Reboot Alberta

Sunday, April 15, 2007

The Alberta Budget Means the Week Ahead is Going to be Interesting

ELIZABETH MAY'S BLOG IS NOW LINK TO THIS SITE!
Adding Elizabeth May to my links should help Progressives who read this Blog to stay current with May's campaign and encourage them to learn more about her and the Greens. I am still thinking there is no pending federal election. This gives Dion and May time to establish themselves and to become better known. They sure need the time.

My sense is the more we learn about Harper the less trusted he will become. The more we learn about Dion and May the more we will come to respect them and the more we will learn about the critical issues and needs to adapt to climate change.

THE SLOW MOVING TSUNAMI THAT IS MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE
We have done some initial reviews of the community workshop findings out of the first leg of the Grande Alberta Economic region road show. We are in these communities talking to the full range of local interests and gathering insight and input from the key Alberta communities who will be hit the hardest. We are on the road again tomorrow starting in Drayton Valley then Whitecourt and finally Grande Cache.

The economic and environmental concerns are being looked at and considered in many ways by the province and the feds. The social impacts on the communities and this region are also important and have to be integrated into any mitigation and adaptation strategy. That effort really has to come from the commuities on a bottom up approach along iwth the top down from the senior orders of government.

Prevention of the beetle is futile. Mitigation can only buy time but not stop it. Adaptation is the key and time is of the essence with some estimates of peak infestation in the province coming in as little as five years. One thing is for sure, our forests are going to change as a result of the Mountain Pine beetle The industies and commuities that rely on them are going to have to adapt significantly to the new reality.

The beetle is now in Banff and Jasper and the policy there is to use prescribed burning to combat the infestation. Our National Parks are sources of great pride for Canadians. The reality of the Mountain Pine Beetle and its consequences means the mountain parks in Alberta are going to change and potentially very radically and very soon.

SMOKE FREE ALBERTA IS GETTING ACTIVE
The coalition of various groups and agencies are now well organized. They are focused on gting legislated smoking bans in work and public places and to support the Alberta Minister of Health and Wellness Dave Hancock in this part of his wellness agenda. This is not a new idea in Alberta but in the past four attempts to legislate these changes it was opposed the Alberta government under Ralph Klien who always killed it at the political level.

Premier Stelmach and Minister Hancock are keen to see it pass this time but the Premier has said the matter must still have Caucus support to proceed. Hancock is gearing up to initiate the internal political process to legislate the public and work places ban, remove tobacco sales from pharmacies and control the"powerwalls" displays in stores where tobacco products are sold.

One suggestion from a citizen was that tobacco should only be sold in liquor stores making it a destination purchase and not a convenience purchase. He also noted who would risk their liquor license by selling tobacco products to a minor? Polls show Albertans what this to happen. It's about health and it's about time.

IT IS BUDGET WEEK IN ALBERTA
There is lots of anticipation surrounding the Stelmach government's first Budget. The disability community throughtout Alberta for example is looking for significant new dollars to recruit and retain staff that are at dangerously low levels. They have been meeting with MLAs Ministers and officials and have been told that new money is coming in the Budget. They are in a wait and see mode right now and nervously "holding their breath" for Budget details.

The situation is quite dire in many cases due primarily to the lack of funding levels to enable this sector to provide competative pay levels. The recent group home fire in Edmonton that resulted in a fatality of a disabled person was fully staffed and well operated at th etime of this tragedy. There are staff level shortages in many service providers all over Alberta that would not be able to deal with such an emergency effectively. It is that critical in too many cases in service provider capacity to meet service needs of their clients.

The political culture in Alberta that resulted from ten years of budget cuts and five years of political lethargy has to be changed. We see that Premier Stelmach is intellectually and emotionally ready to make the changes and he has initiated a wave of consultations and initiatives since becoming Premier four short months ago.

This week we will see the Budget and that will tell us how ready he is to take the real action to assure Albertans we have a new and very different kind of progressive government. I am looking forward optimisticaly to the Budget Speech on April 19th as both a partisan and as a citizen.

