind on Protection

Hutton said whistleblower protection across Canada has suffered “a history of decline” and is now decades behind other developed countries such as the U.S, the U.K., and Australia.

“Ten to fifteen years ago whistleblowers were in better shape than they are now because they had common law rights. They could go to court and sue their bosses if they were harassed. That’s not possible anymore. Those rights are being stripped away and the protection and immunity of higher-ups has been strengthened,” he said.

“It’s now virtually impossible to have any consequences against a politician or senior bureaucrat who’s done something wrong.”

Whistleblower protection began to decline after the tainted blood scandal of the mid-1980s—Canada’s worst-ever preventable public health disaster that led to 2,000 recipients of blood products contracting HIV, and another 30,000 transfusion recipients infected with hepatitis C.

Hutton said that after the scandal, laws were pushed through to protect politicians and bureaucrats from liability.

This, as well as a costly federal whistleblower protection system that has produced virtually no results since it was initiated in 2007, has contributed to Canada’s reputation internationally as the “Enron” of whistleblower protection, he said.

Alberta Controversies

Alberta has had its own share of whistleblower-related controversies, such as the case of northern Alberta physician John O’Connor.

O’Connor sounded the alarm in 2003 after finding increased cancer rates in the First Nations town of Fort Chipewyan, which he linked to environmental contamination from the nearby oil sands.

After speaking up, a complaint was lodged against O’Connor by Health Canada, which threatened to take away his medical license for “causing undue alarm,” and he became a victim of political persecution for the next five years.

After increasing public and media protests, O’Connor was eventually cleared of any misconduct and independent studies revealed his concerns were accurate—pollutants in the area were measured to be 50 times higher than normal.

Redford herself has come under fire for failing to carry through on a promise to complete a public investigation into Health Quality Council reports of a “culture of intimidation” and muzzling of doctors in the provincial health care system.

Accountability Tool

Hutton said Canada’s leaders need to understand the value of whistleblowers, not just to the public but to politicians and industry as well.

He said politicians can use whistleblowers to dig out problems in their departments and deal with them before a full-scale media scandal breaks. Or corporations can stop corruption and greed from destroying their companies from the inside, with possible repercussions for the public.

“If you don’t provide an avenue for whistleblowers to blow the whistle, then two things happen. One is that the wrongdoing goes on and builds up into something massive, which will eventually bring a government down when it’s exposed. The other thing is that the whistleblowers themselves, because of being crushed in silence, have no choice but to leak to the media,” he said.

“It’s an accountability tool,” he added. “If whistleblowers are dealt with properly, you can get these things nipped in the bud.”

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Audiences members give a curtain-call standing ovation to Shen Yun performers at the Sunday evening performance at Calgary’s Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. (Jerry Wu/The Epoch Times)

Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer David Matas says Calgary’s Jubilee Auditorium is limiting the “expressive freedom” of artists by imposing the use of a net over the orchestra pit for shows by Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Shen Yun, a world-renowned classical Chinese dance and music company based in New York, features a unique orchestra combining classical western and Chinese instruments that is very much an integral part of the show.

The dance company has performed in hundreds of venues around the world without any requirement to have a net over the orchestra pit.

“The theatre should not impose structures to limit art groups’ expressive freedom or to prevent the content of their expressions,” Matas wrote in a letter to Heather Klimchuk, Alberta’s Minister of Culture and Community Spirit who oversees the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (SAJA).

“Arts groups have a constitutional right to freedom of expression. This right to freedom of expression has both form and a content component.”

The use of the net was first imposed by SAJA’s management in 2010, even though no reference was made in the contract to any such net, Matas noted.

“This has been so even though liability waivers were offered and performers held personal injury insurance. There would have been no liability for the theatre in case of injury due to absence of a net,” he said.

In fact, SAJA’s requirement for the net violates the contract, which spells out that the minister warrants that the premises will be provided in a good state of repair.

“The throwing of a net over the orchestra pit means that this provision is violated,” Matas said.

The net hinders the interaction between the musicians and the dancers, and since its use means the pit needs to be positioned much lower, the orchestra is further away from the view of the audience, Matas said.

“In addition, the musicians felt disrespected playing under such a net, as it was akin to being displayed in a cage,” he added.

Unreasonable Infringement

Citing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Matas said the theatre must not infringe on the freedom of Shen Yun’s artistic expression unless the “infringement falls within reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

In this case, however, he said the net “is not a reasonable limit on freedom of expression because its enforcement would have the effect of preventing Shen Yun performers from expressing themselves in the manner of their choice in an unreasonable way not demonstrably justified.”

The local Calgary presenter of Shen Yun, the Falun Dafa Association of Calgary, said “unprofessional” and “insulting” behaviour from SAJA’s management might mean that Shen Yun won’t return to Calgary next year.

The presenter said the mistreatment began in 2010 when theatre management first required the use of the net, but the unprofessional behaviour reached new levels this year.

What concerned the artists and the local presenter was the “dismissive” response from the Jubilee’s management, who laughed the matter off instead of taking it seriously.

Visitors observe a view of Turtle Mountain and part of the slide from the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. (Alberta Culture and Community Services)

It was 109 years ago this week, in the early hours of April 29, 1903, that the Frank Slide—the deadliest rock slide in Canadian history—claimed the lives of 90 Albertans.

Back then Frank was a bustling mining town of 600 residents. Today it is a quiet community of 200 in Southern Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass.

The area continues to bear the scars of that fateful night, when the tip of Turtle Mountain detached from its base and plummeted to the ground.

In 90 seconds, 82 million metric tonnes of rock came crashing down, leaving destroyed homes, businesses, and lives in its wake. When the dust cleared, the rubble covered two kilometres across the valley.

“Scientists have actually calculated that if you took all the rocks that fell off the mountain you could make a one by six-metre wall that could go all the way across Canada, from Victoria to Halifax— that’s how much rock fell off in the Frank Slide,” says Joey Ambrosi, interpretation-education officer at the Frank Slide Interpretative Centre.

“In the path of the rocks there were about 110 people. Of those, about 90 were killed.”

A view of the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre above the rocks of the slide. (Alberta Culture and Community Services)

There are dozens of homes in the area that could one day be impacted from another major slide, however.

But an extensive system was put in place in the last decade that would give residents months, if not years, of warning if a section of the mountain were to become unstable.

The Alberta Geological Survey has installed a network of sensors on the mountain as an early warning system that would alert researchers of irregular movement. Cracks, degree of tilt, and spaces in the rock are also monitored.

The real-time data stream from the network provides insight into the mechanics of the rock mass, as well as how weather affects its movement. The data are also analyzed to identify patterns that could predict future changes in the mountain.

Scientists predict an area known as South Peak—five million cubic metres of rock—is the next likely piece to fall, and would be about 1/6 the size of the original slide, threatening a dozen homes nearby.

Ambrosi says if its current rate of movement remains—equivalent to the thickness of a penny every year—South Peak will likely not fall for thousands of years.

“It’s not just going to grow from what it is now to instantly falling tomorrow, because it’s fairly stable now and it would have to move into a position that it’s not very stable,’ he said.

The cause of the original slide has been blamed on a host of factors, including the mountain’s continuous movement which eventually formed precarious vertical rock slabs, coal mining inside the mountain, and a particularly wet winter with a late April freeze.

Myth vs. Reality

The Frank Slide story has captivated people around the world for over a century. Ambrosi says about 100,000 tourists come to see the rubble every year, which looks much the same as it did minutes after the tragedy.

He thinks people remain interested in the slide not only due to its sensational nature and the awe-inspiring sight of the rubble, but because of the human stories that emerged from the disaster and the incredible resilience of the town.

“After the slide came down, within three months they had the coal mine working again. The town grew from 600 people to 1,000 people. It didn’t just scare people off,” he says.

So many legends have been passed around about the night of the slide that myth has blended with reality.

A common misconception is that Frank was completely buried by the slide, but although the town suffered damage and destruction, only the eastern outskirts were completely covered by the rocks.

Another famous story that has been written into books, plays, and songs was that the “lone survivor” of the slide was a baby girl, found in the rubble the next day and named Frankie Slide.

Ambrosi says the lone-survivor myth may have originated from a story about a particular area near the town that was directly hit by the slide. Of the 23 survivors in the area, three were young girls who were the only survivors in each of their families.

One, 15-month-old Marion Leitch, was thrown from her house only to land safely on a pile of hay.

Another inspiring survival story is the tale of 17 miners who were trapped inside the mine when the mountain fell. The tunnels remained intact but all the entrances were blocked, so the miners set about digging their way out.

All 17 men popped out of the rubble one-by-one that evening, much to the town’s amazement.

Another enduring legend is that local aboriginals had long warned European settlers not to go near Turtle Mountain.

The Blackfoot and K’tunaxa peoples had oral traditions that referred to Turtle Mountain as “the mountain that moves,” and had long refused to camp in the area that was later impacted by the slide.

According to the Frank Slide interpretive centre website, prehistoric people in the area likely saw cracks and fissures along the summit ridge and left pictographs on adjacent mountains to warn others of the danger. They may also have observed seasonal rock falls and developed a keen awareness of the risks.

Ambrosi says these are lessons from the tragedy that can still be applied today.

“Some of the lessons were that you shouldn’t be so greedy, and just be charging in to take everything out of the ground without having a good look around at where you’re doing it, and what you’re doing to it,” he says.

A screen shot of Travel Alberta's award-winning “Remember to Breathe” video. Tourism in the province has exploded in the last decade, partly due to savvy marketing and increased government funding to the sector. (Courtesy Travel Alberta)

Alberta’s tourism industry celebrated this week as a promotional YouTube video for tourism in the oil-rich province reached over a million viewers worldwide.

Titled Remember to Breathe, the video was voted best in the world, earning the Diamond Award—equivalent to the Oscars in tourism circles—at Golden City Gate, a tourism advertising competition held at the International Tourism Fair in Berlin last month.

The three-minute video features a vivid collection of Alberta’s natural wonders and attractions, and various versions of it are currently being promoted to markets in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and China.

The attention reflects a growing $5.5-billion tourism industry, one of the largest sectors in Alberta, which employs 90,000 workers in the province.

“[Tourism] has been growing exponentially over the last 10 years,” says Travel Alberta CEO Bruce Okabe, who contributes much of the growth to a fresh marketing strategy and increased funding that became available when Travel Alberta became a crown corporation in 2009.

“Clearly we have a lot of what visitors want,” Okabe adds.

“We have the full support of the government of Alberta in terms of the sustainable tourism funding model. So there’s a number of things that are on our side that are contributing to the growth.”

Publicity from top U.S. talk show Live! With Kelly, which broadcast for four days in Banff earlier this month, will also contribute. The attention from the show is thought to be worth around $22 million.

Twenty-three million people visited Alberta in 2010; 18.6 million came from other parts of the province, 2.8 million came from other parts of Canada, and 1.5 million from other countries.

According to the Conference Board of Canada, average revenue growth from tourism across Canada was just under 4 percent last year. In Alberta it was almost double that at 7.8 percent, and Travel Alberta hopes to increase tourism revenues by $1 billion before 2017.

The major draw for international tourists continues to be natural wonders such as the Rocky Mountains and Banff or Jasper national parks, says Okabe.

Tourists within Canada are more likely to visit other areas of Alberta to see family or explore attractions such as Dinosaur Provincial Park or the Calgary Stampede.

However, tourism in Alberta has not always enjoyed such a rosy image.

In 2010 a San Francisco-based environmental group launched an international ad campaign that called for American tourists to boycott Alberta due to the environmental impact of oil sands development.

The “Re-Think Alberta” campaign, directed at U.S. and U.K. markets, included billboard ads and online advertising featuring oil-soaked birds and wildlife, with the words “Alberta: The OTHER Oil Disaster.”

Okabe says the anti-Alberta campaign didn’t have any effect on tourism numbers, and in fact could have produced the opposite effect.

“Interestingly enough what actually transpired was the tourism to Fort McMurray and the Northern area actually doubled [after the campaign was launched],” he says.

He adds it is difficult to prove whether the campaign can be linked with the boost in tourism, but it did create a lot of discussion in social media circles at the time.

The award-winning Travel Alberta promotional video can be seen at www.travelalberta.com

Alberta Premier Alison Redford (L) faces stiff competition from Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith (R) in the Alberta provincial election set for April 23. The candidates are virtually tied in the polls just weeks before election day. (Courtesy of the Candidates)

The Alberta election is shaping up to be the most interesting in decades and the outcome will reflect whether the political landscape is fundamentally shifting in the province.

Albertans go to the polls on April 23, and the race for premier is playing out as a neck-and-neck battle between Progressive Conservative leader Alison Redford and the upstart Wildrose Party’s Danielle Smith.

“The outcome of this election is going to be interesting because it will tell us just how much things have changed in Alberta,” says John Church, associate professor of political science at the University of Alberta.

“Depending on how this election turns out we could be seeing how much the political landscape has shifted.”

The election both of Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi, Canada’s first Muslim mayor, and Alberta’s first female premier, Alison Redford, are signs that the political landscape has been changing gradually over the past 15-20 years, says Church.

But the sudden spike in popularity for the hard-right Wildrose Party shows the only threat to the Conservatives’ four-decade monopoly is coming even further from the right.

“As the government has moved more towards the centre of the political spectrum, those people who would normally vote conservative but who have views that are further on the right, have felt increasingly alienated from the Conservative Party,” says Church.

“The Wildrose, because it is positioned further to the right on the political spectrum, has been able to capitalize on the sentiment from that segment of the voting population.”

This means that the most exciting Alberta election in decades is turning into a competition between the ruling Conservative Party and a party that may be even more conservative.

But the election does not only affect policy in Alberta; it will also determine how the province engages the rest of Canada, particularly around oil development and natural resource strategies.

Church says Wildrose policies have been decidedly “Alberta centric,” while Redford has tried to develop a national strategy, particularly around energy, in partnership with the federal government.

“Redford is definitely looking at Alberta within the context of Canada,” he says.

Barry Cooper, a political science professor at the University of Calgary and a columnist for the Calgary Herald, says the Wildrose Party’s strong campaign has caught the Conservatives off-guard and is forcing them to shed the complacency of a 41-year monopoly.

“I think [the Conservatives] are completely bewildered. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. They haven’t had to campaign because they’ve only had opposition from the left,” he says.

“They’ve had to play catch-up and they’ve had to react to a number of initiatives from the Wildrose.”

But Church says it’s too soon to tell whether the Wildrose will win a majority in the election.

“It could go either way,” he says.

Young girls navigate an obstacle course at the Matilda Street Natural Playground in Hamilton, Ontario. Edmonton will soon be getting its first natural playground as part of a growing nationwide movement to connect kids with nature. (Courtesy Bienenstock Design and Consulting)

Edmonton will soon be getting its first “natural playground,” an imaginative play space that aims to help kids get connected to nature.

Offering an alternative to standard plastic, concrete, and steel models, the playgrounds incorporate natural wonders such as fallen trees, local horticulture, and art.

The play spaces are growing in popularity and have started to make their way into public parks, schools, and childcare centres across the country.

Funded through donations and grants, the first Edmonton playground to get a natural makeover is Donnan Park, a space near the Mill Creek ravine, set to be completed within a year.

The revamped play area will include plenty of greenery and trees, along with a climbing rock, a sideways-growing tree, swings, a sand box, a creek with an old-fashioned hand pump, and a community garden.

“What we have planned is basically a wonderful garden that everyone can come out and play in,” says Kory Baker-Henderson, co-chair of the committee working to bring in the Donnan Park natural playground.

“I live about a block away from the park and really wanted something beautiful for our families and our community to enjoy.”

Baker-Henderson says it’s important for kids and families to have access to nature, especially in urban areas where it’s not always “at your back door.”

“There are many natural learning opportunities that children are exposed to in a living playground from participating in gardening or simple sitting in a tree, fostering an overall respect for themselves, others, and nature,” she says, adding the park will cost about half as much as traditional plastic and steel models.

“Natural playgrounds are for all ages since there are things for everyone to be involved in from gardening, playing, or simply sitting and enjoying the natural surroundings.”

Baker-Henderson expects the park to be completed by next summer but her committee is also hosting a family event on April 1 as part of the CBC Live Right Now healthy communities contest. If they win the $100,000, they could get the playground for free this spring.

