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Daveberta Podcast

Pilot Episode: Julie Payette and Jason Kenney

Daveberta Podcast Alberta PoliticsIn a first of what we expect to be a regular feature, I have joined forces with conservative political commentator Ryan Hastman in launching the Daveberta Podcast.

In our pilot episode, recorded on November 5, 2017, Ryan and I were joined by our talented producer Adam Rozenhart to talk about why we are starting a podcast, recent comments made by Governor General Julie Payette about science and faith, and Jason Kenney’s new role as leader of the United Conservative Party and what that could mean for Alberta politics.

We hope you enjoy listening to this podcast. Ryan and I plan to start regular recordings of this show soon, so if you enjoy it or have suggestions for topics of future episodes please let us know.

Thanks for listening.

Dave

9 replies on “Pilot Episode: Julie Payette and Jason Kenney”

1st topic: Kevin Taft’s thesis that the oil/tarsands/gas industry has captured AB’s and Canada’s democratic insitutions and processes of this sector: regulation/royalties/pollution/unreclaimed tailings ponds; thus Taft argues the industry has become deep state within our ostensibly democratic society, effectively immune to substantive oversight from elected representatives of the citizens.

https://www.desmog.ca/2017/10/27/alberta-approves-suncor-tailings-plan-despite-reliance-unproven-technology

2nd related sub-topic to topic 1 : government funding required for liabilities for abandoned wells and abandoned, and now unreclaimed SAGD oilsands wells added to Orphan Well Association liability

Here’s a link to a recent news story about the first oilsands project orphaned and $39M reclamation liability for AB GOA or OWA, which is getting top up funding from GOA.

http://calgaryherald.com/commodities/clean-up-liabilities-continue-to-swell-in-alberta-as-first-oilsands-project-is-orphaned/wcm/c63b452c-0d37-430c-80f2-6ecef2a6bb00
calgaryherald.com

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/bankrupt-oil-companies-have-dumped-100-million-in-clean-up-costs-on-orphan-well-associaiton-in-under-two-years

C.D. Howe report:
http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/alberta-faces-8-6b-bill-to-clean-up-old-oil-wells-heres-how-it-can-avoid-it-c-d-howe

So I listened to the podcast. Mr Hastman, in discussing the Governor-General’s comments about climate change, claimed that the issue is not whether climate change is real or caused by human activity, but simply about what Alberta and its people should be expected to do about it. I’m sorry, Mr Hastman, but there are a lot of political figures on the right, including the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington DC, who still insist climate change is a hoax. These people are why she made her comments.

I do agree that when she made fun of religion and religious believers, she probably should have stopped before she went there. I’m not religious, but people of faith have every right to hold those beliefs without being mocked. I don’t share such beliefs, but I’m not so arrogant as to tell anyone else what to believe. Proselytizing is not a valid part of a secular humanist world view.

I think she was not mocking all religious believers, but those who push creationism in the face of the massive evidence for evolution.

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