How much more obfuscation, evasion and denial does the Canadian public have to suffer from Peter the Pathetic? Peter MacKay has been tap dancing backwards faster and faster. He is now in retreat from is hollow assertions that Afghan detainees, under Canadian care, were never abused or tortured for about two weeks now.
The manipulation of the political process, the stifling and suppression of information and the positioning of Conservative politicians for plausible denial of facts is abhorrent to Canadian values of peace, order and good government.
As new evidence continues to come forward we see the Minister of Defensiveness moving from absolute denial to plausible denial to admission of mistakes being made but not by him. This is now so much more to all of this than an apparent "non-smoking gun" as the Harper Cons have tried to allege. We are seeing the absolute meltdown of the integrity and trustworthiness of the Harper government. They are perpetuating the continued unfounded abuse of the public service and the manipulation of the governnance system to suppress evidence and an absolute full court press avoidance of anything close to doing the right thing.
The Harper government has and continues to be a Mini Me mirror of the former Bush-Cheney face political manipulation and machinations that only serves to destroys democracies. This detainee debacle is the Harper government self-inflicting wounds on its own integrity and veracity. It is destined to the defining drama that should be the tippping point for Canadians to realize these are not the kind of people who are worthy of our consent to govern us.
I am most impressed with the continuing quality coverage by the Globe and Mail on these issues and event. I am grateful to the 50 or so former Canadian Ambassadors who are reproaching the Harper government for the unfounded personal attacks on Richard Colvin for merely doing his job. This is starting to look like a Canadian Watergate where the rot in the political culture seems to have spread to the highest offices in the land.
Harper’s political free ride is over. His “success” is a function of an ineffectual opposition, a public disinterest in another election anytime soon and a low public expectation of Harper and his party. Anyone in Canada who values Peace Order and Good Government has to now realize that Mr. Harper and his partisans are not good for Canada in any way.
We need a public inquiry to get to the bottom of this and to restore Canadians faith in its government.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Alberta Oil Magazine Article on "Green Oil"
Here is a link to an article by Patrycja Romanowska in this months edition of Alberta Oil magazine on the book Green Oil by Satya Das. Most every regular reader of this blog knows Satya is my business partner and the book is a project of our company Cambridge Strategies Inc. but full disclosure is a constant duty.
You can read more about the concept behind the book at http://www.greenoilbook.com/ and join in the growing conversation amongst Albertans who are coming to the realization that we need to start acting like owners of the oilsands. That means taking responsibility for the stewardship duty around how the oil sands are exploited. We also have to ensure we get a good return on these non-renewable resource for now and to also protect the birthright and benefits of this massive resource for future generations.
Our government is nowhere near being even adequate on either of these two fundamental issues for protecting and adding value for Albertans as owners of the resource. Citizens of Alberta are coming to the conclusion that have to re-engage in the politics of the times if they are to ensure this happens. That does not mean coming back to politics as usual either. There is ample evidence that the status quo is not working at so many levels.
There is a response happening to politics as ususal. It is in the form of a new and emerging movement to reestablish the rights and responsibilities of citizenship amongst progressive Albertans. It is called Reboot Alberta. Check it out here and here
Join in if you are inclined. If you need to know more, visit these sites and follow the folks and bloggers who are engaged in this progressive political movement.
You can read more about the concept behind the book at http://www.greenoilbook.com/ and join in the growing conversation amongst Albertans who are coming to the realization that we need to start acting like owners of the oilsands. That means taking responsibility for the stewardship duty around how the oil sands are exploited. We also have to ensure we get a good return on these non-renewable resource for now and to also protect the birthright and benefits of this massive resource for future generations.
Our government is nowhere near being even adequate on either of these two fundamental issues for protecting and adding value for Albertans as owners of the resource. Citizens of Alberta are coming to the conclusion that have to re-engage in the politics of the times if they are to ensure this happens. That does not mean coming back to politics as usual either. There is ample evidence that the status quo is not working at so many levels.
There is a response happening to politics as ususal. It is in the form of a new and emerging movement to reestablish the rights and responsibilities of citizenship amongst progressive Albertans. It is called Reboot Alberta. Check it out here and here
Join in if you are inclined. If you need to know more, visit these sites and follow the folks and bloggers who are engaged in this progressive political movement.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
I Have Been Busy
I have been really busy with Reboot Alberta and the Reboot Alberta Blog for the past while and not keeping up with the many issues I would like to write about on the blog.
The Right Call column I do for Alberta Venture magazine with Fil Fraser, Janert Keeping and others is up in the new issue.
As well I did a book review for Alberta Views magazine on Rich Vivone's book on the Klein era "Ralph Could Have Been a Superstar." It is a timely read as we once again have a government in Alberta telling us the economic sky is falling and the only solution is program cuts. Can we learn from the excesses of "brutal" government cuts without concern for the consequences other than getting the budget math right? I hope the Stelmach government reads Rich's book and learns from past mistakes in developing Budget 2010-11. Not much evidence of any such learning so far.
Then I have been working on promoting our own book at Cambridge Strategies "Green Oil" and encouraging Albertans to see themselves as owners of the energy reserves of the province - and begining to act accordingly.