Engaging Kids

Adam Bienenstock, founder of Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, is the main driving force behind the natural playground movement in Canada, and is collaborating with community members on the Donnan Park design.

A young girl walks across a rope bridge at McLeary Natural Playground in Toronto. Edmonton will soon be getting its first natural playground as part of a growing nationwide movement to connect kids with nature. (Courtesy Bienenstock Design and Consulting)

Bienenstock says the playgrounds not only engage children, but transform the way they play, bringing life out of the quieter, shy kids and calming the hyper-active or dominant kids.

“Participation rates go up, so does the collaboration between different types of kids and the different types of physical ability. These spaces aren’t about physical ability anymore—they’re about engagement,” he says.

He is a passionate spokesman for the benefits that natural play spaces can provide children and communities, and can rattle off countless studies that link exposure to nature with everything from decreased rates of obesity, bullying, vandalism, promiscuity, to higher IQ, balance, and agility scores.

He says natural playgrounds are also the material equivalent of the 100-mile diet, because developing them relies fully on local businesses to supply building materials, flora and labour.

“The community gets to have their stuff, their story, their elements. All of the money goes to the local nurseries, the local quarries, the local soil people, your local contractors—it’s all poured into local economies.”

Educators and city councils are also beginning to take note of the benefits of natural parks.

In February the Vancouver Park Board unveiled its first natural playground in Oak Park, custom-built with all-natural materials, landscaping, and no manufactured equipment.

Collingwood in Ontario has become the first municipality to introduce a law that bans plastic and steel playgrounds in favour of natural play spaces.

Bienenstock says the law represents a “major shift” in societal attitudes and understandings of the importance of nature-play, and adds it’s only been in the last few years that building natural playgrounds exclusively has become a viable, profitable business.

Due in part to increasing media attention, Bienenstock’s business has become inundated with requests and support from the public, and his playgrounds can now be found in every province and territory in Canada except for Nunavut.

“It’s amazing how many people want this for their communities,” he says.

A freight train passes through Calgary’s city centre in front of the Husky Oil building. Alberta is undergoing an economic boom, forecast to continue throughout 2013. Meanwhile, business groups are calling on government to address acute labour shortages as a result of the rapid economic growth and oil development in the province. (David Boily/AFP/Getty Images)

Alberta’s economy is booming once again, with GDP growth reaching levels not seen since 2006, according to an RBC economic outlook.

“Alberta’s economy is firing on all cylinders, with real GDP growth in 2011 climbing above the four percent mark, the highest it’s been since 2006. We anticipate that this pace will be largely sustained over the next few years,” said Craig Wright, RBC’s senior vice-president and chief economist.

“Record levels of production and investment by Alberta’s oil industry are catalysts for the strong economic activity and every sign is pointing toward another banner year for this industry in 2012.”

GDP growth reached an estimated 4.2 percent in 2011 and is forecast to stabilize at 3.9 percent throughout 2012 and 2013, says the RBC report.

The growth is largely being fuelled by massive investment in the oil sands. The Nation Energy Board estimates unconventional output alone will increase by a whopping 16 percent this year.

Conventional oil production is also seeing a revival, rising in 2011 for the first time since 2003, with further increases expected.

In addition, energy sector investments are slated to reach new highs in 2012. According to Statistics Canada’s most recent report on investment intentions, oil and gas firms plan to spend a record $48 billion this year on capital expenditures—an increase of 16.2 percent from 2011.

The reinvigorated economy also created 99,000 new full time jobs in Alberta last year, but an impending labour shortage is threatening to curb this unbridled expansion.

The Alberta government has forecasted there will be 114,000 more jobs than people to fill them in the coming years.

Addressing Labour Shortfalls

Earlier this month, a coalition of 19 Alberta business groups called on the federal and provincial governments to address labour shortages across western Canada.

“Our challenge is clear,” said coalition spokesperson Richard Truscott, Alberta director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB).

“Governments and industry must work together quickly to explore opportunities to improve temporary worker and permanent immigration programs to meet the needs of a growing economy. Every sector of the economy will be hit hard by a shortage of workers.”

The Alberta Coalition for Action on Labour Shortages (ACALS), which was formed in late 2011 to seek action on labour shortages, recommends the government adjust temporary and skilled worker programs according to labour needs.

“In addition to ongoing efforts to maximize the opportunities for Canadians to benefit from our expanding economy, what’s needed now is the recognition that we must aggressively recruit in international labour markets. We will be more successful in this effort if the federal and provincial governments make the necessary changes to help employers gain access to the human resources we need,” said Tim Shipton, president of the Alberta Enterprise Group.

“We need to work together with all levels of government to implement real solutions.”

The survey of 649 small business owners found 52 percent reported “poor quality applicants” as a result of the labour shortage and 33 percent complained of high turnover resulting in frequent re-training.

Fifty-four percent reported working more hours to compensate for shortages, and 35 percent said the shortage had resulted in “deteriorating customer service.”

A recently completed show home by Effect Home Builders. (Robin Li/The Epoch Times)

A much-anticipated event among eco-home enthusiasts took place March 8 with the completion of Belgravia Green—three homes situated in Edmonton’s well-established Belgravia neighbourhood.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of the third home was attended by Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, city councillor Don Iveson, and former Alberta official opposition leader Kevin Taft and his wife Jeanette Boman.

Taft and Boman are the new owners of the home—the feature of the project—built by Effect Home Builders, a small local company established in 2001 specializing in cutting-edge energy-efficient green designs.

The three homes are net-zero buildings, meaning they produce as a net total as much energy as they consume throughout the year.

Well lit with large, south-facing windows, the feature home offers a simple yet refined open plan for the kitchen/main room where the festivities were held.

In each room, labels here and there denoted the latest eco-friendly features and breakthrough methods of energy and resource efficiency. Particularly notable were the 75-cm thick walls, especially designed to provide insulation for Edmonton’s chilly winters.

Although not excessive in size, the house is open and spacious and has all the amenities needed for a modern lifestyle.

As Boman described to the assembled guests, one of the great appeals of the home is the sense of place that comes with it. It is “not another McMansion,” she quipped.

(L-R) Effect Home Builders managing partner Les Wold, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, Jeanette Boman, and Kevin Taft take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of the Belgravia Green project. (Robin Li/The Epoch Times)

Stairs lead from the main room both downward to a comfortable and roomy basement and upward to an ample upper balcony overlooking a neighbourhood park.

Set back to, and sloping away from the balcony is the home’s pitched roof, which is clad with solar panels, the main source of electrical power.

Combined with the energy-saving methods used to construct the house, the solar panels will create more than the needed amount of electricity during summer when daylight is abundant. This excess electricity can be sold back to the grid, making a net gain for the homeowner.

During winter the panels will still generate electricity, and any deficiency will be made up for by drawing power back in from the grid. The aim is for the consumption and generation of electrical power to balance out over the course of a year.

One of the most notable qualities of all three Belgravia Green homes is their absolute uniqueness, as each is designed out of the necessity of harnessing natural energy to accord with the particular conditions provided on the lot on which it is built. Each employs different methods of energy generation.

Dubbed “March for Understanding,” the annual campaign hosted by the Centre for Race and Culture has grown from a one-day commemoration on March 21 to a month-long event that includes community events, celebrations, lectures, films, performances, workshops, art projects, and more, all in an effort to promote cross-cultural and racial understanding.

“[Racial discrimination] becomes no longer just something to think about on one day, but instead a series of community events over the whole month where people can explore racism in different ways—through art, education, and dialogue,” says Roxanne Felix-Mah, program manager at the Centre for Race and Culture.

Felix-Mah says Alberta does not necessarily have higher incidences of racism than other provinces, but with the influx of immigrants to the area in recent years, the need for racial awareness is heightened.

“When you have a booming economy it brings some of these [discrimination issues] to light quicker,” she says.

Alberta has attracted attention in recent years due to a seemingly strong presence of white supremacists in the province.

Neo-Nazi groups hold annual rallies in downtown Calgary, sometimes on March 21, and have been known to try to recruit new members through flyer/poster/Internet campaigns.

Last year, three members of the white power group Blood & Honour were charged after assaulting three visible minorities on Edmonton’s popular Whyte Avenue, and shouting racial slurs.

Felix-Mah says it’s easy to think of only these extreme examples as racism, but much more prevalent and damaging is the systemic racism and inequality that exists in Canada.

“There is a systemic inequity here, where some things in the system that we all accept and that we all think is normal, leads to greater inequity for individuals who have a different skin colour,” she says.

“I think that’s the real fear—that we just accept that. Those one-time events are easy to pick out and say ‘that’s racism,’ but those are actually the easy ones to identify and the easy ones to stop.”

Stephanie Molina, communications coordinator for the Centre for Race and Culture, notes that for every hate-motivated act in Alberta, there are many more efforts to encourage inclusion, diversity, and awareness.

“For the handful of white supremacists that might show up on March 21 to spread their message of hate, there’s hundreds of Albertans who are happy to publicly stand against that kind of hate and discrimination,” she says.

“I think that what’s more difficult for people to understand, is the subconscious, systemic, or institutionalized forms of racism that affect how people live.”

An Ongoing Issue

Molina adds that she often hears from people who think racism is not an issue today, or has disappeared, which makes March for Understanding that much more important.

“Many people say we live in a ‘post-racial society.’ Well, frankly, that isn’t true, unfortunately,” she says.

Statistics show racism continues to be a reality in Canada.

Canadian police services reported 1,473 hate crimes in 2009, up by 437 incidents, or 42 percent from the previous year. Many more crimes are also thought to go unreported.

Over half of police-reported hate crimes in 2009 were motivated by race or ethnicity. The largest increase involved hate crimes against Arabs or West Asians, which doubled from 37 incidents in 2008 to 75 in 2009.

Blacks continued to be the most commonly targeted racial group, accounting about 38 percent of all racially-motivated incidents in 2009.

Though Alberta has attracted controversial white supremacist activity and has a “redneck” reputation, Statistics Canada shows Edmonton and Calgary are not even in the top ten Canadian cities with the most reported hate crimes.

Kitchener-Waterloo topped the cities for most reported hate crimes at 18 per 100,000 people, followed by Guelph, Peterborough, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Kingston, and Toronto.

March for Understanding continues in Alberta until March 30, featuring 26 activities. Event schedule and program can be found at MarchForUnderstanding.com.

View of Calgary’s iconic Saddledome and the Calgary Tower. The recent census shows Calgary is Canada’s fastest-growing city, with 12.6 percent growth since 2006. Smaller municipalities in Alberta such as Beaumont and Chestermere have doubled in size since 2006. (Tourism Calgary)

For the first time in history, the proportion of Canada’s population west of Ontario is higher than that to the east, primarily due to the booming job market in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

According the recent census, the west boasts four of Canada’s fastest growing metropolitan cities, with Calgary leading at 12.6 percent growth between 2006 and 2011, and Edmonton by 12.1 percent, followed by Saskatoon, and Kelowna, B.C.

But Canada’s fastest-growing municipalities and smaller centres arguably face more challenges keeping up with the growth as they struggle to maintain amenities and infrastructure for populations that have nearly doubled since 2006.

A case in point is Beaumont, located 35 kilometres south of Edmonton. The town is the seventh fastest-growing municipality in Canada, almost doubling in size from 8,961 people in 2006 to 13,284 in 2011.

“There’s always challenges as we grow. There’s demand from the residents for infrastructure, recreation especially. There’s been a lot of pressure for schools,” says Camille Berube, Mayor of Beaumont.

“It’s ongoing.”

Specifically, we need more restaurants and we could really use a hotel.

Mayor Patricia Matthews

He adds that the community has managed, in part due to provincial funding for infrastructure and ongoing public advocacy for adequate services.

After years of lobbying by the school board and town officials, the provincial government agreed to build two new schools in the community to manage the drastic overcrowding.

Berube says despite the rapid growth, Beaumont is “very well organized” and poised to accommodate more growth, with ample land available for housing and commercial development.

“As the market starts absorbing, the developers are ready to go,” he says.

Chestermere, a bedroom community adjacent to Calgary and Canada’s fifth-fastest growing municipality, is also seeking to attract commercial development, to provide amenities for its rapidly growing population which has increased by 49.4 percent since 2006.

“For us, council’s big drive is to bring in more commercial [development]. Specifically, we need more restaurants and we could really use a hotel,” says Chestermere mayor Patricia Matthews.

“We have a great percentage of our workforce that travels to Calgary anyway, but we want to create the kind of town where they can come back and stay home.”

‘Huge Challenge’

Susan McDaniel, demographics expert and director of the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy at the University of Lethbridge, says infrastructure presents a “huge challenge” for rapidly expanding municipalities.

“If you have an influx of population you have to have more schools, roads, hospitals, doctors—the whole infrastructure thing is important,” she said.

“How do you provide all of that very quickly?”

According to the census, Canada is the fastest-growing country in the G8 with a 5.9 percent increase in the past five years, boosting the total population to from 31.6 million in 2006 to 33.5 million in 2011.

Two-thirds of this increase has been fuelled by immigration from around the world.

McDaniel notes that although western Canada is attracting many workers, most eastern cities are thriving as well.

“It’s not as if the doors are shutting in Ontario and everybody’s moving west—it’s nothing like that. It’s rather the whole country is growing at a pretty good clip, but the west is growing at a faster clip,” she said.

Moncton, N.B. recorded the fifth fastest growth rate in Canada, followed by St. John’s, N.L., Quebec City, Toronto, Oshawa, Ont., and Ottawa-Gatineau rounding out the top 10 fastest growing cities.

Windsor and Thunder Bay, Ont., were the only two major Canadian urban centres to report a drop in population—a reality linked to their struggling automotive and forestry industries.

“Essentially people always migrate where the jobs are, and the jobs are more in the west than they have been in parts of Southern Ontario,” she said.

Eighty percent of Albertans surveyed in a Valentine’s Day poll said they would not marry someone who was bad at managing their personal finances or held excessive debt. (Photos.com)

Albertans should forgo giving a gift this Valentine’s Day and instead pay off their credit card, because financial management is a relationship deal-breaker, according to a new poll.

Eighty percent of Albertans surveyed in the poll, released by TD Canada Trust, said they would not marry someone who was bad at managing their personal finances or held excessive debt.

The poll, which surveyed adults currently or recently in a committed relationship, found that 27 percent would date but never marry someone who couldn’t manage their money well.

In addition, 39 percent said they wouldn’t even consider dating someone who didn’t have their finances under control.

“Whether you’re moving in together or getting married, you each contribute something to the relationship including savings, investments, and debt,” says Shawnette Fraser, manager of customer experience with TD Canada Trust.

“Opening up about your finances—not to mention actually sharing your assets and liabilities—can be a challenging notion for some.”

Money Talks

The poll also revealed that Albertans are more likely than the national average to communicate openly with their partner about finances.

Fifty eight percent feel confident talking to their partner about money and savings for the future, compared to 48 percent nationally.

Albertans are among the most likely to discuss how much debt their partner has—90 percent vs. 85 percent nationally—and most know the details about their partner’s salary, savings, and investments.

Only a few admitted to lying to their partner about purchases. Nineteen percent have fibbed about the expense of an item, while just 11 percent said they have hidden a new purchase from their other half.

“Talking openly and honestly about money is an important part of establishing a healthy financial foundation,” says Fraser.

“If you’re saving for a rainy day but your partner is thinking about the next big shopping adventure, you might be headed for some challenges. Couples who discuss their personal and financial goals openly, and work with a financial advisor, can create a roadmap for success, together.”

Investing Together

The poll revealed that among Canadians, Albertans are the most comfortable sharing and investing money together.

Only 19 percent keep their finances completely separate from their partner’s, compared to 33 percent nationally.

Albertans are also 10 percent more likely than the national average to buy a home together, have a joint bank account, and have a joint financial plan.

“For instance, having a credit card and bills in your own name that you pay back in full and on time will help you build your personal credit rating. Similarly, making regular contributions from your paycheque into your RRSP will help you build a healthy nest egg for the future.”

Albertans Pass on Pre-Nups

Despite the higher likelihood of combining finances, 86 percent of Albertans said they would not consider a pre-nuptial agreement.

