Doug Horner Throws in One More, FOR FREE

Just looking at the sheer volume of his policies make me almost too depressed to start.
Fifteen. Fifteen sections.
I do this because I love you.
I haven't smiled since you were born.

Enhancing education
After the usual fluff fest detailing how awesome our education system is, blah blah, he gets down to ambiguous brass tacks with a policy to achieve an increasing standard of excellence. That policy is to focus on it. To achieve it. Blam.

On top of that he plans to give teachers the resources they need to get the job done right (do I really need to iterate how dangerous that statement is?), open more schools, and increase technology usage in our learning program. It's good to set concrete goals like reducing dropouts by 10% per year for five years, become the first place to support an online library for K-12, and set-up a health advice system, but when you include a $50 million fund for international projects my pockets start puckering faster than that time I fed my dog a sour soother.

The Q and A at the bottom is pretty interesting, especially when he's asked about restoring the $107 million that was cut. He waffles and says the first budget that will 'reflect the importance of education'. The asker snarkily replies, "I take your response to be no, you will not restore the $107 million in cuts to the Education budget should you become premier. Is that correct?" and the response waffles some more about how that's not what they're saying, yadda yadda. The exchange obviously did not proceed as planned since the next discussion about education runs thusly:

"as a proud Albertan student I always look for stuff to layer on my resume, the problem my friends and I come across is the lack of academic challenges and opportunities. You as a edvanced education minister certainly are aware that many people look for ways to improve there profile. What are you going to do in this field to help students of all ages."

The response?
"Advanced*"

(This might be the original poster simply correcting his mistake, which is extra tragic because of the numerous other mistakes, but it's funnier to think of it as a response.)


Accessible Leadership
He pledges to increase the accessibility of the Premier's office, which I assume includes more ramps, and rather than having a chief of staff simply field requests for attention by himself. To implement this plan he is going to invent news ways for constituents to contact their leaders, since email is apparently too inconvenient.

Top Level Leadership
It occurs to me that the candidates are functionally handing in policy 'resumes', but this is the first time it's really apparent. He actually lists experiences we should want and beneficial personality traits. It's just a Premier wet dream, so there is not much information to be gleaned.

Energy Leadership
Instead of reading and evaluating any further candidate's energy plans I am going to just listen to a recording that bleats "Improve environmentally friendly and efficient technology and strategies!" Mr. Horner goes one step further and promises pipelines and labour, but its still the same old dance.


Ordinarily I would post more for the first inclusion into this man's brain, but when I saw the next section was Improved Employability, I lost hope and sank into a glass of Sangria. I'll be back on Wednesday to finish this debacle.

 

Wildcard Weekend: History Lesson

I guarantee the States remembers every single one of its victories, even ones that didn't happen, but when it comes to their failures? Worse amnesia than the evil twin of a daytime TV show star.

I can't wait until this hits theatres. Hope the main character is Jake Gyllenhaal.

Rick Orman Appeals to Everyman

To kick off this examination of Mr. Rick Orman I shall present, without comment, this blurb from his website:

"Unlike the other candidates, Rick has not announced policies. He believes government policies must be developed in an open, transparent manner that involves MLAs staying in touch with their constituents and bringing their comments to caucus for discussion and consideration. Policies hatched by a small group of people, who remain nameless behind closed doors, are no way to make laws that affect everyone."

When the only copy of Mr. Orman's policies went through the wash I bet everyone was in a panic; until the most resourceful spin doctor on his team said, "Wait. Let's convince the public it's a good idea!" and everyone cheered.

I might be confused about things, but last time I checked we ELECTED people (theoretically that involves their names) based on the strengths of their policies. As for building policy based on the opinions of people who have the time and inclination to wander over to caucus, well, "Tyranny of the minority", my friend. Nevertheless, on to the 'visions' he has posted. (No word on whether they were developed by a peyote-soaked vision quest)


Fiscal Responsability
The name of the game here is subtlety. He doesn't say Alberta is being taken advantage of, he just "notices" that a lot of money has left Alberta through the equalization program. So he says things could be better if we just 'talk' about it with Ottawa. I can see this plan through two ways; One, he's too polite and nothing happens since convincing politicians (hell, whole provinces) to stop recieving money is much like asking someone if they want a shot to the nuts, or two, this is all a thinly veiled threat, and Dalton McGuinty will wake up with a cow's head in his bed (Grade A Alberta beef). I must confess, quiet confidence is pretty menacing.

He also plans to get rid of the sales tax, presumably with the money saved from the equalization payments, but now we're asking the feds to do without TWO sources of income. If we aren't careful, we're going to be invaded by our own country, and that will be so awkward.

Managing Alberta's Economy
The bulk of the paragraphs is smoke about how we have such an awesome work ethic, then putting people who criticize our environmental behavior 'on notice'. That's right, says Rick, we're looking at you, and we have plenty of cow heads to go around.

The specific policies include more international promotion of Alberta and municipalities, removing the 'barriers' keeping immigrants and first nations from participating in our economy (What does this mean? No more assistance?), more innovation, and 'unleashing' the power of the arts to create jobs (No, seriously)

Health Care
Rick plans, like all the candidates, to conduct an inquiry into the allegations of wrong-doing aimed at the healthcare system. Other than that, it's all the same old song and dance about working with healthcare workers and looking into strategies to reduce the wait-times. The only novel proposal is to incorporate pictures into healthcare cards to ensure people aren't just loaning out their cards, kind of how driver's license photos keep younger siblings from stealing their older siblings' cards to get into bars.

