Reboot Alberta

Sunday, July 06, 2008

People Need to Read Dion's Green Shift Plan BEFORE They Comment

I wasn’t going to post today given other priorities. However, I am so frustrated with what it going on I had to comment on the superficial reaction I have been noticing for the Dion Green Shift Plan. Dion sure has his work cut out for him but with no need for an election until November 2009, there is enough time to get his plan understood.

GWYN MORGAN ON CROSS COUNTRY CHECK UP
I have just listened to most of Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio One. Listening to a variety of callers to only talk about the Green Shift to gasoline and the inflationary costs it would cause make me wonder if any of those callers actually read the Green Shift Plan. Most notably fixated in this way was Gwyn Morgan, former CEO of EnCana. He said he would have agreed to a carbon tax to support Kyoto ten years ago but was silent on how vociferous the energy lobby was absolutely against Kyoto back then.

He also said the Dion $10 per tonne charge on CO2 would be inflationary but said nothing about the offsetting income tax cuts and allowances to help northerners, framers and low/fixed income earners in the Green Shift Plan. There was no comment on the use of the carbon levy to stimulate new technologies for cleaner fossil fuel extraction and refining processes and enable alternatives.

Morgan’s comments totally ignored the enormous windfall profits the energy sector is now making with $140 oil and the inflationary impact that is having on virtually everything in our lives. I found it not at all curious that he did not offer a cut in energy sector profits by suggestion a windfall tax to be used to reduce inflation, help the little guy.

GARTH TURNER'S BLOG POST
Then I scanned Garth Turner’s recent and oft reviled blog post. Garth is very thorough and thoughtful in his posts on the energy issues. He is apparently placing the blame for the regionalization resentments on a certain kind of person apparently a “…self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist….” As an Albertan I did not find anything in his recent posts objectionable or inaccurate.

I smiled when he noted in his Blog he was “chewed out by Dion” for his comments. Good for him and good for Dion. Can you imagine any of the Harper Con-Trolls actually having an independent thought, then having the courage to express it openly and then publicly admitting his leader called him up and “chewed him out?” At least the Liberal Party is prepared to accept there is a representative democracy in the land AND with free speech rights, even for its MPs.


I am thankful for the fact Turner and Dion let us know that there is a range of thought in their caucus and even disagreement within the ranks. That is health for democracy and good for politics and even better for our confidence in their suitability to govern. It shows respect differences of opinion and gives some credit to the intelligence of citizens to consider the differences and to make more informed judgments about complex public policy issues. We Canadians can not only handle disagreement within a political party, we can appreciate and respect the fact not everyone in the Liberal Caucus has to genuflect to the absolute power of the Leader on all matters and all the time - like in the case of the Harper Cons.

LORNE GUNTER
I actually started out the day reading Lorne Gunter's column. I occasionally agree with Lorne but I find he mostly lives in a yesteryear time warp. I understand that it seems that he just can’t help himself. His facts are often wrong in this column, for example like claiming Dion is saying Alberta and Saskatchewan is “…deserving of a big hit from his new carbon tax.” That is not the Dion position and Gunter offers no authority for this accusation. Gunter’s commentary is definitely reflective of a hostile, macho, selfish and balkanizing political position as noted by Garth Turner. His framing of the issues on climate change is so passé and tired. This positioning and issue framing is typical of the old-style hard-core Conservative ideology that has no shame in being inaccurate, dated and misleading, so long as it speaks to the base, in their Party and otherwise.

He then has the cheek to write there is no separatist movement in Alberta while admitting “Yes, there are websites for parties claiming to be separatist.” He notes that there are “odd farmers” who may paint a separatist message on his barn and “occasionally a caller to a radio talk show” may make a separatist comment. But he notes Alberta has never elected a separatist government or held a sovereign association referendum, as if the acid test to say there is "NO SEPARATIST MOVEMENT IN ALBERTA.”


So, according to Gunter, there is no separatist movement here because we Albertan’s don’t share the same cultural difficulties in Confederation as Quebec does and we have not yet had our Quiet Revolution? Well Lorne we have our Firewall guys. They are public intellectuals largely from the University of Calgary Poli-Sci Department, the so-called Calgary School. The Firewall guys included Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but that was back in the day when he cared about Alberta. They could be the seeds of a Quiet Revolution, Alberta style, don't ya think?.

