While my guitar gently weeps (Musings on the political fallout of the Fort Mac fires)

Updated: 6 May 2016

This Thursday, on his regular spot on CBC's Edmonton AM, Paul McLoughlin, publisher of Alberta Scan, brought up the politics of the catastrophic Fort McMurray wildfires. I'm glad he did because it's been on my mind ever since the widespread devastation of the wildfires became clear.

Until now, I've been afraid to write anything because of potential twitter bullying. As someone with atypical ideas on sensitive subjects, I fear that tweeps with tens of 1000s of followers may casually and wittily trash ideas that clash with their world view. Then their followers retweet it and some may even jump in to dump all over me for having a different opinion. Been there, done that. Such is today's Twittersphere. But so far I've never suffered the unforgivable abuse some celeb female tweeps have. Fingers crossed I never will.

This blog is not about the suffering of those affected by the devastation or about their strong spirit and resilience or about how Albertans and Canadians have rushed to their aid. Others have written and will write on these important features as the weeks and months of the disaster's recovery and relief progress.

Instead the blog offers a few musings on 

• What comes next, after the Fort Mac wildfire is controlled and we're into the recovery phase and 
• How informed citizens should monitor the behaviours of politicians and their operatives. 

The blog's title is from a 1968 Beatles ditty by George Harrison,While my guitar gently weeps.

Of course, it's an unwritten rule - and common human decency - that politics should never be mentioned early in the game when the lives of many people are so profoundly affected, in this case suddenly and rapidly. During the crisis, the important things are for all concerned to concentrate on saving lives and key infrastructure, and getting the disaster under control.

But 'natural disasters', regardless of their multiple contributing factors, often portend political disasters too. Think Hurricane Katrina and the undoing of George Bush.

MUSINGS - WHAT NEXT?

What can go wrong with disaster recovery?
Well, the possibilities are endless and include:

1.When a disaster has widespread and long term negative consequences to people's lives, opportunities for screw-ups abound. It's worse if the disaster has never happened before or if it's the biggest of its kind, because few or no templates for what to do exist, except in general terms. But the devil is always in the details.

2. Fort Mac's disaster has not occurred in a vacuum, which also complicates what can go wrong. Alberta already suffers from over-reliance on oil revenues, thanks to 44 years of PCAA governments. Rachel Notley's NDP government has opted to run deficits rather than cut back on education, healthcare, infrastructure, and more. Those on the right of the political spectrum already judge maintaining social programs at the expense of a deficit to be a huge blunder and show the NDP's incompetence.

The bill for Fort Mac's disaster recovery is likely to run into the $billions. The funds will come from the Alberta and Canadian governments and insurance companies. Already large government deficits will grow. How many Fort Mac citizens had adequate insurance on their properties and possessions is another matter.

3. Invariably, governments cannot respond to the needs of thousands of devastated citizens soon enough. The needs are too many and life doesn't stop because of the disaster. Many competing priorities exist and government must deal with them. Other emergencies may arise.

4. That's when those affected by the big disaster start screaming about how the government is doing nothing. We've all seen it on the news and it's heartbreaking for the folks involved. But it doesn't mean governments have failed. Only so much can be done and, in the view of those suffering, seldom will it be timely enough and sufficient.

5. Also, all media delightfully supply a megaphone for the victims. Especially Postmedia, which consistently runs anti-NDP propaganda. They'll have a field day once the b*tching starts and make sure every Canadian knows about what an awful job Alberta's NDP (and Canada's Liberals) are doing on the Fort Mac file.

What can go right with disaster recovery?
Well, the government and its civil servants, who carry much of the load of disaster response and recovery, can do their best, do most things right, and get some credit from citizens. 

It helps if local media are fair and balanced and some are. Unfortunately, many good folks have lost their jobs due to cutbacks, but some remain, including the Edmonton Journal's 

• Paula Simons 
• Graham Thomson

However, Postmedia's near monopoly has an effect. One or two voices of reason tend to be drowned by multiple big-name columnists writing for the National Post, promoting Postmedia's party line/orthodoxy, and carried in local newspapers that are part of its chain.

MUSINGS - WHAT TO MONITOR?
Let's return to the unwritten rule not to take political advantage from a tragic disaster like Fort Mac's wildfires. So far Alberta's opposition parties have not overtly stooped to benefit from the tragedy.

