Weekly update: Unions ready to fight, Coun. Cardinal charged, Keyano social work expands

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Councillor Kendrick Cardinal charged with impaired driving, fleeing peace officer

Councillor Kendrick Cardinal has been charged with impaired driving, exceeding the legal alcohol limit while operating a vehicle and fleeing from a peace officer.

Police confirmed Cardinal was arrested on Aug. 30 in Fort Chipewyan. Police would not comment on the details of Cardinal’s arrest because RCMP. Cardinal did not answer requests for comment.

However, Fort Chipewyan residents say Cardinal was arrested shortly after he appeared at a local protest against the opening of a liquor store.

A video posted by Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro of the Mikisew Cree First Nation to his Facebook page shows Tuccaro outside the RMWB’s Fort Chipewyan office.

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Shortly after Tuccaro begins speaking, Cardinal arrives driving a quad with an unidentified person on the back.

Much of what Cardinal yells at the crowd is not clear in the video, but he can be heard yelling “what about freedom of choice?” and “look at you, can’t even fucking… freedom of choice!” He drives away as one person yells back “go home!”

This is not Cardinal’s first legal issue since he was elected to RMWB council in October 2021. Cardinal was charged with assault on May 14, 2021 after an assault was reported to police seven days earlier. On April 3, 2022, Cardinal was charged with driving a vehicle while unauthorized.

The assault charge was dropped in October 2022 after Cardinal completed therapy every two weeks for a year in Fort McMurray. Cardinal also said he and the complainant had resolved the issue. The driving charge was also dropped after Cardinal completed a driving course.

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A video of Cardinal taking a swing at someone was widely shared on Facebook and Instagram last May, although no charges were filed after the incident. Cardinal is seen yelling “bring it on or fuck off!” while a man and woman are heard telling Cardinal to leave their property. The video ends when Cardinal lunges at someone.

An RMWB spokesperson said the organization cannot comment on Cardinal’s recent charges because the matter is now before the courts.

Resources stretched as public, Catholic schools see rising enrolment

The leaders of Fort McMurray’s public and Catholic schools are confident the upcoming school year will be academically successful for their students. However, there is no question that schools are facing problems.

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The unions representing support staff and educational assistants in both divisions are expected to vote next week on a strike after bargaining talks collapsed last month.

Interviews with the superintendents were done before the unions announced the possible strike vote, but both school divisions have promised to remain open even during a strike.

The superintendents for both divisions, however, say the next academic year will have larger classes, fewer staff, growing enrolment and gripes towards the Alberta government’s funding formula for schools.

The Fort McMurray Catholic School Division (FMCSD) starts the school year with depleted financial reserves after using this money to bridge funding gaps, which hovered around $5 million annually for the last five years.

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The Fort McMurray Public School Division (FMPSD) avoided these cuts. However, Superintendent Annalee Nutter said FMPSD’s reserves will run out next year or the year afterwards unless there are changes to the funding model.

This comes as both divisions struggle to accommodate growing class sizes. Nutter said last year there were some junior high classes with 40 students because there were few teachers available. That’s an extreme example and not normal across FMPSD, she said, but it’s still a worrying situation.

Fort McMurray unions prepare for ‘tumultuous’ 12 months ahead

The next 12 months will have plenty of battles for Fort McMurray’s labour movement after a year of hard-fought victories and transformations, said Omer Hussein of the Wood Buffalo and District Labour Council.

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The unions representing Catholic and public school educational assistants, secretaries, custodians, IT workers and other support staff could be voting on a strike.

Other unions in Fort McMurray are at impasses with their employers, said Hussein. Meanwhile, living costs keep rising while workers say their wages have stagnated.

“A lot of workers are recognizing that ultimately, as a worker, all you have is your ability to withdraw your labour if you don’t feel like you’ve been fairly compensated, and if you feel like you can’t live a life that gives you meaning and dignity,” said Hussein in an interview ahead of the Labour Day long weekend.

“If you’re going to be an educational assistant and you’re not able to make enough money to live in Fort McMurray, why would you live here? If you’re a nurse and you’re not making enough money to live in the community, why would you stay here?”

