Boston Harbour and Health Care in Alberta

Alberta Health Services Board of Directors under the advisement of the Alberta Minister of Health recently promoted Stephen Duckett from Chief Executive Officer of the AHS to Alberta resident and potential patient/client of the AHS. Mr. Duckett and his family are now simply users/payers/owners of the AHS.

I personally question the wisdom of that promotion coming as it did after years of troublesome decisions starting with the budgets and policy direction of the government from Don Getty's time as premier through to the present day, but that's not the point of this blog posting.

The point is that there was a public hue and cry about the disaster that may be coming home to roost in healthcare in Alberta. That public hue and cry caused the government of the day to react. A head rolled.

Imagine if Alberta Health Services was Alberta Health Services Inc. The disservice of patients is then seen as a business opportunity for a new Alberta Health Services II Inc. That would likely be the end of that. The disserved would then simply have to wait until the new service started up. It, of course, would go after the same people that the first Alberta Health Services Inc. had gone after because those would presumably be the most profitable patients. Excess capacity, if and when it arose, could then be directed to serve those unserved patients as they might contribute some margin to an operation where the overhead costs are already covered by the first patients served.

Would the public holding to the principle of equality before the law, in need of healthcare as a means of protection of the person have had any influence on the executive decisions of Alberta Health Services Inc. or Alberta Health Services II Inc.? What are the chances? Only a chance if the patients' needs and the shareholders' needs could both be met by the changes brought about by that influence.

Entrepreneurialism and for profit commercial business have succeeded in creating mountains of wealth for their owners, employees, suppliers and stakeholders throughout society generally. However, does that business model really apply to essential services where the user is always at the mercy of the business? What if we need a police force? What if we need judges? What if we need fire departments? What if we need armed force against an aggressor? Do we really need to place ourselves at the mercy of those who would supply us with those essential services meeting often crisis based needs, to start negotiating for a better price or finding a better competitive supplier?

What if the supplier goes out of business, leaving us with no security of supply? What then? I guess the public did not take the risk of business failure, so has not incurred the risk of financial failure. The public has only taken on the risk of failure of life which is much harder to quantify in dollars and cents, but easier to quantify in quality of life.

So in the AHS case, we did not have supply without representation. That's the significant positive feature to public funded, administered and delivered health care. We do have supply with representation. The Alberta government, with that single action, proved the need for public health care. Even though Mr. Duckett probably did not deserve the treatment he got and even though the AHS may be the worse off for that action, that action did clearly illustrate that public health care is and needs to be accountable to its users/payers/owners.

The rousing cry is then, "No essential services supply without representation!"

Now that's education!

Gregory Petsko clearly defines education and posits a powerful defense for that definition.

That's the point of education!

What an entertaining read about a deadly serious issue.

http://genomebiology.com/2010/11/10/138

Mike

One Vote

So there I am scrutineering the counting of ballots. The poll clerks are counting the ballots: one vote for X, one vote for X, one vote for Y, one vote for X, one vote for W ... to the last ballot.

I look at a ballot and of course have no idea who cast that ballot. However, I wonder, what made that voter cast that ballot for that candidate?

Fascinating, I think. Was it an issue? Was it personal acquaintance? Was it a persona? Was it an accident? What made that voter express trust in that candidate?

Boy, if only every candidate could know the answer to that for each and every ballot cast in her or his favour! Would the candidate realize the voter didn't understand the candidate's position on an issue and voted in favour of something the candidate did not actually support but thought she or he did? Was the voter thinking that candidate was most likely to deliver a life experience that matched the voter's needs for quality of life?

It's sort of like going to work and getting paid either because you did great work that really helped your employer achieve her goal that day or getting paid even though you completely screwed up and actually blocked her ability to achieve the goal.

It would be useful to know what really took place. It would help the employer and the employee or alternatively, the voter and the candidate.

Votes seem so simple don't they.

Votes

Have you ever acted as a poll clerk, scrutineer or other official overseeing the election process?

Counting votes makes something very clear to me. When the votes are counted, they are counted thusly: one vote, one vote, one vote, ... , to the last one vote.

To listen to political operatives or political reporters one might get the idea that all Calgarians vote Conservative. That sounds like when the votes are counted a ballot containing 30,000 votes shows up and the Conservative candidate wins.

But, it's truly one vote, one vote, one vote. Fascinating isn't it. Each and every one of us casts a vote, one vote. That means that the powerful have one vote. The meek have one vote. Does each of us have a role to play in protecting our role in government? Looks that way!

Healthcare - Never a more important issue

Stephen Duckett came to Alberta with interesting credentials. His strong public health background might have been the perfect camouflage for a cynical move back to the future where low income people could pay for health care by bringing chickens to the clinic, were they allowed to raise them in the backyard.

Mr. Duckett's wife is upset with his firing as any wife might be under any circumstances. However, she doesn't waste her breath simply leveling a blast at the powers that fired him. She delivers a considered essay describing the dysfunctionality at work and points to better ways of delivering a responsive, responsible patient driven health care system.

Ms. Jackson nails it! Well written, thoughtful letter with many clues to finding a meaningful roadmap to the future of healthcare everywhere, including Alberta.

Alberta made a mistake firing health boss, says Stephen Duckett's wife
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Alberta+made+mistake+firing+health+boss+says+Stephen+Duckett+wife/3916229/story.html#ixzz170rZJYVv
LETTER: Firing my husband was a big mistake, Alberta
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/LETTER+Firing+husband+mistake+Alberta/3916269/story.html#ixzz170rkrCTY

Thank you Ms. Jackson.