WRP's Brian Jean, a resident of Fort Mac, is a naturally sympathetic figure as he personally lost much due to the wildfires.

More interesting is this tweet from WRP political operative, Vitor Marciano. Even if a genuine Jean moment, it's self-serving. Most folks who do truly selfless things don't take pictures and have operatives distribute them to the masses.

So I suggest citizens interested in politics monitor the Twitter accounts of politicians on the right and their surrogates, including those in the media. Will they bond together and fully support the Alberta and Canadian governments in their Fort McMurray recovery efforts over the difficult challenges on the long road ahead? Or as soon as folks complain, will they use it for political advantage?

• Brian Jean 
• Ric McIver
• Rona Ambrose
• Political operatives in David Climenhaga's 2012 'The Harper-Wildrose alliance', including: 
• Vitor Marciano 
• Ryan Hastman

My guess is that sooner, not later, politicos and their operatives will start to dump on Notley's government (Trudeau's too) over the handling of the Fort Mac tragedy. Bet on it. They'll distort events and spin anything for political advantage. And the Fort Mac wildfires give them an opportunity like no other.

At first it'll be subtle, because they're not stupid. The foundations have been laid already with Marciano's self-serving tweet portraying WRP Jean as hero-personified. Of course, I could be wrong  - and hope so - but time will tell. 

SUMMARY
As noted, this blog focuses on political aspects of natural disasters and their aftermath. The scale of the Fort Mac tragedy presents enormous challenges to all levels of government and the private sector too. As such, it will serve as a valuable case study in not only disaster relief and recovery but also in the politics of disasters. For the latter, it's useful to monitor a government's political opponents to document how they attempt to gain political advantage.

In the meantime, please support the 

• Canadian Red Cross Alberta Fires Emergency Appeal

Your donation will be matched by both the Alberta and Canadian governments.

FOR FUN
What to do when you see the future and can do nothing about it? Write a blog, of course. 

• While my guitar gently weeps (George Harrison)

Some lyrics unused in the final version caught my fancy:

I look at the trouble and see that it's raging,

While my guitar gently weeps.

As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but ageing,

Still, my guitar gently weeps.

Alberta NDP has gall to questions who is a journalist

Updates are sure to come

Quick musings on issues arising from Alberta's NDP banning The Rebel 'correspondents' (call them what you like, just NOT journalists) from government news conferences - then reversing its decision.

First, Levant's outfit is not a media organization, it's a propaganda tool created to trash the NDP and anyone else Ezra doesn't like, such as PM Justin Trudeau, Omar Khadr, and Muslims in general. 

CBC's Neil Macdonald beat me to the punch with 

• The Rebel and the NDP, why not to provoke Ezra Levant

But I'll say my views, regardless.

WHAT IS A JOURNALIST?
How do you know if someone is a journalist or just someone calling themselves a journalist? I look to standards of practice described by professional associations.

Current standards of practice for journalists are outlined in the Canadian Association of Journalists' 

• Ethics Guidelines (Please read these carefully)

Levant's minions practice none of these best practices. His work force consists of rabidly right wing propagandists, not journalists. 

WHAT IS A  PROFESSION?
Journalism likely is NOT a profession in the traditional sense. First, a profession requires special education, training, or skill. 

It often involves studying a specialized body of knowledge at an educational institution,  including on-the-job training to acquire real world experience. For example:

• Ryerson's School of Journalism
• Poynter Institute

Second, professions are self-regulating. If you fail to follow what is expected practice, you are struck off.

WHO DETERMINES WHO IS A JOURNALIST?
Main issue that concerns me for this blog is how so many mainstream media (MSM) journalists say that it's not the government's job to determine who a journalist is. 

In a former life I was a member of a health profession that was government regulated with a mandate to protect the public safety. If we screwed up, after a hearing, we'd be struck off.

For interest, Alberta's

• Regulated professions
• Designated occupations

Note: Standards in Alberta exist for bakers but not for journalists. Seems journalists are truly bottom feeders, unaccountable to no one except employers. 

As Neil Macdonald wrote, journalism is NOT a profession by any standard.

Personally, I wish it were, even though those calling themselves journalists say that's impossible. 

