Quote du Jour: Alberta's Clueless Energy Minister

From Thursday's Just Answer the Damn Question! Period:

Mr. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Geez, this is funny. Not every stakeholder is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars advertising on radio, on television, and in the newspaper. The minister dodged my question yesterday when he would not state in this Assembly how much this propaganda campaign is costing. To the minister: how many taxpayer dollars are you spending on advertising on this pro Bill 50 campaign? Simple enough for you?

Mr. Knight: Well, Mr. Speaker, again, I don’t know what constitutes advertising. Apparently, he’s an expert in the field. So if he would like to send me a letter that indicates which pieces of this stuff he considers to be information for consumers and which pieces he considers to be advertising, perhaps what we could do for him then – you know, he’s the expert on advertising. He told me that yesterday. That’s fine. If he’s the expert, let him tell me which pieces are advertising and which pieces are distributing information that Albertans want.

Related debauchery:

Alberta [Government] private plane tab $383K

Is it any wonder the Cons' poll numbers are taking a nose dive?

Will Steady Eddy survive his leadership review this weekend? Highly doubtful but Cons are known to stick with losers til the bitter end so stay tuned.
 

Stephen Colbert: Premier of "Colberta"?

We are absolutely desperate for political change here in Alberta. ("We" being those of us in touch with reality). And Torontonian (gasp!) Dan Zinman is spearheading the campaign to rename our province "Colberta", making Stephen (The Fighting Stephen!) Colbert our new quasi-premier.

In the world according to Colberta.com, it would be out with Ed Stelmach, Norman Kwong and all things French (Leduc would become The Duc), and in with Stephen Colbert, he of Comedy Central faux-Fox News fame, who would become a kind of non-aligned provincial leader for life.

“It is time for The Colbert Nation to rise up and request . . . no, demand, that the province of Alberta be turned over to the leadership of Colbert, who can rule the new state of Colberta with an iron fist, an unyielding gut, and balls of steel,” says the website, which also includes a number of Colb-mandments (Article Five: “Nickelback has got to go. We hear Saskatchewan [boring correction: "Manitoba" -catnip] may be interested.”)

I, for one, would welcome our new comedic overlord - although I would keep our Frenchiness as I'm sure Colbert (silent "t") would too. (Plus, being French myself, I might be deported. I hear Belize is nice though...)

He is holding off on contacting Colbert himself until he has some actual Albertans behind his scheme. You see, there’s one catch: Zinman is from Toronto. He has never actually been to Alberta.

I'll forgive him for that last fact. Anybody with half a brain anywhere knows that we have been awash in faux, so-called "Progressive" Conservative muck for far too long - unlike the real brand of conservatism Colbert would restore.

Today, Colberta. Tomorrow, Colbanada! Watch out Stephen Harper.
 

No sex (ed) please! We're Albertans

Isn't it fun having fear included in a human rights code?

Alberta legislators passed legislation early Tuesday that will give parents the option of pulling their children out of class when lessons on sex, religion or sexual orientation are being taught. [I don't know if that wording is intentional or perhaps a Freudian slip - considering parents can now block their children from learning about pulling out if it makes them too squeamish. -catnip]

...

A clause in the bill, which is an amendment to the province's human rights legislation, requires that school boards give parents written notice when controversial topics are going to be covered in the curriculum. Parents can then ask for their child to be excluded from the discussion.

And let's not forget: wingnuts don't get "irony" -

The parental rights clause is included in a bill intended to enshrine gay rights in Alberta's human rights code.

Related:

Issues: Still waiting on the last 95 recommendations

Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal
 

Another Fine Mess

During his victory speech on Tuesday nite, Mr 'I have to call an election because parliament is dysfunctional' Harper said, "we know how to make a minority government work". Cognitive dissonance anyone? Or, more plainly said, lies?

The local CTV station reported here on Wednesday that they've been getting a lot of calls and e-mails (and remember - this is a staunchly Conservative city) asking why an election was held in the first place. They should be calling Harper for that answer. Comments in the Calgary Herald echo that anger.

CTV also showed a clip of Harper laughing about the fact that he's basically been Mr Non-stop Campaigning Man the last 6 years. That's something to boast about? After he just cost Canadians $300 million for an unnecessary and non-game-changing election?

And, once again, Alberta had the lowest voter turnout in the country. Maybe if some of those Conservative sheeple actually cared about those hundreds of millions of wasted dollars, they would have shown that by kicking out these useless bastards. But Dog forbid Canada should turn socialist - never mind that Harper is planning on sinking billions into the banks in a socialist kind of way. Cognitive dissonance abides. Maybe they should be forced to hold telethons instead.

The only bright lite in this province last nite shone from Edmonton-Strathcona where NDP candidate Linda Duncan took the seat from Rahim Jaffer. (Who can forget Rick Mercer's "will the real Rahim Jaffer please stand up?" Jaffer should have been turfed for that fraud when it happened.) CBC reports that Jaffer is asking for a "review" of Tuesday's results - not a formal recount though. Regardless, buh bye.

On the Liberal side, we now have to put up with yet another round of leadership races once Dion is convinced to step aside or is forced to do so. There's no way he'll survive this:

Stéphane Dion's future as Liberal Leader is the key post-ballot question as final results from Tuesday's election show his party sank to its lowest level of popular support since Confederation.

Ouch. Buh bye to you too, Stephane.

We all know what the next however many months until the next election will look like: continued verbal food fights in the house highlighted by willful mental constipation and verbal diarrhea. In other words, meet the new parliament, same as the old one. No one even bothered to talk about anything like "restoring dignity" to the place this time around. They all know what a farce that is. They can't help themselves so why bother? If you're really looking to invest in stocks of some kind to get through the coming recession, stock up on popcorn for Question Period. At least popcorn is still affordable, unlike so many other things.

Yes, it's just another fine mess and the "fine" descriptor is certainly questionable. Thanks, Ollie Steve.

Related:

Complete riding results from CBC.
Voter turnout lowest on record (59.1% nationally)

Update:

The Calgary Herald reports that Nfld/Labrador had the country's lowest voter turnout. Alberta was next in line.

"I don't think any of us have really clear ideas as to why that is happening," Harper said.

Seriously, Steve? Mon dieu. Talk about clueless.

 

Stelmach's Oil Royalties Compromise

Here's how the Conservative party/government operates in Alberta. They set up panels, committees and traveling road shows to pretend to care about the opinions of the voters peasants and then they go ahead and do what they planned to in the first place, despite the input.

So, it comes as no surprise that "Steady Eddie" Stelmach, who had set up his own panel to study royalty revenues from the oilpatch, announced today that, contrary to what his experts advised, he's going to ask for half a billion dollars less than what they recommended. Who cares if Albertans have been ripped off for years now?

Broken down, the government forecast additional royalties in 2010 to be as follows:

* $470 million more for natural gas -- about $270 million less than recommended by the expert panel;
* $460 million more on conventional oil -- about $4 million more than called for by the royalty report;
* $470 million more for oil sands -- nearly $200 million less than recommended by the panel.


The expected $1.4-billion increase in royalties would hike Alberta's total 2010 royalty take to about $8.6 billion from $7.2 billion.

The oil lobby had been extremely vocal and threatening prior to this announcement stating that various companies might "have" to pull out of the province. In other words, if they couldn't continue raking in the megabucks on the backs of all Albertans, they'd take their toys and go home - to the US, to China or wherever they came from in the first place. Let's face it, can anyone in their right mind in this financial climate with oil at $90/barrel and projected to be at $70/barrel in 2008 expect the rest of us to believe that they'd actually suffer if they had to fork over more royalties? Poor them.

In the meantime, because of the oil boom in Alberta, our cost of living has skyrocketed and the influx of people looking for and finding work here has overstretched our (already underfunded) infrastructure. So, who's really suffering here? It's definitely not the oil patch.

And, just as an added perspective of exactly what this government thinks about "governing" in this province, it doesn't get much clearer than this, does it?

Meanwhile, Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, who was at the premier's press conference in Calgary, declined to comment on the report. Taft said it was "undemocratic" to freeze the opposition out of the technical and media briefing, which didn't give his party advance time to review the plan.

"We need time to study it, and will get back as soon as we can."

Albertans who keep electing these Conservatives, especially after the mess Ralph Klein perpetrated on our province, really need to get their heads out of their ideological bubbles. They, along with the rest of us, have been complaining for decades about people issues like the state of our health care services (why do Albertans still pay health care premiums??), the cuts to education, the inattentiveness to the needs of the poor, the refusal to actually listen to anyone but the sound of their own voices, the backwards attitudes towards civil rights etc etc etc. Yet those Conservative voters just can't bring themselves to kick the useless, arrogant bums out of power.

I've often said that, rewriting another popular saying, 1000 monkeys in a room with calculators could manage Alberta's economy just as well as these Conservative governments do. And they might even do a better job of it - especially during times like this when oil money is flooding the province.

So, I don't have any tears to shed for these oil companies and the fact that Steady Eddie caved to their whining shows that he's just as spineless and beholden to that lobby as Klein was.

I'll post more analysis of today's announcement as it comes in. From what I've heard so far, those who expected Stelmach to follow the advice of his panel are disappointed.

Related:

CBC's roundup of Alberta oil royalties news, background and reactions (includes video of Stelmach's press conference)
 

It wasn't me. Really.

CALGARY — It might be considered a rite of passage in Canadian politics — after all, it did happen to former prime minister Jean Chrétien as well as Quebec Premier Jean Charest and former Alberta premier Ralph Klein.

But an attempted pie attack on Ed Stelmach at the Alberta premier's annual Stampede breakfast Monday didn't strike a funny bone with his security officials.

A young woman who approached Mr. Stelmach with what appeared to be a chocolate cream pie failed to hit her target and it was a security official instead who “took a pie for the premier,” said witness Greg Melchin, Alberta's housing minister.

“She held up her pie. She said, ‘I've got this pie for you, premier — remember the pie?' She made clear and identified to everybody it was a pie — nothing else but a pie.

“She couldn't get access to him, so realizing she wasn't getting through with security in front of her, she just took the pie and placed it in the face of security.”

Police immediately grabbed the young woman, who fell to the ground. She was dragged away kicking and screaming by three or four uniformed officers.

“I think it's pretty cozy for the premier to be eating breakfast when people are homeless on the streets!” she cried.

Everybody knows that cheesecake is my dessert of choice.