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Thank you for covering the EUB spying scandal and debate about whether Calgary's lights will go out. Jason Fekete's excellent article about the cap on wind power raised my eyebrows.

Alberta Electric System Operator claims Calgary will soon be facing power outages. If so, why is AESO willing to freeze or boil us with its archaic cap on wind power?

It was reported that Carman, Man., broke Canadian records the other day with a sizzling 53 C (humidex). With increasing temperatures evident, I do not like the idea of AESO being allowed to keep available non-polluting power out of the system.

AESO claims it has a mandate to protect the public interest; so does the EUB.

Instead of "need" for the 500 kV line, I see a questionable cap on wind power and a transmission line that will bring harm to many, but not electricity to Calgary. In my view, this violates the public interest.

So does spying on ordinary citizens.

Jessica Ernst, Rosebud

© The Calgary Herald 2007

Transcript tells a different taleJoe Anglin, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, July 28, 2007

On July 11 and 12, Energy Minister Mel Knight and AltaLink representatives stated on a Calgary radio talk show that AltaLink's proposed 500 KV transmission line is not intended to export electricity and if this line doesn't get built, Calgary could suffer rolling blackouts.

The talk show host took Alta Link's word and insinuated that the opposition speaking against the proposed transmission line was not properly informed. As the leader of the largest landowner opposition group to AltaLink's proposal, it has been extremely difficult for us to battle the Alberta government's and AltaLink's dissemination of inaccurate information to the public The threat of rolling blackouts and the denial that this line is for export is reprehensible given the facts on record.

On Dec. 17, 2004 (Page 1,761 of the official transcripts), industry representatives testified under oath at the first hearing: "We concluded that even without any imports there is plenty of megawatts in the south of the province to supply the load."

And: "We concluded that from a standpoint of reliability, i.e. the lights going out -- we don't have a problem."

The AltaLink proposal does not bring additional power for Calgary. The proposal constructs a transmission line from Genesee to Langdon. From Langdon, this proposal cannot feed additional power to Calgary, because it is physically impossible.

The transmission lines from the Langdon substation to the Janet substation (Calgary) are currently full and there are no plans to upgrade them. One can only assume there are no plans to upgrade them because there is no need. If this power cannot go into Calgary, where does it go? To set the record straight, it is in the best interest of everyone to focus strictly on the facts and formulate an opinion from the official record.

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On May 23, 2007 (Page 1,489 of the transcripts), AltaLink's representatives testified under oath that the average imports currently from Cranbrook, B.C., to Langdon range between 400-700 MW. On Page 1,490 of the transcripts, AltaLink's representatives testified under oath the capacity rating for the 500 KV line from Cranbrook to Langdon is approximately 1,000 MW and it is technically constrained (limited) to about 750 MW.

On Page 1,488 of the transcripts, AltaLink's representatives testified under oath that the proposed AltaLink transmission line will ship on average approximately 719 to 720 MW to Langdon.

On Page 1,494 of the transcripts, AltaLink's representatives testified under oath that the proposed 500 KV transmission line will restore export capabilities to 750 MW.

The record is clear. The power proposed to be transmitted over the 500 KV transmission line changes Alberta's status as a net importer of electricity to that of a net exporter.

It appears AltaLink's testimony under oath is quite different than their public statements. Why Knight or anyone on his staff has not picked up on this contradiction is curious, but why the minister or his staff would advance an argument that this line is not for export, is suspiciously inept, in view of the facts on record.

Joe Anglin, Rimbey

Joe Anglin is vice-chair of the Lavesta Area Group.

© The Calgary Herald 2007

Why is Alberta's oilpatch referee so reviled?Recent actions by the Energy and Utilities Board have rekindled calls for reform. The problem, observers say, is Albertans misunderstand the EUB's mandate. So let's revamp it, critics say

Darcy Henton The Edmonton Journal

Saturday, July 28, 2007

EDMONTON - Harry Lillo winces when he hears criticism being hurled at Alberta's Energy and Utilities Board.

The retired board employee says it hurts when people slam the EUB -- like they have been lately -- but it's not altogether surprising.

Nobody likes a referee.

"Everybody hates the board a little bit -- no matter what side they're on -- if they are involved in a decision or a hearing," says Lillo, a former acting board member who spent 28 years at the EUB. "Nobody gets their way entirely or completely so everybody hates you. Many decisions I have had to make, someone sees as an unpopular decision."

The critics -- and there's no shortage of EUB detractors -- often accuse the board of siding with big energy producers over individual landowners and the public.

They say the board's 94-per-cent approval rate of applications for wells, facilities and rate hikes demonstrates that the 69-year-old agency is a rubber stamp for the oil, gas and electricity industry and that it's more of a lapdog than an industry watchdog.

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But Lillo refutes allegations that the board is biased.

"One of the things I believed the board always did when I sat as a panel member is we asked what was fair and what was the right thing to do," he said. "I've never had a politician or anyone come to me after a hearing and say: 'Here is how you should make your decision.' "

Lillo, 58, who no longer has any ties to the EUB, says the board often gets a bum rap because people don't understand its mandate.

That mandate, posted on the EUB website, states: "The Energy and Utilities Board ensures that the discovery, development and delivery of Alberta energy resources and utilities services takes place in a manner that is fair, responsible and in the public interest."

Two recent developments have re-ignited cries for EUB reform: the board's decision to hold closed hearings "for security reasons" into a contentious application to build a 500-kilovolt transmission line between Edmonton and Calgary, and revelations the board hired private investigators to mingle with landowners opposing the line.

Critics say now is the perfect time to take steps to improve the board's credibility since the province is in the process of splitting the board into two entities -- one to regulate the oilpatch and another to regulate the distribution of natural gas and electricity.

"It would be an excellent time to take a look at it," says New Democrat Leader Brian Mason. "We should be looking at the mandate of the EUB, making sure we balance the public interest with the interests of the energy companies. Unless you do that fundamental thing you are just rearranging the methods you use to upset people.

"The people of this province are getting steamrolled by the energy industry and they don't have anyone to stand up for them."

The EUB turned down a Journal request for an interview with a board member or the board's acting chairman, Bob McManus, citing the contentious, ongoing hearing into the transmission line and a provincial government probe into the spying allegations.

Environmentalist Martha Kostuch says that while the EUB has had successes, it doesn't represent the public interest.

"One of its failures is it's supposed to look after the public interest but only people who have a private interest have any rights before the EUB," she said. "The public has no rights. Only the people who own and occupy land who are directly affected by development have any rights before the board."

But board spokesman Bob Curran says the board is looking out for the public interest whether the public appears at hearings or not.

"We had over 60,000 applications last year. Imagine if every Albertan could file an objection on every one of those applications. It becomes a completely unwieldy process."

He says the board keeps oil and gas companies in line, shutting down hundreds of projects annually and rejecting thousands of applications if they don't meet EUB standards.

"If you don't meet the regulations, you don't get your application approved, period," he said.

Energy Minister Mel Knight says he has full confidence in the board and in the independence of its appointed members.

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"They have a strong mandate and a very concise set of rules with respect to development," he says. "It's a quasi-judicial board and I do not influence the outcome of any of their decisions."

But the Pembina Institute believes the board sees its role as "facilitating the efficient development of the resources" since the province already agreed to develop the areas in question when it sold the subsurface rights to oil and gas companies.

"They don't see their role as second-guessing the decision to hand out the lease in the first place," says Chris Severson-Baker, director of the environmental think-tank's Energy Watch program.

Neil McCrank, former EUB chairman, conceded as much to a reporter before retiring this spring. "Once the lease is let, we take that as a signal that the government has said that area is open for development," he told a reporter.

Severson-Baker says there's a leadership vacuum in the oilpatch because the elected government won't address issues like cumulative impacts of projects and the board claims that is not its responsibility.

Curran says those issues are better addressed by government agencies that have the mandate and the experts to assess them. "It's inappropriate for an independent regulator to start dictating policy to an elected government."

Shaun Fluker, a University of Calgary associate law professor, says the board may deny it has the mandate to look into cumulative effects of development, but Alberta's Court of Appeal has never ruled on it.

He says it's time it did.

"If the board won't acknowledge its authority on its own behalf, the Court of Appeal should give its two cents on the issue by taking one of these cases," he said. "It's a matter important enough that the court should hear the appeal and issue a decision and send a message to the government and to the board and then everybody can move forward. I think it would create more certainty."

Fluker, who published a paper on the point in the Alberta Law Review, says the issue is going to get louder the longer it drags on. "If it ends up being ignored, people will lose faith in the board. If they lose faith in the system, they take other avenues ... maybe they take justice into their own hands."

Severson-Baker claims the province uses the EUB as a shield to insulate itself from the anger of Albertans over its energy policies.

"A lot of people have been venting their frustration at the EUB. A number of people say the EUB needs to do its job differently, but the reality I think is the EUB is being touted as being something more than it was set up to do."

Its focus, he claims, is really "how much, how fast and at what cost can we develop the energy resources of the province?"

"It looks at what companies are proposing and checks to see if they are meeting all the requirements. It's a compliance check."

As long as a company obeys the rules, it will get approval to drill a well beside your house, says surface rights consultant Karl Zajes. The board isn't going to prevent it.

"Their mandate is to get the oil and gas out of the ground so they can retire on big, fat pensions," says Zajes.

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He says he has won a few EUB battles, but success depends largely on the composition of the individual panel hearing the case.

"There are good people on the EUB ... but there are others who couldn't give a damn. It's sad to have to tell you this. They are supposed to be independent, but they're absolutely not."

Critics have been raising that claim since the board was established in 1938 to reduce the flagrant waste of natural gas in the Turner Valley field in southern Alberta.

The regulator was born out of conflict and literally baptized in fire as it struggled to stop companies from burning off millions of dollars in gas because there wasn't a pipeline to send it to distant markets.

To take on rebellious independent naphtha producers and large American oil companies, the fledgling Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board -- forerunner of the EUB -- was allocated far-reaching powers beyond what counterpart agencies in the U.S. had.

The board had the power to make decisions that could not be appealed. It was not obligated to hold hearings and wasn't required to give reasons for its decisions. And its members were appointed rather than being elected as they were in the United States.

David H. Breen, a University of British Columbia professor emeritus who documented the history of the board in a book, Alberta's Petroleum Industry and the Conservation Board, said the board was well-respected in its early days, but appears to have slipped recently.

"The board made controversial decisions in the past, but it managed those in a way that the rationale sustaining the decision was broadly accepted," he said. "I have a sense ... the board has lost its way."

That could be the result of a lack of leadership at the EUB or a lack of direction from the government, he said.

Premier Ed Stelmach has yet to replace McCrank and there's no indication when he will fill the $300,000-a-year post.

But the EUB has never been busier. The board dealt with more than 60,000 applications in 2005, more than double the 25,544 it handled a decade ago and up more than 7,000 from the previous year.

Nearly 40,000 wells have been drilled in Alberta in the past two years, bringing the total number of wells in the province to about 150,000.

To help the EUB handle the barrage of activity, the province boosted its 2007 budget by $26 million to $162 million -- a jump of more than $40 million in the past two years -- but critics still worry that the board and its 880 employees still lack the resources to do their job.

"The board in the past had a strong on-the-ground presence," said Breen. "Its engineers were everywhere in the field. I don't know if that's been the case in recent years."

The EUB claims its 80 inspectors did 16,782 inspections in 2005, up from 10,332 in 2000. But critics complain the regulator still relies too much on companies to voluntarily follow the rules.

McCrank has dismissed the complaint as nonsense.

"It's like saying we should have a policeman driving behind everyone on Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary," he once told a reporter.

Breen said the board's international reputation is "much admired."

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The BBC featured the Alberta regulator in a documentary in May that praised it for dramatically reducing the flaring and venting of natural gas, cutting it by more than 70 per cent since 1996, although the board recently admitted that flaring and venting actually increased last year for the first time in seven years.

The board has also received awards for the way it works collaboratively with landowners, the public and industry, but the national success hasn't filtered down to local farms and ranches.

"I haven't heard a good thing about the EUB from citizens in my travels as the Liberal agriculture critic and energy critic," said MLA Hugh MacDonald.

"I get around a bit and people are not happy with them. They've lost complete confidence in the regulatory process."

Ted Gladysz of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of Canada says there should be a public inquiry into the "unethical abuse of power" by the board.

