Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying

Takin' it back to the old school, 'cuz I'm an old fool who's so cool: Part 2

About a week ago I addressed the recent school closures in Edmonton in this post's predecessor, unsurprisingly titled "Takin' it back to the old school, 'cuz I'm an old fool who's so cool: Part 1." In that post, I posed and answered the first of two questions on the topic: what's causing these closures? Below, in a manner no less rambling or nonsensical, I will pose and answer the second.

2. What can be done to prevent school closings?

If, as I posit in my first post, these closures have resulted from a combination of the homogeneity of the neighbourhoods in which the schools are being closed and the general trend of suburbanization that Edmonton is undergoing, the answer to question 2 is theoretically simple:

• increase the number of residents with children in the affected neighbourhoods
• increase the diversity of the housing stock in the affected neighbourhoods to hedge against future demographic shifts of the magnitude that resulted in this round of school closures

Practically, however, it's a complete nightmare, mainly because if there is one thing that Edmontonians hate more than school closures, it's density infill development (which is the only way I can think of in which you could increase the diversity and abundance of housing stock in a neighbourhood). It's kind of funny, because I have a feeling many of the very same people who are raising a big stink over these school closings would be dusting off their grumpy pants and marching over to the community league if somebody wanted to build some condos in their neighbourhood. I'm not saying that either of those actions are generally right or wrong, but I am saying they're inconsistent with one another on some level.

Which brings me to what I think is really the root of the problem: the stigma that most Edmontonians attach to any density level or housing format that isn't strictly single-family, and the logical inconsistencies that result from this. For most people, it seems that infill projects aren't evaluated on their individual merits; they're simply bad. The brouhaha that ensues after every successive round of school closures in some way illustrates this, I think, because the topic of infill -- which is really the only thing that can reverse the trend of these closures -- rarely, if ever, comes up.

I don't think people fail to make this link because it's conceptually difficult; I mean, it's obvious, to me, that a neighbourhood with a 40-year-old school is going to need at least a few more residences to sustain that school if only because families simply aren't as big as they used to be. I think that this doesn't come up because Edmontonians inhabit an environment in which the popular discourse says that "infill/density = the great satan," and as a result are much less acquainted with the positive attributes that infill can bring.

So, in my opinion, the root-cause solution is simply to change the long-ingrained thinking of 1 000 000 people, a good portion of which are stubborn Ukrainians.  If this sounds like a tall order, that's probably because it is, but I'm of the mindset that all this would really take is one good project: one in which the neighbourhood is properly consulted; a reasonable amount of density and diversity is achieved without simply plopping a 30-story tower in the middle of a bunch of bungalows; a pleasant, lively and rejuvenated neighbourhood results; and, hopefully, an ailing school is saved. I think a project like that could show Edmontonians that infill can do more for a neighbourhood than increase traffic and make parking harder.*

In summary: infill is what can stop school closures, and residents need to understand that so they can encourage it in their neighbourhoods instead of banding together to stop it.

*I think that while kids in most cities have nightmares about the boogeyman, children in Edmonton have nightmares about not being able to find a parking spot or getting stuck on the Quesnell bridge. I can just see a kid in Oilers pajamas asking his mom to check under his bed for construction on 114 st.

Regret-o-vision

Check it out: ISL Engineering has been kind enough to provide a live video feed (Internet Explorer only, tough luck to all you Safari and Firefox hippies) of our municipal tax dollars being wasted on an interchange that is promised to cut the travel time from IKEA to the red light at 34 ave by up to 20 seconds*.

After you're done with that, I would recommend checking out the rest of the 23 Avenue Interchange website (particularly the "hot" 3D video in the "multimedia gallery"). Gotta love Edmonton; the roads even have websites.

*Not actually promised anywhere. This is me being sarcastic and cynical and attempting to illustrate, ultimately, what we're gaining for 250 million dollars.

Monday morning reading

For a Monday morning, there's a surprising amount of interesting Alberta-related news items in today's dailies:

• The Globe and Mail has a really interesting run-down of Imperial Oil's Kearl project , the challenges it faces and the risks it poses to Alberta's environment. The latest news is, that - in light of a federal court ruling, which nulled the decision of a joint federal-Alberta government environmental review panel to approve the Kearl project earlier this month -  the federal fisheries department has also decided to revoke the project's water permit. This means that the land set aside for the project - a strip mine that would cover an area of undisturbed Boreal forest bog the size of 20 000 football fields - cannot begin to be prepped for mining.  The article provides an overview of one of the most controversial oilsands projects in recent memory, so I highly recommend reading it. UPDATE: Imperial Oil plans to appeal the government's decision to revoke their water license.
  

