So Premier Stelmach has once again exercised a bit of political muscle. He first did it over Alberta teacher’s unfunded pension liability and set the wheels in motion to resolve that problem when the old attitudes of the Klein – Dr. Oberg regime threatened to derail doing the right thing for all Albertans again.
Now with Stelmach’s personal intervention to reverse the Dr. Morton decision to allow seismic testing on Marie Lake he has shown that there is a way to "touch the brakes" and not mess with the market place. You do that by accepting that the environment is the trump card in all long and short term planning decisions. Stelmach did and he led yesterday and played the eco-logical trump card last night. Stopping any testing on Marie Lake is touching the brakes for reasons more significant than the sanctity of the marketplace. It was about sound stewardship and nothing less than an overarching concern about the sustainability of the biosphere.
He also personally intervened on the big cities infrastructure funding issues. The need to provide assured long-term, flexibility for sustaining intelligent planned growth in Edmonton and Calgary is a no-brainer. What ever political forces that came into play to put a great urban infrastructure policy initiative in jeopardy have been culled by Stelmach. By cutting the Municipal Sustainability Initiative strings for the big cities yesterday he set another smart political direction and reassured Albertan of a good governance stance going forward.
Marie Lake and the plight of Alberta’s municipalities, especially the two big cities, have emerged as symbols of what as been out of whack in the governing principles of Alberta in the past decade. Economic growth at any cost is not sustainable. The messy inefficient but largely effective policy tools of the free marketplace and democracy are sometimes blunt instruments to resolve complex issues.
As a good friend once told me “Sometimes you have to put away your principles and do the right thing.” Ed Stelmach believes in the free marketplace but he also knows it has its place and it alone cannot solve all of society’s ills. He also believes in democracy but he also knows it can sometime result in pooled ignorance instead of collective wisdom. When the blunt instruments are found wanting to resolve issues or to achieve the common ends of the society, that is when the sound judgement of quality leadership comes into play.
Growth has a cost and demands investment and planning – long range integrated planning. Short-sighted incrementalism is not good enough any more. Integrated sustainable approaches with full life-cycle cost-benefit analysis are what we need to embrace in our governing principles from now on. Ed Stelmach showed yesterday that he understands that and he is starting to act accordingly.
P.S. Congratulations to MLA Denis Ducharme for his good work on Marie Lake and to Mayor Mandel of Edmonton and Mayor Bronconnier of Calgary for their efforts on the MSI policy changes too.
Quite an inaccurate comment. Morton had his hands tied by the previous government's decision. Obviously you can always enact legislation to override a specific commercial contract but it is rarely done and Morton did not have the ability to do so.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, good on Stelmach for making the decision.
Anon at 9:11 - what previous government decision tied Dr. Morton's hands? Also this Marie Lake situation has nothing to do with a legislative override on a specific commercial contract.
ReplyDeleteThis is a oil sands lease deal that ought not to have been granted in the first place for environemntal reasons.
The presumption that you can and should issue an oil and gas lease for any location based on what the market will bear is a stupid and shallow policy. There is often much more to consider than mere auction procedures and price.
The previous government decision to honour contracts made! Being a lawyer, you would know that once a contract is established there is only two ways to get out of it for a government: (1) Break the contract and pay damages or (2) Draft a legislative instrument to rectify the situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your last paragraph but simply note that your blind partisan hatred for Morton should not distort the facts - he would have been out of line with the government's policy to honour all contracts (including the granting of leases).
Anon at 8:20 - For the record - I do not hate Dr. Morton - blindly or otherwise. In fact we are in the same party provincially.
ReplyDeleteI do not like that he has not disclosed a single donor leadership campaign donor and refuses to do to. That does not engender trust nor show an openness for governing.
The other way to get out of a contract is to re-negotiate and that occurs more often that either our #1 or #2 choices.
I am not sure a contract is even broken here.
The Marie Lake situation is emblematic of a larger policy problem in Alberta. Alberta Energy grants minerals leases through a private, closed-bid process without any public consultation or review of environmental considerations. That lease then lays the groundwork for all subsequent considerations, for it carries with it the implied right to access the resource. Regulators and Ministers such as Ted Morton, therefore, are placed squarely behind the 8-ball as soon as the matter hits their desks.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stelmach's decision on this particular situation, but think that he went about it the wrong way. Rather than look at these situations piecemeal, the policy framework needs to be changed so that all the necessary consultations and assessments are done prior to leases being granted.
As for those leases already out there, if these consuldierations suggest they were unwisely granted, there should be a mechanism to revoke or trade them.
Anon @1:42 - you are right on the money! The leasing arrangements have to be given much more consideration in terms of other factors like socio-economic, habitat, fragmentation of the landscape, impact of water and waterways, community concerns and a bunch of others too I expect.
ReplyDeletePremier Stelmach has said that the oil and gas lease regimes will be reviewed in the context of the land use planning process that is to report shortly.
Tough decisions on priority of competing uses and cummulative affects have to be considered and decision made in that regard - and right away.
The Minister of the day I would hope would bring the fact that his hands were tied to the Cabinet table and argue for a policy change when he realized the potential disaster that Marie Lake might have been.
To say "thems are the rules" and to do nothing about the potential negative consequences, especially when you are the rule maker seems a little light on logic.