Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying

E-town to say 'peace out' to plastic?

Edmonton city councilor, Linda Sloan has asked city staffers to look at the feasibility of banning plastic shopping bags in Edmonton retail outlets. This would make the City of Champions the first major metropolis in Canada to ban the non-biodegradable landfill-chokers. (As some of you may recall, Leaf Rapids, Manitoba (pop. 500) was the first Canadian district to do so, last year.)

As someone who already uses cloth bags when shopping at the grocery store or the mall (*pats back*), I think this is a great idea. But, I'm sure there will be plenty of naysayers who argue that we shouldn't sacrifice convenience, or that the bags get reused (which may be true), or that it is their right to use plastic bags, or whatever. To them I say: take a look at your current consumption of plastic bags. Do you really need a bag for every little purchase you make?

As a point of illustration, consider the case of Ikea.  For the last 6 months, Ikea Canada has been charging 5 cents for those big  blue and yellow bags that have come to symbolize moving out of your parent's house and/or student living.  As a result, Ikea's plastic bag demand has dropped 90 percent.

This tells us three things about what might happen if Edmonton bans plastic shopping bags: 1) the world will not implode, 2) people will realize they really don't need a plastic bag for every single purchase, and 3) Edmontonians are likely to smoothly adapt to the lessened availability of plastic shopping bags.

Thus, I say bring on the ban and let Edmonton score some environmental glory for a change (damn Calgary and their 'wind-powered C-train').

In the news

Lots of interesting stuff going on today. Here is a roundup of links:

Photo: Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail has a good article detailing the 'in and out' scheme the Conservative Party of Canada allegedly used during the last election to finance national campaign advertising and exceed their allowable spending under the Elections Act by over $1 million dollars (and has resulted in yesterday's RCMP and EC raid of their headquarters). According to the Ottawa Citizen, this is the first time in Canadian history that a political party headquarters has been searched by the RCMP. I always new PM Harper would be a path breaker.

UPDATE: CBC's Politics with Don Newman is reporting that the RCMP are executing a criminal search warrant, granted by a Toronto criminal court at the request of Elections Canada. In fact, the ongoing search may have nothing to do with the 'in and out' scheme investigation and this may just be an attempt on the CPC to mask the real reason the cops are there.

Alberta Health and Wellness minister, Ron Liepert, has laid out his plan for the next year. The press release is seemingly benign. Some highlights include expansion of addiction and mental health services and a renewed strategy for regional health planning by June 15th. As they say though, the devil is in the details (and also the forthcoming provincial budget). I'd expect some healthcare-related controversy when Alberta Health's 'long term sustainability' plan is released in 9 months, if not sooner. Especially given Liepert's stated support for the Manzankowski and the 2006 Health Policy Framework reports and his general lust for 1990s-style, slash and burn budget cuts.

The Edmonton Journal's Todd Babiak has changed his tune (somewhat) on Edmonton's bid for the National Portrait Gallery. His column yesterday paints quite the rosy picture of a revitalized downtown arts and culture district. I like to think his newfound optimism is the direct result of  reading this blog...

Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians warns that if Canada doesn't revist NAFTA, Canadian governments can expect litigation by foreign oil companies if ever a water shortage were to halt oil and gas production.

Health Canada looks ready to ban bisphenol A. This endocrine disruptor mimics the effect of estrogen and has been linked to breast and prostate cancer. The bad news is that bisphenol A is in many clear plastic bottles (water bottles, water cooler jugs, clear/tinted nalgene bottles) and it is also used to line tin cans. The good news is that it can be avoided somewhat. See Green Edmonton for advice on that.

Finally, this gem. Apparently Vancouver transit cops have been tasering fare-cheaters. Even the non-violent ones. SHADY.

Is Ottawa hogging our national treasures?

An article in today's Edmonton Journal details development firm Qualico's bid for Edmonton to become the home of Canada's new National Portrait Gallery. This is not really news as speculation about an Edmonton bid has been swirling since the collapse of a proposal to build the gallery in Calgary's new Encana tower. However, given Qualico's  growing determination to see its bid to fruition, perhaps it is time to debate the merits of their proposal. I for one, am torn on this issue.