Nationally, Canadians who are currently separated or divorced are more likely to consider a pre-nup for their next relationship—29 percent versus 16 percent nationally.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent recently announced plans to return the iconic bison to Banff National Park after over a century of absence. (Jack Dykinga/U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Public consultations on reintroducing bison to Banff National Park will be crucial in responsible stewardship of the process, says Parks Canada.

“There’s lots of different versions of how this might happen, so our goal over this year is to understand what people like about [returning the bison], what they’re concerned about, and how to come up with the best possible way forward,” says Bill Hunt, resource and conservation manager for Parks Canada, Banff field unit.

Environment Minister Peter Kent announced recently that plans are in the works to return the iconic animal to Banff National Park after more than a century of absence.

Kent said the move is “an important step” in delivering on Parks Canada’s commitment of restoring the ecological integrity of the country’s first national park.

Consultations will start immediately to involve stakeholders and the public in the process, and consider potential impacts of the bison’s return. In all, there will be three phases of consultations.

Although advocacy groups have lauded the decision, some concerns have been raised over public safety, highway danger, and protection of private property against the roaming bison, whose weight in the wild averages 680 kilos.

“One of the biggest [concerns] is just what impacts this will have on lands adjacent to the park. So if you’re a stakeholder … what would be the pros and cons of having bison occasionally wandering out into your neck of the woods,” says Hunt.

“We need to make sure we understand what those impacts are, and how people feel about them, and what sort of steps we could take to minimize any negative impact.”

Wild bison were abundant for thousands of years on the Canadian prairies, but were wiped out in the 19th century when nearly all plains bison were rendered extinct. The cause of the disappearance is not entirely known, but is thought to be a combination of over-hunting, European settlement, disease, and a changing habitat.

Bison are considered a keystone species because they play an important ecological role in their natural habitat. As herbivores, their grazing activities increase nutrient levels in the soil and help disperse the seeds of various plants.

They also help provide a natural habitat for many other species because they create temporary water pools by wallowing—rolling about in the mud or shallow water to keep cool or avoid pests.

In spring after the snow melts, or after rainstorms, the standing water in wallows provides an important habitat for birds, toads, and wetland plants.

A Missing Part of the Ecosystem

Hunt says the plan to reintroduce the bison has been in the works for years, after it was acknowledged that bison were a missing part of the ecosystem.

“The role they play as a grazer, they have an impact on the entire ecosystem in terms of changing the types of forage and the amount of forage that’s available for other wildlife. So we think that by putting bison back into the habitat, we’re going to return to a more natural forest succession,” he says.

“One of the goals of our ecological integrity is to maintain and restore natural parts of the ecosystem and natural processes.”

Consultations on returning the bison will be concluded within the year, followed by an environmental assessment, which could result in the rejection or modification of the final proposal.

Alberta is not the first province to experiment with the reintroduction of bison populations.

Elk Island National Park, located 45 kilometres east of Edmonton, has been involved in bison conservation for over a century and is considered a world expert on bison breeding and preservation, often exporting herds to the U.S. and other Canadian provinces.

In the Yukon, efforts to reintroduce the bison are considered to have become almost too successful. Beginning in the 1980s, bison were brought to the territory primarily, from Elk Island National Park, and populations have grown at a rate of 20 percent per year.

Parks Canada will also obtain the bison destined for Banff from Elk Island National Park, and will access Elk Island’s resources and staff expertise throughout the reintroduction process.

Alberta’s opposition parties are calling for an end to deregulation of the province’s power market after a decade of volatile prices and record-high rates in January. (Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

Alberta’s deregulated power market is causing record high utility prices and threatening the viability of some local businesses, say opposition parties.

Liberal Kent Hehr, the Official Opposition energy critic, says market forces have worked against, rather than for, consumers.

“Albertans now pay among the highest power prices in the nation, because the government hasn’t managed the grid properly or properly incentivized utility companies to build more baseline generation,” he says.

“The result: more money out of your pocket to make big power companies rich.”

Last week, record low temperatures across the province leading to high demand, combined with unplanned outages at three power plants, caused the kilowatt-hour price to spike to its maximum level of over 99 cents.

When the Conservative government deregulated the energy sector in the late nineties they claimed market competition would lead to savings for consumers. But as the deregulation dreams faded, consumers faced unpredictable price spikes and the decision became increasingly controversial.

The majority of Alberta’s consumers have chosen not to commit to lengthy fixed-rate contracts, preferring the Regulated Rate Option (RRO)—a default price based on the next month’s projected market price of electricity.

The RRO price per kilowatt-hour rose to 13 cents in December and 15 cents in January, nearly double the 2011 average of 7.7 cents.

Hehr says electricity is an essential service that must be affordable for everyone, especially in the winter months.

“The PCs promised that deregulation would open up the power grid to the free market and everyone’s power bills would drop. Well, it hasn’t turned out that way,” he says.

But Evan Bahry, executive director of the Independent Power Producers Society of Alberta, says the prices are proportionately fair because the province’s generation supply has expanded significantly, and is still cheaper than greenfield coal or wind plant alternatives.

“From our perspective, the competitive market has worked for Albertans. Over the past decade, Alberta’s net generation capacity has increased by 40 percent, while wholesale power prices have increased by less than 10 percent,” he wrote in a recent Calgary Herald op-ed.

“To get a sense of just how much supply we’ve added, SaskPower has a total of 3,500 megawatts to serve their entire province. In Alberta, more than 5,400 megawatts of new supply was added in the past decade alone.”

Although Energy Minister Ted Morton has said he’s “not happy” about the province’s recent supply-driven price spikes, he agrees with Bahry that prices are relatively competitive.

Businesses Suffering

NDP opposition leader Brian Mason says deregulation has only benefitted power generators, whose profits have risen as much as 25 percent from 2010 to 2011, while local businesses are suffering from increasingly burdensome utility bills.

“When Alberta businesses are sending workers home because they can’t afford power, it’s a sign deregulation is the Alberta disadvantage for industry,” Mason says.

He claims some businesses have had to shorten their operating hours or cut back on staff to compensate for escalating power prices, citing Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope as an example. Oldcastle’s Calgary manager Darren Peck shut down production for two days and sent hourly wage employees home because of recent high power prices.

“We are completely at the mercy of power companies,” Peck said in a news release.

Mason has started a petition and a social media campaign opposing deregulation, as well as a hotline for Albertans to share their stories of “power price pain.”

Alberta is currently the only province in Canada with fully competitive wholesale/retail power markets.

Hehr and Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith called for a review of the deregulated market last November when TransAlta, Canada’s largest publicly traded power generator, admitted to blocking power imports into Alberta in 2010, creating a false shortage that increased electricity prices.

The Market Surveillance Administrator levied a penalty of $370,000 on TransAlta for the price manipulation, an amount that is being reviewed by the Alberta Utility Commission.

The penalty is the highest of its kind ever proposed in the province. However, the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta estimates the manipulation could have cost consumers close to $5.5 million.

An aerial view of the new remand centre’s construction site in north Edmonton. Slated to open in early 2013, the facility will be the largest of its kind in Canada. (Courtesy Government of Alberta)

The new remand centre being built in Edmonton—the biggest of its kind in Canada—can’t come too soon after yet another inmate assault in the current, notoriously overcrowded facility.

An injured man was taken to hospital on Jan. 7 after an altercation with another inmate, but refused to co-operate with police. He was treated and later sent back to the jail.

The current centre has been plagued with violence, including four homicides in the past decade, blamed primarily on overcrowding. Built in 1979 for 388 inmates, today it houses about 800 accused criminals awaiting trial or transfer to another prison to serve their sentence.

The new $568 million Edmonton Remand Centre is slated to open by spring 2013. Mike Tholenaer, executive director of the new facility, says he expects the move to decrease inmate violence significantly.

“Given the size of the current facility, and that we’re triple-bunking that facility because it’s over-crowded, it’s extremely difficult to appropriate any good property to keep [rival inmates] separate,” Tholenaer says.

“This new centre is obviously much, much larger and has many more living units within it. That allows us to put inmates in different units so that we can keep them separate when we need to.”

He says a major issue in the current centre is that rival gang members are in close proximity, leading to a tense environment that can easily spark conflict.

“The current remand centre was built in an era where we didn’t have gangs, or very little. Way back in the day you had the odd motorcycle gang issue, but nothing like today. So really the only way you can properly deal with those gang issues is by separating [the gangs].”

The biggest change for the new centre will be its adoption of the “direct supervision model,” which removes physical barriers between staff and inmates. This allows staff to build relationships with prisoners and keep a close watch on potential conflict.

Tholenaer says this model is based on best practices that have been proven effective throughout North America, and creates a safer environment for staff.

“When staff are placed behind glass they really don’t have a good sense of what’s going on in living units. You don’t have that ability to get that sixth sense that there’s something going on that shouldn’t be,” he says.

“[The new model] provides that dynamic supervision that allows staff to interact with offenders, be able to deal with issues and problems on living units immediately as they start to arise.”

Tholenaer adds that in addition to proper staff training, the most effective way to reduce violence is to place inmates appropriately when they arrive at the centre, and identify whether they have gang affiliations, addictions, mental health issues, etc.

“It’s a matter of the correct classification of inmates when they’re first brought in the facility, and obviously the correct placement within the facility. So that’s done through a proper classification and security assessment process on admission,” he says.

The new facility, which began construction in 2007 in north Edmonton, covers 16 hectares, equivalent to 27 CFL football fields. It will be able to hold about 2,000 inmates.

If Bill C-10—the Conservatives’ “tough on crime” legislation—goes through, Tholenaer expects it to have an impact on the centre’s population.

“We, as well as all the other jurisdictions throughout the country, have been working on assessing what those impacts are. But certainly that omnibus bill will have an impact on our provincial populations.”

Tholenaer thinks there are a number of factors contributing to increasing inmate numbers, such as enforcement practises by police agencies, changes in legislation, increasing complexity of court cases, and general population increases.

Alberta is conducting a review of radiology and pathology testing after the third case of misread tests was reported at three Alberta hospitals in under two months. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A national pathology association VP says Alberta’s largest-ever medical review should consider nationwide proficiency testing for pathologists and screening tools to guard against human error.

Alberta Health and Wellness Minister Fred Horne announced recently that a review of radiology and pathology testing will be conducted after misread tests were reported at three hospitals in under two months.

The latest involved the mishandling of 34 tests at a hospital in Drumheller in mid-December.

A similar scandal emerged at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital just weeks earlier, when dozens of pathology tests were revisited and 29 cancer cases were either missed or seriously underestimated, resulting in lost time for aggressive treatment.

Martin Trotter, vice president of the Canadian Association of Pathologists, says increased screening could help avoid such errors.

“What most of our quality assurance programs currently lack is a screening tool to detect diagnostic errors by individual pathologists that fall outside an accepted range,” says Trotter.

He notes that pathology actually has a much lower error rate compared to other specialties, and Canada enforces very high quality assurance standards for pathologists. However, introducing a standard nationwide skill test for all pathologists could further protect patients from costly mistakes.

“Areas for potential improvement would be a Canada-wide proficiency testing program and standards for Canadian pathologists with established practice guidelines for pathologists,” he says.

Horne said in his announcement that the review “is a proactive, system-wide exercise that will provide me and all Albertans with the necessary assurance that system-wide checks and balances to prevent errors are in place and operating as intended.”

“While we can and should be reassured that the errors were detected, these three incidents have caused stress for patients, families and staff alike and Albertans deserve answers. I apologize to those who have been affected,” Horne said.

A review was also launched in November into the handling of pathology tests by Calgary Laboratory Services at Rockyview General Hospital, when concerns were raised over the lab staining equipment.

Population Growth a Factor

Michael Mengel, acting chair in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Alberta, says he doesn’t see major systemic issues in testing, but supports the review.

“I think the right answer is to conduct a review of the whole work flow and process to find out what [caused the errors],” he says.

He adds that Alberta’s economic boom and recent population growth has added pressure on the system, which increases the likelihood of staff fatigue and human error.

“Over the last couple of years, as we all know, our population grew exponentially … and the whole healthcare system had to keep up with that pace. The workload grew exponentially over the last couple of years.”

Recent studies show that the pathology sector in Canada is suffering from both an aging demographic and decreasing supply in proportion to cancer rates. This is particularly concerning as cancer rates continue to climb, and pathologists play a major role in the diagnosis of the disease.

Alberta is not the first province to report mistakes in medical testing. British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador have had similar issues, sparking their own reviews in some cases.

B.C. recently undertook a review of radiology which concluded that sub-par performance and misread tests eluded detection, causing patient harm and even death in some cases.

In a 2005 review of 1,013 breast cancer tests conducted in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, it was found that at least 386 patients had been misdiagnosed and as a result did not get proper treatment.

By the time of the review, 108 of the cancer patients had already died.

Wearing makeup to simulate cuts and bruising, Romanian women protest against domestic violence in Bucharest on Nov. 25. The Alberta government could establish a domestic homicide review committee as early as January. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)

In the wake of a tragic murder-suicide that claimed four lives in Alberta recently, the province’s Minister of Human Services says the government could initiate a domestic homicide review committee as early as January.

The committee would investigate causal factors in domestic homicides by examining each homicide individually.

“When we look at instances of domestic violence, particularly those causing death, you’ve got to wonder, can we learn from it? Is there some way that we can honour the memory of those that were killed, at least by trying to figure out what might have happened, and what could happen for someone else?” said Dave Hancock.

The Human Services Ministry handles domestic violence issues and awareness, as well as the Integrated Threat and Risk Assessment Centre (I-TRAC), a multi-disciplinary unit composed of police, a Crown prosecutor, and psychologists that assess threats and develop risk-reduction plans for high-risk domestic violence.

But Hancock says it may be time to put more resources into “retrospective analysis” and investigating domestic homicides in a defined period of time soon after they occur.

“I’ve asked for a re-look at the family violence strategy to see what we can do better. … I’m anticipating some recommendations coming forward fairly quickly,” he said.

“I think in each case we need to examine them to see, were there signs, were there protective measures, were there strategies that could have been undertaken?”

Advocacy groups have been calling for the establishment of a review committee, especially in the wake of the shocking Dec.15 murder-suicide near Claresholm, Alberta.

Tabitha Stepple, 21, and friends Mitch MacLean, 20, and Tanner Craswell, 22, died at the hands of Stepple’s ex-boyfriend Derek Jensen when he ambushed the group’s SUV on Highway 2 and open fired in an apparent jealous rage.

Jensen also wounded passenger Shayna Conway, before turning the gun on himself.

“[A review panel] can serve as a means to monitor coordinated responses across the province and be a vehicle to share learning, best practices, and recommendations between them,” says Kevin McNichol, executive director of HomeFront, a Calgary-based domestic violence advocacy group.

“It can also serve as a means for communities, victims, and families to grieve, express their concerns and be heard while receiving answers and closure to very difficult and complex issues.”

Reviews faster, less expensive

Domestic violence fatality reviews are based on the idea that circumstances surrounding each death should be reviewed individually in order to identify patterns and risk factors that can lead to prevention.

Reviews are considered to be faster and less expensive than fatality inquiries, which must be conducted before a Provincial Court judge.

Alberta consistently has one of the highest reported rates of domestic violence in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. The Calgary Police Service alone received 13,496 calls pertaining to domestic violence in 2008-2009.

In 1999 The Protection Against Family Violence Act (PAFVA) was introduced in Alberta to help protect those affected by family violence.

The act was amended in November and December of this year to expand and strengthen the legislation, increase penalties, and provide better protection for victims.

Changes were made such as adding stalking to the definition of family violence, and protecting vulnerable people, such as seniors or individuals with disabilities, who are being abused by a family member who doesn’t live with them.

Domestic homicide death review committees were first created in the United States about 20 years ago, and the model has been adapted based on local circumstances in various jurisdictions.

The Ontario committee has identified a list of risk factors leading to domestic homicide, which include a recent separation, obsessive or controlling behaviour, failure to accept a breakup, and access to weapons.

Mark Mitchell, preparation technician at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, points to fossil markings at the site of the plesiosaur fossil discovery in Fort McMurray. (Courtesy Royal Tyrrell Museum)

A rare dinosaur found in the Alberta oil sands will take at least another two years to be ready for public viewing, says a curator involved in the project.

