2007 Holiday Letter

January is the most flexible month of the year for me. No sailing, no vacations, lots of time for whatever I want to do. This year I spent the time x-country skiing, spending time with friends, and planning the Calgary launch of Canada 25's last policy report.

February marks the start of sailing season for me. Everything was iced over in Alberta so the Alberta Sailing Association teamed up with the Royal Victoria Yacht Club to put on a 5 day training camp over family day weekend. Coach Peter MacDougal kindly hauled our boats out there on the ASA trailer. I travelled in style with WestJet buddy passes (thanks, Lisa!). The sailing was so incredible, it sent chills down my spine (or was that just spray going down the back of my wetsuit?). Check out my sailing blog for details and a few pics. I was accomodated in luxury at the Miraloma in nearby Sidney by the sea (thanks Mom and Dad). After 5 days of training, I took 3 days off sailing for some R&R, wrapping that up by seeing RVYC sailing coach Jenn Braem's play about the Kelowna forest fire and sailing. I practiced on Friday with Phil Round and entered the Frozen Assests regatta on the weekend. Saturday was wildly challenging with winds gusting to 35 knots (that's just strong enough to call a gale) and big rolling waves. Although the conditions weren't quite as bad as our keelboat trip on the west coast of Scotland a few years back, I had never sailed a Laser in anything like it. I'll be back for more in 2008.

I returned to Calgary to find that I had been elected Vice-Commodore of the Glenmore Sailing Club. It's a pleasure to be involved in such a wonderful club. In March I took a real business trip (i.e. a trip somewhere other than Fort McMurray). 5 nights, 4 days, 3 cities. We spent a record 7 hours in Calgary International Airport just trying to get on a plane after Continental Airlines delayed and then cancelled our flight to Houston. We did eventually make it to Houston and spent a sleepy day and a half meeting some of ConocoPhillips technical experts. We saw the tallest NBA player play the shortest NBA player with the Houston Rockets running away with the game. Then off to Oklahoma to visit ConocoPhillips R&D facilities in Bartlesville and Ponca City. Although not top holiday destinations, it was a fascinating trip. March also brought a visit from Carol who brought the Queen's gang together for her birthday dinner.

I was only back in Calgary a few days before heading back to Victoria for April's Easter training camp. A little warmer this time, but still a few days of exciting winds. Back in Alberta, Little Bow Reservoir thawed out at the end of April and we drove through snow to find a wonderful sunny day of sailing to open the Alberta season. We plan to return in 2008.

I spent May, June, and July sailing all over Alberta in my little Laser Radial. Weekend regattas, Wednesday night racing, and Monday night practices made for a busy summer.

At the end of August, I took break from sailing and spent a week in beautiful Fort McMurray for the Surmont Pilot Plant turnaround. After a safe and successful turnaround, I returned to Calgary tired and grumpy. Labour day weekend I drove up to Edmonton Yacht Club for the provincial regatta. Light, spotty winds, numerous fouls, and some very unsportsmanlike conduct from a competitor made for a very unpleasant time on the water. I filed (and won) my first two protests to salvage some educational value from the regatta. Fortunately, fellow Glenmore Sailing Club members were camping out with me at the club for the weekend and were fantastic and entertaining company in the evenings.

I then took a holiday from Laser sailing and headed back to Victoria for a week's vacation. My parents chartered a beautiful C&C 115 and we were joined by long time family friends the Gears as we cruised the Gulf Islands with a brief jaunt to Gibson's Landing. A few pictures and tales of the trip on the trip website, which will be available on the sailing section of my website.

It might be hard to imagine, but I returned from my sailing vacation rested and ready for more sailing! Glenmore Sailing Club hosted the Frostbite Regatta and Dick Degner Memorial Laser Reunion. I finally reached this year's goal of beating Coach Peter in just one race. Peter easily took first in the regatta and I squeaked into second place - a wonderful way to end the racing season.

It ain't over til it's over - although racing was finished, for the truly insane, the best was yet to come. We finished off September with a trip to Waterton to sail on Waterton Lake. Waterton is known for strong, shifty, gusty winds and we weren't disappointed. Upwind tacking was hard work and the downwind runs were positively frightening. It wasn't warm either and we awoke in our tents on Sunday morning to a winter wonderland. A few of us cleared the snow off our boats and went for a sail. I came in after half an hour shivering with frozen hands and feet. I probably won't try that again without a drysuit.