Funding plan a must for long-term medical care

Interesting study done by Met Life and reported in the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

(see Star-Telegram article http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/11/21/2649047/funding-plan-a-must-for-long-term.html )

The study can be found on the Met Life website by entering the name in the site search engine or here http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/studies/mmi-market-survey-nursing-home-assisted-living.pdf?SCOPE=Metlife#Page=3 . I would still like to see more detail about the costs included in the totals to better enable comparison between the U S experience and the Canadian experience.

The numbers are pretty high at $83,500 for nursing care and $39,500 for Daily Assisted Living but not surprising until one compares them to the expected annual income of a person in need or extends them across the entire population. The numbers then can be staggering.

This highlights the importance of CPP, OAS and other income support programs.

Remember going to retirement savings investment seminars and being told that CPP was not going to be there when we needed it? The Chretien/ Martin team changed the way it operated and its life was extended by 99 years or some time like that. Well, with Cons at the controls again, once again the investment seminar people are beginning to spout the same stuff about the unsustainability of the CPP et al. (is there some connection between Con governments and the rise of this message of desperation?)

It is no doubt true that CPP et al must be managed carefully, but it is nice to have as a starting point the level of need to be met. The Met Life study supplies an interesting piece to the puzzle.

It's always worthwhile to study demand before embarking on supply. That study of demand has to carefully done to ensure relevance. It can also be extremely useful for creating direction for structuring of any sort of public program, especially healthcare, even planning the timely supply of chocolate-chip cookies!

Mike

Forbes Investment Newsletter November 14

Forbes alerts us to the release of Gary Shilling's new book, "The Age of Deleveraging".

First of all, I must tell you that I have NOT read Mr. Shilling's new book, although I am sure it is as readable and accessible and understandable as his other works and that recommends it.

So I have limited myself to Forbes introduction that tells us Shilling is warning about the drag of individual savings on economic growth.

This is interesting. Forbes tends to promote the interests of the supply side of the economy, in my opinion. Yet, they're alerting us to the dangers of slow growth because consumer demand is being replaced by consumer savings, meaning that demand pull is weakening.

This is bad news for business. That means it's bad news for those who would invest in business.

This is interesting to me because it clearly recognizes the importance of consumption as the driver of the economy. It has always seemed to me that over any length of time, and more so over longer time periods than shorter ones, business activity, including capital investment, is ultimately dependent upon consumption. Business to business activity is mostly part of the supply chain from base producers - my base producers produce talent, farm produce, ore, petroleum etc - to final consumption. It then seems to me that the main driver of economic activity is, in the final analysis, consumption.

It also seems to me that the financial foundation that supports all that activity is savings by individuals, even indirectly through the corporations they own.

I think what Mr. Shilling may be observing is a balancing of the two within individuals' prioritizing.

I think the debt engine has scared most of us and many are not excited about either going into debt or lending. We would just as soon pay down debt and avoid the peril of having the bank go under, resulting in having our debt obligations become enmeshed in another financial debacle.

It seems to me that one of the things missing in this entire financial mess was there was no transparent connection between financial activity and consumption. Financial players seemed to be playing a poker game with each other, constantly seeing and raising bids until someone was left holding the bag. The trouble was, security of supply of cash and credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The rest of us were left holding the bag. I'm pretty sure we were not even at the poker table!

I still see little activity that redresses that sad state of affairs, other than tax-payer support. The financial players don't seem to have changed their business model - modus operandi if you will, while government regulation has not gone far enough to make that transparent connection between financial activity and its service to the common good.

Yet, I am convinced that the solutions to financial and economic stability along with the reduction of risk that suggests, and stability of profitability to financiers that risk reduction suggests, lie in greater enablement of that connection of capital investment to final consumption.

I know that now I must read Shilling's book.

We Canadians Believe We Can Fly Too!

Years ago, Mad Magazine used to feature stories by Don Martin, often something like "Don Martin Drops 32 Stories" with the main cartoon character, presumably Don Martin, saying as he passed floors on the way down, "So far, so good!".

Thomas Friedman points out that, in effect, many political figures and political movements are still up to that, except, unlike Don Martin, they're wishing to take us with them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/opinion/14friedman.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212

Of course Don Martin's character could have been saying, "I believe I can fly!" and indeed he would have been flying, sort of, with a somewhat suspect trajectory.

Thomas Friedman's column in the New York Times, an enjoyable, enlightening and rousing read to start your week.
Mike

We vs They

I was at a gathering of very interesting folks this evening sponsored by David Swann, the leader of Alberta Liberal Party. Guests provided an evening of Great thinking. Critical thinking. Not monologue, not dialogue but earnest polylogue, complete with senses of humour!

Heady discussions about society, government, the connection between the two and the kinds of each we want.

As is often the case, the discussion included issues of power concentration in bodies corporate versus power in the individual. That power is reflected in their respective amassed wealth. Corporate bodies, representing many as opposed to one as they do, almost always have greater concentrations of both power and wealth. That makes many of us democratically inclined folk squirm, at least a little.

There was talk about passing the cost of serving society in various ways onto corporate bodies.

I suggest that is a tricky thing to deal with. For instance, the discussion suggests that 80% of energy consumption is done by corporations, making individuals' efforts about 4 times less effective than corporations' efforts might be at reducing power consumption and the effluents associated with its generation.

The suggestion often arises that we must use the sticks and carrots available to our power concentrated in the hands of democratic governments to get those corporations to absorb their fair share of the costs of energy use and investment in energy efficiency.

It's a bit unfair to say that the 80% of energy use represents the amount of economic activity generated by corporations, but the concept of a great portion of economic activity as corporate activity is a valid one.

However, except in the case of production of armaments and support of military activity where the benefit to individual citizens might not be so readily apparent, especially in times of relative peace, all other corporate activity is in service of provision of consumer goods and services. These are the things we think we need and will purchase, thereby generating the business case for those corporations. While a significant part of all economic activity occurring at any one moment or even over a period of a year be characterized as business to business, in the final analysis, it really is part of a process from base producer to final consumer as I've heard some refer to the phenomenon.

