Alberta: where boneheads come to make $10K a month

...at least according to Todd Babiak and a 16-year-old from Hinton.

The 16-year-old from Hinton, Connor Shannon, was attending a Green Party rally held in Jasper when Elizabeth May's campaign train arrived there. Displaying an uncanny level of cynicism that we at AGRDT could only dream of having when we were 16, Shannon expressed doubts about May's ability to convince locals to vote Green. From the Journal story,

"Pretty much everyone in Hinton can't look past the trucks in their driveways and the quads in their garages," [Shannon] said.

"Everyone is more worried about making 10 grand a month and blowing it on toys than actually looking towards their children and anything beyond five years from now."

Obviously Shannon is generalizing but not only has he accurately and succinctly summarized what is, I think a common and growing lament about our province -- money, in Alberta, is priority one -- and he's done so with a rhetorical zip one would expect from, say, a newspaper columnist.

Todd Babiak is one of those, and he also dropped the $10 000 per month figure in this blog post, in which he talked about a murder which took place in Old Strathcona on Saturday, and sarcastically related this to the overall condition of the province:

It's awe-inspiring to live in a booming economy, a hot economy, an economy firing on all cylinders, a natural resource economy, the strongest economy in North America, a stable economy, the second most diverse economy in Canada.

Bring us your violent and your angry, your mean and your stupid, your dropouts. We will pay them $10,000 a month and, when they get drunk and kill each other, write columns about them.

Again, there is some generalization going on here,* but again I think the sentiment rings true. Although it's obviously a coincidence that both Shannon and Babiak both quoted the same salary figure, what isn't coincidental is the frustration with our province that they were both using it to articulate: as a province, we seem to be devoted to no higher cause than short-term material gain. Which could help to explain our unwavering support for the federal Conservatives, who promise us nothing if not a slightly-improved version of the status quo in which the criminals all go to jail forever, the environment continues to take care of itself, and the rest of us -- the good people -- sit back and use the money we saved on the GST cut to get a few more channels added to our cable package.

*astute readers will notice I've mentioned this in comments on the post, some of which I've semi-recycled above

Comments

[Fort Redneck]

Wow must be a great view from the pedestal that you and Todd sit on. Lets pay everyone the same, tax them lots and let the government look after us all. And when someone does break the law lets send them home to do their time. Surely those things would bring an end to all this violent crime.

[jk]

How did I know I was going to get accused of being elitist?

I don't recall saying anything about paying everyone the same or letting the government take care of us all. What I am saying is that I think -- I hope -- that all of the billions of dollars we're frantically rushing to suck out of the ground could be used for something of more value than a collection of rapidly depreciating consumer goods.

However, Albertans in general don't seem to agree with me on this. Which is why I think Harper's Conservatives appeal to them -- their platform boiled down is all about not making things too hard: don't worry about our significant and increasing dependency on fossil fuels, we'll cut gas taxes (even though these tax cuts will increase the risk of us running a deficit and could be wiped out by one bad day on the markets); don't worry about identifying the causes of crime and working to rectify them, we'll just continue to toss more people in jail (despite the fact it's been shown not to work) because it's easier and satisfying; don't worry about changing your lifestyle stop climate change (even though there's no possible way for us to reduce emissions without you doing this), because we're going to make the "polluters pay."

[Aaron]

Todd's just pissed off that his gentrified Whyte Avenue isn't as preemed as he would like. As long as you have bars clustered together like that, Edmonton will be known as Stabmonton.

I remember reading about Edmonton being the premiere destination for ex-convicts. We have the highest number of ex-cons outside of Toronto, which translates into an even higher number on a per-capita basis.

Babiak's rage is misplaced. I noticed the men involved were "looking" for work, and there's no mention that they even found jobs. There were girlfriends with buns in the oveen involved. That's gotta be stressful.

Adding Whyte Avenue, racism, male angst to the mix gives a clearer picture of where the blame lies.

For every tattooed, dirtbike owning, coke-addled Pipefitter apprentice on Whyte Avenue, I know several young guys who get married, pay off their house, or pay for school.

Babiak is right when stating these guys don't get too involved in their communities -it's hard when you're on a 21 and 7 shift in Fort Mac, or working a 14 hour day out in Fort Saskachewan when the travel time is factored in. Most are just happy to make their kid's hockey or soccer games on the weekend.

But that's the nature of construction - long days and hard work leave little energy at the end of the day for community involvement.

In Calgary, things are different. Every drive-by shooting or stabbing seems to have a tie to gang activity.

[jk]

Aaron;

I more-or-less agree with you about his blame being misplaced (and said so in the comments on Babiak's blog). I also have numerous friends who've moved here from the East Coast and are really no different from my friends who are native Edmontonians on the axes of "community involvement" or frequency of knife crime. As well, I think you make a good point about their work schedules; I definitely disagree with Babiak's implicit suggestion that people who move here looking for work have some sort of obligation to try and improve community life in our province.

As for the bit about Whyte Ave not being as "preemed" as Babiak would like, I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting people to get stabbed in neighbourhoods you frequent. I live within walking distance of this particular stabbing and I can't say I was too thrilled to read about it -- especially because it seems as if the frequency of incidents like this in Old Strathcona are increasing (although I haven't had the time to look at it in depth and see if they actually are increasing...)

