John Baird better get busy on the environmental file if the Harper Cons are going to be accepted as authentically engaged. The Decima poll reported on in the Toronto Star today shows the Dion Liberals approach is making sense to most Canadians who see the Dion "carrot and stick" approach. Tax incentives and breaks for good environmental behaviours and changes balanced by penalties for bad behaviours.
Canadians get the Dion message that the economy and the environment are intertwined in a complex relationship and they are not mutually exclusive or in a zero-sum game where what is good for one is therefore bad for the other.
If the Cons are to become credible on the environment they are going to have to change a lot of their political culture and quickly. Preston Manning has been strongly advocating this for change in Conservative eco-consciousness for a couple of years now. It has been falling on deaf ears as the Harper Cons have been more interested in running down the old Liberal party than running as a viable and preferred governing alternative.
The intensity of the public’s commitment to the environment as the top policy issue is more dramatic than the fact it is all of a sudden #1. The line is forming very quickly for the hearts and minds of Canadians on this issue and the early trends are not promising for the Harper Cons according to this report.
One poll doesn’t decide anything. But most Canadians have decided the environment is the big issue for them now. They are engaged and watching the political parties on this issue and they will reward or punish politicians at the polls as they see fit. The implications are clear for all politicians be they federal, provincial or municipal they need to be on top of the issues and govern accordingly.
Over to you Mr. Baird...Canada is watching
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Dion's Visit and Record Shows He Gets Alberta
It is interesting to see the diverging perspective in the MSM print media in Edmonton over Stephane Dion and his policy ideas, especially on the environment. The Edmonton Journal is sympathetic and the Edmonton Sun is mostly sarcastic. Even the Toronto Star is running an op-ed from the Dominion Institute suggesting Dion run in Alberta.
The Harper Cons are trying to say Dion was a disaster as Martin’s Minister of the Environment to try to undermine his high ground and personal ownership of the #1 policy issue in the country – the environment.
As an Albertan I know one thing Dion did in that portfolio that was very positive for this province. When Chrétien unilaterally committed Canada to Kyoto without any advanced notice the resource sector in Alberta went apoplectic – and rightly so given the uncertainty that political chicanery caused, especially in the oil patch.
GHG emissions were the hot topic and the cost and controls for CO2 reductions was the source of the energy sector angst and anger to fight Kyoto at all costs. Then the mood shifted dramatically when some energy industry leaders did some real calculations on the costs of Kyoto. They determined it to be pennies a barrel and all of a sudden the emphasis shifted from one of costs to what are the levels and the controls.
That is where Dion came in. He and his senior staff came to Alberta and negotiated directly with industry the GHG emission levels and timing for implementation with all of the so called “big emitters.” Those deals were done in about three weeks under Dion’s stewardship and to the satisfaction of all the big emitters. The levels Dion negotiated were based on the Alberta government’s intensity model and not any absolute targets.
That Dion/Alberta model is still applicable today and is the reason behind the increases in total GHG emissions the Harper Cons like to trot out as an indication of Dion’s shortcomings while in Environment. The intensity model requires amount of GHG per barrel of oil decrease but total GHG can increase because of the overall growth of the economy and in the energy sector specifically.
The second part of the Alberta government response to Kyoto was a solution based on improved technology. Dion also embraced this aspect of environmental policy as Canada’s Minister of Environment and pushed it in his successful Liberal leadership bid and now as Leader of the Opposition.
For the Cons to say Dion did nothing on his watch in Environment is patently not true. To say he is at odds with Alberta and the aspirations and needs of the energy sector here is also not supported by the facts. Dion now says that we need to do better on GHG emissions and start to really deliver on the technology solutions. He is very clear that policy and fiscal “carrots and sticks” will be how he will change behaviours to enhance our environmental sustainability and improve our economy at the same time.
To suggest Dion run in Alberta would be fun for journalists but not great for the country. Alberta and Quebec have often had strong political alliances especially when provincial jurisdiction interference is threatened by the Feds. I believe it is time for such a Quebec/Alberta alliance to be revived again. That means we first need Charest to win in Quebec and the sooner the better.