Herein lies the dilemma. How do we make the corporate bodies pay more without making our cost of living cost more?

Interestingly, as I see it the dilemma gets even more complex. We individuals like to save. We like those savings to grow through the wise investment of our bankers, brokers and others we entrust with that task. Where do those savings make those earnings? I submit that most of those earnings come from only two sources, finance of public projects such as government owned infrastructure and private corporations producing some part of a needed supply or service. Savings growth is then generated by taxes to pay for public infrastructure or by profits earned by payments made by consumers of goods and services.

That means governments and corporations rely entirely on individuals for their source of capital investment prior to production and finally for consumption of that production.

"But li'l ol' me? I don't hold any shares in Power Corp." Is l'il ol' you sure of that? Does li'l ol' you participate in a government pension fund, private pension fund, employment insurance fund, life insurance, general insurance on house, car other possessions? Those funds are invested - you guessed it! to finance corporations' production.

One final point I raise. Do we individuals know just how much economic and political power we have? A lot more than we think. But it takes concerted and continuous effort, real day-to-day living democratically to make it effective.

For example, we might complain about the artifice of "greenwashing". That underhandedness is not all bad news, in my view. With or without conscience, the greenwashing corporation realizes the danger in alienating both savers and consumers. What if individuals quit investing in the corporation? What if individuals quit buying the products that our production is part of? We, Greenwashing Inc., are toast! Greenwashing is a clear acknowledgment of the power of individuals, even in a globalized corporate world.

Of course those options don't easily exist in the case of government services. However, with careful democratic governance, the individuals responsible for production by those government investment and production activities are directly accountable to us through the electoral process.

Alberta is an unusual case, vis-a-vis most European countries or even most of the rest of the Canadian population for that matter. We do not consume enough of the productive output of our corporations, particularly in energy production, to have much economic power by withholding purchases. That production is sold to others. The capital required for its production is likewise available from those others. However, as we have seen with the pressures from others over the oil sands production of "dirty oil", those others will apply some pressure and exercise some power. (Let's ignore for the moment the 25% of total oil production the United States uses to power its military, much of which in protection of its access to petroleum. Talk about dirty oil!)

It then takes not only a democratic government with courage to write and enforce laws of fairness with regards to that production, but also with imagination and the willingness to treat the individual owners and employees of those corporations as equal citizens. What does that mean? That means using that imagination to enable those corporations to be productive while still enabling fairness in our own markets for employment and sale of the resources belonging to the common good.

This may not be easy given the state of the art of our current economic and business models, but the success of the effort to do so is necessary because as Pogo said, "They is Us!".

Kelly Cryderman's Report on the Nenshi Win

Once again Kelly Cryderman does an admirably thorough job of reporting on an important phenomenon.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Nenshi+race/3717226/story.html

She catalogues the elements of the strategy that enabled Mr. Nenshi to become His Worship Mayor Nenshi.

Stephen Carter correctly points out, in conclusion, that "Everything we did worked together." ... to win the campaign.

However, I recall a brief conversation with Gerard Kennedy talking about his experience as Ontario's Education Minister and that ministry's use of digital technology.

It seems to me that Mayor Nenshi did one thing, not only better than any other candidate, but was the only candidate to do so and he did it effectively.

Maybe I'm wrong ... again.

So, I won't bring that up. But I will ask: What do you think helped Mr. Nenshi become Mayor Nenshi?

In any case, I congratulate him and his team on a job brilliantly done.

I do remind him and his team that they have now made a commitment to the practice of democracy that requires on-going and intense support. I think they already know that and what's more are genuinely pleased and happy to be fully engaged in meeting that commitment.

When taxes?

So, if oligarchies are governments, are oligopolists' profits hidden taxes?

The Kool-Aid's Fine!

The Calgary Herald reported today that the Calgary Public Library faces a repair tab of $53M.

For more than 20 years we have heard the epistle that the solution to government was to reduce it. "Starve the beast!" the neo-cons would harp.

Well as residents of Calgary we have a choice to make. Do we want a library? Does the use of the library's services help us achieve a quality of life we want?

If so, then it has to be paid for. Can a library be a private profit-making enterprise? Possibly so. We do have Blockbuster. Mind you for Blockbuster to sustain itself it has to focus on the best sellers, and that is not working particularly well as Blockbuster constantly crosses the line into unprofitability and possible permanent closure. The supply is then gone.

It seems that when security of supply is paramount, the profit-making enterprises are iffy choices as sole sources. Additionally, when there is economic competition among those sources, they may be driving down prices to consumers but they are also putting each other out of business, thereby further threatening the supply. Add to that the constant downward pressure on the prices earned by artists supplying to these operations and their ability to supply wanes as fewer and fewer artists can afford to write, perform and produce the knowledge material we rely on at the library.

It seems pretty clear that we need a publicly supported library as an enterprise of government. That means it's supported by taxes so each person's library materials budget adds to the overall budget and enables greater choice for each and all.

The 20 plus years of budget cutting has already limited the ability of public and academic libraries to stock their shelves with the breadth of material they and their users need.

Now the cash budget cutting has put the library into an unsustainable position. The books and other materials may well mould and rot. The air in the library could become toxic and unsafe for human use.

The "Starve the Beasters" may yet succeed. The cost of catching up on that foregone maintenance, the infrastructure deficit, may yet convince the decision-makers that the library must be closed as the impact of bringing it back to usable condition is too great. The "beast" will have been starved to death. Taxes will have been reduced permanently. Calgarians will be richer for having paid lower taxes.

I guess with nothing else to do, Calgarians could volunteer to clean up the tailings ponds, abandoned well sites, hydrocarbon polluted lands under former petroleum storage and refining facilities and gas stations and volunteer for other necessary and worthwhile causes.

