Alberta Minute: COVID Report, Picketing Nurses, and a Possible Pipeline For Ammonia

Alberta Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Alberta politics.

This Week In Alberta:

• The Alberta Legislature break continues until October 25th, however, there is a Select Special Committee on Real Property Rights today at 3:00 pm. The Committee will consider "Recommendations on Stakeholder Written Submissions and Oral Presentations", along with some other housekeeping items.
  
  
• On Wednesday, the United Nurses of Alberta are planning an information picket at various hospitals and health care facilities around the province. The province recently proposed a 3% wage rollback and several other cuts for nurses. The Union also contends that some non-wage items are at issue, including the right of nurses to be in charge of their own nursing unit.
  
  
• The Canadian division of Malaysian giant Petronas has partnered up with Japanese Itochu Corp to conduct a feasibility study on constructing a $1.3 billion petrochemical plant located in Central Alberta, which would produce about 1 million tonnes of ammonia with 3,000 permanent jobs. Let's hope the feds don't stymie this pipeline!

Last Week In Alberta:

• Thanks to the 2000+ of our excellent support who signed a petition to release the report, and the media attention your activism generated, the government reversed their earlier decision and decided, after all, to release a report by KPMG assessing the government's response to the first wave of COVID. We'll be analyzing the report itself over the coming days and will let you know what we think.
  
  
• Two weeks ago, the Alberta Justice Minister wrote to the federal government following a string of crimes targeted against minorities in Alberta, asking that pepper spray be available for vulnerable people to defend themselves. To no one's surprise, the federal government did not grant Alberta's wish, saying increased access to pepper spray would just lead to further violence.

• It appears the federal government is in no rush to help Alberta's farmers either, as farmers are harvesting early due to drought conditions throughout much of the province. The federal government said in a release on July 22nd that they would be stepping in to help Alberta farmers through the Agri-Recovery program, but details remain scarce and time is running out.

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