"There's so much abuse of power there. They don't give in to anybody. They just push everybody around. It's absolutely wrong."

Gladysz claims many small producers were put out of business by a new liability policy that forced the premature shutdown of their wells.

Roger Banack, 58, of Drayton Valley, says the EUB acted like dictators when they shut down his company, Condor Resources, and took over 40 wells and five batteries. He said there was no appeal.

"They have too much power. They're just walking around with a big stick and if they don't like you, they beat on you."

But Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says the EUB has a "tough line to walk."

"I think they're always conscious of the public interest. I do not think they're biased in any way."

Alvarez said emotions flare up because the landscape upon which the industry operates is growing more and more crowded and, as sweet gas runs out, companies will be forced to go after the more dangerous, costly sour gas containing hydrogen sulphide.

"The challenges with resource development are certainly a whole lot harder than they used to be. But I think the board has always shown that the public interest is what they're to defend and I think on balance they do a very good job."

Lillo, the former board member, says he's confident it will survive the dark days. He said the EUB is adapting to a more environmentally conscious society.

"I believe with its mandate and with the panel and the organization wanting to do the right thing -- to do what is fair and equitable for all Albertans -- I think that will allow the board to hold its head high as time goes on."

dhenton@thejournal.canwest.com

THE BOOMING OILPATCH BY NUMBERS:

EUB budget 2007: $162 million

EUB Budget 2000: $78 million

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(57 per cent paid by industry)

EUB employees 2007: 880

EUB employees 2001: 723

Number of inspectors: 80

Voluntary staff turnover: 10.6%

EUB inspections 2006: 14,680

EUB inspections 2005: 16,782

EUB inspections 2000: 10,332

Applications in 2005: 60,125

Applications in 2000: 22,550

Applications closed/denied 2006: 2,637

Applications closed/denied 2003: 963

Wells drilled in 2006: 19,438

Wells drilled in 2000: 14,642

Total wells drilled: 151,500

Facilities shutdown 2005: 91

Facilities shutdown 2000: 236

SOURCE: The Energy and Utilities Board © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Activist 'banished' by the EUBA consultant's run-in with the Alberta agency over an e-mail provides some lessons in why landowners' suspicions are as deep as oil wells

Darcy Henton The Edmonton Journal

Sunday, July 29, 2007

EDMONTON - Jessica Ernst isn't sure why she was banished by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, but she's still seething.

The 50-year-old environmental consultant, named one of Alberta's top newsmakers in 2006, says she was blacklisted after complaining vociferously about oilpatch noise and water contamination.

The EUB says she threatened its staff.

Ernst, who was applauded by the Calgary Herald for the hue and cry she raised over coal-bed methane drilling and its potential impact on well

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water, got into trouble with the board when she referenced oilpatch saboteur Wiebo Ludwig in an e-mail.

"Someone said to me the other day: 'You know, I am beginning to think the only way is the Wiebo way,' " she wrote in closing a November 2005 e-mail to about 250 people on a coal-bed methane watch list.

Somehow, the EUB got wind of the e-mail.

The reference to Wiebo Ludwig, who was convicted in April 2000 of blowing up an oil well and sentenced to 28 months in prison, prompted an EUB manager to accuse her of attempting to incite people to violence, and Ernst was cut off from communication.

"What I cannot and will not accept is your threat, veiled as something someone said to you, as a means to incite people to resort to the Wiebo way," Jim Reid, a manager in the EUB's compliance and operations branch, warned Ernst in a Nov. 24, 2005, letter.

"Criminal threats will not be tolerated and we are deciding on ho- best to work with the office of the Attorney General of Alberta and the RCMP to register our concern and to ensure the protection of the public, including our staff."

The letter was copied to the RCMP in Drumheller who police the tiny community of Rosebud where Ernst resides.

Ernst's next letter to the board was returned unopened.

"They didn't have evidence," Ernst fumes. "They didn't have a hearing. They just ruled that I was a threat.

"The EUB is mandated to protect my safety from things like water contamination and violation of my legal right to quiet enjoyment of my property. When presented with evidence of non-compliance, they called me the criminal."

After Ernst repeatedly appealed to then EUB chair Neil McCrank for an explanation, she was referred to the board's lawyer.

Calgary Liberal MLA David Swann, who intervened on Ernst's behalf, said the EUB "totally misinterpreted" Ernst's letter and "failed her as a person."

"The EUB has become so inward-looking and fearful that they are not willing to brook any dissent or any uncomfortable communications with people," said Dr. Swann, a former medical health officer.

He thought he had mediated a resolution, "but nothing changed."

Last March, Ernst received a letter from McCrank advising her EUB staff "is in no way prevented from dealing with you."

"It is my expectation that staff will continue to deal with your questions and concerns as they would with any member of the public," he wrote before retiring from the board.

Banishment denied

EUB spokesman Bob Curran said Ernst was never "banished."

"What we had was someone who made threats so we had to find a way to allo- that person to bring those concerns to us without putting our staff in a potentially dangerous situation," he said.

Ernst doesn't buy it.

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"From the many unanswered concerns and questions about risks to public health and safety, it is obvious that I remain banished," she told The Journal. "Also there is evidence indicating petroleum industry pollution in my water well. Where is the EUB?"

In light of recent allegations that the EUB hired private investigators to monitor landowners opposing an Edmonton-to-Calgary transmission line, she no- wonders if they have been checking up on her, too.

"It makes me wonder what kind of spying they have done on me, whether they have hired a private investigator to follo- me around. Have they tapped my phone?"

Other environmental activists are wondering the same thing.

Phillip Hannemann, a landowner who has given oil and gas companies headaches with his interventions at EUB hearings, says he's wondering ho- his name came up on a list of suspected oilpatch saboteurs at Ludwig's trial.

"I had nothing to do with Ludwig, but my name was on the list," he said. "People asked me ho- I kno- him and I said I didn't kno- him, but I had read about him in The Journal."

Hannemann said he never received an explanation from police or the attorney general why he was considered a suspect.

Was it the EUB who put his name forward?

"I suspect they do keep tabs on people who go to their public hearings," he said. "We were all individuals who forced companies to hearings."

The EUB's Curran says that would have been a police matter.

"That's not our role," he said.

Hannemann says he has never condoned violence, but he knows ho- to wield an economic or political hammer.

When Encal Energy failed to pay him his costs as local intervenor on an application to move sour gas through a pipeline on his property, he showed up with a sheriff at the company's head office with legal documents entitling him to seize office computers.

He got his cheque and an apology from the company president.

Despite his occasional victories at board hearings, Hannemann doesn't hide his disdain for the EUB.

"Everything is fair about the process," he says sarcastically. "What usually disappoints landowners is the decision."

Many landowners complain they have been let down by the process and have lost faith in the board to protect them and their land.

Paula Hopwood, a 38-year-old mother of three who lives near Drayton Valley, is still seething from her dealings with the board when she tried to prevent a gas well from being drilled upwind from her farmhouse.

She was concerned a well close to the house could kill her severely asthmatic six-year-old son. She tried to have the well drilled downwind so the prevailing winds would carry the odour away.

When she met with board employees and the company to try to resolve the issue, she claims the EUB official advised her that he "had asthma as a kid and asthma doesn't kill children."

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At that point she thre- him out of her house.

She thought she would get better treatment at a hearing, but she stormed out in tears when company officials questioned her motives and suggested she shouldn't be living in the oilpatch with an asthmatic child.

Hopwood said it would have cost the company $10,000 to drill the well from the location she suggested. The board compromised and allowed the company to drill upwind, but farther away.

That decision killed all faith Hopwood had in the board. She said she no longer trusts it to look out for the health and safety of Albertans.

"Anyone who has had to deal with them realizes the EUB does not protect you," she said. "The people who are hearing your case are judge and jury and they are being paid by the company you are going up against."

(The majority of the board's annual budget is funded through an industry levy.)

"The EUB seems to be the wingman for the oil companies."

Hopwood said her son's respiratory problems are no longer as severe as they once were, but she said he suffered six attacks in five months when the well was being drilled and had to be hospitalized.

She said she isn't against the industry. A local official from another oil company called her to offer apologies for the way she was treated and told her that if she had been dealing with them, a hearing could have been avoided.

"I am not trying to stop oilfield activity, but can't we find a way to make it safer if there is a health concern?"

Call for an elected EUB

Jon Friel, a provincial Liberal candidate in Strathcona County, said the EUB would be much more accountable if its members were elected and the issues were debated at elections every three years.

"It's the only way we Albertans will get a say in the development of the oil and gas industry," he said. "If we debated the issues every three years, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now."

Friel, who wants to represent Alberta's so-called "upgrader alley," raised the point in a resolution at the Liberals' convention and it passed. He plans to run on it in the next provincial election.

But not everyone is out to scrap or overhaul the EUB.

Rancher Tom Livingston, 79, says he's not impressed with the latest revelations about the EUB closing meetings and hiring private investigators, but he's found an ally in the board when Big Oil has come calling at his ranch, 30 kilometres north of Brooks.

Livingston advises other ranchers and farmers that the EUB is their last line of defence against oil and gas companies.

He tells them they probably can't stop the companies from drilling wells on their property, but they can force the company to a hearing if they don't agree with the location of the well.

"I have had awful good luck with the EUB," he said. "I can't comment on anything that's been going on the last fe- months, but they've been a tower of strength as far as the landowners are concerned."

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dhenton@thejournal.canwest.comTHE EUB IN 2006

- Enforcement actions: 5,500

- Suspended facilities: 177

- Suspended rigs: 39

- Suspended pipelines: 100

- Pipeline inspections: 460

- Oil spills: 1,516

- Public complaints investigated: 880

- Satisfied complainants: 89.7%

- Satisfied by company: 69.7%

- Satisfied with EUB: 96.4%

- Open houses: 52

- Presentations to public, industry and government: 150

SOURCE: Energy and Utilities Board

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

Spying for the AEUBThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Saturday, June 30What is the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board actually afraid of? Its mandate is to protect private property, but the spying incident at the power-line public hearings in Rimbey is intolerable. A frustrated, 80-year-old woman pushed a lawyer?

The fact is the AEUB exists because, in 1983, the federal government removed the word "property" from Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Most of our global partners have property rights.

Dennis Fenske, Sherwood Park

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

Spying for the AEUBThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Saturday, June 30I find it coincidentally horrifying that the secret and damaging activities currently in use by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board are very similar to the immoral historical activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency against the people it was charged with protecting.

Woe for Albertans who desire honest and people-centred democracy.

Darcey Shyry, Vermilion

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

PI posing as landowner was the worstSpying on citizens casts a smothering pall of bias on any AEUB decision

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Lorne Gunter The Edmonton Journal

Sunday, June 24, 2007

If you have concerns about security at public forums, you hire security guards, not private detectives.

If you've already held a hearing that got out of hand despite the presence of security guards, you hire more guards for your next meeting -- bigger ones, with even more darkly mirrored sunglasses and 'roid-ripped biceps.

You put the local police on notice; ask them to have an officer or two in the room. You have the chair announce that anyone disrupting another's right to speak will be removed and anyone touching a staff member will be arrested.

You don't hire private investigators. Especially if you're a government agency.

After an Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hearing in Red Deer in April turned ugly (a little), the AEUB barred the public from making presentations in person. Only written submissions would be accepted for the next round, now on-going in Rimbey.

In addition, no one but registered interveners would be able to cross-examine the evidence. If the public wanted to view the proceedings, they would have to watch on closed-circuit televisions in a hall down the street from the actual hearings. There would be no public interventions or interjections.

Given the level of "violence" at the earlier Red Deer hearings, these precautions seem reasonable. Frankly, I think they're a little excessive. But if the board wants to err on the side of caution, it could justify excluding the public from its formal deliberations.

In Red Deer, some security guards were "jostled," some speakers prevented by hecklers from making their points, AEUB staff were yelled at and an elderly lady "took a swing" at a lawyer (an incident caught on tape).

There's no excuse for such behaviour.

Even if, as landowners claim, the hearings are stacked in favour of a new high-capacity power line from Wabamun to Calgary and against their right to enjoy their land as they see fit, they are not justified in assaulting guards, shouting down those they disagree with, being abusive to board staff or trying to bop a lawyer in the nose.

That behaviour damages their credibility and reduces the chances the public is going to be sympathetic to their cause. There are peaceful legal and political means through which to seek recourse.