If the next Prime Minister is to be from Quebec, we don’t need him running for office in Alberta. We need him to respect and understands Alberta and our potential as a way to strengthen Canada not weaken it. Dion is well positioned on both counts. He has proven that “gets” Alberta already and need not run here to prove it again.
The Harper Cons are trying to say Dion was a disaster as Martin’s Minister of the Environment to try to undermine his high ground and personal ownership of the #1 policy issue in the country – the environment.
As an Albertan I know one thing Dion did in that portfolio that was very positive for this province. When Chrétien unilaterally committed Canada to Kyoto without any advanced notice the resource sector in Alberta went apoplectic – and rightly so given the uncertainty that political chicanery caused, especially in the oil patch.
GHG emissions were the hot topic and the cost and controls for CO2 reductions was the source of the energy sector angst and anger to fight Kyoto at all costs. Then the mood shifted dramatically when some energy industry leaders did some real calculations on the costs of Kyoto. They determined it to be pennies a barrel and all of a sudden the emphasis shifted from one of costs to what are the levels and the controls.
That is where Dion came in. He and his senior staff came to Alberta and negotiated directly with industry the GHG emission levels and timing for implementation with all of the so called “big emitters.” Those deals were done in about three weeks under Dion’s stewardship and to the satisfaction of all the big emitters. The levels Dion negotiated were based on the Alberta government’s intensity model and not any absolute targets.
That Dion/Alberta model is still applicable today and is the reason behind the increases in total GHG emissions the Harper Cons like to trot out as an indication of Dion’s shortcomings while in Environment. The intensity model requires amount of GHG per barrel of oil decrease but total GHG can increase because of the overall growth of the economy and in the energy sector specifically.
The second part of the Alberta government response to Kyoto was a solution based on improved technology. Dion also embraced this aspect of environmental policy as Canada’s Minister of Environment and pushed it in his successful Liberal leadership bid and now as Leader of the Opposition.
For the Cons to say Dion did nothing on his watch in Environment is patently not true. To say he is at odds with Alberta and the aspirations and needs of the energy sector here is also not supported by the facts. Dion now says that we need to do better on GHG emissions and start to really deliver on the technology solutions. He is very clear that policy and fiscal “carrots and sticks” will be how he will change behaviours to enhance our environmental sustainability and improve our economy at the same time.
To suggest Dion run in Alberta would be fun for journalists but not great for the country. Alberta and Quebec have often had strong political alliances especially when provincial jurisdiction interference is threatened by the Feds. I believe it is time for such a Quebec/Alberta alliance to be revived again. That means we first need Charest to win in Quebec and the sooner the better.
If the next Prime Minister is to be from Quebec, we don’t need him running for office in Alberta. We need him to respect and understands Alberta and our potential as a way to strengthen Canada not weaken it. Dion is well positioned on both counts. He has proven that “gets” Alberta already and need not run here to prove it again.
Truly Terrifying Stuff
It is a rare incident where I merely forward a copy of another piece without commentary and opinion. This op ed is a worthy exception. It speaks for itself and is truly terrifying stuff.
January 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
He’s in the Bunker Now
By FRANK RICH
PRESIDENT BUSH always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like “Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...” and “Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...”
Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too. In the past, they made a fetish of situating their star in telegenic settings, from aircraft carriers to Ellis Island. Or they placed him against Orwellian backdrops shrieking “Plan for Victory." But this time even the audio stuttered, as if in solidarity with Baghdad’s continuing electricity blackout, and the Oval Office was ditched, lest it summon up memories of all those past presidential sightings of light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel. Mr. Bush was banished to the White House library, where the backdrop was acres of books, to signify the studiousness of his rethinking of the “way forward.”
"I’m not going to be rushed," the president said a month ago when talking about his many policy consultations. He wasn’t kidding. His ostentatious deep thinking started after Election Day, once he realized that firing Donald Rumsfeld wouldn’t be enough to co-opt the Iraq Study Group. He was thinking so hard that he abandoned his initial plan to announce a strategy before Christmas .
The war, however, refused to take a timeout for the holiday festivities in Crawford. The American death toll in Iraq, which hovered around 2,840 on Election Day, was nearing 3,020 by Wednesday night.
