The appointment of an Advisory Board on the development of 7000 residential housing units in the Parsons Creek area of Fort McMurray is great news. A full 20% of the first phase development will be affordable housing. This policy initiative has been a long time coming but better late than never.
I know most of the Advisory Board members and can say they are a very impressive group of people with experience, ability and integrity. Those members I know personally are involved and dedicated to the Wood Buffalo region and the northern part of Alberta generally. Good work Minister Fritz and thanks to those officials and citizens for taking on this task.
The Advisory Board is not going to develop the site but will represent community interests, advise and make recommendations to the powers that be about the overall development plan. The government lands will be sold and the profits will be reinvested in more affordable housing, schools, community health centres and recreation facilities.
Housing has long been a chronic and systemic problem in Fort McMurray for years. The release of Government of Alberta owned and controlled lands in the region have always been part of the solution. The Radke Report “Investing in Our Future: Responding to the Rapid Growth of Oil Sands Development” added to the political pressure and provided the policy clarity needed for the Stelmach government to break away from the lip-service paid to the issues by the former Klein regime.
Full Disclosure, way back in 2005 my firm worked on a Business Case and a tripartite agreement with all three orders of government to work out how to fund and process funds to meet infrastructure needs in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
It was agreed to as a preferred working model by every level of government at the administrative and political level but at the last minute Alberta balked at the political level about proceeding and it never found traction. Then Doug Radke came along with a terrific report that pushed the policy ball over the goal line. With new leadership in the province, the ideas and needs finally got some political traction.
With the current market and recession driven hiatus on further oilsands development the time to get going and to catch up to this serious housing crisis is now. Nice to see it happening.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
President Obama, Please Bring Omar Home!
Nice to see the Harper government is “reassessing” its deplorable stand to let the Omar Khadr, the Canadian child soldier who has been tortured and rotting in the Bush/Cheney Guantanamo disgrace.
President Obama promised to undo Guantanamo human rights disgrace perpetrated by the Bush White House that not only suspended the Rule of Law in the United States, it breeched it constantly.
Khadr is charged and being tried in a U.S. military “court” process that is seriously deficient as a fair and impartial judicial process. Obama knows this, has said so repeatedly and now is acting on it, in the first day of his Presidency by staying all prosecutions and saying Guantanamo must be closed within a year. It is nice to have a lawyer in the White House that didn’t graduate in the bottom of his class for a change.
The Harper government has been intellectually and morally bankrupt on the Khadr case. The previous Liberal government was not much better but they didn’t know all the facts Harper has come to know. Khadr is the only western national still in Guantanamo that has not been repatriated to his homeland. Perhaps President Obama will bring Omar home with him on Air Force One when he visits Canada in the next few weeks. That would be sweet.
That moral and legal deficit is entirely on the shoulders of Stephen Harper how has failed, refused and neglected to act because pleasing George Bush was more important to him than protecting a Canadian citizen .
The recent “evidence” in an FBI agent’s “testimony” in Gitmo alleging Khadr saw Maher Arar in an Afghan “safe house” has been discredited under cross-examination. Arar is the other Canadian who has been victimized by the morally lax and intellectually lazy leadership of Stephen Harper. Hopefully this is the last of this kind of abuse of authority and legal processes by governments and their agents - like the FBI.
The world has been delivered from the vile and viciousness of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime. Our very own Prime Minister Harper was all ready and prepared to be their political instrument on too many of their reprehensible policy positions from social to environmental to economic abuses and disasters.
It is time to bring Omar home and face a real court in a real judicial proceeding in Canada for any charges that are serious and of substance; not merely politically motivated. Too many men and women have died over the centuries to enable, preserve and protect those freedoms for the rest of us.
Harper has dishonoured those sacrifices and we as citizens have been way too complacent and indifferent to such abuses of rights of fairness and freedom. It is time for Harper to go and with Rick Hillier showing some interest in replacing him, the time is ripening.
President Obama promised to undo Guantanamo human rights disgrace perpetrated by the Bush White House that not only suspended the Rule of Law in the United States, it breeched it constantly.
Khadr is charged and being tried in a U.S. military “court” process that is seriously deficient as a fair and impartial judicial process. Obama knows this, has said so repeatedly and now is acting on it, in the first day of his Presidency by staying all prosecutions and saying Guantanamo must be closed within a year. It is nice to have a lawyer in the White House that didn’t graduate in the bottom of his class for a change.
The Harper government has been intellectually and morally bankrupt on the Khadr case. The previous Liberal government was not much better but they didn’t know all the facts Harper has come to know. Khadr is the only western national still in Guantanamo that has not been repatriated to his homeland. Perhaps President Obama will bring Omar home with him on Air Force One when he visits Canada in the next few weeks. That would be sweet.