If any idiot can be a journalist, it degrades those who studied the craft and follow its code of ethics. 

The bit about newspapers and media in general having fewer staff to cover local news doesn't convince me that we should accept anyone as a journalist. 

Searching for a heart of gold (Musings on Alberta's health system)

Also see Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis blogs 
Updated: 1 Oct. 2014

I decided to write a short blog, one in a series, on Alberta's healthcare system. Canada's health system is one of best in world yet has many problems. I treasure it but don't want to ignore reality.

The blog's title comes from a song by Canada's Neil Young.

Trying to count up all times I've visited Edmonton Emergency Rooms (ERs) in past two years. At least 8 times, driving seniors in their 90s (because they want to go to UAH in Edmonton, across the street, not a far-way hospital that requires $40+ taxi fares), or accompanying them in ambulances.

I've also visited seniors who were admitted to hospitals, or had to attend clinics, dozens of times in past two years. Plus saw doctors for myself or family dozens of times.

Random Impressions

1. Alberta's health professionals are exemplary. Most cope with awful working conditions, are overworked, yet still care, treat patients with understanding and kindness. Truly heroes worth of admiration.

2. A few RNs let it get to them and are overtly surly to patients who have the audacity to ring nursing station buzzers and are hostile to patients and visitors who dare ask questions. I call these RNs angry pitbulls who probably should leave the profession. No doubt they are overworked but it does not excuse bad behaviour.

3. A few health workers seem to have little or no sympathy for the elderly ('bed blockers') and others who belong to any underclass. Is it because physicians and RNs earn good wages, live the good life, have not experienced hard times, and had a privileged childhood with little experience with the down-and-out and human frailty?

4. EMS staff have told me that some colleagues burn out and leave the profession because they cannot relate to the elderly or the homeless.

5. I've overheard young ER nurses and doctors joke negatively about elderly patients. A coping mechanism or they're callous youth? 

6. Physicians seldom listen to patients. They're immediately on office computers accessing results and what patients say is so much background noise.

In the past, doctors used to at least read a patient's chart, stuck in a slot on the outside of the cubicle, before entering. Nowadays, they enter,ask how you are (ignore whatever you say - it's usually not 'Fine' or why the heck are you there?), immediately log-in to computer, scan test results and recent history, while patients sit quietly waiting to be acknowledged as existing.

For routine followup visits, I've had physicians ask me,'How are you? What can I do for you today?' I wanted to reply: 'Your booked this appointment. You tell me.' But instead I generously say, 'I'm here for a routine follow-up for ...', which lets them off the hook.

7. Sometimes as a patient, when doctors begin a canned spiel about what they think is your issue, you feel like shouting, "Shut the f*ck up and listen" but you never do.

I've never heard a physician ask any of , "Am I going too fast? Do you understand what I'm saying?" From my life as a teacher of adults, it's standard practice to ask learners what there background is and if they know much about "x" so as to determine how much to explain. Because doctors never do the equivalent, patients with a health care background, e.g., medical laboratory technologist, may have to suffer through a hilarious description of a laboratory test.

8. Many patients visit their physicians unprepared, without a list of key questions that need answering or concerns that need to be assuaged. This puts doctors at a disadvantage as too many random concerns dilute a patient's true needs.

9. Some physicians talk too fast, use too many medical terms, and are oblivious to patients as real people struggling to understand. They don't seem to comprehend that lay people will often be focussed on what the doctor said several sentences ago and new information is not being heard, let alone processed.

Communication is not simple. Between SENDER---> (encodes MESSAGE) and RECEIVER (decodes message to obtain meaning) much background NOISE can interfere, not the least of which are the sender's language and speed of talking and the receiver's apprehension and fear.

10. What's taught in medical schools about patient-centred care is so much bullsh*t. Once physicians set up practice, it's all about processing patients on an assembly line for 'fee for service'.

Patients can't even get long-standing prescriptions for lifelong conditions renewed without visiting doctors. Pharmacies try their best to help patients but it's strictly ka-ching, ka-ching for doctors to make their practice viable (salary, overhead costs of maintaining an office and staff, etc.)

11. I've observed senior doctors humiliate student physicians (interns, residents). It's a widespread problem, one of medicine's dirty little secrets.