On the other hand, maybe Calgarians would like to choose how we achieve our quality of life. If that includes having a usable and comprehensive library then we should beware of drinking the "Starve the Beast" cult's Kool-Aid.

petro-patch plus health care

So, suppose each Albertan has supported the petro-patch to the tune of $430. That means each Albertan's government has a revenue shortfall of $1.5B over three years, but actually a little over $1.0B in the third year and presumably every year thereafter.

Can this be made up with the return of health care premiums?

Is it possible not every Albertan has a stake in government policy and participatory democracy?

Alberta Petro-Patch Return on Investment

So Alberta gave up $1.5B in royalties to get action going in its petro-patch as reported in today's Calgary Herald.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Alberta+gives+royalties+rolling+industry+incentives/3080017/story.html

The new policy comes in the context of an interesting series of news stories in the last few weeks capped by the announcement of the Alberta government's changes to the royalty scheme.

Some thoughts arise.

Let's see. It seems to me there were recent stories about the fund-raising achieved by the Alberta Progressive Conservatives and the Wild Rose Alliance Party.

There was also a recent story about population trends in Alberta with the current population at about 3.5 million.

If we add up all the funds raised by all four leading political parties in Alberta, if memory serves me correctly, it works out to about $4.4 million last year.

That total included a shift of corporate donations, mostly petro-patch dollars, of about $700k from the Alberta PC's to the WRAP.

Also, the headline's story reads that Alberta gave up $1.5B in future royalties.

Put another way, each and every Albertan invested ($1.5B divided by 3.5 million people), about $430 into the petro-patch in the expectation of earning some benefit or return on that investment. The headline could easily have read that Albertans gave up $1.5B in royalties.

The petro-patch invested $700k to persuade the government to change the royalty scheme from the one that got the Premier the party leadership and eventually won him the general election. That $700k was what the PC's lost and the WRAP gained.

Now that $700k will probably have to go back to the PC's each year over the next three years, the time frame for the given up royalties, so the total 3 year incremental investment in the form of political donations will probably come to $2.1M.

$2.1M returns $1.5B in reduced royalty costs. Don't try to make a meaningful percentage return out of that, it's astronomically high. (about 71400% or $714 dollars of return for every dollar invested. Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Warren Buffet - eat your hearts out!)

In any case, each Albertan invested $430 spread out over three years. Let's think about the return for a few example cases. What return can each of the following people expect to see?
Bob the police officer?
Stan the retiree?
Andrew the financial adviser?
Joanne the teacher?
Jody the writer?
Doug the coffee shop owner?
Laura the welder?
Wayne the construction supervisor?
Jan the nurse?
Lexi the high-school student?
Cam the university student?
Phil the college instructor?
Paul the farmer?
Adam the petro-executive?
Joe the gardener?
Kiersten the designer?
Kevin the mechanic?

The point is that it gets trickier to see the possible return as one moves away from petro-enterprise. Dave Yeager suggests it's even unlikely the petro-sector's production service companies and employees are going to see any direct benefit.

How can that amount of donated cash have so much influence in the presence of ballot boxes? After all, it wasn't some artificial being, the Province of Alberta, that gave up the $1.5B, it was Albertans - Alberta people - Alberta individuals - who gave up $1.5B or $430 each.

The return on that $1.5B of foregone royalties better make economic sense and it better be clearly explained in terms each Albertan can understand within her or his own context.
Mike

And there were ballot boxes - move to e-society

So it looks like we're rushing headlong into an e-society sometimes called a digital society. That sounds good eh what? Progress! Future is now! Power to the People via the Internet! Convenience! Cellphone banking! Cellphone parking pass! Cellphone restaurant reservations! Music and movie purchasing on your portable device! Vid-conferencing overseas! Digital communications in developing economies without reliance on expensive land-based infrastructure! Texting! Twittering! Global socializing! Googling! Global positioning! Mass grassroots movements in culture, religion and politics!

Instant world, quite literally at our fingertips.

Who would not want to celebrate the move to the digital world?

Have you ever taken the time to read the terms and conditions of use and privacy policies of Internet service providers, e-tailers, government offices, pretty much all websites of large corporate bodies be they commercial or social enterprises for profit or not-for-profit?

Some versions, when printed on 8.5 X 11 paper run into twenty pages and more, often in language not used in everyday conversation, perhaps even in "legalese".

In a casual chat some years ago with a lawyer with a specialty in e-commerce suits mentioned that the smallest claim represented by one of the cases in a stack of files on his desk was $660,000 CAN.

I thought about that and within the context of the terms and conditions of use and privacy policy statements on websites and after having a conversation with the RCMP Commercial Crime unit, electronic fraud, I asked if that meant that the threshold for economic viability of a lawsuit for e-commerce was then in his experience, $660,000. That meant that if a claim was less than $660,000 it probably wasn't worth the legal effort to pursue as the cost of legal action was too great to warrant pursuing.

I then wondered what the average cost of legal counsel must be to prepare those Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy legal documents. I really don't know but I assume the cost would be higher than the cost of buying a popular novel on chapters.indigo.ca, for example.

I was pretty sure it really was not worth it for me to hire a legal counsel team to assure that the democratic principle of equality before the law was not simply an empty statement but an actual fact in practice. I mean, for argument's sake, I suspect that all legal advice being an equal commodity irrespective of which lawyers I use, which I am pretty sure is not the case, I could expect to have to spend approximately the same as the organization whose website I am transacting business with.

Transacting business, by the way, includes any communication between the owner of that website and myself, even one-way communication, as much as actually purchasing something.

I view the move to an e-society to be as significant as the move to recording events on whatever medium - clay, stone, wood, papyrus, cave walls - from recording them only orally.

As it stands, I see our basic democratic principles under threat either from direct and purposeful attack or carelessness. We make many assumptions every day about the success of our transactions. We buy a pair of socks at the Bay. There is someone wearing a Bay-labelled name tag, standing behind a cash register in the Bay's store. We assume that person is a Bay employee authorized to consummate the transaction. We have no direct knowledge that is the case. Experience, our ability to communicate verbally and non-verbally combine to tell us this is a legitimate transaction.

Imagine doing that on the Internet. "Bernie? Bernie? Bernie Madoff, is that you on the other end of this communication? I'm trying to but a car here and I would like to be sure that after I transfer my cash to you via Pay Pal I will receive my car."

"Now come on, don't you recognize me? I'm not Bernie whathisname. I'm Alan Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company just like I said I am. As soon as I get confirmation from my bank that your Pay Pal payment has been cleared, your new Lincoln will be on its way! Congratulations on owning your new Lincoln."

I have to say that I am pretty sure Bernie Madoff never even attempted to sell Ford cars on the Internet or pretended to be Alan Mulally. I'm also pretty sure that Alan Mulally would never actually be the person to respond to an Internet purchase order even if Ford did retail its cars directly to consumers via an Internet link.

But I hope my point is clear.

I suggest that we need some form of neutral transaction control facility or infrastructure to enable a "meeting of the minds" in a digital world, putting the principal of equality before the law into practice, thereby living democratically in daily activities.

But all this development to date has been done in the presence of ballot boxes, so of course we live democratically in daily activities! Or do we?

Mike

And there were ballot boxes - Power of Royalties

Alberta experienced a power struggle between the petroleum industry producing Alberta petroleum and the Government of Alberta otherwise known as the People of Alberta.

Royalties were raised and then royalties were lowered. The adversarial approach at play included threats and actions of economic punishment of Albertans and petroleum companies.

Albertans were punished by falling production mixed with falling gas prices and therefore falling net royalty revenues to their government and and a lowering of the overall return to the resource owners.

Petroleum companies were punished by threats of reduced net return per unit of production – barrels of oil or cubic feet of gas - as more of the final price received was supposed to go to Albertans.

Some argue that the final result of all this was reduced employment, fewer Alberta taxpayers, lower royalty income, lower producer profits, lower producer investment, increased production from competing petroleum producing jurisdictions, in other words, not one positive outcome.

I must say that none of these perceptions is as clear cut as the adversaries expressed them or as I have presented them.

However, aside from those arguments, do near-zero or even negative royalties, should they ever come to pass, be good for the petroleum industry?

As it stands, the petroleum industry clearly demonstrated dominating economic power turned into dominating political power.

At the same time, Albertans have committed their Government to providing some minimum level of service to serve the common good. Reduced royalties rolled into general government revenue threaten to reduce the resources available to provide those services. Yet all these services provide infrastructural support to Albertans as they strive to achieve their quality of life expectations and are the single most important purpose of government, with the need remaining pretty much constant over time on a per person basis.

Assuming Albertans want any government at all, Albertans then have four choices.

They can reduce their expectations of what a minimum level of service should be and what that service mix should be – hospital beds per person, lane kilometres of road per person, police and fire officers per thousands of citizens and so on. Should there be hospital beds or schools, police or highways?

Albertans can sell off other assets to earn revenue to make up what's needed – highways sold and leased back, parks sold to residential and vacation property developers and so on.

Albertans can borrow money and hope to grow out of the deficit and debt financing required to pay for current expenses.

Albertans can raise personal and corporate income taxes.

Albertans have already lived through the first option. Albertans are toying with aspects of the second option.

Albertans have lived through the third option and are again using that option via provincial bonds after swearing off of deficit and debt financing as a viable or sustainable alternative to government financing.

The fourth option is a game changer. What if Albertans got used to paying for the minimum level of government services through personal and corporate income taxes?

The budget could be balanced with taxes. Funding for schools, roads, hospitals, emergency services, police and so on would be stabilized. Services and infrastructure would experience greatly reduced feast or famine financing which usually means human services going through famine (low service levels) when the economy is down and the need is greatest and feast (high service levels) when the economy is heated up and the costs are highest.

The government and people of Alberta would then not be as dependent on the petroleum industry for maintaining level of service and would not be captive of that industry's need for short-term quarterly profits.

As it stands now, about one in seven Albertans is directly employed in energy production while seven in seven Albertans have their level of government services expanded or reduced by that industry's commercial success alone.

It is high time the People of Alberta studied their options and stood up for themselves as independent and self-sufficient citizens. Paradoxically, near-zero royalties must accelerate that process, thereby reducing the economic and political power of the petroleum industry in Alberta. As Albertans become less dependent on the petroleum industry for their well-being, the industry will have ever-less ability to bring government to heel to do its bidding.

What might happen to royalties and costs of services to that industry then?

As the title to this series suggests, all this was done in what must be a democratic society because it happened in the presence of ballot boxes.

Future blog postings in this series will deal with some of these options and other issues of democracy in action.

Mike

Olympics, Worthy Opponents, Fair Play

The Olympics and Paralympics have the ideas of worthy opponents and fair play front-of-mind for me just now.

Okay, remember the fallout from the royalty review and subsequent royalty regime change in 2008?

The Alberta PC's seemingly were not deemed worthy opponents by the petroleum producers. They like nothing more than fair play and that means having a worthy opponent.

The industry wants to buy access to Albertan's reserves of petroleum - oil and gas. In fact, it needs that access so it has some product to sell and a business case that attracts other people's money as investment.

Premier Ed and Co. came along and changed the royalties. The petroleum producers questioned the change and began bargaining by saying the royalties were unfair and would kill the industry in Alberta. Many began to move to other, friendlier jurisdictions. The Alberta PC's were quickly seen to be crumbling from within as many PC supporters and even some elected government members decided to abandon the party and the new royalty regime.