But as objectionable as the landowners' actions were, neither do they justify a public agency hiring four PIs to infiltrate the landowners' organization and spy on them.

Before I go any further, I want to emphasize that the AEUB claims it hired the investigators only to watch those watching the hearings and report any signs that violence was being planned. When no such stirrings were spotted, the board says it dismissed its undercover agents.

But at least one of the PIs went much further. He passed himself off as an aggrieved landowner and environmentalist, so he could gain access to protest organizers' plans.

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Under this guise, he got on their e-mail lists. He was told of strategy meetings the group was holding with specialists in environmental protests. He even allegedly sat in on a conference call three weeks ago among the landowners and their lawyers where details were discussed of an upcoming Alberta Court of Appeal challenge to the Rimbey hearings, as well as legal strategy for a court case on another transmission line.

It is his participation in the conference call that is the greatest offence.

The AEUB shouldn't be hiring private investigators to check up on parties to its hearings at all. The board is to be an impartial regulator, considering the evidence from all sides, and choosing what is in Alberta's best interests.

Even just having a PI pass himself off as a landowner to gain the trust of one side in a proceeding, so the board can know what that side is up to, casts a pall of bias on the board's decision. It inevitably creates the appearance that the board consider landowners to be their enemies.

As my colleague Paula Simons wrote on this on Thursday, if a government agency has concerns about the intentions of an organization appearing before it, it needs to call in an impartial police force to investigate. Hiring PIs makes the AEUB look like a law unto itself.

I know that the landowners opposed to the Wabamun-Calgary line have joined up with several "green" activists to thwart approval. There are Green party activists and Greenpeace agitators and environmental protesters hip deep in the group's planning.

But that is their right: To associate with whomever they wish, take advice from whomever they choose and take the consequences if their associates and their advice alienate the public.

The AEUB insists that if one or more of its PIs engaged in unethical or (in the case of violating solicitor-client confidentiality) actionable behaviour, they were not told by the board to do so. Al Palmer, the board's executive manager of corporate services, claims such action would have violated the investigators' mandate.

Mandate or not, the board hired the PIs, so they are responsible for the investigators' actions.

lgunter@shaw.ca © The Edmonton Journal 2007

REGULATOR ACCUSED OF BIAS

Landowners go to court in bid to stop power lineNORVAL SCOTT

With a report from Dawn Walton

July 19, 2007, The Globe and Mail

CALGARY -- Alberta's energy regulator, already the subject of three provincial inquiries over its handling of hearings into a proposed Calgary-Edmonton power line, now faces a court action as well, as a group of Alberta landowners has filed a motion demanding the regulatory proceedings be quashed.

The motion, filed yesterday in the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary, alleges that the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) demonstrated bias in favour of the proposed transmission project by hiring private investigators to spy on opponents, thus rendering the proceedings void,

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according to one of the lawyers representing the landowners.

Major energy projects such as the transmission line must go through a series of regulatory hearings and public consultations before finally being approved by the EUB. Declaring the process void would at the very least cause the project, which was originally proposed in 2004, to be substantially delayed.

"The EUB has said that it hired private investigators, and we have evidence that indicates they infiltrated the landowner group opposing this project and stuck their noses into discussions," said James Laycraft, a founder of law firm Wilson Laycraft. "I think we have a pretty good case for sanctions against the regulator."

The proposed $495-million, 330,000-volt power line would be the largest transmission project ever constructed in Alberta and is expected to be completed in 2009 by Calgary-based electric transmission company AltaLink. It has been controversial from the start, with local residents saying they weren't adequately consulted before the route was selected. Those frustrations gathered disturbing momentum this year, when a hearing in Red Deer dissolved into shoving and screaming, and a woman attempted to punch a lawyer.As a result, the EUB banned the public from the hearings but arranged for the proceedings to be shown on closed-circuit television. In June, the regulator hired four plainclothes investigators to hang around landowners and their lawyers watching the hearings, a move that EUB spokesman Davis Sheremata said was intended to identify emerging security threats and protect the public.

The private investigators passed themselves off as concerned landowners, and one, Don MacDonald, joined a conference call in which landowners discussed strategies with their legal counsel.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved. globeandmail.com and The Globe and Mail are divisions of CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., 444 Front St. W., Toronto, ON Canada M5V 2S9 Phillip Crawley, Publisher

Tories lacking leadershipEdmonton JournalThursday, July 12, 2007Page: A18Section: OpinionSource: The Edmonton Journal

After several flip-flops and an overdose of poor judgment, the Stelmach government finally made the right move by announcing an independent review of the use of private investigators by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board.

Energy Minister Mel Knight this week launched a review of the AEUB decision to hire four investigators to spy on rural landowners opposed to the proposed Calgary-Edmonton transmission line.

Better late than never, it could be said. But the government's inept handling of this sorry episode speaks to some significant leadership problems in Stelmach's team.

Stelmach himself did not appreciate the seriousness of the issues raised by the AEUB's misguided decision to spy on Alberta citizens.

The premier's initial reaction on June 20 was to back up the AEUB, which said it was worried about the safety of the board members after a couple of far-too-rowdy incidents at the hearings. The board should have called police

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to keep order, as Stelmach should know -- not hire private investigators to spy on the landowners.

Just 13 days later, after a caucus meeting, Stelmach changed his mind and ordered the inquiry. But by then, Mel Knight had already told the public he'd spoken to the AEUB, lessons were learned from the episode and no discipline was necessary. It was handled.

Now the same minister launches an independent inquiry? At best, the public is confused and, at worst, it may well be skeptical of the results.

While Stelmach and Knight waffled around, other public agencies quickly grasped the seriousness of the situation. Privacy Commissioner Frank Work and Ombudsman Gordon Button are both conducting investigations.

But surely it's most important for the government itself to send a signal that spying on citizens by a state agency isn't acceptable and that steps should be taken to make sure it does not happen again.

Instead, the public got mixed messages and two weeks of confusion.

Moreover, the landowners are also worried the private investigators breached solicitor-client privilege. Posing as a rural landowner, one of the AEUB agents gained access to phone calls between the landowners, environmentalists and their lawyers. Those too are serious issues in a democracy. People have a right to hold and express dissenting views and not be spied upon.

Knight appointed Del Perras, a former deputy attorney general and judge, to lead the inquiry. The inquiry is slated to look at what information was collected by the private investigators and who had access to that information, as well as make recommendations on how to handle security issues.

Those are critical questions. Most importantly, the results of the inquiry must be made public.

Meanwhile, Stelmach and crew need to sharpen their political skills. A government's job isn't to defend the status quo at all costs, but respond to public concerns when things go awry and step in with solutions.Clumsy bit of butt-covering; More and more issues swirl around the government and that contentious powerline proposalThe Edmonton SunThursday, July 12, 2007Page: 7Section: NewsByline: BY NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN

Ed Stelmach--when he was first elected - promised a new and "transparent" way of governing.

After his energy minister Mel Knight issued his see-through "open letter to Albertans" this week, it became transparently obvious what's going on here.

It's a clumsy attempt at butt-covering and damage control as the NIMBY from Rimbey gains momentum as a serious political issue for the struggling Stelmach government.

Especially after the Energy and Utilities Board admitted it had hired private eyes to eavesdrop on the landowner and environmental groups opposing AltaLink's proposed 500-kilovolt power line from the Wabamun coal fields to Calgary. Many feel it's a sneaky way of getting Alberta consumers to pay for an export power line because it conveniently hooks up with another forest of pylons AltaLink wants to run into Montana and the American grid. That would be the NIMBY from Raymond.

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After nearly a week of dithering, while both the Alberta ombudsman and the privacy commissioner announced their own probes into the board's PIs, Knight finally hired former Queen's Bench justice and Crown prosecutor Del Perras to conduct an "independent external review".

Then he hung a huge set of blinkers on Perras by ordering him to "focus specifically" on what he described as the "plainclothes security personnel."

I guess they weren't snoops after all.

All other areas are apparently "no go" for Del - a guy of great tenacity and integrity who, I'm sure, would love to turn over a few anthills if allowed.

Of course there's much more to the NIMBY from Rimby than the EUB spooks.

AG ASKED FOR INQUIRY

Yesterday Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason ramped it up another notch - possibly touching off a fourth or even fifth investigation - by writing a letter to Alberta Auditor General Fred "Get 'er" Dunn, asking to begin an inquiry into whether a senior bureaucrat in Knight's department is in a conflict of interest.

Electricity Division executive director Kellan Fluckiger wrote a letter on June 16 last year to an EUB official where he spoke of the "critical need" for a Wabamun to Calgary line "as quickly as possible."

This is a strange urgency, considering ENMAX just announced a huge power plant for Calgary, and Sherritt mysteriously walked away from a similar project at Bow Island this spring.

Mason also pointed out to Dunn that Fluckiger's wife Zora Lazic is AltaLink's regulatory senior vice-president. Last year corporate documents show she doubled her base salary with performance bonuses.

Mason now wants the ethics commissioner to also have a look.

Regular readers will know that AltaLink is a company with interesting Alberta Tory connections.

Listed as directors are former Alberta finance minister Pat Nelson, Calgary regional health authority chair David Tuer and Alberta Economic Development Authority chair Doug Mitchell.

Ex-premier Ralph Klein recently went to work for Mitchell's law firm, even though he has no formal legal training.

Then the energy minister blatantly prejudged the board hearing by blurting in his open letter "we need more transmission lines" to get the power to "where it's needed." You mean like California?

What Mel Knight should have done was order Del Perras to probe the fundamental question swirling about the 500-KV power line and what's making the EUB act in such a bizarre fashion: "Is the fix in?"

Meanwhile another member of Ed's Country Club Cabinet has stepped in a big cow pie.

Alberta Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld could be cited for dereliction of duty if a U.S. Appeals Court rules tomorrow in Portland, Oregon, that American protectionist group R-CALF can have its courtroom showdown after all.

It wants to have the border closed again to all Canadian live cattle because of Alberta's ongoing mad cow issues.

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Alberta Ag policy director Nithi Grovindasamy revealed that other than lawyers "observing" the proceedings, Groeneveld has decided to piggyback on the feds' brief.

SOME STRATEGY

Grovindasamy said the strategy was not to "draw undue attention to Alberta" which could lead to a cross-examination.

R-CALF says it has new evidence that shows "until Canada gets its BSE problems under control, imports of Canadian cattle and beef should be halted."

And the last time that happened, it cost taxpayers a billion bucks.

Energy changes undemocratic; Landowners say plan to dismantle EUB won't solve the system's problemsFast Forward WeeklyThursday, July 12, 2007Page: 5Section: NewsByline: Adrian MorrowSource: Fast Forward

A government plan to revamp the province's energy regulatory body is undemocratic and won't fix the system's flaws, say some who've had bad experiences in the past. The government, however, says that the changes will improve the system and that the regulatory body is doing a good job.

The province plans to disband the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), which oversees construction of new power lines, oil and gas wells and other energy development. Under Bill 46, the EUB will be replaced by two new regulatory bodies: the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), which will oversee electricity development, and the Energy Conservation Board, which will deal with oil and gas. The government says splitting the duties of the EUB in two will make planning more efficient.

Bill 46 will give the AUC the option to make decisions without holding a public hearing and the power to limit who can make oral presentations. Both powers exist under the current EUB legislation.

Jeannette Bolli lives on a family farm near Rimbey with her sister and father. She's dealt with the EUB on several occasions, most recently when power company AltaLink applied to build a power line that would cross her land. She says the EUB hasn't made the company deal with her concerns.

"We've never had any doubt that the EUB is in favour of AltaLink," she says. "What they went through with us was just good public image."

In one case, she says, the board didn't give her notice of the public hearings.

On previous occasions when oil and gas companies wanted to drill wells on or near her land, the EUB told her that her concerns over air quality and contamination of drinking water weren't enough to stop development.

"As far as I know, there's never been a landowner that's won," says Bolli. "(The companies) get the go-ahead every time."

She's read Bill 46, and she's concerned that it would allow the commission to ignore landowners when making decisions.

"It's a David and Goliath thing," she says. "(The bill) gives the commission a huge amount of power."

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Joe Anglin lives in Rimbey and attended the EUB hearings for the AltaLink line. During the hearings, undercover investigators hired by the board spied on him and other people attending the hearings.

