Alberta’s Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ray Danyluk, welcomed the 2009 ICLEI World Congress in Edmonton this afternoon.
I attended the opening plenary session of the 2009 ICLEI World Congress in Edmonton‘s Shaw Conference Centre. The 628 ICLEI delegates will face a rigorous agenda over the next four days. Congress delegates have flown in from around the world, including over 100 delegates who do not speak English.
(The great caricatures were drawn by Roy Blumenthal)
The 2009 ICLEI World Congress opened with speeches from:
– Stephen Kabuye, ICLEI’s Vice President, Mayor of Entebbe, Uganda
– Stephen Mandel, Mayor of Edmonton
– David Cadman, Deputy Mayor of Vancouver, Canada & ICLEI President
– Ray Danyluk, Alberta’s Minister of Municipal Affairs
– Bärbel Dieckmann, Chairperson, World Mayors Council on Climate
Change, Mayor of Bonn, Germany
Of all the speakers, Cadman was the most passionate. As President of ICLEI, he used his time at the podium to urge delegates to lobby their state, provincial, and national governments for serious action on sustainable development and climate change. As this year’s COP15 meeting in Copenhagen approaches, the world’s municipalities will play a key role in advocating for serious action on the international stage. Even though it was only the first day of the Congress, I get the distinct feeling that municipal frustration towards regional and national inaction on sustainability and climate change is a common feeling among delegates.
Critics may point out the irony of holding an international sustainability conference due south of Alberta’s Energy Beach, but the 2009 ICLEI World Congress will give Alberta’s cities an opportunity to highlight some of the innovative sustainability initiatives that are being implemented at a local level. With an increased international spotlight on Alberta’s potential as an even stronger energy leader (and the irresponsible way that we are currently exploiting our resources), the Government of Alberta may feel an increased international pressure to become serious about cleaning up the way we are allowing oil companies to extract our natural resources.
For up-to-the-minute coverage of ICLEI over the next week, I will be uploading photographs on Flickr and joining the discussion on Twitter at #ICLEI. For more information on ICLEI, check out Mastermaq’s Guide to ICLEI World Congress in Edmonton.
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iclei comes to edmonton.
Over the next week, I will be reporting live from the 2009 ICLEI World Congress in Edmonton. ICLEI is an international association of over 1000 local governments from around the globe who are committed to sustainable development.
Mack Male has posted an excellent guide to the ICLEI World Congress that I would recommend any ICLEI-curious Edmontonian. As Mack pointed out, this is going to be an important conference as ‘more than 500 mayors, councillors, and other delegates from more than 800 cities around the world will visit our city to discuss environmental sustainability.‘
City Councillors Don Iveson and Ben Henderson show off their tricycle-made-for-two.
Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman and Edmonton-Riverview MLA Kevin Taft.
Edmonton-Strathcona MP Linda Duncan and MLA Rachel Notley.
Edmonton-Calder MLA Doug Elniski, Edmonton-Rutherford MLA Fred Horne, and Edmonton-Glenora MLA Heather Klimchuk were the first PC MLAs to ever participate in Edmonton’s Pride Parade. Klimchuk was given a unique initiation at the Pride festivities:
Edmonton Pride Parade revellers waved rainbow flags Saturday afternoon as they booed and yelled “shame” at Edmonton-Glenora MLA Heather Klimchuk, the first government minister to participate in the annual celebration.
As the Service Alberta minister spoke to a crowd of thousands at Sir Winston Churchill Square, the shouts were louder than she was.
The boos were in response to the provincial government’s passage of Bill 44 nearly two weeks ago. The bill made controversial changes to Alberta’s Human Rights Act by giving parents the right to take their children out of classes dealing with sexual orientation, human sexuality and religion.
Critics argued the new law put teachers in danger of facing human rights complaints and created a second tier of rights.
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daveberta on air.
Tune in to Calgary’s AM770 at 6:40pm tonight as I join The World Tonight‘s Rob Breakenridge (@RobBreakenridge) on air to discuss my recent article in Alberta Views Magazine.