(Mind you, at least one leading Alberta-based producer with nearly all of its production inside Alberta's borders reported that its analysis showed the new royalty regime would have no impact on its business, either negative or positive. But I digress. Sorry for that. Back to the case at hand.)

Capitulation! Surely not!

But, it seemed so. Then the Wild Rose Alliance Party sprang up led by people with a reputation for being hard-nosed as business people need to be. Two elected capitulaters moved from the PC fold to the WRAP fold.

The industry seemed to ask, "Hey! Can these people form a worthy opponent?" They began to direct petro-dollars to their cause.

Now! perhaps the petroleum industry had found a group that could be nurtured to be a worthy opponent in the tradition of St. Peter Lougheed. (Not really an official Catholic saint, but a pretty heroic figure in Alberta nonetheless fighting PET as leader of the Evil Freezing-In-The-Dark East! Although, St. Peter did form a Crown petro-corporation in Alberta Energy that was meant to compete with the federal Petro-Canada and only incidentally compete with local and foreign owned producers, but that couldn't be helped.)

The growth of the Wild Rose Alliance seems to have stalled while there is no great return of support to the Alberta PC's. Now what?

What can the Liberals do to convince the petroleum industry that Liberals can be worthy opponents? The Liberals need to convince the petroleum industry that they, the Liberals, will be Tough! Tough! Tough! in acting as agent for the owners of the resources, the people of Alberta.

Tough policies are therefore in order.

How about "No Royalties!" ?

How about "No Lineups for Petroleum Employees Seeking Necessary Health Services where necessity is determined by petro-employee demand!"?

Or, should that ready access to health care be only, "No waiting for Petro-Investors and Executives!" while the employees have to get in line with their Alberta neighbours?

How tough can Liberals be! Come-on folks! Think Tough!

This is the Liberals' best opportunity since the battle of Alberta Mayors - Ralph and Laurence!
Mike

Alberta's PC's changed the royalties

So, Premier Ed & Co. changed the royalties to what they were in the pre-Ed era.

Interesting item in the Calgary Herald today addressed the issue by informing us that as many as 8,000 new jobs could be created by doing so, while foregoing some $380M in royalties.

8,000 jobs is a lot of jobs and therefore a good goal.

I wonder how many jobs would be created in Alberta if its fiscal regime was made even more competitive. What if royalties were foregone altogether? How many jobs would be created if there were no royalties?

How many jobs would be created if the petroleum industry was actually paid say $10 per barrel of oil equivalent as a negative royalty to exploit those reserves?

What if petroleum producer employees paid no provincial income tax, how many jobs then?

Corollary to that, how much of other people's money could the current owners of production companies attract to both sell off some or all of their current ownership and to finance the expansion of the industry?

How much would the federal government's equalization payment liability to Alberta be then? The province would then be a have-not-province and surely be eligible for substantial equalization payments.

Just wondering.
Mike

What if your neighbour is a Democrat!

I am wondering what it must be like to be a Tea Partier in the USA, living next door to a Democrat, especially if that Democrat is a fervent supporter of Obama's health care reform.

Must be kind of scary to know that your neighbour is probably lining you up for review by the death panels of government-run socialized medicine. I mean, here you are going to the same church, kids going to the same schools, playing in the same bowling league, sharing garden and handi-man tools, sharing a good fence and that Democrat is lining you up for extermination by the health reform death panels!

Gives one pause, doesn't it?

Does all that sound patently absurd? That's because it is. These are your trusted neighbours for goodness' sake! There's no way these people with whom you have shared the trust of looking after each other's kids can be part of such a policy, yet the Tea Partiers are saying this is part of the hidden agenda of public health care supported by those same neighbours!

All I'm asking people to do is think about this. Many of these conspiracy theorists sound just plain crazy and few crazier than the Tea-Partiers. And, I think this is exactly one of the reasons why we must respect others' opinions for public policy instead of slagging them with out of this world conspiracy theories. Without that mutual respect, society collapses into chaotic anarchy. The last millennia of human development will be for naught.

Mike

Health Care Dysfunction in a Single Payer System

Nicholas D Kristof in his Op-Ed Column in the New York Times addresses the dysfunction of the U.S. health care system by addressing the issue of lack of coordination within the system, FROM THE PATIENT's PERSPECTIVE!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21kristof.html?th&emc=th

This is an amusing piece that also makes clear what is the origin of some of the system's dysfunctionality and therefore much of the out-of-control cost escalation. His reference point is to use the health delivery system business model to offer editorial commentary.

He alludes to a Jonathan Rauch piece in the National Journal magazine wherein the provision of air travel is offered under the health system business model.

This is likewise a clear and amusing piece.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=st_20090926_4826

Now, we smug single-payer (By the way, we may not be as single payer as we like to think.) Canadians might be tempted to think, "Well, that's the U.S. health care system. That's not us."

I think there are clear comparisons that can be made to provide insight on some of the difficulty we face with our own system.

What we see is a U.S. system filled with independent players, each with its own mandate and mission and governance model. Coordination among these disparate players without explicitly focusing around a single common goal and perspective is impossible.

I had an interesting personal experience some time ago with helping a loved one go through Calgary's at that time regional health system. The chronology worked like this - 911 call, ems with paramedics took over, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at an acute care hospital specializing in such cases, determination that hospital was not the ideal one after all, discharge to admission to ems patient transportation services to another hospital, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at the second hospital, discharge from emergency services to admission to an acute care ward, discharge from acute care to admission to rehabilitation in a third hospital, discharge from that third hospital to admission ems patient transportation to discharge from ems to admission to long term care facility.

Within each facility there was control of custody among departments, moving from the care ward to diagnostic imaging or to other diagnostic services, including change of custody from all of acute care, rehabilitation and long term care to diagnostic and other service centres, often within the same building, but change of custody nonetheless.