• The Edmonton Journal has an interesting front-page feature on the future of high-speed rail in Alberta. The article highlights potential time-frames and some obstacles to and opportunities for the rail link's construction.  One of the key barriers outlined by the article is securing the land necessary from farmers and rural landowners. As I have argued before, high speed rail provide an important opportunity for Alberta to begin to off-set our embarrassing track-record on greenhouse gas emissions. Stelmach going on the record in support of high-speed rail was one of the few things he's done that I applaud, and his ability to move this project forward could demonstrate that he's able to think beyond the immediate future, something we have yet to see.

• The Calgary Herald has a story revealing that, Stephen Harper (i.e. the man with the climate change plan that puts Alberta's to shame), has continually ignored warnings from the Canadian government's top scientists that Canada faces climate disaster if it continues on its course of blocking international progress on climate change. Sadly, this revelation is so unsurprising, I'm surprised it made the papers at all.

• Finally, this is a bit late, but better late then never. This story provides yet another reason to forget Ralph Klein was premier of this province for 14 years. (Check out his Wikipedia page if you need any others). Klein was awarded the French equivalent of the Order of Canada and these remarks are are the best he could come up with? France shares in some of the embarrassment too. I mean, seriously France, you couldn't think of anyone better to award your highest honor?

Earth Hour is tonight at 8:00pm

The CBC is reporting that according to a recent poll 70% of Canadians plan to turn off their lights for one hour between 8 and 9 tonight. The top potential substitute activities reported include 'getting busy' with someone and stargazing. Perhaps even more interesting is the poll's finding that 85% of Canadians think Ottawa isn't doing enough to address climate change.

Some notable Canadian landmarks participating in Earth Hour include: Toronto's CN Tower and Eaton Centre;  Niagara Falls; Vancouver City Hall and its Olympic Flag; Edmonton's City Hall, as well as Halifax's MacDonald Bridge and Parade Square. Come on Alberta, do your part! In case my begging isn't enough to inspire you, check out this Earth Hour video (complete with cheesy soundtrack).

POSITIVE THINKING: #3

Today, EC offers up the third installment in the POSITIVE THINKING series. EC is 24 years old and is currently "in transition" between jobs. It appears she had a little bit more trouble than most in coming up with something positive -- perhaps because, like us, she is still stinging from the election results. However, after a bit of struggle, she has managed to fight through her cynicism and create a quite original conception of what it is she loves about our province: community radio. One more thing: EC supplied a headline with her contribution, and although every post in this series get the standard "POSITIVE THINKING: #X" title, we thought we had to mention it because it somewhat hilariously encapsulates her struggle to come up with something. Her title for the following contribution: "Community radio in Alberta: The hidden gem in a land of tar."

A few weeks ago I was kindly asked by my friends at AGRDT to write a guest post about something that I love about Alberta. I’m not going to lie, at that point  it was quite difficult for me to come up with anything I liked in Alberta. I was still trying to come to the realization that 22% of the people surrounding me had just successfully elected the Conservatives to 87% of the seats in our latest version of a provincial government. But, now that the days have passed and the sun keeps coming up in the morning, I’m starting to cheer up, and realize that Alberta is my home and while I may not be happy about the election outcome, it does provide an opportunity to  highlight my favorite thing about this province. Now more than ever, there is a critical need for alternative and oppositional voices to be heard in this province and we here in Alberta should consider ourselves lucky that we have such vibrant community radio stations.

While there are a variety of ways which progressive people have found to get their message out, community radio in Alberta has been a great vehicle for many alternative voices. There are hundreds of volunteers across the province, who work tirelessly to bring a brilliant alternative to mainstream radio. While there are many great music programs that continuously play the latest and greatest in (predominantly) underground music, I particularly love Alberta's amazing collective of alternative journalists who gather in grassroots radio news rooms from Edmonton to Lethbridge. For the past two and a half years, I have been fortunate enough to work in one of these news departments and as a result have had an abundance of amazing experiences. Yes, I have had the opportunity to interview a lot of great authors, musicians, community leaders and academics, but more than anything I have had the privilege of working with dedicated and impressive people who have made it their mission to bring real, uncensored and pertinent news to Albertans.

Each week they bring timely news about the environment, aboriginal issues, women’s issues, alternative gardening and much, much more. In addition to the great programming that community radio stations in Alberta offer, I’m continuously astounded by the culture that has been created by these collectives. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what your gender is, what you wear, or how old you are, everyone is accepted. Come to think of it, for me, these radio stations are like a safe space where critical thinking is not only allowed, but is encouraged. It might seem like I’m describing any where on a university campus, but it is different, at community radio stations pretentiousness and egos are checked at the door. Fresh, new ideas, radical or not, are constantly filling the air. I love that the person who has their doctorate in English is working on the same show as a first year engineering student, both are given the same credibility, both are viewed as equals.

