Developing the Home Market - Part I: Alberta’s Role in Canadian Energy Supply

As was discussed in the December 20 2008 ‘Developing the Home Market’ post some comment on the Alberta provincial government ‘Energy Strategy’ is required. I will begin with some stats illustrating the role that Alberta plays in Canadian GDP…

On December 11 2008 the Alberta Provincial Government released a report entitled, “Launching Alberta’s Energy Future – Provincial Energy Strategy”.[1] The news release announcing the strategy said that, “a long-term action plan for Alberta to achieve clean energy production, wise energy use and sustained economic prosperity”.[2] Provincial Energy Minster Mel Knight claimed the energy strategy would propel Alberta to, “global energy leader that is recognized as world-class energy supplier, energy technology champion, and a responsible energy consumer and environmental citizen”.[3]

Alberta has expanded oil production by 26.6% since 2001 adding 367,000 bbls/day of total production. During this period, conventional light oil and heavy crude declined by about 27%, shedding 196,000 bbls/day of total production. Oil sands production increased dramatically by 82.4% to 1.2 million bbls/day. In 2007 Saskatchewan produced 426,000 bbls/day of conventional oil or about 42% of western Canadian conventional production. Saskatchewan produces almost 50% more conventional heavy oils than Alberta. Alberta produces approximately 52% of the total conventional western Canadian supply of 1.017 million bbls/day. Combined Alberta and Saskatchewan account for 78% of Canada’s 2.753 million bbls/day 2007 production levels. Over this period total Canadian oil production increased by 24% adding 533,000 bbls/day of production. What is surprising about these figures is that Eastern Canada accounted for 41% of the increased capacity adding 220 bbls/day of production.[4]

According to the Alberta Provincial Energy Strategy document the energy sector is the single largest contributor to the provincial GDP and accounts for two-thirds of provincial exports. Examining industry Canada data over the last 10 year period from 1998 to 2007 and comparing exports to Alberta’s ten largest trading nations and reviewing the top 25 export products it can be seen that energy exports[5] have jumped from $14.6 billion to $52.9 billion – a 261% increase. In 2007 the Industry Canada data showed that made up 67.6% of total exports.

Total exports from Alberta increased 172% to $78.3 billion from $28.7 billion. Exports for all other products over the same 10 year period grew from $14 billion to $25.3 billion or an 80% increase. In realative terms however non-energy exports declined as a total percentage of all exports. In 1998 all other products made up just fewer than 50% of Alberta exports. In the year 2007 this percentage had dropped to 32.4%.

Over the same period the share of energy (oil and natural gas, excluding electricity) as a total of all Canadian exports has risen from 6% in 1998 to 20% in 2007. The volume has increased to almost $83 billion. Auto manufacturing has declined as a total percentage of total Canadian exports from 19.3% to just 0ver 13% in 2007. The total value of auto exports in dollars in 2007 was $55.5 billion.

Energy is now the single largest share of Canadian exports. It eclipsed auto in 2005. The graphs below show the changes in Alberta exports (Graph 1) and the increase in energy as a total of Canadian exports (Graph 2).

Graph 1

Graph 2

[1] Government of Alberta, “Alberta’s Provincial Energy Strategy 2008”, December 11, 2008, http://www.energy.alberta.ca/Org/pdfs/AB_ProvincialEnergyStrategy.pdf
[2] Government of Alberta News Release, “Provincial Energy Strategy charts course for sustainable prosperity”, December 11, 2008, http://alberta.ca/ACN/200812/24926232C684C-E7DE-976F-01D37383CE0F8F0C.html
[3] Government of Alberta News Release, “Provincial Energy Strategy charts course for sustainable prosperity”, December 11, 2008, http://alberta.ca/ACN/200812/24926232C684C-E7DE-976F-01D37383CE0F8F0C.html
[4] Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “Crude Oil Forecast, Markets & Pipeline Expansions”, June 2008, http://www.capp.ca/raw.asp?x=1&dt=NTV&e=PDF&dn=138295
[5] Industry Canada product codes: 270900 - CRUDE PETROLEUM OILS AND OILS OBTAINED FROM BITUMINOUS MINERALS, 271121 - NATURAL GAS IN GASEOUS STATE