He says the EUB's intent is to facilitate energy development rather than addressing public concerns.

"We're not talking about the public good, we're talking about private interests," he says. "They're all industry representatives. There's no one from the public representing the public good."

Landowners who want to keep their land clear of oil and gas development can still end up with wells on their farms.

He argues that the EUB has abused their power and that Bill 46 will allow them to do more of the same.

Jason Chance, spokesperson for the provincial energy department, says that the job of the regulatory system is to make decisions in the best interests of everyone in the province, including landowners.

"We need new transmission lines, we need upgrades," he says. "Our goal is to have (the system) as efficient as it can be."

The landowners' fears over Bill 46 are unfounded, he says, because the AUC won't have any extra powers.

"Any landowner directly affected by (a project) will have a chance to speak to it, and the commission will have to take those concerns into account."

The aim of the entire system is to make sure that development is carried out correctly, he says.

Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank, says the new legislation won't solve what he sees as a big problem with the current system -- it's inability to consider the cumulative impact of development in the province.

"It looks out for the interests of companies over landowners, and it doesn't look at the combined impact on the land," he says. "(The changes) don't address a lot of those issues."

In one case, the municipality of Wood Buffalo was among the stakeholders opposing an oilsands development, but the EUB said it wasn't in their mandate to decide whether development could go ahead or not, he says.

"They're not prepared to deny a project," says Severson-Baker, "They just make sure it fits the guidelines."

Cindy Chiasson, a lawyer and executive director of the Alberta Environmental Law Centre, agrees with Severson-Baker. She says in the case of the AltaLink project, for instance, the province had already decided to build a power line in the area and the EUB's job was simply to deal with AltaLink's specific proposal for building it.

Bill 46 doesn't give the public a chance to participate in the government's process for deciding to develop power lines, she says. "That's where we think the bill isn't good enough," says Chiasson. "It makes for a messy situation."

© 2007 Great West Newspaper Group. All rights reserved.

First the Privacy Commissioner Frank Work announced he would launch his own investigation to see if the AEUB's four private investigators contravened any of Alberta's privacy laws. Then Energy Minister Mel Knight called for an

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investigation and now the Alberta’s Ombudsman Gord Button's inquiry is the third such announcement in the past two weeks.

To put this in a farmer’s perspective, first the fox wants to investigate the chicken coop for rats, then the weasel wants to investigate the chicken coop for rats, and now the skunk wants to investigate the chicken coop for rats.

As cynical as this analogy may sound, it is based on our personal experience in dealing with the Alberta Government. We met with Ed Stelmach during his leadership campaign and he denied our request to support a complete investigation into the issues surrounding the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. We met with the Energy Minister Mel Knight last spring and he wouldn’t even look at the evidence we brought to his office. In keeping with the analogy now that we uncovered conclusive evidence of rats; to the fox, weasel, and skunk we say no thanks!

The Lavesta Area Group members cannot trust the sincerity of any government official intervening in this matter, until the investigation is broadened to address:

· How it is the company SNC-Lavalin can provide consultation to prove the need for this project and AltaLink be awarded a no-bid contract to construct it, when SNC-Lavalin owns AltaLink?

· How it is the Executive Director of the Alberta Energy can testify on behalf of this project when in fact his wife is a senior executive Vice-President at AltaLink?

· How it is Ralph Klein came to work for the law firm representing AltaLink?

· How it is the independent not-for-profit Alberta Electric System Operator can publically raise fears of rolling blackouts in Calgary, but under oath acknowledge that this power does not go to Calgary and is directly connected to a 500 KV line leaving the province?

Unfortunately aside from public announcements calling for an investigation what we got was Bill 46. Bill 46 if passed grants a new Board the power to make orders and issue decisions without giving public notice or holding public hearings, the power to prevent landowners from making verbal representations, and the power to restrict the ability of landowners to hire outside legal counsel when intervening in regulatory hearings.

This issue is far deeper than spying on landowners. If Mr. Stelmach doesn’t act fast, by suspending the EUB board members and launching a complete and full criminal investigation, the only rolling brown out threatening Alberta will be the one caused by turning on all the paper shredders simultaneously in Edmonton and Calgary .

Joe Anglin

Lavesta Area Group Vice-Chair

(403) 843-2179

Democracy should start at home

Les Brost For The Calgary HeraldMonday, July 09, 2007

Albertans are big believers in democracy. Thousands of Alberta's young men and women answered the call to defend democracy in two world wars, the Korean conflict and today in Afghanistan. Polling tells us that we are among

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the strongest advocates for an elected Canadian Senate and for elected judges. Provincial Conservative MLAs are among the leading advocates for an end to the "democratic deficit".

Yet there is a strange contradiction for provincial Conservatives when it comes to local democracy.

It seems their flaming desire for democracy is quickly doused when it comes to control of health care and land use. These are areas of provincial jurisdiction that affect Albertans in their everyday lives.

These are not little issues. They are hot button items that affect us all. Problems in health care have dominated public attention, yet government-appointed boards still manage our regional health care systems.

Land use issues are red-hot in Alberta today. Accelerating pressures from energy production and marketing, resource development, and intensive livestock production have long-term implications for thousands of Alberta residents.

Today's development decisions have the potential to forever change our environmental, social and economic landscape.

These are hard decisions. Billions of investment dollars must be balanced against the need for environmental, economic and social sustainability. The voices of individuals and communities must carry as much weight as the power of huge multinational corporations.

What happens when the government's economic agenda clashes with the personal and property rights of individual Albertans?

Who makes the call?

The regulatory group for the intensive livestock industry is the Natural Resources Conservation Board. Its three members and a chairman are appointed by Order-In Council, which is longhand for the provincial government. Energy-related issues are the purview of the Energy Utilities Board, with eight members and a chairman appointed by the provincial government. Its mission is to "ensure that the discovery, development and delivery of Alberta's energy resources and utility services take place in a manner that is fair, responsible and in the public interest".

The EUB has been getting a lot of media attention lately. It's considering a controversial proposal from AltaLink Inc. to build a 500-kilovolt power line between Calgary and Edmonton.

Landowners living near the site oppose the application because of concerns about possible health effects. They have had a rocky relationship with the EUB and have complained that the Board has already decided to green-light the project.

The frustration level on both sides has been acute. Tempers ran high, and some community members alluded to a potential for violence. The EUB decided to ban members of the public, including the affected property owners and opposition MLAs, from attending the "public hearings" in person. These "interested parties" had to watch proceedings from a separate building on closed circuit TV.

Then the EUB went one huge step further. It hired four private undercover detectives to infiltrate those meetings. The EUB says its agents were directed to blend into the crowd watching the televised hearings and watch for signs of violence.

Next, the private eyes posed as landowners concerned about the proposed lines and infiltrated the community group. One of the private snoops even insinuated himself into landowner conference calls.

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This is scary stuff.

The EUB- appointed by the Conservative government- bars opposition MLA's from attending public hearings. It hires private detectives who infiltrate meetings of Albertans seeking to protect their environmental, social and economic interests.

The actions of the EUB exhibit a basic disrespect for grassroots democracy.

Is this type of conduct consistent with the EUB mandate to act in "a manner that is fair, responsible and in the public interest"? Is this "the Alberta way"?

Is anyone going to get fired over this caper? Don't hold your breath, because Premier Stelmach is backing the EUB. He has said that the EUB actions were appropriate to the situation.

That's why Albertans who are so concerned about democracy in Ottawa should lower their gunsights. It's time we had real, grass-roots democracy in Alberta, and we can start with publicly elected members of Health Authorities, the Natural Resources Conservation Board and the Energy Utilities Board. It's also time we Albertans asked ourselves why we fight for democracy everyplace but at home.

Les Brost is a recovering rancher and proud Old Prairie Dog with deep roots in Southern Alberta.

He can be reached at: www.lesbrost.com © The Calgary Herald 2007

Spying doesn't payCalgary Herald Published: Monday, July 09, 2007EUB - Re: "Stelmach, landowners clash over EUB probe," July 4.

Thank you for exposing the EUB's shameful behaviour. The EUB is under investigation because of hiring private investigators to spy on the public at a recent hearing.

The investigation should not stop when they find the fall guy who has been left holding the bag. It should continue until it is determined who ordered this illegal action. This spying is outrageous and is against the citizens of Alberta and the fundamental principles of democracy. If an action like this is tolerated, then what is next?

Jamie Valecourt, Winfield© The Calgary Herald 2007

Ombudsman latest to investigate utility boardAnnounces third probe into spying allegations

Jim Farrell The Edmonton Journal

Saturday, July 07, 2007

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EDMONTON - Alberta's ombudsman announced Friday he will probe the Alberta Energy and Utility Board's use of private investigators to spy on landowners opposing the proposed Edmonton-to-Calgary power line.

Ombudsman Gord Button's inquiry is the third such announcement in the past two weeks. Button will look at the AEUB's reasons for hiring the private investigators, the investigators' mandate, what information they reported back to the AEUB, how that information was used and the impact of that information on the "administrative fairness" of hearings into a proposed Edmonton-Calgary power line.

On June 26, Privacy Commissioner Frank Work announced he would launch his own investigation to see if the AEUB's four private investigators contravened any of Alberta's privacy laws.

Because of their different approaches the two separate inquiries will complement each other, a spokesman for the Ombudsman says.

A third inquiry is now in doubt, however.

Last week, Premier Ed Stelmach announced Energy Minister Mel Knight would launch his own investigation into the affair using an outside and independent body as a means of rebuilding trust in the public body.

"Given the fact there are now two investigations ongoing, we must determine if another review of this matter is necessary," said Jason Chance, spokesman for the energy minister. "No decision has been made."

The Alberta ombudsman's office, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year as a complaint mechanism of last resort, has no authority but great moral clout, Button says.

"On the basis of my findings I make recommendations to the authority. Should I not be successful in having any recommendations implemented, the act allows me to table a report with the appropriate minister. If I am still not satisfied, the act allows me to table a report in the legislature and have the legislature take acton."

Button says he undertook this investigation on his own initiative. There was no complaint to him from any of the landowners or lawyers involved in power line disputes.

The landowners and their lawyers have complained that the investigators gained their trust by pretending to be one of them as they watched televised proceedings of an AEUB panel in Rimbey. The panel was meeting in a nearby courthouse but the public was barred from the proceedings because of disruptions at earlier hearings in Red Deer.

By passing himself off as just another concerned landowner, one of the AEUB's investigators eventually gained access to conference calls between dissident landowners and their lawyers.

Over the past year there had been complaints to the ombudsman about the AEUB's ongoing approval process for the proposed transmission line between Edmonton and Calgary. Because of those complaints the ombudsman began monitoring the AEUB's approval and review process.

Because the Alberta Court of Appeal recently decided it would look into these issues, the ombudsman's monitoring of the approval and review process has been terminated, said Glen Resler, Button's spokesman.

The AEUB welcomes Button's inquiry says the board's spokesman, Davis Sheremata.

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"When we first heard about the privacy commissioner's inquiry we said it was a good opportunity for someone fair and impartial and independent to determine if what we did to guarantee the safety of our staff and the public was right," said Davis Sheremata. "We will be fully co-operative in the ombudsman's investigation as well."

The co-ordinator of the Alberta Environmental Network's Electricity Transmission Coalition applauds the added involvement of Alberta's ombudsman.

"If there is one agency or one entity that has independence and the respect to do this, it is that office," said Brian Staszenski. "This is good news."

The AEUB's use of private investigators may soon become an issue in yet another venue. Landowners and their lawyers claim the AEUB contravened solicitor-client privilege when one of its investigators eavesdropped on their conversations.

They have threatened to use the alleged spying to convince the courts to restart AEUB deliberations on the Edmonton-to-Calgary transmission line under a broader and more open mandate.

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Spying by AEUB to be investigatedPremier Ed Stelmach reverses energy minister's position that using private detectives was OKArchie McLean and Jim Farrell, The Edmonton JournalPublished: Wednesday, July 04

EDMONTON -- The energy minister will oversee an investigation of the Alberta Energy and Utility Board's hiring of private investigators to spy on landowners opposed to a planned power line, Premier Ed Stelmach announced Tuesday.

Stelmach characterized the investigation as a means of rebuilding trust in the public body by getting to the truth. A representative of the landowners says it will be a whitewash.