The former Liberal government had originally planned to build the National Portrait Gallery in Ottawa, which is, after all, the nation's capital. Commentators like Edmonton's own Todd Babiak have pointed out that most self-respecting countries like France or the US tend to build their national galleries, museums, and monuments in their capital cities and that this is where these sorts of national treasures belong.

But I kind of like the idea of having a national gallery in Edmonton. Admittedly, my bias is probably related to my somewhat selfish interest in seeing Edmonton blossom into Canada's new metropolitan city. Nonetheless, I think there is merit to Qualico's proposal.

First, Canada is not like other countries (especially European ones) in that we have a huge and sparsely populated land mass. Canadians are divided by vast swaths of countryside interrupted only briefly by larger urban centers. Thus, it is likely that many people living in Western Canada may never venture out to central Canada to visit our national treasures (especially if our more popular modes of travel--driving and flying--become more prohibitive with climate change). Despite this, we continue to concentrate a vast majority of important Canadian institutions (public and private) in central Canada (namely Ottawa, but to a lesser extent Toronto as well). Perhaps we should spread the love more evenly across the rest of the country?

Second, after having made two recent and short trips to Ottawa I can say that I hardly had time to thoroughly check out the National Art Gallery of Canada, let alone the Museum of Civilization, the War Museum and of course, Parliament Hill.* Perhaps if more of these types of attractions (with the obvious exception of Parliament) were scattered across the country's other urban centres, more Canadians would have a chance to see them and we wouldn't need to spend 2 weeks in Ottawa to enjoy them (not to mention several return trips a year to see temporary exhibits, like the Joe Fafard exhibit currently running at the NAC, which is excellent by the way). In addition, this might be a good way to encourage tourism to other parts of Canada and culturally enrich other cities. Might I dare suggest that it may also help combat regional antagonism and *gasp* promote a stronger sense of Canadian identity in areas outside of central Canada?

Anyways, I haven't made up my mind on this issue and I  am quite curious to know what other people think about the placement of national archives, monuments and museums outside of Ottawa. The National Portrait Gallery in Edmonton, yea or nea?

*if you are one of our 6 regular readers, I'll point out that my trips are extraneous to jk's recent sojourn.

Sadly, this one isn't an April Fool's joke

That said, it's certainly the most foolish thing I've seen in quite a while. Although I've already posted on this subject, I just wanted to remind all of our Edmontonian readers that as of yesterday, you'll now be charged a cool $250 if you get busted for jaywalking.

The logic given for this increase? Pedestrians need an "incentive to play safer." Apparently, not getting smashed by a car and slowly bleeding to death on the pavement is not quite incentive enough.

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).

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.

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.

Bizarro Week continues

First, we had oilsands companies advocating a carbon tax, and now this: Kerry Diotte and I agree on something.

The man who attributed Don Iveson's win in the recent Edmonton municipal election to a socialist conspiracy and I are united -- albeit for fairly different reasons -- in our strong distaste of the city's new jaywalking bylaw, which increases the fine for inappropriate street crossing in our city from $40 to a truly ridiculous $250 (see the story here; I never thought I'd link to the Sun three times in two paragraphs, but for some reason no one else has covered this -- and, after all, it is Bizarro Week).

The reason for this increase? "There has to be a greater incentive for people to play safer," according to traffic safety office official Gerry Shimko, who refers to Edmonton's 13 pedestrian fatalities last year. Right off the bat, I question if this will really accomplish anything because as Diotte points out in his column, jaywalking is responsible for only 4 of these 13 fatalities. That said, I do agree that the city should be working to reduce the number of these fatalities, but as is all-too-common in our city, this problem is being looked at from the slightly elevated and air-conditioned perspective of the driver.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that the majority of jaywalking in the city -- and the majority of jaywalking enforcement -- takes place downtown and in the University/Whyte Ave area (when I say "jaywalking," I don't include crossing cul-de-sacs and similar trivialities). Because these are pretty much the only two places in the city where one can walk anywhere, I feel reasonably confident making this assertion. Taking this into account and using the city's logic, one would think that most of the traffic fatalities that this bylaw is aiming to fix would have occurred in these areas.