Now you may be thinking: big deal, there are grass roots, community radio stations in many cities all over this country, what is special about Alberta? Well, I have been many places all over the country, and I have talked to many people at similar radio stations all over the country, and everyone is continuously astonished by the programming that is put out by Albertans. While progressive may have been defeated in the mainstream political arena, we are still thriving here in alternative spaces, and community radio continues to be a medium where our voices will always be heard!

They may take our lives, but they'll never take OUR FREEDOM!

I had to laugh when I read the following quote from the ever-delusional Strathcona County Reeve Cathy Olesen in the Journal (link):

In her annual State of the County address, Olesen said she's prepared to move forward with discussions of the new board, which is to guide regional planning in Edmonton and 24 surrounding municipalities.

"But we will not stand down," she told a packed lunch crowd at Festival Place. "We will stand up for what is right."

It is truly inspiring to see her steadfastly defend the right of wealthy, tax-rich suburbanites to continue shipping their homeless people to Edmonton. Fight on, Cathy!

The good and the bad: Edmonton's proposed new arena

On the issue of a new arena, we defer to our guest poster on the AGRDT sports beat, MR. Thanks for an insightful analysis!

The long awaited Edmonton arena feasibility report came out on Tuesday, and to the surprise of no one, it glowingly endorsed a downtown arena. What people seem to forget about this report is that it is only the preliminary stage of the process, it’s not a plan and therefore it lacks the details that would be associated with a plan. Nonetheless the document will guide future decisions so let’s take a look at the good, and the bad:

The Good

•“That existing parking in the multipurpose activity district be maximized.”

According to the report parking and traffic will not be a concern because last new years “more than 35,000 people gathered in Sir Winston Churchill Square without overcrowding, creating parking challenges, or causing any traffic problems as the crowds dispersed.” So take that… Seriously though, while I don’t agree that one debatably successful instance of smooth mass exodus from the downtown core proves anything, I do agree that parking and traffic should not be a concern. That is assuming that the location selected has proximal access to public transportation. A lack of parking might even encourage people to leave their vehicles at home.

• “The facility should be programmed to maximize use through concerts, events, shows and community uses, given the limited numbers of Oilers games annually.”

To me this was recognition of the fact that it is not a good idea to simply plop an arena that remains dark on most nights into the downtown core…it’s a start.

• “That a sports/entertainment facility within a multipurpose activity district be designed to link the neighbourhood, the City of Edmonton, the Edmonton capital region and central and northern Alberta.”

Anyone who read my previous post knows that I think it is absolutely crucial for this project to be more then just a big old building. There is not much detail here, but at least the idea is being presented. Hopefully, as the planning process continues we will see the district development and the arena development merge because I think that planning the two as separate entities, or phases, is a huge mistake. 

• “That the sports/entertainment facility be environmentally sustainable, using LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) criteria.”

Very good…Enough said.

The Bad

• “The subcommittee believes that there is potential to identify additional sources of revenue associated with a revitalized downtown area such as a downtown parking levy and/or an increase in the existing ticket surcharge.”

A new arena means more expensive tickets, which means even fewer games for me and probably you. Expected, but still bad.

•“There is precedent in Alberta for the use of a community revitalization levy (CRL) for enabling projects such as this. A CRL allows a municipality to raise funds against future increases in the tax base.”

The Mandel loop hole: apparently tax money doesn’t include future potential tax money.    

How things will go down…

    There will be a new arena and it will be downtown, any alternatives have pretty much been steamrolled over by the municipal government and the Edmonton media. There will be public funding, not direct tax increases, but by other means, and the province will give nothing. The report’s suggestions seem to point to the development of an entertainment district which, hopefully, will be part of, and not separate from the arena planning process. Unfortunately, I don’t see the city using this project as a means to fight any of the other major civic problems (like say…affordable housing). Just my thoughts…how do you see it playing out?

UPDATE: The Canadian Finals Rodeo threatens to pull out of Edmonton, if new downtown facility is difficult to access via truck and livestock trailers.

For more insight on the new Edmonton downtown arena plan, check out our friends Daveberta and Covered in Oil.

Good news and bad news on the pine beetle front

The CBC and the Globe are reporting some good news regarding BC's battle to stop the spread of pine beetle. Apparently, the rice grain-sized terrors have ran out of trees to eat. Thus, the hemorrhaging of BC's forestry industry is expected to slow. So what's the bad news? Scientists suspect that the lack of feed for pine beetles in BC will likely fuel their continued spread into Alberta. Perhaps BC will lend Alberta part of the $1 billion the federal government has agreed to grant the province over the next ten years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the funding Alberta has received to fight pine beetle is basically non-existent, despite the fact that our Western border is under severe threat. Perhaps, the federal Conservatives think  pine beetle  money sent to the Conservative heartland of Canada is less politically expedient?