K-12 Education
To clean up the mess that is purportedly our education system Mr. Orman seeks to commit funding for 5 years (Good idea), focusing on fairness across the province (Okay idea), based on the resource needs of the classroom (Terrible idea). The problem we have been experiencing is that we did not consider the economic realities of our province when deciding funding. We cannot fix that problem by blindly commiting to better funding any more than we can dig ourselves out of a hole. Also, when he commits to fixing non-teaching issues that distract from teaching I get a little chill - I'm not sure what he means, but I suspect it comes down to tying teachers' hands.

Safe, Vibrant Communities
When anyone talks about safety, you can bet the phrase "tougher sentances" is not far behind, but it is not effective to get 'tough on crime' when we have no space to deal with the criminals we currently have. His plan to finance apace with the growth of the law enforcement communities is good, if we can find the money. He does speak about reinstating the lottery funding, and so, sadly, I suspect that the 'community revitalization program' he talks about is the plan to build more prisons.

Efficient, Accountable Government
He also speaks about reducing cabinet, which makes me think that it is consiedered to be too large, but he then insists that every ministry include an efficiency specialist to facilitate inter-agency communication (If you're accepting applications for this position, I'd love to apply!). It's nice to see him talking about the morale of public service workers, though, and couple that with his plan to recognize volunteers in the province I think he could be pretty popular.

Alberta's First Nations and Metis
He plans to honor previous agreements, build working relationships, figure out barriers that prevent them from working with the government, and support traditional land useage. I hope at least a few of these include improving their drinking water, but I wonder what will happen if he discovers that the barriers to the First Nations' involvement in economic development is that they don't want it to happen because it conflicts with traditional land use.

All in all, I can see why he's popular; He's not promising anything that no one else is promising, and he promises things that everyone else is promising. He's the everyman without any real solid plans. I suspect that, should he be elected, we will unwrap our shiny new premier to discover the terrible words "Some assembly required".

Ted Morton's Much Ado about Nothing

Next up, today, is Ted Morton. Yes. Mr. Teddy Morton.
What the heck's the matter with you? Did he bug you already?
Yes, Dear Reader, he did. When I am navigating the tubes it is common for me to have multiple windows and numerous tabs on the go, while listening to a radio show in the background. One thing I expect from a website I open is that it shut the hell up until I am ready to deal with it, otherwise I am forced to flounder around while two separate streams of dialogue honk gibberish at me. In summary, I don't care how important your message is - you can wait for me to engage before belting it at me.

Party Renewal
A new video starts for every new section. I'm beginning to hate the sound of his voice. To encourage party cohesion, Ted Morton plans to allow multi-year memberships, build a "blue book" of set policies, and make the membership purchase cut-off before the polls open. This last step is to eliminate 'two-minute tories' who dilute 'real' tories votes, a 'problem' I think is due to the essential fact of democracy and that pesky right to vote but, hey, if he wants to erode that, carry on.

Bill 50: Time to revisit
I'm not as familiar with the issues surrounding Bill 50 as I should be, but setting up a whole board to review cost-savings options within the east and west line proposal is unlikely to save as much as it will expend. (A rough perusal of the Wiki article on AC and DC lines seems to suggest we could save a lot of money by using DC) I suspect the reason we are building two instead of just one is the theory that we can save on inconvenience and hassle by doing two at once, but I don't think anyone tipped Mr. Morton off to this detail.
He does promise that all economic progress will be viewed through the lense of competitiveness, which sounds like a great plan until you consider how well that has worked in the past, especially when billions of dollars are at stake.

Advancing Alberta in Ottawa
This article was completely filled with the usual rhetoric of how Alberta is going to finally 'get theirs' and scaremongering about environmental tactics designed to cripple the economy they claim keeps the East running.

Democratic Renewal
He wants to discourage career politicians for some reason. I'm not sure what he feels is wrong with them, I can only assume it is because he thinks they don't accurately represent the broader population, but they can still be very good at what they do. He also plans to review MLA compensation and roll back their wages to 2008 levels until he can ascertain whether or not they are fair. It's a pretty ballsy move, and one that conflicts with his banner that proudly states "MLAs for Morton". I can only wonder why they like him with this on the table, or if he plans to be as ruthless as he promises if he is putting friends and associates at risk.

To ensure fairness in further elections he plans to institute fixed election dates. These can be good or bad, depending on when they are slated for; but considering that he is setting them, it is kind of like saying only he gets to choose them from now on. i doubt he'd appreciate the notion as much if someone else picked the dates.

The term limits for premiers he theorizes just smacks of ageism. He speaks as if people become 'stale' after too many years in office, and need to be renewed, regardless of performance, which is just a load of crap.
I can't tell if his plan to reduce the cabinet is based on a previously observed move that saved money or just an arbitrary plan that looks good. ("Look! Less people = less salary!")
The senate elections he promises are a genuinely good idea, but not when the jurisdictions are north and south, based on population.  The north will be so incredible diverse as to be divisive, and the south so localized as to be biased.
When he talks in passing about creating an Alberta constitution, however, I catch the faint whiff of an Albertan separatist.

Tuition Tax Credit program
The program he is proposing involves giving back students $20,000 in non-refundable tax credits, if they finish (obviously) and if they stay in the province for seven years. They are paid  back %10 a year for the first four years, then 20% for the last three. To pay this exorbitant bill, extrapolated to cost $80 to $160 million by numbers from a similar program in Saskatchewan, he assumes we will benefit from the additional tax revenue gathered by those who remain in the province. Although I like this program, this doesn't take into account the increased unemployment since some students who cannot find adequate jobs will stay anyway.