[ch]

Good comment, Aaron.

Although, I would take issue with your laying part of the blame on the concentration of bars around Whyte Ave. Ottawa, St. John's and Calgary all have areas that are similar in concentration of bars to our Whyte Ave, yet you don't hear us referring to them Stabawa or Stab John's.

[Todd]

I don't take issue with people coming here to look for jobs. Who wouldn't come here for jobs? And I'm well aware of all the good, good, good hard-working folks from No Jobs Here, Canada, who have come to Edmonton to raise their children, buy trucks and a plasma TV and... that's about it. God bless them, really. We need more of them. Tell me something I don't know.

My point is that it's a mirage, our city's projection to the rest of Canada. Just like people eager to make money for nothing on the stock market, and get hosed, people who come here to get rich in the trades often find out it's really hard work. Instead, some of them drink and drug themselves into oblivion — in my demonstrably ungentrified but entirely fragile neighbourhood — and I think they've been duped. We're selling something that isn't true. There are quotations around "10,000 a month" for a reason. And it's at least partly "our" fault, all of this. We voted for it. We brag about it. Criticize it and you're either a pinko who doesn't like economic growth or an elitist.

As for the elitist stuff, define elitist. I live in a tiny little place across from a drug house and two doors down from a four-plex where approximately 700 19-year-olds in hoodies live. And I still have a student loan.

Elitist? Who runs this province? I'm a writer, not a farmer.

[jk]

Todd;

Thanks for the clarification. I don't know if the value proposition of Edmonton is entirely false; I don't think many people who work here looking for well-paying trades work a) go looking for very long, b) expect that it will be easy, or c) expect (or care about) very much in the way of cultural and/or community life.

As for your claim that it's "partly 'our' fault," I only disagree in the sense that I think it's entirely "our" fault (which is the point I was trying to make in the comments section on your post).

Finally, perhaps I wasn't clear when I referenced elitism in my earlier comment, but I couldn't agree more with what you say in that regard. Although I can't say I have the honour of living across the street from a drug house, I'm an effectively disenfranchised nobody who makes half as much as the workers I reference in my apparently holier-than-thou posts and somehow I get accused of being an elitist. It's ridiculous, but such is the reality in the Albertan political climate.

[Aaron]

Todd said:

Just like people eager to make money for nothing on the stock market, and get hosed, people who come here to get rich in the trades often find out it's really hard work. Instead, some of them drink and drug themselves into oblivion — in my demonstrably ungentrified but entirely fragile neighbourhood — and I think they've been duped. We're selling something that isn't true. There are quotations around "10,000 a month" for a reason. And it's at least partly "our" fault, all of this. We voted for it. We brag about it. Criticize it and you're either a pinko who doesn't like economic growth or an elitist.

I don't think the trades are extremely hard work; it's more the cold, the long hours and time away from home that's the most difficult. If you coop a bunch of tradesmen in a dry (no drinking camp) for weeks on end, sure as hell they're going to be looking to get as messed up as possible on their days off.

We have pipefitters, electricians and operators in this province who make more money than lawyers. And good on them. Instead of BMWs they drive huge trucks. Instead of suits, they buy new riding leathers for their Harleys. So on and so forth.

These are the tales that lure young men and women westward, and they are available. It just takes four or five years in the business to get there. You need training, a network of friends and experience to make that kind of cash.

It isn't just handed to you as soon as you get off the plane or the exit off the Yellowhead.

But people are catching onto the distorted perception of reality. There was a HUGE trend reversal that happened a year ago.

Statcan.ca

On the other hand, the main engine of Alberta's demographic growth—interprovincial migration—has lost some of its importance. Alberta, which has led the provinces in population growth for the last few years, has started to lose more people to other regions than it has received.

Over the third quarter, Alberta recorded a net interprovincial migration outflow estimated at 3,300 people. The last time the province recorded a net outflow to other jurisdictions occurred in the fourth quarter of 1994.

You hear that? Canadians don't believe the hype any more. The Provincial government now has to send international junkets abroad in order to lure people into moving here.

Yeah it's expensive in Edmonton and Calgary. But view it on a global scale. Compare it to Zurich, Vancouver, Rome, Toronto - wherever.

Alberta's not that bad.

[Fort Redneck]

jk

I'm not calling you or Todd an elitist but being one doesn't really have anything to do with how much you make or where you live. It does have something to do with having an attitude that people that do want to earn more and take that oilpatch job should feel guilty about it.

[jk]

Fort Redneck:

I think it also has something to do with being part of an elite (for example, I don't think you could call a homeless guy an elitist if thought it was bullshit that pipefitters made more than lawyers) but that's not the point I'm want to make.

I've never said or even implied that oilpatch workers should "feel guilty" about the money they're making -- that's obviously absurd. The point I'm trying to make is that it pains me to see countless billions of dollars that could have been used on so many other things -- like the financial security of future generations of Albertans, for example -- evaporating into nothingness in the form of rapidly depreciating consumer goods (and, to be fair, other things, like vastly inflated construction rates, wages to foreign temporary workers who will by definition vacate the province immenently, etc).