Developing the Home Market - Part I: Introduction

The need to discuss energy from the stand point of a worker is critical to understanding the role that energy plays within the overall development of Canada. Canada cannot develop without energy. It is also essential that unity is developed within the Canadian labour movement. The hardships that are affecting manufacturing workers are cause for concern within the energy sector. To expect that Canada can move forward without energy is naïve. To expect that Canada can develop without an integrated and highly developed manufacturing sector is just as absurd. The division of Canadian workers from coast to coast to coast creates illusions within labour.

Canadian economic development cannot occur for the benefit of all Canadian workers until the natural resources are placed in the hands of the people. Canada can never move forward when Canadian capital is allowed to sacrifice the national interests in favour of quick profits in the US market or other global markets.

What is in the best interests of Canadian workers is in the best interests of the nation as a whole. The shift from capitalist domination over the economy is a struggle that will of necessity have to be played out in sharper forms of struggle. Workers will have to defend their interests first and dispense with phoney business theories that have nothing to do with the welfare of Canadian workers and more to do with their profits.

As part of that contribution I will be presenting a discussion on energy as the material basis to move Canada forward. I will discuss the development of the Canadian market as the fundamental starting point to regain control of the nation and struggle to place it in the hands of the people.

The need to nationalize basic industry and resource extraction is a critical element in moving the nation from capitalist forms of economic relations where people’s needs are subordinated to profit and to place it on a firm footing of socialist modes of production.

This discussion is an on going discussion that will look at government and regulatory statistics and develop a comprehensive national development program around a home market. The basis of the home market is to shift production from profit motives and to socialize labour to an even greater extent then capitalism can accomplish.

The fundamental starting point is control of Canadian resources, development of an expanding goods producing economy based on large scale industry (eco-socialists beware) and the need to shift trade from US markets into developing nations that are in desperate need of Canadian technology and resources. As well it will discuss increases in social wages as the only way to provide for rapidly increasing standards of living.

The title of this series will be called – “Developing the Home Market”. It will be interwoven with “Let ‘em Eat Root Vegetables” and will discuss labour as the sole source of national wealth. We will begin the discussion with a review of Stelmach’s Provincial Energy Strategy document that was issued December 11 2008.

Let ‘em Eat Root Vegetables – Part I: Preface

As was discussed in the Friday December 19 2008 ‘From the Smoke Pit’ post there is a need to address the environmental left and the affects they are having on working class unity. In Alberta the economic crisis has almost totally silenced these forces of the so called ’No New Approvals’ movement. It has exposed their policies as untenable in the face of job loss and economic hardship for energy sector workers.

In an expanding economy these opportunist elements of the petty bourgeoisie gain a foothold within organized labour infecting it with middleclass theories. Within an economic crisis these elements become more exposed having to adapt to growing working class mobilizations. We begin our discussion…

Preface

The following began as part of an ongoing polemic between the editor of the Yahoo Group, Revolutionary Politics Progressive Bulletin Board (RevPol) and Focus On Socialism (FOS) contributor and assistant editor William O’Casey. FOS is the political journal of Canadians for Peace and Socialism under the editorship of CPS Chair Don Currie.

However, to fully respond the scope of the discussion needed to be broadened and deal with the more general question of the leading role of working class within the context of global warming. This question leads in turn to the underlying basis of the divide – idealism versus materialism.

RevPol/FOS Polemic Background

The polemic sharpened following the publication of FOS “The ‘Left’ Bamboozled Again!” editorial, in FOS Election Bulletin #3. RevPol took exception to what he deemed FOS’s “false antagonisms” and retreating from the “status quo”. FOS disagrees with a call to “No New Approvals”[1] and shutting down oil sands development, which is very much in fashion within the environmental left.