Land Stewardship
Mr. Morton plans to split the province into seven planning regions, loosely based on the current watershed program, which will independently design a system of energy and environment management. These regions will then coordinate among themselves to create a cohesive provincial plan. This whole affair is not so much a plan as a plan TO plan, so the only comment one can really pass on is, "Planning is good".

Robert Bateman License Plate
To draw attention to Alberta's natural beauty, Mr. Morton has theorized a conservative license plate featuring art by Robert Bateman, the proceeds from the sale of which will go towards promoting the Get to Know program, which encourages youths to discover the wild. However, since it's going to be sold to members and supporters, I suspect it will also draw attention to who has particular political beliefs and, to be honest, we here in Edmonton don't need any more reason to attack each other.

Urban Nature Preserves
This program definitely got my attention: 1% of lottery proceeds, equalling about $20 million, will be put towards funding new parks and recreation areas, including preserving areas that are threatened by growing urban settlements. I love this plan, and parks that are established under this plan will be self-sustaining through park fees, but the recreation and preservation areas won't have any such revenues, and so will continue to rely on the lottery funding which can't be expanded without hurting the arts funding the lottery is earmarked for, and so I suspect this part of the project may be doomed to failure after showing negligible results, which depresses me. So, instead of voting to encourage this plan, I'm going to just buy a provincial park pass.

Requiem

It's hard to say goodbye to Mr. Layton, who passed away early this morning. He was a great man that many of us rested hopes on. But whether one subscribed to his political beliefs or not he showed us the meaning of dignity and strength, and the best way to honor his life is to carry on to become the best country we can be, together.

Rest in Peace, Jack Layton, official leader of the opposition. May we all burn as brightly as you have.

Alison Redford's Geek Manifesto: Part three

When we last left our heroine, she was slogging through the epic "Healthcare" section of the evil political policy. We join her now facing down the undefeatable Family Care Clinic clinic, which were elaborating on the fine details of Ms. Redford's healthcare plan.


Family care Clinics
As is 'in vogue' right now she advocates a team atmosphere, emphasizing coordination between nurses, practitioners, doctors, etc. which, as a policy, can't go wrong. Even if we had doctors out the whazoo (Most promptly diagnosed problem ever.) it would be beneficial to merge in the differing talents of the other sectors to create a harmonious health machine. I disagree with her when she suggests this will result in a more diverse AND higher quality healthcare system: the initial focus must produce one OR the other, but it is incredible unlikely to produce both.


Continuing Care for Seniors
She talks about the struggle to provide continuing care systems for seniors, but only about half of her plans seem destined for success. Obviously encouraging/enhancing home care is preferable, but this will necessarily come at the cost of quality, since no matter how clean the house is, it is no substitute for a hospital (No tasteless joke about antibacterial-resistant meningoccocal please). The other half of her plan, however, involves expanding the range of services available at each facility, to accomadate all circumstances, and forcing healthcare students to take senior care courses. Expanding the services offered is going to make it more difficult and expensive to open more facilities, the opposite of what she is trying to achieve, and forcing tudents to study another aspect of medical care is going to put more strain on students that already have too much on their plates. Her intentions are good, but, as they say, are paving a road to a warm place.

Expanded Home Care
Let me summarize for you: "You can stay at home! Aren't we good to you?"  

Local Participation
This section seems awful confused, since she outlines how central planning is better for almost everything, but then plans to 'devlve' decision making power and take consultations from the public by improving the advisory boards. I'm not sure if she's toying with us, or wishywashy about relinquishing power.

Measuring and Evaluating
For better or for worse, she plans to release reports every quarter detailing emergency room wait times, surgery wait times, and hospital aquired infection rates. I suspect this practice will stop once she realizes the only people that read them are the ones that are angry and want to prove the situation is dismal, and that she will be held accountable for all times that the public, who may not have the best view on these matters, feel are too long.

Family First
Families First
I could feel my wallet screaming as I read through this section, which included subsidized child care for families that bring home less than $50,000, a $15,000 recreation tax credit, tax-exemption for day-care owners, and full-day kindergarten within a year of her taking office (something I suspect kindergarten teachers are not prepared for). I am not sure she can deliver on these, and I am not sure why day-care owners would be tax-free, but not extended care facility owners. But if she expands "childcare" to include dog kennels, and the 'recreation credit' to include my gym membership I am all for it!

Healthy Children Strategy
  Her plan to help children between 0 and 6 pivots around teaching parents the basics of good parenting.

(At this point, the volume of information has dipped so precipitously that I am concerned I went to the wrong site, or perhaps I am being punked. It may seem like I am skimming, but rest assured Dear Reader, this is getting the same attention as the other sections - her writer must have gotten tired.)

Department of Human Services
This department will apparantly replace Child & Family Services, Community Spirit, Housing & Urban Affairs, Employment & Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs, which may put the system at risk of ignoring specifics and subtleties. The other commitments involve rearranging duties and responsabilites, renaming departments, and relaxing the Freedom of Information & Protection of Privacy Act.
Sorry, what was that last part?
Oh, yeah. We're just going to loosen that up to allow people to help children in the system better. Ignoring the fact that she has so little faith in the current system that she is implimenting not only an independant children's advocate, she is also creating a serious incident response team just to better deal with situations that go 'pear shaped' - this is the perfect time to give them more responsability and power.

Living within Our Means
In order to support her decision to curb funding for the new Department of Human Services, she plans to open up the division to charity donations by taxpayers (don't we already give enough?) and investors, because investors are known for their ability to see dividends in the warmth of someone's smile.

