Alberta
Province planning “Heroes Fund” to help families of first responders who die on duty
From the Province of Alberta
Supporting Alberta’s heroes and their families
Creating the Alberta’s Heroes Fund will improve benefits for the families of fallen first responders and recognize their noble service.
Bill 47, Ensuring Safety and Cutting Red Tape, will allow Alberta’s government to follow through on its commitment to create the Heroes Fund. Alberta’s government will honour the sacrifices of first responders who die as a result of performing their duties. The Heroes Fund will provide a one-time tax-free payment of $100,000 to eligible families through the Workers’ Compensation Board.
“There is no higher form of public service than to risk one’s life to maintain public safety. While nothing can replace a loved one, the Heroes Fund will provide families with extra support and improved benefits while honouring the brave and valiant service of Alberta’s fallen heroes.”
“First responders commit their lives to serving their communities and we must honour their heroic work and ensure their loved ones have the support they need. Our government committed to ensuring families of Alberta’s fallen heroes are supported, and while I wish this fund wasn’t needed, today we are delivering on our promise to honour them and the sacrifices they’ve made.”
Eligible first responders include firefighters, police officers, paramedics, sheriffs and provincial corrections officers. Alberta’s Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) will administer the Heroes Fund and will begin identifying eligible families and administering payments, which are retroactive to April 1, 2020.
“Day in and day out, our members put their health and safety on the line to help Albertans often during the most difficult times in their lives. First responders understand that this is our calling, this is what we do. We acknowledge the inherent risk of our profession and do what we can to mitigate risk. Unfortunately, risk cannot always be mitigated, and every year we see firefighters, paramedics and dispatchers who are killed from job-related injuries, occupational disease, or mental health struggles. The Alberta Fire Fighters Association would like to take this opportunity to applaud the Government of Alberta for the Heroes Fund. While this fund will never replace the void from the loss of a loved one, it will help ease the inevitable financial hardships caused by those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
“First responders are charged with the significant responsibility of upholding safety in our communities and protecting citizens, often placing their lives in danger. Losing a loved one in the line of duty is a tragedy many of us are lucky to be unfamiliar with, but for those who must live with that grief and its many hardships, this fund provides much-needed support and commemoration of heroes that made the ultimate sacrifice.”
“As a former sergeant with the Calgary Police Service, I was honoured to serve with many brave police officers, firefighters, and paramedics in the City of Calgary. I know first-hand how our first responders put their lives on the line every day in the service of Albertans and I am proud that our government is fulfilling our commitment to create a Heroes Fund. Our government is taking concrete action to give the families of our fallen heroes the help they need in difficult times.”
“I’m proud to be part of a government that delivers on its promises and stands up for first responders and their families. As a former paramedic firefighter, I understand the sacrifices first responders make to serve their communities and answer the call to service. I wish everyone could return home safely at the end of the day, but for those who pay the ultimate price serving their communities, the creation of this fund will make a difference in the lives of family members when they need it most. Establishing this fund will make Alberta the only province with a program of this type to honour and pay tribute to the families of first responders.”
Quick facts
- Budget 2020 commits $1.5 million per year for the Heroes Fund for three years, starting in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
- Alberta is the only province with a program of this type for families of fallen first responders.
- Heroes Fund payments are separate from regular workers’ compensation fatality benefits.
- The Heroes Fund will take effect when Bill 47 receives royal assent.
- There were 106 Alberta first responder fatalities between 2010 and 2019.
- 90 per cent of these were firefighters due to occupational illness.
- Albertans are served by:
- More than 14,000 full-time, part-time, casual and volunteer firefighters. About 80 per cent are volunteers.
- More than 7,500 police officers.
- More than 9,400 paramedics.
From the Fraser Institute
By Matthew Lau
To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.
First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.
The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.
For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.
Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.
Consider these federally-subsidized projects.
A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.
When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.
As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.
Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.
Author:
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Ray McGinnis
Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.
Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.
Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”
On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”
One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”
Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.
Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.
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