Recommend this Post to Progressive Bloggers

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:23 pm

    May is personally opposed to abortion rights - how is this "progessive".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:58 pm

    eric - you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Here is what May has said on abortion as posted in the Babble website December 2006. It is totally progressive to my mind:

    Elizabeth May has answered two questions on abortion and has offered a statement on this subject. The questions she answers below are:
    1) Are you in favour of restricting abortions to therapeutic abortions through legislation?
    2) How do you propose to reduce abortions?

    Below is her reply from an email that Elizabeth May has asked me to post here at Babble on her behalf.


    quote:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    - - - - -
    "Cameron has shared some of the blog postings
    about my comments on abortion. It is not a complete surprise to me that attempts to create any room for dialogue on a highly polarized issue will be used as a way of attacking the Green Party. My comments throughout the by-election campaign made it clear that the Green Party officially, and I personally, strongly support legal access to abortions for any woman (under whatever circumstances) who chooses to have one.
    What I was trying to suggest was that slogans distort the reality that there are moral dimensions to both positions. So-called "pro-life" supporters, if access to legal abortions was eliminated, would lead to the deaths of women in illegal abortions. Similarly, "pro-choice... or right to choose" can suggest to others a non-traumatic, simple, or even frivolous choice. Obviously, no woman facing an unwanted pregnancy takes the issue of a possible abortion lightly. It is always a very difficult, emotionally charged choice. It is not ever well-reflected in an overly simplistic slogan. To create any space for greater societal understanding of the positions of each "side" we need to acknowledge the moral dimensions on all sides of the question. We must always have right to legal and safe abortions. I am both a Christian and a feminist. (These are not inconsistent affiliations.) I would defend to the death the access to legal and safe abortions. But not because I think abortion is a great thing to have in the life of any woman. They are not a social good. We do not measure our health as a society based on how many abortions are performed, but rather on the ability to access a safe abortion when needed. Similarly, we must have access to chemotherapy, but no one hopes to have it.

    I think society should shift from the "for or against legal abortion" debate, which is exploited by politicians who choose to exaggerate divisions in our society, and move to "how do we support women and families, and couples to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place?"

    In answer to two questions posed, here is my response:

    1) NO

    2) by fostering better awareness and responsibility to avoid unwanted pregnancies. To encourage women to have children when they want them, and not to be deterred by considerations of poverty (addressed in GP platform for poverty alleviation), to have access to abortions as a choice, and to create a society wherein every pregnancy is intended and every child is wanted.
    -----------------------------------

    .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous9:31 am

    Interesting post. I can see numerous logical inconsistencies within her post, but it is clear that while she is morally opposed to abortion she would not impose legal restrictions on the right to abortions. I must ask you how that stance is any different from the official stance of the CPC?

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  4. Anonymous12:14 pm

    Hey eric...Please tell me the official stance of the CPC. It would be fascinating if May and the CPC were ad idem on abortion.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4:54 pm

    Ya Eric. Harper refuses to say what his abortion stance is. He says it is "too complicated".

    Does he think that all Canadians are stupid or does he disagree with the CPC position?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous8:19 am

    Anon, please refer me to the "too complicated" remark. The CPC position is in their policy platform.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:48 am

    I like this quote from May on the Liberal's record on the environment 3 months ago (after Dion assumed leadership):

    “It is quite true to say that the 13-year legacy of the Liberal government was to say that they wanted to reduce greenhouse gases out of one side of their mouths, but at the same time invest heavily in the most greenhouse gas-intensive industry possible, which was the production of oil out of the Alberta tar sands. The policies were inherently inconsistent and just upped greenhouse gases instead of reducing them."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12:04 pm

    eric...and all 13 years of that is Dion's personal responsibility and oil sands should have never been developed - is that CPC policy now? You make the Liberal Holland look like a piker.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous1:08 pm

    Just demonstrating what May really thinks of the LPC record on the environment.

    Dion should have been intellectually honest by stating that the Kyoto targets could not be reached without significant economic loss. In other words, he could have taken a moderate position.

    ReplyDelete

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