Fiscal Policy
Planning for Alberta's Fiscal future
Ignoring the fact that she already dealt with this issue, as did I in part 1, she rehashes her plan, which sounded familiar. When I looked up Gary Mar's fiscal policy, I realized that if you smudge the numbers a little, the plans are identical. More reasons not to bother voting for Mr. Mar when you could have the favorably comparable Ms. Redford.  

All around not a bad set of policies, but as always it seems a bit confusing where the money is going to come from that will pay for these exorbitant programs. Politicians are a touch loathe to go on public record admitting that they will cut various programs, that invariably turn out to be well-loved by large groups of the community, but it is occasionally obvious that something has to give. I suspect it will be us taxpayers, however.

Alison Redford's Geek Manifesto: Part two

After a sick day which appears to have done the reverse of what it was intended, I'm back in the saddle, although a touch loopier (Readers who buy the deluxe version of the site will be mailed a small sample of cold virus so they can get the precise experience.)

The last energy post apparently only covered Canada's energy plan; so today I will start with
World Energy Capital


The majority of the plan is blowing smoke up our dress about how clever Albertans are, or how everyone in the world should look to us for energy innovation, with only a few bits of actual activity: Building export infrastructure on the West coast to engage with Asia, financially supporting home-grown green innovations especially those that reduce production decline, involve aboriginals in the regulation making process, cutting labor immigration, and investing in alternative 'greening' processes for our energy sector.
Twice in this section she says the job of government is not to pick winners within energy innovation competitions, but she is fooling herself if she doesn't acknowledge that whoever is favored with the government's money and attention is given an almost unprecedented advantage that comes close to guaranteeing success.

Education 
Post-secondary Education
 The first thing to greet you as you enter the domain of post-secondary is a big graph that outlines how people with a University degree are being exploited, and the written suggestion that we should be jumping on this bandwagon too, by encouraging more post-secondary attendance.

 My first thoughts when I see this graph? University graduates are overpaid. That's how they boast such a large amount of income tax. Welcome to a scaled income tax system.

She follows up with a shot about how university graduates enjoy a better quality of life for a variety of reasons (that can all be explained through a higher income - amazing how not sleeping under a bridge makes one want to participate in their community) but step one to building policy is "Don't confuse correlation with causation". There are a plethora of reasons for the effects that are observed from post-secondary attendance, few are directly caused BY attendance.

She draws attention to Alberta's low post-secondary attendance rate (16% to the nation's 22%) while deliberately failing to mention this is directly attributed to the oil fields. If young people can earn incredible high salaries without the pain and cost of post-secondary, they are going to. Her plan to provide bursaries and mentors is unlikely to combat this issue, but it will likely draw youths away from working in the family farm, thus deliberately undermining the agricultural industry she hopes to build.
Despite her lovely graph, she would apparently also like to encourage interest in the trades by allowing high schoolers access to apprenticeship programs while in high school.

As she describes how everyone will work towards one goal - her goal - it becomes apparent she is just pushing mandate she started back in her office as the Alberta Safe Communities Secretariat but, as far as dreams go, she could have worse ones.

Education Funding
 "Yes, teachers, anything you want." does not mean stable education funding.

K-12 Education
If her belief that for every two retirements there was only one replacement was true, there would be many more job opportunities than there are. She leverages this dismaying prophecy to imply children will be overwhelmed when they enter the workforce, so we should prepare them now.
She plans on tailoring education for students, including mentorship programs and such, while eliminating the grade 3 and 6 achievement tests, which are apparently too stressful. Teachers are already far too busy teaching students - they don't have time to babysit and evaluate every one.  

Another plan for the education system she presents is to eliminate the "no-fail" policy (tests are too stressful, but failing isn't?) saying that it contributed to a high drop-out rate in high school, but the no-fail policy is multifaceted. Sometimes it helps students who may simply falter for a year, but regain their footing the next. It would unfairly brand them at a young age, as 'failers'. Even in my own youth I remember the stigma attached to those who failed. Kids can be cruel. But I do agree that simply shoving kids forward is not the answer. Perhaps instead of spending money on mentorship programs she could institute tutoring programs.

But she already has plans for any spare money by providing free high school diploma programs for everyone in Alberta, revamping the special needs program to include more intensive judging of the students, and more strict graduation requirements for ESL students.

Finally, she plans to allow parents despotic rule over school openings (without mentioning where that money comes from), pit schools against each other to build competitiveness, and keeping schools anywhere there is "sufficient population" to warrant them.

Humorously, after this wish-list of Brobdingnagian proportions, she talks about maintaining stable funding and 'taking the lead' in teacher's negotiations. As a lady, she should know that just because one is in the lead does not mean one is not being taken from behind.

Healthcare
When I opened healthcare and six subsections opened up it became apparent this was going to produce three posts. I hate political promises. 


Family Care
  She talks about a funding model where the funding follows the patient, but does not elaborate on what that means in a practical sense; do we each have a budget? Or are they simply tracking what each person costs? Will we get waxed if we go over-budget? "Sorry, you are too expensive to let live."

Her healthcare plan involves family care clinics, better continuing care, more home care, localizing decision-making, and better monitoring of the system. Each step of which is elaborated in its own section. I'm going to drink myself into a political stupor and return on Friday to detail what the cost of this will be.
 

Alison Redford's Geek Manifesto: Part one

The next candidate, in order of whatever-I-felt-like-typing-at-the-moment, is Alison Redford. Her apparent reluctance to capitalize her first name annoys me, but I am nothing if not forgiving. Even when I notice she has even more areas than Gary Mar. Perhaps, if I make it through this, I should buy myself a trip.