"I just want to make sure we have all of the information and that once that information comes forward to the minister of energy and myself, we can communicate back to Albertans," Stelmach said during a news conference at the legislature.

"It's an issue that certainly bothered me and my caucus, but it's also bothered a lot of Albertans. We want to ensure that Albertans continue to have the trust and confidence because this board is very significant in the province of Alberta. It makes a lot of important decisions."

The move is a reversal from last week, when Energy Minister Mel Knight essentially declared the file closed after speaking with AEUB chairman Brad McManus. After a phone conversation with McManus, Knight characterized the board's hiring of private detectives as a reasonable means of ensuring AEUB staff and the general public would not become the targets of violent protestors.

Stelmach now says an investigation is vital if Albertans are to maintain their trust in the public body.

Revelations of the AEUB's spying prompted a public outcry, complaints to open-line radio hosts and a flurry of letters to the editor, plus a promise of legal action by the landowners and their lawyers. They claim investigators transgressed attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping on conversations.

Details of the investigation are being worked out, said Jason Chance, a

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spokesman for Alberta Energy, but it will be conducted by an independent body and the results will be made public.

"This will not be government and it will not be the AEUB," Chance said.

He could not offer a timeframe for the investigation, but said more details will be released soon.

The leader of a group of more than 700 landowners opposed to a proposed Edmonton-Calgary power line characterized Knight's upcoming investigation as bad theatre intended to rebuild the AEUB's tattered reputation.

"If this were a play, your producer would send you back to the drawing board because this comedy just doesn't sell," said Joe Anglin of the Lavesta Group.

Anglin was one of the landowners whose conversations were monitored in April and May by four private investigators as they watched deliberations of an AEUB panel on closed-circuit television in Rimbey. Those deliberations were taking place in a nearby courthouse. Because of physical confrontations at earlier hearings in Red Deer, the public was barred from what would normally be a public event.

By mixing in with landowners, one of the investigators gained access to conference calls between landowners and their lawyers as they discussed means of opposing various power lines, including plans for a legal strategy.

Those investigators worked for the AEUB, which is part of Knight's department, Anglin said.

"This is ludicrous," he said of the energy minister's forthcoming investigation. "Mel Knight is a party to the problem. To say he could investigate himself is beyond cynical."

Last week, privacy commissioner Frank Work announced he will conduct his own inquiry into the matter.

amclean@thejournal.canwest.com

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2007

EUB must be investigated now

By rick zemanek, red deer advocate

Jul 03 2007

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms steadfastly defends the rights of any citizen to a free voice without fear of the democratic process being eroded by any level of government.

Meddling, or censorship, that taints these sacred rules creates suspicion, dissension, and a cry to right things that may have gone wrong.

No government in Canada is above the charter.

Any allegations made by citizens of being ill-afforded the freedom of speech, or deprived of the charter’s rules by the government, demands full investigation.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board has come under the microscope of the province’s privacy commissioner after allegations the EUB, at the blessing of the provincial government, hired spies to eavesdrop on citizens fighting a highly-contentious 330-km power line proposed by the energy giant AltaLink.

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As is the usual course of any proposal involving the energy giants, the EUB must hold public hearings and listen to concerns about methane gas drilling, power line proposals, sour-gas well projects and anything else that would severely affect the health and well-being of Albertans who must co-exist with these massive, money-making ideas.

But the EUB, and the provincial government, was not anticipating a well-oiled protest by a number of landowner lawyers and the Lavesta Group, which represents about 800 people.

At the initial public hearings, things got ugly and threats were made. So the hearings were moved from Red Deer to Rimbey, behind closed doors.

Then the EUB was accused of violating the democratic process by employing private investigators to watch those challenging the power project.

The EUB claims it was justified to call in the spies for protection. The EUB expressed concerns for its safety. It locked the hearing doors, altered the hearing rules, and restricted input.

The lockout, and even the move, were clear violations of Canada’s democratic rules, and rules specifically laid down by the provincial government.

Later, it was alleged the EUB employed an investigator who worked undercover, befriended the opponents with fake objections to the power line, and even got a password from them to take part in a private forum on the Internet.

“It’s not something you would expect in a democratic society,” said affected landowner Jim Vetsch.

Alberta privacy commissioner Frank Work has an investigation into the allegations.

Did the EUB overstep its authority?

Did Premier Ed Stelmach put his foot in it by defending the hiring of secret agents?

Is the provincial government responsibly addressing proposals by energy giants?

“I don’t trust them.

“It’s like having the fox investigating the goings on in a henhouse,” said Joe Anglin, who leads a group opposed to the power project.

If the EUB was genuinely concerned about security at these hearings, why was the RCMP not called?

Stelmach says he wants to establish confidence in the EUB.

If so, he should cancel all EUB hearings, put a hold on the power project decision and any other business the EUB is engaged in, until the conclusion of the privacy commissioner’s investigation.

The EUB’s credibility hangs in the balance.

Rick Zemanek is an Advocate editor.

Letter to the Editor (on Bill 46)

Having just finished celebrating Canada Day I like to reflect on how patriotism exudes in most every town and city across Canada with flags, marching bands, and fireworks to celebrate our national birthday. Along with the fanfare politicians often make optimistic speeches enumerating our

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values of freedom, tolerance, generosity, courage and democracy. Aging veterans are always visible at these festivities as a reminder, lest we forget; the defense of our values commands a very high price.It’s the sacrifice of our veterans that most intrigues me, particularly the sacrifices of what has become known as the forgotten or greatest generation. Those are the veterans of World War II. For them, the threat to our values was clearly visible in the form of fascist governments in Europe and Japan. They met this threat and many paid the ultimate price to defend our democracy and way of life. In doing so, they forever deserve our infinite and everlasting gratitude.

Unfortunately, the very challenge to our democracy these veterans so nobly surmounted, may be contributing to a false sense of security and the misguided perception that until such a time as an equal or greater challenge surfaces, there is no threat to our democracy. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

On the last day of Alberta’s legislative sitting Bill 46 was introduced. Bill 46 is the Alberta Utilities Commission Act and it grants the commission the power to make orders and issue decisions without giving public notice or holding public hearings, the power to prevent landowners and consumers from making verbal representations, and the power to restrict the ability of landowners to hire outside legal counsel when intervening in regulatory hearings. If passed there is nothing to say the commission will exercise these powers, but the sheer fact that we would grant them these powers is unfathomable for a democratic society.

Today complacency and apathy are just as great a threat to our democracy as the fascist tyrants were of the 1930s and 1940s. The tyrannical threat to our democracy today is not an invading army; it is the misguided intentions of those in power, eroding of our rights one piece of paper at a time. If Bill 46 is allowed to pass as written, how many more pieces of paper will it take before we have no rights to protect?

Democracy requires sacrifices and it requires work. There is an old saying “Democracy is not what we have, it is what we do!” The questions Canadians and particularly Albertans need to ask themselves reflecting on this holiday are; “What am I doing to preserve democracy?” “What am I doing to participate in the democratic process?”

Joe Anglin

(403) 843-3279

Oral presentations over, EUB prepares ruling on power line

Photo by SCOTTY AITKIN/ freelance

Not exactly Canada Day fireworks, Jim Vetsch, right and supporters Greg and Gayle Troitsky demonstrate how stray energy from power lines can light up fluorescent tubes. The energy makes a show, but is not considered dangerous.

By PAUL COWLEYAdvocate staff

Jul 02 2007

After nearly seven weeks, dozens of cross-examinations and hundreds of pages of transcripts, a controversial Alberta Energy and Utilities Board power line hearing has wrapped up its oral portion.

Jim Vetsch, who farms about eight km west of Rimbey, has been a near-constant spectator at the hearing that began in the town’s provincial

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courthouse on May 14.

“I still feel the whole thing was a bit of a sham,” he said. The board’s decision to accept landowner arguments only in writing denied them due process, he said.

“I think the board is going to go ahead and just issue the licence and the permits.”

He has seen the hearing moved from Red Deer’s Westerner Park after a series of confrontations led the EUB to tighten security and move the hearing to Rimbey.

The Rimbey courthouse was locked to all but those directly involved in the day’s cross-examination. Other landowners watched via a live video feed to a huge screen in a nearby community centre.

There were a couple of peaceful protests in Rimbey as the hearing got underway.

The most dramatic revelation occurred two weeks ago when the EUB admitted using undercover private security to keep an eye out for signs of trouble at the hearings.

The province’s privacy commissioner is looking into whether private investigators eavesdropped on private conversations between landowners and their lawyers.

The EUB stands by its decision and says it welcomes the review.

“It’s not something you would expect in a democratic society,” said Vetsch.

A number of landowner lawyers and the Lavesta Area Group, which represents about 800 people, are considering legal action.

Meanwhile, a date has not yet been set for an Alberta Court of Appeal hearing on landowner appeals related to the 500-kilovolt power line project.

Vetsch hesitates when asked if it all the time he has spent at the hearings has been worth it.

“I wouldn’t say it was totally wasted,” but there was plenty else the grain farmer with 300 acres could have been doing during seeding season, he said.

The three-person panel still has much work to do. It will spend the next month sifting through written closing arguments and responses, answers to outstanding questions to the applicant and other administrative details before adjourning.

“That whole thing is expected to take a month or more.”

The board then has 90 days to issue a decision. The hearing was to consider whether to approve AltaLink’s application to build the 330-km power line from Genesee substation southwest of Edmonton to Langdon near Calgary.

EUB spokesman Davis Sheremata said the cost of the hearing has not yet been determined. Besides the cost of organizing and staffing the hearing, there will be legal bills for the EUB, AltaLink and landowners. Landowners can apply to have their legal bills covered and that decision will be made later.

“Just remember at the end of the day the applicant covers all the hearing costs,” said Sheremata.

Contact Paul Cowley at pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com

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Landowners want court to investigate AEUBJim Farrell, The Edmonton JournalPublished: Friday, June 29, 2007EDMONTON -- Irate landowners whose conference calls were monitored by a private investigator hired by the Alberta Energy Utilities Board may refuse to co-operate with the privacy commissioner as he investigates whether their privacy rights were violated.

They would prefer to have the courts and not the privacy commissioner deal with the matter, one of the landowners said Wednesday.

"It's just one government department investigating another government department, and from our experience they'll just end up saying there is no problem," said Marie Barkley.

Barkley inadvertently helped private investigator Don McDonald access a series of landowners' conference calls after McDonald passed himself off as someone upset about a proposed power line.After gaining Barkley's trust, McDonald sent her an e-mail dated May 23 in which he asked: "Is there another conference call scheduled and is it possible to join in?"

The following day, Barkley e-mailed McDonald to tell him she'd forwarded his request to an executive of the Alberta Environmental Network, the organization that set up the conference call network. Four days after that, Barkley forwarded an e-mail she'd received from that executive to McDonald to ensure he could participate in the calls.

Privacy commissioner Frank Work announced Tuesday he will investigate to see what kind of information the AEUB's investigators collected and what they did with it.

The AEUB maintains it launched its undercover investigation and barred members of the public from hearings in Rimbey because of disruptions at earlier meetings in Red Deer and fears of violence. The AEUB insists it wasn't gathering information on how landowners were organizing to oppose future power-line projects and what they planned to do in court.

Those landowners now plan to complain to the courts about an "egregious invasion of solicitor-client privilege."

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft called Wednesday for an expansion of the investigation. Taft said the privacy commissioner should look at all surveillance methods the AEUB may have used, including audio and videotape.

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2007

EUB Uproar

By PAUL COWLEYAdvocate staff

Jun 23 2007

Landowner groups were threatening legal action Friday and calling for the ouster of the entire Energy and Utilities Board over its admission undercover private security people kept tabs on power line hearing attendees.

“This is absurd,” said Don Bester, a director with the 1,200-strong Pine Lake Surface Rights Group.

“People have lost complete confidence in the EUB process.”

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Pine Lake’s 17-member board met Thursday and there was much anger. “People are really upset about this private investigator thing.”

The group has sent a letter to Energy Minister Mel Knight calling for the resignation of the EUB board, not just the three-person panel reviewing AltaLink’s application to build a 500-kilovolt power line from Genesee substation southwest of Edmonton to Langdon near Calgary. The Pine Lake group is calling for an audit to determine how many tax dollars were spent on the private security.