In October, I cut back to the occasional recreational sail on the weekend. This freed up some time to volunteer for my aldermanic candidate in the municipal election campaign. I went to Ontario for Queen's Homecoming as it was my 10 year reunion. I visited Dad's cousins Dave & Vickey and Stan & Anja and had a late night chat with Maya in Toronto before driving out to Kingston with Carol. I stayed with Syncrude friend Susan, who is in Kingston doing her MBA, for the first few days and then enjoyed the hospitality of Meg and her family. We had a great time reuniting with people and then Carol went back to Toronto and I hung out with Meg and Colin and my Godson Angus and his new baby brother Ewan. To finish up the trip, I took a train to Ottawa to visit Bryndis. We celebrated Person's Day and met a few politicians. The fall colours were beautiful and we took a drive to Mont Tremblant in Quebec.

I don't remember much about Novemeber - probably spent repairing the trailer, packing up boats for the winter and working.

December has been terrific. My sister, Helen and her boyfriend, Francois came to visit for Christmas. I can't believe it's been two years since I last saw Helen!

That is the old year in a nutshell. I'm looking forward to good times with friends and family in 2008. I plan to have sailing holidays in Victoria (several times), Vancouver (July), and Kingston (August) in 2008 - let me know if you are going to be in or near these places and we can plan to get together. I'm also hoping to take some friends coastal cruising - possibly in Washington state's San Juan Islands where we can take advantage of the high Canadian dollar. Let me know if you are interested in coming on that trip.

Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year!

Kate

Balance

Please protect the green grass,
Please protect the sky,
but don't give away my economic pie!

(thanks to Canadian Poet Dennis Lee for Alligator Pie!)

Submission to the Government of Alberta's Royalty Review website

I am writing to express concerns about the report on royalties titled "Our Fair Share." Numerous errors and the lack of understanding of the oil sands business shown in the report mislead all who read it. It would be irresponsible of the Government to make a decision on this flawed basis. I ask that you delay implementation of all of the recommendations until industry has been properly consulted. I know that the Report's recommendations, if fully implemented, will threaten continuing investment in the Province, and lead to a substantial loss of jobs in Alberta.

The report demonstrates a lack of understanding of the forces affecting the bitumen market (pages 79 and 80). It seems to suggest that producers can somehow control the prices and deliberately "spike" the price down to decrease royalty payments. Perhaps you could let the authors know that the bitumen price tends to drop in the winter because of a decrease in demand. The demand decreases because it is hard to pave roads when the ground is frozen. Bitumen is used to make asphalt for roads. It is my understanding that bitumen is often produced at a loss in the winter.

Setting the Oil Sands Severance Tax on the WTI price is not a reasonable proposition. Examine the figure on page 80 of the report. It should be apparent that the price differential between WTI and various heavy oils is far from constant. The market for WTI is different than the market for heavy oil. Would you tax oil sands bitumen based on the price of natural gas? Probably not. Taxing bitumen based on the WTI price is no more reasonable. Taxing gross revenue in a low margin business is a harsh proposition even if the tax rate were tied to the correct price. Trying to justify this tax based on administration and compliance issues with the Revenue minus Cost royalty scheme is ludicrous. If, in fact, the Alberta Government does have problems administering and enforcing the royalty scheme, fix the problem instead of penalizing the people who pay the bills. OSST equals no future investment in oil sands.

When comparing Alberta with other jurisdictions, the authors of the report fail to consider the relative returns of the projects in these areas. While oil sands projects don't have a high exploration risk, they have enormous capital and market risks. The project costs used in the report are unrealistically low. Not only have the costs risen significantly since the data used in the report was generated, but changes in regulations have added additional future cost burdens. The federal action on climate change will have a significant impact on the feasibility of oil sands projects. Significant investment in technology development is required over the next 2 decades to meet the GHG reductions. It is safe to say that implementation of GHG reduction technology, should it be developed, will come with a high capital and operating cost. The Alberta "Water Conservation for Oilfield Injection" policy is a good tool for conserving Alberta's fresh water resources. The royalty report fails to recognize that the continuously increasing water recycle requirements will have a significant impact on project costs. As an Albertan, I would rather see revenue from the oil sands being spent on water conservation measures and greenhouse gas reduction than on royalty payments.