“It’s a very slow process,” says Donald Henderson, dinosaur curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.

“A week ago today we got it out of the ground and transported it to a quiet place in the mine. So it’s still sitting up there. … We’re going to go back in May to do the work to get it trimmed down and stabilized for transport.”

The fossil of the marine reptile known as a plesiosaur was found on a Syncrude lease in Fort McMurray on Nov. 14.

The Fort McMurray area has one of the largest crude oil reserves in the world, but it was once covered by a marine ocean known as the Albian Sea and home to countless ancient sea creatures.

This plesiosaur fossil, similar to the recent find, was discovered at a Syncrude mine in northern Alberta in 1994. (Courtesy Royal Tyrrell Museum)

“The whole time dinosaurs were on land, the [plesiosaurs] were swimming around in the seas. They are reptiles that are fully adapted for life in the seas. They would never come onto land—with a long neck and flippers that just wouldn’t work,” says Henderson.

Being a top predator and averaging 20 metres in length, plesiosaurs are among the largest fossils ever found in the area. Although plesiosaurs have been discovered on other continents around the world, this find is particularly interesting to scientists because it is relatively complete.

“This is a very rare find. It’s a long-necked plesiosaur, which is a marine reptile with a very long neck, small head and short body. The last one that was recovered was 10 years ago; it was recognized as a new kind and given the name Wapuskanectes,” Don Brinkman, director of preservation and research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, said in a release.

“We are hoping that this is another specimen of this kind of plesiosaur. The new specimen is particularly important because it looks to be nearly complete.”

The plesiosaur was known to live during the Jurassic Period, about 100 million years ago. Its likeness is often compared to the popular image of the Loch Ness Monster.

Discovered by heavy equipment operator Maggy Horvath, this is the tenth fossil found on a Syncrude lease.

“I think it’s great that I’m part of this. It felt pretty good to call my son and let him know that I found a prehistoric fossil while working in the mine,” says Horvath.

The last one, found in 2000, was 110 million years old and one of the most complete Cretaceous Ichthyosaurs of its age ever discovered in North America.

The Canadian Badlands, an area south of Fort McMurray that covers a broad swath of southern and eastern Alberta, is traditionally the hotspot for dinosaur fossil finds.

It has produced some of the world’s richest deposits of prehistoric fossils and is known internationally for its dinosaur education and preservation efforts.

A police officer administers a breathalyzer test to a man at a sobriety checkpoint. The Alberta government hopes to have new drunk driving laws in place by Christmas, but critics say it will not address the root issues in alcohol-related accidents. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Controversial new legislation that could change Alberta’s impaired driving laws by Christmas has come under fire from opponents who say it fails to target the most pressing issues.

Under the proposed laws, those found to have a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) over 0.08 will get a criminal charge and immediately lose their licenses until the charges are resolved in court.

Upon conviction, drivers would be required to pay for installation of an interlock device in their vehicle that measures their breath for alcohol before starting the ignition.

But the main issue, opponents argue, is that the legislation introduces increased punishment on those found to have a BAC of 0.05 -- 0.08, which is below the current criminal limit.

First offences for those who blow over 0.05 will increase from the current 24-hour driving suspension to an automatic three-day license suspension and three-day vehicle seizure.

Second offences bring a 15-day suspension and a seven-day seizure, while a third offence brings a 30-day suspension and a seven-day seizure. Mandatory education and treatment programs for repeat offences are also a focus of the bill.

“This [legislation] is dealing with people who are [complying with] the law and within levels that are designated,” said Garth Whyte, president and CEO of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA).

“It’s being rushed through—it’s almost a political agenda rather than a policy agenda. We’re saying take the time to do it right.”

The CRFA recently organized a petition signed by 2,000 restaurant owners, their employees, and customers who are concerned the legislation—Bill 26—will penalize responsible drivers and hurt the restaurant industry.

Both the Wildrose party and the NDP have criticized the bill, saying it does not address key issues surrounding heavy drinking and inadequate enforcement of current laws.

The legislation is modelled after a similar drinking and driving law introduced in British Columbia in 2010. The B.C. government claims alcohol-related driving deaths have been reduced by 40 percent since its introduction.

However, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that certain sections of the law are unconstitutional because they infringe upon Charter rights and lack an adequate appeal process.

Whyte says his association supports tough penalties for drunk drivers, but believes the law should punish those above the criminal limit of 0.08—who are the most likely to be involved in serious accidents.

He notes that after the legislation was introduced in B.C., restaurant owners lost an average of 21 percent in liquor sales in the first six months, leading to job cuts.

Changing Driver Behaviour

Bill 26 is being championed by Minister of Transportation Ray Danyluk along with Attorney General and Minister of Justice Verlyn Olson and Solicitor General and Public Security Minister Jonathan Denis.

The Alberta government says the approach will help change the attitude and “culture” of drinking and driving in the province, and balance enforcement with education and prevention.

“Suspensions for drivers between .05 and .08 are nothing new in Alberta,” said Olson. “What this legislation would introduce are new education programs and sanctions for these drivers, new mechanisms to track repeat offenders, and new, tougher, penalties for drivers who are caught over .08.”

Denis said the legislation targets those who repeatedly drive drunk. “It’s about changing driver behaviour through enforcing tougher sanctions.”

Critics also worry that the bill—which would allow officers to dole out penalties immediately—gives road-side police authority to be both judge and jury, and infringes upon civil rights by removing due process.

This could be problematic, for example, if the breathalyzer gives an incorrect reading, or simple human error is at play.

“What [Bill 26] is telling citizens is ‘go ahead and drink and then drive, that’s OK because it’s not illegal.’… But somehow, in a way that’s impossible for the average citizen to know—you’re going to have to figure out where to draw the line. If you make a mistake, then they’re ramping up these penalties in a way that doesn’t allow you to provide any type of defence—they just instantaneously punish you,” said criminal defence lawyer Michael Bates on Alberta Primetime.

Mothers Against Drinking & Driving Canada has commended the legislation, saying that the ramped-up penalties for drivers in the 0.05 -- 0.08 BAC range is a “crucial element” in reducing impaired driving accidents.

MADD also notes that studies show alcohol can start to affect driving ability at 0.02 BAC, and that Alberta’s criminal BAC limit is among the highest in the country.

Besides Alberta, Quebec is the only other province with a criminal BAC limit of 0.08, and Yukon the only territory. All other regions in Canada, much of Europe, Russia, Japan, and Australia, have a legal limit of 0.05 or lower.

Last year, 96 deaths and 1,384 injuries were caused by impaired driving on Alberta roads. Impaired driving is a factor in 30 percent of fatal crashes across Canada.

A voter casts his ballot in the May federal election at a polling station in Calgary. Elections Alberta recently expressed concern when they were unable to reach over 300,000 eligible voters during a late-summer door-to-door enumeration. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)

With a provincial election to be called before June 2012, Elections Alberta is facing challenges after its voters’ list came up at least 300,000 names short this year.

There are approximately 2.5 million eligible voters in the province, but Elections Alberta collected just over 2 million names in a recent door-to-door enumeration.

The organization blames the low numbers on increasing voter apathy, concern for privacy and personal safety, and building managers neglecting to accommodate enumerators when they come knocking.

Robert Drummond, professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Administration at York University, says this lack of participation in enumeration is symbolic of an “eroding democracy.”

“The Alberta situation is troubling, because people are saying they don’t want to be added to the list, because they won’t bother to vote, or they’re not interested in voting. That seems to be more of a problem than whether the list is up to date or not,” he says.

Drummond says Ontario and other provinces stopped using the door-to-door system because of its high cost and have instead adopted the permanent voters list, which compiles information from tax records, census forms, drivers’ records, and other government registrars.

But this system has been questioned for its accuracy, particularly in keeping updated in relation to people who move frequently or leave the country. If people who have moved away are still on the list, it also records them as not having voted and adds to an inaccurately low voter turnout.

Drummond says that although the door-to-door system is more expensive, it works well when voters participate because it gives people a sense of involvement in democracy and notifies them of upcoming elections.

“It gives you a sense of being part of the electorate in a way that the automatic system doesn’t really do.”

Voters who are not at home when the enumerator comes to the door can also register at the Voterlink website, an online elector registration program introduced in the 2008 general election.

NDP critic Rachel Notley has suggested that building managers or landlords who do not accommodate enumerators should be penalized because it threatens both the enumeration process and the ability of candidates to access potential voters.

“You could have a fine, but I think it’s not something that’s going to encourage people to be favourably disposed towards the system,” he said.

Elections Alberta has said it will find other ways to track down the missing 300,000 names before the next election. Alberta Premier Alison Redford has said she will call a provincial election before June 2012.

Steel towers carrying power transmission lines. TransAlta is facing $370,000 in proposed fines after it was revealed the company artificially raised electricity prices. (Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

Alberta opposition parties are calling for the repayment of an estimated overcharge of over $5 million and a review of the province’s power market after it was revealed that energy giant TransAlta manipulated electricity prices.

TransAlta is facing a proposed fine of $370,000, the largest-ever penalty for an Alberta company, after the manipulation cost Albertans up to $5.5 million in overcharges, estimates the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta.

NDP opposition leader Brian Mason says TransAlta should be required to pay Albertans back in full.

“TransAlta’s gaming of the power system raised prices for all Albertans. Yet the government is happy to charge them for only a fraction of the overcharging of consumers they caused. Albertans deserve to get the whole amount back that they were overcharged,” says Mason.

The company admitted to manipulating power prices after the Market Surveillance Administrator (MSA) investigated unusual trades made last November.

A proposed joint settlement between the MSA and TransAlta, filed with the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), states that for 31 hours over eight days in November of 2010, the company limited a competitive response by scheduling power toward the end of a 20-minute scheduling window.

This latest incident shows how unfair the system is and how badly it needs to be change.

— Wildrose leader Danielle Smith

The AUC has established a panel to assess the application for settlement and is required to reach a decision by early February. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith says the case is an example of systemic problems in Alberta’s electricity system, including the Electric Statutes Amendment Act.

Passed in 2009, the Act eliminated some regulatory processes involved in establishing need for major transmission projects.

“Alberta’s electricity system is stacked against consumers and that’s just not right,” Smith said. “This latest incident shows how unfair the system is and how badly it needs to be changed.”

Wildrose Energy Critic Paul Hinman said there needs to be better monitoring practices in place to protect consumers.

“We don’t know how widespread this problem is,” he said. “How many more examples of this are there? We need to get to the bottom of this to know how this happened so Albertans are not subject to price gouging or manipulations in the market.”

In a statement published in the Edmonton Journal on Nov. 12, TransAlta CEO Steve Snyder said the overcharge was unintentional and a “misinterpretation” of the rules.

“I want to be clear we did not intentionally breach any rules or regulations. We misinterpreted rules around the competitive business of electricity trading in response to what we thought were similar scheduling practices by other companies,” wrote Snyder.

“Once draft guidelines were released on Nov. 26 and clarified the issue, we stopped the scheduling practice immediately.”

Snyder, who defended the deregulated energy system in Alberta, apologized to Albertans and said TransAlta will comply with the settlement terms as a way to “acknowledge our mistake.”

Controversy surrounded the project from the start because, under the Electric Statutes Amendment Act, hearings that would demonstrate the need for the transmission infrastructure were no longer required.

Alberta has become the first province in Canada to dump its investments in the tobacco industry, drawing praise from anti-smoking groups, which say the move is long overdue.

“I am very saddened that it has taken so long for even one province to cut some of its ties with tobacco companies,” said Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada (PSC).

“We hope that the Alberta government’s decision will prompt a review in other jurisdictions, including provincial and federal investments.”

The Alberta Investment Management Corp. announced recently it has sold $17.5 million in directly managed stock held by public-sector pension funds and the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund.

The government has come under fire for investing in tobacco companies while supporting efforts to reduce tobacco use, and preparing to sue the tobacco companies for healthcare costs resulting from the industry.

Leo de Bever, CEO of the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund, admitted part of the reason for dumping the shares is that it would “look bad” while fighting the case.

Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), says tobacco companies are not a sound investment option given the likelihood of litigation.

“We should not be betting Alberta’s future on an unsustainable industry that has contributed to a global epidemic of disease, disability, and premature death,” he says.

“Even from a purely financial perspective, tobacco companies are not a sound long-term investment considering the industry’s tremendous exposure to litigation from governments and tobacco victims. The decision to dump tobacco industry stocks is a prudent decision from both financial and public health perspectives.”

Alberta has a relatively small stake in the industry compared to other provinces, such as British Columbia, which retains a $346 million investment as of March 2010.

B.C., Ontario, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick have already filed lawsuits against multiple tobacco companies, and every province and territory except the Yukon and Prince Edward Island have passed legislation that would enable them to file suits.

However, many of these regions continue to hold stock in the industry, which sends a contradictory message, says Callard.

“I think there is a policy incoherence for governments to say that tobacco companies have behaved so wrongfully that special measures have to be established to sue them, but then continue to be part-owners of tobacco companies.

“Of the many cases where government actions compete or conflict with each other, I find this one of the most disturbing examples.”

Canadians Own Shares

A PSC review of institutional ownership of tobacco stocks last year found that Canadians owned more than $2 billion in tobacco industry shares, and received more than $90 million in dividend payments from the profits of tobacco sales.

About 25 percent of these shareholdings were direct ownership by investment firms under government control.

Callard says many Canadians would be surprised to discover that they are indirectly funding tobacco companies through government bodies such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

“I think most Canadians are not aware that the money that is taken from their paycheque in Canadian Pension Plan contributions is invested in tobacco companies, and thus used to help tobacco companies expand their markets in other countries.”

In 2003, Canada joined the international Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, a treaty created by the World Health Organization that recommended all countries divest tobacco industry holdings.

Apart from Alberta, Norway and New Zealand are the only countries to make good on their commitment thus far.

Redford told the legislature that the tobacco industry must share the high costs of treating smoking-related illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.

Tobacco use kills an estimated 3,000 Albertans annually—representing almost one in every five deaths. Across Canada, smoking contributes to more than 37,000 deaths per year, and is the number one preventable cause of death in the country.

A 'Don't be that guy' campaign poster (Courtesy of Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton)

A hard-hitting new ad campaign just launched in Calgary has a simple message for young men: Don’t be that guy.

The campaign aims to raise public awareness about alcohol-related sexual assault and remind young men of the boundaries between consensual sex and criminal sexual assault.

The campaign is unique in that it targets offenders of sexual assault rather than the victims.

“It’s so insidious in our society that we blame the victim for sexual assault,” said Danielle Aubrey, director of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Assault.

“Sexual assault services in particular across North America have been working in the trenches trying to make this kind of shift for quite a number of years. It was incredible leadership by community groups and sexual assault services in Edmonton that pushed it in this direction.”

The “Don’t be that guy” ads were launched in Edmonton in 2010, and have since run in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Saskatoon. Other provinces and countries have reportedly taken an interest in publicizing the campaign in their local areas as well.

The campaign features powerful graphics and strong language, and was originally created by the Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton (SAVE), a coalition between the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, the Edmonton Police Service, and concerned individuals.

Sexual Assault Voices of Calgary have now adopted the campaign for their city.

A 'Don't be that guy' campaign poster (Courtesy of Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton)

Aubrey says past campaigns that targeted women, offering techniques and advice on how to protect themselves from becoming victims of sexual assault were “easy, yet totally ineffective.”

In 2010, 62 percent of sexual assaults investigated by the Sex Crimes Unit in Calgary, and over 50 percent investigated in Edmonton, involved a victim who was incapacitated by alcohol or drugs. However, Statistics Canada estimates that less than ten percent of incidents are ever reported to police.

A recent study in the U.K. that helped shape the campaign revealed that 48 percent of respondents, men aged 18 to 25, believed that sex with women too drunk to know what was going on is not rape.

This finding supports statistics that show the most common offenders of alcohol-related sexual assault in Alberta are men between the ages of 18 to 24, who are usually known to the people they assault.

Aubrey says the campaign also serves to educate the public so that they can respond appropriately if a woman they know personally is assaulted.

