Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Navigating the Fourth Wave of Covid-19 and Beyond with Dr. Jason Kindrachuk

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a historic public health crisis that has had drastic and long-lasting effects on global health and the economy. This has also been the first pandemic where updates have been provided on a nearly instantaneous basis to both biomedical researchers, healthcare workers and the public. Over 20 plus months, research from across the globe has allowed us to understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in details normally taking years to decades. However, many questions remain. Namely, how did this happen? When will it end? How do we navigate this new frontier between these points? The Speaker will provide some background context to describe our current state of knowledge of the virus, the illness and the vaccines and interventions being implemented to get the pandemic under control.

Speaker: Dr. Jason Kindrachuk PhD           

Dr. Kindrachuk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Canada, and holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the molecular pathogenesis of emerging viruses. His research expertise and experiences have focused on emerging virus pathogenesis and outbreak preparedness with a focus on low- and middle-income countries, including outreach activities in Sierra Leone, Gabon and Kenya. His research investigations focus on the circulation, transmission and pathogenesis of emerging viruses that pose the greatest threat to global human and animal health. These have included ebolaviruses, coronaviruses and influenza viruses. Past and present findings from his investigations will help inform therapeutic treatment and development strategies, outbreak prediction and preparedness efforts. He is also active in international outbreak response efforts, including the West African Ebola virus disease epidemic and, most recently, Covid-19. He actively participates in training young investigators for careers in infectious disease research and in public outreach activities locally, nationally and internationally.

Is the Contract Dispute between AHS and Alberta Nurses strictly about Money?

Alberta Health Services (AHS) (the Alberta Government) are demanding across-the-board pay cuts of 3 percent, plus additional monetary cuts that would raise the cost of the rollbacks to an average 5 percent in their negotiations with United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) members who have already endured six years of zero percent increases. All this arguably amounts to a relatively large reduction in nurses pay under the guise that Alberta nurses are being paid more than their provincial counter-parts.  

The government claims it respects the sacrifice and dedication of Alberta’s nurses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which is continuing. Under these circumstances, with pay cuts and major rollbacks still on the table, this appears to compound the disrespect shown by AHS during these negotiations. The speaker will clarify where negotiations are at between AHS and UNA. She will also dig deeper into the current healthcare staffing crisis, challenges of COVID, and the UCP privatization agenda attacking health care in Alberta. 

Speaker: Danielle Larivee              

Danielle Larivee has been a registered nurse for over 24 years, and has worked in a variety of settings, from frontline public health, to First Nation homecare, to teaching nursing, and is currently the First Vice-President of UNA, the union representing over 30,000 RNs, RPNs, and other frontline healthcare workers.

She proudly served as president of her UNA local 315 until she was elected to the Alberta Legislature on May 5, 2015 and went on to fill multiple Cabinet posts, including Minister of Municipal Affairs, Service Alberta, Children’s Services and Status of Women. During her time in office, she managed many complicated and sensitive files, such as being Alberta’s lead for the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires, developing and implementing a plan to improve Alberta's child intervention system, and co-chairing a review of the province’s mental health system.

Ms. Larivee feels strongly that advocating at the political level is part of a nurse’s responsibility and is thankful for the opportunity in her newest role to advocate for both Alberta’s nurses and for our publicly funded, publicly delivered healthcare system.

An Educator’s Perspective on Alberta’s Proposed Draft Curriculum with Ken Rogers and Kelly Frewin

Educators know all curricula need timely revision and many are concerned about the most recent draft K-6 curriculum proposed by the government of Alberta. The wheels began turning over a decade ago for a comprehensive K-12 curriculum review and rewrite, beginning with the “Inspiring Education” framework of 2009 under PC Premier Stelmach and Education Minister Hancock, followed by a 2013 Ministerial Order under PC Premier Redford and Education Minister Johnson. Prior to these directives, curriculum in Alberta was updated for individual subject areas at various times. The comprehensive K-12 approach came to fruition in 2016 under NDP Premier Notley and Education Minister Eggen with a planned 6-year curriculum writing project involving hundreds of educators meeting in expert working groups.  A K-4 draft curriculum was completed and presented in draft form for piloting in 2018 but was cancelled following the Provincial election by the UCP, and was replaced by a 12-member advisory committee charged with developing a new K-6 draft proposal.   That proposed curriculum has received much criticism from teachers, administrators, school divisions, and education professors. Our two speakers, both worked on the previously proposed, now rejected, curriculum revision and have an insider’s view of the 2016-2019 process.  They will take us inside the controversy, sharing the process used, and outline what many points of debate and conflict are about.

