daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

– There are a lot of Albertans who can feel a little vindicated today…

On his last day in the legislature chamber before retiring later this year, Klein did something he has rarely done in 14 years as premier: admit his Liberal and NDP critics were right when they argued his Conservative government did not properly prepare for the boom and the pressures it has caused.

“The opposition was right in their criticism, but as I said, no one could anticipate the phenomenal growth that took place, or the quickness of that growth,” Klein told reporters.

Monday night, I swore I heard an animal growl outside my house.

This was in my inbox this morning…

On (Thursday) Aug 31, 2006 at 2 am, the Edmonton Police Service advised that there was an unconfirmed sighting of a cougar in the area of Stadium Car park and R.C.M.S (116 Street-89/91 Ave). Again, this information is unconfirmed however we feel that the community should be informed. In the event that a cougar is sighted on campus contact Campus Security Services immediately at 492-5050 or the EPS at 423-4567.

That’s 4 blocks away…

– Elizabeth May is the new Leader of the Green Party of Canada. The former Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada should shake things up on the Canadian federal scene. Should be interesting to see which direction she takes the Green’s in toward the next Federal Election.

I really think the Greens are the ones to watch at both the Federal and Alberta political level (as I mentioned here).

– This is an interesting campaign by Lakehead University. Though I was very surprised that an institution would try something this risqe, it is certainly generating the attention it was meant to.

– Federal Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy is calling for national educational standards.

– Now you can buy “A whale of a day at Marineland with Albina and John!” woot?

I didn’t think so.

– “truthliness” and “wikiality” are the new “TV Words of the Year.”

The Alberta Liberal and NDP caucus’ were sucessful in filibustering Ted Morton‘s Bill 208 yesterday afternoon in the Alberta Legislature.

In response to the still-death of his bill, Dr. Morton had these words to offer:

“The Liberals not only were irresponsible in blocking debate today, they were stupid, too.”

Liberal House Leader Laurie Blakeman responded with:

“I’m not going to accept arguments from Dr. Morton that he deserves special treatment to get his bill up and I’m frankly not going to accept that from the Speaker either.”

ADDENUM – I would just like to send a shout out to all those folks who felt inclined to send me emails filled with lots of nasty names and accusations. Glad to know that you’re reading my blog!

Hey guess what? A non-political post!!!!

– I saw Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby last weekend. It was pretty funny. It was a typical Will Ferrell movie filled with oneliners. Ali G was good too. Speaking of Ali G, the trailers for Borat are out. I’m really looking forward to this one. It looks pretty ridiculous, but should be somewhat entertaining.

– I registered for the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute Conference this upcoming November. The theme is “Power for the People: Determining Our Energy Future” and the speakers list includes John Raulston Saul, Marc Lisac, Gillian Steward, Larry Pratt, Lindsay Telfer, Gordon Laxer, and Oystein Noreng. It should be interesting.

– This is a cool music video.

– And finally, Chuck Norris is still pretty cool.

Ted Morton’s Bill 208 is now posted on the Assembly website. It’s very important that this sort of mean spirited and discriminatory legislation be stopped before it can become law in Alberta.

If passed, Bill 208 will amend the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, the Schools Act, and the Marriage Act to propose that:
1. educational information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgendered rights will will be optional in public schools.
2. public marriage commissionaires could opt out of performing same-sex marriages.
3. that a person expressing their opinion/ideas about homosexuality could not have a claim of discrimination brought against them.

Here is what you can do to STOP BILL 208!

– Phone, Fax, or Email Ted Morton and tell him why you oppose Bill 208 (cc the email to your MLA):
Email: foothills.rockyview@assembly.ab.ca
Constituency Phone: 1-866-843-4314 (toll-free)
Constituency Fax: (403) 216-2225
Legislature Phone: (780) 422-2768
Legislature Fax: (780) 422-1671

– Phone, Fax, or Email your MLA and let them know why you oppose Bill 208. Find your MLA here. Ask your MLA to table your email in the Assembly.