The full content of the RevPol’s comments can be found on the RevPol bulletin board entitled “Focus on Socialism - Election Bulletin #3 - September 15, 2008” (Message # 2463) or in the Appendix at the end of this document.

When this article was first cast it was under the flawed assumption by the author that the positions put forward by RevPol where based in a divergence in the approach to the question, and that the underlying theories were due, in part, to honest and misguided attitudes towards workers. It was further believed, within that context, that an open and frank exchange of views would lead to greater unity and discourse, within the course of the discussion, to find correct strategies and tactics in the fight for energy sector workers jobs in the face of calls to shutdown the oils sands in Alberta.

However since the last posting to the RevPol bulletin board entitled “An Exchange on Environmentalism” (Message # 2604) and a subsequent posting (Message #2605) by the editor of a RevPol supporter, Mike Sawyer, which expressed a deep seated hostility and anger towards workers more befitting of a southern Gentleman than a rational leftist, all assumptions of an “honest” exchange were destroyed. It illustrated in very plain language the positions held by many environmentalists towards workers. This could not go unchallenged.

The RevPol Editor also asserted that he is part of “The Eco-Socialist Movement” and self described “Deep Red” upon doing some initial research it was evident that the basis of these hostilities is rooted in an historical battle between ideologies of the working classes and those of the ruling classes and their petty bourgeois beneficiaries. In this light an urgent recasting was called for. The basis of the RevPol Editor’s assertions and remarks and the philosophy of the movement are contained within Ecosocialist Network 2nd Ecosocialist Manifesto.

These theories advocated by the ecosocialist trend have demanded a more thorough analysis of this new tendency, and the dangerous strains of “Deep Ecology”. These trends are emerging within “left” and which symptoms of this troubling variant are gaining a foothold within the environmental left with influence inside organized labour.

The original casting of this document was further flawed by dealing solely with the petty bourgeois content of RevPol’s language and sensibilities. It dealt with those questions in a reactionary manner, not treating them within the larger and more serious trend of Ecosocialism, the principal source of RevPol’s assertions. Such an approach abandoned the working class and its revolutionary content. This left the real content of the environmental arguments hidden never revealing the origin of such ideology. This in itself denies the role of the working class who will be the primary victims of any eventual climate change on the scale predicted by the new environmental soothsayers.

Through this process it was necessary to trace the origins of this ‘new’ trend and address many of the arguments advanced by adherents of this, in essence, anti-working class ideology. While in the midst of this it became apparent very early on that this philosophy infects and, to a great extent, dominates much of the content of within the environmental left. This leads honest environmental activists into all sorts of incorrect anti-labour policies and in the end winds up supporting the very industrial concerns they are trying to convince to change their practices. In the extreme it morphs into a bizarre advocacy of shutting down industry and in the course – worker’s jobs. These are not false antagonism as RevPol claims that FOS is instigating, but real antagonisms that exist between working class reality and middleclass illusions.

[1] No New Approvals is an environmental movement centred on the call to curtail, halt expansion or a complete shutdown of Alberta’s oil sands development. Its principle advocates are the Council of Canadians, Sierra Club of Canada, Green Peace, Stop Tarsands Operations Permanently (STOP), among others.

A State of Crisis - Time for a New Response

Canada is in the midst of a deepening political and economic crisis symptomatic of the general global capitalist crisis. The Canadian corporate power elite are fearful of a united and militant working class. It is a fear that reached frenzied levels with Prime Minster Harper’s coup d'état. Harper’s cowardly parliamentary prorogue was a reaction to the fear of unity within Canadian people by a Coalition government leading to new forms of economic organization and political democracy.