– June 16 is the date of the Conservative nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona. Linda Blade, Ryan Hastman, and Cathay Wagantall have spent the last month duking it out for the opportunity to run against NDP MP Linda Duncan.
– June 22 is the date of the Alberta Liberal nomination in Calgary-Glenmore that will see Corey Hogan and Avalon Roberts face off for the right to carry their party’s banner into the upcoming by-election to replace former PC MLA Ron Stevens.
– June 23 is the date of the Wild Rose Alliance nomination meeting in Calgary-Glenmore. It looks as if outgoing leader and former Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Paul Hinman may be the only candidate to seek the nod.
– Danielle Smith: Wild Rose Renaissance? One blogger is boldly predicting that she is “the greatest threat to the Tory dynasty in Alberta since Laurence Decore.”
– Former Ontario NDP MPP, nearly interested Liberal, and now Calgary Mayoral candidate George Dadamo will soon be accepting applications for new campaign staff.
– The Alberta NDP hosted a revitalization conference in Edmonton last weekend. I am told that BC MP Nathan Cullen knocked the socks off the over 100 attendees with a rousing speech. Union orgainzer Eric Carpendale has been appointed as the NDP candidate for the upcoming Calgary-Glenmore by-election.
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ralph goodale interview.
CalgaryGrit recorded this video interview with Wascana Liberal MP Ralph Goodale at the recent Liberal Party of Canada convention in Vancouver. Goodale was one of two Liberal MPs elected in Canada’s three Prairie provinces in 2008 (the other being Winnipeg-South Centre MP Anita Neville).
Alberta PC MLAs [have been told to] say Michael Ignatieff.
(It’s probably a good thing these came out after this meeting)
You wouldn’t know it from the near complete lack of media coverage, but a low-key conference hosted by the Canada School of Energy and Environment (CSEE) brought some of Canada’s top government and energy industry officials to Banff this past weekend. The June 4th to 6th meeting focused on the upcoming Copenhagen Conference.
Thanks to a long-time daveberta.ca reader, I was able to get my digital hands on a draft copy of the conference delegate program for ‘The Search for a Canada U.S. Climate Change Accord: the Road to Copenhagen and Beyond.’ The delegate package lists scheduled discussions and working sessions on topics ranging from pricing carbon, modernizing Canada’s electrical grid, harmonizing energy policy with the United States, and developing clean energy technology.
According to the draft program, conference attendees included:
– Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach (with his Chief of Staff Ron Glen and media spokesperson Tom Olsen also attended. Read Stelmach’s speech)
– Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner
– Saskatchewan Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff
– Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen
– Quebec Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks Minister Line Beauchamp
– Manitoba Minister of Conservation Stanley Struthers
– PEI Minister of Environment, Energy, Forestry Minister Richard Brown
– BC Environment Minister Barry Penner
– Yukon Environment Minister Elaine Taylor
– NWT Environment & Natural Resources Minister Michael Miltenberger
– Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice– CAPP President Dave Collyer
– Suncor President Rick George
– ATCO President & CEO Nancy Southern
– Nexen President & CEO Marvin Romanow
– Alberta CCS Development Chair Jim Carter
– TransCanada Pipeline President Hal Kvisle
– EPCOR President Don Lowry– Alberta’s Washington DC Envoy Gary Mar
– former US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins
– University of Alberta President Indira Samarasekera
– U of A Chairman Brian Heidecker
– University of Calgary President Harvey Weingarten
– National Chief Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine
None of Canada’s municipal leaders or members of the media were included in the list of attendees.
By organizing a conference of this size, my source pointed out, CSEE is clearly showing that it has more clout than an average academic unit. While it’s positive to see such collaboration happening between government and energy officials, it would be interesting to discover who provided the impetus and funding to hold a conference like this. While its secretive nature is suspicious, I hope that conferences like this one will lead to more action than rhetoric when our representatives travel to Copenhagen in December 2009.
Wild Rose Alliance Party activist Travis Chase has a good write up of this weekend’s WRAP AGM in Calgary where three candidates declared their intentions to seek the right-wing party’s leadership.
Danielle Smith‘s candidacy hasn’t exactly been a secret (as first written about here). While she is certainly not a typical angry hard-core conservative, her roots with the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and the editorial pages of the Calgary Herald are sure to endear the well-spoken Smith to Alberta’s libertarian circles. She has yet to seek provincial office, but Calgarians may remember Smith from her brief tenure on Calgary’s dysfunctional Board of Education, which was soon-after fired by then-Education Minister Lyle Oberg. Two of Smith’s early endorsements include Link Byfield and Libertarian Party of Canada leader Dennis Young.
Mark Dyrholm is the National Vice-President of the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB), the former vice-president of the College of Chiropractors of Alberta, and was a PGIB-endorsed candidate during Calgary’s 2004 municipal election (when he ran against Ward 13 Alderman and Calgary-Glenmore PC by-election candidate Diane Colley-Urquhart). Dyrholm made an unsuccessful bid for the Calgary-Lougheed PC nomination against Dave Rodney in 2004 and is reportedly the former President of the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills PC association. Dyrholm’s Strategy/Coalition Outreach manager is the always colourful Craig Chandler.
As reported by the Calgary Herald’s Renata D’Aliesio, Jeff Willerton plans to enter the contest when he raises the $10,000 candidate fee. When not picking fights at Pride Parades, Willerton has run as a Social Credit candidate in Barrhead-Westlock (2001), an Alberta Party and WRAP candidate in Airdrie-Chestermere (2004 & 2008), an Independent candidate in the Calgary-Elbow by election (2007), and contested the leadership of the Social Credit Party (1999). In 2001, Willerton sparked a short-lived public feud between Alberta Speaker Ken Kowalski and then-Athabasca MP Dave Chatters.
Also speaking at the WRAP AGM was Calgary School member and former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Professor Tom Flanagan.
Some interested debate about Bill 44 has continued over the weekend in the comment sections of this blog post from June 2nd and this blog post from June 4th.
Meanwhile, Todd Babiak wrote an interesting Bill 44 related column this weekend.
A big congratulations to Alberta Views Magazine for being awarded the covete Magazine of the Year at this weekend’s National Magazine Awards in Toronto. Chris Turner was awarded the Gold Medal for his essay ‘The Big Decision‘ and Raymond Biesinger earned an honourable mention for his illustration ‘Ten-Year Tabulations,’ both which were published in Alberta Views Magazine.
Also on the topics of magazines, make sure to read Darcy Henton‘s excellent feature article, ‘Culture of Secrecy,’ in this month’s issue of Avenue Magazine.
PC: Alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart was acclaimed as the PC candidate last night.
Liberal: Corey Hogan is reported to have been joined by two-time candidate Avalon Roberts in a nomination contest scheduled for June 22nd.
Wildrose Alliance: Former Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA and soon-to-be former leader Paul Hinman is busy pounding the pavement and Danielle Smith and Mark Dyrholm will soon declare their intentions to contest their party leadership. The local nomination contest is scheduled for June 23rd.
Social Credit: Obscure leader of former governing party Len Skowronski is running.
NDP, Greens?
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alberta hansard 2.0.
The Spring session of the Alberta Legislature by the numbers:
Number of times Twitter was mentioned: 22
Number of times Facebook was mentioned: 25
Number of times Matt Mitchke was mentioned: 3
Number of times the words ‘tough times‘ and ‘tough economic times” appeared together: 95
Number of times the word ‘deficit‘ was used: 239
Number of times the word ‘accountability‘ was used: 326
Number of times the word ‘transparency‘ was used: 206
Number of times ‘Northumberland‘ was mentioned: 4
Number of times a certain former Soviet dictator was mentioned: 7
Number of times ‘Stephen Harper‘ was mentioned: 6
Number of times the PC Caucus was described as the most ‘diverse caucus‘ in Canada: 21
(We should all thank the wonderful people who do such a thorough job of recording Hansard each day the Assembly is in session.)