 

Speakers:     Ken Rogers and Kelly Frewin

 

Ken Rogers retired in 2018 from Lethbridge Collegiate Institute after a 32-year career in music teaching. He taught band, choir, guitar and general music courses at middle, junior and high school levels, as well as some elementary school music.  He has taught at the post-secondary level including music studio performance, choir, and music curriculum and instruction courses at the U of L.  He has had a keen interest in music curriculum through his teaching career.  In 2016 he was appointed as a member of the Alberta Education Arts Curriculum Working Group focusing on grades 9-12 music and served until the group’s suspension in July 2019.  Ken has been involved in many community music programs – McKillop United Church, the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra, Lethbridge Community band, Lethbridge Big Band, Vox Musica Chorus, and various musical theatre groups.  He holds a B. Music and a B. Ed. from the U of L and a graduate diploma in Fine Arts from the U of C.

A Lethbridge educator for 20 years, Kelly Frewin received a B of Fine Arts 1996 & a B of Ed 2001 & received the Gold Medal from the U of L.  He taught grades 5/6 multi-age classroom for 2 years, then transferred to Wilson Middle School, where he taught drama plus academic classes. In 2007 Kelly moved to Lethbridge Collegiate Institute to teach the drama program. In 2010 Kelly took a yearlong secondment position in the U of L faculty of Education teaching practicum students and future drama instructors. He returned to Lethbridge Collegiate Institute and continues to lead the drama program. Kelly joined the Provincial Curriculum Working Group in 2016, consulting with Alberta Education on the new curriculum. This work ended in 2019 when the curriculum was rejected. Currently he is working on his Master of Education thesis, focusing on using drama as a tool to address social issues in the school and community.

The Deadly Effects of Residential Schools in Canada: How is that Remediable?

At least 150,000 Indigenous youths were forced into Indian Residential Schools (IRS) between the 1870s and 1990s. They were run by Canadian/Provincial governments and religious authorities. The aim was to strip the young of their language/culture and force them to adopt to the colonizer's way of life. In other words, cultural genocide, but with the recent discovery of 215 indigenous children at a Kamloops IRS in unmarked graves, with many more to be found all over Canada, it can be argued that it’s more than cultural genocide.

 

Out of the 139 IRS in Canada, 26 were in Alberta. Among those, six were in Southern Alberta. It is known that thousands of Indigenous children died needlessly while attending IRS. The speakers will describe their experiences with IRS and relate to how the generational trauma have affected large portions of Indigenous Peoples and their communities. Healing remedies and the importance of teaching all kids about the horror of IRS in K-6 and beyond, will also be discussed.  

 

Speakers: Dr. Terri-Lynn Fox and Elder Keith Chief Moon             

 

Oki, Niistoo’akoka Aapiihkwi’komotakii, my English name is Terri-Lynn Fox. I am a member of the Kainai Nation, which is part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. My academic credentials include a B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Sociology, and a Ph.D. in Education. I am the Director of the Kainai Wellness Centre, which is one branch of the Blood Tribe Department of Health, located on the Kainai Nation. I practice our Siksikaitsitapi ways and envision this to be at the forefront of our healing methods, in addition to an avenue for our way forward, as we think about, participate in, and actively change the Canadian landscape for the betterment of all – to justly reach reconciliation.

 

Onistaya Kopi, Keith Chief Moon. I am a Survivor of the Indian Residential Schools on the Blood Reserve. I

was subjected to discrimination and bigotry, yet I obtained a high school diploma from Cardston. I have

achieved a B.A. and B.Ed. in Native American Studies; and an M.A. in Education. I have overcome addictions;

and I am currently free from alcohol, drugs and other forms of hallucinatory drugs. I am a sacred pipe

carrier, a ceremonialist, and I practice the teachings of Napbii Na’tosi, that all human beings have a

responsibility to live a good life, to prosper, to share, to respect and take each day as a new day.

“Immigration Matters” Why Canada supports immigration

In October 2020, the Federal Government announced its 2021-2022 Immigration Level Plan. The government is hoping to bring a targeted 1.2 million immigrants into the country to help the Canadian economy recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and drive future growth.  

Canada is often referred to as a land of immigrants because of the millions of newcomers who have settled there since the first colonies were built by the English and the French on Indigenous territories. However, despite this history of immigration, many immigrants encounter discrimination and social exclusion upon their arrival.  

Much of the discrimination and difficulty encountered originate in common myths and beliefs held by those already living in Canada. In this presentation we will visit the new Immigration Level Plan introduced by the Federal government to shed light on the different immigration categories and discuss the reasons for this increase to immigration targets. Along the way we will try to bust common myths about newcomers to Canada. We will also explore some of the challenge’s newcomers face during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaker:    Najib Mangal              

Najib Mangal is manager of Community Connections and Employment programs at Immigrant Services of Lethbridge Family Services. He is an accredited settlement practitioner with 15 years of experience in settlement and integration of newcomers into Lethbridge. He graduated with a degree in Information Technology in 2006 from the Lethbridge College and recently completed his Immigration Consultancy program through the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultancy.