The ruling circles of Canadian financial power could not permit such a sharp political upsurge to penetrate the collective consciousness of Canadian workers. It was urgently necessary for this rising anger and rapid mobilization of workers to be snuffed out. The Governor General Michaëlle Jean was given her marching orders while Harper was lectured by the C.D. Howe Institute, Preston Manning and Tom Flanagan to get his ‘ego’ in check. Flaherty was ridiculed for his inept grasp of the crisis by banks and finance capital that sensed a shift in the rapidly militant political awareness of Canadian workers.

Harper’s parliamentary neo-con ploy was about to bring down the now fully entrenched capital interests of finance, oil and military profiteers. The crass hardened right-wing Reform ideological political aspirations of Prime Minster Harper threatened to expose the secret backroom deals and parasitical crooks of the new emerging power circle around the policies of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE). It endangered a powerful ruling elite who were tasked to administer the nation’s resources in their own interests and along with it access to public funds to keep their Ponzi schemes running.

During this tense period, where it seemed that Harper’s minority Reform Party base would suffer a crushing defeat, the left sat in an almost total state of paralysis and confusion unable to react or mount any minimal form of an offensive while this momentary weakness and disarray gripped Canadian ruling circles.

Instead of mobilizing workers, and quickly responding to the disorientation within ruling circles, the left remained committed to dogmatic slogans and hyper-left sectarian policies of a ‘plague on all your houses’ nonsense. The transitory weakness within the ruling class, as it shook off the remnants of centre-left ‘Dionism’, was met by the Alberta left by dressing up as fairies, elves and smurfs and marching on Mordor.

While this weakness, expressed in calls by a fearful ruling class for ‘cooperation’ and to rally in a less confrontational and less ‘partisan’ manner to address the ‘challenges’ the economic crisis pose to the well being of ‘all’ Canadians, may seem to be fleeting, it is in fact a permanent state of crisis. Within the ruling circles of monopoly capital there are sharp differences of opinion on how to get out of the crisis.

Monopoly capital is far from united. They have manufactured a temporary alliance and truce in the face of rapid rise in workers’ consciousness. Attempts to protect profits and privilege on the backs of a shrinking labour force are being hammered out in secret backroom deals with the newly appointed Economic Advisory Committee of the most powerful business elite in the country.

Conditions that arouse within the December Crisis have not been extinguished, smouldering in the backrooms of finance and industrial monopoly associations and owners. These conflicts will rise again in new forms and crises. Preparing for the next round of crises is essential for Canadian workers. The left must assume a greater role in the development of the ground work.

Parliament may witness a new round of sharp political antagonisms when it returns for the new Flaherty budget in January. These conflicts within capital may emerge in new forms of political alliances and struggle. Or the return may witness a new united right. Either way the left will be called upon to engage in the struggle to defeat Harper in a more militant way.

The economic crisis is revealing the current state of weaknesses and confusion within the left, from communists to social democrats and all variants in-between. It is exposing just how pathetic the left is in its ability to respond to reaction. Canadian workers are suffering a most brutal and protracted attack on their economic well being. Not only are Canadian workers being attacked but the fate of the Canadian state is being challenged. Patriotic Canadians are alarmed at the direction that the reactionary policies of Harper are taking the nation.

It is within this context that a challenge must be launched that exposes, not only the reactionary Harper administration, but hyper-left petty bourgeois sensibilities while at the same time placing before workers programs that can be fought for and united around in their own interests. In reality these forces on the hyper-left are reactionary in nature and in the service of the ruling class.

The economic and material basis of the petty bourgeois does not correspond to that of the working class. Their comfort and privilege is at the expense of workers, and their compensation comes from acting as parasitical agents of the ruling class, some unwittingly, others consciously. This trend is particularly evident within the left intelligentsia centred within the Socialist Project, environmental left and those that garner favour within those circles and seek to be ‘published’. They have a tremendous influence on organized labour and within developing revolutionary youth.

The need to combat this trend is urgent. From the Smoke Pit will be publishing excerpts from an on going and larger study that looks into these trends within the petty bourgeois classes, primarily the phoney eco-socialist movement. The study will address the need for energy as the material basis for Canada’s economic and political development. It will look at the historical development of energy within Canada as guide to action. It will draw heavily from the monumental works of Tim Buck.

