Alberta
Happy Halloween! Province gives the go ahead for Trick or Treating

From the Province of Alberta
Halloween
- Alberta’s chief medical officer of health is not cancelling Halloween.
- Outdoor Halloween activities are lower risk and supported by public health.
- A new tip sheet online will help Albertans of all ages enjoy a safe and healthy Halloween.
- Printable posters will let people know if you are handing out treats.
For more information and to find the printable posters go to Alberta.ca/Halloween
If you want to know what the province says about Trick or Treating this year watch this video starting at the 9:40 mark.
From trick-or-treating to the double feature picture show, you can enjoy your favourite Halloween activities safely by taking some simple precautions. Leave the terror to monsters, ghosts and evil clowns – not the pandemic.
Trick or treating
Don’t go trick-or-treating if feeling ill, even if symptoms are minor
Choose costumes that allow a non-medical mask to be worn underneath – make sure you can see and breathe comfortably
Minimize contact with others: trick-or-treat with your family or cohort, remain within your community, and stay 2 metres apart
Avoid touching doorbells or railings: call “trick or treat” from 2 metres away, knock instead of using doorbells, use hand sanitizer after touching surfaces
Wash hands and disinfect packages before eating candy
Handing out candy
Don’t hand out candy if feeling ill or isolating
Wear a non-medical mask that fully covers your nose and mouth
Ask trick-or-treaters to knock or call out instead of ringing the doorbell
Use tongs to hand out pre-packaged candy to avoid handling treats
Find creative ways to maintain distance from trick-or-treaters:
Hand out treats from your driveway or front lawn, if weather permits
Set up a table or desk to help keep yourself distanced
Make candy bags and space them out on a table or blanket; don’t leave out self-serve bowls of bulk candy
Build a candy slide, candy catapult or other fun, non-touch delivery methods
Halloween parties
Stay home if feeling ill, even if symptoms are mild
Spend time with people you know – the smaller the group the better
Choose games and activities that don’t use shared items and allows people to stay 2 metres apart
Don’t share drinks, food, cigarettes, vapes or cannabis
Host your party outdoors, if weather permits. If you must stay indoors:
- reduce your gathering size
- choose a location that allows for physical distancing between people from separate families and cohorts
- provide hand sanitizer
Wash or sanitize your hands often

Resources
- Non-spooky tips for a spooky safe Halloween (PDF, 120 KB)
- Poster – Welcome Trick-or-Treaters (PDF, 92 KB)
- Poster – Sorry, No Candy Here (PDF, 90 KB)
- Guidance for indoor events
- Guidance for outdoor events
- Monitor your symptoms
Alberta
The Conventional Energy Sector and Pipelines Will Feature Prominently in Alberta’s Referendum Debate