And these additional lives were sacrificed to what end? All the reviews and thinking and postponing produced a policy that, as a former top Bush aide summed it up for The Daily News, is nothing more than "repackaged stay-the-course dressed up to make it look more palatable." The repackaging was half-hearted as well. Not for nothing did the “way forward,” a rubric the president used at least 27 times in December, end up on the cutting-room floor. The tossing of new American troops into Baghdad, a ploy that backfired in Operation Together Forward last year, is too transparently the way backward.
“Victory” also received short shrift, downsized by the president to the paltry goal of getting “closer to success.” The “benchmarks” he cited were so vague that they’d be a disgrace to No Child Left Behind. And no wonder: in November, Mr. Bush couldn’t even get our devoted ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to show up for dinner at their summit in Amman, let alone induce him to root out Shiite militias. The most muscle the former Mr. Bring-’Em-On could muster in Wednesday’s speech was this: “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.” Since that support vanished long ago, it’s hard to imagine an emptier threat or a more naked confession of American impotence, all the more pathetic in a speech rattling sabers against Syria and Iran.
Mr. Bush’s own support from the American people is not coming back. His “new” Iraq policy is also in defiance of Iraqi public opinion , the Joint Chiefs, the Baker-Hamilton grandees, and Mr. Maliki, who six weeks ago asked for a lower American profile in Iraq. Which leaves you wondering exactly who is still in the bunker with the president besides the first lady and Barney.
It’s a very short list led by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and neo-conservative dead-enders like William Kristol and Frederick Kagan, who congregate at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington think tank. The one notable new recruit is Rudy Giuliani, who likened taming Baghdad to “reducing crime in New York” without noticing that even after the escalation there will be fewer American troops patrolling Baghdad than uniformed police officers in insurgency-free New York City.
Mr. Kagan, a military historian, was sent by the White House to sell its policy to Senate Republicans. It was he, Mr. Kristol and the retired Gen. Jack Keane who have most prominently pushed for this escalation and who published studies and editorials credited with defining it. Given that these unelected hawks are some of the same great thinkers who promoted the Iraq fiasco in the first place, it is hard to imagine why this White House continues to listen to them. Or maybe not that hard. In a typical op-ed article, headlined “Stay the Course, Mr. President!,” Mr. Kagan wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 2005: "Despite what you may have read, the military situation in Iraq today is positive."
Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.
The discrepancy between the policy that Mr. Bush nominally endorses and the one he actually ordered up crystallizes the cynicism of this entire war. If you really believe, as the president continues to put it, that Iraq is the central front in “the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” then you should be in favor of having many more troops than we’ve ever had in Iraq. As T. X. Hammes, an insurgency expert and a former marine, told USA Today, that doesn’t now mean a “dribble” (as he ridicules the “surge”) but a total of 300,000 armed coalition forces over a minimum of four years.
But that would mean asking Americans for sacrifice, not giving us tax cuts. Mr. Bush has never asked for sacrifice and still doesn’t. If his words sound like bargain-basement Churchill, his actions have been cheaper still. The president’s resolutely undermanned war plan indicated from Day 1 that he knew in his heart of hearts that Iraq was not the central front in the war against 9/11 jihadism he had claimed it to be, only the reckless detour that it actually was. Yet the war’s cheerleaders, neocon and otherwise, disingenuously blamed our low troop strength almost exclusively on Mr. Rumsfeld.
Now that the defense secretary is gone, what are they to do? For whatever reason, you did not hear Mr. Kagan, General Keane or Mr. McCain speak out against Mr. Bush’s plan even though it’s insufficient by their own reckoning — just a repackaged continuance of the same “Whac-A-Mole” half-measures that Mr. McCain has long deplored. Surely the senator knows that, as his loosey-goosey endorsement attests. (On Friday, he called the Bush plan “the best chance of success” while simultaneously going on record that “a small, short surge would be the worst of all worlds.”)
The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president’s endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.
I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush’s own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.
Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It’s another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn’t Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon’s abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party’s right wing.
That leader was Barry Goldwater , who had been one of Nixon’s most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he’d been lied to once too often. If John McCain won’t play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he’s about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
January 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
He’s in the Bunker Now
By FRANK RICH
PRESIDENT BUSH always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like “Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...” and “Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...”
Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too. In the past, they made a fetish of situating their star in telegenic settings, from aircraft carriers to Ellis Island. Or they placed him against Orwellian backdrops shrieking “Plan for Victory." But this time even the audio stuttered, as if in solidarity with Baghdad’s continuing electricity blackout, and the Oval Office was ditched, lest it summon up memories of all those past presidential sightings of light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel. Mr. Bush was banished to the White House library, where the backdrop was acres of books, to signify the studiousness of his rethinking of the “way forward.”
"I’m not going to be rushed," the president said a month ago when talking about his many policy consultations. He wasn’t kidding. His ostentatious deep thinking started after Election Day, once he realized that firing Donald Rumsfeld wouldn’t be enough to co-opt the Iraq Study Group. He was thinking so hard that he abandoned his initial plan to announce a strategy before Christmas .
The war, however, refused to take a timeout for the holiday festivities in Crawford. The American death toll in Iraq, which hovered around 2,840 on Election Day, was nearing 3,020 by Wednesday night.
And these additional lives were sacrificed to what end? All the reviews and thinking and postponing produced a policy that, as a former top Bush aide summed it up for The Daily News, is nothing more than "repackaged stay-the-course dressed up to make it look more palatable." The repackaging was half-hearted as well. Not for nothing did the “way forward,” a rubric the president used at least 27 times in December, end up on the cutting-room floor. The tossing of new American troops into Baghdad, a ploy that backfired in Operation Together Forward last year, is too transparently the way backward.
“Victory” also received short shrift, downsized by the president to the paltry goal of getting “closer to success.” The “benchmarks” he cited were so vague that they’d be a disgrace to No Child Left Behind. And no wonder: in November, Mr. Bush couldn’t even get our devoted ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to show up for dinner at their summit in Amman, let alone induce him to root out Shiite militias. The most muscle the former Mr. Bring-’Em-On could muster in Wednesday’s speech was this: “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.” Since that support vanished long ago, it’s hard to imagine an emptier threat or a more naked confession of American impotence, all the more pathetic in a speech rattling sabers against Syria and Iran.
Mr. Bush’s own support from the American people is not coming back. His “new” Iraq policy is also in defiance of Iraqi public opinion , the Joint Chiefs, the Baker-Hamilton grandees, and Mr. Maliki, who six weeks ago asked for a lower American profile in Iraq. Which leaves you wondering exactly who is still in the bunker with the president besides the first lady and Barney.
It’s a very short list led by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and neo-conservative dead-enders like William Kristol and Frederick Kagan, who congregate at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington think tank. The one notable new recruit is Rudy Giuliani, who likened taming Baghdad to “reducing crime in New York” without noticing that even after the escalation there will be fewer American troops patrolling Baghdad than uniformed police officers in insurgency-free New York City.
Mr. Kagan, a military historian, was sent by the White House to sell its policy to Senate Republicans. It was he, Mr. Kristol and the retired Gen. Jack Keane who have most prominently pushed for this escalation and who published studies and editorials credited with defining it. Given that these unelected hawks are some of the same great thinkers who promoted the Iraq fiasco in the first place, it is hard to imagine why this White House continues to listen to them. Or maybe not that hard. In a typical op-ed article, headlined “Stay the Course, Mr. President!,” Mr. Kagan wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 2005: "Despite what you may have read, the military situation in Iraq today is positive."
Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.
The discrepancy between the policy that Mr. Bush nominally endorses and the one he actually ordered up crystallizes the cynicism of this entire war. If you really believe, as the president continues to put it, that Iraq is the central front in “the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” then you should be in favor of having many more troops than we’ve ever had in Iraq. As T. X. Hammes, an insurgency expert and a former marine, told USA Today, that doesn’t now mean a “dribble” (as he ridicules the “surge”) but a total of 300,000 armed coalition forces over a minimum of four years.
But that would mean asking Americans for sacrifice, not giving us tax cuts. Mr. Bush has never asked for sacrifice and still doesn’t. If his words sound like bargain-basement Churchill, his actions have been cheaper still. The president’s resolutely undermanned war plan indicated from Day 1 that he knew in his heart of hearts that Iraq was not the central front in the war against 9/11 jihadism he had claimed it to be, only the reckless detour that it actually was. Yet the war’s cheerleaders, neocon and otherwise, disingenuously blamed our low troop strength almost exclusively on Mr. Rumsfeld.