– Come and show your opposition to Bill 208 at the Alberta Legislature on Monday August 28. To get passes to the visitors gallery and be introduced in the Assembly, please call the Liberals (Contact Jill Roszell at (780) 422-0013 or jill.roszell@assembly.ab.ca) or the NDP (Contact Anand Sharma at (780) 415-1803).

Monday’s session will run from 1:30pm to around 5:30pm. You must register before 11am on Monday August 28 as they need to send the list of people to the Speaker’s Office so you can be introduced.

(Updated with amendments)

Phew! I feel better already.

The hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin holds that most petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps deposits dating to the accretion of the Earth. The ubiquity of hydrocarbons in the solar system is taken as evidence that there may be a great deal more petroleum on Earth than commonly thought, and that material may exist at depth in the Earth’s crust and mantle. Adherents to the abiogenic hypothesis often downplay or dismiss altogether the more widely held view that petroleum is a fossil fuel produced from the buried remains of ancient living organisms.

1. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

The legislature begins a rare summer session tomorrow, but Premier Ralph Klein says what MLAs do under the Dome doesn’t count for much.

The departing premier says that during his summer travels around the province – a combination farewell tour and fact-finding mission – he’s been reminded that what happens at the legislature doesn’t mean all that much to the average Albertan.

“I have always said what we see and do here bears no relationship with what is happening in the real world,” Klein told the Sun. …

2. CalgaryGrit has a found a ridiculous video of Florida Congress Republican candidate Tramm Hudson. Here’s another ridiculous video.

3. According to the Globe & Mail:

The number of homeless people also seems to be on the rise. In 1992, when Calgary began its biennial count of the number of homeless in the city, there were 447 people without permanent shelter; this spring, the number reached 3,436. In Edmonton, the homeless population hovers at about 2,200.

Even smaller urban centres are now struggling with the issue. Grande Prairie in northern Alberta recently estimated that about 1,159 people — the majority being men between the ages of 18 and 24 — didn’t have a roof over their heads.

According to the City of Grande Prairie, their estimated population in 2005 was 44, 631. If these numbers are correct, that means that 2.5% of people in Grande Prairie are homeless – that’s about one in fourty citizens. We have a problem.

I was in Calgary for meetings today. When I got back to Edmonton, this was waiting in my inbox:

From: ******@ualberta.ca
Date: August 21, 2006 1:23:03 PM MDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Bill 208: A Call to Action!

CALL TO ACTION

MLA Ted Morton will try to bring back his private members bill 208 in the upcoming provincial session on Monday August 28.

Morton’s bill as proposed would legislate that 1. information about G/L/B/T not be allowed in schools, 2. marriage commissionaires could opt out of performing same-sex marriages, and 3. that a person expressing their opinion/ideas about homosexuality could not have a claim of discrimination brought against them.

Although it is rumoured that Mr. Morton will bring forth an amended bill (and remove some clauses) it needs to be stopped in its entirety!

The Provincial legislative session begins on Thursday Aug. 24 and Monday August 28 beginning at 1:30pm will be the session for private member’s bills.

In discussions with both the provincial Liberals and New Democrats their strategy will be to filibuster on August 28 to keep the bill from coming forward.

CALL FOR ACTION

This e-mail is coming to you in hopes that you will register, attend and be introduced in the Legislative Assembly on August 28. The session will begin at 1:30pm and run until 5:30pm. You can only attend if you register.

In order to register and be introduced call either the Liberals (MLA Laurie Blakeman‘s office 414-0743) or the New Democrat Office (415-1803 Arnand Sharma). Invite others to do the same.

(Come early as everyone has to go through security.)

Thanks.

Kris Wells, Julie Lloyd, Michael Phair, Ken Macdonald, Murray Billett

N.B. There will be a media conference on the steps of the Legislature on Friday August 25 from 1 to 1:30pm. Attend if you are available.

I think it’s really important that this regressive and backward agenda be stopped dead in its tracks.

It seems to me that the reappearance of Bill 208 has more to do with Ted Morton‘s bid for the Alberta PC leadership than any real Alberta uprising. It would be disgraceful if Bill 208 was being used as a tool to simply galvinize the support of a crop of social conservatives in favour of Dr. Morton.

