The report confirmed that more than half the physicians interviewed during the HQCA investigation felt their ability to advocate for their patients was limited. One in five said they encountered “active harmful obstruction” during patient advocacy efforts.

“The frequency with which experiences of threats, intimidation, censorship, punishment, ridicule, bullying, or termination are cited is concerning,” the report reads.

Also according to the report, physicians interviewed “felt ‘intimidated’ and said that physicians were ‘afraid to speak out’ and that if you spoke out you would ‘be in trouble and punished.’”

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said Redford’s inquiry should focus squarely on the physician intimidation issue and how it has compromised Alberta’s public health care system.

“We need to know more,” Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said. “Today’s report confirmed what we already knew – that this government has bullied, threatened and silenced our health care workers who stuck up for their patients in order to cover up the health system’s failures. Only a full, judicial inquiry with public hearings will get to the bottom of this scandal.”

The PCs have repeatedly dismissed the personal accounts of physicians who have been intimidated as “workplace disagreements.”

Wildrose Health Critic Heather Forsyth said the HQCA investigation only scratched the surface.

“I know of several physicians who didn’t come forward to the HQCA during its investigation out of fear of retribution,” Forsyth said. “Only the protection offered by full and independent judicial inquiry will compel these physicians to come forward and reveal the full extent of this government’s bullying and intimidation. The inquiry must be called before the election is underway.”

The Wildrose Caucus stands for free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy.

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Despite numerous reports of attendees at task force hearings calling for the four land bills to be repealed – including a spontaneous “repeal the bills” chant in Westlock – the government’s response to the task force’s report completely ignores these calls. Instead, it contains an empty and meaningless promise to “improve engagement.”

“Given that you’re clearly going to keep ignoring landowners who overwhelmingly want you to repeal these bills, will you at least apologize to landowners for wasting their time and taxpayers for wasting their money with this utter sham of a Task Force,” Hinman asked in Question Period today.

The Wildrose is committed to repealing Bills 19, 24, 36 and 50 and entrenching more meaningful protection of property rights in the Alberta Bill of Rights.

The Wildrose Caucus stands for free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy.

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To the Premier. Your task force was a sham. Why won’t you do the right thing and repeal these bills?

Ms Redford: Mr. Speaker, there’s been some very good public discussion right across this province with respect to what has to happen in relation to land-use planning in this province. Certainly, very important to this government is to ensure that people’s property rights are protected. We’ve said all along that we have to be very clear with respect to consultation, with respect to compensation, and with respect to access to the courts, and we will ensure that happens.

Mr. Hinman: It’s not true, Mr. Speaker.

Again to the Premier: given that the January 16th edition of the Rocky View Weekly reported “the call to repeal the four land bills was ‘the overarching piece of advice’” that the Property Rights Task Force heard, how can you possibly claim to be listening to Albertans? Why do you refuse to listen to Albertans and to repeal these damaging and destructive bills?

Ms Redford: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reports with respect to discussions that have taken place across this province. I’m not minimizing the fact that there are Albertans who do believe that it’s appropriate to repeal the legislation. But one of the things that we will have seen already from the report that was released today is that there are also Albertans who understand the importance of integrated land-use planning, of balancing the interests of all Albertans, and we will ensure that that happens.

Mr. Hinman: This adds a whole new meaning to in one ear and out the other. I can’t believe it.

Again to the Premier: given that you’re clearly going to keep ignoring landowners, who overwhelming want you to repeal these bills, will you at least apologize to landowners for wasting their time and to taxpayers for wasting their money on this utter sham of a task force? It’s insulting to them.

Ms Redford: Mr. Speaker, it’s fascinating to me that when we look at the public discussion around this issue, when we even look at some of the legislation that’s being brought forward by other parties to perhaps try to correct the situation, what this hon. member is proposing in his private member’s bill isn’t even what he’s advocating today.

Mr. Griffiths: Mr. Speaker, it’s another absurd accusation. In fact, this afternoon we’re going to be releasing the numbers by municipality for MSI funding. I’ve been very clear. It’s a strict guideline that was created in conjunction with AUMA and AAMD and C, and I have the latest numbers that show that the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo and Airdrie-Chestermere had the largest increases to MSI this year based on the formula.

