Alberta Budget Not Likely To Introduce Big Changes - But Next Year Will Be Different.

It is Budget Day in Alberta tomorrow. I do not have any inside information but have some thoughts and speculations.

I do not anticipate any significant changes from the draft budget that was done and ready to go before the election was called. Since the Budget speech is so soon after the Cabinet and Committee structures were announced there is not a lot of time to rehash the original positions.

There will be budget increases for some departments to cover inflation costs and some growth pressures and recent AUPE wage and benefits negotiations. There is no indication that there will be the big bucks needed to resolve the staffing shortages in areas like community based nor-for profit agencies in the disabilities services sector, children’s services, women’s shelters and long term care.

For the record and full disclosure I am working on this issue with the Alberta Council of Disability Services. We are talking about $200M to get these people paid at the 50 percientile level of government workers doing equivalent work. This will not happen overnight but the Premier is aware of the problem.

I expect there will be lots of budget focus on capital expenditures as the province continues to fix up the as-built maintenance deficiency and new facilities to respond to growth pressures...schools, hospitals and roads.

There is a recognized need to build new structures and retrofit existing buildings to a more eco-friendly standard. That will add costs in the short term but pay off in reduced operating and environmental costs long term. That is a hopeful sign that a new full cost accounting approach for capital expenditure will become the norm.

There is a lot to do in refocusing the fiscal framework for Alberta but my guess is most of it will be deferred for the next budget. That process will likely start by this Thursday and be about more savings and more spending both operational and capital accounts. There ias one thing for sure...Iris Evans is going to be busy – very, very busy this spring and summer.

Engaging Albertan's in Climate Change

There is a different sense of urgency amongst young people about the destructiveness of human impact on the environment.

This video is an example of the urgency youth feel about climate change. She is a 13 year old Vancouver girl who really set out the issues and concerns at a UN Conference on the Environment.

In the early 90’s Albertans set out on a mission to get rid of our fiscal debt and deficit. We did it with a single minded focus that engaged the entire province and drew people together to make personal sacrifices. We could have done it better – like making sure we did not harm the provinces social and physical capital at the same time as we made massive and brutal cuts in government spending.

A large part of our motivation was we decided as a province that we could not face our children if we saddled them with this enormous fiscal liability we had accumulated in the 80’s due to plummeting oil prices.

It is time to revisit the focused set of values and reconsider what kind of society and environment we will leave for future generations. This ecological effort will also take a significant personal focus and entail changes of behaviours that many will see as sacrifices. Alberta is an obvious place to start this change in behaviour and attitude towards the enviornment.

We need a crystallizing moment that triggers the collective consciousness and captures imagination of Albertans to get this change happening. Then we will see the massive changes necessary in our personal and collective behaviours that must engaged to really address the crisis identified in this video.

The crystallizing moment or event can we launch an ecological crusade of common cause and mutual caring for the greater good. I only hope we can do it by an intentional deliberate design process and not await another disasterous moment or event in order to get our attention.

Thoughts On Wolves, Mankind and Nature

I have to compliment the Edmonton Journal’s environment writer Hanneke Brooymans on her excellent piece in today’s Sunday Reader section entitled “Man at the Door - Wolves in the Crosshairs.” She illustrates just how human “development” has come to be an escalating problem and our solutions of more intervention have mostly just made matters worse.

We definitely need to intervene, especially in Alberta. But we need to engage in ways that cleans up the destruction and fragmentation we have wrought on the landscape already and that has served to destroy and interfere with wildlife habitat, particularly in our boreal forest. We need to accelerate our efforts and commitments to restoration of the unused and unnecessary resource roads, seismic lines and pipeline right-of-ways, and abandoned and orphan oil and gas well sites. We need to get on with reclamation of oil sand pits and tailing ponds. And we need to move immediately to create biodiversity based off-sets to balance the consequences of oil sands development that will take vast areas of the forest out of the natural patterns and purposes for up to 80 years.

The planned intervention against wolves in Brooymans’ feature seems to be a textbook case of human hubris as presumptive, capable and competent managers of the environment. We chose to kill and sterilize wolves in the pursuit of saving caribou instead of engaging in acts of stewardship that would reduce our impact and interference on wildlife habitat overall in the boreal forest and enable nature to restore itself.

We know our human activities are major causes of this imbalance in nature but we default to further interventions in, on and against those natural patterns. We inappropriately assume that by adding more human impact on the forest and wildlife habitat, (instead of reducing and reclaiming it from human activity), that we can “have our cake and eat it too.” This is the overarching observation of the University of Alberta noted biologist Dr. Stan Boutin in the Edmonton Journal feature story on wolves.