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Hussein says Fort McMurray’s labour movement scored a massive victory this year against the RMWB. Plans to cut 459 unionized jobs were cancelled in June after CAO Henry Hunter announced in February the RMWB would outsource, merge and restructure hundreds of positions.

“The last 12 months have been a combination of coming together, building solidarity and really reactivating the labour movement in Fort McMurray. The next 12 months is going to be a pretty tumultuous time,” said Hussein.

Across Alberta are roughly 250,000 public sector workers, as well as thousands of unionized private sector workers, will soon start holding bargaining talks with their employers or have already begun talks.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said in an interview that concerns about stagnant wages as life gets more expensive are commonly mentioned by workers across Alberta.

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Keyano social work program more than doubling in size to meet local demands

Keyano College’s social work program will more than double its students during the next three years thanks to a grant from the Alberta government.

The grant is part of a $10-million program distributed towards expanding mental health and psychology programs at 12 post-secondary institutions across Alberta. In three years, Keyano’s social work diploma program will expand from 25 seats to 55 seats.

Alexis Teske, associate dean of Keyano’s school of health and human services, said in an interview the program has become increasingly popular and has had a growing number of qualified applicants in recent years.

The diploma is a two-year generalist program designed to prepare students for social work’s wide field of expertise. Teske says the highest demands for social workers in the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo region come from employers and non-profits that deal with children and youth, homelessness, and substance abuse.

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“A huge number of our graduates stay within the region and find employment here often based off of experiences they’ve had in practicum,” said Teske. “Obviously with our enrollment data, we also see that we do have a need to increase the seats.”

CAPP says environmental groups should be held to same anti-greenwashing standards

CAPP wants the federal Competition Bureau to ensure environmental groups are held to the same truth-in-advertising standards as other sectors under new federal greenwashing rules.

The federal government passed a law in June that contained an amendment to the Competition Act requiring corporations to be able to provide evidence to support their environmental claims.

The passage of the law sparked a furor from the oil and gas sector. CAPP, as well as the Pathways Alliance oilsands group and a number of individual oil and gas companies, removed environmental content from their websites in response.

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Industry representatives said the legislation effectively silences discussion around climate and environmental policy, and potentially opens up companies to lawsuits by green groups and activist organizations.

CAPP said it still believes the new legislation is so flawed it should be repealed. But it said since the bureau is in the process of drafting guidelines for the new provisions, it should ensure the rules apply equally to all sectors.

• Thousands of people attended a candlelight vigil for former Calgary Flames player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, outside the Saddledome on Wednesday. The brothers were killed last week while cycling in New Jersey by an alleged drunk driver. Mourners held a 13 minutes of silence. Gaudreau played on the Flames for nine years until signing with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2022, where a similar vigil was held the same day.
• Alberta plans to create an opt-in scheme for sex-ed in schools, rather than the current opt-out option available to parents. Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said there are unanswered questions after a spring consultation about the proposed bill. Scholling also pointed out Alberta is experiencing high rates of sexually transmitted infections.
• Critics say chartered surgical facilities are cutting into public hospital operations. Rolling cancellations of scheduled hip and knee replacements at the Royal Alexandra’s Orthopedic Surgery Centre continue, this time to the end of September. An Aug. 28 statement from Alberta Health Services suggests hospitals are surging past capacity.
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has appointed to the Senate Daryl Fridhandler, a corporate lawyer and former Liberal party board member, and Kristopher Wells, a 2SLGBTQ+ advocate. The appointments fill two Senate seats for Alberta, and were criticized by conservative politicians as partisan. Senators are appointed in Canada, although Alberta has elected nominees for vacant seats. Only five nominees have been made senators. Erika Barootes, Pam Davidson and Mykhailo Martyniouk—all of whom have ties to federal or provincial conservative movementsp—were elected in 2021 but were not appointed to the senate by Trudeau.
• Read up on the politics and culture of Alberta  with Postmedia’s subscriber-exclusive newsletter, What’s up with Alberta? Curated by the National Post’s Tyler Dawson every Tuesday and Thursday.

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