Democratic renewal
Her policies are grounded in "devolving power" which is good because she believes in evolution, but bad because, really, who wants less advanced power?
To open up government she plans on speeding up information requests without raising costs (I love magic tricks), mandate that all candidates disclose donors (thus tanking political spending), enacting 'whistle-blowing' legislation to watch government (Vague AND overdone), and studying phone and web voting (Prudent. Don't just lunge into that newfangled crap)
She seems a big advocate of more localized healthcare, better options for seniors and disabled, and more avenues for health care workers to dialogue, but these are just 'look good' options - no one is going to admit that they'll close seniors' homes and muzzle health care workers.

Her stance on education is somewhat confusing, as she outlines that school boards will work together when they can't work apart and inlcudes more 'look good' options in the form of not forcing parents to send their children to schools they don't agree with.

I shall now take the lowest blow I have ever written: She was in charge of tackling Alberta's gang problem. I'm not sure if she deliberately shuffled them all into Edmonton, but considering our homicide rate, I'm willing to put the blame on her anyway.

Planning for Alberta's Financial Future
Like Gary, she plans to rejuvenate the Sustainability and Heritage funds by growing the economy, which is nice because everyone else is shrinking the economy. Presumably she plans to achieve this by leaving it in a bowl of water overnight so it can grow to 20 times its size like one of those sponge things.
A five year health care budget and three year education budget do seem appealing, surrounded by the usual "review for savings" rhetoric, and a promise not to fund solely by population growth and inflation. She does talk about privatizing aspects of these programs, however, wherever possible, but the criteria for 'possible' is a large boat of wherewithal so this should be taken with a grain of salt (or a relief, whichever)

Agricultural policy
One would think that an industry running since before man figured pants were a nifty invention would not require a lot of innovation, but new needs breed new advances, I suppose, so Ms. Redford has pledged to provide committed funding for new advances in agriculture and the teamwork of the government. I got pretty excited when she mentioned the need for rural places to be able to connect seamlessly to the rest of the world, but fails to elaborate what that could entail, and since it was listed in the agricultural section I am drawing a blank. She also talks about tax credits for habitat development, but I wonder if that would be sacrificed for repairing the devastated Slave Lake region.

I must confess, I almost lose the urge to say anything bad about her when she brings up innovation in healthy eating options, even if it is through the perspective of our ability to meet that need and the economic payoff therefrom.After discovering she intends to build more towers to wirelessly connect all of Alberta to the Internet, I am really fond of her, even if she does think our current Internet service is competitive and fair.

Canadian energy strategy
It's nice she focuses on building our international image, even if it is just so we can fleece other countries more effectively. Overall, he goals is built around three main themes: making Alberta (i) the global leader in sustainable hydrocarbon production and (ii) a leader in partnerships for renewable energy technologies and achieving this by (iii) investing in our most precious resource of all: people.

Within the first goal, when she starts talking about how the industry has grown faster than the province's ability to regulate, thus creating sustainability and public/private sector issues, she blows away my curmudgeonly attitude faster than a fat kid looking for snipes. Her next talking point could be increased puppy-stomping, I would probably still favor her.
Unfortunately since her next talking point is "energy efficiency", I'm slightly non-plussed. It's great that she is putting it at the top of her list; top of my list is "self flight". Sometimes focusing on a thing isn't good enough, one must actually say how they plan on achieving it.

Her plan to revolutionize the regulatory industry is good though: find good people, give them good science, and set a clear direction, all topped off with an overarching eye to cumulative effects from all changes. Considering consumer cost when designing regulations is a poor plan, however, since either you will try to minimize costs, in which case your hands are tied with respect to sustainability issues that necessarily cost more, or you will simply try to find the happy point of cost to demand, a dynamic the private company will already be several billion times better at. (The government still is not in the same league as businesses for seducing the most amount of money out of people's pockets: it still can't convince them that they want to give them money.)

I can't express how much I love her phrase, "my strategy involves unleashing our researchers". Faster, pussycat, kill ... KILL!


Goal two ((ii) a leader in partnerships for renewable energy technologies) starts sounding like she is going to use money from the Oil sands (and gas production) to further research into renewable energy sources. But she mentions one of the key factors required to develop new technology is "insulation from political process", something I'm not sure our current electoral system can deliver on. Anyway, the whole plan to become a world leader in energy technology looks almost like a merger between a small child's plan to play nice in the sandbox, and a hooker who needs to pay off some serious debt, so there's no way we can fail!

The third goal includes this gem at the beginning, "Geekiness, public engagement and a passion for learning are all elements of the new cool." so you know the rest is going to be a laugh riot. She describes a funding, and thus focus, imbalance from industry to academia, which only goes to show she has spent a lot of time in post-secondary environments, but never had the theory of 'profit' explained to her (perhaps with a chaser of "why basic research doesn't make any"). When she talks about creating a legacy of excellence, I think she should probably be forced to part with her Obama videos and brought out to actually meet the Albertan population. We're good people, Ma'am, but we are a dirty, hands-on people more than a 'statue of Colosus' people. She definitely has the geek vote, but not necessarily the support of the population. This is also the first time I have seen a politician focus on sending our graduates off to other places. True, it will build their global resume, but there is also a chance we won't get them back. (If she does get elected, however, I will be first in line for a trip to Norway)


Alright, I just looked up to see the girth of this post, so we'll have to leave the rest of this Geek porn for another day. See you all Wednesday!