The sketchiest mayor in Canada, Pt. 2

Alright, I know this blog is supposed to be about Alberta, but this tidbit was too good to pass up. After last weeks antics, it appears the patience of Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien's council colleagues is finally beginning to wear thin. I highly recommend that you read the entire article from the Ottawa Sun - but in case you do not - here's some memorable quotes from the five counselors interviewed:

(Keep in mind these are quotes from actual elected city counselors referring to their boss).

"I like him but he's embarrassing the city," said Wilkinson. "Things are not going smoothly right now."

"There's a campaign being launched in Barrhaven called 'Triple B', " said Harder. "It stands for 'Bring Back Bob' (former mayor Bob Chiarelli). It's sad really."

"It's a train wreck," she said. "That can't continue. It really can't," she said. "It was our worst week. Enough is enough and Larry has to trust us."

"He's losing his core support" (This last comment referring to O'Brien's alienation of his conservative base, after he proposed every household be taxed $50 to cover snow removal expenses. While the merits of this proposal could be debated, O'Brien ran his entire mayoral campaign on the promise of no increased taxes).

Last but not least, my personal favorite, the response given by veteran counselor Clive Doucet when asked what he thought of the state of affairs in the mayor's office: 

"It's a gong show over there" he said.

POSITIVE THINKING: #2

The second installment in the POSITIVE THINKING series comes from JK. JK needs no introduction -- he's one of the three surly proprietors of this blog. That being said, these sentences basically constitute an introduction, so we may as well tell you what he'll be writing about: he's chosen to focus on an idea briefly raised in POSITIVE THINKING: #1: our crisp Albertan climate.

A lot of people, even the most loyal and proud of Albertans, loathe the weather here, which is pretty easy to understand. It's friggin' freezing for a good four months and kind of freezing for another four, which leaves only about a third of the year for cutoff jean shorts. Most people like cutoff jeans shorts and nobody -- me included -- likes freezing, but I nonetheless find many charms within a climate that to all outward impressions is horrible.

There are a lot of stupid reasons I like our climate. For example, it's conducive to sweater-wearing and I happen to be a guy who likes to wear sweaters, and in weather with any amount of humidity I quickly develop what some would call a "gross sweating problem." These, though, are obviously fairly superficial reasons, and carry about the same weight, I think, as liking a climate simply because "it's hot."

The crux of what I like about our weather is that it is one of the things that define us as Albertans. I like the weather because it's a challenge, and I think challenges like weather -- which doesn't recognize the generally trivial things like socioeconomic status or political affiliation that us humans tend to use as an excuse to ignore one another -- bring us together in some way. Inevitably, during a stretch of really miserable weather, I'll find myself talking to people I would have never talked to simply because we're both sharing something, and I really think that's worth something.

I definitely lament certain aspects of the weather here, an example being our almost complete lack of autumn. I lived in New England for a while, and I remember during my first fall there the leaves turning colour and staying on the trees for, like, two months. Around week six I was just looking at the trees thinking "are you kidding me?" Some part of me wishes we had longer autumns, but I'm ultimately glad that they're 2 weeks long because they are something that make us unique. I love that the leaves staying on the trees for so long was the primary focus of numerous conversations I had with people back home during the fall I mention above -- it's something that only a relatively small portion of people on our continent would get, and it's part of what makes us us.

There are a lot of images that people from the rest of Canada see when they think about Albertans, some of which I like and most of which I don't. One that makes me happy and also strikes me as accurate is the notion of the people here being friendly and unpretentious. It would be simplistic to attribute this to entirely to weather -- really, other parts of Canada have crappy weather, too -- but I nonetheless think that our climate has in some way played a role in this, maybe because it's exceptionally crappy. Experiences like getting pushed out of a ditch by a stranger or even just talking to a stranger simply because you're sharing the unpleasant experience of slowly developing frostbite while waiting for a crossing signal to change are things that I think subtlety shape us as Albertans. Ultimately, they're a part of what makes us unique in the country and the world.

Takin' it back to the old school, 'cuz I'm an old fool who's so cool: Part 1

Apologies for the lame title, but I challenge any of you to write about old schools and not somehow incorporate at least one rap lyric. I thought I'd get it out of the way early so I wouldn't feel the temptation later in the post.