12. Onus is on patients to come with list of key concerns and press physicians for answers. Few can do this, especially the elderly. Often old folks meander all over the place instead of clearly stating their serious health issues.

Meanwhile MD and RN eyes glaze over and they begin to use terms like 'dearie' and 'sweetie'.

And some doctors don't really see oldsters as patients, more as inconveniences they cannot help. No one wants to feel powerless, least of all physicians with god-complexes.

More to come...
FOR FUN
Hope you enjoy this 1972 ditty by Canada's Neil Young.

• Heart of gold 

As always the views are mine alone and comments are most welcome. 

Simple is as simple does? (Musings on what can go wrong when buying a bed)

Updated: 21 July 2014

Note: To see 4 posts on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) see 'While my guitar gently weeps' (Musings on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis)

This is the first in a series of farces on what can happen when you try to help senior pals  in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The learning points apply to any business and their  customers.

This isn't a senior story per se but rather what can happen with national department stores, or any large retailer, that has communication and computer (information system) issues.

This farce outlines what happened when I bought a bed from a Canadian icon, The Hudson's Bay, for a senior friend who was in hospital. Note that in 2008 The Bay was bought by a U.S. company that also owns Saks Fifth Avenue. Key points:

1. On 4 June 2014 I bought a twin bed from sales rep Robert at The Bay Southgate for my senior pal, who was in hospital.

2. Bed was scheduled for delivery on 19 June.

3. Surprise! Mattress and box spring arrived but no bed frame. Delivery guys said the 'no frame' bit happened often.

Which motivated my spouse to draw this sketch:

Thus began a series of MANY phone calls to The Bay (and tweets to @TheHudsonsBayCo) to investigate what happened and how to resolve it. My calls were to the bedding dept. at The Bay Southgate in Edmonton, to manager of the dept, to customer support (which turned out to be in Toronto - several calls not documented below). Customer support in Toronto, once on the file, worked to resolve the issue and keep me informed.

4. I called The Bay's bedding dept. manager as the sales rep was not in that day. He said he or the sales rep would call with follow-up.

5. When neither called, I called the dept. and got the sales rep. [Turns out the rep called my pal's number, but she was in hospital.]

The original sales rep said he told me frame was not included as often customers simply used their old frame. But he had not told me and he apologized when I called him on it. My pal had a queen bed but was switching to a twin bed, so the old frame was unsuitable.

6. Robert said he could offer a frame without castors for ~$39.

7. I asked for frame I'd bought yrs earlier for ~$119 with castors and that I knew was good.

8. The rep said there was one in Vancouver that he'd have sent to Edmonton. He'd call when it arrived, likely in about 1 week. I stressed to call me as my pal was in hospital for extended period.

So far so good but then....

I was not called when frame arrived. Instead my pal in the hospital was called. I discovered this later (after #9 below) as I monitor her phone messages periodically.

9. After 10 days I called The Bay bedding dept. and spoke to another rep (Ralph), as original rep was on a day off. Ralph investigated and arranged for frame to be delivered on 9 July (plus assemble bed and remove old frame).

10. I waited but frame wasn't delivered on 9 July and I was not called. Instead I later discovered they'd called my pal, who was still in hospital.

11. On July 12 I went to The Bay and spoke to Ralph. He said the computer system had shown the bed frame to be in Calgary on 8 July, making a 9 July delivery possible. Now the computer showed it was to be in Calgary on 22 July (which was inexplicable). He would ask the original rep to follow-up.

When accessing the computer system, the sales rep's face showed he was frustrated. Another sales rep watching had facial expressions and body language that agreed.

12. Original sales rep did call me back the next day and told me the bed frame was in The Bay Southgate but the computer would not allow him to release it. He would contact The Bay's 'Top Clerk' and see if she could release the frame.

13. Robert followed up and confirmed the bed frame would be delivered Fri. July 18 and would be assembled and the old frame removed.

14. It  happened. A happy ending after MANY phone calls.

LEARNING POINTS
My take on this farce of what should have been a simple transaction of buying a bed:

1) Because the delivery guys noted that customers were often shocked that a box spring and mattress arrived without a bed frame, The Bay should correct what may be a systemic error.

2) The Bay's sales reps should pay careful attention to what customers say (such as CALL ME, not pal who's in hospital for extended stay).