Every change of custody required paperwork, that is hard copy paperwork, to accompany the patient. The crazy repetition of admission and discharge paperwork that Mr. Rauch speaks of, had to happen all the time. That kind of constant repetition is, as he points out, error prone. What saves errors from happening more often is the alertness of the practitioners involved. That can be compromised when such activities occur over a shift change and the same person is not coordinating activity throughout the process.

Because of these examples and the likes of arguments presented by Kristof and Rauch, the idea of an Alberta Superboard seems sensible. Alberta then has one coordinating body and that should help smooth the custody control procedures among other things.

But again, this does not seem to be done from the patient's perspective. The controls are made from the provider's perspective with the Superboard acting unilaterally. We then have opportunities for dysfunction at every place where any service, public or private, meets the Superboard. The Superboard then takes on the role of the patient and advocates for itself as a patient would be expected to advocate for her or him self.

But the Superboard is not the patient. The Superboard is itself a provider to be added to the mix of providers. It is simply a single bureaucracy that, from the patient's perspective probably makes no difference at all. The patient would previously have dealt with a regional or hospital board bureaucracy, only one bureaucracy at a time per patient.

In the absence of a standardized custody control process to regulate the changes of custody and the coordination of all activities around the patient's needs, we are going to have ineffectiveness and inefficiency, of which ineffectiveness is the most inefficient as we have expended resources to no good effect.

It seems we have developed a single-payer system that emulates as much as possible non-single payer systems. Therein, I believe, lies the lion's share of our health care system's dysfunctionality (ineffectiveness) and out-of-control cost escalation (inefficiency).

I believe that until we organize our health system around meeting the patient's needs from the patient's perspective, we will never get this thing under control and be only somewhat better off than those systems with multiple payers. In other words, we will spiral out of control somewhat more slowly than they do.

It's interesting that when we apply democratic principles to broad societal issues such as health care, we are likely to find the solutions we must have to assure sustainability. We have to decide if access to health care is part of access to security of the person as a right of every person in our society. Once we have decided that, then we have to realize that objective by building a system around patient need instead of supplier capacity.

Mike

"I love Canada."

Bill Plashke of the Los Angeles Times wrote a personal story of his and his daughter's experiences with Olympics volunteers and Canadians in Vancouver generally.

Anyone wanting to find out how visitors feel about Canadians, want to know what to expect when visiting Canada, or wanting to have another feel good story about being Canadian, should read this.

Mr. Pleshke gives us another definition of Olympic success.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olympics-plaschke28-2010feb28,0,133518.column
Mike

IOC Responsibilities

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post sees a dangerous trend on the IOC's and and thereby host country's realization of ethical standards in the planning and operation of the Olympics Games. This sports columnist worries that the great standards of excellence and human spirit are being threatened by organizational dysfunction.

She makes a point well worth heeding if we are to continue using the international Olympic movement to further human development beyond individual athletic prowess and into human relationships through competition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022703315.html

Mike

2010 Games a success in US

Amy Shipley of the Washington Post finds lasting success for the U.S. in the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Importantly, I think, Canada's and the International Olympics Committee's reputations as an Olympic hosts and organizers can only be enhanced by such opinions.

It's important to the success of Olympic ideals to have all nations feel they have succeeded.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803290.html

Congratulations to Vanoc for helping the guests succeed!
Mike

Leadership - the Flip Side

Leadership is an interesting phenomenon.

It is also critically important to the survival of any group, including political parties, government, volunteer agencies and businesses.

Leadership has many styles, some more suitable for the vision, mission, objectives and effectiveness of the organization being led than others ... perhaps.

We'll set that long discussion aside for now and deal with a narrow, but I think also critically important issue, that being the Flip Side of Leadership - namely Followership.

Now as a society we pay so little attention to this aspect that my blog spelling dictionary thinks followership is not even a word.

Let's look at a few examples.

Political Parties: In Alberta and Canada we have Ed Stelmach - Alberta PC leader, David Swann - Alberta Liberal leader, Danielle Smith - Wild Rose Alliance leader, Brian Mason - Alberta ND leader, Stephen Harper - Conservative Party of Canada leader, Michael Ignatieff - Liberal Party of Canada Leader, Gilles Duceppe - Bloc Quebecois leader, Jack Layton - New Democratic Party of Canada leader, Elizabeth May - Green Party of Canada leader.

All these leaders were chosen through due process as enabled by their respective party's rules for selection of leader.

Now comes the interesting part. All of these leaders must cope with dissent from within the ranks of the members of the party that chose them. Some dissenters are more public and vocal than others and except for Ed Stelmach, the most public of dissent comes for parties in opposition. Even Mr. Harper, who is reputed to tolerate no public criticism of his leadership from members within his party might remember that was not the case when he was leader of the opposition. Mr. Stelmach is the only leader who has no opposition experience. (An aside, is that one of the root causes of his current troubles arising from within his own party?)

My point is quite a simple one. The members chose their leader. Some members backed someone else who was not chosen as leader but they remained members of the party after the choice was made. So as we have in government, "The Loyal Opposition", we must have in other organizations, including political parties, "The Loyal Dissenters". Dissenters will have another goal than the leader's in mind or disagree with a given policy, but they remain loyal to the party and support the leader while working to help the leader see their point of view.

I think it is now every member's duty to help make that leader a better, more effective leader. If we see something that we think reduces the effectiveness of the party and therefore of its leader, we have an obligation to come forward with our concerns and proposed solutions. We have a duty to reconcile our positions with those of others and find some way of accommodating others whose concerns appear to differ from ours, yet making sure we don't sell ourselves out at the same time.