The old school I'm referring to is Ritchie Junior High, which, according to this story in the Journal, is going to be the latest casualty in the round of school closures sweeping through Edmonton's mature neighbourhoods. The fact that this is happening in the face of unprecedented population growth within the city as whole raises a lot of questions about the way we've built and continue to build our city. Although I'm certain I'm not the first to ask or attempt to answer them, I'm going to focus on two of these questions.

1. What's causing these closures?

The obvious answer to this is the sweet siren call of the suburbs that we Edmontonians seem to be so powerless against. More than anything a school needs a pack of slobbering, whiny rugrats (if it's elementary; if it's secondary, it would need a troop of mouthy, angst-ridden yahoos) to make it viable. It's quite clear that the parents of these kids are choosing overwhelmingly to reside in suburban neighbourhoods, so that's why the schools that the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) has closed or is considering closing are in mature, central neighbourhoods, and the new schools they have planned or are constructing are in suburban areas.

Further to that, I think this phenomenon is exacerbated by the design of the mature neighbourhoods themselves. In my opinion, school closures are eventually what happen when you have neighbourhoods that consist of a whole bunch of similar buildings that were built at the same time to house the same type of people. The funny part about Edmonton is that even our core neighbourhoods are, for the most part, designed using suburban principles. The neighbourhood that Ritchie Junior High is located in (Ritchie, I believe it is called), for example, would be considered by almost everyone to be a "core" area of the city, but it's still suburban housing -- it's just the post-war version, made slightly more benign but the smaller lot sizes (relative to contemporary suburbs) and more rational street design (grid and laneways vs the rambling cul-de-sacs we see today).

The design of Ritchie contributed to this closure, I think, because neighbourhoods that consist of vast tracts of identical housing tend to attract vast tracts of demographically similar people. When suburban neighbourhoods like Ritchie were built they appealed largely to families, which necessitated the relatively large amount of schools constructed within them. Those families and their kids then grew up more-or-less simultaneously, and by the time this had happened there hadn't emerged a source of housing within the area that was attractive and/or numerous enough to make up for all of the kids that had simply grown out of their neighbourhoods.

So we get school closures, which in turn make neighbourhood renewal infinitely harder because school proximity is a major factor when young families are trying to decide where they want to live.

All that being said, I don't think school closures are in themselves a bad thing. Neighbourhoods change, people move, and some schools are just crappy. It's just alarming to see such an obvious pattern that is contrary to what is becoming more and more widely accepted as the most desirable paradigm of urban planning: that of diversity and and reasonable density.

It's also discouraging to see that we don't seem to have learned from our mistakes. I would wager that all of the new schools going up in the suburbs will likely face a similar fate in 30-40 years, given the general lack of diversity in the housing stock of the neighbourhoods that surround them. The Alberta government seems have similar feelings, as they've structured the maintenance contracts on the new suburban schools to only last 25-30 years*.

The issue of what makes an individual school close is always a complicated one with many contributing factors, and it's impossible to identify a single cause as responsible. That said, when we see schools closing  in central areas of the city in the face of a population boom with their replacements being constructed in suburban areas, we can reasonably conclude that this problem is driven by the larger trend of suburbanization that Edmonton (and virtually all North American cities) has undergone and continues to undergo.

This all of the sudden got quite long while I was writing it, so in the efforts of keeping our readership awake I will break it into two parts. Stay tuned in upcoming days for part two of this post: What should we do?

*Gotta love the politicization of publicly-funded government websites. Anyone else notice how "A PLAN" is bolded in the "Building Tomorrow" logo at the top right of the story, or ring-road projects that were barely complete at the time of this release are referred to as "very successful?" It was truly a pleasure to see that my tax money was being used to further strengthen Tory hegemony while reading a release about it being used to line the pockets of private investors via the proven-to-not-work P3 model.

Alberta MPs courting voters in the 905

In case anyone in Alberta is wondering what their Conservative MP is spending their constituency budget on.... I'll give you a hint: it sure isn't on working hard to serve you or earn your vote!

Alberta's alt-weeklies take on the 'unite the left' question

A couple articles from two of Alberta's alt-weeklies caught my eye last week (sorry I've been sitting on this one for a little while.) In the first piece, Shannon Phillips provides some insight into the problems plaguing the Alberta NDP ('After a Dismal Election, What's Next for the NDP and the Left?') for this week's edition of Vue Weekly.

The article is an interesting read because it uncovers some of the internal rifts between the party and its traditional constituencies, such as their relationship with the labour movement. The not-so-veiled jabs exchanged between the ND's campaign chair (and caucus chief of staff),  Lou Arab, and the Alberta Federation of Labour head, Gil McGowan, illustrate the extent to which the NDP has drifted from the labour movement in Alberta (or perhaps the other way around). Traditionally, progressive parties have had to tread a careful line between environmental groups and labor unions, whose interests often appeared to be at odds, however it seems that the NDP has not jeopardized their relationship with labor for the purpose of growing closer to environment groups either.

