The News Rundown

We can now call the Ontario education workers strike the strike heard around the world, as the international media has picked up the story. Doug Ford’s government tabled legislation this week that would unilaterally impose a contract on education workers, and levy hefty fines for striking. The move escalates a bitter dispute over pay for education workers, including custodians, early childhood educators and educational assistants.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 55,000 education workers, has called for an 11.3% raise for its workers – often the lowest-paid in schools – arguing that stagnant wage growth and high inflation have hit the lowest earners hardest. The government has countered with a 2.5% annual raise for the lowest-income workers and 1.5% raises for others.
With little progress on negotiations and a strike planned on Friday, the government fast-tracked Bill 28. It was introduced on Monday and passed on Thursday, and it fines workers $4,000 a day and the union $500,000 for striking. It marks the first time in the country’s history that the right of workers to collectively bargain and to strike could be legally stripped away.
The government acknowledges its bill breaches the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code, but says its priority is averting a strike. Ontario’s government is invoking a rarely used legal mechanism known as the notwithstanding clause, which allows provincial governments to override certain portions of the charter for a five-year time period.
Quebec has long used the clause to pass its language rights laws, but most governments have been hesitant to use the mechanism, said constitutional lawyer Ewa Krajewska. She said: “The Ford government has been much quicker to reach for the clause and the worry from a constitutional rights perspective is that it’s becoming increasingly normalized to invoke it. And I’m concerned that every time there’s a bit of a blow-up about rights and legislation, the government is just going to invoke the notwithstanding clause. The fact that they’re willing to go to it so quickly should give everyone pause.”
Ford, for his part, has used the clause rather liberally. He first threatened to use it in 2018 to slash Toronto city council seats during a municipal election and then actually invoked it to restore parts of the Election Finances Act in 2021. In the case of Bill 28, the Ford government is arguing it’s necessary to keep schools open and prevent disruptions for children.
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) released a statement after the passing of Bill 28: “This afternoon we were informed that mediation has concluded. It is clear that this government never intended to negotiate. The time and effort they have spent on Bill 28, which strips away education workers' Charter Rights, should have been spent on a deal that would have respected workers and ensured the services that students desperately need are secured.”
Justin Trudeau has waded into the standoff, the prime minister sharply criticizing the Ontario government decision to “suspend people’s rights and freedoms”. Canada’s justice minister David Lametti called it “exceedingly problematic”, but there is little the federal government can actually do about it. Earlier this week, Trudeau called Ontario Premier Doug Ford and told him his use of the notwithstanding clause was “wrong and inappropriate.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he spoke with Ontario education unions Friday morning as they took part in what the province is calling an “illegal” strike and reiterated he was “extremely worried” about the use of the notwithstanding clause to mandate a contract with workers. Trudeau made the comments while speaking in North York about his government's GST credits for families.
Trudeau said: “It is a very, very serious thing to suspend people’s fundamental rights and freedoms. The proactive use of the notwithstanding clause is actually an attack on people’s fundamental rights and, in this case, is an attack on one of the most basic rights available—that of collective bargaining. I think there are a lot of people, a lot of parents like me, who have kids in Ontario schools that are concerned about the job action, about the strikes, but I can tell you, all parents, all parents, should be extremely worried about the suspension of our most fundamental rights and freedoms.”
For Trudeau to weigh in on matters that he doesn't have control over, sends a message that he is willing to meddle in matters of a provincial jurisdiction, regardless of what the problem is about. While Ford's decision to suspend civil liberties and introduce a draconian bill is completely off point, Trudeau is just looking for anything that will distract the public, especially the often voter fickle Ontario public, from the terrible record that the federal government has accrued.
And as for the media, it's disgusting how this story in particular has mountains of opinion articles masquerading as news, so much so that to get to the meat of what's actually going on, we have to turn to international media to get the full picture. For this story it's actually quite simple to describe what is going on, but you have to search hard to find out the full picture. For such a big news story in Canada's largest province, you'd think that the media would do a better job of covering the news.
Supplementals:

It’s a long while in Alberta until the next set of municipal elections but last week there was a news story that came up that all Albertans should be paying attention to.
The idea has been floated that political parties be allowed to exist at the municipal level just as is the case in Vancouver where newly elected mayor Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver block standing for A Better City Vancouver defeated incumbent Kennedy Stewart.
Back in Alberta the suggestion of municipal political parties raised great alarm in the media and from some sitting council members.
Edmonton city councillor Aaron Paquette feels that a civic party system will force traditionally independent councillors to vote as blocks.
He said, “Every issue, instead of being a calm and rational discussion, which we love to have at the city, becomes mired in wedge politics and culture issues and all the things that plague federal and provincial governments.”
Mayor Sohi of Edmonton also feels that a party system could lead to polarization saying, “At a time when we are seeing so much political polarization across the country, keeping municipal councils not affiliated to any political party is the best approach.”
It’s at this time though we’ll remind our listeners that Mayor Sohi famously got mad at a train and took his anger out at Premier Kenney.
Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean feels that party politics already exist behind the scenes and district parties could help voters make decisions and increase turnout.
For this to become a reality a change would need to be made to the Local Elections Authorities Act which the Premier’s Office says they are considering.
According to the Premier they have been lobbied by both cities to make this change and it’s also apparently something that Premier Kenney was considering before he left office.
This is an interesting idea because politically it raises the question of how the cities would vote.
All federal seats in Calgary except one went for the Conservatives in the Federal election and most except for 3 did that in Edmonton.
Provincially though in 2019 the UCP dominated Calgary while the NDP dominated Edmonton.
In the 2021 municipal races there were signs that things were pointing this way in both cities despite the media closing their eyes and trying to deny it.
In Calgary a union-backed NDP friendly third-party advertiser campaigned for candidates and most of those hopefuls won.
In Edmonton’s race despite a lack of coverage by the media, we saw a NDP-linked group influencing several municipal races.
The organizers included prominent union organizers, NDP members including MLA Sarah Hoffman and Rachel Notley’s husband Lou Arab.
We talked about this back on Western Context 235 and it was an extensive collaboration.
Michael Janz who ran and won in ward Papastew had his campaign managed by Lou Arab.
Michael Janz, Glynnis Lieb, and Erin Rutherford received endorsements from NDP Deputy Leader Sarah Hoffman.
Critics from the provincial NDP said that the decision should be up to municipalities and they have a point, there’s nothing that says that a candidate has to run for a party in any election.
Calgary councillor Dan McLean thinks it’s a good idea saying, “It kind of turns things more into issues-based candidates instead of individual-based candidates.”
It could also bring higher profile candidates and candidates that hopefully understand the limits and powers of municipal government.
A consistent theme of our municipal coverage in Alberta last year was candidates pledging to do things that were the purview of other levels of government, provincial and in some cases federal.
City councils and municipal governments often attract candidates that are better suited for school council bodies and maybe this would provide some direction for voters so they have a better idea of what they’re going to be getting over the council members’ terms.
Or it could funnel new sources of money into the races that creates more polarization and makes the already inefficient municipal processes even less efficient.
What is certain though is that it might be time to legislate municipal races since parties have already been involved and if they are to be involved they should be involved under the law.
Supplementals:

