Harper Decrees "There Will Be NO Nuclear Accident"

How confident are you that Steve Harper knows what he is talking about when he says “There will be no nuclear accident” when they prematurely start up the Chalk River reactor?

I mean Steve Harper is a smart and clever guy - we all know that because that is what we are constantly being told. But now we have to ask is he mimicking Steve Martin and being a wild and crazy guy? Could it be that Harper has morphed into Homer Simpson?

I agree that the plant has to be reopened so the isotopes can be developed. We are risking lives in real time without them. Politically deciding to reopening reactor before it is declared safe by our independent regulator is the lesser of two evils. It is a calculated risk but not one where the PM can unequivocally say there will be no accident. That is beyond misleading. It is personal arrogance morphing into delusions of omnipotence methinks.

This all-party “emergency” over-ride of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, our national nuclear energy watchdog, drives me to conclude that there is too much politics and not enough Peace Order and Good Government going on in Ottawa. And that didn’t just start 2 years ago when Harper “happenstanced” into power. This has apparently been going on for some time including under the old Liberal regime.

How come this old plant had not been upgraded earlier? Why did it take so long? Why was there not an alternative plan for isotope production during the Chalk River shutdown? Why is this 50 year old antiquated nuclear plant virtually the only global source of medical isotopes? How does this comedy of errors happen and who is to blame for it continuing?

My answer is that it is the pettiness of personality politics and the prominence of partisan bickering. That is the default culture of all political parties these days. While it is fodder for mainstream and new media, such gamesmanship allows the media to think they/we are absolved of a duty to inform and educate about what is really going on in government.

Frankly I think Canadians are past being weary of this stupidity and are now just disgusted with these antics. While our governors are trying to score cheap political points at each others expense they are seriously neglecting their real job of governing. There are serious issues facing this country and the globe and they are not easily resolved.

So Hey Ottawa, cut the cleverness and cant. Smarten up, focus and do your damn job!

Chickens Come Home to Roost

This is a week of facing the music and the consequences of past choices and bad behaviours for some pretty high profile folks.

On the criminal front the convicted serial killer and pig farmer William Picton will be sentenced this week. The convicted fraudster and British Lord pinning to be Canadian again will be sentenced today

On the political front the Commons Ethics Committee has heard from Karlheinz Schreiber, aka the Artful Dodger. Now we are anticipating the testimony from Brian Mulroney, a former Prime Minister, aka The Eloquent Liar.

In Alberta the “colourful” Dr Lyle Oberg is reported to be announcing his “retirement” from politics today. Dr. Oberg was adept at sitting on political powder kegs and giving off sparks. Stelmach has run out of patience with the irrepressible Dr. Oberg. It looks like he is about to politically implode instead of explode as he goes out with a whimper and not much of a bang.

In theses examples we have some proof that the systems will actually work effectively on occasion.

Alberta Separatist David Crutcher Also Not Acceptable as a PC Candidate

Dec 11 - CORRECTION: there is a comment from Mr. Chandler correcting a factual error on this post. He says Mr. Crutcher was not his campaign manager in the recent Calgary Egmont PC nomination campaign. Harley Shouldice was the campaign manager, and according to the comment, still is Mr. Chandler's campaign manager. Thank you for bring that correction to our attention.

As for Mr. Crutcher's Alliance Leadership campaign platform where he outlined his conditions for Alberta separation, the links in this post to his position on this matter speaks for itself.

It was with some amusement that I found that Mr. David Crutcher is considering running for the PC Party nomination in Calgary Egmont. This gentleman was Craig Chandler’s campaign manager for his recent “successful” nomination in Calgary Egmont. Mr. Chandler was recently rejected as a candidate by the Progressive Conservative Party Executive Committee for “not being in the best interests of the Party.”

The quid pro quo irony is that Mr. Chandler was Mr. Crutcher’s campaign manager in his failed bid to leader the Alberta Alliance Party in 2005 where he came in third of four candidates.

Mr. Crutcher was very recently elected President by one vote of the Calgary Egmont PC Association and was removed from the Presidency for supporting Chandler and not remaining neutral in the nomination process.

This trial balloon candidacy is being seen as a bit of mischievousness by some and sour grapes by others on the far right. I believe Mr. Chandler has moved on to the Alberta Alliance or the new Wildrose Party or some other manifestation of the far-right fringe element in Alberta’s political “culture.” Mr. Crutcher seems to want to keep the nomination pot boiling and so be it but lets give him a heads up first and tell him that he will not be the PC candidate under any circumstance.

Looking into some of Mr. Crutcher’s background and previous policy positions one can easily conclude his candidacy is also “not in the best interests of the party.” I think he should be told that now and well in advance of exercising any delusions he may have of running for nomination and hoping his candidacy will be accepted by the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party.

He, like Mr. Chandler, is also misaligned and likely maladaptive to the Statement of Principles of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party. When he was running for the leadership of the Alberta Alliance Party in 2005 he touted Alberta separation from Canada as part of his campaign policy. He couched his policy position saying that Alberta should not seek separation from Canada if the Harper Cons won the next federal election. That is sure reassuring (sic).

Such a policy position in his leadership bid of another political party shows that Mr. Crutcher will not be able to adhere to at least one of the very significant Statement of Principles of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, namely:

“ALBERTA AS AN EQUAL PARTNER IN CONFEDERATION
We must strive to maintain sovereignty over provincial matters, believing that a strong and vibrant Alberta is a cornerstone of a strong and united Canada.”

The Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta is not a separatist party Mr. Crutcher. Mark Norris mused about this idea for a few moments in the recent leadership campaign and quickly changed his tune. He lost his leadership bid - badly!

The PC Party believes in a strong Alberta within a strong Canada and will not harbour any overt or closet separatists. Don’t waste your time and money Mr. Crutcher. It is time for you to move on too sir!

Thoughts on Bitumen Upgrading and Electrical Deregulation

There is an Anonymous commenter who has been pressing me to comment on bitumen upgrading and electrical deregulation. Here as some preliminary thoughts on bitumen and deregulation…but only top of mind comments. The matters are very complex and they really need to be addressed in a more comprehensive and non-trivial way.

The lack of capacity today for sufficient Alberta-based bitumen upgrading is due to the former government’s indifference toward planning. That and the single minded determination to pay down the debt and deficit as fast as possible instead of sticking to the original 25 year repayment plan. That was the other major misjudgement. Those were the central themes in the leadership of Ralph Klein.

Now we are in a downstream mess of lost opportunities in value-added processing because Alberta's leadership went fishing and golfing instead of planning and designing for our future. We Albertans knew what was going on and we should have been insisting on our government investing in preparation of what was an obvious and inevitable set of circumstances. We may have the same dynamics afoot over our political passivity about climate change. That is much more serious situation that we have to get right and right away.

It is not all Ralph's fault. Albertans kept his personal polling numbers in the 70s all through this time. We tacitly approved of this lack of planning because we were intoxicated by the accelerated rate of debt reduction and the rapid pace of energy sector growth.

We Albertans were wilfully blind or not smart enough to consider the consequences and we failed to prepare for the inevitable implications. We failed ourselves as we chose instead to get caught in the shallow charismatics of personality politics. True Ralph kept his promise but he only really made one promise and we needed more.

Albertans should have been shifting our political demands and leadership expectation much earlier than April 2006. What we need now is to move towards a new pioneering style leadership. Now, more than ever, we need political leadership that is capable of creating a capacity for positive adaptive change so Alberta can be responsible, sustainable as well as resourceful (sic).

Alberta public opinion sustained, for far too long, a leadership style that did nothing to help us change our ways so we could respond appropriately to our obvious emerging needs. We have failed to move our focus fast enough towards optimizing our readiness to deal with our easily foreseeable future.

The electricity market in Alberta is the newest ideologically driven political oxymoron. It is based on the shortcomings of marketplace politicians. California, with the same population as Canada, was too small for an electricity free market to work effectively. We knew it or ought to have known it but foolishly we rushed in anyway.

The folly of Alberta's "free market experiment" in electricity deregulation was lead by the ideology of the likes of Steve West. That far right ideology was based in the unfailing belief that the marketplace is the best place to resolve of all the public's policy problems. A least the ones that are worth paying attention to in the first place.

This deregulation decision has harmed Alberta's economy and impaired the capacity of individuals to improve their living standards. Furthermore it has done nothing to protect or enhance the Alberta environment.

Any effective public policy today has to contribute positively to all three of these elements in an integrated way before it should be adopted.

Thoughts on the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" Contract

So the Murray Smith contract as Alberta’s envoy in Washington DC is finally public knowledge. I posted on this on November 14 saying I couldn’t understand the stance of the Stelmach government around withholding details on the Smith and Love contracts.

The Privacy Commissioner had ordered them released and saw no merit in the governments concerns over Mr. Smith’s privacy. Full disclosure, I know Murray Smith politically and personally and thought he was a terrific choice for this new position.

I did not know any of the specific details of the appointment or his contract at the time and only know what I read in the media about it. My only issue is still why this matter had to be FOIPED and why was there any resistance by the government to disclose the terms of the agreement?

The terms of the compensation and “preqs” may be seen as too much for some people. I don’t think the compensation was out of line so given the nature and the importance of the job. Others have argued that this was like any other foreign office appointment and why was Smith dealt such a different contract than a career bureaucrat.

Smith is not a career bureaucrat. This was a time specific independent contractor arrangement. That was the best way to proceed for this new undertaking to get Alberta’s position on key issues into the Washington consciousness.

For the first issue, the Alberta needed and experienced and effective dealer for our concerns with the US on many fronts. In those days they ranged from softwood lumber to mad cow to trade and energy issues plus homeland security angst in the States. Alberta would not be served well by a bureaucratic approach. This was not a position mostly about analysis, process and operations.

Smith would be dealing with issues that were sensitive political, policy and Intergovernmental concerns within Canada as well as with the States. These concerns would be complex, significant and often urgent enough that the position would need to be answering directly to the Premier’s office. That is why Murray Smith, with his political and professional experience, was such a good choice. That is why Gary Mar is also a great replacement choice.

The government was asking someone with experience and competence to take three years out of their life and take on a difficult and complex job with lots of risk and numerous elements of significant concern to the future of Alberta. You also had to have the ability solve real problems by getting the Alberta position and issues clearly and competently to the right people and the right places in the American governance system in a thorough and timely manner.

You had to start the job immediately and be prepared to jump into the tasks quickly and effectively dealing with all issues and events we know of and be nimble and capable enough to handle anything else that might arise. There is no easing into the job and no “how to manual” to follow. You have to figure it out as you go along and failure is not an option. And by the way, there is no job for you to come back to when you are finished this task.

So why the secrecy around the contract in the first place? Beats me!