The new default position for humanity has to be is to strive to share the biosphere on a more integrated and equitable basis with the rest of the flora and fauna who are also “entitled” to share the planet. We need to learn to co-habitat and collaborate and integrate much more with the natural phenomenon that is inherent to supporting the diversity of life forms on the planet. We need to do this for the planet and also perchance, for the sustainable survival of our species as part of the future of the planet. Remember extinction is also a natural phenomenon.

We can’t continue in our pursuit of wealth creation that presumes the industrial definition of well being based on GDP justifies our on-going quest to conquer nature. We can no longer rely on and carry forward a foundational myth that says mankind can actually dissect, direct and control nature. Nor can we afford the presumptive arrogance and that our manipulations and interventions of natural forces can actually result in predicable and positive outcomes.

We continue to take delight in this dysfunctional definition of progress and we almost deify ourselves as a species; believing that our “being” is somehow above nature. We tend to rely on our capacity to Dissect, Manipulate and Control nature as part and parcel of progress. We want to push an ever-accelerating industrial growth as being progressive even though we know such activities are often intolerant and indifferent to the long term consequences to the environment.

What if the next reality is based on the planet taking over dominance? Could the planet take a Control, Alter and Delete approach and “reboot” itself to rid itself of the crap that has accumulated and that is causing it harm? I know this is more poetic than a practical analysis. But it is no more far-fetched and metaphorical than believing human-kind need not change its beliefs and behaviours for the sake of the environment and in response to climate change.

We are now starting to recall and re-accept that nature is a force unto itself and that it is full of intricate patterns and constant changes. We are learning to re-appreciate that these natural changes are spawned and sustained by self-organizing adaptive sets of feedback mechanisms that are embedded in that intricacy. We are recollecting that life itself has an energy composed of the collective and collaborative diversity of the biosphere.

This renewal of human awareness of our place in the grand scheme of things is catching on and is also evolving. This renewed consciousness is making our presumptive mythology that mankind can actually control nature and predict its outcomes "questionable." This questionable human conduct is more than just another event in the long line of follies that have marked the absurdist history of our species. It is not merely a silly and discountable foolishness. It is downright dangerous and reckless and particularly crucial to the vitality and survival of our own species.

There is no doubt that the future of planet Earth is assured, and life will continue in some form or other. What is not clear is what that future of the planet means for mankind, given the hubris of our current dominant consciousness, beliefs and behaviours. Just what the hell we are doing and why is something to think about and reflect upon as we anticipate Earth Day coming up next Tuesday April 22nd.

Stelmach's Throne Speech Addresses Lots of Priority Concerns

I have spent some time studying the recent Alberta Speech from the Throne. It is worth your time to read it and reflect on the content and context.

There are the obvious focus elements on energy resources but in the context of sustainable development. There is a promise of provincial energy strategy focused on innovation, new sources and responsible energy use, efficiency and conservation. Balance needs to be restored and the Royalty Review issue is not really resolved yet and this energy strategy may help compensate for the short coming of the GOA respsonses.

The pace of development is noted as an on-going issue – particularly in terms of housing in Fort McMurray. The GOA holds the keys to unlocking this problem by releasing land to the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo so the servicing can get done and housing built. The cumulative effects of the growth challenge are now being considered and that is good news, especially for Edmonton and region with the pending impact of billions of dollars of upgrader construction.

The down side realities of the livestock and forest industries are going to be addressed as these folks are in dire straits. The need to look at the “cultural and economic importance of vibrant rural communities…” is noted and something I will be doing a number of posting on as I work on two new projects to get the SuperNet missing link to non-profits, local economies and rural Albertans through the Rural Alberta Development Fund and the Access to the Future Fund. These SuperNet based initiatives are foundational to Premier Stelmach realizing this Throne Speech aspiration...and he knows it.

Lots more coming this summer in consultations on Land Use Management and a new Parks Policy hopefully based on conservation, preservation, reclamation, water quality and quantity concerns and wildlife habitat protection as guiding principles – not just a negotiation of priority listing of users.

I am biased but if you look past the health care headlines in the MSM speech coverage, I see a lot of potential in this Throne Speech. There is a wide array of issues and concerns mentioned. It has the usually pomp and puffery but a careful read shows a definite and more progressive agenda and tone in this document. Now we need to see how it gets acted upon and if the agenda that we end up with is as comprehensive as the content of the Throne Speech indicates.

I will post again soon on some of the important social and cultural aspects of the Throne Speech that have not been covered much. Stay tuned.

What Is Wrong With Canadian Politics?

Anyone who values democracy appreciates the efforts of good politicians and sees politics as a force for good in our world has to wonder about what is going on in Canadian politics these days.

The RCMP raids, the fraud charges and the belligerent buzz and bluster that has surrounds these events and others…shows just how diminished we have allowed out political institutions and political players to become.

"Lament for Our Democratic Nation" is an excellent post by NDP Blogger Cameron Holmstrom from Toronto. This post catches and expresses much of my dismay and disgust with the way politics is going in our country. It is worth a read.