Wildcard Weekend: World War II

I found these pictures on Pundit Kitchen, and when I began tearing up I knew I had to pass them on. As the blurb before the pictures points out, they are real people; staged, but doing what they would on an ordinary day. It is these efforts that help us remember and honour our past more clearly. Sometimes it can seem a million years away, or a storybook, but these make it as real as yesterday.

The Epic Saga of Gary Mar: Part two

It was with a certain amount of dread that I approached the second half of this endeavor, but the response has been so positive that I feel the phrase "Well begun is half done" should be a new mantra, and so, press forward.

Fiscal policy
Despite his earlier plan to use 'resource revenues', Gary Mar feels that government has become addicted to using oil and gas money to pay for day to day spending and so intends to restructure the Sustainability Fund so it is not used as “mad money” for government. He even requires a growing portion of annual budgeted natural resource revenues to be allocated to the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, to cover our butts, but only for short-term issues. More on that plan in a bit.
Hilariously he pledges to reduce the number of ministries and ministers. Remember those positions he talked about yesterday; The rep in Ottawa and three new boards? Cutting ministers is not a bonus if you turn around and hire other people. Keep this plan in mind as you read the rest of the post - it gets funnier.

His plans for the sustainability fund include:
-Restructure the mandate of the Sustainability Fund so that it is used solely to protect the fiscal plan against short-term revenue downturns. Once the $4.5 billion threshold is established, the Sustainability Fund will be required to have an opening balance of $4.5 billion at the start of any fiscal year. If it does not, the annual budget plan will allocate cash to the Fund to ensure the $4.5 billion reserve is in place before any allocations to operating or capital spending in the budget. However, how we are supposed to determine between short and long term issues is fairly tricky, but repaying any emergencies within a year is a hefty task. Besides, there is no point to a financial backup jar if we can't use it as a soft buffer for long-term.
-All annual spending will be done within the framework of the budget plan. (This is different from the other candidates who plan to operate wildly over budget) In-year operating or in-year capital spending would be prohibited.  The only exclusion to this would be revenues dedicated to specific expenses, such as increases to federal health transfers, as an example, and any unbugeted disasters and emergencies. A budget for disasters and emergencies will be provided for in a contingency reserve. Although where this reserve will come from is unclear.
-Publicly release a Long-term Fiscal Sustainability Report every two years [that no one will read].
-Commence a government-wide performance review of all provincial government operations (This seems to be a common first move for new heads in any area. and rarely leads to lasting changes)

When he speaks of evaluating programs he will evaluate them on three vectors:
1.Is it of measurable benefit to citizens? (Which I have reservations about; what about the immeasurable ones? [see: the Arts])

2. Is there a compelling reason for government to provide this service?
3. If the government did not, would there be a way for the private sector to provide it? (Not a cost-saving measure, except to consider expenses)


He mentions that it is a priority to refill the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, saying it had been taken from to cover losses, but then points out that it has grown; Only $1.4 billion in 25 years, but growing is not shrinking. Nevertheless he plans to balloon it to $40 billion in 10 years, a plan so foolhardy as to be almost reckless in these economically chaotic times. This will be pulled from the 'projected' budget surpluses. I have a similar plan for my 'projected' lottery win. 

Last, he plans to 'speak more plainly' about the budget, showing the sustainability fund more obviously, but the problem with this plan is that most people don't understand the budget, and don't really care until prompted to. Not to mention the tricky problem of allowing people to figure out your salary - they are so going to resent you for it.

Health policy
Gary Mar is at least committed to reducing the hospital wait time, and I agree there is a problem when dealing with the elderly and mentally ill, but he doesn't outline how he plans to deal with these issues, other than saying it will be a 'common-sense' approach. He does say they should shift focus from care-based to preventative, but this is likely to manifest as a 'nanny' state result, haranguing citizens into eating better and walking more through the pocket of the Wellness Innovation fund, or WIN for short (no, seriously).
The most distressing notion he puts forth, however, is that "We must accelerate the reallocation of existing financial and human resources towards innovative delivery models, disease prevention and better access to care." If there is one notable feature about the health care system, it is that it does not move swiftly, or take to new ideas kindly, possibly to our benefit, since swift change breeds accidents, something we need to absolutely minimize in the health care industry.

With a slight nod to the Raj Sherman scandal, he obliquely refers to workers being frustrated that the government does not listen to them and people being intimidated. He makes it clear that he would address this issue, I assume this means a government review into the corruption that Dr. Sherman spoke of.

Research into health care is apparently also a priority for Gary, also a frank and open discussion about the health care industry. There are some numbers that seem to be pulled out of the air, (how do health care savings come about? The savings from people that attend hospitals for preventable diseases like obesity?) but look really good.

To revitalize the system he plans to spend more on Primary Care Networks, which seem to involve sending a person to specialists for treatment, rather than placing the burden completely on the doctor. But they use $50 per patient to do something I am sure better Internet access could accomplish. He also champions the use of a master wait list for specialist procedures, something that apparently worked with knee procedures, the 'aging in place' strategy for the elderly, which will heighten the need for long-term beds, and better community care for the mentally ill, an unpopular plan that I strongly support.

He also wants to move the Health Quality Council of Alberta  to the Legislature, another reason why the staffing budget will only grow under his plans.
In a bid to encourage rural doctors he plans to excuse student loans for those who specialize in family care and contract to work in rural areas, a move echoed by Daryl Bonar in the municipal election last year, but it did not serve him well. He also wants to train doctors and other health care professionals side by side on occasion to build respect and teamwork, a move that leaves me scratching my head. If working together doesn't help build respect, why would learning together work?