From Energy Now
By Jim Warren
Like it or not, the supporters of conventional energy production in the West, even those who bleed maple syrup, will be best served by a substantial leave vote. A poor showing on the part of the leave camp would weaken the bargaining power of the producing provinces and the conventional energy sector in their dealings with Ottawa.
The political dust-up between the leavers and the stayers is about to commence.
The petition calling for an Alberta referendum on separation will get the required signatures. And, the Moe government in Saskatchewan may yet decide to do something similar.
And, there is a good chance the federal Liberals and their allies in the environmental movement will launch an anti-separation/anti-oil campaign in response. The Liberals need merely to reinvigorate the flag waving campaign they ran during the federal election. All that needs to change for that tactic to work is the name of the boogeyman—from Donald Trump to alienated Westerners. Government subsidized environmental organizations will help do the rest.
This will present something of a dilemma for some supporters of the conventional energy and pipeline sectors. Should they lay low, stay quiet and perhaps avoid becoming part of the controversy? Alternatively, should they face reality and admit oil and pipelines will feature prominently in the debate whether they like it or not. The federal assault on oil, gas and pipelines is after all one of the principal motivations inspiring many who wish to separate.
And, whether we like it or not, the supporters of conventional energy production in the West, even those who bleed maple syrup, will be best served by a substantial leave vote. A poor showing on the part of the leave camp would weaken the bargaining power of the producing provinces and the conventional energy sector in their dealings with Ottawa. This is one of the immutable laws of the negotiating universe. A union that gets only 20% of its members voting in favour of strike action knows it is impotent should management call its bluff.
This is not to say the leave side will need a majority vote to produce a win for the energy sector—a large minority could do nicely. The Parti Québécois’ goal of “sovereignty association” in the 1980 Quebec referendum was supported by just 40.4% of those who voted. Yet, it nevertheless added leverage to Quebec’s extortionate demands on Ottawa and the rest of Canada. Although, after the separatists garnered 49.4% of the vote in the 1995 referendum (aka Canada’s near death experience), Quebec did even better.
True, the two producing provinces on the prairies lack the electoral power of Quebec. In combination with Ontario, Quebec has been integral to Liberal success in federal elections for decades. The power of the West lies in its ability to generate a large share of Canada’s export revenues. That’s mainly why Quebec is able to count on $14 billion in annual equalization welfare. Threatening separation turns the economic importance of the West into a political weapon.
We can expect a highly divisive referendum debate–potentially far more fractious than the federal election campaign. Signals coming out of Ottawa suggest federal-provincial negotiations over conventional energy and emissions policy are about to take a nasty turn. We could be facing a perfect storm of disunity with Westerners bashing Ottawa while Ottawa denounces separatists and resumes its assault on oil, gas and pipelines.
Chances for lowering the political temperature don’t look good. The prime minister has been distancing himself from his initial pre-election pro pipeline position. Early in the election campaign Mark Carney said he would employ the emergency powers of the federal government to get new export pipelines running from the prairies to tidewater. The next week he told reporters Quebec would have the power to veto the approval of any pipeline crossing its territory. On May 14, Carney presented reporters with a word salad that seemed to be saying he would include evaluation of the potential for new pipelines along with other energy policy ideas being discussed. And, if a consensus favouring pipelines emerged, one might be built.
This is not comforting. These statements cannot all be correct at the same time. At least two, if not all three, of them, are disingenuous.
Exactly who will be included in the consensus building discussions is unclear. Will they involve meetings with the premiers of the provinces that generate huge export revenues for Canada. Will they be restricted to the emissions reduction zealots who dominate the cabinet and the Liberal caucus? Or, is it something Carney will work out at Davos when the World Economic Forum next convenes?
The Liberals and their media allies put a lot of stock in the polls once they showed the Liberals in the lead during the election campaign. They briefly acknowledged election period polling that showed 74% of Canadians support the construction of new export pipeline including 60% of Quebecers. But reporting on the growing popularity of pipelines ended after about a week when Carney’s unqualified support for a pipeline to the Atlantic coast evaporated.
Furthermore, the popular vote totals from the federal election demonstrate that Canadians’ support for the Conservatives and the Liberals was divided fairly evenly, 41.3% for the Conservatives and 43.8% for the Liberals. A slim 2.5 percentage point spread. It seems reasonable to assume many Conservative supporters outside of the prairies shared Pierre Poilievre’s strong and consistent support for conventional energy production and pipelines. The fact people in the producing provinces are not alone in seeing the wisdom of new export pipelines strengthens our position.
If the thumping the voters of Alberta and Saskatchewan gave the Liberals in the April 28 election didn’t convince the government its energy and pipelines policies have caused a national unity crisis, maybe a high vote in favour of separation will. Many people will figure this out and will vote strategically to ensure the leave side wins a respectable portion of the vote. Who would want to try to negotiate a good deal for the producing provinces and the conventional energy sector following a weak performance by the leave camp? The Liberals will claim that a big win for the stay camp shows that Albertans are happy with the status quo.
The anti-pipeline misinformation campaign is already underway. Steven Guilbeault was already at it last week. According to Guilbeault, since the Trans Mountain pipeline is not operating at full capacity we obviously don’t need any more pipelines.
Guilbeault knows full well the pipeline is running under full capacity. The reason being the residual fall-out from the $38 billion in cost overruns the government chalked up, which was in turn due to its own regulatory morass and system pains associated with issues like the poor design features built into the Burnaby terminal. The government expects oil producers to pay exorbitant shipping rates designed to rapidly recoup the embarrassing cost overruns. Producers are not prepared to lose money bailing out the government. Guilbeault also knows most producers making use of the Trans Mountain today had negotiated much lower rates with the pipeline prior to its completion.
We can expect the flow of this kind of misinformation to become a gusher in the days ahead.
One hopes there will be adults in charge of both the leave and stay camps. The cause of Western separation can be expected to attract enthusiasts from the fringes of the political spectrum. There will be crackpots and mean-spirited people cheering for both sides. Unfortunately, we need to prepare for the fact the mainstream media will focus on any loosely hinged eccentrics they can find who support separation. Radical environmentalists and climate change alarmists will be treated like selfless planet saving prophets.
Alberta
Why Some Albertans Say Separation Is the Only Way

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