It also wants the Alberta Law Society to get involved because of allegations that private investigators violated attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping on conversations landowners were having with their lawyers at hearings taking place under tight security in Rimbey.

“It’s a complete breach of trust,” said Bester.

Lavesta Area Group, which represents about 800 landowners, is considering legal action against the EUB.

“We plan on pursuing this,” said Group vice-chairman Joe Anglin. “(The use of private investigators) undermines the whole process. This undermines the whole legitimacy of the EUB.”

Anglin said lawyers representing landowners have not decided how they will proceed yet. An upcoming Court of Appeal hearing may have a bearing on what happens next.

“The door’s wide open. There are lots of options.”

Landowners found out Friday that they were granted two more leaves to appeal by an Appeal Court justice, who heard their arguments in Calgary last week. Those appeals will be combined with an earlier one and all will be heard at a future date not yet determined.

EUB spokesman Davis Sheremata defended the use of private security. The EUB made its arrangements in Rimbey after staff were shoved and threatened during March hearings in Red Deer and steps were taken to ensure the safety of all those involved in the rescheduled hearing.

The use of plainclothes security was an “unprecedented decision based on unprecedented circumstances at an unprecedented hearing.”

Much of the criticism of the board’s actions has come from sources who have regularly taken issue with the board and its decisions, he said.

“We have not really been seeing criticisms about our security decisions from new quarters,” he said.

Sheremata answers with a flat “No” when asked if he thinks the controversy has hurt the board’s reputation.

The EUB handles thousands of applications a year and appears in about 15,000 news stories. “We’re used to scrutiny. We’re used to intense media coverage.

“From that perspective, I would say that this coverage we have received this week is not in any way a completely new experience.”

The hearing, which just wrapped up in its fifth week, will continue despite the flurry of legal activity in the background. It is not uncommon during complicated hearings, he said, for there to be a number of legal challenges that must be dealt with as a hearing proceeds.

Contact Paul Cowley at pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com

EUB spies

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Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007Violation - Re: "Minister to question EUB on spies," June 21.

As a directly involved landowner, I was attending the EUB hearings in Rimbey and spies of the EUB sat beside me.

They acted as though they were concerned landowners and gained my trust. This was a complete invasion of my privacy and I feel violated.

I shared my views, my knowledge, my hopes, my frustrations and information of my family. This is really bothering me. I no longer feel I can trust anyone at these hearings, especially the EUB.

Beate (Trixie) Lohmann,

Bluffton, Alta. © The Calgary Herald 2007

AEUB investigators to be investigated (10:15 a.m.)Privacy commissioner says privacy act may have been breached

Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007

EDMONTON - Alberta's information and privacy commissioner will investigate allegations that the Alberta Energy Utilities board hired private investigators to spy on landowners opposed to electrical lines on their property.

Commissioner Frank Work said today he look into what kind of information had been collected by the investigators who had been hired by the AEUB to monitor hearings in Rimbey into a proposed high voltage power line.

Last week, allegations were made that the private investigators may have collected, used and disclosed more information than they should have under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The commissioner will investigate those allegations and will work with the AEUB to determine what information was collected and how that information was used.

The AEUB admitted last week to hiring four private investigators to blend into a crowd of people watching ongoing hearings on a large screen TV set up in the Rimbey Recreation Centre, 145 km south of Edmonton.

Because of disruptions at earlier hearings in Red Deer, the AEUB had banned the public from attending hearings on a proposed Edmonton-Calgary power transmission line being held in a nearby courthouse.

As an additional measure, the AEUB hired private investigators to blend into the crowd and assess potential threats.

The investigators told landowners concerned about the proposed lines that they were also landowners.

One investigator who gained their trust subsequently joined in on conference calls. At least one call involved landowners and their lawyers discussing legal challenges to another power line that would export Alberta electricity to the United States.

An erosion of rightsThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007I want to thank all the reporters and columnists for their excellent

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coverage of the AEUB hearings related to the construction of the 500-kilovolt power line.

The media have revealed some very unsavoury and undemocratic actions by the powerful Alberta Energy and Utilities Board which seem to be at odds with the preservation of the human and legal rights of Alberta landowners.

You have done a marvellous job of airing these not-in-the-public's-interest actions by people whose mandate is to protect the public from unscrupulous and greedy corporations.

Thank you for showing us that freedom of the press is alive and well. Thank you also for reminding us that we still have the right to know the truth. These are very important rights, and we must all be careful not to lose them.Dorene A. Rew,

Red Deer © The Edmonton Journal 2007

What's next? Wiretaps?The Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007For 14 years, we watched the Klein government force their responsibilities onto the backs of Albertans, and allowed their corporate friends to fill their pockets at our expense.

We watched them pull the welcome mat out from under our seniors, putting many of them in a horrific financial mess. Even Ralph Klein's own father complained about the cost of living.

Now Ed Stelmach, the man who promised to fix the mess Klein created, is proving he's no different. After ignoring his own commission and 92 per cent of renters surveyed, he is literally forcing low-income seniors and families out of this province, and is now telling rural Albertans that he supports the use of private investigators to find out who is opposing the actions of the AEUB.

What's next? Stelmach-approved wiretaps?The big question is: will rural Albertans finally wake up and help the rest of us former Conservative supporters defeat this out-of-control government, or will they continue to whine and complain, and then re-elect the government like they have in the past?

Alan K. Spiller, St. Albert © The Edmonton Journal 2007

The fix is inThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007The circus that has been playing out with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hearings regarding the high-voltage power line from Edmonton to Calgary has brought the whole process to absurdity under the guise of justice.

With the news the AEUB is spying on landowners, the board has unofficially terminated its ability to pass any legal ruling.

Throw into this the endorsement of these tactics by Ed "No Brakes" Stelmach, and we are now convinced the whole process is compromised.

I attended the AEUB coalbed methane hearings in Torrington last year. I read the board's written report and I know how selective it can be with its evidence for pre-desired outcomes. The government-corporate energy complex always wins against citizens who get in the way of "progress."Kevin Niemi, Trochu © The Edmonton Journal 2007

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Spies among usThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007The Journal's articles on the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board's spying on landowners who are opposed to a proposed 500-kilovolt power line from Edmonton to Calgary have sparked great interest in Alberta, making it even more crucial that the truth be known.

Thee board's tactics are underhanded and very much reflect the whole hearing process.

AEUB spies were placed among us to gather information. These men sat with us and had a clear view of our legal counsel's computers. They questioned us about our tactical plans and listened to private conversations.

The board members, who claimed to be at risk, had already secluded themselves in the courthouse with armed security.Why, then, did they need spies in the community centre, where the AEUB proceedings were being broadcast? Security should be visible to the public, especially when safety is an issue.

I smell a rat, or is it simply a mouse hired by the AEUB to gather crumbs?

My 16-year-old daughter remembers something about spies and Watergate and its consequences.

I wonder, when Ed Stelmach condones this procedure by the AEUB, if he remembers the outcome of Watergate?

Thomas Lee, Rimbey © The Edmonton Journal 2007

'This smells like Putin's Russia'The Edmonton JournalPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007Re: It's pretty bad when even an MLA is barred from AEUB hearings," by Sheila Pratt, The Journal, June 24.

By hiring private investigators to spy on farmers and not allowing New Democrat MLA David Eggen to attend a public hearing on a proposed power line, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board has confirmed the suspicions of many Albertans that it, like the Tories that created it, is in the pocket of the energy corporations.

To top it off, our premier sees nothing wrong with what the AEUB has done.

This smells a little like Putin's Russia.Steve Shamchuk Sr., Edmonton © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Stalinesque spiesCalgary HeraldPublished: Monday, June 25, 2007EUB - Re: "Minister to question EUB on spies," June 21.

The Energy Utility Board is appointed by the government to hear and consider opposing interests as a neutral body, to assess impartially and to decide justly.

When they hired spies to sneak underhandedly on the people, they failed all the principles: they are not neutral, impartial or just.

History gives us examples of governments that spied on their people: Stalin, and Hitler. Thank goodness the cases are rare.

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When (Premier Ed) Stelmach says he supports the EUB's decision to spy on the people, where the spies misrepresented themselves as landowners, and sat in on conference calls with lawyers, it frightens me. Is our premier joining the rare cases of history?

Or is he going to tell us the spies were there, lying and misrepresenting themselves, to help the people?

Mr. Stelmach, find some courage, sack the EUB and start over again.

Prove to us that you will defend the people who are the voters and ultimate judges of this government.

Richard Trombinski,

Calgary © The Calgary Herald 2007

Stelmach's praise of AEUB tactics shows where his allegiances lieThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Monday, June 25, 2007Re: "AEUB credibility on the line, minister says: Premier defends regulatory agency spying on landowners monitoring power line route," The Journal, June 21.

Growing up during the Cold War, I heard about how evil communists had children informing on parents who did not toe the party line. How awful, I thought. About the same time, I read George Orwell's 1984, which describes a fictional world where thought police and Big Brother watched your every move. I hoped that would never happen.

Now, Premier Ed Stelmach says he has no problem with private investigators fraudulently infiltrating a citizens group to monitor political dissidents.

The premier claims that the spies were there to insure no harm came to Alberta Energy and Utility Board members.

If there was a real threat, why weren't the police called?

I suspect the premier feared that this sort of dissent might interfere with the board's usual rubber-stamp policy. Having the police crush political dissent would look bad, but if some "investigators" posed as landowners, maybe they could influence these misguided souls.

Perhaps these people have reason to be angry. They are ordinary Albertans who will live next to a 500-kilovolt transmission line if this is approved. Why?

The Alberta Electric System Operator Need Application filed with the AEUB May 7, 2004 mentions "access to the electricity markets in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the U.S. Midwest."

It seems that these people will be displaced so a private, international corporation can export polluting, coal-generated power. At least the premier has finally revealed who he represents.

Terry Donovan,

Lac La Biche © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Probe neededCalgary HeraldPublished: Monday, June 25, 2007Scandal - The premier defending government use of private spies is only a symptom of much more serious problems in our dysfunctional Conservative and Liberal governments, and their numerous departments.

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Corrupted public officials who aren't working for the public nor in the public interest are naturally going to be paranoid of the public.

If EUB officials, and government representatives are too scared to hold free, fair, and open public hearings, but feel the need to spy on the public instead, things have gone seriously wrong and they need to be replaced.

Maybe the police need to be called in to investigate all sides, government, regulators, landowners, and corporate applicants before this situation gets any more out of hand.

Atul Jain,

Calgary © The Calgary Herald 2007

What really happenedThe Edmonton JournalPublished: Monday, June 25, 2007I was at the hearing, in the front row, when the so-called violence took place. I witnessed an ill and elderly couple, in or near their 80s and facing a third transmission line on their property, being harassed by AEUB staff.

In response, the wife tried to slap the AEUB lawyer, who then pushed her. Her husband desperately tried to get to his wife, but AEUB staff physically prevented him from doing so.

I held my breath in shock. This cannot be happening, I thought. This woman has cancer and the AEUB knows this.

Finally the elderly gentleman pushed through and reached his wife. He gently wrapped his arms around her and drew her away. Still, AEUB staff tried to interfere with the couple.

It was horrid watching an AEUB lawyer push a senior. It was worse to hear the AEUB's distorted reports about what happened, and use the incident to keep the public out of a "public" hearing.

For the AEUB to be using their distorted truth as justification to spy on Albertans is outrageous.

Jessica Ernst,

Rosebud © The Edmonton Journal 2007

PRESS RELEASE

Today the Appeals Court of Alberta again granted “Leave to Appeal” against the Alberta Energy Utilities Board’s (EUB) and in doing so added to the court’s Decision of June 8, 2007

The court’s decision combines numerous grievances associated with two separate EUB hearings into one appeal. The Lavesta Area Group is please with Justice O’Brien’s decision to combine the appeal from the Red Deer hearings last August with the leave to appeal granted today.

Combining the appeals is in the best interest of the court and it more accommodating for the landowners opposed to the transmission lines. No date has been set for the appeal; however the EUB is continuing the current hearings in Rimbey under a storm cloud of controversy because they admitted to hiring private investigators to monitor landowners and lawyers opposed to the transmission line.

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Landowners intend to bring legal action against the EUB for spying on them and intruding in on solicitor client privilege. The decision today will dictate the strategy landowners will employ in their pursuit of legal action against the EUB.