It is because of this and a plethora of other environmental nonsense while Canadian workers are in a virtual state of economic siege by the ruling class that has compelled me to take on this on going commentary. The articles will be called ‘Let ‘em Eat Root Vegetables’. This title refers to a particular nasty response and sentiment to an article posted to an Alberta left political discussion bulletin board by someone who is afflicted by this hyper-leftist rubbish. This is where the discussion will begin.

Coalition Government and State Industrial Development

As the recent dramatic shift in Canadian politics has fully validated, the crisis within capitalist system is creating political conditions that are ever more volatile, hostile and fluid. The deepening economic crisis is opening larger divisions within contending capital forces for shrinking credit pools, which are translating into bourgeois political crises and sharp polarizing fights. Prime Minster Stephan Harper remains committed to his ideological Reform Party oil monopoly support base in Alberta. He will do this at the expense of Canadian workers, Alberta included.

What has started as a sharpening political squabble within the major Canadian political parties is quickly turning into a popular expression of anger within the working class. As uneven, confused and disjointed this sentiment, it is none the less a reflection of the widening economic gap between productive forces on the one hand and finance capital on the other. It reflects the massive global impoverishment of billions of workers under the now fully discredited and failed neo-liberal policies of free market capitalism. Alberta is not immune to these changes.

Canadian ‘economic experts’ like to say that, while Canada’s ‘fiscal fundamentals are sound’; we are not ‘immune’ to the global economic crisis affecting other nations. What they are really saying to the power cabal of Canadian finance, military and energy capital is that the Harper-Reform Party economic policies are sound and will serve your interests, but you must remain vigilant against the growing general anger within the global working class. They warn that Canada is not immune from a rapidly growing working class consciousness now sweeping other parts of the world and developed capitalist economies which is quickly manifesting into demands for state control of the economy. This will not do if you are a finance capitalist.

Cut and Run Harper
I recall the speech that Harper made to the Canadian troops in Afghanistan in 2006 where he said that, ‘Canadians don’t cut and run’. The intimidation of Governor General Micheall Jean by Harper and his band of thugs as they rolled up to her residence in their black limos was nothing more than a mafia Don asserting his turf power. It was a televised right-wing Coup d’état complete with commentary from a host of Harper apologists.

The bullying of Jean into parliamentary prorogue, is an indictment of Harper’s cowardly nature to avoid standing before the Canadian people with his Flaherty ‘on-the-backs-of-the-people’ budget statement. Harper is quick to tell the sons and daughters of Canadian workers not to cut and run, but faced with the anger of Canadian workers Harper is content to hide behind the skirt of the Governor General.

What seems to be shaping up as an attempt by the Harper-Reform Party cosa nostra to fabricate a national unity and constitutional crisis to gain a political majority at all costs, plays well to the underdeveloped Flanagan intellectual ‘giants’ at the University of Calgary and his gated community brain trust. Running from parliament is being packaged as an ‘astute’ move from a tactical genius to gain political advantage and form a majority government. It suggests that Harper is in control and has ‘planned’ the outcome all along. This is farther from the truth and is nothing more than a fearful and cowardly act of political avoidance.

However fearful and cowardly this act is, Harper still retains power and with it all the state instruments for execution of his political and economic agenda. This reminds me of a lyric from the Bob Marley song “The Heathen” from the album Exodus that went, “tis he who fight and run away, live to fight another day”. While Marley was calling on ‘Jah People’ to continue in struggle Harper runs away to fight another election. The only way to stop Harper is to ensure that he cannot fight another day. This must come at the hands of the Canadian people in a crushing and humiliating defeat.

