St. Albert lawyer Keith Wilson has been studying the contents and the potential impacts of some of the province’s recent bills as they relate to landowners and says there are some definite flaws which will negatively impact landowners and their rights.
Wilson has been speaking on these bills, specifically 19, 24, 36 and 50 at many meetings around the province. Last Tuesday, March 15, at the invitation of Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) Zone 7 delegates, Wilson spoke at his 27th such meeting at Nilsson Bros. Livestock Exchange near Clyde.
The meeting was attended by a large crowd, with various estimates of between 300 and 400 persons. Landowners came from near and far — some from as far west as Mayerthorpe and as far east as Boyle, south to Mayerthorpe and all points in between, pretty much covering the Town & Country readership area.
A couple of zone 7 delegates had attended other meetings featuring Wilson, and reported he was non-partisan in his delivery. That is exactly what zone 7 director Ben Schrader wanted, “An information meeting that’s non-partisan, and we think producers have a right to know (the impact of these bills).”
However, while no Conservative MLAs came to hear the presentation, Calgary-Glenmore Wildrose Alliance MLA Paul Hinman and party leader Danielle Smith were both there and commended Wilson for his crusade.
In introducing Wilson, zone 7 delegate Ted Ford noted, “Tonight we have a chance to take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly.
“Keith is probably the most knowledgeable person on these bills, and almost all of his practice is with ag issues.”
Wilson began by noting, “These bills all have an impact on your rights.”
He told his audience that at these meetings, he has been working mostly on his own dime and using his own finances in the study of these bills, and as a concerned citizen of Alberta and the father of four children.
Wilson began his talk by taking a look at Bill 24, the Carbon Capture and Storage Statutes Amendment Act, 2010.
“In Bill 24, the government changed the law. Bill 24 takes away an element of ownership of your land,” he said.
On Bill 50, the Electric Statues Amendment Act, he said, “Because we (Albertans) pay to build the lines, there is an incentive by the companies to build a line where it is not needed, because we pay for it.”
He said before Bill 50, a public hearing process was needed before construction of any lines.
“With Bill 50, the process was moved from the public to the back room of cabinet,” he charged.
He said as much as $16.5 billion worth in new lines will be built — all without any public consultation.
He added there are no cost controls, and the checks and balances that were in place before Bill 50 have been taken out.
To give a scale of this move, he said the province spends $12.3 billion on health care and $6 billion on education.
“We don’t want to pay for lines if they’re not needed,” he said, but added that at this point, there is, “absolutely no cost control.
“If electrical cost triples, guess who pays?”
Answering his own question, he said to the crowd assembled, “I think I am looking at you now.”
He went on to note that in Alberta, we have some of the highest electrical costs in the country and added, “What company would stay in Alberta with these kinds of increases?”
Wilson said more of these expensive transmission lines are not needed because there has been no increase in consumption shown, even though planners say there is.
He said some Alberta businesses are talking of setting up their own electrical power and some are talking of shifting jobs and production out of Alberta.
“If you can put it on a truck or in a pipeline, why the heck would you stay here?” he asked, in reference to increased electrical costs.
“And if all these jobs go, where will our children work? There will be no reason to stay here. What’s gonna happen to Cargil and Lakeside if costs triple?”
“This is serious stuff. Alberta competitiveness is at risk.”
He said there is no need for new lines when we have almost 30 per cent more capacity currently than we need.
Turning to Bill 36, the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (ALSA), Wilson called it “scary.”
He pointed out that up to Bill 36, local councils dealt with land-use planning — people who were easily accessible and had local knowledge of the land they were dealing with. Now, he said, cabinet makes the decisions, and these can even be retroactive, and questions why cabinet feels the need to make all the decisions.
“It’s not possible for a small group in cabinet to make proper decisions for the entire province.
“This law gives them unprecedented and unfettered powers. There’s no checklist and no right of appeal. That’s what troubles me as a lawyer.
“I’ve been in this business of surface rights a long time, and I understand this stuff. You have no appeal and legally, you cannot overrule a cabinet decision. This is bizarre!”
Wilson notes, “They’ve given themselves the legal authority to make laws from the cabinet room, and the point is, some things shouldn’t move into the cabinet room. All of the powers they’ve given themselves violates the law.”
More detailed information on Wilson’s findings and comments can be found on the Landowners Against Bills Society of Alberta website, landownersagainstbills.com.
