Alberta Minute: Job Action, Advertising Campaign, and Policing Plan Outlined

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

This Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature remains on break until October 31st. The Select Special Ombudsman and Public Interest Commissioner Search Committee (2022) meeting on September 7th at 1:00 pm, is the next upcoming meeting, and the calendar is beginning to be populated with other September meetings.
  
  
• A decision may be handed down this week in a court case against the Province. The Alberta Federation of Labour and the families of five immunocompromised children allege that the government lifted mask mandates for political purposes rather than as a result of health advice. The Province maintains that mandates and restrictions were always intended to be temporary.
  
  
• Restrictions to protect fish are now in effect in southwest Alberta until August 31st. “Time of Day” angling restrictions mean no fishing will be allowed between 2:00 pm and 12:00 am each day at certain locations. This was imposed because of "low stream flows and higher temperatures that reduce oxygen in the water and put stress on fish".

Last Week In Alberta:

• The Province outlined its plan to implement a provincial police force. The plan attempts to show how the force would be distributed and how it would differ from the RCMP. The government said a provincial police force would rebalance resources from larger centres and reallocate them to rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, adding 275 more officers to the smallest detachments. Staffing the force would come from RCMP officers who want to stay in the province. The May 2020 Fair Deal Panel report suggested a provincial force as a means of asserting Alberta’s autonomy and providing for the unique needs of communities across the region. No final decisions have been made.
  
  
• The provincial government launched a $2.6 million advertising campaign aimed at recruiting skilled workers from Vancouver and Toronto to move to Alberta. The campaign cites the province’s lower taxes, housing affordability, shorter commutes, and proximity to the Rocky Mountains. While we don’t disagree that Alberta is undoubtedly the best place to live, how about we just lower taxes on Albertans even more, rather than spending taxpayer money on advertising?

• There has been yet another development in job action by associations representing criminal defence lawyers. In a press release, the associations stated that defence attorneys will be refusing any serious criminal cases as of September 1st. Serious cases include sexual offences, firearms-related offences, all homicides, and dangerous offender proceedings. Job action does not involve cancelling already scheduled court dates or cases that have previously been accepted.

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