B.C. launching new payment model for family doctors in 2023

Just over 2 months ago on Western Context 283 we highlighted a story where the BC government announced that they would be announcing in the fall a new payment model for family doctors to reduce their overhead costs. Well, it is now fall, and we have more details after that announcement this past Monday.
The new payment model will be launched in February, which will outdate the old fee-for-service system, where doctors are paid about $30 per patient visit, whether they're treating a common cold or a complex chronic health problem. The new payment model will take into account factors that include how much time a doctor spends with a patient, the complexity of their needs, the number of patients a doctor sees daily, their administrative costs and the total number of patients a doctor supports through their office.
Most family doctors in B.C. are independent contractors and run their practices as businesses, paying for such overhead costs as office space and staff and medical equipment. One of the complaints from family doctors has been the price of operating a practice, which, on average, is between $80,000 and $85,000 a year. According to a report published in the Canadian Family Physician journal in Nov 2021, up-and-coming family doctors are choosing more hospital-based work and specialized practice rather than family medicine because of the high costs.
The problem has only gotten worse as the population of BC has both grown, and aged, as the boomer generation reaches their 70s. The number of people without a family doctor in the province has grown to over 1 million. That statistic is responsible for a host of ancillary issues, including emergency rooms filling up with non-emergency health concerns. Meantime, others with no access to a doctor ignore their problems until they progress to a stage requiring expensive hospitalization. Of course, this has not just been a West Coast phenomenon – it is a national crisis.
The provincial government says a full-time family doctor will be paid about $385,000 a year, up from the current $250,000, under the new three-year Physician Master Agreement reached with Doctors of B.C. last week. In addition to pay increases, the government says in a statement that the funds will also cover income disparities and new hourly premiums for after-hours services.
The agreement would be accompanied with a new "roster'' system, to be introduced by mid-2023, where those looking for a family doctor can register to be linked with practices in their community instead of searching one out themselves, an official said Monday.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the payment model will help protect and strengthen B.C.'s health-care system. However, he said the government doesn't have a specific estimate for its impact in terms of the number of people who will get a family doctor, or the number of doctors recruited as a result.
The opposition in BC has been fairly receptive to the new policy, only asking that outcomes of the new system be measured and reported on, and that goals and timelines are set and met.
Green Leader Sonia Furstenau said in a statement that while the announcement seems to address major concerns expressed by family doctors, it's important that the plan also measures outcomes.
Shirley Bond, former B.C. Liberal health minister and current opposition health critic, said while she is relieved to see some action, she would like to see more details. She said while the plan mirrors what physicians and the opposition have been calling for, it is, at this stage, solely an announcement.
The new master agreement, which was developed between the Doctors of BC, the province and BC Family Doctors, must still be ratified by physicians. Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, president of Doctors of B.C., praised the new agreement Monday — calling it the best in the country. The goal is not only to stabilize family practice, but to make it sustainable and rewarding, and Dosanjh said that the ultimate goal is to take steps towards everyone in BC being able to access a family doctor, which is something that everyone deserves.
Dr. Renee Fernandez, the executive director of B.C. Family Doctors, says she believes the new model will allow family doctors that are doing other types of work across the province to return to the type of family medicine that they were trained to do and encourage those who are currently training to be family doctors to continue this type of community-based family medicine care.
The new payment model for family physicians announced by the province Monday means family doctors in B.C. will be close to the highest paid in Canada, a dramatic turnaround from their status as among the lowest paid in the country, where figures provided by the Ministry of Health Monday showed the average salary for a full-time family physician in B.C. in 2020-21 was $250,000.
In fact, the deal is so good, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley is urging her province’s new premier, Danielle Smith, to bring in a similar pay bump to prevent Alberta doctors, currently the highest paid in the country, from being lured to B.C. Alberta had the highest compensation rates for full-time family doctors, at an average of $393,248 a year, but Notley said B.C.’s deal could tip the scale and draw Alberta doctors to the west coast.
Premier John Horgan has been calling on Ottawa to develop a national health strategy to prevent provinces from poaching health-care workers from each other. B.C.’s resource-rich neighbour has been pushing its “Alberta Is Calling” campaign that touts high wages and low house prices in an attempt to woo skilled workers from other provinces.
The problem with Notley's plan to increase pay for Alberta doctors is that they're already the highest paid in Canada, and will remain as such even under BC's new system. If doctors still decide to move from Alberta to BC over the news, it's likely not because of pay, and there would instead be other factors, such as quality of life, to improve to make up the difference. Instead, it might be Ontario doctors who move to BC, as Ontario doctors are among the lowest paid in the country.
From what little we can see, the new payment model for doctors looks like a good idea, but it's only one small step for BC towards solving the greater healthcare crisis that we are facing, and have been facing for some time, even before the dark times of the past few years. We'll keep an eye on the issue, and see what kinds of results it produces.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