The future of Alberta rests on this decision. I urge the Government to take the time to fully understand the facts so that there will be no doubt that they make a reasonable decision. Convicting the oil and gas companies without fair trial will serve no one. Would a good judge allow a trial to be decided by public opinion without hearing the facts from both sides?

Sincerely,
Kate Easton
Calgary - Elbow

Calgarians Will Recycle - But At a Fair Cost

Here is the text of my op-ed on curbside recycling, which was published in the Calgary Herald on April 10, 2007 and had a great deal of response. Thanks to Katie McKinnon for the research, Naheed Nenshi for editing, and Doug Firby at the Herald.

What do you think? Do you favour curbside recycling? What about user fees?

Here is my article as published:

Curbside recycling is just like the smoking bylaw all over again. Everyone else has already done it, we know it's the right thing and we want to do it, but we're nervous. Maybe not yet, and maybe we should change the rules several times for no overall gain.

On the main principles, the vast majority agrees: banning smoking is good for our health; recycling is good for the environment.

On the smoking bylaw, council responded to the fears of a few people by delaying (and delaying, and delaying) the implementation as if that would somehow soften the imaginary blow to businesses.

Now that the ban is in place, the sky has not fallen, bars are busier than ever, and everyone agrees it was the right thing to do.

Now curbside recycling is also facing a debate on timing, and discussion on funding muddies the whole scheme.

In the early 1990s, Calgary chose community recycling depots (CRD) as a more complete and cost-effective solution over curbside recycling. CRD works very well when people use it. It has a lower environmental impact, since there are no special vehicle trips -- people tend to drop off the recyclables when they are going to the store anyway.

Compostables are conveniently contained in people's very own backyard composter. No extra emissions from curbside pickup and no need to fund a regional composting facility.

Unfortunately, people don't use it. After 15 years of the CRD system, Calgary's waste diversion rate is only 15 per cent. If you compare that with Edmonton's rate of 60 per cent, a curbside system starts to look worthwhile.

Since Edmonton began curbside recycling in 1988, Calgary has done little except demonstrate that Calgarians are too busy to bother participating in the depot system.

So, all in favour, but how do we fund it? Strangely, user fees are proposed. Public outcry about the cost of the program ensues. Council responds by reducing the recycling services offered in the program. This isn't what we want.

Calgary wants the full program at a reasonable cost. The original proposal before council was a monthly user fee of $21 or $252 per household per year.

Compare that with the average cost per single family dwelling in Edmonton of $180. Council should be asking why the program would cost 40 per cent more in Calgary. How do private companies do the job for less right now? Why isn't council addressing these questions instead of blindly accepting the cost estimates of administration?

Instead of looking into the program costs, they redistribute them by proposing to fund garbage collection from property taxes and cutting back the recycling program by excluding organics. The actual cost of the program remains unchanged.

Then there's the spurious argument for user fees. Such fees are useful in two situations: either when not everyone receives a service, or to financially motivate a decrease in use.

For example, swimming pool fees mean those who don't swim don't pay as much as those who do, and metering water results in reduced consumption.

Neither reason applies to curbside recycling. Everyone needs waste and recycling services and get it regardless of how much they throw out or recycle. Keep the optical politics out of the real issue by funding the program through property taxes.

Other funding also needs to be investigated. Is the city eligible for funding under Alberta Environment's Resource Recovery Grant Program or Waste Management Assistance Program? Are public-private partnerships an effective way to reduce program costs? Should we implement bag fees for garbage and tax the behaviour we actually want to reduce?

It's time to remind our aldermen that their job is to find out what Calgarians want and ensure cost-effective implementation.

Calgary wants curbside recycling. Council needs to lead city employees to find innovative ways to reduce costs to the taxpayer.

Kate Easton takes her recyclables to the depot on her bike and returns home with a pannier full of groceries. Even other Better Calgary Campaign volunteers think she's a bit crazy. More info at www.bettercalgary.ca