For more information call Joe Anglin (403) 843-3279

AEUB credibility on the line, minister saysPremier defends regulatory agency spying on landowners monitoring power line route

Jim Farrell and Jason Markusoff The Edmonton Journal

Thursday, June 21, 2007

SHERWOOD PARK - As controversy continued to swirl around the Alberta Energy and Utility Board's use of private investigators to spy on potential dissidents, the province's energy minister said Wednesday the board will have to answer some questions.

<>"I will take the opportunity to discuss the situation with the board," Mel Knight said. "It is imperative that Albertans see the AEUB and the regulatory process as neutral."We won't let this lie around too long," said Knight.

But Premier Ed Stelmach defended the energy regulator's decision to hire the investigators.

The AEUB admitted this week to hiring four private investigators to blend into a crowd of people watching ongoing hearings on a large screen TV set up in the Rimbey Recreation Centre, 145 km south of Edmonton.

Because of disruptions at earlier hearings in Red Deer, the AEUB had banned the public from attending hearings on a proposed Edmonton-Calgary power transmission line being held in a nearby courthouse.

As an additional measure, the AEUB hired private investigators to blend into the crowd and assess potential threats.

The investigators told landowners concerned about the proposed lines that they were also landowners.

One investigator who gained their trust subsequently joined in on conference calls. At least one call involved landowners and their lawyers discussing legal challenges to another power line that would export Alberta electricity to the United States.

"We are going to do something," said Donald Bur, a lawyer who was involved in one of the conference calls monitored by private investigator Donald MacDonald.

That could involve a court challenge. The eavesdropping incident brings into disrepute the neutrality of the AEUB hearings and brings the AEUB itself into disrepute, Bur said.

"We are in the process of preparing a response now. There are a number of lawyers and clients who are extremely angry and disappointed about this process. This is simply is the wrong thing for the AEUB to have done."

Two other organizations with interests in the Rimbey hearings say they have never resorted to similar measures.

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"We do not rely on the use of private investigators," said Leigh Clarke, a senior vice president for AltaLink, the company that would build the proposed power line.

"We wouldn't do it either," said Ally Sutherland, a spokeswoman for the Alberta Electrical System Operator. The agency oversees Alberta's power grid.

Premier Ed Stelmach defended the AEUB's decision to hire private investigators to infiltrate the group of frustrated landowners.

As the NDP called for the government to sack the AEUB officials responsible for the "spying outrage," Stelmach said the investigators weren't snooping.

He reiterated the AEUB's statement that investigators were needed to gauge the potential of the landowners getting violent, and noted the apparent threats.

"Whether real or not, there was some people to insure there wasn't any harm done to the members of the AEUB," the premier told reporters after a Sherwood Park luncheon speech.

The proposed 500,000-volt power line would snake west of QE II Highway between Calgary and Edmonton.The AEUB has justified the hiring by pointing out that a Red Deer public hearing in April was marred by yelling and physical confrontations.

However, an AEUB official said it wasn't in the investigators' mandate for one of them to pass himself off as an aggrieved landowner.

David Eggen, the NDP energy critic, said the impartiality of the regulator has been tainted by the investigators, and Energy Minister Knight should fire the AEUB employees responsible for the decision to use undercover agents.

"Nothing less than the legitimacy of government is at stake here," Eggen said. "Ordinary people bringing their objections and concerns to the AEUB shouldn't be treated like terrorists."

Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald called for the whole regulatory process on the transmission line to be restarted. He asked how much taxpayers' money was spent on hiring the private investigators.

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com

jmarkusoff@thejournal.canwest.co © The Edmonton Journal 2007

__________________________________

EUB fails integrity test by spying on residents

Paula Simons The Edmonton Journal

Thursday, June 21, 2007

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When the story started oozing out, it sounded almost too paranoid to be true.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, an arm of the Alberta government, has been hiring private investigators to monitor farmers and acreage-dwellers from central Alberta.

We're not talking about eco-terrorists or radical political dissidents. We're talking about a bunch of severely normal, Martha-and-Henry, Conservative-voting farmers from Rimbey who believe the EUB hearing process is stacked against them.

The landowners oppose an application by AltaLink to build a new 500,000-volt transmission line from Wabamun to Calgary across their properties.

Tempers have been running so high, the EUB has actually banned members of the public, including affected property owners and opposition MLAs, from attending the "public hearings" in person.

Instead, they have to watch the proceedings from a separate building on closed-circuit TV. Not satisfied with that security measure, the EUB went one step further and hired private undercover agents to infiltrate those meetings.

The EUB says its agents were only supposed to monitor those watching the hearings, to watch for signs of violence.

But the farmers and their lawyers allege the private investigators also insinuated themselves into private solicitor-client conversations.

Activists also allege that one of the EUB's agents, Don MacDonald, infiltrated the Alberta Environmental Network by posing as a concerned environmentalist.

Under that guise, they claim, MacDonald took part in conference calls in which the landowners and their lawyers discussed legal strategy.

For the record, the EUB denies hiring MacDonald to spy on the Alberta Environmental Network, suggesting MacDonald was acting for some other, unnamed client. (And for the record again, AltaLink insists it did not hire any PIs, including MacDonald.)

You know what? In a free and democratic society, the state does not normally hire private detectives to spy on citizens. If the EUB was sincerely worried about threats of violence, it could have called independent officers from the RCMP to investigate -- officers who wouldn't have been in the pay of the EUB, officers who would have had to worry about things like search warrants and probable cause and the Charter of Rights.

That's what makes the EUB's actions so disturbing. The board tried to do an end-run around civil liberties by contracting out surveillance work to a private company. For a quasi-judicial body to behave in the way that's alleged, in the midst of a hearing, is reprehensible.

We do have a right to dissent in this province. We also have a right to privacy and to freedom of association. Since 9/11, North America has seen a steady, troubling erosion of our basic democratic liberties in the name of public safety and security. But the EUB wasn't infiltrating an al-Qaida sleeper cell. Its secret agents were monitoring farmers and environmentalists with no history of political violence beyond some pushing and shoving at a heated meeting.

There is, however, another problem here. Our province's power grid is woefully inadequate for our current and future power needs. We need more

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transmission capacity, not just to serve Red Deer, Calgary and southern Alberta, but to handle all the proposed upgrader development to the east of Edmonton. Our current grid can't keep pace with our growing province's growing demand. And our old transmission lines are highly inefficient, bleeding off millions of dollars worth of power. We need new lines, both to guarantee reliable service and to ensure we don't squander the electricity we produce.

Those big high-voltage towers aren't pretty. I wouldn't want one running through my yard. Yet they're a necessary evil. Few among us, rural or urban, are willing to live without electricity.

With that in mind, we have to be willing to pay fair compensation to the landowners who get stuck with this infrastructure in their fields.

We also have to ensure that those who oppose a particular route or compensation plan get a fair hearing from the EUB. The board not only has to be impartial. It must be perceived as impartial if it is to have any credibility.

Many rural Albertans have lost confidence in independence of the board, which they perceive as the stooge of the energy industry. Those farmers aren't just angry about one proposed power line. They're acting out of years of frustration, years of feeling that their property rights count for nothing, that no one in government is looking out for Alberta's long-term environmental interests.

The last thing we want is to create a situation in which rural landowners get so frustrated that they do lash out with violence. But through its actions, the EUB has actually fostered the sort of toxic atmosphere where paranoia and conspiracy theories flourish.

Our energy regulators must act, and appear to act, with scrupulous integrity. The EUB has failed that test. Albertans deserve to know why and how this happened -- and who, if anyone, will be held accountable.

psimons@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Detective sat in on conference calls, landowners chargeP.I.'s spied on critics of power-line plans

Jim Farrell The Edmonton Journal

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

RIMBEY - A private investigator hired by the Alberta Energy Utilities Board posed as an aggrieved landowner to participate in conference calls of groups opposed to major power-line projects in Alberta and Montana, angry landowners and environmentalists said Tuesday.

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Private investigator Don MacDonald of Fort Saskatchewan joined conference calls organized by the Alberta Environmental Network.

The group included landowners and their lawyers opposed to major projects, including a proposed Edmonton-to-Calgary line and another that could allow Alberta to export power to the U.S.

The first of those is the subject of a utilities board hearing underway in Rimbey.

The board said MacDonald and three other private investigators were hired only to monitor Rimbey-area landowners to see if they might become violent.

One owner produced a series of e-mails showing MacDonald was on a distribution list of landowners and environmentalists on both sides of the border.

In one e-mail, dated May 28, longtime environmental activist Brian Staszenski, believing MacDonald was a landowner, told him about an upcoming conference call between owners and Toronto lawyer Donald Bur. An upcoming challenge in the Alberta Court of Appeal to the hearings in Rimbey was discussed in that call.

MacDonald had already participated in at least one previous conference call, said Joe Anglin of Rimbey, who heads a group of 700 landowners opposed to the proposed 500,000-volt power transmission line.

MacDonald declined comment Tuesday.

Al Palmer, executive manager of corporate services for the utilities board, said if the allegations are true, MacDonald exceeded his mandate. Palmer said MacDonald never gave the board any information from the landowners.

MacDonald and three other private investigators were hired only to monitor people who gathered daily in the Rimbey recreation centre to watch a hearing on closed-circuit TV.

"The private investigators only reported to us about the potential for violence," Palmer said. "Because they reported there was none, we let them go."

The landowners and their lawyers have accused the private investigators of eavesdropping on their conversations, in violation of solicitor-client privilege.

The landowners are angry because the board has ruled the Rimbey hearings will be limited to learning whether the proposed power line down the west side of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway would meet the future power needs of industry and residents in the Calgary area. Local landowners say the board has refused to listen to any objections to the line, environmental or otherwise.

In mid-April, a board hearing in Red Deer was disrupted by yelling and physical confrontations, which led to the public being barred from the Rimbey hearings. The public must instead watch the hearings on closed-circuit TV.

Despite those arrangements and uniformed security in the nearby courthouse, the board hired private investigators to monitor the landowners' gatherings in the Rimbey rec centre for signs of potential violence.

When told that the investigators had passed themselves off as landowners, Palmer said that wasn't their mandate.

"We would not approve of that," Palmer said. "They were only told to sit in

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the crowd."

Palmer says he wasn't told about MacDonald's participation in the conference calls. "He did that on his own."

Anglin, the head of the landowners' group, said he is becoming increasingly paranoid about what he believes may be government and industry spying. "There's something much deeper going on," he said.

That's possible, Palmer admitted, but the utilities board would not be involved.

"(Don MacDonald) is with a company that works for multiple companies," he said.

Marie Barkley of Carstairs first introduced MacDonald to other people attending the televised hearings. She was sitting in the Rimbey rec centre TV room and watching the proceedings when MacDonald came over to chat.

"He said he was worried about a power line they wanted to build in Fort Saskatchewan," Barkley said. "I hadn't heard about it so I took him over and introduced him to Brian Staszenski."

That introduction led to MacDonald getting a password that would allow him to join in conference calls. On May 28, MacDonald wrote to various people involved in those calls to thank them for including him. He also thanked them for telling him the Canadian president of Greenpeace was coming to the area for a training program.

That training program involved teaching people opposed to oilsands development how to protest peacefully. MacDonald indicated he would attend that training camp, but never showed up, Staszenski said.

Edmonton MLA David Eggen, environmental critic for the NDP, was also barred from the hearing and had to watch it on TV.

"It's a culture of intimidation," Eggen said. "For an MLA to be barred from the hearing speaks volumes about these proceedings."

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com © The Edmonton Journal 2007

Power line hearings 'tainted'Landowners group says spying episode puts energy board's neutrality into question

Jim Farrell, With files from Heather Schultz, The Edmonton Journal

Published: Tuesday, June 19, 2007

EDMONTON - A Rimbey-area landowner says his privacy was invaded anddiscussions with his lawyer were compromised by the Alberta Energy UtilitiesBoard, which admitted Monday it hired private detectives to spy on his groupas they watched proceedings of an AEUB panel on closed-circuit television.

Joe Anglin, leader of the Lavesta Group of more than 700 central Albertalandowners, was further enraged when an AEUB panel refused his lawyer'smotion to call the private detectives before the panel to explain whatinformation they passed on.

Anglin and 11 lawyers, who represent various landowners, would like to findout whether that information included conversations overheard between thelawyers and their clients.