Guilbeault slams oilpatch for raking in cash and sitting idle on climate action

Canada’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault is targeting the energy industry again.
Guilbeault who himself is a former greenpeace activist is calling on the oil sector in particular to do more.
We pay close attention to the Ministers of the Trudeau government to monitor their messaging and this marks a series of messages from Guilbeault that points to a frustration towards the energy industry.
What spurred him on this past week was record profits.
Imperial Oil reported $2b in profits for the 3rd quarter and $6.2b for the first nine months of 2022. This is compared to $1.7b for the first nine months of 2021.
Cenovus, Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources also released their profits this week and combined with Imperial, in total the four made about $12.5b profit.
The Minister says that these companies aren’t doing enough on the environment but as with most things in government there are two sides to the story.
There exists an organization called the Pathways Alliance.
It includes these four largest producers, MEG Energy, and US based ConocoPhillips.
Together this group unveiled phase 1 of a plan focused on net zero investment that is going to invest $16.5b towards a plan where carbon from 20 oil sands sites in Northern Alberta would be collected and stored underground.
The group is also going to invest $7.6b to the goal of reducing emissions to 22 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030 and the ultimate goal of getting to net zero by 2050.
The alliance says they are ready to start this project but need buy-in from the provincial government and also the federal government.
They say they want a similar deal to what happens in European countries like Norway and the Netherlands.
The fall fiscal update didn’t outright provide tax credits or incentives for carbon capture projects but it does say that through the Canada Growth Fund its investments can be used on projects such as “low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).”
This measure was announced in the last federal budget and with all government programs we’ll have to see how easy it is to access.
At the end of the day we’re talking about economic measures that rely on the core principle of a market based economy: that is, competition.
The energy companies had asked for up to 75% of coverage on capital investments and were hoping that the credits would cover at least 50% of the capital costs.
This is important because the Inflation Reduction Act which made it through the US House of Representatives and Senate is more generous when it comes to incentives for carbon capture technology.
Time and time again we’ve seen our government get outfoxed by the US when it comes to making a more competitive business climate - under numerous US administrations.
Guilbeault is still of course focused on getting rid of oil and emissions everywhere he sees him and believes that by 2050 oil demand will be less than a third of what it is now.
This is up for debate as there are many countries in Africa and Asia that are now just industrializing and it’s these countries that have the highest population growth rates and need energy.
Guilbeault added that the oil of 2050 will have to come from sources that don’t add emissions through production which we’re already well on our road to when you compare us to other oil producing jurisdictions.
But this explains why the carbon tax has to go up and up, it’s a way of desperately trying to lower emissions at the cost of everyone else.
As announced in 2020, the carbon tax will increase from $40/tonne in 2021 to $130/tonne in 2030. This is a 325% increase over the next 6 and a bit years.
The question of course that remains with increasing budget demands and a government that sees industry as not doing enough, will the Trudeau government and Minister Guilbeault make a National Energy Program style money grab in the name of helping the industry go greener quicker?
This story shows that the government wants more to be done or maybe even just wants more money but the reality is that substantial investments are being made by the continent's largest energy providers.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

"Family doctors are not only health care providers. We're human beings, and so in order to provide the type of care that British Columbians need and deserve, we need the same human supports and working conditions that others do … This new payment model and the physician master agreement that were announced today are a first step towards creating those tools and supports." - Dr. Renee Fernandez, the executive director of B.C. Family Doctors on BC’s new family doctor payment plan

Word of the Week

Buy-in - agreement to support a decision or policy

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Show Data

Episode Title: Notwithstanding Strikes

Teaser: Trudeau inserts himself into the Ontario strike, Alberta councillors debate municipal parties, and BC announces a new family doctor payment model. Also, Steven Guilbeault’s hostility towards energy could reduce investment.

Recorded Date: November 5, 2022

Release Date: November 6, 2022

Duration: 58:09

Edit Notes: Survey link and Bill 28

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX