Lougheed Endorses Stelmach's Royalty Review Response.

The personal endorsement by Peter Lougheed of the Stelmach Royalty Review Response is a big step forward for our new Premier. Lougheed stepping up in support of the recent royalty announcement is significant. Lougheed is an influential voice all over the province and he comes from the small group of Alberta political leaders who have made such difficult decisions in the past. He knows how tough it is and his approval of Stelmach’s decision speaks volumes.

Lougheed has been openly advocating for a slow down of energy project approvals because of the damage they are inflicting due to the overheated pace of growth in Alberta. His big concerns have been damage socially and environmentally but also on fiscal pressures on the province and municipalities to meet the public infrastructure demands in this current pace of growth.

Lougheed’s advice and response is in sharp contrast to the warnings of former Premier Klein last month. Klein was commenting that the energy sector was not happy and therefore royalties were best left well enough alone. Stelmach wisely left that bit of advice alone.

So Lougheed has clarified one thing. Stelmach’s government is definitely not an extension of the Klein regime. There are some who think Stelmach's kindness, politeness and graciousness are shortcomings for the bloodsport of political leadership. They see him as still having the potential to be a Harry Strom, especially if he were to trip up in the pending election.

So what does this tell us about the governing philosophy of a Stelmach governed Alberta? To me it is more evidence of a Stelmach government embracing a progressive social political philosophy. He is about to engage in a more conservationist approach too as we shall see the roll out of some new environmental initiatives and the start up of an integrated land use management strategy.

The fact that a commitment to deal with homelessness as the follow up policy initiative right after the royalty decision is further proof of this shift away from the former neo-con fiscal and social policy agenda. Today in Alberta we have a spending problem due to a premium cost for public infrastructure in this over heated economy. We also now have a revenue problem too – as pointed out by the Auditor General.

Alberta's Auditor General Fred Dunn said some past Ministers of Energy were not collecting all of the energy royalties that were due - even in the old model. In fact those same Ministers of Energy seemed to be even uninterested in doing their duty of ensuring the appropriate royalty revenues due to Albertans were actually being realized.

I think that is about to change - big time - and we will see Premier Ed Stelmach as his own man and with his own style of leadership. Yes, he is not be the slick and polished veneer pre-packaged politician. He is not the product of the professional media trainers the mainstream media is so used to. Yes - he is no orator either...and while he can't "lift the words off the page," he has shown that he can bring clarity to complex issues like royalty regimes.

But no one can doubt Ed Stelmach’s capacity for caring, nor his compassion nor his sincere commitment to Alberta and her people. He is also different because his focus is not just the Alberta of today…or basking in the glory of an Alberta of yesterday. He has a much broader and longer vision of the province and how it should be governed.

Now the lingering question is – is Stelmach capable of doing the job of Premier to the satisfaction of Albertans? He has been on the job for 11 months already and that question is still being asked. Well my guess is we are about 100 days or so away from an election. Those 100 days is more than enough time for Albertans to come to know Ed Stelmach for who he is – as his own man and with his own style of leadership.

Once the election is called it will be up to Albertans to decide if Ed Stelmach can do the job of Premier – and if they want him to do that job. Remember campaigns matter and it is not how they start, but how they finish that really counts.

Besides, Peter Lougheed obviously likes him and that goes a long way in my books.

What Political Leadership Qualities and Skills Do We Really Want and Need These Days?

I am intrigued by the Ipsos Reid poll of October 16th where 1001 Canadians gave Stephen Harper a 63% positive rating for “leadership qualities and skills” and they gave Dion a 36% positive rating on the same question. I wonder how many phone calls they made before 1001 people would answer. I wonder how many cell phone numbers were used to capture the opinions of younger citizens.

I wonder what criteria the poll participants had in mind and used for determining “leadership qualities and skill” when they were answering those questions. I wonder if they applied the same criteria to considering Dion as they did to Harper when they answered. How much of the value drivers behind the answers for each candidate were the same or different and why? Were Albertans using different criteria than Maritimers when they answered the questions?

The levels of "Don’t Know" response around Dion shows he is relatively unknown. One wonders how much of this is poll result driven by name recognition. Does it really give us any meaningful assessment of leadership qualities and skills of the various party leaders?

What are the criteria we should or could be applying to judge the leadership qualities and skill of political leaders like Harper, Dion and Layton? Should we vote mostly by "what is in it for me" in what the leaders are promising? Are we driven more by group interests of our community, town or special interests? Are we deciding based on altruism and how a leader reflects our own ideals and principles and how much we trust him? What are the value drivers in our choices around "identity politics?"

Do we like a dominant, assertive ambitious personality types and someone who likes conflict and aggression as our leader? Is a more inspiring and persuasive personality that will be more attractive to us as a leader? Do we find a leader who is of great character, with carefully considered and well thought out and clearly stated opinions to be more appealing? Are we keen on someone who is reflective and caring about citizen’s personal aspirations individually and for our country as well as giving good value for our tax dollars?

Are we at all attracted to leaders who are insightful, adaptive and wise with relevant knowledge, experience and one who is skilled at adaptive governing for our rapidly changing times? Or are we all about choosing a leaders who is pure hardball politics where winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Are we attracted to party leaders where clever and sharp political players where power politics always trumps good governing?

Do we like leaders who see it all as a game where personal pride and power dominates the motivations. Do we seek out and choose a "win at any cost" kind of politician and do we see any other more collaborative and inclusive approaches to leadership as a weakness?

My guess is there a lot more going on in the minds of Canadians when they really sit down and evaluate the leadership qualities and skills of our political leaders. I think an ordinary opinion poll asking us to choose between a political “Coke or Pepsi” is not going to give us much useful information or insight. We need to look deeper into those larger and more meaningful questions about qualities and character and style issues around political leadership as we seriously consider granting our consent to be governed at the ballot box.

Citizens need to be considering bigger questions and seek a deeper understanding of what we want in our leaders as people and personalities and political decision makers. We need more definition and deliberation about leadership before we will get anything meaningful in the answers we would give to pollsters. This especially true around complex issues like what leadership qualities and skills do we really want and need and if either leader "X" or "Y" actually meets those needs.

Stelmach Stakes Out His Leadership of the PC Party With His Royalty Review Response

I never made it to Calgary for the PC Alberta Policy Conference but all reports tell me it was a very successful event, well attended with lots of enthusiastic delegates. Premier Stelmach’s message on royalties was well received as was his replies in the open mike session Sunday morning.

For over a month it has been royalties and nothing but royalties that have dominated the Alberta political and policy agenda. The Premier has made it very clear that the royalty decision has been taken and he is moving on with some other policy agenda items as well. Homelessness is one area he has indicated action is needed, as well as the unfunded liability for teachers’ pensions will be getting resolved sooner than later. There is a crime strategy that is soon to be announced as well.

I expect more environmental announcements in the near future on integrated land management and conservation policies coupled with sustainability and responsible resource management requirements. Support for environment related innovation and new efforts for setting realistic standards for air and water in the face of the growing economy are likely to be forthcoming too.

The Premier said that the 20 year capital plan will be settled before an election is announced. That work will likely renew some interest in reviving the 20 Year Strategic Plan for Alberta too. Contrary to what the former Premier said, there was a Plan. The 20 Year Strategic Plan was a framework document that was prepared from a consultation approach. It was accepted by government as policy and then promptly shelved in the Klein days of doing nothing.

So this weekend policy conference showed that the wounds from the leadership campaigns are healing well. Some Party members have quit picking at the scabs and are moving on with a renewed focus on the future. There is a new sense of cohesion coming back in the Alberta PC party as its membership hunkers down on nominations, election readiness and starts thinking anew about the future of the province.

While some mainstream media and the NDP are "reading entrails" and parsing the Premier’s language for signs of an early election, it is pretty clear that we are going into a spring election.

Premier Stelmach is going to be busy between now and the spring election. He is putting a lot more on his political plate beyond the royalties issues. He knows there is more to do to be sure of an effective royalty policy implementation but he has to also ensure there is a new openness and accountability on royalty rates and revenues too.

We need to be sure the Suncor/Syncrude deals are aligned or the playing flied is level for other projects. We need to get into a real market model for butumen pricing. We need to look into project overruns and what costs are legitimate to set off on projects so there is no gold plating that ends up costing Albertans foregone royalty revenues.

I am going to be watching very carefully that execution and review of the royalty monitoring and reform that former Auditor General Valentine is doing is public and promulgated. We Albertans have to keep out vigilence up and the momentum up on this aspect too so. It is up to citizens to be sure the owners’ interests are protected. To do that citizens have to underatke the personal responsibility to get become and stay informed...just like they have in the past month on royalties.

This is going to have to be a cultural change around oil sand royalties monitoring and collection. This is going to be a challenge for some administrators, and some old-school politicians too. Culture change is never easy but it is definitely necessary in this situation. I will be watching and reminding our government of Einstein's observation that you can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that caused it in the first place. Changes have to be made!

