Author: Dave Cournoyer

First of all, the first time I read this article, I thought it said “ungulating plateau,” rather than “undulating plateau.” Imagine my confusion…two very different meanings. Anyway…

In the article from today’s Globe and Mail, Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Boston is predicting that the world is on the verge of an oil glut. Yes, that’s right. We have more oil than we know what to do with.

They also suggest “oil will remain higher than $55 for the rest of the decade.”

Instead, it projected an “undulating plateau,” extending for several decades.”

You can read the article here.

Any thoughts?

According to the Honourable Member for Medicine Hat, there’s a new blog in the blogosphere. This blog belongs to none other than Mr. Rick Mercer from Monday Report fame. Cool.

Check it out and what he did with the domain name of one of our FAVORITE Members of Parliament.

David Wilkins, was sworn in as US Ambassador to Canada today in Washington D.C.

Apparently, Mr. Wilkins turned down the ambassadorship to Chile in favour of Canada.

Interesting.

The second (ever) blog of the week is Ahab’s Whale. Ahab’s Whale is an entertaining and insightful blog written by three Canadians, Mister’s Tim Cooper, James MacDuff, and Mike McNair (of “The Inhabitant of London” fame).

According to their blog, they’re all working or studying in London, UK.

Check it out for some good posts!

The good people of daveberta rest their heads in remembrance of the greatness and proletarian grandeur that once was. It has been diagnosed that the parliamentary disease known as “hansardius extremius” has spread to the great nation once known as Holtopia.

The daveberta Ministry of Slightly Ridiculous Health Conditions will be sending remedial debate specialists to the ravaged 1 1/2 world nation.

(props to WK for the link)

As a political science student, this is one of the questions that had dogged and bothered me for the past number of years. How did politics get this bad? At what point did the debates in the House of Commons and the Provincial Legislatures degenerate into beer-hall level cheap personal insults and nasty heckling? When did the average person decide to tune out of politics? When did the House of Commons become a place for “politicians” rather than our “representatives?” When did elections become irrelevant to the average Canadian?

How can politics again become relevant to the average Canadian? Was it ever? Will it ever?

I can name off a number of reasons for why I believe people tune out of politics, and I will…

Part 1.

It’s no secret that our Provincial and Federal Assemblies are largely unreflective of the ballots cast.

In 2004, the Alberta Progressive Conservatives received 46.8% of the popular vote. Through the wonders of the first-part-the-post system, 46.8% translated into 74.7% of the seats in the Legislature (62 out of 83). Whereas the opposition Liberals received 29.4% of the popular vote, but only 19.3% of the seats (16 out of 83).

With the voter turnout at its lowest in Alberta history, 44.7% of Albertans exercised their democratic right to vote. That’s 894,591 out of 2,001,287 registered voters. Voter turnout was as low as 26.4% in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo and 29.6% in Calgary Montrose. The highest turnout was 62.9% in Edmonton Riverview.

When translated from voter turnout, the results translate into 20.9% support for the PC’s and 13.1% for the Liberals. So, only 20.9% of eligible voters cast a vote for Ralph Klein’s PC’s. This is hardly a mandate in my mind.

The same imbalance can be seen in the Alberta results in the 2004 Federal election, where the Conservatives garnered 61.64% of the popular vote and 93% of the seats (26 out of 28). The Federal Liberals received 21.98% of the vote, but only 7% of the seats (2 out of 28). The NDP garnered 9% of the Alberta vote, which did not translate into any seats.

So, how do we solve this imbalance? I say overhaul the system completely. Do I know what the solution is? No. But it’s time we start looking at solutions.

(Dr. Harold Jansen from the University of Lethbridge has some interesting ideas).

It’s time to think out of the box and look past the partisan picture.

Let’s re-evaluate our expectations of our elected officials. Hold them accountable, hold them to higher standards, and call them on their political biases and bluffs.

(props to c-lo for the quiz)

Just got back from an awesome weekend at my parents’ cabin (it rained alll day Saturday! It was awesome!)

I’ll post more soon, watching the Family Guy right now…

“A solitary killer, the firetruck stalks its prey. The firetruck can consume eight times its body weight.”

Family Guy rocks my world.