Even before the Tuesday meeting, the office of Mel Knight, MLA for Grande Prairie and the Minister of Sustainable Resource Development had contacted T&C to arrange a time to give the government side of the issues on these bills. Knight spoke with T&C late Thursday afternoon.
Knight says he has read the material Wilson uses and in fact has had the opportunity to talk with him.
“Most certainly, he raises some interesting points, but the problem with that situation is, he says, the legislation, and the way legislation is written, when you have several lawyers in a room talking about it, you very often will not get a consensus relative to what it means or what it could possibly mean.”
He said his concern with the message from Wilson around the province is what effect it is having on Albertans.
“Landowners out feeding their cows, and others who showed up at the meeting the other night wondering what is it that’s going to happen to their lease or to their farm, or their titles or so on.
“That’s the crux of this to me, is what is the effect of this going to be on my constituents out there that are working on the ground today.”
He pointed out he is a landowner and lives on a farm and been there for 50 years.
“I look at this from the point of view of how is this going to affect me. I’ve got to tell you that some of the stuff that gets rattled on about with respect to this whole issue is not really going to affect the average person — not now and probably not ever.”
He said the amendments (Bill 10) point out that there is fallacy in these amendments, but he isn’t paying much attention to what the Opposition is saying.
Rather, he says, he wonders what the rank and file have to say.
“When you get a crowd of a couple hundred people together that are concerned, then I need to pay attention,” Knight said. “I’ve looked at the thing from the point of the consultation processes we’ve gone through — the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan and the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, and it was in that period and those consultations that I began to realize Albertans are not all that comfortable with this thing.”
He said the premier had asked him go out and talk to Albertans about this, and if changes were necessary to clarify the legislation to do so. And Bill 10 is exactly that, there’s a lot of clarity that’s put in Bill 10.
He said, as Wilson pointed out Tuesday evening, that he (Wilson) feels the cabinet, with these bills, has too much authority. Knight’s take on that is that at the end of the day, someone has to be responsible.
“We’re elected to take on that responsibility,” he asserted.
“It’s no different in my opinion, than building a hospital, or building a school or building a road … making those kinds of decisions for Albertans. We don’t go out and litigate all that stuff, we make a decision. And we have a responsibility to make good decisions.”
He said when bad decisions are made, things happen around election time, and somebody else will get to make decisions.
Knight said he feels it is a lot better, with respect to regional planning, the decisions are made by elected representatives of the people, instead of being made in court.
“And Mr. Wilson would prefer to go to court. He would prefer to go to court because he’s a lawyer,” he said.
He said anything with respect to municipal planning in place now remains as-is until they come to a point where a plan has been agreed to, and put in place by cabinet. He added municipal governments will have to have their plans match the requirement of the regional plan.
He said that has always been in the Municipal Government Act, and nothing is being taken now that wasn’t already in it. He said there is some clarity still needed, but no further amendments.
“I will give them that clarity,” he said.
Regarding the building of power transmission lines, Knight had a number of thoughts as the former energy minister responsible for Bill 50, and as such, qualified to speak on it.
“That business is a bit complicated,” he pointed out. “There’s a concern here that everybody needs to understand. Not any of those types of facilities (electrical generation) run 100 per cent of the time.”
Knight said they can be shut down for a month or so a year for maintenance.
“Where do you get the power you need that was produced by that facility for the region that it was generating into?” he asked.
That, he said, is why transmission is needed.
“When you look at distributor generation built all over the province and then connecting all of that together with an internal transmission system in order to make that work —you know, there’s some more thought that needs to be done around that.”
Knight said the other thing they’re (objectors) missing big time. “There is some tremendous synergy with respect to the generation of electricity in western North America.”
He talked of using current systems to manage the load for the future with DC power, which will handle three times the volume of AC, using AD/DC conversion centres at each end without adding lines.
“I think if you look at some of these things and look forward a little bit, that there’s a huge opportunity here to provide a good, reliable, reasonably-priced electricity generating system for the province of Alberta,” he said.
“I’ve been out around the province for the last couple of weeks and will continue to talk to people on the ground about this issue. That’s the people I want to talk to. We’ll continue to do whatever we can to get out and talk to people about the issue.”
“We’re going around and putting my message on the ground as well. I think people need that balance,” he concluded.