Now that the defense secretary is gone, what are they to do? For whatever reason, you did not hear Mr. Kagan, General Keane or Mr. McCain speak out against Mr. Bush’s plan even though it’s insufficient by their own reckoning — just a repackaged continuance of the same “Whac-A-Mole” half-measures that Mr. McCain has long deplored. Surely the senator knows that, as his loosey-goosey endorsement attests. (On Friday, he called the Bush plan “the best chance of success” while simultaneously going on record that “a small, short surge would be the worst of all worlds.”)
The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president’s endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.
I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush’s own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.
Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It’s another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn’t Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon’s abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party’s right wing.
That leader was Barry Goldwater , who had been one of Nixon’s most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he’d been lied to once too often. If John McCain won’t play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he’s about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The "Accountability" of the Harper Cons
Look at this link and ask yourself if the Harper Cons really believe they are aligned with the letter, spirit and priciples of their much vaunted Accountability Act. The document is actualy signed by Prime Minister Harper. Read the story and ask yourself if he still has any credibility with you on matters of openness, transparency and accountability.
Can you imagine claiming a new era of transparency and then actually reneging on a promise to pay a candidate a cash settlement. It was a deal they made for the original candidate to give up his nomination so a so called "star" candidate (who lost the election by the way) could run in the riding. And so much for respecting the local Cons constituency membership's right to choose the candidate they would like to represent them.
Then the Cons force the former candidate to go to Court to get the dough, the Party claiming the deal was void. Why? Because the former candidate allegedly told the media about the cash deal apparently in breach of a confidentiality clause written into the deal. So the Harper Cons refused to pay out the guy. Here is another media link on this story.
Can you imagine doing this kind of backroom deal in the first place. Then making it subject to a gag clause, then not paying the guy out forcing him into a court action. This is how they treat one of their own. Imagine how an ordinary citizen would be treated by these guys.
Classy and scuzzy all at the same time. So much for any credibility about accountability and your allegations of a new day of transparency Mr. Harper.
Can you imagine claiming a new era of transparency and then actually reneging on a promise to pay a candidate a cash settlement. It was a deal they made for the original candidate to give up his nomination so a so called "star" candidate (who lost the election by the way) could run in the riding. And so much for respecting the local Cons constituency membership's right to choose the candidate they would like to represent them.
Then the Cons force the former candidate to go to Court to get the dough, the Party claiming the deal was void. Why? Because the former candidate allegedly told the media about the cash deal apparently in breach of a confidentiality clause written into the deal. So the Harper Cons refused to pay out the guy. Here is another media link on this story.
Can you imagine doing this kind of backroom deal in the first place. Then making it subject to a gag clause, then not paying the guy out forcing him into a court action. This is how they treat one of their own. Imagine how an ordinary citizen would be treated by these guys.
Classy and scuzzy all at the same time. So much for any credibility about accountability and your allegations of a new day of transparency Mr. Harper.
Friday, January 12, 2007
More Commentary on Alberta in Canada
I see Paul Boothe from the U of A has weighed in on the runaway rhetoric of Boutilier and has added a dash of Dr. Morton to boot in his Edmonton Journal Op Ed opinion piece today.
It is good to see some good old fashioned free speech coupled with some facts, sound analysis and an authoritative opinion emerging from the halls of academe. We need more of those informed voices in the public conversations of the day. Thanks for doing this Paul.
I have one bone to pick with Paul in his piece though. He states: “It seems like the new Stelmach cabinet bent on picking a fight with the rest of Canada.” I think that is an over generalization. We have only two Ministers in that mode. True, Stelmach made a comment in his first news conference about the concept of the Quebec nation saying, to the effect; that it should not take anything away from other provinces. And why should it and why would it? That is the sum total of cabinet commentary and it doesn’t add up to the entire “new Stelmach cabinet.”
For years, I, like so many other Progressive conservatives, just sat back and let the far right have their say and never really responded. I believed they were so obvious in their marginal ideology that it was unnecessary to rebut debate or challenge them. As a result of such inaction the rhetoric of the far right has become the voice of Alberta to the rest of Canada in the "minds" of the CBC in particular.
