Alberta Dishonours Itself

As much as I may strive to be a critical thinker, sometimes things happen that tempt me to succumb to certain stereotypes. Take, for example, the notion that many Albertans are rednecks. As you will see in the following, some are certainly sending that message to the rest of Canada. They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

UPDATE: Why Isn't This Getting Wider Coverage?

While this story seems most timely and relevant, given the ongoing Council of the Federation meeting discussing pipeline growth, I couldn't even find a reference to it in this morning's Toronto Star. It should be front-page news.







UPDATE: Here is a live update from Nexen. One of the most interesting revelations is that the pipeline responsible for the spill is brand new, set up in 2014.

A Word From The West

We are still in Alberta, having just returned to Edmonton from a trip to Banff and Lake Louise conducted by our son. I suspect that even if we weren't here, I would have some sympathy for the West's reaction to the latest utterance from Justin Trudeau.

Although I generally don't like to use cliches, some would say that this is what happens when you send a boy to do a man's job. The alternative interpretation, of course, would be to say this is what happens when a party of no discernible principles elects as their leader the person whom polls suggest will lead them back to the promised land of politics.

Sadly, the good of the country does not appear to enter into the Liberal Party's calculations.

Heather Mallick On Alberta and Tory Hysteria

Given its abundance of tar, I'm betting that some Harperites, along with a generous helping of Albertans (often one and the same) would like to apply a liberal dose of bitumen and feathers to columnist Heather Mallick in light of her column today.

Entitled Calgary byelection should rise above old quarrels, her piece skewers the sensitivity of souls that take such umbrage over comments offering criticism of the oil-rich province which, in my post yesterday I described as our version of Israel (criticize at your peril.)

Mallick offers, among many others, the following observation:

Albertans know perfectly well they haven’t had a premier worthy of their province since Peter Lougheed left office. Ontario had the same problem. Recall Don Getty, Ralph Klein, Frank Miller, Ed Stelmach, Mike Harris, Ernie Eves. What a roll call of sophisticates.

Her thesis is that the recently uttered and earthed criticisms of Alberta offered by David McGuinty and Justin Trudeau, respectively, are justified, and that, of course, the reaction of the Harperites is strictly political, given the closeness of the impending by-election in Calgary-Centre.

In proof, she offers the following:

Alberta, a famously lucky and beautiful province, mismanaged its oil and its tar and allowed itself to be bullied by multinationals for a handful of coins compared to what Norway, for example, a tiny country of five million people, demanded for its offshore oil. As Alberta caved, Norway grew stubborn.

That’s why Norway’s savings account will hit a trillion dollars this decade. Alberta has $15.9 billion in a piggy bank its mom broke open years ago. Will it even be doubled by 2020?

Mallick has much more to say, including an excoriation of the Liberals' grovelling apologies after McGuinty's 'misstep.' I hope you will take a few moments to savour the entire column.

When Parents Get The Upper Hand in Education

Yesterday I wrote a post about the Hamilton parent suing the school board for its refusal to notify him when a range of topics objectionable to his beliefs was being covered in the classrooom. His intention was to withdraw his children each time topics such as marriage, environmentalism, evolution, gay people were mentioned, these subjects somehow anathema in his religious world.

Today I came across an article dealing with the consequences of giving parents too much power, as has happened in Alberta, already not the most open-minded member of our confederation:

For over a year now, parents in Alberta have had the right to compel a teacher to defend herself before a human rights tribunal for discussing topics such as gay marriage or aboriginal spirituality in the classroom.

It’s caused quite a chill — reluctance on the part of many teachers to include anything in the curriculum that might upset a parent and provide the basis for a complaint to the HRC.

The piece goes on to discuss the impact the legislation has had on education:

“Teachers started to change how they taught, with English teachers realizing they’d have to send letters home for almost any literature they studied. The quality of English education started to fall — and has continued to fall in the two years since (the legislation was passed),” [former English department head Dale] Wallace writes in a recent issue of Alberta Views Magazine.

Wallace asserts that it’s almost impossible to teach high-school English literature that doesn’t have references to sex, homosexuality or religion. Canterbury Tales has a religious theme; The Merchant of Venice includes homosexuality; Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has sexual content as does Timothy Findley’s The Wars.

“As a result, challenging novels such as 1984 are replaced with safer ones, like Pride and Prejudice ... provocative, thoughtful films such as Apocalypse Now are replaced by films with different themes altogether, like Cast Away,” Wallace says.

I hope you will check out the entire brief article to learn of the consequences that can ensue when the intolerant are given power.