Mr. Hinman: That’s the problem, Mr. Speaker. They’re talking about the 23 other government grants, and they focus on the one that they’re handcuffed on.

Given that former mayor Glenn Taylor, who was speaking at this morning’s breakfast, spoke about the numerous conversations that he’d had with many in the room about the bullying and the intimidation tactics of this government and how provincial grants are used for partisan purposes, does the minister, then, think that he, too, is a liar?

Mr. Griffiths: Mr. Speaker, what’s impressive is that they’re talking about partisan politics and their quotes are coming from partisan people about this government. My experience today at the AUMA breakfast as I wandered around was complete support for the MSI program that we have, for the formulas that we use, and the support and partnership we have with municipalities from one end of this province to the other.

Mr. Hinman: Really, Mr. Speaker. Partisanship? To my understanding, the minister is good friends with Darren Aldous, the past president of AUMA. Given that Darren also has stated that many decisions have been made for political reasons, with some MLAs aiming for infrastructure announcements in their ridings, does the Minister of Municipal Affairs think that Darren along with all the other mayors and councillors who are critical of this government’s funding are all pathological liars?

Mr. Griffiths: Mr. Speaker, I just spoke with Mr. Aldous this morning – we are good friends – and he never said any such thing to me, so I’m not going to comment on what this member may report because for all I know, he’s misquoting that very good individual, who has represented his communities and the AUMA very well in his membership.

The point is to take politics out of municipal funding. Linda Sloan, president of the AUMA, made that point last week when she responded to the provincial budget. She said what opposition parties and municipal politicians across Alberta have been saying for years, that municipal dollars are handed down based on politics, not always on need. Sloan has since incurred the full wrath of this petty and vindictive government.

The Municipal Affairs minister staged a government-wide AUMA boycott, and the Premier’s chief of staff publicly called her a malicious liar, this on the same day the government tabled antibullying legislation.

Danielle Smith talks about a new deal for municipalities, and this whole shameful episode shows exactly why we need one. Municipalities have had enough of this government’s economic bullying and of having their funding depend on their level of support for the PC Party. It’s time for a provincial government that respects municipalities as a legitimate order of government and empowers them to meet the needs and priorities they set for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, municipal politicians are just like each and every one of us in this Assembly. They serve to make their communities the best they can be. They don’t need nor do they deserve a provincial government that looms large over their heads threatening to drop the hammer if they don’t quite fall in line. Public criticism makes good organizations stronger and bad organizations fail sooner. After this ordeal I’m confident that the provincial government will prove to be the latter.

The comments came after Minister for Municipal Affairs Doug Griffiths sent a combative and intimidating letter to the AUMA saying the PC caucus would boycott their breakfast because of AUMA’s criticisms over the government’s budget.  In Question Period Forsyth said that not only is this type of behavior completely inappropriate, it is wrong and unethical. 

“The Premier said she’s directed Mr. Carter to apologize for his unacceptable remarks to the AUMA. He should do it today and he should do it publicly,” Forsyth said.

The Wildrose believes in a fair and stable funding formula that isn’t politicized and gives local autonomy to municipalities.  

The Wildrose Caucus stands for free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy.

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Yesterday, Griffiths sent a letter to AUMA President Linda Sloan saying that the government will boycott the Feb. 16 AUMA breakfast because of its criticisms of the provincial budget.

This isn’t the first instance of a Redford minister picking a fight with municipalities.  Last month, Finance Minister Ron Liepert allegedly used abusive language towards an Airdrie alderman over the government’s contentious land use legislation (Liepert also sent a letter to the CAODC in 2010 similar to Griffiths’ recent letter to AUMA).  Further, a Redwater council member alleged that she had been intimidated by Jeff Johnson, the current Minister of Infrastructure.