Finally, to improve health care monitoring and trend-spotting, he plans to establish a system that reports statistics while maintaining the anonymity of the actual patients, while also allowing greater access to personal health records online, a risky move with Anonymous still hanging around. (They do have better things to do than lurk Alberta's health care system, but I would still rather not.)

K-12 Education policy
Again, Mr. Mar promises stable funding, but this is still perhaps too much to ask, especially considering the recent spats between the teacher's union and the government. He does plan to sort those out but I am unsure what promises he could offer that won't tie our hands, but still satisfy teachers.

He plans to single out 'at-risk' youths while young and focus on them, although in what fashion is unclear. The hazard of paying too much attention to 'at-risk' youths is that they begin to internalize their issues too quickly, begin to identify as a 'problem child', and it may further push students who would have recovered on their own.

He also supports better language instruction, evaluating the provincial achievement tests, and helping schools, community agencies and service providers work together to deliver services in a coordinated, “reach-around” approach, oh excuse me, "wrap-around" approach.

Municipal Funding Policy
Gary Mar plans to stop the municipal grant program and simply allow them access to the education tax revenues, in a move that blindly trusts municipal decisions. As if we needed further reason to doubt his plan to 'cut staff', he would establish another council to oversee this perilous financial move. Why he would not simply establish a council that would move quickly to address municipal desires is unclear. Considering 20% would come from Edmonton and 20% from Calgary, this would put small communities, like my own sweet hometown, in danger of being crushed by the larger cities who are unable to see (and should not have to accommodate for) the needs of smaller municipalities. This is further exacerbated by the problem of his proposed equality between how much money municipalities collect in education taxes and how much they are allocated in funds. He assures us, however, that it will not result in less or more money. I am unsure, then, what is supposed to change.
(Footnote - confidential to Gary Mar's writers: it is not okay to put all titles in caps. Stop it.)

Progressive Conservative Party Policy
This section seems entirely subsumed by the usual tripe: more open, more accountable, younger, grassroots (A phrase I have begun to hate. It means nothing), family first, international, business leadership, glorious natural resources, etc. and tells us no more than we did before, but it does feel nice to simply skim the last gargantuan section and gratefully close the browser window.

With this, I must confess, I have shovelled more than my fair share of buzz-words, but we have uncovered the secrets of the first candidate! Have a great weekend, I shall have more leadership garbage when I return on Monday.

The Epic Saga of Gary Mar: Part one

As promised, I have begun to look into the candidates for the Alberta premier position, and have arbitrarily chosen Gary Mar as the first lucky contestant. Now, as you all know, this position is not publicly elected, so if you feel very strongly about this race, you must buy a membership into the Progressive Conservative party (5$) and then vote on September 17th. You may buy a membership right up until the polls close that day, so if you have to search your couch cushions for change, you have the time. (Of course keep in mind you must be 16 and lived in Alberta for at least 6 months prior)
Without further ado, here are some of the highlights of the first four segments of Gary Mar's platform.



Advanced education and technology policy

All qualified Albertans who wish to attain post-secondary education must be able to do so. (Hilariously, if you include the qualification of being able to pay, this statement becomes deliciously tautological)
He supports funding of both basic and applied research, to ensure that society reaps the full benefit of the research enterprise of our post-secondary system, which bodes well, since basic research tends to be neglected for more lucrative prospects.
He promises to build on the past success of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) (A program that seduced back three scientists from the U.S and funded important spinal research) but also plans to create: The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Bio Research, The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Energy and the Environment,The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Technology Futures, which threaten to bog down the AHFMR's success with superfluous and expensive boards.
He attempts to win over students by talking about increasing positions in university, but then pledges to bring more immigrants in to fill those positions, (Mar will develop a multi-year provincial, national, and international recruitment strategy to ensure that Alberta’s post-secondary system is a destination of choice for the brightest minds in the world.) which would make whole process more competitive, thus denying positions to local students. (I'm not saying we need less immigration, just that he isn't going to win any students by threatening positions in Universities)


He says Gary Mar will work to create new endowment funds from resource revenues that will lay the foundation for economic life after oil. (This comes up more later). With this money, apparently, he will create a stable and predictable funding model, such as tuition caps, for all post-secondary institutions in the province, which actually sounds really good except for considering how volatile the market is. We can't promise money that we can't take back in case of emergency.


He also says he will "undertake a review [of] parental income thresholds and contribution amounts and work with the Canada Student Loan Program and the Federal Government to make appropriate changes." I am not really familiar with the reasoning behind this loan restriction, so I cannot speak to its effectiveness, but it has always struck me as odd.
I am not so adult that I would fail to point out that he refers to himself as "A Mar" at one point.

Alberta in Canada and the world
He starts by promising to establish an Alberta Representative in Ottawa to advocate on behalf of the province’s interests every day, which only leaves us asking why he can't do the job as Alberta Premier.But he is obviously gunning for the "bitter Albertan" vote when he talks about continuing to seek fair and equal treatment under the federal equalization transfer, a program designed to compensate less fortunate provinces for their fiscal disparities. This program has long been a source of grumbling contention in Alberta, but it makes no sense for him to support the payments, then expect to receive the money back elsewhere.

His stand on the environment becomes crystal clear when he says he will fight against any infringement on resource development through stealth environmental policies, regulations or Alberta- punishing new taxes or scheming wealth-transfer initiatives desired by some. We don't cotton to this "envir'mental" policies 'round these here parts. It almost seems like he is building his policies on anger towards the East. It could get him elected, but will we be proud of ourselves?