3) That its computer system would not release a product suggests major issues with The Bay's information system.

4) The Bay has communication issues, a common problem with large, national organizations.

5) To be fair, The Bay employees truly tried to remedy initial screw-ups / glitches and eventually succeeded. I appreciate their efforts.

As always, comment are most welcome.

NIMBY, a Canuckastan family feud over a pipeline

Updated: 6 May 2015 (Fixed broken links)

I'm Christie from Bee-Cee, part of the clan Canuckastan, who lives on a beautiful property with forests, rivers, lakes, and a long, long sea front. Our property's natural wonders are so great some have even called my home, 'super natural BeeCee.'

Like Canuckastans of yore, we earn lots of money as hewers of wood and gatherers of water. Our pride and joy are our trees and fish, and we welcome visitors who come to enjoy our beauty.

My neighbour Allie, also a Canuckastanian and current head of its 40-year Albertastan sect, and I generally get along fine except for those times in the 1970s and '90s. That's when when she claimed our Bee-Cee sect went rogue and spouted too much leftie nonsense about helping the poor and protecting the environment.

Allie's clan is more into being rugged individualists. To hell with collective action to help the group, they say. Survival of the fittest rules, and the weak should be helped by their nearest and dearest, assuming they have some. If not, tough titty.

Allie herself, however, is educated, urbane, and well travelled. Unlike many of her predecessors, she's well spoken and, horror of horrors to some Albertastanians, reasonably open to the leftie-notion of the benefits of group action.

Rugged individualism aside, Allie's family is lucky because they discovered oil on their land, and her kids have pretty much been on a gravy train ever since. Still, they think of themselves as hard workers who earn every penny and deserve their good fortune. Those to the east, who mostly lack oil, are apparently slackers.

The rest of the Canuckastan clan, especially those arrogant relatives to the east, are viewed as bastards who can freeze in the dark, at least according to a more politically incorrect Albertastan leader of the past, King Ralph.

Thankfully, we live to the west of Allie and, except for revelling in our beauty, are not particularly arrogant. Now that we're not leftie-rogue anymore, Allie wants to put a big pipe across our property so she can send the oil on her property to her new friends across the Pacific and make a lot of money ($81 billion in tax revenue over 30 years).

At first I said, "Sure, but you should give my family a share of what you make." Allie said, "How about 17%" and without thinking I replied, "Great!"

To my surprise, my family hit the roof. Some said we need much more, since we will assume 100% of the risk if the pipe springs a leak, which pipes, being pipes, always do sooner or later.

No way, other family members said. If that damn thing leaks, we'll lose everything. They'll try to clean it up but it'll take years and in the meantime we'll suffer and may even go bankrupt.

Moreover, boats carrying oil are bound to run aground and  spill their cargo sooner or later, same with drilling wells. The 2010 BP spill is just the latest in a long line of disasters.

Screwing up my courage to prevent a family revolt, I asked Allie if we could have a bigger share of the earnings. To my utter surprise, the urbane Allie turns out to be real SOB.

"No way!" she screams. "This isn't the Canuckastan way. Our cousins to the east, even those who've sometimes gone leftie-rogue, have hauled their crappy potash, uranium, and assorted rag-bags across my property and not asked for anything. Even you have lugged your damn trees across my land for free."

Stunned, I don't know what to say. But I suspect immediately that transporting logs and minerals by truck or train doesn't present the same risk as oil flowing through a pipe.

Secretly, I think Allie is afraid of Dannie, her upstart competitor for head of the Albertastan sect. Dannie, normally a champion of bozo-outbreaks and everyone's right to be a redneck Albertastanian, sounds rather conciliatory these days.

SO WHAT? (Learning Points)
Likely lose-lose, but it's one hell of a family fight and critical for the future of Canuckastan.

Seriously, if 'Mike from Canmore' wanted to run a pipe carrying oil through your yard, would you let him, for any amount of money?

Perhaps the target should be Enbridge? USA regulators call them Keystone Kops.

And for old time's sake, Joni's classic

• Big yellow taxi

Comments are most welcome.

Left shift spawns Henny Pennys

The rise in the polls of Jack Layton and the NDP in the run up to Canada's 2011 federal election has made Henny Pennys of those whose world order is threatened. Witness 'Layton as PM a frightening scenario,' an editorial in the Calgary Herald, reprinted in the Edmonton Journal.