I have been asked to be interviewed by the panel reviewing issues in Alberta Children's Services next week and that will take of preparation and should be interesting.
Another big concern will be the planning of the next stage of Reboot Alberta and get a handle on the principles, values and issues that animate and delineate what is means to be a progressive Albertan in the 21st century. If you are interested in finding out more about progressive Albertans go to http://www.rebootalberta.org/ and become part of the movement.
The Right Call column I do for Alberta Venture magazine with Fil Fraser, Janert Keeping and others is up in the new issue.
As well I did a book review for Alberta Views magazine on Rich Vivone's book on the Klein era "Ralph Could Have Been a Superstar." It is a timely read as we once again have a government in Alberta telling us the economic sky is falling and the only solution is program cuts. Can we learn from the excesses of "brutal" government cuts without concern for the consequences other than getting the budget math right? I hope the Stelmach government reads Rich's book and learns from past mistakes in developing Budget 2010-11. Not much evidence of any such learning so far.
Then I have been working on promoting our own book at Cambridge Strategies "Green Oil" and encouraging Albertans to see themselves as owners of the energy reserves of the province - and begining to act accordingly.
I have been asked to be interviewed by the panel reviewing issues in Alberta Children's Services next week and that will take of preparation and should be interesting.
Another big concern will be the planning of the next stage of Reboot Alberta and get a handle on the principles, values and issues that animate and delineate what is means to be a progressive Albertan in the 21st century. If you are interested in finding out more about progressive Albertans go to http://www.rebootalberta.org/ and become part of the movement.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Daveberta Reflects on Reboot Alberta
Dave Cournoyer, (a.k.a. Daveberta) is the gold standard of political bloggers to my mind. I am not alone in those sentiments. In the 2007 Canadian Blog Awards he was voted First in "Best Political Blog," Best Progressive Blog," and "Best Blogosphere Citizen." Since then he has grown both in experience and astuteness.
I have learned a great deal from knowing and reading Dave over the past 3 year. As one of the "elder statesmen" of social media in Alberta I like to say most of my mentors are under 30. It is true and Dave Cournoyer is one of them.
Dave was at the Reboot Alberta launch this past weekend and by all accounts, he valued the experience. He was also not alone in that sentiment if you have been checking out the posts of the other Bloggers who were at the Reboot Alberta launch. You can find links to these Bloggers through the blog poll at http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/.
His blog post on Reboot Alberta is a typical example of his thoughtful and reflective commentary on politics, democracy and public policy in Alberta. This guy gets it when it comes to expressing the frustration and feelings of so many Albertans about poltics in our province. Here is the link to his blog post on Reboot Alberta.
If you are a progressive Albertan and want to reinvigorate your citizenship, personally re-engage and take back some responsibility for politics and public policy in alberta come to http://www.rebootalberta.org/ to learn more and get involved.
I have learned a great deal from knowing and reading Dave over the past 3 year. As one of the "elder statesmen" of social media in Alberta I like to say most of my mentors are under 30. It is true and Dave Cournoyer is one of them.
Dave was at the Reboot Alberta launch this past weekend and by all accounts, he valued the experience. He was also not alone in that sentiment if you have been checking out the posts of the other Bloggers who were at the Reboot Alberta launch. You can find links to these Bloggers through the blog poll at http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/.
His blog post on Reboot Alberta is a typical example of his thoughtful and reflective commentary on politics, democracy and public policy in Alberta. This guy gets it when it comes to expressing the frustration and feelings of so many Albertans about poltics in our province. Here is the link to his blog post on Reboot Alberta.
If you are a progressive Albertan and want to reinvigorate your citizenship, personally re-engage and take back some responsibility for politics and public policy in alberta come to http://www.rebootalberta.org/ to learn more and get involved.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Reboot Alberta Launch and What's Next for the Progressive Movement in Alberta .
I have done a blog post on some of my thoughts out of the weekend launch of Reboot Alberta on that blog.
There is a way for you to join the Reboot Alberta movement too by going to http://www.rebootalberta.org/.
I will be doing a post on as many blog posts on the Reboot Alberta that I can gather. One interesting place to start getting aware of the reaction going into and coming out of Reboot Alberta is though the imaginate post of Mastermaq. He has already collected a number of blog posts links and has done a Wordle cloud on the Tweets and some blogs about Reboot Alberta. Here is the link to his post. More blog posts are coming and will be linked from http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/ as they emerge.
There are lots of Reboot Alberta related links in Mack's post so if you are courious about Reboot Alberta, get a coffee first and take the time to read and reflect on the buzz.
There is a way for you to join the Reboot Alberta movement too by going to http://www.rebootalberta.org/.
I will be doing a post on as many blog posts on the Reboot Alberta that I can gather. One interesting place to start getting aware of the reaction going into and coming out of Reboot Alberta is though the imaginate post of Mastermaq. He has already collected a number of blog posts links and has done a Wordle cloud on the Tweets and some blogs about Reboot Alberta. Here is the link to his post. More blog posts are coming and will be linked from http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/ as they emerge.
There are lots of Reboot Alberta related links in Mack's post so if you are courious about Reboot Alberta, get a coffee first and take the time to read and reflect on the buzz.
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