That moral and legal deficit is entirely on the shoulders of Stephen Harper how has failed, refused and neglected to act because pleasing George Bush was more important to him than protecting a Canadian citizen .
The recent “evidence” in an FBI agent’s “testimony” in Gitmo alleging Khadr saw Maher Arar in an Afghan “safe house” has been discredited under cross-examination. Arar is the other Canadian who has been victimized by the morally lax and intellectually lazy leadership of Stephen Harper. Hopefully this is the last of this kind of abuse of authority and legal processes by governments and their agents - like the FBI.
The world has been delivered from the vile and viciousness of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime. Our very own Prime Minister Harper was all ready and prepared to be their political instrument on too many of their reprehensible policy positions from social to environmental to economic abuses and disasters.
It is time to bring Omar home and face a real court in a real judicial proceeding in Canada for any charges that are serious and of substance; not merely politically motivated. Too many men and women have died over the centuries to enable, preserve and protect those freedoms for the rest of us.
Harper has dishonoured those sacrifices and we as citizens have been way too complacent and indifferent to such abuses of rights of fairness and freedom. It is time for Harper to go and with Rick Hillier showing some interest in replacing him, the time is ripening.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A Canadian's tears of joy for Obama presidency
My friend and business partner Satya Das wrote a piece that ran in the Chicago area newspapers today to mark the day of the Obama presidency. I hope you enjoy it.
Anti-Epcor Protest Misleads and Fizzles...As It Should
UPDATE: EDMONTON CITY COUNCIL VOTED 7-6 IN FAVOUR OF THE ASSET SALE TO EPCOR YESTERDAY JANUARY 21/09
I am fascinated over the various events and pieces of commentary on the proposed EPCOR purchase of the City of Edmonton Gold Bar Water Treatment Plant. The media coverage has been extensive including Letters to the Editor, an editorial, columnist coverage and an Op-Ed http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Gold+proposal+much+more+than+just+harmless+transfer/1190969/story.html More about that in a minute.
Today the Edmonton City Council will have an all day non-statutory public hearing on the proposed transaction. My guess is more people will prudently opt to watch the Obama inauguration.
This issue has clearly not resulted in a spontaneous ground swell of citizen concern over the EPCOR proposal to buy the plant from the city. The protest rally to oppose the sale drew “about a dozen people” to the steps of City Hall on Sunday. Can you conclude anything other than the support for opposition to the deal is underwhelming?
Full disclosure, EPCOR is a client but we are not working on this file and I have not spoken to them about it. What I really want to discuss here is the astonishing misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the relationship between EPCOR and the City of Edmonton, especially as it relates to this proposed transaction and generally. The best place to illustrate this is the Parkland Institute’s Executive Director, Ricardo Acuna’s Op-ed in the Sunday Edmonton Journal.
The Gold Bar proposed sale deal is for $75 million and Mr Acuna says Edmontonians are being told the sale is “trifling detail.” I don’t recall anyone putting that characterization on a deal that large and I wish Mr. Acuna would provide the source of that representation. It would help us better understand the comment and add credibility to his framing and positioning of the transaction.
The proposed sale is said to superficially “…seem innocuous enough –a simple transfer from the city to its wholly owned corporations EPCOR.” However there is a suggestion my Mr. Acuna that on closer examination the deal “…raises some disturbing questions.”
So what are the “disturbing questions”? Well apparently one is the very purpose of the water treatment plant which is to process sewage to make it safe to return to the river. The city operation of the facility is truthfully said to do that job with “…admirable efficiency and effectiveness.” Mr. Acuna poses a question about how the Gold Bar asset transfer will benefit Edmontonians and says “the question is still largely unanswered.” Whatever that means!
I don’t know exactly what representations EPCOR has made in support of the transfer but I doubt it was to enhance their “expertise and reputation” around water treatment. They already run the E.L. Smith and Rossdale Water Treatment plant for Edmontonians. They provide water treatment services to 8 other Alberta communities and others in B.C. and Ontario. EPCOR’s expertise and reputation is clearly not the issue.
Mr Acuna’s next concern seems to be about the ownership and control of EPCOR. EPCOR is a corporation that is wholly owned by the City of Edmonton. Mr. Acuna is right about one thing, these are two legal entities but they are not “entirely separate” as Mr. Acuna states. The City of Edmonton owns EPCOR and appoints the Board of Directors to oversee the strategic and management operation of the corporation for the benefit of the citizens of Edmonton. The city wisely does not interfere with the day-to-day operation, just like the Province of Alberta deals with the Alberta Treasury Branches.
This asset sale transaction is not a privatization as per Mr. Acuna’s mischaracterization. It is merely a legal reallocation of asset management responsibility within the governing and control ambit and ultimate continuing ownership of the City of Edmonton.
The coalition campaigners to discredit a normal business transaction as something sinister include the Council of Canadians, CUPE and the Parkland Institute. They managed to draw an astonishing “dozen people” to rally in front of City Hall last Sunday to protest the deal.
Edmontonians obviously don’t feel like Mr. Acuna alleges that they are being given a “dismissive pat on the head and patronizing assertions that there is nothing to worry about.” What is happening is this “Keep Drainage Edmonton” coalition has been exposed and proved to be like the Wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled back.
People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.
I am fascinated over the various events and pieces of commentary on the proposed EPCOR purchase of the City of Edmonton Gold Bar Water Treatment Plant. The media coverage has been extensive including Letters to the Editor, an editorial, columnist coverage and an Op-Ed http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Gold+proposal+much+more+than+just+harmless+transfer/1190969/story.html More about that in a minute.
Today the Edmonton City Council will have an all day non-statutory public hearing on the proposed transaction. My guess is more people will prudently opt to watch the Obama inauguration.
This issue has clearly not resulted in a spontaneous ground swell of citizen concern over the EPCOR proposal to buy the plant from the city. The protest rally to oppose the sale drew “about a dozen people” to the steps of City Hall on Sunday. Can you conclude anything other than the support for opposition to the deal is underwhelming?
Full disclosure, EPCOR is a client but we are not working on this file and I have not spoken to them about it. What I really want to discuss here is the astonishing misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the relationship between EPCOR and the City of Edmonton, especially as it relates to this proposed transaction and generally. The best place to illustrate this is the Parkland Institute’s Executive Director, Ricardo Acuna’s Op-ed in the Sunday Edmonton Journal.
The Gold Bar proposed sale deal is for $75 million and Mr Acuna says Edmontonians are being told the sale is “trifling detail.” I don’t recall anyone putting that characterization on a deal that large and I wish Mr. Acuna would provide the source of that representation. It would help us better understand the comment and add credibility to his framing and positioning of the transaction.
The proposed sale is said to superficially “…seem innocuous enough –a simple transfer from the city to its wholly owned corporations EPCOR.” However there is a suggestion my Mr. Acuna that on closer examination the deal “…raises some disturbing questions.”
So what are the “disturbing questions”? Well apparently one is the very purpose of the water treatment plant which is to process sewage to make it safe to return to the river. The city operation of the facility is truthfully said to do that job with “…admirable efficiency and effectiveness.” Mr. Acuna poses a question about how the Gold Bar asset transfer will benefit Edmontonians and says “the question is still largely unanswered.” Whatever that means!
I don’t know exactly what representations EPCOR has made in support of the transfer but I doubt it was to enhance their “expertise and reputation” around water treatment. They already run the E.L. Smith and Rossdale Water Treatment plant for Edmontonians. They provide water treatment services to 8 other Alberta communities and others in B.C. and Ontario. EPCOR’s expertise and reputation is clearly not the issue.
Mr Acuna’s next concern seems to be about the ownership and control of EPCOR. EPCOR is a corporation that is wholly owned by the City of Edmonton. Mr. Acuna is right about one thing, these are two legal entities but they are not “entirely separate” as Mr. Acuna states. The City of Edmonton owns EPCOR and appoints the Board of Directors to oversee the strategic and management operation of the corporation for the benefit of the citizens of Edmonton. The city wisely does not interfere with the day-to-day operation, just like the Province of Alberta deals with the Alberta Treasury Branches.
This asset sale transaction is not a privatization as per Mr. Acuna’s mischaracterization. It is merely a legal reallocation of asset management responsibility within the governing and control ambit and ultimate continuing ownership of the City of Edmonton.
The coalition campaigners to discredit a normal business transaction as something sinister include the Council of Canadians, CUPE and the Parkland Institute. They managed to draw an astonishing “dozen people” to rally in front of City Hall last Sunday to protest the deal.
Edmontonians obviously don’t feel like Mr. Acuna alleges that they are being given a “dismissive pat on the head and patronizing assertions that there is nothing to worry about.” What is happening is this “Keep Drainage Edmonton” coalition has been exposed and proved to be like the Wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled back.
People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video
It is timely to revisit the will.i.am Yes We Can video that has over 15 million You Tube views so far. Tuesday is going to be enormous for those of us who want change and are up for the challenges.
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