Many of us are aware of the leadership issues surrounding our politicians and political parties because they are in the news media. Unfortunately very often this takes form of professional blood sport where we are simply spectators calling out, "Hit the goalie!", or, "Hit the quarterback!". We mindlessly cheer for our team in the mistaken belief that when they start the game they are winning as opposed to playing the game, where if they play well the outcome might well be a higher total score than the other team and a win.

In daily life such as politics, volunteering and business, there is no defined time limit when a buzzer will go to end the "game" in sight. It's living day by day.

This is hard work. It is essential to the success of our democratic governments, even our NGO's and businesses. We have to work across party lines and lines of dissent in accommodating others' concerns in much the same way as we do within the party for the betterment of our whole society, organization or business.

We must not allow ourselves to fall into the politics of contempt wherein we hold contempt for all those who disagree with us. That tears society, organizations and businesses apart to the detriment of all its people. To hold contempt for any individuals or groups is to reduce the resources we need for society and the individuals in it to thrive. We can't be wasting all our resources disabling others in society' leaving fewer resources to accomplish that which needs doing.

So after the leaders have been chosen, we need to ask ourselves what we can do to make them more effective. We need to encourage our leaders to help us work to meaningful effect in the development and growth of our society.

So that means that good Followership is really only good leadership by us who have participated in the process of leader selection, adding our wisdom, judgment and activity to support our leaders' efforts.

The blog dictionary is then correct. In a democratic society, there can be no Followership so it does not need a word. We need to exercise our personal leadership by adding it to our leaders' leadership to make our leaders more effective and stronger leaders.

Mike

Note: Interesting real life exercise in an international company, Xerox, persuading employees to add their leadership capacity to that of the employer's leaders to the benefit of the company and the employees themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21xerox.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

Calgary's Snow Woes

Hi All
Remember the big storm? I think some people might still be digging out from that blast late last year.

City council has been struggling with the fact that a single storm could wipe out the annual snow budget and they're wondering what to do about it.

Some partisan councillors completely rule out raising taxes to improve snow removal while suggesting that the City privatize snow removal efforts to improve effectiveness. (Are these snow removal contractors actually a cover for the ultimate in winter volunteer charitable enterprise? Wow! That's pretty cool! Calgary's snow angels complete with big trucks and stuff!)

Others have pondered blaming citizens with inappropriate tires. With pictures of city buses stuck in snow up to their windows, I wonder what tires those would be.

Well, the solution to the snow removal budget, indeed perhaps the whole road-building budget, appeared in my email inbox. (Please click the link below.) The city could make it mandatory that all citizens with vehicles avail themselves of such technology, wouldn't raise taxes, might even lower taxes and every citizen would have some sort of vehicular bragging rights!

Mike
Please click the link.


http://www.gizmag.com/russian-strap-on-tank/14194/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=4a906bd4b8-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Heartbroken

Did you see the article in Calgary's and Edmonton's Sun papers on Saturday in which Danielle Smith accuses Premier Stelmach's office of spying?

A couple of things come to mind with that story.

First, why is it surprising that Liberals have been right about this anti-democratic stuff going for the last 40 years? Is that as long as Ms. Smith has been in Alberta? Too bad she's ignored the Liberal comments about all this for all that time.

Second, there's Ms. Smith's picture with the article. She looks dismayed, angry, disappointed and deeply hurt that her former friends would act in this unprincipled way against her. I would be too.

The whole scenario reminds me of a story that comes out of Saskatchewan. For all the years of NDP (and CCF before that) being in government in that province, Liberals and Conservatives complained about that dog-in-the-manger approach to winner takes all the spoils democracy.

I recall hard-bitten CCF-NDP ers while in Saskatchewan moving to Alberta and becoming hard-bitten PC ers. I always thought that paradoxical until this story came out. I then remembered the reactions of some of those people (and others) had to comments that the dog-in-the-manger approach is anti-democratic. "Of course it's their way or the highway and of course there will be no contracts with supporters of opposition parties. That's why they fought the election, so they could win and bend the government (and the public purse?) to serve their interests alone. Wasn't that the point of the election?"

So these people probably did not change their political ideology at all. It's the ideology of power much more than the ideology of effectiveness in enhancing the lives of the citizens. Moving to a new power regime meant simply changing to a different coloured coat.

Democracy in western Canada has a lot of evolving to do to truly have a government of peers, where all persons are born equal.
Mike

Triple E Senate

Remember the clarion call for a Triple E Senate?
That's E for Elected, E for Equal number of senators from each province, E for Effective(ly) check and balance the powers of the House of Commons the Prime Minister's Office.

Elected: That seems straightforward enough. Okay, that's doable.

Equal: That seems easy enough as well. I haven't decided that's a good thing or not, but it's clearly doable and easy to understand.

Effective: That's a bit trickier. To wit from the US example reported by Gail Collins in her Op-Ed piece in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/opinion/06collins.html .

Interesting reading, and amusingly written.
Mike

Bold British Civil Servant - by Canadian Standards

UK Tories like to be "tough-on-crime". That brand has a familiar ring to Canadians.

Anyway, crime does not include misrepresentation of facts with intent to mislead as is made evident by this story in the Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lies-damn-lies-and-tory-crime-statistics-1889927.html

I wonder if Munir A Sheikh, Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada would have found himself in civil servant whistle-blower heaven along with Linda Keen had he issued the same scolding about abusing statistics to make up a bogus issue.

Even police departments in Canada and the US are complaining that the dire warnings about the rise of violent crime in our respective societies are exactly incorrect. The incidence of violent crime is actually falling.

By the way, it's the Republicans, US version of Tories, also making these misleading claims.

The issue is, why make these claims? What's the point? Are they simply besmirching the reputations of non-Tories? Are they using a magician's sleight-of-hand to distract the people while they are actually up to something else? Are they trying to create an opportunity to increase government executive power in this area so it can be applied in all other areas?