Those that argue the coalition is just same old ‘big business’ agenda need to reconsider that at this historical moment the defeat of Harper is the foremost important struggle. No other progressive struggles will take shape and develop so rapidly under the political revenge that Harper will unleash if he is permitted to govern, or worse govern with a majority. His smug arrogance will be short lived if all progressive and labour forces are marshalled for his defeat, even if the alliance that needs to be formed is not as ‘pure’ as the hyper-left bemoaning from afar crowd would deem.

Opening up the Fight for State Control, Defeating Hyper-Left Rhetoric
What is being placed before the Canadian people is a choice between the proto-fascistic chauvinistic policies of Harper-Reform Party doctrine of finance, oil and military capital or an opening to advance a labour led program of Canadian state industrial development. Even in the context of the manufactured Harper parliamentary crisis, where the full weight of the hardened right-wing political machine is being brought to bear against coalition forces, the possibility for state led and planned Canadian industrial development is well within reach of Canadian workers.

There will be many hyper-left detractors who will howl at such a thought and engage in left sectarian attacks on the coalition. The hyper-left will enter into coalition bashing along with the Harper propaganda machine. This is already to beginning to surface within the Socialist Project where Socialist Voice co-editor, John Riddell, cranks up the sectarian left rhetoric to acrimoniously complain of the ‘fatal weaknesses’ of a Liberal-NDP coalition. Riddell’s vitriolic idiom offers nothing for workers who see an opportunity to bring some immediate relief to their plight of job loss and wage and pension erosions. One wonders who Riddell is speaking to.

They insist that the only way for ‘real’ change and to achieve “specific and immediate gains is to stick to the path of independence from big business and its parties, and rely on the potential of popular movements."[1] This sentiment concludes that within a Liberal led coalition government the levers of power will remain in the hands of big business, providing “massive” handouts to corporate interests.

What is prescription offered for ‘independent’ action? Riddell advocates the following:
“And here is the fatal weakness of the coalition government scheme. Locked inside a Liberal-dominated coalition, the NDP would be unable to campaign against capitalist attacks. Accepting responsibility for the anti-labour measures of such a government could rapidly discredit the NDP and end its ability to continue as the bearer of popular hopes for social change.”

This Riddell argues is the path for ‘independent’ action – a continuation of the same failed social democratic strategy of subordinating labour programs of economic development to the vain hope of NDP electoral victory. The fear in Riddell’s statement is evident – a mass political struggle for a coalition will expose the vacant and parasitical petty bourgeois policies of the ‘labour intelligentsia’. They are offering nothing for labour except more pronouncements of the same Ian Angus eco-socialist world revolution clap trap.

Supporting this opinion, John Riddell asserts that, “A Liberal ‘stimulus’ package is most likely [WO emphasis] to combine massive handouts to big business with attacks on workers' wages and pensions.” Riddell speculates as if he is an authority of the inner discussions occurring within the coalition. Riddell hectors the labour movement from the safety of his university office dispensing advice but little in the way of relief for workers.

However, detractors of a left-centre coalition are now forced to acknowledge that such a bourgeois political alliance opens new opportunities for labour and working class struggles. With correctly crafted demands and programs, these openings can mean moving to the struggle to discussing fully democratic state intervention in the Canadian economy on the behalf of working people. In the context of Riddell’s previous statements, he hides his sectarianism with the following centrist evasion:

“On such a course, and in present conditions, it is by no means excluded that we could prepare the ground for a Venezuelan-type outcome: a sweeping shift in power relationships in favour of working people, the poor and the oppressed, and their organizations.”

Economic Crisis and Political Deceit, Alberta is not all Right
The rapid shift in the political landscape due to the collapsing market economy on the deliberate de-industrialization policies of the Harper administration exposes the weaknesses within the hyper-left which offers lots of advice ‘on the weaknesses’ of the coalition but does not advance demands that will bring relief for workers suffering from the economic crisis.

Maturation of an advanced labour led struggle for state planned economic development can be no less as rapid and striking. The catastrophic failure of neo-liberal economic policies superimposed on a neo-conservative agenda of military aggression are all converging on top of the structural weakness of capitalism – social production and private accumulation.