“We’re really targeting everyone because sexual assault affects everyone. If you have a daughter and this particular kind of crime happens to her, we want the parents to understand what the issues are, because they can be either a support or not a support [to her].”

“As a community, it is important for us to stand together and say this type of behaviour is not acceptable and the consequences are too great,” adds Laurie Blahitka, executive director Public Health, Alberta Health Services.

According to a 2006 Stats Can report, the province with the highest rates of sexual assault is Nunavut (598 assaults per 100,000 population), followed by the Northwest Territories (373), Yukon (195), Saskatchewan (125), and Manitoba (108).

Recently elected Alberta premier Alison Redford (Courtesy of Alison Redford)

After the low of losing her mother and the high of winning the Conservative leadership and becoming Alberta’s first female premier, Alison Redford appears to have more drama ahead.

Early attack ads by Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, and controversy surrounding the bad debts of her campaign strategist Carter McRae, means Redford will have to hit the ground running.

The 46-year-old wife and mother took leadership of the PC Party in a surprise win over frontrunner Gary Mar on Oct. 2.

On Oct. 15 she announced her new cabinet, a mixture of new faces and veterans that include leadership rivals Doug Griffiths, Doug Horner, and Ted Morton.

Other rivals Gary Mar and Rick Orman, who do not currently have seats in the legislature, have not announced whether they will run in the next election.

Barry Cooper, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, says Redford’s support of teachers and nurses—occupations with a high percentage of females—played a big part in her win.

“I think it was her appeal to the interests of teachers and nurses that caused a lot of them to join the [Conservative] party even though they probably were not considered activists or long-time members,” he says.

In her campaign, Redford promised to restore $107 million to the education budget within 10 days of being sworn in, and improve the public health care system.

Cooper says that although Redford has claimed to be shaking up the “old boys club,” she is more representative of Joe Clark and Peter Lougheed-era politics than truly fresh, new ideas. Redford served as senior policy advisor to Clark in the late 1980s.

“It’s not really a fresh vision of things but it’s a resurrection of part of the party that, for different reasons, has been in the shadows for the past couple of decades,” he says.

Redford, however, has an impressive resume, and is known for her articulate speech and sharp intellect. She has been actively involved in both provincial and national politics since the 1980s and established her own law firm in Calgary in the 1990s.

Throughout the 90s, she worked on legal, human rights, and educational reform in Africa for the European Union, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and both the Canadian and Australian governments.

In 2005, she was appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as one of four International Election Commissioners to administer Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections. After being elected MLA for the constituency of Calgary-Elbow, Redford was named Minister of Justice and Attorney General by Premier Ed Stelmach.

Redford is more educated and well-travelled than premiers of recent decades—Ralph Klein never graduated from high school and Ed Stelmach rarely left the country and did not go to university. Redford is the first Alberta premier to hold a university degree since 1992.

Strong Support for Tories

She also has the enviable position of being in the middle of a provincial love affair with the Conservative party. A poll released recently by the Citizen Society Research Lab at Lethbridge College says the Alberta Tories have almost 48 percent support among decided voters.

The NDP and Wildrose Party follow with 16.3 and 16.1 percent respectively, with the Liberals trailing at 13.4 percent.

A separate online poll of 1,000 Albertans conducted by ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc. found voters’ view of Redford improved between July and September, and that she had the most momentum leading up to the second vote of the leadership race.

The ThinkHQ poll also showed Alberta’s two female political leaders have almost equal approval ratings among voters. Redford had a net approval rating of 18 percent, compared with 17 percent for Wildrose’s Smith.

Cooper says Smith will give Redford some stiff competition. Wildrose had already released attack ads against the new premier one day before she was officially sworn in (although the party had also allegedly prepared attack ads aimed at Gary Mar if he were to win).

In the ads Redford is accused of trying to shut down the legislature after promising openness, and promising fixed election dates but then not giving a date.

“If he is appointed as her chief of staff that will show such a lack of judgement on her part,” says Cooper.

Alberta’s ethics commissioner has stated Carter’s company debt is not a breach of the Conflicts of Interest Act. However, Smith and Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson have called for Carter to step down.

View of the Syncrude oil sands extraction facility near Fort McMurray. A new study will investigate health impacts on aboriginal communities living downstream from the oil sands. (Mark Ralston/AF/Getty Images)

An aboriginal community near the Alberta oil sands is finally getting a long-sought health study that will probe the health effects of living near oil development.

Fort McKay First Nation leaders, Alberta Health and Wellness, and Alberta Aboriginal Relations have entered into an agreement that will assess the health of the Fort McKay First Nation and the Fort McKay Metis Community over the next few years.

“Community leaders in Fort McKay have shown tremendous leadership and cooperation in advancing this process that will be carried out with, by, and for the community,” said Minister of Health and Wellness Gene Zwozdesky.

The assessment will be one of the first health studies in Canadian history to be led by First Nation and Metis residents themselves, and supported by Alberta Health.

“We are incredibly encouraged by this show of commitment from the Government of Alberta,” said Raymond Powder, deputy chief of the Fort McKay First Nation.

Powder said the leaders of both communities have long expressed “that there is a great need to conduct a health assessment study of our community.”

“We need to better understand the state of our people’s health, and how the environment around us is impacting our health, not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. There is still much work to be done, but this is certainly a big step in the right direction.”

The alarm was raised five years ago about potential health effects from the oil sands when community doctor John O’Connor reported high rates of cancer in Northern Alberta’s Fort Chipewyan community.

Health Canada investigated O’Connor himself, but no action was taken to look into his concerns.

Then in February 2009, Alberta Health Services conducted a study that revealed higher rates of three different types of cancers in the Fort Chipewyan community, and recommended further investigation.

The Fort McKay First Nation and Fort McKay Metis Nation are located downriver from booming Fort McMurray, and are surrounded by at least a dozen oil sands projects.

The latest study will not only look at potential health effects of the oil sands, but offer a broader assessment of community health issues and social health concerns.

“This community-driven initiative will help determine the health priorities of Fort McKay residents,” said Dr. Andre Corriveau, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.

“The collaborative process will result in development of a plan to ensure the right mix of services and programs to improve the overall health of the community.”

RCMP officers pose in front of the Olympic Cauldron on Feb. 23, 2010, in Vancouver. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The recent renewal of the RCMP’s contract in Alberta has solidified the national police service’s presence in the province for the next 20 years.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews called the deal a “significant milestone for RCMP contract policing.”

“The terms of the agreement reached with Alberta represent excellent value to Canadians and are available to all contract provinces and territories,” he said.

Those provinces and territories, seven in all, are expected to renew their contracts with the RCMP, which expire in March 2012. Negotiations with provincial governments who use the Mounties have been underway for the past four years.

But Robert Gordon, professor and director of the school of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, says the RCMP needs a thorough review and questions of governance, accountability and transparency need to be answered before contracts are renewed.

The force has become too large to manage effectively, he says, and would be more suited to federal policing, much like the FBI’s role in the United States.

“They are stretched thin. It’s too large an organization to be effectively managed. … It’s a giant, and it’s in fact that monolithic nature that has caused a lot of the organizational and administrative problems that we’ve all been seeing, hearing, and reading about over the last little while,” he says.

“The RCMP are a very powerful lobby—they’re too powerful in many respects.”

Its function as a national, federal, provincial, and municipal policing body makes the RCMP unique in the world. It provides total federal policing service to all of Canada and policing services under contract to three territories, eight provinces, more than 190 municipalities, 184 Aboriginal communities, and three international airports.

Currently, Ontario and Quebec are the only provinces with their own provincial police forces. The prospect of having a provincial force has been raised in Alberta as well, but a provincial government study in 2003 concluded that it would be too expensive.

At a recent press conference, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said the new arrangement “makes good financial sense” for Alberta. Under the current contract, the province will share 70 percent of the cost of maintaining the force, while the federal government covers the remaining 30 percent.

Gordon says the public debate about the RCMP’s role and accountability has been more pronounced in British Columbia.

“The alternative [to having the RCMP] in Alberta is not as clearly articulated as it has been in B.C., and I think the lobby for a provincial police service in B.C. is much livelier and much stronger than it was in Alberta.”

In the Air India inquiry released last year, Supreme Court Justice John Major called for reform to the RCMP, which included narrowing their focus to federal policing and improving their processes of sharing information with other security bodies such as the CSIS.

In recent years, the once-iconic police force has been wracked by internal turmoil and controversies such as the tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport and the 2004 pension fund scandal.

A passenger unloads at a rural Greyhound stop. Greyhound, the iconic bus company, will stop servicing 12 small communities in northern and central Alberta as of Oct. 24. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images for Fortune Magazine)

Rural residents in central and northern Alberta are counting on start-up transportation companies to pick up the slack after Greyhound recently announced it will discontinue a dozen routes in the area by Oct. 24.

Some of the passenger routes to be cancelled include service from Edmonton to Drayton Valley, Slave Lake, Peace River, and Cold Lake. However, parcel service to these areas will continue.

North Darling, deputy mayor of Peace River, says a private company headed by local businessman Albert Cooper has already stepped forward to provide direct service from Peace River to Edmonton and will be in operation by Sept. 15.

He says many other affected towns are also looking to local existing or start-up companies to fill the transportation gap.

“For me, I’m a private businessman, so I don’t know why we would expect [Greyhound] to operate at a loss if we personally can’t. As a private service they have to do what's best for them and we have to adapt to fill those gaps,” he says.

“We can complain all we want to Greyhound, but they’re not going to change their mind, so we have to move forward.”

The 12 routes were no longer profitable for Greyhound after a subsidy from the provincial government was cut in the 2011 budget.

While the company wasn’t receiving a subsidy as such, the government gave Greyhound exclusive rights on the busier, more cost-effective routes to make up for the losses on its service to rural areas.

Low ridership due to dwindling rural populations was also a factor in the route cuts. Greyhound said it was losing more than $7 million across Alberta.

Darling says Cooper’s new bus service, LuxLiner, will be an improvement over Greyhound. While the company will offer similar ticket prices to Greyhound, it will add features such as free Wi-Fi, roomier seats, and faster, more direct routes.

Sherri Bohme, executive director at the Cold Lake Chamber of Commerce, says she hopes new carriers will emerge and be successful, but worries that the business simply cannot be profitable with low levels of ridership.

“If the business case doesn’t work, it really doesn’t make sense.”

Bohme says the loss of service will mostly affect people who need to travel for medical service and temporary workers who travel to Cold Lake to work in the oil and gas industry.

“It will have some impact on people that are coming to our community for work. … They have transportation lobbies here, but they still need to get to our community.”

Stephen Hutchings, Greyhound’s director of passenger services in Western Canada, says he is confident private companies will emerge to service the transportation needs of the outlying communities.

“I think the entrepreneurs will step up and propose to operate service along these corridors, whether that be with smaller vehicles or whatever that might be,” he says. “Obviously the Alberta government feels the exact same way.”

“We’re certainly willing to work with and assist any of these carriers that wish to apply a service,” he adds.

A drawing of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum to be built in Grande Prairie. (Courtesy of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum)

Alberta may be one step closer to getting a new dinosaur museum, thanks to the support of celebrities such as Dan Aykroyd and international media attention brought to the project.

The $27 million Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is slated to be built 22 km west of Grande Prairie in 2013. Grande Prairie, one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities, is located 465 km northwest of Edmonton.

A host of celebrities were recently welcomed at Grand Prairie’s Crystal Square for the first Aykroyd Family and Friends Dinosaur Ball—an annual dinner and silent auction that raised $500,000 in support of the museum.

The 700 guests included philanthropist Bobby Kennedy; Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid on the hit TV show “Criminal Minds”; America’s best-selling crime writer, Patricia Cornwell; artist Johnny Alexander; and producer John Goldwyn.

In addition to hosting the ball, Aykroyd and his family have volunteered to be international ambassadors for the project.

“It is a Canadian storehouse, a treasure house, and I want to bring people from all over the world to Canada to help display what’s here and to show the world that we have this incredible resource right here in this beautiful province,” Aykroyd told reporters at the Pipestone Creek excavation site.

Legendary Alberta palaeontologist Philip Currie, after whom the museum is named, told The Epoch Times that the media attention from the celebrity ball catapulted the project “to another level.”

“People are taking it much more seriously now,” he said. “Up to this point everybody thought it was a pie-in-the-sky idea—now people are thinking in terms of a real project that’s moving somewhere. So [the celebrity ball] was almost like a watershed.”

Actor Dan Aykroyd and his daughter, Danielle, at the Aykroyd Family & Friends Dinosaur Ball on July 23. (Suzanne Sagmeister)

The museum has been a dream of local palaeontologests for nearly 40 years. In 1974 a young schoolteacher, Al Lakusta, stumbled upon bones from a mass grave site of a new species of dinosaur near Pipestone Creek Park. The dinosaurs had drowned over 70 million years ago, and the site later became known as the River of Death.

The discovery triggered massive scientific interest in the area, including from Currie, one of the world’s premier dinosaur palaeontologists and a professor at the University of Alberta. He helped found the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, and was a model for the character Alan Grant in the film “Jurassic Park.”

“Having Philip J. Currie as our namesake has been an absolute blessing and so helpful in engaging the Aykroyd family to come in and be our international ambassadors,” said Brian Brake, executive director of the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative and the River of Death & Discovery Dinosaur Museum Society.

“It’s going to be a wonderful thing for this project. We’ve got a good team together and we’re going to get the job done.”

Museum plans are already well underway. The building and exhibit has been designed, a lot secured, and education programs have already been utilized by local students. Funding is now the only obstacle to completion.

Brake said they had hoped the ball and media hype would attract more funding from the provincial and federal governments, but so far that has not manifested. He says this will likely delay the expected completion of the museum from December 2012 to July 2013.

“I was hoping that this dinner, with the attention, the provincial, national, and international attention that we had, might encourage the various levels of government to come forward and make announcements about supporting the project. That didn’t happen, so now we’ve got hope that it will happen sometime in the near future,” he said.

Currie hopes the museum will act as a hub for palaeontologists in the area and advance exploration significantly in the Peace Country.

The rocks around Grande Prairie are reported to be as rich in fossils as Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park, but have gone largely unexplored due to the difficulty in accessing fossil sites and the area’s unexposed rock beds.

“In terms of the ability to deal with fossil resources in this part of the province, it will be substantially improved.”

The museum aims to be a major cultural and scientific attraction promoting palaeontology, geology, and archaeology, and will add to Alberta’s reputation as a dinosaur lover’s paradise.

A beekeeper inspects an active beehive. Bee mortality rates in Canada and around the world have been increasing since 2006, and suspected to be caused by a range of physical and environmental factors. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A national bee diagnostic centre is set to open in northern Alberta this fall in response to the insect’s increasing mortality rates. This will be Canada’s first laboratory dedicated to investigating honeybee deaths.

In an alarming trend, bee colony losses in Canada have risen from average levels of 5-15 percent to over 30 percent since 2006. A worldwide phenomenon, the increase in bee mortality started in Europe and North America, and later emerged in Asia and Africa.

Causes are uncertain, but have been linked to a combination of factors including pathogens, immunodeficiencies, mites, fungi, pesticides, improper beekeeping practices, malnutrition and Colony Collapse Disorder—a phenomenon where worker bees from a hive or colony abruptly disappear.

The Centre for Research and Innovation at Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) will oversee the new bee diagnostic centre at the Beaverlodge Research Farm.

Director Bruce Rutley says the centre will investigate and try to pinpoint specific causes of bee mortality in order to identify potential solutions.

“We [currently] do not have a very robust method of identifying exactly what’s going on, and that’s why we want to set up a centre using the most robust techniques that we can, which are molecular DNA-based techniques,” he said.

Alberta is the leading honey-producing province in Canada, responsible for almost 40 percent of total production, 20 percent of which comes from the northern Peace region. According to the Canadian Honey Council, over 80 percent of honey production is generated from the Prairie Provinces.

The GPRC is an ideal host for the research centre because it already offers a bee-keeper technician training program, Beaverlodge is the home of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada’s apiculture research program, and the Peace is a major honey-producing area.

A high bee mortality rate is a major concern since their pollinating activities are crucial to the production of approximately one-third of the foods eaten worldwide, as well as many flowering plants.