However, contrary to the editorial's headline, the sky does not fall in when the NDP forms governments. Unfortunately, facts do not stop Tory spin doctors and their surrogates from using the politics of fear.

When Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador in Washington, was premier of Manitoba (1999-2009), he won two successive re-elections, each time with increased majorities, and consistently introduced balanced budgets. Saskatchewan's NDP government (1991-2007) also showed fiscal responsibility with 11 consecutive balanced budgets. In 2005 the federal Dept. of Finance released a report on federal and provincial budgets over the past 22 years that showed that NDP governments had the best fiscal track-record among all parties.

Older readers may recall that in 1962 Saskatchewan's doctors screamed like 'chicken little' and went on strike claiming that 'socialized medicine' would be so intolerable as to leave the province without doctors. By 1965 most doctors supported medicare and the model was implemented across Canada within 10 years.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives are expert practitioners of the politics of fear and practice a "course, vicious brand of politics" (to quote Maclean's editor Andrew Coyne). Indeed it's their stock and trade. Witness their focus on crime and building more prisons, despite the fact that crime, including serious crime, is declining in Canada.
On May 2 Canadians should not reward those who twist facts and try to scare us into voting for them. The sky is not falling in. Have courage. We should not believe everything we are told by the Henny-Pennys of this world. Otherwise the fox will have us all for lunch.

People's Republic of Albertastan

Updated: 6 May 2015 (Fixed broken links)

Albertans tend to vote overwhelmingly Conservative to the point where the province is sometimes derisively called Albertastan. The name is a take-off on the many one-party "stan" states in central Asia, mostly former Soviet republics.

Sadly, many Albertans take the view that people who do not vote Conservative are not only misguided but also dangerous and unpatriotic. Such intolerant views would be at home in the former USSR where 'dissidents' were treated as pariahs. Such citizens think that it's intolerable that Alberta has one non-Tory seat, Edmonton-Strathcona, ably represented by Linda Duncan. They don't comprehend that democracy means respecting the views of all and that diversity of opinion is a strength.

Intolerance and related 'group think' can bully people into voting Conservative. Others may vote Conservative because they want to vote for the winning side or to vote as they perceive their bosses vote. Some Albertans may vote on a single issue such as the economy, believing that only a Tory government can keep it strong. Such voters conveniently forget that the Liberals left Harper with a solid economy and surplus and that our sound banking system, not Stephen Harper, protected us from the worst of the recent recession. I've heard many Albertans say they would like to support another party, but it seems hopeless given that one vote cannot change anything here.

In the 2008 election 58.8% of Canadians voted (province by province results). Conservatives won 37.6% of the votes, with 62.4% voting for other parties. In our 'first past the post' system, Conservatives "won" and formed a minority government with the support of only 22% of voters.

So, if you are an Albertan thinking of voting Green or Liberal or NDP, you are not alone. Indeed you are in the majority nationally. Your vote matters as much as those who vote Conservative.
To paraphrase Rick Mercer's recent 'vote rant' that spawned the vote mobs on university campuses:

• If you're 18 or older and breathing, and you want to scare the hell out of those who run this country, do the unexpected and what people around the world are dying to do: Vote. Especially vote for the party of your choice, the one that best represents your views on a range of issues.

When journalists become apologists

Sometimes you read something in the paper that requires a response. This column on Alberta's oilsands qualified:

• "Oilsands a poor excuse for world-class bogeyman" (Gary Lamphier, Edmonton Journal, Feb. 28, 2009)

Lamphier's column reminds me of this argument commonly used by apologists everywhere:

Yes, the war in Darfur is awful. And deadly. And ugly. And it creates a pressing humanitarian crisis that clearly must be addressed, from refugee camps to starvation.

We get it. We don't need the United Nations to tell us. But let's get a bit of perspective. Darfur has resulted in about 300,000 deaths. Accurate numbers of dead are difficult to estimate, partly because the government obstructs information gathering, but the death total doesn't even make the top 10.

Hey, WWII killed 6 million Jews to say nothing of 20 million citizens of the former USSR. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (1975-78) killed about 1.5 million, and the war in the Congo (1998-2003) resulted in 4.5 million deaths. Now, those are impressive numbers. You want a world-class humanitarian catastrophe? Sorry, you'll have to look far beyond Darfur.