The developments in Alberta are no less dramatic. On December 4 2008 pro-coalition rallies were held across Canada. They have grabbed the imagination of Canadians like no other have in recent memory. The Harper-Reform Party press is working overtime to counter a rapidly evolving movement attempting to diffuse its underlying democratic sentiment and evolving labour content into a discussion of national unity. Alberta is not buying this line.

The Edmonton Journal reported December 6 2008 that 500 people attended a pro Harper rally on the Alberta Legislature grounds. The pro-coalition rally in Edmonton on December 4th attracted similar numbers. In the best tradition of the US network Fox, the right-wing talk shows are awash in the Harper chauvinism of Quebec bashing that has tattooed Alberta as a bastion simpleminded Reform politics of the Manning Institute. This is not a true reflection of Alberta workers and is an attempt to make Alberta workers complicit in the cowardly Harper-Reform Party cut and run scorched earth politics.

Alberta Labour can make an Historic Contribution
Alberta labour is positioned to make an historic contribution in the fight for the interests of the working people of Canada. What the AFL can contribute in this situation should not be underestimated. The power that Alberta labour commands at this political juncture can be used to express partisanship for all Canadian workers.

Alberta labour is in a position to counter the Harper-Reform tactics of chauvanism. This begins with a firm and unequivocal rejection of the Harper-Reform Party anti-Quebec sentiment. Our sisters and brothers in eastern Canada need to hear that Alberta workers are on the side of working families of Ontario and Quebec, that we stand in solidarity with them as they struggle with job loss and the collapse of manufacturing and forestry.

With the help of his Big Oil lieutenant Ed Stelmach, Harper is attempting to split Alberta organized labour from the larger house of labour. Stelmach is peddling the line that Alberta workers and the Petroleum Club have the same interests and that the tar sands are at stake. This fabrication must be firmly exposed and rejected.

The political crisis opens up new opportunities for labour to exercise its power in new ways. For Alberta workers this means to demand restarting cancelled oil sands projects. All of the attention of the media is being focussed on manufacturing and forestry jobs, as though expansion in Alberta was continuing This deliberate attempt, by the Harper-Stelmach accord, to hide and evade and prevent a discussion by the Canadian people over development, ownership and control of the oil sands, as a means to get out of the economic crisis requires exposure. It requires the leadership of the AFL to tell the truth about job loss in the energy sector and how to turn our industry in a new direction.

As workers we reject the suggestion that it is an either us or them situation. That is the line of the right to prevent workers everywhere in the country to express their solidarity. The workers of Alberta support our sisters and brother in Ontario and Quebec. Alberta has the material base to expand the economy of all regions in Canada.

The Harper-Stelmach policies of shipping raw bitumen south and along with it Canadian jobs have been exposed by the AFL as negative for jobs and employment in Alberta and Canada. Much of the construction projects that should be underway in Alberta are now being built in the US. This impacts the whole Canadian economy and worsens the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario and Quebec.

The AFL’s “Black Gold, Clear Vision” document can serve as the basis for explaining this question. It is an important document that must be placed in front of the Canadian people.

Many oil sands projects are being unnecessarily delayed, scaled back or cancelled. This must be exposed. Petro-Canada’s announcement of halting Fort Hills must be reversed. The AFL must demand that this project be restarted as part of the economic stimulus package that will be tabled by the coalition government. It must include demands for an all-Canadian project where pumps, motors, fabricating piping, pipe and equipment modules and electrical and instrumentation along with engineering are completed in Canada first.

Distribution pipelines for the products coming from such a facility must be sent east for refining and sale to other markets. This will inject billions into the Canadian economy and protect Alberta energy sector jobs which are currently on the chopping block. Thousands of Alberta workers are losing their jobs now and this fact should not go unreported and discussed in the context of the current political crisis.

