Health Archives - AB Pol Econ

Spotlight on Year-end Orders -in-Council

1Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Spotlight on Year-end Orders -in-Council

Background Government is a complex business and assemblies of elected politicians can not make every decision a modern government must make. So besides passing legislation which sets out very general policies, prescriptions on behaviour, and offences for breaking the law, they delegate the details and decisions to the provincial cabinet. There is also a very practical reason for doing this since the legislative body is not continuously sitting. Examples of such details or decisions include the Alberta cabinet choosing who sits on the boards of governors of Alberta’s universities and colleges, appointments based on the recommendation and advice of the Minister of Advanced Education. In addition to Orders, legislative assemblies delegate to cabinets the fleshing out the details of ho...

Draft federal methane regulations- Hostile response from Alberta

7Dec

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Health, Politics

Draft federal methane regulations- Hostile response from Alberta

Albertans and Canadian are getting used to conflict between the Alberta and federal governments over the future of fossil fuels and emissions regulations. However, in the latest exchange from Premier Smith and her lieutenant, Environment minister Rebecca Schulz is a nasty personal attack on the integrity on the personal integrity of Environment minister Stephen Guilbeault.In a particularly nasty statement, Smith and Schulz seem to project their own ideas about post office careers, but not necessarily in the same line of work as Guilbeault. The federal government has unilaterally established new methane emissions rules and targets to help win international headlines. Instead of building on Alberta’s award-winning approach, Ottawa wants to replace it with costly, dangerous and unconsti...

Alberta 5, Ottawa 2- still many thorny questions remain (Part 1)

29Oct

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Health, Opinion/Research, Politics

Alberta 5, Ottawa 2- still many thorny questions remain (Part 1)

Updated Apology from Bob Ascah. This Post has been removed pending revision. To my horror, I discovered I had been reading the Alberta Appeal Court majority decision and erroneously conveying them as the Supreme Court's majority views! I will be rewriting the analysis.

7Aug

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Education, Environment, Health

Mandate letters- Education, Environment and Health

Accountability Mandate letters are incredibly valuable instruments giving interested members of the public and policy analysts a more informed view of what cabinet ministers and their senior officials are expected to do. The degree of transparency and accountability that goes with it give the Premier (and the public) a ready way to assess performance of ministers and their departments. Whether the policy initiatives cited in these letters correspond to what the public thought they were going to get is, of course, another matter. For instance, the Alberta Revenue Agency and the resurrection of the Alberta Pension Plan and Health Spending Accounts were non-issues during the campaign for the UCP at least. In this post, I explore the mandates for the ministries of Education, Environment ...

Lou Hyndman’s reply to Preston Manning’s proposal

19Jul

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Capital Spending, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Health, Politics

Lou Hyndman’s reply to Preston Manning’s proposal

In an earlier post, in the fall of 1983, Preston Manning, then President of Manning Consultants a firm his father established wished push fiscal policy changes. The timing may be significant because by that time Peter Lougheed had been in office for 12 years and there was speculation growing about when her would exit. Lou Hyndman's somewhat testy reply to Preston Manning's circulation of his groups report to all M.L.A.'s and to Progressive Conservative delegates at the annual convention was especially cool. The displeasure is evident in Manning's courageous and naive proposal to reduce the size of the Alberta Legislative Assembly consistent with principles that fiscal discipline should begin at the top. His reference to the earlier Social Credit government allowing the civil service to ...

The Conversation-Will Danielle Smith stay moderate or move back to the right — and towards Alberta separatism?

15Jun

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Credit Ratings, Environment, Health, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

The Conversation-Will Danielle Smith stay moderate or move back to the right — and towards Alberta separatism?

This article was published on 15 June 2023 in The Conversation. Reproduced with permission from The Conversation. With a fresh and workable majority, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is facing the choice of conforming to her moderate election stance or pushing the strategies of various quasi-separatist groups like Take Back Alberta and Project Confederation. If she opts to move from the centre to the far right again, controversies involving the federal government, government workers and environmentalists will ensue. As a political scientist, former Alberta public servant, financial institution executive and university administrator and researcher, I have been watching politics in Alberta for more than 40 years. At the present time, political pundits are contemplating how Smith, with a fr...

28Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Energy, Environment, Government Finances, Health, Opinion/Research, Politics

Solutions-based policy development and Some Modest Recommendations

There are major issues confronting Alberta- a massive understatement if there ever was! As a student, practitioner, and teacher of public policy for over 40 years, the following ideas are in a germination phase and readers are encouraged to comment and add their suggestions on the central germ of this idea. A solutions-based approach to government policy-making offers a means of identifying a small number of “problems” which require immediate attention and on which there is a consensus on the need for action. This approach starts with Problem identification. The government’s prerogative, but our current government arguably sees things much differently than a majority of Albertans- (e.g. the visceral hate of the federal government as represented by Mr. Trudeau.) In this blogpost, I set ...

12Nov

By Bob Ascah2 Comments

Budget, Energy, Health, Opinion/Research

What does Danielle Smith think?

Updated and corrected 3 December 2022 See also a related BlogPost for the Parkland Institute What Was She Thinking? A Glimpse Into Danielle Smith’s Mind published 2 December 2022 Perhaps the best glimpse into Premier Smith’s thinking on a whole range of critical public policy issues is contained in a 20-page paper entitled “Alberta’s Key Challenges and Opportunities.” This paper was part of the School of Public Policy’s pre-publication series called the Alberta Futures Project. This paper was published in June 2021 before oil and gas prices rose substantially changing the province’s fiscal picture. What is surprising is the absence of a discussion of a sovereignty act and confronting federal overreach central to her winning the UCP leadership. In this article, I examine fundamenta...

Federal guidance for best-in-class -Alberta’s carbon pipeline-Pathways “plan”

20Oct

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Health, Opinion/Research

Federal guidance for best-in-class -Alberta’s carbon pipeline-Pathways “plan”

Several announcements from Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary took place last week. We unpack these announcements for their significance. Guilbeault takes centre stage On Wednesday 12 October 2022 Environment and Climate Change Canada released "draft guidance" on "best- in- class" GHG emissions for oil and gas projects. The National Observer regarded the guidance as a surrender to Big Oil, particularly the oilsands industry. I will examine some of the interesting aspects of draft guidance. Most important is the "draft" adjective used. Clearly Minister Guilbeault does not see the guidance as the final word. The question for industry and environmentalists will be where the red line will be drawn over future oilsands growth and the emissions cap. According to Cloe Logan of the National Observ...

29Sep

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Government Finances, Health, Intergovernmental, Investment, Opinion/Research

The UCP Front-runners- Policy Analysis

In this analysis I compare both the slogans and key phrases of the candidates. Slogans and phrases which are meant to attract members to vote for their preferred candidate and some of the detail of their top policy priorities. I also drill down to examine three policy areas in more detail. At the time of publication Danielle Smith is the presumed frontrunner with Travis Toews second and Brian Jean third. High level slogans compared According to Danielle Smith’s “Alberta First” campaign she will: Free Alberta from Ottawa’s control; Protect the rights and freedoms of Albertans; Unleash our economic potential and restore the Alberta Advantage, and Defeat Rachel Notley and the NDP in the next election Travis Toews promises responsible, stable leadership and promises to uni...