The Energy Industry Credibilty in Alberta is in Shreds.

So the polls showed Albertans did not believe Big Oil as to the “sky is falling and we are leaving Alberta rhetoric of the “Our Fair Share” Royalty Review. The Stelmach response on royalties shows the government did not believe Big Oil either.

And today the markets showed they did not believe Big Oil either. The markets were normal in the face of this “catastrophe,” even as of some “analysts” engaged in a pending disaster feeding frenzy to the business media claiming the markets were destined to be a disaster due to a new royalty regime.

So the energy sector has a credibility problem now. Not all of the companies in the sector deserve the growing public disdain that has been brought on the energy sector but tar and feathers are not often discriminating and tend to cover the entire sector.

So now the energy sector in Alberta might be well advised to do some serious soul searching and maybe engage in a bit of real honest communication with their landlords. Not any campaigns based on slick PR exercises or full page media ad-buys based on misinformation and “messaging.” I am talking about a genuine and authentic effort to reach out to Albertans to understand how the industry is perceived. I am talking about the Alberta that is outside of Calgary, and about Calgarians who are outside the industry.

It is time the energy industry started focusing on proving to us that they are appropriate and responsible resource developers and know what sustainable stewardship of this public nonrenewable resource is. For example, if the drilling is down now why are you not focusing on catching up on some long over due well site reclamation and site contamination clean up. There will be rig workers looking for work I hear. Why not use them and start a renewed focus on responsible stewardship fixing your shredded image in this way

The Alberta forestry industry has made that shift in consciousness to responsible, sustainable stewardship already. Surely the mighty energy industry in Alberta is at least as smart and as capable of adapting as the “Lumberjacks.”

Thank You to the Expert Panel for the "Our Fair Share" Royalty Review Report.

The government's announcement yesterday is truly historic, and marks a new beginning in Alberta's stewardship of its natural resources. We Albertans owe a great debt of gratitude to the citizens who served on the panel and the various consultants, advisers and Alberta government administrators who helped them.

The final decision of the Stelmach government decision on the royalty review recommendations is historic. Part of the historic nature of the decision is how very closely it aligned with the major themes of the “Our Fair Share” Royalty Review Report recommendations. For example the province decided to implement the 20% recommended royalty rate hike but in a slightly different mix than suggested by the government appointed Expert Panel.

Overall, the government changes vary little from the goals of the Expert Review Panel. The new Stelmach framework will boost government take for natural gas from 58% today to 60%, rather than 63% as recommended by the panel; for conventional oil, government take goes up 5% to 49%, which is what the panel proposed; for oil sands, government share increases to between 57% and 66%, when the panel was recommending an increase to 64%."

The move to a price sensitive base royalty is largely the same thing as the Panel’s recommendation for a Severance Tax with a slightly different trigger price and a few other technical differences.

The months of intense research, review, revision and rehashing and yes I expect lots negotiation between the panel members would not have been easy. They researched, wrote and presented a comprehensive frank and forward thinking document. It is an esay read, full of clarity and sound analysis, and in the end it proved to be a quality piece of work reflecting a great deal of collective wisdom.

Another historic event was when Premier Stelmach immediately released the report upon receiving it. That early non-traditonal report released pioneered a new and novel openness to modern democracy and enabled an informed debate in Alberta. That unprecedented move fueled a province-wide discussion and dialogue amongst Albertans in all walks of life about the future of their province.. It empowered people and encouraged them to become informed. It created a wave of citizen engagement amongst Albertans in their democracy that you don’t even see at election time.

However, the “Our Fair Share” Royalty Review Report obviously spoke volumes to the people of Alberta and the Government of Alberta. The Stelmach response shows he accepted the essence, pith and substance of the Royalty Review Report findings and made only minor modifications to the final recommendations.

Even the opposition Liberal party came out endorsing it. In addition, virtually unanimous agreement on the key issue outlined in the report amongst all of the political parties of note in this province. That range of political support is historic too.

So, as one Albertan to the Panel, I what to say thank you to all those who worked so hard, long and effectively on the “Our Fair Share” document and especially the six experts who lead the effort. And thank you Premier Stelmach for embracing the concepts and adapting them so effectively for the future prosperity of Alberta. In my mind almost equally as important was the way Premier Stelmach openly enabled and encouraged the inclusion of Albertans and how we Albertans became informed and engaged so effectively in the future of their own province.

I smell some real democracy in the clean fresh Alberta air again...and it is about time.