Is Harm Reduction and Empathy the Main Pillars when Battling Drug Dependency? With Dr Esther Tailfeathers

While painkilling medicine has been around for a very long time, Fentanyl is a powerful addictive opioid painkiller, the use of which has caused an increasing public health threat in Canada and elsewhere. Fentanyl was initially approved in 1960 and used for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, especially cancer pain. However, recent years have seen a growing use of fentanyl and its analogs that are widely synthesized in laboratories and adulterated with illicit supplies of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit pills, contributing to addiction and the exponential growth in the number of drug-related overdose deaths.

 

The southern Alberta community of Kainai First Nation has been hit very hard by the Fentanyl overdose crises and since 2014 in particular, hundreds in the community have died tragically. The speaker will describe the early circumstances of the crises and as well, more recent measures taken to mitigate the loss, which includes a harm reduction strategy, since conventional abstinence-based treatment has proved ineffective for saving lives. The strategy includes supervised consumption and the Blackfoot practice known as "kimmapiiyipitssini" – pronounced "GEE-maa-bee-bit-sin" meaning "giving kindness to each other”.

   

Speaker:  Dr. Esther Tailfeathers

 

Dr. Esther Tailfeathers was born and raised on the Blood Tribe Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta. She graduated from the University of North Dakota, School of Medicine and completed her Family Medicine residency at the University of Alberta.

 

Esther has worked with many First Nations, among them, the Emergency Department on the Blackfeet Reservation (in Montana), the Blood Tribe Reserve for almost 20 years, and in the Northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. She is most proud of organizing a relief mission to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, leading a team made up of Blood Tribe paramedics, nurses and health care workers who took care of more than 2,000 patients during their relief efforts.

 

Most recently, Dr. Tailfeathers has focused on the Blood Tribe’s response to the opioid crisis including harm reduction and treatment, and addressing the upstream determinants of health. Dr. Tailfeathers is currently the Senior Medical Director, Provincial Indigenous Wellness Core, at Alberta Health Services.

Alberta allows for Public Participation in Resource Development, but what are the Parameters and who are deemed Stakeholders?

Public participation is widely considered to be an essential component of any legitimate exercise of state power over resource development and environmental decision-making. A clear illustration of what can happen when public participation is excluded from the decision-making process is the public uproar concerning the abrupt rescission by the Alberta government of the 1976 Coal Policy in May 2020. 

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is Alberta's regulator of energy development throughout the full lifecycle of an oil, gas, or coal project - from initial application to final closure and reclamation. The AER is responsible for assessing and monitoring the environmental impacts of these energy projects, and the AER implements a compliance program to enforce the applicable legal rules.

This session will be a critical examination of the opportunities provided by the AER for the public to participate in its decision-making processes. While the discussion will canvass the topic broadly in relation to various components of the AER's regulatory functions, specific focus will be given to the AER's statement of concern procedures - the process used by the AER to invite persons who are concerned with a proposed energy development to express those concerns.

Speaker: Shaun Fluker

Shaun Fluker is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary. His research includes examining legal frameworks governing public participation and transparency in resources and environmental decision-making. He has written extensively on procedural and substantive rules governing access to legal process, judicial review and access to information. His article "The Right to Public Participation in Resources and Environmental Decision-Making in Alberta" (2015) provides a critical assessment of these issues specifically in relation to the AER and its predecessors, and he writes frequently on current developments in public participation at the Faculty of Law's blog.

Shaun also serves as legal counsel in public interest environmental litigation with the Faculty’s Public Interest Law Clinic. His most recent case with the Clinic resulted in a victory for enhanced public participation in environmental decision-making in Normtek Radiation Services Ltd v Alberta Environmental Appeal Board, 2020.

“Alberta’s War Room” and the “Steve Allan Inquiry”: Worth the Money or Millions Wasted?

After Jason Kenney became Premier of Alberta on April 30, 2019, he followed through on his campaign promise and set in motion the “energy war room” or the Canadian Energy Centre CEC) as it was named when launched in Dec 2019. The purpose of the $30 million per year CEC was to fight back campaigns against Alberta’s Oil Sands etc. that, according to some sources, were funded by foreign interest money supporting several Environmental Non-government Organizations (ENGOs) Tar Sands Campaign.

 

Steve Allan was commissioned in July 2019 at the cost of $2.5 million to lead a provincial/public inquiry into "foreign-funded special interests" and their campaigns to stop oil sands development. Later, and when it became clear that the July 2, 2020 final report deadline would be missed, Alberta's energy minister added $1 million to the inquiry's budget and pushed back the deadline for Allan's final report, first to Oct 30, then to Jan 30 and finally to May 31, 2021.

