Learn English with Alberta s Premier Rachel Notley. In this episode, Rachel talks with Saskatchewan s Premier, David Eby, about the challenges facing her province as it transitions from coal to natural gas in the home heating and cooling system.
00:00:00.000Issue of housing and specifically limiting unilateral discussions, is there concern that the federal government is overstepping through programs or undermining the provincial authority through programs like the Housing Accelerator Fund?
00:00:11.520And is there concern that you could potentially slow down funding by limiting those unilateral discussions?
00:00:17.500Well, it seems to be working for Quebec. They have a law, M30, which requires the federal government to negotiate with them directly rather than go through the municipalities.
00:00:27.960That's what we'll be looking at in our province. And you can't argue with success.
00:00:31.880They just announced $900 million for housing as a result of negotiating on behalf of all of their municipalities.
00:00:38.020And now all of their municipalities will have an equal opportunity to access those funds.
00:00:43.220What we're worried about is the last tranche of dollars that were announced for my province were 14% of the population and we got 2.5% of the funding.
00:00:52.060And so we need fairness. We need equity. And we're not seeing that with the current model.
00:00:57.560So if defending our jurisdiction by passing legislation similar to Quebec assists us in being able to get fair treatment, then that's what we're going to do.
00:01:07.740Alberta has a similar history to Saskatchewan, having taken great effort many years ago to convert to natural gas home heating.
00:01:15.520But in addition, the early phase out of coal, which has cost our province literally billions of dollars to do it seven years early,
00:01:22.740only to be surprised by additional taxes being levied at the federal level.
00:01:26.560So we believe very strongly that natural gas should be treated as a cleaner fuel.
00:01:32.300We know that the export of LNG internationally is going to be able to reduce dirtier fuels, coal and wood and dung.
00:01:41.000And in fact, we've already seen what happens in jurisdictions that don't have access to clean natural gas.
00:01:47.400So if this is truly a global problem, then we need global thinking and global solutions.
00:01:52.360And we should be exporting more of our cleaner fuel to reduce global emissions and not punishing our customers here at home.
00:01:59.480It's not our customers' fault that the alternatives are not available to them.
00:02:03.360I do not share David Eby's, Premier Eby's enthusiasm for heat pumps, because in our province, they don't work particularly well at below minus 25.
00:02:14.660You can't get insurance without having a backup to your heat pump.
00:02:18.100And so it's not really a credible option in our province.
00:02:21.820There may be other options that emerge in future with technology.
00:02:24.100But in the meantime, all this is doing is just causing unfairness, making life less affordable, and really harming our most vulnerable as we get into the winter season.
00:02:35.340He introduced us to individuals who had quite a bit of success in recruiting from the Philippines to bring more nurses into the system, I believe, in the long-term care area.
00:02:43.740We're working on that same kind of approach.
00:02:45.820So I suspect what you'll see is the Premier's working very diligently and collaboratively to try to recruit from abroad, whether it's Philippines or another nation.
00:02:55.580And then also working on foreign credentials recognition, as well as recognizing the credentials across the country, so that there is the ability to move seamlessly between jurisdictions.
00:03:04.960And we are working on enhancing the number of spaces that are available in our institutions, training more medical professionals in rural communities, so they stay in rural communities.
00:03:17.700We're hoping to be able to grow our own supply here.
00:03:20.820And one other thing that we did talk about is the reason why medical professionals are compelled to go either locum or agency nurses,
00:03:30.500and do we need to do some work on addressing some of the working conditions that our nurses and doctors find themselves in in our hospitals.
00:03:40.000In Alberta, I discovered that the last Council of the Federation meeting, we only have 38 percent of our nurses willing to work full-time.
00:03:48.220So perhaps addressing some of the reasons why nurses don't want to take on full-time positions may be a solution without having to go and recruit from other provinces.
00:04:00.500For more information, please visit www.fema.org.