“This is yet another example of this government failing to listen to municipal representatives, ignoring their concerns, and forcing municipalities to beg cap in hand to meet the needs of their residents,” Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said. “Municipalities need a new deal and a new relationship with the provincial government: one that recognizes their role as a democratic order of government and equips them with the resources they need to make decisions and serve their citizens.”

 Wildrose Municipal Affairs Critic Paul Hinman said that Griffiths’ letter is a classic example of how the PCs do business in Alberta – not only with municipalities, but with anybody or group that doesn’t toe the party line.

“This is how they operate. Either you toe the party line or you stay silent. Criticism is not tolerated,” Hinman said. “After forty years of PC bullying, it’s time for a new deal for municipalities in this province that doesn’t put their funding at risk.”

On Thursday morning, February 16^th, 2012, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith will address AUMA at the Matrix Hotel in Edmonton and Wildrose caucus MLAs will attend the breakfast. Smith and Wildrose MLAs welcome feedback on the Wildrose Commitment to Municipalities and look forward to establishing a new approach to meet the needs of Albertans.

The WildroseCaucus stands for free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy.

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In Question Period, Hinman said Redford should commit to repealing Bill 50 – which gives her cabinet the sole authority to approve massive transmission projects – after the Critical Transmission Review Committee (CTRC) said yesterday that Bill 50’s centralized decision-making process is wrong.

“Given your CTRC’s own report admits that the review process is wrong by taking the Alberta Utilities Commission’s authority away and not using a competitive procurement process for building  the north-south lines, will the Premier protect Albertans and our industry from over-inflated power prices by repealing Bill 50 and stopping the overbuild?” Hinman asked.

The Wildrose announced its commitment to Albertans last month to repeal Bill 50 and protect power consumers.

The Wildrose Caucus stands for free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy.

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We then had a great boom for two or three years and were able to put a lot of money into the sustainability fund. I might say that the reason why they were able to do that is because there wasn’t the capacity or the projects online that they could spend the money on fast enough. Thank heavens for that because if they could have found a dollar store to spend another dollar, I think they would have spent it. They bought up and did everything they could possibly get dibs on.

It’s interesting that they bring this bill forward as Bill 1, and as I’d mentioned earlier in talking on the amendment, the last three Bill 1s have been somewhat comical almost, where they protest that they’re something that they’re not. They think that in order to tell Albertans, you know, that they’re fiscal conservatives, they’ll bring forward Bill 1 and make the big announcement.

It’s interesting, though, how in the budget they projected such fantastic revenue over the next three years going forward, yet when you look back, they’ve had an incredible streak of revenue since, you know, 2003. Like I say, we’ve grasped our debt, been able to pay it off, put money in our sustainability fund, and then we’ve spent that money.

It was interesting also because action really does speak louder than words. Earlier today in question period the Government House Leader, Edmonton-Whitemud , was asked a question about protecting children on the farm, and he got up and said something. I wish that we could get Hansard quicker. He answered something along the line that bills and legislation aren’t going to make our children safe, that it’s what we’ve taught and how they’re being protected.

Again, I want to say that the Government House leader is absolutely right. This bill and this legislation are not going to turn this government into a fiscally conservative government that balances the budget, so it doesn’t matter whether this bill or the budget passes. It is not going to change the behaviour of this government, which is spend and spend more. I think they’ve forecasted very, very eloquently that they in the future want to tax and tax more, so they’re going to take on that old saying, a tax-and-spend government, and they gleefully do that.

It’s interesting that this government seems to have this concept at this point that Albertans are like spoiled children, that they can’t have an idea of the bigger grasp of things and that if we don’t spend this money, they won’t vote for us. We have this desperate grab in this bill, Bill 1, stating: “You know, we’re going to go through everything and review it, so vote for us. You can count on us.”

You know, it’s interesting that many times I’ve heard about why democracies fail. Some people refer to it as the cycle of democracy. There’s an individual that is somewhat credited – but, again, the debate always goes on – Alexander Fraser Tytler, who in 1770 wrote about the cycles of democracy. I want to read that, like I say, realizing that this isn’t the real quote. It’s evolved over the years. It’s kind of eloquent, though. It’s very, I think, relevant to the situation of democracies around the world right now.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty . . .

And then we hit the top of the cycle.

. . . from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.

It’s an interesting quote. Like I say, to go back to the real question of why democracies fail, it’s because the governments fail to balance their budgets. The governments fail to take on that responsibility of looking at the taxpayers’ money and realizing how critical it is that they spend it appropriately and in the right areas.

Again, the crisis that we’re going through around the world is this abundance of credit. We’ve sucked up this credit. The household debt is incredible in Canada and the U.S., in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland. In all of these areas the bankers have been putting this out and allowing for easy credit and, basically, enslaving us to the point of: how are we going to pay it back? What’s going to be the end result of this major deficit and debt that we’re running into?

I remember – and this kind of dates me – that Grease was a popular movie when I was going to high school. We were having Grease days. An individual brought a greased pig into the high school.

Everybody was trying to catch it to get rid of it. I think a pig is hard enough to capture just in its normal state, but when one is greased, you can’t hang on to it. I look at this government and the struggle that they have. They’ve greased so many wheels and so many axles and so many whiny lobbyists that the harder they try to balance their budget or to hang on to their money, the slipperier it is. It flies out of their hands, and they’re not able to do what they know they need to do.

But what’s most distressing today, Mr. Chair, that’s come out is the continuing bullying and intimidation by this government. It’s reprehensible, and it’s unacceptable. I didn’t understand when the member was asking the question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs what the relevance of his question was. Then I find out that the minister had sent a letter to Linda Sloan, the president of the AUMA, and said: “You know what? We don’t accept public criticism. You’re wrong to do that.” I’m paraphrasing. I could read the letter. I was quite blown away when I saw it. “And because of that, we’re not going to come to your breakfast meeting on Thursday morning.”

This, Mr. Chairman, is exactly the bullying and the tactics and the behaviour that I’ve been referring to from this government since November 2004. It’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong, and it’s unacceptable. Yet, as with any bully, they’re so entrenched in it that they don’t understand they’re doing anything wrong. They just think: “Well, this is the normal way of governing. Nobody should have the right to criticize.”

You know, I remember when I was out in Montreal for the first assembly of the Conservative Party of Canada. We were debating and deciding our policy and where we were going to go. Faron Ellis from Lethbridge College was there with our constituency at that time, our area. There were some people making some criticisms. You know, people say: “Oh, you shouldn’t criticize. You should offer better ideas.”

What is a critique? You know, as a coach you want to critique that athlete or that pianist or whatever and say: look, you need to change this, you need to do that. The important thing that Faron said to me that day was that criticism makes good organizations and good people better. And I thought about that a little bit. You know, that’s true. When my wife tells me that I’m not doing something – and I’m thinking of Valentine’s Day. Thank you very much for your support, honey, for the work that we do in here and not being able to be together this evening because I’m in Edmonton and you’re down south.

Mr. Chair, criticism, if taken in the right light, is a great help. I like people to tell me when I’ve done something wrong rather than to allow me to go on and keep repeating it. That’s not a good situation.

What’s also interesting that he added to that was that criticism also speeds up the demise of faulty organizations. So if you’re allowed to publicly speak about those things and then people see those criticisms publicly, it collapses poor organizations. And it doesn’t matter what area it is. Whether it’s government, whether it’s a charitable organization, whether it’s a nonprofit, criticism is important.

Yet this government wants to smother it and say it’s not allowable. Whether you’re a librarian and you criticize them, the response always is: you know, you need to toe the party line here, toe the government line because if you don’t, your funding is questionable. This is something that they do throughout the province in all areas, whether it’s education in telling the teacher to pull in the line. When they brought in the centralized superboard, they told all the health workers: if you speak out publicly, there are going to be consequences. We see Dr. Magliocco when he was sent the letter: this will jeopardize your career if you speak out and criticize publicly.

This government fails to understand the importance of public criticism. Fortunately, they can’t completely silence the opposition in this House, and we do have a few moments where we get to speak.

