Late to the #UCPAGM2020 party because I had a prior engagement. We’re on Policy 10, collecting our own taxes. Drew Barnes asks people to vote for. First speaker says he’s tired of dealing with people in other provinces at CRA so he’s for it. #ableg
Next speaker is against. He says it’s just too expensive.
We aren’t being told whether the resolution is passing... that’s no fun.
Next up - private health care. First speaker, a Dr., says it’s in contravention of the Canada Health Act.
Speaker for motion says individual Albertans need options for when Medicare fails as it fails everywhere.
Against says we’re good, private costs more.
For says “no it doesn’t.”
MLA Glubish is opposed because the UCP said they’d preserve public and doesn’t want the grief.
Yay: Ron Orr says people complain about RCMP all the time but never ever have they ever complained about the Lacombe police force.
Yay: thinks because of the changes and this new computer age, it would be advantageous
Yay: we need to be able to act against the feds if it comes to it.... 😳
Nay: we keep saying we want to reduce spending and debt but also have a tax agency and police force and pension mgmt
17. New vision for learning and K-12 curriculum
- mastery in STEM
- multiple literacies, skills, subject specific content in language, math, finance, tech, critical thinking, physical and mental health and empathy for others
- understanding democratic rights and values etc
Oh wait - they want to *add* STEM to the curriculum.
18. Ensure timely deliver if all publicly funded surgeries by removing caps in the number of surgeries.
Nay: too expensive
Yay: there shouldn’t be caps - if people need surgeries they should have them.
Yay: we’re expecting our kids to pay our healthcare - we need private
Yay: the costs of maintaining my life and health before hip surgery was more than the surgery itself.
Nay: we need more choices in healthcare but I’m worried about any policy that would take the cap off would make budgeting impossible despite compassion and people’s needs.
19 RECALL!!!
MLAs Goodrich and Glasgo are for. Are they showing up in alphabetical order?
YayNay: will it even work though or will it just have ridiculous barriers like 60% of the population?
Yay: most MLAs are pretty good, at least our UCP MLAs
20. Work with feds to reduce redundancy - make one-stop for regulatory and enviro reviews.
I had tech issues ...
21: develop a strategic petroleum reserve and expand existing storage capacity in AB
Nay: we should focus on getting product to market, not storage.
Nay: more government interference isn’t what the industry needs. If they wanted to store it they would.
Yay: we need this to give us more time to transition .. editor’s note - that doesn’t seem right.
Nay: we’re pumping 300 million barrels a day we don’t need to store it
22. Ensuring publicly funded organizations, institutions and services do not encroach upon the realm of free enterprise.
Nay: which enterprises? Does a hotel compete with a homeless shelter?
Nay: this is nebulous.
Yay: govt doesn’t create wealth, get them out of business
23. Prohibit any professional body charged with regulating teacher/principal certification or professional conduct and practice from activities related to:
i- collective bargaining
ii- admin of a collective agreement
iii- any matter under Labour Relations Board
Caveat: doesn’t mean teachers can’t join or be part of a union, just that the union doesn’t act as defence and prosecution.
Two speakers say they already voted for this at the founding AGM.
Speaker says this reminds him of Klein’s “you can’t suck and blow at the same time”
Somebody said every time Klein is mentioned we should drink.
Moderator said Ralph Klein four times.
24: Repeal Bill 10, Public Health ACT (emergency powers)
Video Nay: Shandro says they should repeal sec 52 that deals with emergency powers instead.
Yay: sweeping powers bad
YayNay: individual bills shouldn’t be in party policy
Nay: the govt is already doing this and agrees with last person so vote against
Yay: follow through on the policy, it might not be on repeal now without the policy proposal and work done
Rebuttal - it isn’t repealed yet
Bathroom break, probably due to all the people saying Ralph Klein moderator says 😏
Aaaaaaand we’re back.
25. Increasing investment in and oversight of care facilities for seniors
Nay: the care is too fragmented between housing and health and needs to be streamlined.
Note: seniors and housing is one ministry, oversight comes from health ministry
Yay: do it
Yay: concerned about second outbreak and locking down facilities
Yay: we have to have a deeper look at infrastructures and facilities and increase it as a priority.
Nay: should keep original “ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing with supportive care”..
... “for seniors”
Nay: we don’t have to spend more money, offer tax incentives.
Moderator says he hopes everyone is enjoying the free beverages this year that just happen to be exactly what everyone wanted too.
26: use abundance of AB’s natural gas resources to encourage downstream growth in petrochemicals
Nay: there’s not enough demand
Yay: support, it’s not just creating plastics but a full life cycle of creation and recycling
Nay: govt shouldn’t pick winners and losers
Yay: because of the finance community’s resentment of our oil and gas industry, I think the govt should help.
Yay: ditto
Rebuttal - govt has to incentivize, we’ve seen it in billions of facility investment.
27. Adopt legislation to allow citizen initiated referendums
Nay: allowing citizen initiated refs disempowers or disincentivizes MLAs from doing their jobs. And they’re not binding.
Yay: they have them in the US and they can walk and chew gum at the same time so...
Editor’s note: unverified.
Nay: it would create a lot of confusion and the potential for lots of refs
No one’s mentioned costs yet 🤷♀️
Nay: limitations on what can be brought to a ref should exist
Which goes against the freedom-loving reason for being it up in the first place so...
28. Create a self-governing professional regulatory association for AB Teachers Assoc that is responsible for teacher/principal:
- certification
- professional conduct and practice
- professional qualifications and
-continuing teacher competency
Yay: I have a problem with self-governing - private sector no problem but not public sector
Yay: it works well with prev policy
Rebuttal: give teachers independence like docs have with AMA
29. Not allow municipal governments to run deficits
They were allowed to run short term deficits due to Covid and oil price downturn. Also because some businesses stopped paying taxes?
Yay: imperative - we have to know what our fiscal capacity is not running debt all over
Nay: province should not be hamstringing municipalities and cutting off their ability to manage their own affairs
Micromanaging anyone?
Yay: Covid increases costs for sure, but most of their revenue comes from property tax - they don’t need any more
Nay: small municipalities are hurting due to downloading *OVER THE LAST COUPLE DECADES*
No it just feels that way because of Covid.
Rebuttal: maintain control over them so they can’t become a fiscal debt trap.
Last one - 30
Supporting and protecting family and small business in all policy and regulations related to these businesses
Yay: I have a family business in rural and UCP should review all policy to ensure it is good for families
Nay: we have 15% unemployment - get us backtwork
Continued - nay says it’s too focused, just support all biz
Yay: yes
Nay: generic policy that anyone can agree with, in the words of Ralph Klein, “let’s stick to putting policy in the policy book”
Yay: my biz had to shut down - gov needs to help bc “getting no help fr anywhere
Nay: policy is supposed to address specific ideas party stands for.
Rebuttal: yes it’s broad, but can become specific around licensing and registry, taxation. So many things can keep families from thriving in business.
Policy 30 is complete, governance tomorrow morning @ 10
If you appreciate these threads, the up to date info without having to sit through it, consider signing up for a patreon subscription at patreon.com/PoliticalRnD
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Back for a Q&A from Kenney at the #UCPAGM2020
Q: masks don’t work can you and Dr. Hinshaw make a statement against Dr. Tams recommendations?
Jk: I’ve been critical of Dr.Tam when she gave bad advice, most of which came from WHO.
Jk: China restricted travel within China but encouraged travel out of the country. We don’t have a mask mandate here in the province.
Q: is there anything we can do to combat the federal anti-pipeline regulations?
Jk: TC Energy would like to invest and reduce the gas glut in AB. The province made recommendation and The federal govt has been sitting on it. They need pipelines. We’ve been approving in less than a year provincially. Longer pipelines needed, but under federal jurisdiction
It’s that time again - governance policy! #UCPAGM2020
We’ve been warned that chat must remain respectful and unparliamentary language or disruption will be dealt with a warning and potential removal.
Seems I missed something last night...
Page 36 - SR-01
Cleaning up language in the policy book.
Probably not the fun kind.
If you’re following along, policy debates are the original grammar police where people fight over the placement of commas, adding and removing one or more words for clarity.
SR-02
Moving the principles into its own constitutional document and out of policy declaration.
No one currently wants to speak against but we do have a speaker in favour.
Yay: just housekeeping but remember we need 75% for this to pass.
"Two unrelated phenomena are hard to justify for a conservative and value investor: the prime minister’s continued lead in the polls and the disconnect between the stock market rally and a weak economy."
Everyone, Joe, left and right, is scratching their heads at the latter.
The former, however, is due to the fact that in the face of a global pandemic, the PM understood, somehow, that people needed to eat and make mortgage payments without a government salary or multi-million dollar Canadian tax-payer funded pension. Weird, I know.