Intergovernmental Archives - Page 2 of 4

<strong>OSFI’s new guidelines: A step toward making banks and insurers more conscious of their climate impacts</strong>

22Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Banks, Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental

OSFI’s new guidelines: A step toward making banks and insurers more conscious of their climate impacts

This article of mine was published yesterday in The Conversation. Reproduced with permission from The Conversation. After an extensive consultation process, the organization that supervises banks and large insurance companies in Canada — the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) — has released guidelines for financial institutions to address climate change. This is timely, considering banks and insurers are massive funders of the fossil fuel industry. The release of the guidelines, called the B-15, comes more than a year after a January 2022 pilot study by Canada’s central bank and OSFI on how resilient financial institutions would be under new climate policies. The study found that the creditworthiness of oilsands producers is expected to fall over the next few...

Budget Speech- Annotated and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Toews

9Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Credit Ratings, Employment, Energy, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

Budget Speech- Annotated and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Toews

Budget Speech delivered on Tuesday 28 February 2023, Legislative Assembly of Alberta Mr. Speaker, I count it a tremendous honour to rise in the House today to present Budget 2023 – the fifth I have presented on behalf of Albertans. In the fall of 2019, I put forward a four-year plan to bring the province back to fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget. In some respects, these past four years have felt like a century – in part, due to the extraordinary global challenges we faced but also because of how far we’ve come. When, as a government, we took office in 2019, Alberta had an economy that was flat-lined, and we were spending $10 billion more than comparable provinces on services, without better outcomes. Our plan to strengthen Alberta’s economic foundation was two-fold: First, t...

30Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental, Politics

Smith to Trudeau- Olive branch or iron fist in a velvet glove?

Last Thursday, Premier Danielle Smith wrote Prime Minister Trudeau about the “just transition” legislation that the Liberal government will introduce this year. At first blush this letter was seen as an “olive branch”. In Smith’s words:- We can continue with the endless court challenges, legislation to protect jurisdictional rights and inflammatory media coverage over our disagreements, or, as is my strong preference, Alberta and Ottawa can work in partnership on a plan that will signal to all Canadians and investors from around the world that our governments have cooperatively designed a series of incentives and initiatives intended to achieve the following objectives The attempt to dial down the rhetoric may be her government’s response to internal party polling that indicates fig...

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...

7Sep

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

Who owns the Big Four?

Profits earned by foreign direct investors on their assets in Canada were up $2.8 billion, led by the energy sector. Statistics Canada report on balance of payments. Statistics Canada Report on balance of international payments- 30 August 2022 In a column earlier this year, Gordon Laxer argued that Alberta’s inquiry into foreign influence should also have examined the foreign influence in the Canadian oilpatch. This post examines the ownership of the Big Four oilsands producers using current data from Thomson Reuters’ Refinitiv. In an earlier post first half financial results of these companies was compared against bank profits. As the tables indicate, the top investors are mostly North American with Canadian bank subsidiary iinvestment management firms holding a small portion of the sh...

22May

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

Alberta 4- Canada 1: Alberta Court of Appeal on the Impact Assessment Act

On 10 May Alberta's Court of Appeal provided an opinion on reference questions from the Alberta government concerning the validity of the federal Impact Assessment Act or, as Premier Kenney prefers to call it, the "no pipelines law." Background . On 9 September 2019 Alberta's cabinet authorized the Alberta Court of Appeal to consider two questions. These were: Is Part 1 of An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, S.C. 2019, c. 28, unconstitutional in whole or in part, as being beyond the legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada under the Constitution of Canada? Is the Physical Activities Regulations, SOR/2019-285, unconstitutional in whole or in p...

Presentation to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs

26Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research, Politics

Presentation to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs

On 31 March I made the following presentation to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs about my Parkland paper Can AIMCo be Fixed? You can view the presentation on Youtube here. The discussion after the presentation was stimulating and wide ranging and highlighted concerns about government politicians interfering with public sector pensions. The Medicine Hat News had a story about the presentation on 13 April 2022. Below are my speaking notes and below that is a PDF of revised slide deck. (One of the numbers in Figure 2 had to be restated.) "Good afternoon everyone! I am speaking to you from Treaty 6 territory, a traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples including the Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, and many others whose historie...

31Dec

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Environment, Government Finances, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research, Politics, Rural

2021 Top Stories

Politics During 2021 Alberta’s political oxygen was consumed almost entirely with COVID-19- a topic Abpolecon.ca kept in the background. The third, fourth (Delta) and fifth (Omicron) waves rolled over the province and Kenney’s government was consistently found wanting. Not only was 2021 defined by the premier’s mishandling of COVID - the “best summer ever” but the NDP consistently out fund-raised the UCP. On top of these failures was a sexual harassment suit, an ill-timed UCP Christmas reception, and 22 constituency associations demanding the leadership review be bumped up to March (the effort was denied by the party Executive). By September Kenney was regarded as a “dead man walking.” In December, former Wildrose leader and UCP leadership contestant Brian Jean resurfaced as UCP can...

12Dec

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Employment, Fiscal History, Intergovernmental

Hyndman papers- women’s equality and capital budgeting

In the first excerpt Peter Lougheed's Social Planning Committee supported Canada's ascension to a United Nations Convention on eliminating discrimination against women. As outlined in the short Committee Committee recommendation the Alberta government committed itself legislative measures designed to implement the concept of equal pay for work of equal value. Equal Pay CABINET COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION CABINET COMMITTEE: SOCIAL PLANNING DATE OF CONSIDERATION: October 7, 1981 SUBJECT: UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON ELIMINATING OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN RECOMMENDATION: This committee RECOMMENDED that the Minister of Labour inform the Federal Government of the support of the Alberta Government respe...

15Nov

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Employment, Environment, Government Finances, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

Alberta’s Economic Recovery Plan appears to be taking off

The past ten-days has seen a flurry of announcements from Premier Kenney, his Jobs, Economy and Innovation minister Doug Schweitzer, Associate Minister of Natural Gas and Electricity- Dale Nally, and Finance Minister Travis Toews. Kenney, in all these announcements, was centre stage and answering inquiries from the media. Hydrogen Roadmap The first announcement on 6 November was the unveiling of a hydrogen strategy. Hydrogen, especially “blue hydrogen,” is now seen as having the potential of an oilsands-like boom. According to Kenney: “With a global market estimated to be worth $2.5 trillion a year by 2050, hydrogen could be Alberta’s next great energy opportunity. Alberta has been a global leader in responsible energy production for decades, and now we’re ready to apply that leadership ...