Again, I found it comical that the Government House Leader got up and said, “Well, the normal process that we go through,” and then he went on to talk about that. The normal process for opposition and private members’ bills is that they’re allowed to have unanimous consent to take a leave of absence to table those. This government in its arrogance last Thursday wouldn’t allow it, yet Monday, when another unanimous consent needed to come forward, they were willing then.

They don’t have any respect for democracy, and they certainly have no respect for taxpayers’ money. They think they can buy votes. We listen to the Premier. She’s so excited. She’s proud: it’s going to do so well; the economy is just going to flourish; we can do that without the rest of the world, not even taking a moment to look at how fragile the world economy is right now. We’ve pushed it right to the edge in many, many areas. Even China and India, those great economic engines, at this time aren’t functioning, firing on all cylinders. [interjection] Oh, a government member says: yes, they are. They are not. And that’s the problem of this government. Even when the engine is sputtering and failing to run, they just look at it like: hmm, well, we’re just taking a break.

It’s comical, Mr. Chairman. The problem is overspending of governments, and we’re not going to learn from that? This government is going to make this proposal, Bill 1, the Results-based Budgeting Act, like it’s going to do something.

If we go through the preamble, I want to skip down to: “Whereas engaging Albertans is vital to determine what results they want and to validate the results achieved.” I do not believe that Albertans want to run continuous deficit budgets. And what’s the Alison in wonderland, pie-in-the-sky answer? We’re going to have massive, massive surpluses within two years. Yet when you look, where is that going to come from? Personal and corporate and resource revenue. It’s unfathomable that we can be there. There is always a chance – never say never – but that doesn’t mean spend like there’s no tomorrow or it’s coming in. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Don’t count your revenue before it’s in the bank. But this government is failing to do that, Mr. Chair.

Bill 1 is just a poor, poor excuse for a protest of a fiscally irresponsible government to say that we are going to focus on results-based budgeting going forward. Well, what have they been doing for the last four months when they prepared this budget? No results-based. What have they been doing for the last four years for the four previous deficit budgets? Were those results-based? What were they basing their decisions on? Certainly not results based, and they won’t go forward on that. What they’re basing their decisions on is that we are going to have another rainbow, and a pot of gold is going to be there. We’ll go and we’ll snap it up next year, and there will be five pots of gold the year after that. “All is well. Trust us. We’re spending your money well. No problems. Let’s just keep spending. Let’s just keep doing it.”

Results-based budgeting. Again, a switch there. What they really wanted to start off saying was zero-based budgeting, but then they thought: oh, no; that’s too much work. Zero-based budgeting means that we have to justify everything. Results-based means that we just need to say that the results are good. Zero-based budgeting would ask: “Do we go on a $100,000 cabinet tour to actually ask about a budget that’s already written? Do we take a $70,000 holiday to Jasper?” That isn’t results-based or zero-based budgeting.

This is a government that has no concept of having to try and hold money, grasp and hang onto that money. The worst of their results-based financing was the offence shortly after March of ’08. This government, including this Premier, gave themselves a 35 per cent pay hike, and then they want to turn around and tell all of our wonderful public servants and front-line workers: you guys don’t need it, but we do. That’s the worst and most offensive form of leadership that you can have, for the leader to say: “We deserve our feather-tick bed, but you will sleep on stones. That’s just the way it is.”

Their leadership has failed Albertans. They continue to live an opulent lifestyle, saying, “You know, we need all of these things,” but they want to turn around and say, “You guys need to stay at 3 per cent or 5 per cent; we can do 35 per cent.” Leadership is to freeze their wages first and then to turn around and talk to Albertans, teachers and nurses and doctors, and say that maybe they should even cut their wages. Well, they did, 35 per cent ahead, 10 per cent back, or some magical formula. You know, 15 steps forward, we’ll take one back, and they think: oh, isn’t that wonderful leadership. It’s not good enough, Mr. Chair. The results of their actions have been every other public worker saying: if you get that, well, then we should get more. It’s wrong.