I think David Eggen's comments about the true role of a political party not being about obtaining political power (unsurprisingly) reflect the fact that he comes down on the principled side of the eternal NDP principle/pragmatic divide. Eggen obviously feels that maintaining tight links to social movements should be a priority for the NDP. While this is a valid objective, one has to wonder whether Alberta's social movements are all that interested in putting all their support behind a party that not only has no real possibility of gaining power, but doesn't necessarily even aspire to it. This strategy may work in other provinces and even at the federal level, but it seems to me that here in Alberta (a place I sometimes lovingly refer to as 'the belly of the beast') desperate times may call for desperate measures.

The second article, 'The Party's Over: The Alberta Liberal Brand is Dead' by Ira Wells, discusses the fate of Alberta's other main opposition party for Calgary's FastForward Weekly. While this article, as a 'viewpoint' item, is a bit on the harsh side, I think the author ultimately makes a good point

In the wake of last Monday's disgraceful performance, Liberals will find themselves faced with examining their policies, their leader and their brand. When they reach the unavoidable conclusions - that it's impossible to image a concrete set of policy shifts that would have swung the election in their favour and that it is equally implausible that there is a potential leader out there who is charismatic and persuasive enough to compel the majority of Albertans to buy into a Liberal future - then, they are left with the issue of branding. The depressing reality is that Liberals are selling a product that Albertans haven't wanted for generations.

A large part of the reasons that I put off posting these two articles, is because I didn't know what I wanted to say about them. I don't like speaking for the members of these parties. I can't tell you want these parties' members want to do, but I can tell you what I think some progressive Albertans should do.  Alberta needs a new political party, possibly one that is composed of the pragmatic members of the left-leaning parties in this province, i.e. the Liberals, NDP and Greens. While some people may raise the objection that people who sympathize with the Liberals, NDs and Greens alike would never get along to the extent necessary to maintain a cohesive brand, I would say that this is precisely why the Tories have been so amazingly successful in this province: they have supporters that range from your typical Edmontonian family concerned about strong public healthcare and schools all the way over to the lunatic fringe of Ted Morton.

As Wells puts it, "individual donors, volunteers and wannabe MLAs eventually tire of giving their time and money to an organization that brings them round after round of disappointment." That being said, it may be hard to entice the members of a party that doesn't view two seats as a disappointment into any kind of union that forces them to compromise their principles and in return gives them something they don't necessarily want: electability.

I tend to agree with Wells about the ALP's days being numbered. The party and its members need to realize that the Liberal ship sailed long ago in this province, and it's time for them to begin investing their time and resources into a new strategy -- in light of this election, there could be no clearer evidence that the one they've employed isn't working.

The only real question to me is whether or not this strategy should involve the NDP. It's fairly obvious that any progressive party that is going to have a hope in hell of getting elected in this province is going to need to be pretty close to the "centre" of "centre-left," which is a place you'd have to drag many NDPers kicking and screaming. Besides, if a party is trying to attract votes from left-ward edges of Torydom (which is ultimately what such a party would have to do to get elected), having a rigidly ideological band of disgruntled former NDPers in the ranks might be more of a hindrance than a help. As well, I think that there are a lot of NDP supporters more pragmatic than Eggen who would likely be willing to compromise on some issues and would ultimately be attracted to such a party, regardless of the formal support of the NDP organization.

Although these are indeed dark days for the political parties of Alberta's left, it's very heartening to see that at least they're starting to ask the tough questions.

Ottawa mayor takes a page out of Rahim Jaffer's playbook

Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien has to be the shadiest mayor in Canada right now. Seriously.

Nuclear in Alberta: Our very own monorail

According to Shawn McCarthy at the Globe and Mail, as far as nuclear power in Alberta is concerned:

1. We don't need it
2. It's cost prohibitive
3. To sell it, the Bruce Power needs to  "create a buzz" around the concept of a nuclear renaissance

I have been against nuclear energy in Alberta since Energy Alberta Corp was poking around Whitecourt and Peace River last summer. I'm even more against it now that Bruce Power (which bought out EAC) wants to build four nuclear reactors rather than two. Even if the generation of tons of toxic waste doesn't bother you, the economic arguments against  nuclear in this province (and elsewhere) should be enough to convince anyone that Alberta doesn't need nuclear energy.  I hope the provincial government will not subsidize the development of this industry and Albertans will avoid being duped into building something we don't need.

POSITIVE THINKING: #1

The first installment in the POSITIVE THINKING series comes from RK, a 54-year-old financial planner and lifelong resident of Alberta. Although he likes many aspects of our province, he chose to focus specifically on themes of community and opportunity. We were also very happy to see that RK, albeit briefly, mentioned our climate as a positive feature.

Let RK know what you think of his first-ever blog post in the comments section. 

I was asked to comment on something I liked about Alberta. While there were a number of things to choose from including the diversity of geography (from mountains to prairie and everything in between), the climate, opportunity, etc, I decided on something I can best describe as community spirit.  While many of my experiences are from the Edmonton area, I think they apply to the province as a whole. I see it in the sporting world -- filling up Commonwealth Stadium to watch a hockey game when it's -20 C, hosting world-class events that are always well-managed and well-attended, and setting the gold standard of national-anthem-singing when the Oilers made their big playoff run. Standing in that crowd I could feel how proud those people were to be Canadians and Albertans. It seems to me those types of things aren't regular occurrences anywhere else in Canada.

I've gotten involved with some fundraising and I also see this spirit in people's willingness to give. It's demonstrated by Alberta always being at or near the top in the country when it comes to charitable donations and, more importantly, volunteerism. It seems there is never a fundraising goal that isn't met, and I think this is reflected by the numerous top-end facilities in our area: the Alberta Heart Centre, The Stollery Children's Hospital and The Winspear, to name a few. The authors of this blog would probably say that if the government provided proper funding there wouldn't be a need to raise more money but I tend to disagree with that. There will always be a need for more than the government can supply and so there should be.

One last thought on the idea of opportunity: I recently had a 40-year-old fellow stop by my office. He and his family had moved here 18 months ago from Sri Lanka. He had two children, one 5 and the other 11 months. He and his wife work as cooks at BP and are making about $3500 a month. I was amazed when he told me that in the short time they've been here they had put together enough for a down payment on a house. He also told me how great it was (other than the cold weather) for him and his family to be here. I wouldn't go so far to say that Alberta is a "beacon of hope" but for these people it gave them an opportunity to change their lives.

The bottom line is that every country in the world can do better and we need to push for changes. But sometimes we just need to have an appreciation of what we've got.

Everyone's doing it

Dear beloved readers,

Sadly, the AGRDT blog infrastructure has been having some difficulties of a technical nature over the past couple of days. Mainly, we've been having some 'pinging' problems. For those of you non-bloggers, pinging means our blog is refusing to consistently notify affiliate aggregation sites like Alberta Blogs, Progressive blogs, Technorati of when we have a new post, so it looks like we do not post very regularly on those blogrolls. This is sad for us, because technically inept we may be, but slackers we are not.

Rest assured we are working on rectifying the problem. However, in the meantime we do have one suggestion suggestion for you: subscribe to our blog's feed! We just created a fantastic new Feedburner feed (that works with every platform) and a spiffy new graphic to aid with your subscription process. (For those of you who don't spend the better part of your waking hours on the internet, here's some information about 'feeds' is available here and here). If feeds aren't your style you can also sign up for email updates (in the side bar near the bottom), this is brought to you via Feedburner as well.

Finally, if this all sounds too complex, that's cool - we understand. Just remember to check back regularly as we publish new content almost daily. As always, feel free to email us any feedback you may have.

Sincerely,

The AGRDT Team

Grit Dream Team, or Dion's Nightmare?

I'm not going to lie: I blatantly stole this blog post title from Maisonneuve's MediaScout. However, I think I can more than repay the favor by shamelessly plugging The Scout in this post. A few of you may remember, that a while back the AGRDT team promised  that wherever possible we would highlight good examples of alternative media methods and innovative vehicles.  MediaScout is an excellent example of this. Each day, the team at Maisonneuve Magazine goes through seven of Canada's major dailies and compiles a digest consisting of their front page items and leads. This format allows one to quickly determine what's making news in Canada, and alternately which stories are falling by the wayside. Each digest also includes commentary on the mainstream media's strategies and angles in relation to their coverage of each story and links to the various stories it summarizes. What a handy way to read the morning news, hey?

Anyhow, today's lead story, Grit Dream Team, or Dion's Nightmare?, basically sums up my take on the implications of yesterday's by-election drama (i.e. no one really knows what this means, but it will be nice to have a few more articulate and intellegent MPs in Rae and Hall Finlay kicking around), so I've posted it below.

The only thing I would add is this: here's hoping that we don't see a rash of Liberal in-fighting as a result. As well, way to go, Green Party for their second place finish in Willowdale and their virtual ties with the NDP in the other ridings.