There is a separatist movement in Alberta and while it is small and fragmented they have received as much at 8% of the popular vote. They elected a guy named Kesler as an MLA under the Western Canada Concept banner in the early 1980’s. Less than two years ago, one of the popular Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership candidates made comments that if Alberta did not get its way with Ottawa we should perhaps look at our future in Confederation.

Fomenting separatist aspirations and regional resentments in Alberta has resulted form past policies like the NEP, that was ironically agreed to by Alberta and the Lougheed government of the day. That same reality is not happening today with Dion. Like so many hard-core Conservative political myths, the facts are rarely considered nor actually talked about openly and accurately in a public discourse. They just presume that they can govern us based on creating fears and excluding and dividing us based on perceived differences.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

"The Right Call" Column on Ethical Issues for July Is Published

This month’s Alberta Venture magazine is out and on line. I was able to participate in The Right Call business ethics panel discussion lead by Fil Fraser. This month's topic is on the widely publicized Tim Horton firing of an employee for giving away a Timbit.

BTW - My friend Mark Anielski made the Alberta's 50 Most Influential People listing in Alberta Venture this edition too. I promote his best selling book The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth every chance I get. He just won Gold in the Conscious Business Leadership category at the Nautilus Book Awards in Los Angeles. He won the BRONZE at the Axiom Business Book Awards in New York earlier this year.

Mark's passion is the Genuine Progress Indicator movement and it is gaining strength. People like Mark are the guiding lights. He has done some great work on GPI measures for Alberta. They would give us a much better sense of what it really going on in our province. We should be measuring the good, the bad and the cumulative consequences of our comprehensive economic development activities to really evaluate our growth plans.


Mark recently participated for a Learning Day in Leadership Edmonton on how we can all make the human venture more effective and meaningful. I gave a copy of Mark's book to Premier Stelmach a month ago and sure hope he reads it. It would be good for Alberta to look at how we define our progress as a province more progressively.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Don't Let Bad Politicians Play Politics With the Planet

I know it is Canada Day. This is the time for pancake breakfasts, picnics, beer, BBQ’s and fireworks with family and friends. But it is also a time for reflection about our pride and our country.

I am reflecting today on where we are going as Canadians in the global context and what the hell is really going on in our nation these days...especially in terms of our environment, our economy and our society.

With all that churning in my cranium, I open my morning newspaper and here before me is a sweet voice of reason and wisdom from the MSM. This piece is some sound advice for engaged citizens who are thinking for a change. (sic)

Gary Mason’s column in the Globe and Mail today adds perspective to what is happening on the carbon-tax/green-shift/climate change political pranks that we are witnessing. This is a great column and well worth a reflective and careful read.

Let’s not let those misguiding politicians who are telling us everything is alright. They are telling us the only thing going wrong is bad policies that lead to higher gasoline prices. They are from the Don’t Worry Be Happy short-sighted school of government. But in our heart of hearts, we know those politicians are, in Gary Mason’s words “… playing politics with the planet.”

The increasing carbon and other GHG emissions are the enemy and taxing carbon is a way to get us to start adapting our behaviours and using our enormous human inventiveness and creativity to resolve the carbon crisis.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Canada Day Message 2008

In 2002 I published a book by my business partner Satya Das. The title is "The Best Country, Why Canada Will Lead the Future." You can buy it on Amazon or send me an email and I will make you a deal.

Back then there was reason for a national optimism about what kind of people we were and how we were doing as a nation.

We used to be at the top of our game on most of the UN Human Development Index rankings. Boy have we ever slipped, as a country, since then. We have become complacent and self-satisfied. As a result we have lost competitive ground, especially to other countries who have improved significantly. Looks like our national mythology no longer aligns with our global reality!

Ann Golden, the head of the Conference Board of Canada has a Canada Day message in this video that puts our country and our declining place on the world stage in perspective.

So celebrate Canada Day tomorrow but also contemplate what the hell we are doing with our potential as a people and as a nation. It is time to stop going to our default role as a citizenry as pragmatically cynical. It is time to re-engage in the future of Canada.

The Dion Green Shift Policy Conversation Amongst Canadians is Starting

Looks like Garth Turner is turning into the aggregtor for thoughtful blogosphere commentary (and the usual Blogging Tory screed) on the Dion Green Shift plan. He is worth a visit and read the comments too. Lots of insight and interesting perspectives being expressed.


For some insight on how the Bush Republicans and Harper Cons work their black magic on the public consciouness - including fooling much of the MSM - read this op-ed in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html?ex=1372305600&en=2bb9e9c384a1c7fe&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink