Alberta Election Weblogs

We have added new links to the election weblogs heading. Have a look at them over there on the right. The first one, Alberta Votes 2004, is put up by the CBC and has a basic voters toolkit, leader's schedules and much more. It is very well done. The other sites are weblogs of opinion with content all over the political map. They are:

Ralph's World
No More Corruption
Time to De-Klein
Ralph Watch.

If you find more that you want us to add to the list, please pass them along.

As most of you are aware, Premier Klein's mother is gravely ill. Family matters of life and death touch all of us and are completely apart from the political fray. We extend our sincere sympathies to the Klein family.

Let's Reign in those Cheaters

Yesterday Premier Klein related the story about two women on the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program who were "yipping" at him recently about boosting AISH payments. He said "they didn't look severely handicapped to me." He then went on to say that his government would cut off people on AISH who were abusing the system.

We agree. Those who cheat the government should be cut off because it is our tax dollars that are been stolen. We have received many comments about AISH but mostly about how the payments made to AISH recipients, $850 a month, is not enough to live on. We didn't get any comments about people abusing the system but that's not to say it doesn't happen. We decided to see if Fred Dunn, Alberta's Auditor General, had detected any abuses. We got out our copy of the Annual Report of the Auditor General of Alberta - 2004 and checked. Here is what we came up with.

First. Mr Dunn reported nothing about anyone cheating on AISH.

However, Mr. Dunn did find a number of related contracting issues. From Page 7 of his report.


Persons with Developmental Disabilities Community Boards:
contracting
In 2003-2004, the PDD Boards paid $342 million to provide services to adults with developmental disabilities. Although there are approximately 900 service providers, 100 service providers receive 90% of the funding from the Boards.

At the request of management, we performed a forensic audit on the contracting practices of two service providers that led to the recommendation that the PDD Boards audit those service providers with a high risk of breaching their contracts. One Board is currently trying to recover $3.38 million from a service provider.

On Page 107, relating to this service provider, it was found quote: the level and quality of supervision (of clients) appeared inadequate and in many cases less than contracted for, the quality of care in some instances was sub-standard and approximately $48,000 per month was being diverted by the service provider for an undetermined purpose. The report goes on to say on Page 111 that the government should require service providers to give adequate financial reporting and that the government should also figure out a way to see if the service providers are delivering what they say they are. Martha and Henry think this might be a good idea too.

It appears to us, and perhaps to Mr. Dunn, that the serious cheaters may be a few of those companies that provide services to the handicapped; - more so than the recipient of those services themselves.

Premier Klein. Could you please answer these questions before Election day.

1. Given that there are limited funds to catch cheaters, which cheaters do you believe it is more important to catch: - AISH recipients who are receiving $850 a month of taxpayer dollars or AISH providers who might be siphoning off $48,000 of our money a month.
2. Could you please tell us the magnitude of financial contributions your party received from companies that provide services administered by the Persons with Developmental Disabilities Board.

We look forward to your timely reply.

Seniors' Groups want Independent Seniors' Advocate

Oh Dear! We are receiving more questions than we anticipated. We will have to combine a number of them on the same topic into one larger question. We didn't want have our political parties answering more than three or four questions a week.

Our first question is from a number of Seniors' groups. Here's what they sent us.

Dear Martha and Henry,

Following is a question of all the Provincial political leaders asked as a part of the beloved and cherished democratic process we have struggled over the years to establish in our country and province; - i.e., the electoral process. My hope is that all the Provincial political leaders will respond because they value and honour that process.

A "Circle of Chairs" of Alberta seniors' advocacy groups has developed a paper asking that the Province establish an Independent Seniors Advocate (ISA) to be of assistance to seniors in Alberta who are in distress, whatever the nature of that distress. The essence of the paper is as follows:

This paper states that there are at least nineteen Provincial Departments involved in seniors’ matters. A senior in distress who phones for help is often necessarily referred to other Departments. Seniors seeking such help, while in distress, are also often short on energy, hearing impaired and sometimes have trouble being understood on the phone because English is not their first language. Not infrequently they are frustrated to the point of tears with the process.

This paper proposes the establishment of an Independent Seniors’ Advocate (ISA) and an Office of the Independent Seniors’ Advocate (OSA). The ISA would be an officer of the Legislative Assembly such as, for example, the Auditor General or Ombudsman. She or he would have a very small permanent staff. In addition to the ISA, there would one professional responsible for collecting and continually updating the considerable and impressive resources that are already available Provincially, Federally, and locally to assist seniors in distress. A second professional would be responsible for recruiting, training, and deploying a corps of seniors, called Seniors’ Advocate Elders (SAEs). The SAEs would be paid honouria and expenses to be the field officers of the ISA. They would visit seniors in distress, listen to their stories and shepherd them in seeking existing resources to relieve their distress. The corps of Elders would be more economical than permanent staff, can easily be expanded or contracted, and would be dispersed throughout the Province.

In addition to this individual advocacy work, the ISA would have two other critical roles. A second function would be to refer cases of administrative unfairness to the Ombudsman, or, where evidence of irregularities warrant, to the Police, Human Rights, or Privacy Commissioner. The third role would be to identify evidence grounded deficiencies or gaps in services to assist seniors in distress and advocate for eliminating those deficiencies whatever the level of government. The anticipated budget is $1,290,000 per year.

Paper’s Intention: That the newly elected Government of Alberta establish an Independent Seniors’ Advocate and an Office of the Seniors’ Advocate with the characteristics and capabilities outlined in this paper. The Circle of Chairpersons wishes to be consulted in the development of this initiative.

Signed:

Jerry Pitts, President, Coalition of Seniors’ Advocates (COSA)
Irl Miller, Chair, Seniors’ One Voice
Wanda Cree, Chair, Seniors’ Health Council
Helen Lusk , Chair of Westend Seniors
Peter Stewart, Chair, Edmonton Branch, Canadian Association for Retired Persons (CARP)
Bev McKay, Founding Chair, Families Allied to Influence Responsible Eldercare (FAIRE)
Brian Staples, Chair, Seniors’ Action and Liaison Team (SALT)

The paper, with a cover letter, was sent to the Party leaders on 20 October, 2004. The question asked then and reiterated now is:

Will you, as an individual and the leader of your party, endorse our proposal in principle, and work with the Circle of Chairs to secure the establishment of an Independent Seniors' Advocate?

Sincerely,
Brian Staples

We sincerely hope our political parties will find the time in their busy campaign schedule to answer our questions. We look forward to their responses. Remember dear reader to sent us your thoughts by posting a comment below or by sending us e-mail.

A Warm Welcome from Martha and Henry

Hello. We're Martha and Henry and this is our place.

To find about more about us and how to use this website please go to the link on the right called CLICK HERE TO CHECK US OUT.

Today Premier Klein called an election for Monday November 22, 2004. Here is where you will have a chance to speak directly to the Premier before you decide who you are going to vote for in that election. No need to go through that Alberta Connects website that the government set up at a cost of millions annually. Hmmm. I wonder how much of our tax dollars their staff spends a year on takeout. Click here.

There is a difference between the questions that the government asks us through Alberta Connects and the questions that we are going to ask the government here at our place. For example Alberta Connects asks us questions like:

Do you want your government to provide a quality affordable Alberta healthcare system?
or
Do you want your government to provide an outstanding education system?

What kind of response do they expect to questions like this?

Uh - Mr Klein Sir? Uh - Could you please gimme one of those crappy high cost healthcare things and hmmm, let's see, maybe I'll take an underperforming education system to go along with that. If you don't believe me, click here to see the It's Your Future survey.

Here we are going to ask questions like:

Mr Premier. Why did you spend all that moulagh to take a government plane to Ottawa for the Healthcare Conference and then walk out and go play the VLT's over the river Hull? Did you walk out because:

a) You didn't take the time to understand the complex issues facing our healthcare system and didn't want to look stupid in front of the other premiers?
b) You heard that you could actually make money on VLT's in Quebec because the Feds had them rigged so that French people could get rich.
c) The Conference had a NO SMOKING rule in effect.

We're just kidding Mr. Premier. We know you enjoy a little humour from time-to-time.

Mostly we will be asking serious questions to the Premier about all those things the government does that affects our lives. Issues of deregulation, healthcare, education, seniors, homeless people, ethics, government waste; - they will all be covered. Of particular interest is where all that money from our oil resources is going because it sure doesn't seem to be coming to us. The ruling PC party as well as all the opposition parties have been asked to participate in this discussion directly. We sincerely hope they will.

Do us a favour will you? It's lonely out here and sometimes we get on each others nerves. We would love to hear comments back from other Albertans to make our life a bit more exciting. You can click on the comment link after each posting to tell us what you think. You can sign your comments or just make them anon. Or if you have a question that you would like to ask the Premier, e-mail it to us at marthaandhenry@gmail.com.

Hope to hear from you soon.