This would also set the stage for a demand to re-nationalise Petro-Canada. David Coles, President of the CEP, is advancing the question of nationalization. If Petro-Canada was in the hands of the people, as it once was, it could be used as a significant buffer against the sole market resource sell-out policies of the Harper administration.

It is incumbent on Alberta labour to break publicly with the Harper-Stelmach policies of resource sell-out and advance a concrete program by Alberta labour in the interests of all Canadian workers. The AFL must step forward on behalf of all workers in Alberta and Canada and state that organized labour in this province does not support such polices and that sell-out our resources to the US is not in the interests of Canadian workers.

It is for these reasons and within this framework that Alberta labour has a key role to play in the present historic discussion about the political and economic future of the nation.

[1] John Riddell, “Coalition Government? Let's Not Give Away The Store”, Socialist Project , The Bullet, E-Bulletin No. 162 December 1, 2008,

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet162.html

Alberta Federation of Labour Rally to Support A Coalition Government

Let's Make Parliament Work!
Rally to Support A Coalition Government To Address Economic Crisis

During the federal election Stephen Harper promised Canadians he would make a minority parliament work and put our economy first.

Instead he used the political crisis to launch an attack on working people. He announced he was going to slash pay equity, revoke bargaining rights of public sector workers, and eliminate public financing of political parties. And he did nothing to help save jobs and fix the Canadian economy.
Stephen Harper has failed.

We need a government with a stronger vision for Canada. We need to support the proposed Liberal/NDP coalition. They are committed to focusing on stimulating the economy and making sure Canadians keep our jobs. It will reform EI to ensure it protects workers as it is supposed to. It will act to protect workers' pensions. And it will repeal many of the cutbacks enacted by the Harper government.

Why we need a coalition government?


Let's Make Parliament Work! Rally
EDMONTON
Thursday December 4, 6:00 pm
City Hall Plaza 1
Sir Winston Churchill Square

A collection of Edmonton citizens are holding a rally to send a message that they want Parliament to work and to get to work on fixing the economy. They want to say to the rest of the country that Edmontonians support the proposed coalition government.

What Else You Can Do
Contact your MP and tell them you support the coalition government.
Send an email directly

Put Childish Things Aside

The political crisis unfolding in Ottawa has placed the question of control of energy resource development squarely in front of Alberta working people. What is becoming very apparent is that the “No New Approvals” campaign led by the Council of Canadians and Green Peace is becoming exposed for what it is – opportunism at the expense of Canadian workers.

While the whole country is engaged in the discussion of a coalition government, the environmentalists are organizing more job loss rhetoric with their new “March to Mordor” rally. It is silly and childish based in the fantasy of eco-socialism.

The defeat of Harper is presenting itself and requires the decisive engagement of the working people of Alberta in the struggle for the country. A massive disinformation campaign is being implemented by the neo-con agenda of the Reform base in Alberta to save the Harper administration. Under estimating the power of the neo-con machine will done at the peril of Canadian workers.

It is a power struggle and there should be no illusions what a continuation of a Conservative government will mean for Canadian workers. The full weight of the right wing will be brought down on workers. Attempts to prorogue parliament by Harper will be an effort by the right time to regroup and fight an election for a majority. This is an outcome that workers of Canada cannot risk.

The right will attempt to bully the Governor-General Michaelle Jean to dissolve parliament and call another election opening the door to subverting the Canadian people that, by two-thirds, rejected the neo-con policies of Stephen Harper.

The coalition government opens the door to new demands for labour and the peace movement. If Harper is allowed to wriggle his way out this crisis, a making of his own arrogant anti-worker agenda of finance, military and BigOil capital, will be a significant defeat for the forces of labour and peace. Harper must be defeated and sent permanently to the dust bin of history!

It is an urgent question that requires all progressive forces to place the defeat Harper first on the agenda and leave fantasy in the pages of children’s books. Anything less at this point in Canadian history is an abandonment of Canadian workers.