 

As Alberta poured more time and resources into this inquiry, several amendments to its scope and scale was made, which may limit what info the inquiry is expected to yield. The speaker, who has followed this inquiry closely, will narrate the nuanced details and, barring another delay, comment on the final report.  

 

Speaker:                  Markham Hislop

 

Markham Hislop is an energy journalist and publisher of Energi News (formerly North American Energy News). Hislop uses a technology adoption model of his own design to analyze and report upon all the facets of the energy industry, from oil and gas to EVs and renewables.

Over the past 5 years, Hislop has probably reported about the Energy Transition more than any other North American journalist. His work has been published in Canadian Business, Alberta Oil Magazine, Hart Energy Publications, World Oil, Vancouver Magazine, and other publications. Hislop’s most recent book is The New Alberta Advantage: Technology, Policy, and the Future of the Oil Sands.

Are severe Funding Cuts to U of L and Lethbridge College likely to have both Short and Long-Term Consequences for the Lethbridge Economy?

Over the past two years, tenths of millions of public education dollars have been cut from Lethbridge’s two post-secondary institutions budgets, resulting initially in hundreds of directly lost jobs and as well, hefty increases in tuition for students. Arguably, there are also many indirect economic and knowledge losses to consider in the longer term. The speaker will make clear that the myriad of issues related to these severe government cuts (more are promised in 2022) are not only about short-term economics, but also connected to the importance of great quality and affordable post-secondary education that will keep Lethbridge an attractive community for individuals, families and businesses to be located.

Speaker: Cyndi Vos, CEO of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce

Cyndi Vos is a double alumnus of the University of Lethbridge. She holds a Bachelor of Music, Master of Education, Post Graduate Certification in Executive Coaching and has completed Leadership Certification through the Napoleon Hill Foundation at Purdue University. Her professional business career began under the direction of her entrepreneurial parents. Cyndi focused in healthcare with the company We Care Health Services, specializing in palliative care, for 20 years, serving as the CEO for 10 years. In early 2019, she became the CEO of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce where she has recently led policy on such topics as The Economics of Addiction, Digital Broadband as the Key to Economic Prosperity and Creating an Effective Workforce for the Changing Economy which all received Federal recognition.

Cyndi has had the opportunity to perform as a solo concert pianist in Canada, England, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the United States. She is also very active in the fitness community and competes nationally. Cyndi has a passion for sharing stories and has been a contributing author with the titles of The Fine Art of Parenting After Separation: The Power of a Positive Mental Attitude, The Girl in the Red Bikini, Johnny B and Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok: Lessons from the Big Four. All four of these publications reached best seller status. Cyndi believes in giving back to her community and has received national recognition for her philanthropic efforts. She currently sits on the University of Lethbridge Senate, the Board of Directors for Economic Development Lethbridge, the Reconciliation Lethbridge Advisory Committee and the Community Wellbeing & Safety Strategy Advisory Committee.

What does an Independent Case Study of the Alberta Energy Regulator’s Coal Mining Regulations tell us? With Mandy Olsgard

The Grassy Mountain Open-Pit Coal Mine proposed by Benga Mining Ltd., (Riversdale) in the Crowsnest Pass has raised questions and concerns about the regulatory process in Alberta, such as the transparency, independent decision-making, and enforcement capacity of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). What is AER’s history and track record with regards to Coal Mining regulations in Alberta?  

 

This presentation will provide a summary of a case study of the regulatory process for coal mining in Alberta through the application phase to operational monitoring and finally closure and reclamation using examples from regulatory documents published by and submitted to the Alberta Energy Regulator for the Cheviot (Cardinal River and Luskar) Mine operated by Teck Resources Ltd in West Central Alberta. The speaker will provide examples of predicted risks to human and environmental health from coal development and how these are monitored, mitigated or managed through regulatory oversight with supporting data from industrial and environmental monitoring reports.

 

Speaker:     Mandy L. Olsgard M.Sc., P. Bio. Principal, Sr. Toxicologist/ Risk Assessor

             

Mandy Olsgard is currently the owner and Senior Toxicologist at Integrated Toxicology Solutions. Over the past 15 years Mandy has worked as a toxicologist and risk assessor in research, consulting and regulatory environments to develop coordinated and effective risk management plans for energy and non-energy resources by collaboratively addressing industry, regulatory, First Nations, Metis, and public stakeholders’ concerns.

 

The focus of Mandy’s career to date has been on researching and developing methods to understand the toxicity of environmental contaminants released from conventional and non-conventional oil and gas, mining and municipal sectors and impacts to environmental and human health. She has done this through provision of technical expertise on regulatory application reviews, regulatory hearing proceedings, multi-stakeholder technical working groups and independent research.