However, taking a look at this map reveals that this isn't the case. 10 or 11 (depending on your figuring) of 2007's 13 pedestrian fatalities took place within what I would call the peripheral areas, where  my contention is that jaywalking (and pedestrian travel in general) is less frequent but made much more dangerous when it does occur by the inadequate pedestrian facilities in these areas. My point: jaywalking, at least when it's done in pedestrian-friendly areas, isn't the problem -- the problem is people attempting to navigate on foot a city that is designed for cars.

I'm certainly not saying that the city should go to say, Argyll, widen the sidewalks, and build pedestrian overpasses at every intersection; this would be an ultimately superficial measure that would do little to change the habits engendered by 50 years of designing for the automobile. What I am saying is that this yet another example of the car-centric mindframe that still permeates City of Edmonton decision-making, and one more thing to add to the extensive and growing list of reasons for the city to make a fundamental shift to its design philosophy and priorities.

As well, as a resident of a "core" area in the city it frankly pisses me off  that my street-crossing privileges are going to be restricted essentially so non-core residents drive 60 through my neighbourhood with impunity. Could you imagine the furor if a bunch of fellow core residents and I decided to go rip around Riverbend and then, after smashing a few kids, suggested that the solution would be to give the kids tickets?

I'll close by conceding probably the best argument of all to Diotte, who contends that the effectiveness of this bylaw will ultimately be compromised by the scads of irate, fine-contesting people there will be if bylaw officers start writing $250 tickets for jaywalking.

Portions of this post were inspired by conversations with friend BD. I have to give credit where credit is due, particularly since I think he's starting to get suspicious of me appropriating his intellectual property for the purposes of this blog.

Add Dave Bronconnier to the list of people I'd like to headbutt

Why do I want to headbutt Bronconnier? He seems to have contracted Chronic Myopia Syndrome, something that has been circulating quite virulently in Alberta's dominant political circles.

In this article, Don Braid describes how Bronconnier attended the PC's relatively inconsequential announcement for a new science centre in Calgary , yet no-showed for Kevin Taft's announcement about his party's proposal to grant Calgary and Edmonton city charters.  As Braid points out, were Calgary to be granted a city charter, (assuming that it was properly designed) Bronconnier likely wouldn't have needed to lambaste the province for months on end in the run-up to the province's announcement of its municipal funding package (the Municipal Sustainability Initiative, which contained a funding formula very favourable for Calgary relative to Edmonton).   

It seems now that he got the funding he wanted, he doesn't have to concern himself with the well-being of the province or city beyond his term in office. As is all too typical with Alberta politicians, he seems to be focusing solely on short-term, primarily economic outcomes, and not on addressing the structural deficiencies that create the problems we need money to solve.

I was surprised to see at the end of Braid's article that apparently PCs are starting to whisper about Bronconnier -- who was touted by some as the man who could possibly defeat the PCs under the Liberal banner -- as a possible successor for Stelmach. Amazingly, Liberal MLAs, showing restraint not characteristic of certain Tories, have thus far resisted the urge to offensively liken Bronconnier to a prostitute...

Someone's talking about cities!

Some of you may remember a post I wrote about a week ago criticizing all of the parties in the election for not having any specific plans to improve the state of Alberta's cities (although likely not too many, judging by the big fat goose egg beside the "comments" link beneath the post).

In any case, I saw this while scanning the Journal this morning, in which Kevin Taft proposes a "New Deal" for cities. Although his wording might be a tad grandiose, it's nice to see someone at least talking about cities in this election, something that the other major parties haven't been doing.

The premier in this story, presumably as a response to the announcement of Taft's "New Deal," references the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI); I guess the only problem is that the MSI isn't really that great. I mean, first of all, it doesn't really speak to any significant shifts in how cities are governed or administered; it's simply a funding formula. Secondly, it's a crappy funding formula; based on the population, length of roadway, and the education property tax requisitions of a municipality. Effectively, it incentivizes road construction and rewards richer districts by giving them more money than poor ones. So although the funding was certainly welcome, it's not exactly what I would call visionary, and it certainly won't go very far in alleviating a lot of the problems cities in Alberta are having that aren't directly tied to municipal funding levels (sprawl, prices, mobility, etc).