UPDATE – Click here to find out how to STOP BILL 208!

The conference is done and I’m freed for the rest of my Sunday afternoon! And what a wonderful afternoon it is!

The Fringe Festival is up and running this weekend and will be going until next Sunday. I was there last night and plan to check out some of the great (and not-so-great shows) this week. If anyone has heard of some good ones – drop a comment in the box and let me know.

Also, I tried this today. It was awesome.

I’ll be at a conference for most of the weekend, so I will leave you with that.

If you live in Edmonton, there’s a good chance you may have heard about this.

On August 13, 2006 Robert Barrington Leigh went missing while riding his bike to the Edmonton Folk Festival. If you know anything about his whereabouts, please contact the Edmonton Police Service at 423-4567 or the FindRobert HQ at 904-4837. There is also a website set up for the search.

UPDATE: Sad news.

As someone who has spent the past two years employed and immersed in the post-secondary education policy and advocacy sector, I was quite surprised to see that Human Resources and Social Development Canada is holding consultations on post-secondary education.

Now, because I don’t have a ton of official business in Ottawa it might not seem very surprising that I wasn’t the first to find out, but it wasn’t through the regular channels that I discovered the consultation – I found out on Paul Wells’ blog.

And as CFSR has pointed out, there were also no press releases informing the public or the media about the existance of the consultation which has a submission deadline of September 8.

Wells’ also noted that an acquaintance of his in the PSE sector noted to him that:

“to my knowledge no groups were notified about this consultation and no efforts have been made to publicize it.”

So, now that Wells has blown the cover of this secret public consultations, I encourage everyone to go to the consultation website, fill out the form, and tell the Government of Canada about the importance of post-secondary education.

I get the feeling that this could be a interesting topic of discussion at an upcoming post-secondary education conference I’m attending next weekend.

I give Paul Wells 100% props for bringing this public consultation to the attention of the public.

Kudos, Mr. Wells!

I was a little surprised at when I heard that Innovation & Science Minister and Red Deer South MLA Victor Doerksen had resigned from the Tory cabinet yesterday and may run in the Alberta PC leadership race.

Though I had heard rumblings that Doerksen, a very social conservative MLA since 1993, was thinking about running, I was nearly convinced that he would be the first Tory MLA to endorse Ted Morton (which he also still might do).

I wonder what affect this will have on the social conservative vote that Morton seemed to have a near monopoly on? (As an MLA, Doerksen has advocated for the ban of liturature such as “Of Mice and Men” from schools).

Will this split Ted Morton’s presumed support on the first ballot? Does Doerksen have what it takes to draw enough of the disgruntled right to his side?

The 1992 PC leadership race saw three main social conservative Christian candidates – then-Edmonton Parkallen MLA Doug Main, then-Red Deer South MLA John Oldring, and former Social Credit candidate Lloyd Quantz.

So, not only is Doerksen the second outed social conservative candidate of the race – but it is also at least the second time an Alberta PC leadership candidate has also been the MLA for Red Deer South. Interesting…

I was quite excited to see that Back to the Future II was on last night. Though the first Back to the Future film is clearly superior to the second film, I really enjoyed watching it on TBS (and yes, I do own the trilogy on DVD…).

Feel free to check out this Back to the Future related postI wrote up in June of 2005. The post outlines some of the positives and negatives of the film, along with the plot holes in Back to the Future II. Ilearly had too much time on my hands on the evening of June 10, 2005.

On another note, I spent most of my weekend at the Edmonton Folk Festival and it was a lot of fun to spend the day sitting out in the sun on a tarp and enjoying the great tunes.

In no particular order (because they were all great), I took in the tunes of Bruce Cockburn, Sarah Harmer, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Feist, Chumbawamba, The McDades, Oscar Lopez, Hawksley Workman, James Keelghan, Rachelle van Zanten, Jenny Allen, The Wailin’ Jennys, David Gray, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt, Salif Keita, and many many more…