Rutley says the combination of high death rates and a decrease in beekeeping as a profession due to its questionable viability has a “compounding negative effect” on the future of food security.

Nosema a growing problem

Lee Townsend, vice-president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, says the loss of bee colonies across Canada has been devastating.

“In the past four years we’ve seen losses of anywhere between 30 percent and 100 percent across the province, and it’s not isolated to Alberta—it’s also happened in other regions of the country as well.”

Townsend says an ailment that has afflicted Alberta’s bees this year is Nosema, a fungus that disrupts the intestinal tract and is passed down to offspring. Nosema is especially difficult to combat because, although treatments inoculate the bees, they do not kill the pathogen itself.

“Nosema levels just aren’t falling and responding to the controls that we have used in the past,” says Townsend.

He is doubtful that mortality rates will drop, and says beekeepers are now doing their own research to try and limit the losses of honeybees.

“A lot of beekeepers have their own little research labs in their own home-grown facilities,” he says. “We’re having to do a lot more bee-work all the time and it’s just a matter of beekeepers accepting that and following through on it.”

Townsend says the provincial government and industry associations have helped to provide resources and education for beekeepers on how to test for, inspect, treat, and control diseases, but more support is needed.

He hopes that the beekeeping community in Alberta can work closely with the new diagnostic centre in order to pool resources and knowledge and have it all in one place.

“We are a smaller industry, but we contribute a great amount to all forms of agriculture, and even life, in Canada.”

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate took in the Calgary Stampede Parade on their final day in Canada, bidding a fond farewell to the country before departing that evening.

"Canada has far surpassed all that we were promised. Our promise to Canada is that we shall return," Prince William said in his final speech in the country.

"Canada has extraordinary potential. With its natural resources, thriving economy, and rich human capital, it will surely be one of the great countries of the 21st century," said William.

The royal couple spent the day in traditional Calgary Stampede attire, the iconic white cowboy hat bestowed on dignitaries and hounor guests to the city, along with jeans and cowboy boots.

Article continued after slide show

The couple was greeted at the Calgary airport by six-year-old Diamond Marshall, diagnosed with stage-four undifferentiated sarcoma. Her wish, made through the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada, was to meet a real princess.

William and Kate travelled the parade route for several blocks in a motorcade and then joined Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the start of the route to push a big red button and launch a cascade of ticker tape to start the stampede.

The couple have since landed in Los Angeles to begin a weekend there after having earned their places in the hearts of Canadians.

Students at the Somali Canadian Education and Rural Development Organization in Edmonton. (Courtesy of Scerdo)

EDMONTON—Edmonton Somali groups are desperately searching for a way to end the ongoing gang violence that has deeply impacted the community—violence that left two dead in the last month alone.

Across Alberta, 34 Somali men have been killed since 2006, with three of those deaths occurring this year.

Now, two town hall meetings have been scheduled for later this month to bring members of the community together in an effort to explore what can be done about the escalating deaths.

Abdi Hussein, executive director of the Somali-Canadian Cultural Society of Edmonton, says the violence is a manifestation of complex social factors, which must first be understood to find an appropriate solution.

“Things don’t happen overnight,” he said.

Hussein points to the struggle of families—many of whom were refugees fleeing Somalia after it collapsed—that were ill-prepared for the culture shock and obstacles that would greet them in Canada. Many of the families are headed by single mothers whose husbands were killed during the Somali civil war in 1991.

Initially, the impossibility of getting proper identification documents from a collapsed state meant they could not apply for permanent residency in Canada. Prolonged refugee status led to disadvantages in family reunification, mobility, education, and employment.

Language, cultural, and religious differences place deeper invisible blocks for Somali immigrants hoping to integrate fully into Canadian life—maybe more so than any immigrant group.

Somalis who come to Canada are often disappointed to find that what education they do have is either not transferable or not recognized without Canadian work experience.

“What do those kids think when their father, who was an engineer back home, is now driving a taxi,” says Hussein. “How do you convince that kid to go and get an education; how do you motivate him?”

Many children who had inconsistent education during Somalia’s conflict had much difficulty adapting to Canada’s education system and could not find the support they needed to succeed, Hussein says.

These factors have resulted in Somalis facing some of the lowest incomes and living standards in the country since the 1990s, which has led to ongoing social problems for the communities in poverty.

This lack of opportunity and integration is what leads some Somali youth to come to Alberta from Ontario, seeking to land a job in the oilfield and make a decent living. But often they arrive to find that jobs are not available or they don’t have the skills required.

That’s when the $5 billion Alberta drug trade becomes extremely tempting.

“Before they know it, they’ve gotten lured into the quick cash,” says Hussein.

Last year the Alberta government put $1.9 million toward programs intended to give Somali youth job training and work experience to steer them away from the lucrative drug trade.

But Hussein says this money is not going to the organizations that do the ground work directly in the community, alleging it is mainly a public relations strategy that is “window-dressing” the real issues.

“All this money is spent and actually recycled through organizations that are all connected to the government, who get that money in the name of helping Somali people, but at the same time will not even hire one Somali person to do the job,” he said.

“Really it’s not dealing with the real core issues, how to help—truly help—these people.”

Amal Issa, youth coordinator for Somali Canadian Education and Rural Development Organization (SCERDO), says education is crucial for Somali youth to find opportunities and avoid a destructive path. She says the results of SCERDO’s job skills programs have been very encouraging.

“We definitely have seen results and they have been very very positive. The main thing for us is that the youth have been able to see that they have hope, they have a future, they have opportunities. They really just needed someone to tell them that and someone to guide them in the right direction.”

Of great concern to Hussein are media representations that focus on sensational and negative images of the Somali community while rarely showing the strength, vibrancy, and dignity that truly characterizes the Somali people.

He fears the youth are constantly “internalizing” these negative representations, which act as a barrier to their progress.

“We lost a lot of Somalis, but 99.9 percent are doing good and contributing good things in Canada and in Alberta, but that’s not reported, that’s not noticed, that’s not amplified. Every little negative is amplified 10 times. So that’s our challenge, and what we’re fighting now is that image—that negative image that’s persisting because of all the things that have happened.”

A rendition of Effect Home Builder Ltd's 'Net Zero' show home currently under construction in Edmonton's Belgravia neighbourhood. (Effect Home Builder Ltd)

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

This quote by American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson captures the spirit of the mission taken on by a small but innovative Edmonton home builder.

Effect Home Builder Ltd’s latest project, Belgravia Green, is a trailblazing “Net Zero” undertaking, meaning that the three houses under construction in the city’s south end neighbourhood will produce as much energy throughout the year as they consume, while not using any gas for heat.

Each of the three neighbouring homes is uniquely suited to take advantage of the site on which it is built, with each demonstrating distinct methods of harnessing energy from the environment and consuming as little from the utility grid as possible.

“Edmonton is a wonderful area, we get lots of sunlight throughout the year,” says Les Wold, a partner in the company from its beginnings in 2001, as he stands in the unfinished living room of one of the homes.

“Before we start building, there’s a design process that focuses on energy efficiency, plus what it’s going to look like to make it aesthetically pleasing.”

Wold explains that in this particular home, with its wide, south-facing windows unobstructed by large trees, a consumption-free method called passive solar heating will be utilized. The sun, when low on the horizon during the winter months, emits solar heat that is absorbed and gradually released by a structural concrete slab on the main floor.

This method alone will provide 32 percent of the heating needs for the home. The windows are sheltered from the sun at its highest point during the summer.

“You also see a wide view of the playground and rink across the street, so you have this great view, and it really lets in the light, so you don’t have to turn on electric lights,” Wold says.

The building envelope, or the enclosure of the home, is the cornerstone of its energy efficient design and what regulates how much heat is allowed to enter and leave the space from the outside.

The walls are each over 30 cm thick with polystyrene insulation sporting a high insulation value—significantly more than the average home—to cope with the Edmonton’s frigid winter climate. Under the basement slab is 10 cm of polystyrene, reducing the ground-emitted cold.

The windows are three panes thick and filled with high insulation argon gas, with low e-coating, which allows more heat in and less to escape.

“With these three homes, what we’re showcasing is that there’s not one way to achieve energy efficiency—each of the three homes has different heating systems,” Wold says.

The corner lot house will use geothermal heating which absorbs heat from the ground using fluid pumped through piping that will generate 3.5 units of heating for every one unit of electricity used. The house with the large south windows will use an air source heat pump, with 200 to 400 percent efficiency, depending on outside temperatures.

With a tight, well-insulated building envelope and features like passive solar and electric baseboard heating, the pumps need only be used sparingly.

The pitched roofs are equipped with photovoltaic cells for solar electricity generation, producing excess electricity during summer and feed energy back to the grid. In the winter with less solar energy available, electricity is drawn from the grid, but over the course of the year it will all even out.

“So in theory, all your power is produced with electricity being generated over the course of the year from the modules on the home. So it’s very sustainable green power that’s driving it, there’s not very much demand on the system,” says Wold.

Other benefits include the deadening of sound thanks to well insulated walls and consistent, comfortable temperatures throughout the house. The homes are largely self-regulating, acting as an organism—a complete integrated unit.

“One of the big things clients mention about these homes is comfort,” he says. “You walk into one of these well insulated homes and you walk onto the main floor and it feels like you’re walking into a cool basement, but it’s the main floor, and the middle of summer. In the winter it retains the heat, so you walk in, and it’s a nice cozy feeling.”

Among Effect’s clientele is former Alberta MLA and opposition leader Kevin Taft, future owner of one of the Belgravia Green homes. Taft’s wife Jeanette Boman is involved in developing the project’s landscaping plan, which will include all native vegetation that requires less watering, and plots for growing food.

The response to Effect’s projects has been strong, Wold says. An open house in March drew a large and enthusiastic crowd.

“We did a tally and there were 800 people that came through on the Saturday and Sunday that we had it open. There were great questions, people were just excited about the concept, and it’s not even a completed home yet. People are just really interested in it, and we want to encourage that.”

The process is one of constant collaboration—“we’re all learning as a group, as a community”— trial and error, and evolution, he adds.

The Belgravia homes will be open for public viewing again on June 4. It will be the last chance to see the homes before they are finished.

Bob Boudreau and family members wait at the Edmonton Expo centre, a temporary evacuation shelter, to hear when they can return to their home in Red Earth, Alberta. Red Earth, about 165 km north of Slave Lake was one of the towns evacuated when wildfires swept across Northern Alberta. (George Qu/The Epoch Times)

It is an agonizing time for thousands of residents forced to flee northern Alberta as they wait to hear when they can go home—and if there is a home to return to—after fires swept the region.

Hardest hit has been the town of Slave Lake, 40 percent of which now lies destroyed. All 7,000 residents have left and are currently in evacuation centres or staying with friends or family.

About 500 people (and 46 animals) had checked into an evacuation shelter at the Edmonton Expo Centre by Tuesday. Other shelters were set up in Athabasca and Westlock to help those who had lost everything.

Lorna Beaver, who is staying at the Expo Centre, was forced to evacuate Slave Lake on Sunday night. She said she had only enough time to grab a few clothes and precious family photos before getting out. She is anxious to get back to her home and evaluate the damage.

“I want to go home and see what the fire has done to the community…yet I don’t. I want to see for myself how it is. I see it on the news, the computer, but I want to see it myself,” she said.

Thank God nobody got hurt. Everybody’s alive, everybody’s together. Material things can be replaced, lives cannot.

—Bob Boudreau

Most roads in and around the town remain closed, however, and evacuees are being told its not yet safe to go home as crews continue to put out fire flare-ups and clear widespread destruction. Air quality has significantly deteriorated and water bans remain in effect for the region. Electricity and gas are also not available.

Eighty-seven wildfires are presently raging in Alberta, 23 of which are out of control. Approximately 191,000 hectares have burned. In the Lesser Slave Lake area alone, 17 wildfires are burning out of control. The fires have closed down many roads, rail, and oil operations across northern Alberta.

In addition to Slave Lake, mandatory evacuation orders are in place for Loon River First Nation, Red Earth Creek, Woodland Cree First Nation, and parts of the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River. Northern Sunrise County has issued evacuation advisories for Little Buffalo and Marten Lake.

Bob Boudreau, who was evacuated from Red Earth, says it’s the worst disaster he’s ever seen.

“It’s unbelievable. Thank God nobody got hurt. Everybody’s alive, everybody’s together. Material things can be replaced, lives cannot.”

Alberta has deployed approximately 1,000 firefighters, including 120 who arrived Monday from British Columbia. The province has also deployed 124 helicopters, 20 air tankers, and scores of heavy ground-based machines. Around 85 firefighters from Ontario and 200 additional firefighters from B.C. have arrived in Alberta and are preparing to be deployed.

“It has been heart-wrenching to see how quickly this wildfire moved and the effect it’s had on our community,” Slave Lake Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee said in a press release.

“It won’t be safe until critical infrastructure like water, power, gas, telecommunications and health services are in place … and the risk of fire is diminished.”

“As soon as the risk is gone and the infrastructure is in place, we can begin getting people back into the community.”

Pillay-Kinnee visited temporary shelters on Wednesday to speak with displaced residents.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach announced Wednesday that the province has approved an initial allocation of $50 million toward the immediate needs of the evacuees and the rebuilding of Slave Lake and surrounding communities.

The funding will initially focus on the immediate housing, income support, and other needs of the evacuated residents.

Thousands of residents who were forced to leave their northern Alberta, Canada homes as wildfire burned through their town are now waiting to hear if their homes withstood the fire, and when they can go home.

Brenda Eben-Ebenau, a 30-year resident in the town of Slave Lake who evacuated to her Edmonton condo Sunday afternoon, said that she has been glued to the TV to learn as much as possible about the situation of the town.

“It’s chaos. It looks like a war zone,” Eben-Ebenau said in a telephone interview on Monday afternoon. “We have had fires before, but nothing this close, ever.”

Sixty-eight wildfires started within 24 hours in the area, according to a Province of Alberta press release. By Sunday, the government had deployed around 1,000 fire-fighters, 100 helicopters, 20 air tankers and "scores of heavy ground-based machines" to fight the fires, 29 of which, including the one that engulfed Slave Lake, were burning out of control.

“Right now they are not letting anybody in except for emergency workers. So we just kind of sit here and wait,” said Eben-Ebenau.

While most of her neighbors’ houses are burned, Eben-Ebenau said she had heard that her home is still standing.

“I don’t know how that happened, maybe the wind pushed the fire the other way,” she said.

Police said that nearly a third of the town has been destroyed or damaged by the unanticipated fire. The town’s new library and town office also fell to the flames.

“The new library just opened last year,” said Eben-Ebenau. “It is a fundraised library that the residents here fundraised $500,000 for. But it’s now gone.”

“It has been heart wrenching to see how quickly this wildfire moved and the effect it’s had on our community,” said Slave Lake’s Mayor, Karina Pillay-Kinnee, in a press release.

Alberta’s Premier Ed Stelmach assured Slave Lake residents that a newly formed "task force of key governmental ministries" will deal with their immediate needs, as well as help chart a path for the future, also in a release.

Minutes to Leave

“I just got all the things that I can’t replace into the vehicle and got a suitcase together,” she said. “Literally we had a five-minute warning. It was really scary.”

With two foster children to bring along, Eben-Ebenau narrowly escaped town after she missed a convoy of cars escaping the fire zone.

“I missed the convoy, but I saw a policeman, and he told me follow him and escorted me through the bear trails.”

Edmonton Falun Gong practitioners demonstrate the Falun Gong exercises and introduce the public to the meditative practice as part of celebrations for World Falun Dafa Day. (George Qu/The Epoch Times)

EDMONTON—The Edmonton Falun Dafa community celebrated World Falun Dafa Day, May 13, with a colourful presentation outside Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market on Saturday.

Despite the windy weather, the sun shone brightly and the mood was joyous as practitioners celebrated the 12th anniversary of the commemorative day and the birthday of Mr. Li Hongzhi, founder of the Falun Dafa spiritual practice, also known as Falun Gong.

“With Falun Gong’s global spread since 1992, millions of people have seen disease symptoms disappear, resolved family differences, forgiven those who have harmed them, and discovered the true power of kindness,” said Chi Yeh, host of the event.

“This is the gift that Falun Gong practitioners celebrate today.”

Mr. Yeh invited practitioners to read greetings from several government officials, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Environment Minister Peter Kent, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel. Mayor Mandel also proclaimed May as “Falun Dafa Month.”

“I would like to commend the members of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada for sharing their practices and traditions with Canadians. Your commitment to the promotion of your ideals has contributed to the diversity and vitality of our nation,” said a message from Mr. Harper.

Throughout the speeches, practitioners in brightly coloured traditional clothing beat Chinese drums in appreciation of the warm greetings.

The group also demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises and talked to the public about the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, launched by the Chinese regime in 1999. Many people came to ask questions about the practice and were grateful for the opportunity to learn. Practitioners handed out folded paper lotus flowers to onlookers that said “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance,” the core principles of the practice.

Trevor, a western practitioner, said the principles are “universal” and anyone from any culture can benefit mentally and spiritually from learning Falun Gong.

Shar Chen, coordinator of the local Falun Dafa Association, said the practice completely cured her arthritis. She said she is very lucky to celebrate Falun Dafa Day in a free country, but feels sad that many of her friends and family continue to suffer under the persecution in China.

Ms. Chen came to Canada shortly after the persecution began in July 1999, and later learned that some of her friends back in China had been tortured to death.

“We hope more people will come to know about the persecution in China,” she said. “If I was practising in China I might not still be alive today.”

Jack Yu, a practitioner and local businessman, said practising Falun Gong helped him to take material gain lightly and brought him inner peace.

At the end of the day the group came together to sing “Falun Dafa Hao” (Falun Dafa is good), to the delight of passersby.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, addresses a press conference in Vancouver on March 30. (Don MacKinnon/AFP/Getty Images)

Green Party leader and newly elected MP Elizabeth May has raised concerns about a Plains Midstream Canada oil spill near Peace River, Alberta, in late April.

The 30,000 barrels of oil spilled into the wetlands on April 29. It took almost a week for the company to issue a statement with details about the spill.

“Plains All American has an atrocious record, and is responsible for releasing at least 6,510 barrels of crude oil into bodies of water in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and in the Gulf of Mexico,” May said in a statement.

“Plains Midstream operated its pipeline in close proximity to Alberta communities and the spill is having a devastating effect on residents and the environment,” she said.

Thousands of demonstrators protest outside the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 12 to voice their opposition to Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, which essentially eliminated collective bargaining rights for state workers. An Alberta union leader fears something similar could happen in Canada. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Could the union-busting efforts currently afoot in some U.S. states catch on in Canada? An Alberta union leader fears the thin edge of the wedge is beginning to show.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, is concerned about the wellbeing of the collective bargaining process in light of the fact that Koch Industries Inc., an influential U.S. conglomerate with links to the U.S. Tea Party movement, recently registered to lobby the Alberta government.

In addition, a think tank is calling for labour policies similar to those advocated by the notoriously anti-union Tea Party movement at a time when the Alberta government is currently at the bargaining table with some of the 27 unions within the AFL.

Marcel Latouche, president and CEO of the Institute for Public Sector Accountability, wrote in a recent op-ed that governments, burdened as they are by increasing debt, should look at the costs of union collective bargaining.

“To alleviate the tax burden, governments at all levels should look at the costs of union collective bargaining. In the U.S., after years of growing taxes, some governments are eyeing curtailing the collective agreement process,” IPSA president and CEO Marcel Latouche wrote in an op-ed.

Union members are even more worried about Koch, which registered to lobby policymakers in the areas of “agriculture, economic development, energy, environment, finance, forestry, taxes,” according to the provincial lobby registry.

The Kansas-based company has hired Canadian lobby firm Global Public Affairs and consultant David Keto, a former project manager with Alberta Finance. Keto was also executive assistant to cabinet minister David Coutts from 2001 to 2003.

‘The last thing we need in Canada is to import a U.S.-style approach to labour relations which has proven to be both destructive and divisive.’ — Gil McGowan

Although Koch has denied claims that it helps fund the Tea Party movement, a lengthy report in The New Yorker last August said David Koch founded a Tea Party-related advocacy group called Americans for Prosperity which supports the movement financially and logistically.

The report said the Koch brothers have poured millions into “seemingly independent” political and policy organizations as well as into right-wing advocacy groups, political campaigns, and lobbyists in order to influence public policy.

A New York Times report cited state records showing that Koch Industries was one of the biggest contributors to the campaign to elect Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Amid a storm of protest, Walker, a Republican, brought in legislation to limit the collective bargaining rights of an estimated 300,000 public sector workers. A number of other states, including Michigan, Indiana, Florida, and Ohio, are planning similar anti-labour laws as they seek to patch huge holes in their budgets.

Koch states on its website that it never lobbied Walker, and says both the New Yorker and New York Times reports are biased and contain inaccuracies.

 “We have repeatedly explained that neither Charles nor David Koch fund the Tea Parties.  They are involved with and support an organization, which in turn has involvement with some Tea Party members,” the website says.

Koch also says that many of its companies in the U.S. operate under collective bargaining agreements, and allegations that the corporation is anti-union are “a mischaracterization of our principles.”

“Where unions exist, we respect their status, work with them in good faith, and honour the terms of our collective bargaining agreements. This has been true for more than 50 years.”

As for registering to lobby the Alberta government, the company says they’ve been lobbying in Canada for years. The only change is that they’ve hired a new lobbyist.

McGowan, however, is not convinced. “We’re going to be following them closely,” he says. “From our perspective, the last thing we need in Canada is to import a U.S.-style approach to labour relations which has proven to be both destructive and divisive.”

The good news, he adds, is that he heard from Premier Ed Stelmach in response to a letter he had written seeking assurance that the premier remains committed to honouring the collective bargaining process with the province’s public sector employees.

“The premier has responded to the letter by saying that he sees no reason to change Alberta’s approach to labour relations, and we find those comments encouraging,” he says.

“But we are still worried about having people like the Koch brothers active in Alberta politics, because they have deep pockets and because they have proven to be such a corrosive influence in the United States.”

A bizarre e-mail hoax has left several Alberta city councillors scratching their heads this week as the puzzle pieces come together.

Sent on March 13, the e-mails claim to be from a Falun Gong practitioner and, among other things, discuss the recent earthquake in Japan in an offensive manner, saying the victims were being punished.

The tone is irrational and the writer appears to suffer from mental illness. The e-mails also aggressively urge officials to see Shen Yun Performing Arts, a show presented by the Falun Dafa Association.

Shar Chen, a spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Edmonton, says she suspects the e-mails were sent by Chinese consulate officials, who have used similar strategies in the past to defame the spiritual group.

Chen says the current batch of emails have two purposes: to discourage officials from seeing the Shen Yun show, and to give them a bad impression of Falun Gong.

“They’ve changed the style of approach, but it’s the same evil intention—to stop them from watching Shen Yun and to turn them against Falun Gong. I think it’s systematic.”

Last year, letters were sent to theatre directors in Edmonton attempting to convince them to block Shen Yun from performing at their venue. In Australia letters were sent by the Chinese Consulate directly to officials, telling them not to attend the show.

Chen says she knows the e-mails could not have been from a Falun Gong practitioner because the name is not known to anyone in the community, and the message is completely out of character for the group.

“It’s totally against the principles of Falun Gong, because Falun Gong practitioners practise Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. We cherish life. The tragedy [in Japan] also affects us, we feel saddened as well,” she said.

“I am relieved to hear the Falun Gong is not connected to the original e-mail which, as many people have noted, was very offensive,” said Councillor Kerry Diotte.

On Feb. 25, shortly after the earthquake in New Zealand, several city officials received similar e-mails, supposedly from Falun Gong practitioners, which said the victims of the Christchurch earthquake got what they deserved.

“It’s part of the email harassment sent to other parts of the world as well,” Chen explains.

“These people are actually CCP spies who are trying to take advantage of the earthquakes to turn people against the Falun Gong and also to interfere with the [Shen Yun] show.”

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says being mayor means asking himself whether his actions are guided by ego or the best interests of the city. (Jerry Wu/The Epoch Times)

Naheed Nenshi made history recently when he became the first Muslim mayor in Canada, winning his office in what most people think is one of the country’s most conservative cities—Calgary, Alberta. Nenshi sat down with The Epoch Times to talk about his family, the work to come, and what it means to be an immigrant son in the land of Canada.

Epoch Times: Many say your successful story is not only a tribute to Canada’s multi-cultural strategy, but also the integration of next-generation Canadians. What do you think?

Nenshi: One of the most interesting things about this election is how very little the issue of my being a first-generation Canadian or my faith or my skin colour had anything to do with it. Shortly after the election, suddenly the national and international media were very interested to know, ‘Hey, how does a Canadian city end up with a mayor who looks like this?’

The most interesting part of that for me was that, in fact, I had been in Calgary longer than either of my two rivals, because I grew up in this city. And much of what I am is much of what this city is. I grew up in East Calgary in a very working-class family. My parents immigrated here from East Africa just before I was born, and I never shied away from that.

I can’t walk away from my skin colour or my faith and pretend it doesn’t exist—it’s all part of who I am. But equally, my education, my experiences, my ideas are also all part of who I am. And I think that’s what Calgarians saw; they just saw this crazy mix that made up me. But it’s also part of the crazy mix that makes up Calgary.

Epoch Times: Many first generation immigrants are challenged to overcome characteristics that make it hard to join mainstream society.

To me these debates are not very helpful, because I believe that it’s possible to be all of these things. So one of my favourite things in the world is in my part of Calgary, when I go to T & T Supermarket—the Chinese supermarket—there’s probably about 50 percent of the people in there who are of Chinese origin and the other 50 percent are from everywhere, and I just love seeing mainstream Caucasian as well as Afro-Caribbean Canadians all shopping and trying to find the right noodles at T & T.

To me that really is an example of how as a society, as a community here in Calgary, we’ve gotten beyond these endless and unhelpful debates around assimilation or keeping your own culture and just gone, “Look, there’s great value in all of us, and we can figure out ways this value works.”

Epoch Times: Who did you respect when you went to school?

Lucy, a 35-year-old Asian elephant at the Edmonton Valley Zoo, is the subject of a legal fight between the City of Edmonton and animal rights groups. Lucy has been at the zoo for 33 years. (City of Edmonton)

In the ongoing legal battle over Lucy, the only elephant at Edmonton’s Valley Zoo, Feb. 2 has been set for the appeal of a judge’s decision to dismiss animal rights groups’ arguments that Lucy should be moved.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Zoocheck Canada took the City of Edmonton to court in May over Lucy, saying the 35-year-old Asian elephant is under distress at the city-run zoo and should be relocated to an elephant sanctuary in the United States.

The city, however, says keeping Lucy in her familiar surroundings at the zoo is in her best interests, and that moving the elephant would aggravate her respiratory problems and possibly kill her.

“We know she has difficulty breathing that’s made worse by stress, which is why we won’t move her. It could risk her life if she was moved,” city spokesman Robert Moyles told the Canadian Press.

The zoo says on its website that Lucy is calm and comfortable at the zoo and that her “breathing issue is well managed.”

But PETA and Zoocheck want the elephant moved to a more elephant-friendly setting in a warmer climate where she can heal and live out her old age. They claim Lucy is suffering from a number of ailments at the zoo, including obesity, arthritis, and foot problems.

City officials say the elephant’s chronic problems are not a result of neglect but old age and conformational defects—Lucy was born pigeon-toed and bow-legged.

Clayton Ruby, PETA and Zoocheck’s lawyer, is asking Alberta’s privacy commissioner to act on what the groups say is the city’s refusal to allow elephant experts outside Edmonton access to video footage that could determine the current severity of Lucy’s respiratory problems.

Animal groups are now requesting to see current endoscoptic footage of Lucy’s nasal passages to determine whether she is fit enough to move, but city officials refuse to provide a copy of the video, saying anyone who wants to view it has to do so at city offices in Edmonton.

“The elephant experts whom we would ask to see this video are all over the world,” PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne told CP. “Probably the closest one is in California, so it certainly is not reasonable to expect people to have to fly in from California or other parts of the world to view a videotape.”

A U.S. expert who examined Lucy in September warned that the stress involved in relocating her would be life threatening, and that moving the elephant would be unethical.

Besides Lucy’s physical problems, animal rights groups also claim she is exhibiting psychological distress due to social isolation. In 2007, Lucy’s companion, an African elephant named Samantha, was moved to a breeding program in the U.S.

“As the sole elephant at the Valley Zoo, she has been denied contact with others of her kind—something that is vital to these highly social animals,” PETA spokesman David Perle said in a release.

However, the city says Lucy, who has been at the Valley Zoo for 33 of her 35 years, is “imprinted on people,” meaning she gets her emotional support from people, not elephants.

Most recently, former Edmonton Oiler Georges Laraque joined William Shatner and former “Price is Right” host Bob Barker in advocating for Lucy. The hockey player made a grand gesture earlier this month by offering $100,000 for the animal’s relocation.

Katherine Krampol is a writer and blogger living in Vancouver.

A chart extracted from a report by Alberta Health and Wellness shows the number of cases of syphilis steadily rising over the last decade. (Extracted from The Syphilis Outbreak in Alberta report by Alberta Health and Wellness)

EDMONTON—Alberta is continuing to see high cases of syphilis—including in babies and the elderly, according to a report published by Alberta Health and Wellness last week.

“We have a Problem,” begins the report, prepared by the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health. It says the number of cases of the sexually transmitted infection have increased dramatically since 2000.

“The urgent need to interrupt this outbreak is compounded by the occurrence of babies being born with congenital syphilis, a situation that is completely preventable,” reads the report.

There were seven confirmed cases of infants born with congenital syphilis in Alberta in 2009, and another six infants are still under investigation, says the report. During the same year, there was only one case of congenital syphilis reported in other provinces.

Howard May, a spokesman with Alberta Health and Wellness (AHW), says the cause of the rising rates is not clear at this point, but complacency about safe sex is a contributing factor.

“The rising rates of syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections (STI) in Alberta are a serious concern,” he wrote in an email.

According to figures published by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the rate of infection per 100,000 people in Alberta was 7.3, higher than other provinces in Canada in 2009 (though lower than Yukon Territories and Northwest Territories), followed by Ontario with 5.4, and Quebec and British Columbia with 4.8 each.

“The disease is being found in young children under one year of age; teenagers as young as 14; seniors as old as 84; university students and professionals,” the report says.

‘The disease is being found in young children under one year of age; teenagers as young as 14; seniors as old as 84; university students and professionals.’—Alberta syphilis report

Compared to their Caucasian counterparts, the infection rates are 18.6 times higher among aboriginal women and 2.8 times higher in aboriginal men. The rates are also alarming among Alberta’s black male population, which the report attributes to the rise in refugee immigration over the past few years.

May says public health officials acknowledge that more needs to be done to combat the problem and the province is working to develop a strategy to curb the outbreak.

“AHW is working collaboratively with Alberta Health Services and other key stakeholders to develop a comprehensive strategy and action plan to address the prevention, care and management of sexually transmitted infections (and blood borne pathogens),” he said.

The ministry hopes to have the strategy completed early in 2011, he added.

“We need to take a more aggressive approach to reducing our number of syphilis and STI cases. This will involve a public awareness and education campaign.”

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney pulled Santa into the sovereignty issue during a special citizenship ceremony in Calgary on Wednesday. (Courtesy of Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

Santa Claus re-affirmed his Canadian citizenship at a special ceremony overseen by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in Calgary on Wednesday.

“We wish Mr. Claus all the best in his Christmas Eve duties again this year,” said Minister Kenney. “And rest assured, as a Canadian citizen living in Canada’s North, he can re-enter Canada freely once his trip around the world is complete.”

Santa was joined at the ceremony by 100 new Canadians from 32 countries who were also sworn in as citizens.

It is unclear whether Santa realized his citizenship could become part of the international disagreement about who owns the high North, an issue Kenney alluded to in his comments.

“The Government continues to invest in measures that exercise Canada’s sovereignty and create more economic opportunities in the North,” said Kenney.

“We want to ensure that Santa and all Northern peoples benefit from the considerable progress that has been made.”

Transport Canada announced Wednesday that Santa had passed all his required pre-flight tests and is ready to make his annual deliveries.