The recent CBC radio show “The Current” that Boothe refers to regarding Dr. Morton’s comments is a good case in point. I have not heard it yet so I will not comment on the content. However seeing Dr. Morton being slated as a guest to be a voice for Alberta discussing our provincial role in confederation rankles me both as a Progressive conservative and as an Albertan.
He would not come even close to representing any dominant Alberta perspective on the topic. He is entitled to his POV and has a right to express it. I just wonder who else they had on that program would represent a more inclusive and integrated Alberta perspective within Canada. I will be checking the program archives to give it a listen and hope they had a Progressive perspective included as well.
My business partner, Satya Das, does a lot of CBC French radio and television commentary on Alberta events and perspectives. He recently wrote a book called “The Best Country – Why Canada Will Lead the Future” which is an Albertan speaking about what makes Canada great. {which you can buy at Tix on the Square in Edmonton now}
For regular readers of this Blog you will know we co-write a regular monthly column for the LaPresse newspaper in Montreal on Alberta issues and topics too. Das would have made an excellent Edmonton counterpoint to the Morton position for the Calgary-centric CBC show segment on The Current.
When I saw Dr. Morton as a panelist I contacted the Calgary and Toronto producers of The Current by email to offer Satya’s services to provide another perspective on the subject of Alberta's role in Canada. No reply at all. Proving to me once again that the central Canadian idea of what an Albertan is has been forfeited to the far right and fundamentalists diatribes.
That mistaken caricature of the character and consciousness of Alberta has to be rebutted. I am working on it, including through this Blog. I see Paul Boothe is obviously engaged and like minded. It is sure nice to have such informed and effective allies.
It is good to see some good old fashioned free speech coupled with some facts, sound analysis and an authoritative opinion emerging from the halls of academe. We need more of those informed voices in the public conversations of the day. Thanks for doing this Paul.
I have one bone to pick with Paul in his piece though. He states: “It seems like the new Stelmach cabinet bent on picking a fight with the rest of Canada.” I think that is an over generalization. We have only two Ministers in that mode. True, Stelmach made a comment in his first news conference about the concept of the Quebec nation saying, to the effect; that it should not take anything away from other provinces. And why should it and why would it? That is the sum total of cabinet commentary and it doesn’t add up to the entire “new Stelmach cabinet.”
For years, I, like so many other Progressive conservatives, just sat back and let the far right have their say and never really responded. I believed they were so obvious in their marginal ideology that it was unnecessary to rebut debate or challenge them. As a result of such inaction the rhetoric of the far right has become the voice of Alberta to the rest of Canada in the "minds" of the CBC in particular.
The recent CBC radio show “The Current” that Boothe refers to regarding Dr. Morton’s comments is a good case in point. I have not heard it yet so I will not comment on the content. However seeing Dr. Morton being slated as a guest to be a voice for Alberta discussing our provincial role in confederation rankles me both as a Progressive conservative and as an Albertan.
He would not come even close to representing any dominant Alberta perspective on the topic. He is entitled to his POV and has a right to express it. I just wonder who else they had on that program would represent a more inclusive and integrated Alberta perspective within Canada. I will be checking the program archives to give it a listen and hope they had a Progressive perspective included as well.
My business partner, Satya Das, does a lot of CBC French radio and television commentary on Alberta events and perspectives. He recently wrote a book called “The Best Country – Why Canada Will Lead the Future” which is an Albertan speaking about what makes Canada great. {which you can buy at Tix on the Square in Edmonton now}
For regular readers of this Blog you will know we co-write a regular monthly column for the LaPresse newspaper in Montreal on Alberta issues and topics too. Das would have made an excellent Edmonton counterpoint to the Morton position for the Calgary-centric CBC show segment on The Current.
When I saw Dr. Morton as a panelist I contacted the Calgary and Toronto producers of The Current by email to offer Satya’s services to provide another perspective on the subject of Alberta's role in Canada. No reply at all. Proving to me once again that the central Canadian idea of what an Albertan is has been forfeited to the far right and fundamentalists diatribes.
That mistaken caricature of the character and consciousness of Alberta has to be rebutted. I am working on it, including through this Blog. I see Paul Boothe is obviously engaged and like minded. It is sure nice to have such informed and effective allies.
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