John Clark
November 74, 200I
Gary G. Mar, QC
Minister of Health and Wellness
Legislature Building, Edmonton, AB.
Re:-Limiting of and direct charges for Health Care in Alberta.
Gentlemen:
I will make a case for the oil companies to pay for any shortfall in
Health care funding in a manner not different from the way the
Tobacco companies were penalized.
People exploited by this same oil industry and the Conservative Government are about to enter the medical system in a big way. Oil Company funding could also be viewed as a user pay plan!
In the mid 80s extending to the mid 90s I instructed "Transportation of Dangerous Goods" involving the nature, characteristics and response to specific goods handling in situ, throughout Alberta. My seminars were sufficiently effective the Alberta Government went to extremes to shut down my company and myself as an individual. This attack included meetings between the Government and the major oil companies on the agenda that I was causing trouble in the oil patch by detailed instruction and causing them additional-expense in the arena of compliance and safety in general. I had to be stopped!
The Disaster services of the day sent one of their men to talk to the Fire chief asking him to lay off or fire myself because I was not in line with their program. Imagine; fire a volunteer fireman because he doesn't agree with the application of the law by a department! One part of their program towards my personal demise involved the directing RCMP to the extent of interviewing my neighbours, which caused me personal distress, and a series of what could only be described as clandestine meetings with RCMP personnel in uniform, Joy rides around the country to meet with a "gravel truck/logging truck dissident organization" and finally a buddy ride in a cruiser to Vegreville and a personal meet with Mr. Mazankowski, obviously your button man.
Prior to going into the Vegreville office, I explained to the RCMP Sergeant that I knew Maz from another life. NTCL in fact where he, as Minister of Transport, made himself President of NTCL to curtail cash drain and graft in general and sell the company No conflict there! This is a story that will put the nail-in the credibility coffin.
The RCMP gave up their quest noting I showed no animosity towards the Conservative Government and, the request for a shake down of myself must have originated at a personal level within Government. Clearly my intention was totally directed to the public good. Your Mr. Ron W would be happy to fill you in with details.
I find it ludicrous that Mr. Klein says he has no idea what Maz is going to put into his report on Medicare. Consider also that Mazankowski holds a chair on the Great West Life board. What’s good for them is good for the population?
What I witnessed in the oil patch was at best horrific. At the time, young people between the ages of 16 and 30 were put inside large storage tanks and open sumps with steam hoses, brooms and dustpans to clean the residue from the units. There was absolutely no protective clothing or independent positive air supply. Certainly these same people are going to be standing at the Alberta Health Care door and will-be expecting and deserving complete, no strings coverage!
In fairness, welders who are now riddled with various cancers and tumours were not using positive air either. They too will be caught in your net of limitations.
Consider, these tanks were exposed to all the mixes that may go down hole included R292 trace sand and a larger variety of petrol chemical bases and solvents. In this hostile atmosphere, some people used the protection of Gumboots and coveralls and a ball cap. Many wore sneakers and jeans. I didn't see anyone change out of soiled and chemical saturated clothes when the job was done.
I made it a point to tell these same people many of the substances they were dealing with were known or suspected carcinogenic while others could lead them to be "sensitized" and/or cause birth defect. This information was usually met with dismay and even terror when they considered their work habit.
My suggestions were mundane. Keep a full change of clothing available to switch into should you become saturated with anything. The oil-company's safety people were present at most of these seminars and had much of the questions. In total, healthy, open conversation and yes it did raise some dissatisfaction with the employer’s support levels. After such meetings many stories would be exchanged, many of which are documented around the groups. It was not uncommon for a 4 hour seminar to extend to 6 and B hours. Interest was intense!
Driving into one camp I noticed their truck bulk loading racks did not have the three-foot extensions on the hoses. The extension was on the rack, the short hand nozzle on the hoses. In the seminar I went over Static electricity as it related to splash filling truck tanks. When I came out of the seminar, the extensions were on the hoses.
Yes, I can believe there were waves made in the petroleum-producing sector. And, they had choices to make. Clean up their act or shut down the information source and they chose the latter.
In this collaboration with hell these same people would wear chemical saturated clothing next to their skin for hours and at times days. This is true of the drivers, fuelers, roughnecks and work population in general, not just those cleaning and mixing tanks and sumps.
My instruction warned them of carcinogenic effects combined with the fact that live steam is a source of ignition in such circumstance. There was no vapour tests or samples made from the units I describe. I further advised several to seek medical help and make sure they te1l their Doctor what they were working in. As a layperson I would identify some with advance stages of being “sensitized". Consider the gasoline; solvent of choice of the day was leaded.
Oil companies eventually moved to Management companies to operate their field projects distancing themselves from drilling, cleanup up the drill site and distance themselves from compensation and civil liabilities. Your Government supported this and, was and was an enthusiastic participant, totally complicit to these actions or inactions as the case may be. Indeed, privatizing the Workers compensation was still another move to distance the Government from the great troubles they knew to be out there.
This is not unlike the gas flaring where the oil companies have known for years they had problems but chose to hide them rather than fix them! Hydrogen sulphide is used as a sensational-red herring to keep the complaints off track.
All the studies on gas flaring show the ferons and bi-phenols are formed in the stack during the burn and it doesn't much matter if there 1s H2S burning or, if it is so called "sweet" crude.
The deliberate mislead to HzS often refers to the settling ponds in stockyards and residue in sumps and under buildings there-by defeating the meetings. Stating there is nothing conclusive is a farce! My letter to the Minister of Environment as to why they were waiting three years after the reports on flaring were in, to release them has gone unanswered. Yet to be asked is why they sat on the reports 16 months before saying they had them!
After your planned and determined neglect using “what are the odds" as your critique, you now want limit these same people in their health care coverage by privatizing and thereby excluding them. The people at Triple Creek were very correct in their assumptions regarding the birthing problems and general sickness in that area and the Government has the studies in yet, they do nothing to protect the people who continue to live around these flares.
In my view the Government has chosen to put in harms way and even kill segments of the Alberta population and, now the Government is saying limit access to medical care even though there may be nothing in medicine that can remedy the damage that was done and, continues to be done. It is however positive that oil companies now say they have alternatives to flaring. But, I note the Devon refinery has changed its flare times to the midnight hours from the daylight. I haven't seen any new process.
Couple all of this with the tampering of the Workers' Compensation system making it private to distance the Minister from the flack makes it near impossible to get any compensation for something workers were exposed to 15 to 30 years ago. It is near impossible to get compensation for something that happened last week! And now, you intend to limit their access to the health system.
I have already papered Mr. Klein on the subject and have his response. The R292 is imported so a clear paper trail will be left for sight application. However, none of the equipment used in the process was tagged for special handling or inventory. The results would be a puddle in any one of dozens of tank yards in any number of communities across the province. The probability is there are hundreds at least having some level of exposure which will manifest it's self in a un-identifiable malady, requiring a physician, for which you now plan to charge.
The wastewater sludge from these tanks was dropped onto the ground. I would have to think its part of the aquifer now has problems and will continue to have problems.
These people who I now call victims are now a large part of the rural and urban population and will be showing up at a doctor’s office with a small, seemingly insignificant malaise or a sensitized condition and will be met with a bill courtesy of the Alberta Conservatives. Few will associate lack of health with an earlier lifestyle or work environment to career path and mistreatment, which will-take years manifest its symptoms.
I think if there is a revenue shortfall in this province a special dispensation should be set aside for anyone living in the proximity of a gas flare; anyone working in a refinery or around a refinery or for that matter, has ever followed a crude truck down the road.
How are your all encompassing cuts in coverage going to affect those people who, with work histories as I have outlined, go to a physician simply because they don't feel good?
John Clark
Cc: -Ralph Klein
-The Honourable Alan Rock
-The Right Honourable Jean Chretien
-The Honorable David Collenette.
-Yet to be determined.
