ATHABASCA/BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK — Topping the list for biggest story of 2020 worldwide is the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the country in March. The virus, first recorded in the Chinese province of Wuhan in December, made its way across the world. Alberta recorded its first presumptive case March 5 in the Calgary zone.
By March 15, nearing 50 confirmed cases, the provincial government declared a public health emergency, closed courts, schools and daycares, and moved education online. Rec facilities and businesses were closed as well in what marked the beginning of the pandemic shutdowns.
All senior homes and Alberta Health Care facilities instituted new protocols, restricting visitors in order to keep the virus out.
Among the casualties were three local newspapers, the Athabasca Advocate, Barrhead Leader and Westlock News, all three amalgamated into the Town & Country This Week March 31, serving all three areas in the new format.
Measures seemed to work during the first wave of the pandemic. Restrictions were eased off, and businesses were slowly allowed to reopen in May under the government’s economic relaunch plan that staggered the restart. High testing levels worked relatively well in preventing community transmission and Alberta retained some of the lowest COVID-19 levels across the country despite relatively few restrictions.
Active cases dropped from a high of nearly 2,000 mid-May to less than 1,000 over the summer months. Meanwhile, health officials remained conscious that a second wave was coming with the cooler months. In September, students returned to school under new protocols, including cohorts and mandatory masks.
By mid-October, cases began to spike and records were broken nearly every day. The Edmonton zone was most affected, with more than half the cases across the province. The government’s resistance to institute lockdown-style measures early has been blamed for the dramatic uptick in cases that led to Alberta topping Canada-wide daily case increases despite smaller populations — nearly 1,500 cases daily.
Municipalities were calling for province-wide mask mandates and supplanted what some saw as lackluster leadership from the provincial government with their own rules as cases started to spike outside of the major urban centres.
Premier Jason Kenney announced a new set of measures Nov. 24, shuttering indoor social gatherings, sports, concert venues and restricting several other activities in areas under enhanced measures. Grade 7-12 kids were once again moved to online school starting Nov. 30.
Cases continued to rise — nearly 2,000 cases confirmed each day, and daily positivity rates ranging between eight and 9.5 per cent — and a new set of measures was put in place Dec. 8. This time, most things were shuttered across the entire province, including restaurants, recreation and entertainment for at least four weeks. Retail space was limited, so was church attendance, and all social gatherings of any sort were banned.
The regional approach was no longer working, said Kenney, as the province made masks mandatory everywhere, superseding any municipal jurisdiction, including the ones with active mask bylaws.
Alberta ended the year with 100,428 cases: 14,555 active, 84,827 recovered, and the very grim 1,046 deaths. Currently, there are 921 people in hospital, 152 of them in ICU.
Healthcare
While the pandemic was fully underway, the government moved ahead with significant changes to the healthcare system, undergirded by the refusal from both the government and the Alberta Medical Association to agree during contract negotiations. In April 2020, Health minister Tyler Shandro came under fire from rural Albertan doctors and the NDP opposition for proposing changes to the doctor pay model then backtracking.
Modifications on overhead pay meant doctors who also worked in private practice would no longer receive pay for the work they do in hospitals. Physicians, especially in rural areas where it is common practice to split work between clinic and hospital, claimed they would’ve been forced to reduce their in-hospital hours.
An April 20, 2020 letter signed by the Rural Sustainability Initiative Group, including Westlock doctors, claimed it would’ve reduced hospital work by July 2020 for 47 per cent of the 300 doctors they surveyed in 44 communities. Some threatened to quit hospital work altogether.
Ultimately, the government backtracked and exempted rural physicians from the pay model. Following the announcement, some Alberta doctors relented, but all 18 Westlock doctors signed a letter stating some would still resign once the pandemic was over.
They were asking for a renegotiated contract between Alberta Health and the AMA, pointing out that doctors didn’t trust their government anymore.
Later in the year, the government announced their plans to privatize about 11,000 healthcare aide jobs by 2022. Following the October announcement, Alberta Union of Public Employees hit the picket lines in a wildcat strike to protest the proposed changes that could see some of them out of a job.
The Alberta Labour Relations Board declared the strike illegal and picketers were forced back to work.
The government claims the move will save about $600 million, but AUPE northwest VP Kevin Barry cautioned against that number, since services still cost money even if they’re delivered by a private company.
Privatizing the jobs means laying off employees, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll find jobs in the private sector either, union members claim.
To AUPE, the job transfer is going to result in lower-paid jobs with no benefits or pension plans. As for the ALRB’s decision: “It’s pretty obvious that the UCP government is using the power of the state to suppress workers,” Barry said.
Assessments
In the fall, rural municipalities narrowly avoided significant financial strain when the provincial government decided against implementing changes to how it calculates linear assessments.
Municipal Affairs announced the four options that came out of a review over the summer, all of which would have changed how oil and gas properties get assessed, and consequently taxed. Every option was intended to reduce the amount of taxes paid on these properties.
Industry competitiveness, under the proposed models, came at the cost of municipal financial viability. Rural Municipalities of Alberta estimated that under the industry-preferred model, an average muni would lose 12.4 per cent in revenue in the first year, and 11 members would have lost over 20 per cent.
Municipal outrage at the models and the lack of consultation during the process prompted newly appointed minister Tracy Allard to take a tour of the province and ultimately scrap the proposals.
Instead, Muni Affairs will be reviewing the review over the next three years. Oil and gas got some tax breaks too: new wells and pipelines are exempt from taxes; 35 per cent reduction on shallow gas wells; reduced assessments for less productive wells; no well drilling equipment tax for new drills.
The problem isn’t solved, however. For years, municipalities have been complaining about unpaid taxes from the oil and gas sector with no answer from the provincial government.
RMA president Al Kemmere said munis lost about $81 million in 2018, which more than doubled in 2019 to $173 million. Without fixing this problem, he said, munis can’t ensure tax collection is fair. Plus, he added, most properties don’t pay because they don’t want to, not because they’ve gone bankrupt.
Oil reps disagree with Kemmere on the numbers but agree that “there’s some legitimate concerns about the mechanisms that municipalities have to rectify those unpaid taxes,” said Tim McMillan, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
Allard says they hope to have an answer in 2023, which conveniently gets very close to the end of the UCP mandate.