“Happily, Santa also passed the test to demonstrate his flying ability and knowledge. Like all pilots, he must pass this test using a flight simulator or with a check ride. So this morning, at the Transport Canada hangar at the Ottawa International Airport, Santa Claus successfully completed a series of takeoffs and landings with the help of his very fit reindeer.”

The release noted that a Transport Canada inspector travelled to the North Pole earlier this month to inspect Santa’s sleigh and safety systems, including harnesses, landing gear, and Rudolph’s nose.
Santa updated his instrument this year and it now sports a GPS, noted the release.

“Millions of children can sleep easy knowing that Santa is fully prepared to make his most important trip of the year this holiday season,” said the release.

Those wishing to follow Santa’s trip around the earth can do so through NORAD’s Track Santa website at www.noradsanta.org and through Google Maps and Google Earth.

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) has been tracking Santa since 1958 after taking over for the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) which had tracked Santa since 1955.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi talks with The Epoch Times about breaking through his childhood shyness and what morality guides his job as mayor. (Jerry Wu/The Epoch Times)

Naheed Nenshi made history recently when he became the first Muslim mayor in Canada, winning his office in what most people think is one of the country’s most conservative cities—Calgary, Alberta. Nenshi sat down with The Epoch Times to talk about his family, the work to come, and what it means to be an immigrant son in the land of Canada.

Q: Many say your successful story is not only a tribute to Canada’s multicultural strategy, but also the integration of next-generation Canadians. What do you think?

A: You know, one of the most interesting things about this election is how very little the issue of my being a first-generation Canadian or my faith or my skin colour had anything to do with it. Shortly after the election, suddenly the national and international media were very interested to know, “Hey, how does a Canadian city end up with a mayor who looks like this?”

The most interesting part of that for me was that, in fact, I had been in Calgary longer than either of my two rivals, because I grew up in this city. And much of what I am is much of what this city is.

I grew up in East Calgary, in a very working-class family. My parents immigrated here from East Africa just before I was born, and I never shied away from that. You know, I can’t walk away from my skin colour or my faith and pretend it doesn’t exist—it’s all part of who I am. But equally, my education, my experiences, my ideas are also all part of who I am. And I think that’s what Calgarians saw; they just saw this crazy mix that made up me. But it’s also part of the crazy mix that makes up Calgary.

So I’m really happy to be an example to all those kids who follow me that, really, in this city and in this country you can do and be anything you want.

Q: Can you tell us about your family growing up?

A: Well, I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but what I did have was a lot of love and a lot of opportunities. I have one sister and my parents worked very hard as we were growing up to make sure we had good opportunities. My sister and I both went to university. She’s a pharmacist and I was able to do two degrees—one in business and one in public policy.

And education and community service were really the key elements in my life growing up—that’s what my parents cared about. “You must do well in school, you must better yourself,” and “You must remember that you’ve been given many, many gifts, and it is incumbent on you to return those gifts by doing work in community.”

And I think those were the values with which I was raised, and that’s what’s made all the difference in my life.

Q: I heard that you were shy at school as a kid.

A: It is true, actually. I got over that I think.

Q: How?

A: Eventually I just said to myself, “You know, those kids who are outgoing seem to be having a better time of it than me, so I should try this.” I was a pretty quiet kid early in my years, but when I got into my teen years I really tried to become more outgoing, try to get more engaged in my school communities and so on. And I haven’t stopped talking since.

Q: Many first-generation immigrants are challenged to overcome characteristics that make it hard to join mainstream society.

A: This is an interesting issue, because the challenge we have when we look at communities that are multicultural … and pluralistic is that balance between becoming part of the mainstream or assimilation, on the one hand, and maintaining the strength and power of your own culture on the other hand. And it’s really easy to get yourself tied in knots about “What am I? Am I Muslim first or Canadian first, am I Indian first or Northeast Calgary first?” To me these debates are not very helpful, because I believe that it’s possible to be all of these things.

Director James Cameron (L), Oren Lyons, former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation of Alberta (C); and George Poitras attend the Real Life Pandoras On Earth press conference on April 24 in New York City. (Roger Kisby/Getty Images)

In the wake of movie director James Cameron’s much-publicized visit to the oil sands last week, a U.S. politician says Alberta oil is safe and suggests the Canadian filmmaker direct his criticism where it is more deserved.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said environmentalists and Hollywood celebrities like Cameron are “blowing smoke” on the issue of the oil sands.

“I would say this is conflict-free oil and I don’t want to send one more son or daughter from Montana to defend an oil supply from one of these dictators and become dependent on that energy supply,” Schweitzer told The Canadian Press from his office in Helena.

“Someday, I would say to [Cameron], we will not need the hydrocarbons. Someday we will run all electric cars. But in the meantime we need energy and the safest supply right now is coming from places like Alberta.”

Schweitzer said that while the U.S. wants to eliminate its dependence on foreign oil, that doesn’t include oil from Alberta’s oil sands.

“Most places around the world that are oil exporters have some of the most brutal regimes, their people have the fewest civil liberties, and the individual citizens gain no particular wealth from the oil,” he told CP.

“Alberta oil is conflict-free energy.”

Cameron, director of the Hollywood blockbusters “Avatar” and “Titanic,” did a two-day tour of the oil sands last week where he suggested the Alberta government slow the pace of oil sands development.

He told reporters the oil sands could be an asset or a curse depending on how environmental issues are managed. He also spoke up for the Fort Chipewyan community downstream of the oil sands.

“The people in Fort Chip are afraid to drink their own water, they are afraid to eat the fish, they are afraid to let their kids swim in the river. For a community to live in fear like that we need to look into this, we need funding to do a study—and an impartial study.”

Schweitzer, a Democrat who spent seven years living in Saudi Arabia, said the filmmaker needs to put the issue into perspective.

“You think this is bad? Have you been to Nigeria? Do you see how they produce their crude oil there? They’ve poisoned every town along every pipeline route. The big rivers and lakes that used to produce large quantities of fish—the fish are all dead,” he said.

“Their pipelines leak. They’ve got rebels that are blowing up the pipelines all the time and running into the rivers. Really? You’re going to compare the oil sands to that? Don’t joke with me.”

The Montana governor said he would rather see the U.S. get its oil from within North America than from dictatorial regimes.

“Any of these people who say they don’t like the oil sands, you ought to ask them if they’ll invite you to their house, and unless they’re living naked in a cave and eating nuts, they are totally dependent on petrol.

“That petrol is either going to be produced in places like Montana and North Dakota and Alberta and Saskatchewan or it’s going to be produced in places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. I would prefer it to come from friends than enemies.”

Meanwhile, on the heels of recent reports of water pollutants and deformed fish downstream of the oil sands, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice said last week he will commission a panel of experts to review an industry-led water-monitoring program.

The panel, consisting of six scientists, will report back to Prentice within 60 days, after which their review will be posted online.

“We are determined to develop Canada’s oil sands in a manner that is sustainable and environmentally sensitive. This independent review by some of Canada’s most respected scientists is a critical step in ensuring that environmental issues are balanced with economic considerations,” Prentice said in a statement.

A deformed whitefish from Lake Athabasca, collected by Ray Ladouceur in December 2009. (John Ulan/EPIC Photography)

When companies working in the oil sands claimed that none of their toxic emissions were getting into nearby Athabasca River, Dr. David Schindler, an internationally recognized professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, was doubtful.

Especially with reports of deformed fish in the area and bad reviews of the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP), the joint industry-government group mandated with monitoring bodies of water in the oil sands region.

RAMP claims that the oil sands industry is not the cause of toxic element buildup in the river.

Schindler found it implausible that none of the industry’s self-reported hundreds of kilograms of toxic emissions released into the atmosphere would find their way into the river.

“It just doesn’t make sense making a claim nothing is getting into the river, and at the same time putting a lot into the atmosphere,” Schindler says.

He set out to perform a study tracing the toxins in the Athabasca River to oil sands activity.

The result of the study was a recently released paper he co-authored with researchers from University of Alberta, Queen’s University, and non-profit organization Oceana concluding that oil sands development has substantial contribution to pollution in the Athabasca River via both air and water pathways.

The paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says there were higher concentrations of toxic elements near development areas than upstream of the development during summer.

It also says the findings of the study confirm “the serious defects of RAMP” for not finding these patterns in the river.

“A robust monitoring program to measure exposure and health of fish, wildlife, and humans should be implemented in the region affected by oil sands development,” concludes the paper.

The peer-reviewed report has drawn comments from both provincial and federal governments.

Last week, Schindler was paid a visit by federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice who said he will commission a panel of experts to review RAMP’s monitoring program.

“We will get the advice from the best scientists in Canada about what’s going on, and we will take action,” Prentice told the Globe and Mail.

Schindler says he is happy with the outcome of his meeting with the minister, noting that the monitoring program should be administered at the federal level, as “they are the only organization with the competence to do this.”

He has signed a letter along with other scientists, local residents, and First Nation chiefs to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking for funds to implement a long-term fish health monitoring program in the lower Athabasca River, Athabasca Delta, and Lake Athabasca.

An ad by Corporate Ethics International that appears on billboards in four major U.S. cities. (corpethics.org)

EDMONTON—An error in an ad campaign targeting Alberta’s oil sands was not simply an editing mistake, environment minister Jim Prentice has said.

The recently launched “Rethink Alberta” campaign, which has sparked outrage among industry officials and politicians in Alberta, compared the oil sands to an area twice the size of England.

Citing an “editing error,” U.S.-based Corporate Ethics International (CEI) has now changed that in their 90-second online video, saying the oil sands “are destroying an area” the size of England.

But that is still inaccurate, according to Prentice, who says the area covered by oil sands operations is closer to 600 square kilometres.

“This is not an editing error, when you go from claiming that it was twice the size of England, to an area once the size of England down to the facts, which are only 620 square kilometres,” Prentice told QMI Agency.

“I think it underscores just how there are misrepresentations and misleading claims being made about Alberta and about Canada that are unfair and they’re not responsible.”

According to the Alberta government, the oil sands measure in total around 140,200 square kilometres, roughly the size of Florida. About 602 square kilometres is devoted to oil sands surface mining activity.

The CEI campaign, which includes billboard ads in some U.S. cities and an online video posted on the campaign’s website, bashes Alberta’s multi-billion dollar oil sands industry for its environmental footprint.

The video interweaves images of oil-covered ducks and sludge pouring into tailings ponds with scenic images of Alberta’s tourist sites.

CEI has also paid for billboard ads in four U.S. cities that show images of oil-covered birds from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster and the 2008 Syncrude Canada tailings ponds incident resulting in the death of 1,600 ducks, calling Alberta “the other oil disaster.”

The ad is intended to discourage tourists from visiting Alberta.

“Tell Alberta’s Tourism Division that you will not visit Alberta until they stop the expansion of the tar sands and negotiate with environmental and First Nations groups to clean up and phase out existing operations,” reads a statement on CEI’s website.

The organization intends to broaden its campaign to the United Kingdom and purchase online ads on Google as well as major tourist websites.

“Our goal is to wake up the tourism industry in Alberta to the fact that tar sands are a threat to theirs and our future—both an environmental and a reputational threat,” CEI says.

The campaign has incensed Alberta’s premier Ed Stelmach who last week told reporters that the ads are both unfair and inaccurate.

“This, of course, does anger me, to a large degree because it’s an attack on about 100,000 Albertans whose lives depend on the tourism industry,” Stelmach said.

Alberta’s oil production in 2009 was approximately 1.9 million barrels per day of crude oil. About 1.5 million barrels per day were exported south of the border, accounting for 15 percent of crude oil imports in the U.S.

Meanwhile, environmental groups and some U.S. legislators are criticizing the Keystone XL Pipeline project proposed by TransCanada to carry crude from Alberta to refineries in the U.S.

Last month, 50 members of Congress signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing their opposition to the project.

The U.S. State Department has delayed the timeline for federal agencies to make a decision on the project by 90 days, giving them until the end of the year to decide if the project is in the nation’s interest.

A rider ropes a calf during the rodeo at the Calgary Stampede. (Jerry Wu/The Epoch Times)

EDMONTON—While most still see it as the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, the Calgary Stampede wrapped up its annual 10-day run on Sunday tainted by controversy.

A midway ride malfunction last week injured 10 people and sent 6 teenagers to the hospital; a young rider suffered a broken shoulder and serious head injury after her horse collapsed due to a heart attack; and six horses died in different events, including four in chuckwagon racing.

The sixth horse died last Thursday amidst outcry over the deaths of the other five. The horse sustained an injury to its right leg during a chuckwagon racing event and was later euthanized.

“The fact of the matter is, to lose those horses is very unusual, and very saddening,” says Doug Fraser, a spokesperson for the Calgary Stampede.

Two horses died of heart attacks during the events, three were euthanized after various injuries, and another died for reasons a necropsy has yet to determine.

Fraser says it is not a normal occurrence to have that many animal deaths at the Stampede, and stresses that the deaths are not due to accidents on the track.

“We had three horses die of natural causes, and three die from situations that happen on a racetrack, or in a rodeo ring. I mean, horses break their legs on the racetrack frequently, and it’s not just the Calgary Stampede,” he says.

“We’ve had a bit of a tough year, we’ll admit that, but we’re still going to improve that, and hopefully change things around next year.”

Reviewing the safety practices and improving animal care and welfare are a constant year-round effort, Fraser says, and with the advice and contribution of a panel of experts on animal safety, the Calgary Stampede endeavours to make its events safer each year.

‘The fact of the matter is, to lose those horses is very unusual, and very saddening.’—Doug Fraser

This year, the Stampede became the first rodeo in North America to implement a “no time for dog fall” rule for steer wrestling, a rule that disqualifies the competitor if a steer falls with its legs under it or lands on the opposite side of the competitor, known as a “dog fall.”

But Debra Probert, executive director of the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS), says that some of the rodeo events including steer wrestling, calf roping, and chuckwagon racing should be eliminated altogether “because they are just too high of a risk to the animals.”

“The reality is that rodeo events are based on animals’ reaction to fear, pain, and stress, so that in itself makes it an unconscionable act of cruelty,” she says.

Probert says there have always been animals dying at the Stampede, although it is getting more publicity this year. The VHS is particularly alarmed by horse deaths in chuckwagon racing, and claims that over 50 horses have died in the event since 1986.

“This is an event that exposes animals to an unacceptable risk of injury or death, and we think that it should be ended,” she says.

To suggest that some of the animals die due to natural causes is a “way of whitewashing it and trying to cover up," Probert insists, as the rodeo events are very stressful to the animals and expose them to “unacceptable levels of injury and death.”

The worst case of animal death in the history of the Stampede occurred in 1986 with 12 animals euthanized by the end of that year’s run. In 2005, nine horses died after falling from a bridge into the Bow River during the trail ride from the Stampede Ranch to the exhibition site just a few days before the beginning of the Stampede. The animal death toll last year was four, with three horses dying in chuckwagon racing.

Protests over animal treatment this year had an international reach, with a British group called League Against Cruel Sports calling on the Canadian High Commission to “take steps to end the immense cruelty to animals.” More than 50 British MPs also signed a motion to improve how animals are treated at the Stampede.

The Vancouver Humane Society and other animal right groups celebrated a victory when the Cloverdale Rodeo in Surrey, British Columbia, dropped four major events from its program in 2007. The events included team roping, wild cow milking, steer wrestling, and calf roping.

VHS also succeeded in placing an ad criticizing calf-roping in the Calgary Herald this year during the Stampede, after being rejected by the Herald and the Calgary Sun in a similar attempt during last year’s event.

Probert says she is optimistic that the chuckwagon racing and the other events deemed cruel by the VHS will eventually stop.

“I think that the public appetite for this kind of abuse is drawing to a close, and I think that the public is going to start demanding that these events be stopped.”

Fraser, however, maintains the Stampede rodeo events continue to have strong support in North America.

“The fact of the matter is that every year over 300,000 people come to the Calgary Stampede to watch the rodeo and chuckwagon, plus millions of people watch it on TV,” he says.

“With 2,200 rodeos around North America and hundreds in Canada, we feel that we are speaking to and addressing a very popular sport, and we know that, and people will continue to come to the Calgary Stampede and other rodeos in droves.”