"The entire process has been tainted by private investigators who haveegregiously invaded solicitor-client privilege," said Anglin.

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The dispute between the landowners and the AEUB began months ago whenAlberta Electric System Operator, a grid planning and management agency,sought permission to build a 500,000-volt power transmission line betweenEdmonton and Calgary on the west side of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway.

The AEUB agreed in principle two years ago to construction of the line.Before that can happen, the AEUB panel must grant final approval of the lineand the route.

Anglin and lawyers who represent various landowners opposed to the linethink the panel has now made clear it can no longer be considered a neutralregulatory body. If it were, they said, it would accept a landowners' motionto have the private detectives testify before the panel about what theyheard while surreptitiously attending gatherings at the Rimbey recreationcentre, where proceedings of the panel were shown on a large-screen TV.Because its neutrality is now in question, the panel must recuse itselfwhile the Alberta Court of Appeal hears the Lavesta Group's case foroverturning the AEUB's preliminary decision in favour of the line, Anglinsaid.

For months, the proposal to build the power line has angered landowners andtownspeople along the route. That anger became evident during a recentseries of public hearings.

In April, the panel restricted public participation at its hearings after anelderly woman allegedly "took a swing" at a lawyer, an incident captured bycamera crews and broadcast on Red Deer television.

That altercation occurred after the meeting broke down in chaos, with iratelandowners yelling at the panel and the panel chairman turning off amicrophone that allowed them to pose questions.

The panel became more concerned when landowner Edwin Erickson issued what hetermed a "press release."

Erickson warned of what might happen if the panel continued to deny motionsmade by landowners.

"Yet another denial will very likely ignite even more serious opposition bygrowing groups from various facets of the citizenry demanding theirdemo-cratic right, leading to the probability of more volatile actions bothin and outside the EUB chambers," said Erickson, who is not a member of theLavesta Group.

Reached by phone Monday, Erickson spelled out what he meant by "volatileactions."

"I think there could be violence," he said.

That justifies the AEUB's security department using private investigators togo undercover and gauge the potential for violence, said AEUB spokesmanDavis Sheremata.

"As everyone is aware, events which transpired in earlier stages in thisproceeding led to serious concerns in regard to the safety of allparticipants in the process," Sheremata said.

Anglin thinks private investigators hired by the board may have been doingmore than just security work. He thinks they may have eavesdropped onconversations between property owners and their lawyers, then fed thatinformation to the panel.

Sheremata said that didn't happen. "Their duty was to observe theproceedings and ensure the safety of all participants should the needarise," he said.

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The AEUB's security office only told the panel that it had hired fourprivate detectives after Anglin confronted a suspicious-looking man in therecreation centre, Sheremata said. Under provincial regulations that governthe use of private detectives, that agent did as he was supposed to andadmitted he was a private detective with Flash DMC Consulting Inc. ofEdmonton.

Sheremata said no information of a privileged or confidential nature wasprovided to the panel by the detectives. If that's true, they should appearat the hearing to be questioned, said the president of the Alberta CivilLiberties Association, Calgary lawyer Stephen Jenuth.

"It brings into question the whole impartiality of the board," said Jenuth."The board should come clean and be cross-examined with respect to that."

Opposition MLAs agree the AEUB has lost credibility during the fractioushearings into the new power line.

"It's chilling," said Liberal energy critic Hugh MacDonald. "And the (board)states in their mandate that they want to do things in a fair, responsiblemanner in the public interest? It's quite evident that there now has to bemore members of the public on the Energy and Utilities Board. It's stackedin favour of industry right now."

The AEUB damaged its reputation and its credibility by using privatedetectives, said NDP environment critic David Eggen.

"The (board) is jeopardizing their integrity like never before," Eggen said."It's outrageous. There's been a lack of due process and transparency andhonesty with this whole process."

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com

(c) The Edmonton Journal 2007

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=4ae58e84-665e-4da5-897c-c8ce48308e4e

[comment by jess: the EUB tried to intimidate me into silence (I notified concerned citizens about catching the board trying to increase allowable industry noise instead of regulating encana operating in direct contravention of noise requirements) and banished me in writing using the excuse that i was a threat to safety of EUB staff and the public. it appears that the eub has made a habit of using safety concerns to escape accountabiltiy when the board is caught with its pants down]

PRESS RELEASE

Monday morning June 18, 2007 the public was completely shut out of the public hearing in Rimbey. The video and audio links were shut off as five Lawyers for the landowners demanded access to the court house to register their concerns that the entire process has been tainted by private investigators who have egregiously invaded solicitor-client privilege.

Lawyers this morning want the Alberta Energy Utilities Board (EUB) to disclose the extent of the EUB’s involvement, or not, directly or indirectly, and either ADMIT OR DENY association or involvement with the hiring of private investigators.

The Board ruled this morning the issues are irrelevant to the proceedings underway. After ruling however, the board did state that the head office in Calgary did indeed hire the private investigators and stated it did not

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receive privilege information. The lawyers (all) representing the landowners then filed their objections and asked the Board to recuse itself.

Joe Anglin

(403) 843-3279

PRESS RELEASE

Monday morning June 18, 2007 at 9am five lawyers representing approximately fifteen lawyers will try to gain entry to Alberta Energy Utilities Board hearing in Rimbey, AB to register their objections and demand the EUB conduct a full and complete inquiry of private investigators that may have trespassed into the sanctuary of solicitor client privilege.

Lawyers representing hundreds of landowners opposed to AltaLink’s 500 KV export transmission line, are furious that private investigators were observed on several occasions intruding into solicitor and client discussions relating to the proceedings underway, and have presented conduct consistent with attempts to monitor communications and strategy discussed between legal counsel and their clients.

The hearing underway in Rimbey is closed to the public and access is restricted only to counsel in the active cross-examination of the AltaLink panel presenting evidence. All other counsels are banned from the court house and must watch the proceedings with the public in the Rimbey Recreation Center, behind the court house. AltaLink has denied any association with private investigators, however the EUB has not!

Joe Anglin

Lavesta Area Group Vice-Chair

(403) 843-3279

PRESS RELEASE

Private Investigators hired to collect information on landowners in an EUB hearing process was brought to the attention of the Alberta Energy Utilities Board (EUB) today in the form of a motion. The motion to the Board is a request that the EUB Board Panel summon certain individuals who have been identified as Private Investigators, for cross-examination to ascertain parameters of their employment.

AltaLink Management is applying to the EUB to construct a 500 KV export transmission line. In the application process or hearing underway in Rimbey landowners identified four individuals who have on several occasions intruded into solicitor and client discussions relating to the proceedings, and have presented conduct consistent with attempts to monitor communications and strategies discussed between legal counsel and their clients. One individual was confronted and admitted he was indeed a private investigator but refused to identify who hired him and for what purpose he was collecting information.

Under cross-examination AltaLink Management denied culpability or any association with the private investigators, however when asked, the EUB panel and staff maintained that they needed more information before they could reply or comment.

Lawyers representing landowners are concerned that the investigators

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collected information subject to client solicitor privileges and as such are extremely troubled of the possibility the EUB hired the investigators and compromised the entire hearing process by engaging in its own secretive investigation.

When the issue was raised in the Rimbey court house on Monday, the EUB Board panel directed counsel concerned about the private investigators to file a motion rather than summarily address the issue before proceeding.

For more information please contactJoe Anglin

Lavesta Area Vice Chair

<>(403) 843-3279

Is Canada the latest emerging petro-tyranny?

ANDREW NIKIFORUKMonday, June 11, 2007

Every day, the First Law of Petropolitics quietly insinuates its way into the nation's political blood like a rogue parasite. The law, first coined by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, posits that the price of oil and the quality of freedom invariably travel in opposite directions.

As the price of crude oil goes higher in an oil-dominated kingdom, the average citizen will experience, over time, less free speech, fewer free papers and a steady erosion of the rule of law. The reason, argues Mr. Friedman, is simple: Oil and gas regimes don't need to tax their citizens to survive because they can simply tax another tar sands project, so they really don't have to listen to their people either.

According to Mr. Friedman, the First Law astutely explains the emerging petro-tyrannies of Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria and Russia. But should Alberta and Canada be added to the list?

By any conservative definition Alberta is already a poster child for the First Law. The government now derives approximately 40 per cent of its income from oil and gas revenue and has been ruled as a one-party state for 36 years. It's no accident that Kevin Taft, the leader of Alberta's fledging Liberal Party, has just written a book about Canada's oil-soaked kingdom called Democracy Derailed. The derailing has seemingly erased distinctions between business and civic affairs. Within six months of quitting his job as Alberta's No. 1 honcho, Ralph Klein (a.k.a. King Ralph) became a paid, senior business adviser in the oil patch for Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Meanwhile, his former chief of staff, Peter Elzinga, leapt from the employ of oil-sands giant Suncor only to serve as the executive director of Alberta's Conservative Party months later.

Given their one-sidedness, oil regimes fear transparency. This explains why Alberta operates one of the most secretive governments in Canada. Just last year Alberta's Conservative government made it legal for its petro-tyrants to lock away internal audits for 15 years and for government ministers to keep their briefing binders out of public view for five years.

Making propaganda is also one of oil's many antidemocratic characteristics. The Alberta government currently spends $14-million a year and employs 117 full-time staff in its Public Affairs Bureau to tell Albertans what to think. Not even President George W. Bush employs a propaganda arm this large in the White House.

The tone of government has also become increasingly authoritarian. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, for instance, declares that he can't even touch "the

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brakes" on rapid development in the tar sands any more than his counterparts in Venezuela or Russia can, say, touch the brakes on aggressive nationalization. Alberta has also sacrificed the rule of law. It seems whenever open public debate threatens to challenge another government-sanctioned energy project, the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), a de facto rubber stamp for disorderly development, shuts down public participation citing "security" reasons. You never know what a disenfranchised 80-year-old citizen might say before regulators beholden to hydrocarbons.

Elected bodies no longer pull much weight in Alberta either. Three times last year the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, a democratically elected body representing the hardworking citizens of Fort McMurray, presented compelling arguments for a slowdown of tar sands development in order to preserve some sense of community. The EUB, an appointed body, overruled the democrats every time with the same authoritarian lan championed by Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile the democratic gap between rulers and ruled grows wider every day. Polls show that Albertans overwhelming favour absolute reductions for carbon emissions, yet their government champions calculated inaction. Rural Albertans have asked for tough groundwater protection but get more oil and gas drilling in their backyards instead.

Exercising freedom of expression in Alberta can be risky too. When David Swann, the medical officer of health for the Palliser Health Authority, endorsed the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, for medical reasons no less, he got fired with a Venezuelan-like promptness. When Dr. John O'Connor, asked for a proper health study for first nations living downstream from the oil sands, Health Canada and Alberta Health, complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons that he was "agitating the local population."

Alberta's politics mirror a global phenomenon. In a recent study of 105 oil-rich states between 1971 and 1997, political scientist Michael Ross consistently found that reliance on oil exports made a country less democratic regardless of its size, location or ideology. Oil corrupts and corrupts absolutely. Given that Canada is now ruled by Albertans and claims to be an "emerging energy superpower" as well as a "secure source of almost limitless energy resources" for North America, can Canada defy the axiom of our age?

Politicians serve those first who deliver the most revenue.

ANDREW NIKIFORUK

Today the Alberta Court of Appeal granted the Lavesta Area Group “Leave to Appeal” on seven points against the Alberta Energy Utilities Board’s (EUB) decision to approve the construction of 500KV export transmission line through central Alberta.

Leave to appeal is a first step for the Lavesta Area Group in a long uphill battle, to compel the EUB and the electric utility industry to respect the rights of landowners and to hold them accountable to the public’s right to a fair and public process.

Throughout the EUB process that approve the a 500 KV export transmission line, Lavesta Area Group members maintain the rights of all Alberta’s citizens has been denied and ignored by the very same people claiming to protect the rights of citizens.

We say that landowners and citizens of Alberta have not been the recipients of fair and due process of law from the EUB. Having our case heard by the Alberta Court of Appeal has restored our faith that a judicial process can afford people both respect and dignity in respecting the rights of average citizens. Landowners have a good legal argument to make and all we have

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asked for is a venue to make our case. The Alberta Court of Appeal has boosted our confidence that the judicial process works and we will receive a fair hearing; we will abide by their decision.

For more information call Joe Anglin (403) 843-3279