Does that excuse the Sudanese government from its role in the disaster?* Of course not. But again, a wee bit of perspective.

• *Since this blog was written, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's President for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Yes, Gary, let's get a grip. There are other environmental blights that dwarf Alberta's oilsands. But aren't journalists meant to seek truth and inform society? Are Albertans, Canadians, and the world at large better served when journalists like you take an apologist's view of a serious environmental issue and put smiles on the faces of oil executives?

Your oilsands column makes you just another PR flunky, an apologist whose role it is to whitewash and spin what's happening. The public deserves better.

Note: A shorter, edited version of this blog appeared as a letter to the editor (Edmonton Journal, Mar. 5, 2009): "Maybe not the worst but still bad"

Alberta's dinosaur legacy

Why is the political right always so wrong? Latest example concerns Alberta's oil sands development. Have you ever seen the oil sands?

• Take a look and weep

Alberta politicians like Premier Ed Stelmach brag that Obama is "speaking Alberta's language":

"Balancing the environment and the economy, investing in carbon capture and storage and technology. They're all things that Alberta has been talking about. That's good news for Alberta, good news for Canada and good news for all North Americans."

Really? The difference that 'Steady Eddy' does not see is that Obama talks about taking a broad approach to energy and the environment. Obama stresses that no one strategy will work - an effort has to be made on many fronts - but the emphasis needs to be on weaning us off gas, oil, and coal and pushing for more sustainable and cleaner sources of energy. See

• Obama's interview on CBC

In truth, our Premier takes the opposite approach to Obama. Out of short term self interest, he and his colleagues emphasize one thing - spending public resources on how to make extracting oil from the tar sands cleaner instead of how to wean us off fossil fuels. They continually grovel to oil companies, thinking of new ways to give them tax breaks and incentives.

Just like their Republican counterparts, in Albertastan it's all "Drill, baby drill!"

That's like screaming,

• "Typewriters, baby, typewriters!" at the dawn of the computer age*
• "Carbon paper, carbon paper!" when photocopiers came out

* See Tom Freidman on Meet the Press

The whole world suffers from such short sighted thinking. We need to take a broader approach and think of the

• Energy of the future (The Economist, June 2008)
• The best thing that rich-world governments can do is to encourage the alternatives by taxing carbon (even knowing that places like China and India will not) and removing subsidies that favour fossil fuels.

By clinging to fossil fuel, Alberta's dinosaur politicians are leaving us all a sad legacy.

Further reading

• "Drill for typewriters" (Stafford "Doc" Williamson on American Chronicle)
• Making America stupid (Tom Freidman)
• Tide turns against Alberta's 'dirty' oil sands

Sad state of democracy in Alberta

Note: The Oct. 27. 2008 issue of the Edmonton Journal has a shorter version of this blog entry in its Opinion section.

In his column "We lack strong presence in Ottawa. With an NDP member elected, will Edmonton be punished?", Todd Babiak wrote, "The fact that this is a serious concern for any thinking person is worrisome for the future of democracy in this part of the country, which is in desperately bad shape and becoming worse with every election."

Kudos to Todd for pointing out that democracy in Alberta is all but dead. Not only are there Albertans who are not content with winning 27/28 electoral seats but apparently some think Edmonton-Strathcona should be punished for the gall to elect a non-Conservative. How pathetic, if it were not so scary.

Have any of the "elect only Conservative" populace ever wondered why Alberta had so few members in Stephen Harper's cabinet after the 28/28 sweep in 2006? Reasons include the

• Quality of most elected Conservatives in Alberta
• Fact that Albertans can be taken for granted if they repeatedly elect 100% of the party slate;
  
• Need for a governing party to have a cabinet that reflects all of Canada

Alberta lacked a strong presence in Ottawa after electing nothing but Conservatives in 2006. Our one party voting pattern is pretty much a joke in the rest of Canada. Edmonton-Strathcona electing a high quality representative like Linda Duncan can hardly be blamed if Alberta is again treated with disdain by Harper with few cabinet members.

Maybe it's time for Alberta's school system to teach civics and what it means to live in a democracy? Many people here do not seem to understand the basics of how a strong opposition results in better government.