If someone had claimed in 1995, as then-Ontario Premier Bob Rae prepared to leave office, that the New Democrat would re-emerge thirteen years later as a possible future Liberal prime minister, MediaScout would have laughed the notion straight out of town. After all, besides the unlikely political apostasy, Rae’s premiership, widely regarded as a disaster, left the province in financial ruin and his political stock in the basement. It’s a good thing for MediaScout’s reputation, then, that no one had the gall or the foresight to make such a prediction. Rae, who narrowly lost the Liberal leadership race to Stéphane Dion in 2006, easily won a by-election yesterday in the riding of Toronto Centre, which will allow him to join his new party as an MP in Ottawa. Rae’s win and his imminent arrival in the Liberal shadow cabinet—probably in a continuation of his role as foreign affairs critic—are interpreted in two, possibly contradictory, ways in today’s sources: As a boon for the party or as the next step in the man’s ongoing hunt for the keys to 24 Sussex Drive.

Meanwhile, in three other by-elections held yesterday, the Liberals retained two seats (Willowdale in Toronto and Vancouver Quadra) and lost one (Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan). Despite the best efforts of Robert Fife on CTV News to interpret each riding’s results as a bellwether of the Liberal party’s vitality, the significance of the victories in the three Grit stronghold ridings and the narrow defeat in the swing Saskatchewan seat remains murky. What is clear is that with the addition to the House of Rae and former rival leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay, who handily won in Willowdale, the already star-studded Liberal benches will now boast an even more formidable line-up of political powerhouses. This is in contrast to the Conservative government, described by Don Martin in the Post as a one-man show and “a wasteland of rival ambition.” According to the Globe, Dion plans to use the strength of his team as a selling point, declaring, “I am a team player and a team builder and tonight it’s clearer than ever that I have a much better team than Stephen Harper.” However, Dion likely sees that the perceived competence of his right-hand men and women is as much a curse as it is a blessing; the embattled leader’s failure to convert the government’s political mistakes into gains in the polls only reinforces the impression of Rae and his former roommate, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, as “leaders-in-waiting,” as Don Martin describes them. Though Dion’s team may be better than Harper’s, the Liberal leader might find that they’re a bit too good for his own good.

If the Liberals can manage to hold things together, it looks like we'll be heading into an election sooner than we thought. If on the other hand, if Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff can't learn to get along (both are strongly divided over the question of Liberal election readiness, with Rae on the cautious side and Ignatieff on the full-speed-ahead end of things), we will likely see the maintenance of the current government, a another Stephen Harper minority win, or, even worse -- and I can barely write the words -- a Harper majority. I kind of like being the most progressive country in North America, I've got my fingers crossed for the Dream Team alternative. The Liberals are a long ways from perfect, but they're equally far from my worst nightmare. 

POSITIVE THINKING: Looking at what we like about Alberta

Regular (and probably even non-regular) readers of this blog will know that we here at AGRDT like to complain a lot. While we feel that every bit of this complaining is warranted, we thought it might be nice to give our readers an occasional respite from these bad vibes and try and focus on something a little more heartening.

Accordingly, we came up with an idea for a series titled "Things The Tories Haven't Wrecked Yet." Then one titled "Silver Linings," and then one titled "We Know It's Not The Tailings Ponds..." And then, finally realizing that none of these names quote captured the feel we were looking for, we decided on
"POSITIVE THINKING:" a series looking at what makes our province a good place to live.

If you listened to the government (via it's advertising/public-relations campaigns), you would likely come to the conclusion that the most remarkable thing about Alberta is its low tax load. As inspiring as that is, we think that there's more to the province than that. Like what? In a series of upcoming posts, ourselves and a number of guests from as large a cross-section of Alberta as we're capable of rounding up will be endeavoring to answer that question.

So, over the next month or so, look forward to our onslaught of cynicism being occasionally interrupted by a shining beacon of warm, positive light.

Age of persuasion

Weekends in Alberta politics are usually pretty slow, so if you'll allow me this small digression...

As inspired by Straight Outta Edmonton's latest post, it's shows like this that inspire my love for the CBC. The Age of Persuasion is an half hour program that airs on Radio One every Saturday morning and discusses everything you ever wanted to know about advertising.

For reasons unknown to me, I have this fascination with the ways in which advertisers try to manipulate the public's emotions for the gains of private interests. Although the host of the show (Terry O'Reilly) is an ad-person himself - and therefore probably not as critical of the profession as I would like him to be - he is incredibly forthright. If you're skeptical, check out 23 three things I'd like to change about advertising. His conclusion to that show is great. The Age of Persuasion is apparently working on creating a podcast, but in the meantime you can listen to each episode via streaming audio on the show's site.

On a less positive note, it's men like this, that make me fear for the CBC's future.