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Unacceptable Attacks on Workers' Rights Alberta Government Passes Bill 1, the Critical Infrastructure Defence ActThe first order of business for the Kenney government when the Alberta legislation resumed on May 27 was Bill 1, the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act. The legislation was passed the following day. The Act gives the government and police arbitrary powers to attack workers, women, youth, seniors, Indigenous peoples and everyone who is affirming their rights and the laying their claims. Bill 1 makes it an offence to "without lawful right, justification or excuse, wilfully obstruct, interrupt or interfere with the construction, maintenance, use or operation of any essential infrastructure in a manner that renders the essential infrastructure dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective." It also creates an offence to aid, counsel, or direct another person to commit an offence under the Act, irrespective of whether the other person actually commits the offence. It is also an offence to enter essential infrastructure having obtained permission by false pretenses. All of this creates an offence so broad that it could mean almost anything, which is clearly the intention.
Bill 1 provides penalties of up to $10,000 for a first offence, up to $25,000 for subsequent offences, plus possible prison time of up to six months, and up to $200,000 for "corporations that help or direct trespassers." Each day that a "contravention" exists constitutes a new offence. The bill has evoked a storm of criticism from the Indigenous peoples, workers and their organizations, human rights organizations, legal experts and many others, and the government's claim that it is "upholding law and order" has been met with the contempt it deserves. Bill 1 was first introduced on February 25 immediately following the Speech from the Throne, with the government attacking all those standing with the Wet'suwet'en people, and blaming them for all the problems facing the economy in Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney and others referred to the land defenders as "thugs" and "ecoterrorists" at one time and "spoiled kids" and "professional protesters" at another. Introducing the bill in February, Alberta Minister of Justice Doug Schweitzer said, "Over the last number of weeks, we've seen growing lawlessness across the country, pushing our railway lines to grind to a halt," This is simply unacceptable. This is a mockery of our democratically founded country. So we're now taking decisive action to respond to this." No such declarations have been made about the negligence of CN and CP and the growing number of rail accidents in Canada, with 1,170 rail accidents in 2018 alone, leading not just to temporary disruption of the rail system but to the deaths of railway workers. Law and order does not apply to the energy oligarchs when it comes to mitigating the damage they cause to the environment. The pandemic even became a pretext to suspend the entire regulatory system governing the operation of oil and gas companies. There is no rule of law when governments act as though Indigenous law has been extinguished, violate treaties in which Indigenous peoples agreed to share the land on a nation-to-nation basis, and refuse to uphold Canada's obligations under international law.
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In addition to a
long list of "essential infrastructure" which
includes pipelines, oil and gas production and
refinery sites, mines, utilities, highways,
railways, telecommunications, agricultural
sites, and the land on which infrastructure is
located, the Bill also defines "essential
infrastructure" as "a building, structure,
device or other thing prescribed by the
regulations." Regulations are enacted under the
prerogative or police powers of the executive
and can be changed at any time by executive
decision. In short -- "essential infrastructure"
is anything the government declares it to be,
including public space. Under this law police
can make arrests without obtaining a warrant or
injunction.
Resources at the
disposal of the state come from the wealth
created by the working people. But instead of
being used to benefit the people, they are used
to impose the rule of the rich. The Beaver Lake
Cree Nation (BLCN) are in court once again, as
the federal and Alberta governments appeal the
lower court decision to award advance costs to
the BLCN to advance their legal case that
regulatory bodies must consider cumulative
effects of development on their traditional
territories. For 12 years, since the BLCN
launched the legal challenge, governments have
tried to block them and drain their financial
resources every step of the way. Fines of
hundreds of thousands of dollars are levied
against unions who defend the right of their
members to decide what wages and working
conditions are acceptable to them using unjust
laws which criminalize their collective actions.
Bill 1 shows just what Kenney means when he says
he will do "whatever is necessary" to defend the
interests of the energy oligarchs, and that the
government has lost all claims to legitimacy.
What remains of the public authority is the use
of police powers to enforce the rule of the
rich, no matter what. 
