Latest news with #Shevalier
Calgary Herald
28-04-2025
- Health
- Calgary Herald
'It rips a hole': Calgary unions lay wreaths for workers who died on the job
Article content After a record number of Albertans died in workplace-related incidents last year, the Calgary and District Labour Council hosted a memorial at city hall Monday, to commemorate the National Day of Mourning. Article content Article content Held annually on April 28, the National Day of Mourning is dedicated to remembering workers who died, were injured or experienced a workplace tragedy, and promote the importance of occupational health and safety. Article content Article content Roughly 20 people, including representatives of local workers' unions, attended the ceremony. Held at the City of Calgary Workers Memorial, the event included speeches, a moment of silence and the laying of wreaths. Article content Article content 'Everybody has a role to play in health and safety,' said Alexander Shevalier, president of the Calgary and District Labour Council. 'The worker has a role to keep themselves safe and to keep their co-workers safe, employers have the obligation to keep their workers safe and government has to enforce the law.' Article content In 2024, Alberta recorded 203 workplace-related deaths — an all-time high, according to the Workers' Compensation Board of Alberta. In comparison, 165 workers in the province died in 2023. Of last year's worker fatalities, 112 died of occupational diseases, 50 from trauma, 29 in motor-vehicle collisions and 12 from other causes. Article content During Monday's sombre ceremony, Shevalier read out the name of each Alberta worker who died last year. Afterwards, attendees bowed their heads in a moment of silence, before wreaths were laid at the base of the memorial. Article content It's hard to explain the record number of workplace deaths in Alberta last year, according to Shevalier, due to the 'invisible' nature of some causes, such as illnesses that resulted from unsafe working conditions. Article content Every loss of life creates a cascading effect of grief for the worker's friends, families and co-workers, Shevalier said. Article content 'It's important to remind us that 203 people died, that families lost a family member — whether it was a mother, father, sister or brother, friends lost friends — and workplaces lost one of their colleagues,' he said. 'It's important for us to remember, because we don't want to have to go through that, because it rips a hole.'
CBC
26-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Top third-party advertiser from Calgary's 2021 municipal election plans rerun for 2025
The third party advertiser (TPA) that spent the most money in Calgary's 2021 municipal election is not planning any major strategic changes for this year's vote. Calgary's Future was funded by several civic worker unions leading up to the 2021 vote. It collected more than $1.7 million dollars in union donations in the years prior to the last municipal election. More than $1 million of that war chest was spent on ads before the election year, advocating support for civic services and workers. The group then spent nearly $506,000 during the election period, which saw it endorse 14 candidates in the 15 council races. Nine of those candidates were ultimately elected to city council. The director of Calgary's Future, Alex Shevalier, said their strategy is to review and endorse their preferred candidates who are then the focus of campaign-period advertising. "We always promote the people we think we can work with and the people we think would be best for Calgary," he said. New rules Although the provincial government has brought in new election financing rules for 2025, Shevalier said his group will once again be endorsing candidates and spending money to promote those people running for city council. He isn't revealing how much money the TPA has in the bank today nor will he say how much it plans to spend. But he pledged it will follow all existing rules. Shevalier pointed out that under provincial rules, there is a limit of $5,000 for individual donations that can be accepted after May 1 of an election year. As well, he said TPAs have a spending limit of 50 cents per Calgarian. The provincial department of municipal affairs tells CBC News that it considered Calgary's 2024 population to be 1,306,784 so a TPA could theoretically spend up to $653,392 in the election period. That figure tops what Calgary's Future spent in 2021. Ads for candidates Much of its 2021 spend went toward online ads in support of its endorsed candidates. Mayor Jyoti Gondek was endorsed by Calgary's Future just days before voters went to the polls. Its endorsement list also included current councillors Sonya Sharp, Jennifer Wyness, Jasmine Mian, Raj Dhaliwal, Courtney Walcott, Gian-Carlo Carra, Kourtney Penner and Evan Spencer. A veteran campaign operative, Stephen Carter, is skeptical of the impact this TPA's spending has during an election. Carter worked as a campaign strategist for Gondek's successful 2021 campaign. In the 2025 election, he's a campaign strategist for mayoral candidate Brian Thiessen. He said Calgary's Future didn't have a formal slate of candidates or support a slate. Rather, it signalled to voters who supported the types of issues that it stands for, including housing affordability and public transit. "I don't think it mobilized any votes at all. The agenda wasn't to mobilize votes. I think the agenda was to publicize issues so that regardless of who was elected, those issues would be deemed to be important," said Carter. "That's what the TPA was designed to do." Parties now in picture Overshadowing the role of TPAs in this election is the province's decision to allow municipal political parties in Calgary and Edmonton. Carter expects there will be fewer TPAs in this year's campaign than the eight that took part in the 2021 vote. "I think that the largest TPAs are going to struggle to find candidates to support and they're going to struggle to actually have an impact on the outcome of the election," he said. Do they have any future at all? From his vantage point, that all depends on the rules. Carter notes that the election rules have changed ahead of each election dating back to 2007 so knowing whether TPAs will be around or even allowed in the 2029 election is just too hard to speculate about. Calgary's Future is not looking at morphing into or starting a political party. "We have no interest in being a political party," said Shevalier. "We're a third-party advertiser. We're not going to pretend to be a political party because ultimately, the amount of work and the amount of effort and the amount of resources it takes to build up a political party is not why Calgary's Future was created." Under provincial rules, TPAs must register with Elections Calgary. They can start to accept campaign donations on May 1, 2025. Calgarians go to the polls on Oct. 20.