What you need to do is have the results from action. Action speaks louder than words. It’s time this government reined in their spending, prioritized their spending, and realized that it isn’t sustainable. They have sucked the sustainability fund from $17 billion down to $4 billion. After next year I would project that it will be gone. Then how do we sustain the spending? Total misuse of the sustainability fund. One year: we can see that. We had some revenue shortfall, fine. Four years and five years in a row to take out massive amounts, up to $6 billion in a year: there’s something wrong with the budgeting process of this government and these members. They’re spendaholics. They’re addicted. They’re addicted to spending. They’re addicted to power. The only thing they can do – and, again, I think of a family intervention when it comes to addictions. You’ve got to surround them and pull them down. This government and their addictions, they need a time out. I suspect that shortly Albertans are going to give many of them a time out when they go to the people of Alberta and say: “Trust us. We know how to spend your money better than you do. Trust us. We have a revenue problem. It’s not a spending problem. We’ll discuss that after we’re re-elected and there’s nothing that you can do about this.” This is the situation we’re in. This is what Bill 1 is supposed to be about. It’s about deception of the people of Alberta, saying that next year we’re all of a sudden going to put a magnifying glass and find ways of making cuts when they’ve had that magnifying glass all along. For the last five years they’ve had it.  

Mr. Chair, it is wrong. I’m against this Bill 1. It’s the most ridiculous bill this government has brought forward. Last year Bill 1 was the Asia Advisory Council Act. That was ridiculous. The one before that was quite ridiculous. It said: “Oh, since we’re not competitive here in Alberta because of what this government did, we’ll pass a competitiveness act. That will tell the world that we’re competitive again and open for business.” They had to change the royalties. They had to change their structure in order to bring business back into the province. They need to change it again. If we want the Alberta advantage, if we want businesses to come here, they need to be fiscally responsible. That doesn’t mean building $16 billion in power lines and then saying: now that we’ve pushed this through and we’ve achieved what we want, we can turn it back to the experts who said we didn’t need it to look after the next 30 or 40 years. This is the equivalent of buying a 1982 Caravan and putting it in the garage for 30 years

Ms Redford: Mr. Speaker, the preliminary comments with respect to this question by the hon. member, quite frankly, are ancient history. Whether or not there may have been developments almost seven or eight years ago with respect to this are not relevant to the circumstances today. What I will say is that the report that we received yesterday did speak to the importance of economic development in this province, that part of that is ensuring that we have a connected grid. As I’ve said, we think there are some very interesting recommendations in this report, and as my Minister of Energy has said, we will be responding in a fulsome way, in a comprehensive way to this report in very due time.

Mr. Hinman: Mr. Speaker, it’s not ancient history.

Given the fact that AESO was offside on this and so was the cabinet, we need to review it again. Given that the government’s own report admits that the review process is wrong by taking authority away from the AUC and not using a competitive procurement process for building the north-south lines, will the Premier please protect Albertans and our industries from overinflated power prices by repealing Bill 50 and stopping the overbuild?

Dr. Morton: Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side here have been complaining for years now that, one, there was not enough consultation and, two, that we didn’t take enough time. Well, we have done the consultation. We’ve done two months of consultation, and now we’re taking the time to consider the recommendations that the committee has made. They can’t have it both ways. Do they want us to take the time or hurry up? We’re going to take the time and consider these recommendations.

Mr. Hinman: We’ve been consistent the whole time.

Given that the vast majority of the groups, especially those representing consumers and industry and those that were at the hearing of the north-south lines, were against it and given that the only cost-benefit analysis by the U of C showed that this is a multibillion-dollar boondoggle and given that the only presenters that actually supported these lines were those who would profit from them, will the Premier quit hiding behind this sham report and tell Albertans why she is putting her interest and that of the power brokers ahead of Albertans?

Ms Redford: I have no particular interest in these power lines beyond the fact that I’m the Premier of a province that I believe will be the economic engine for the future of this country. What I saw yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in that that report was a framework that talked about how we can continue that success. We’ve had some very interesting discussions in the past two or three months about the importance of building infrastructure in this province, outside of this province, whether it’s the Keystone pipeline or the Gateway pipeline. Infrastructure matters for economic development, and that’s what Albertans are going to do.