This post belongs in the ridiculous category.

It appears that Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Frank Work has decided to reward Government Services Minister Ty Lund for his “commitment to the province’s freedom of information and privacy legislation.” Lund, who was first elected in the Rocky Mountain House riding in 1989, was known as “Forest Stump” during his days as Forestry Minister (a name coined by former Liberal leader and Senator, Nick Taylor).

Funny, this year the Canadian Association of Journalists awarded the government of Alberta with the “Code of Silence Award” for its poor handling of the media and opposition’s request for access to government flight logs.

This is the same government which used FOIP to stall opposition access to government flight logs, important Enron documents, West Edmonton Mall’s ATB financing records, and Stockwell Day’s legal fees (the Opposition Liberals had to pay $59,571 in FOIP fees to find out that the PC Government paid $792,000 of Stockwell Day’s legal fees).

Now, I’m not accusing Mr. Work of political hackery or anything. His CV and experience is pretty impressive.

But, according to his website “[t]he Commissioner is an Officer of the Legislature.” Okay… he’s an officer of a Legislature in which the Tories have held a majority for the past 34 years…

According to the CBC, Gurmant Grewal has been cleared of wrongdoing in two investigations launched after the Conservative member of Parliament tried to get Ottawa-bound passengers at Vancouver’s airport to carry a package for him.

The RCMP and Transport Canada were investigating the June 4 incident to see if Grewal committed any offence

Now the RCMP says the Newton-North Delta MP is off the hook because he had cleared security with the package before he started approaching people to do the errand for him. Read the rest here

#5 of the Dog Judo series is out!

(Thanks to Rob for the heads up!)

“Stumbling Tory MP Grewal hasn’t exactly acted like a 007 agent, but more like a suicide bomber”

– Angelo Persichilli, the Hill Times

I thought this picture was funny and appropriate at the same time….

Today, Alberta Advanced Education Minister Dave Hancock announced the composition of a committee that will review Post-Secondary Education in Alberta. No student or faculty representatives are on the committee, but not surprisingly there are 3 Tory MLA’s on it.

(On another note: This story caught my eye.)

Tory Minister Guy Boutilier got into a shouting match with ND MLA Ray Martin yesterday afternoon!

According to CBC, Martin wanted to know why a developer that has donated money to the Fort McMurray MLA got what the NDP is calling a sweetheart deal on 900 acres of government land in Fort McMurray, with no public tender.

Boutilier, who was elected MLA for Fort McMurray in 1997 is currently Alberta’s Minister of the Environment. Boutilier was Mayor of Fort McMurray from 1992 to 1997, when he jumped to the provincial scene following the retirement of Fort McMurray Liberal MLA Adam Germain.

Ray Martin is the ND MLA for Edmonton Beverly Clareview. Martin served as MLA for Edmonton Norwood from 1982 to 1993 and ND Leader from 1984 to 1994. In 1993, Martin was defeated in Norwood by Liberal Andrew Beniuk. Last November, Martin returned to provincial politics after being elected in the Edmonton Beverly Clareview riding.

More Boutilier outrage can be found here, here, and here.

It seems I have AGAIN had the privilege of gracing the pages of another forces of darkness blog! Two in one week! Wow. Peter Rempel must be a trend-setter.

This time, it happens to be on the nicely designed RootleWeb blog, run by a Blogger known only as Ruth.

It appears that Ms. Ruth has taken exception with my fourth criterion of selecting “le blog of the week.” In a recent posting about the tolerance level of “lefties,” Ms. Ruth wrote:

“Now consider Daveberta’s criteria for his blog of the week:
1. Smart
2. Entertaining
3. Informative
4. Not crazy right-wing.
Why the need to add the last criterion? If everyone is entitled to their opinion and we must be tolerant of all, then why not select a blog that is smart, entertaining, informative and also crazy right wing. The combination does exist. Captain’s Quarters is a perfect example.”

First, I would like to thank Ms. Ruth for her post.

Second, I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion (no matter how crazy that opinion may be).

Third, I would like to point out that I have not excluded all right-wing blogs, only those which I consider “crazy-right wing.” So, there still is potential for 2 or 3 of the hundred or so blogging forces of darkness to make “le blog of the week.”