To combat the theorized upcoming labour shortage he believes we need to work to accelerate the process for foreign credential recognition, a principle I have supported for a while now.
Most of the time the writing switches between being spoken to about Gary Mar (third person) and a dialogue with Gary (first person), so the effect is somewhat like being witnessed to while Jesus stands off to one side and interjects occasionally ("Have you found Jesus?" "Tell him I died for his sins!" "Yeah, I will, Jesus, just hang on a second.")

He doesn't support the gun registry, but does support free-trade, securities regulation, a unified north, the Canadian Premier's Council of federation, and ending the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly.

In line with the new trade agreements with India and elsewhere, Gary promises to take the lead for Alberta in trading with key emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and the Middle East, where he estimates 50 per cent (Source: Export Development Canada) of all Canadian exports will go by 2025.

He talks about two key decisions in our immediate future: the building of pipelines to the U.S. Gulf Coast and the West Coast of Canada. He says he will advocate that the federal government designate these initiatives as a national economic priority for Canada and ensure they receive the needed support to get done, which sounds expensive. He promotes the idea of providing the world with the full facts of credible, science-based information that clearly demonstrates Alberta is protecting the environment today and for the future, but later mentions that

He supports the development of new transportation options, rail and pipeline, to west coast tidewater outlets as a means to diversify and grow new markets and will continue to support industry-driven initiatives and campaigns that sell Alberta as desirable tourism destination. (See the Alberta Tourism campaign fiasco)



Still with me? Just two more - you can do it!
Children and youth policy
Some of the problems he identifies in our child and youth policies are that funding and delivery of early childhood services remains fragmented, spread among many ministries, levels of government, and non-profit agencies. He feels we need to stop funding programs that don’t work very well (Huzzah.) and redirect dollars to expand programs that do and we need to track our progress according to a clear set of measurable outcomes. the issue here, of course, being the nebulous and contentious priorities of childhood development, and the long-term prognosis of even seeing any change at all.
He plans to co-ordinate and streamline the Alberta Government’s many existing early childhood programs and services, encourage the joining up of services at the local level and contain a set of key indicators and outcomes for children’s well-being that will be used to measure progress (again, see earlier issue)
The only one that is not a 'given, sound-good' issue is to focus on improving the availability of mental health services for expectant and new mothers, since everyone needs better mental healthy care, it seems bad taste to give expectant mothers better care.
Some other soundbites include:
A public awareness component to inform Albertans about the importance of early childhood development.
Strengthening the Family Enhancement focus of Alberta’s child intervention system
Ensuring families continue to have access to affordable, quality child care options
Expand the Mental Health Capacity Building for Children, Youth and Families in Schools initiative to more communities (I am concerned by what this means. More diagnosis? More treatment?)


Energy policy
His energy policy is largely copy-pasta'd from earlier policies, which made for easier skimming and I noticed the changed passages were more controversial.For example, "Concerns raised by our American neighbours about the carbon intensity of our energy products and the safety of our pipelines must be addressed.", which as long-time readers (Hi Mom!) know, I am not a fan of. In short it is our damn oil, they aren't going to stop buying it because some people think we smell funny. But he plans to implement the recommendations of the Alberta Environmental Panel Monitoring Report on environmental monitoring of the oil sands, anyway, presumably through the use of an Alberta Environmental Monitoring Authority, which will totally not be corrupt, and education programs to improve Albertan’s understanding of the resources they own and how those resources are being developed. (people barely give a crap now, why would they sit through a presentation?)
Stretching his bounds of offense he plans to work with Alberta’s First Nations and companies in the natural resource sector to develop an Aboriginal Workforce Strategy to enable greater aboriginal participation in resource development. From the sound of it the First Nations' peoples are not very keen on developing resources, since they believe it harms the environment, but good luck on this anyway. Also in the vein of this wishful dreaming policy is to establish an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Energy and the Environment. This Foundation will, allegedly, bring together key government, industry and academic stakeholders, with a focus on developing the next wave of clear conscience energy, because there are few better people to develop altruistic environmental policies than the stingy government and the profit-oriented industries. To develop this wave they will look at current and potential fiscal and regulatory systems to see how they might better encourage innovation and the adoption of new technologies. He says that current regulatory processes require companies to seek a new approval when it would like to upgrade to new, more efficient and technologies and he feels that these types of disincentives need to be understood and, where appropriate, removed, but this whole plan is pretty troubling - how else can we discover if a process IS more efficient?
This board will also ask Finance and Enterprise, Alberta Energy, Alberta Environment and the new Heritage Foundation to work with industry to restructure incentive systems so that they reward environmental innovation that goes above and beyond current standards, but this is unnecessary. Either the process will be more profitable for the company, in which case they will adopt it themselves, or it will be unprofitable enough that we will end up paying them off to 'do the right thing', which is a money sink.
The most hilarious plan of all is when he speaks of asking the AUC and AESO to work with all participants in the electricity market to look for innovative ways to enable lower costs for Alberta industry and consumers while maintaining reliability. I can see that conversation clearly: "Hey, guys? Can you get cheaper? Thanks." He can't even bribe them to work together since he intends to
promote icky competition within the electricity industry anyway, not a good selling point for the companies.

Finally, he is committed to ensuring stability in the current royalty regime for conventional oil, natural gas and the oil sands. but remember that earlier plan to use resource revenues? We can't use money we don't get, and we can't money while ensuring stability financially for those resources. Needless to say, these work at cross-purposes.


After all this I am still less than halfway through his policies. I can only hope that future candidates will be less verbose.




Lady told to put her shirt back on at Toronto's Beer Festival. Victor says they have the right to security enforcement at a private function, I say she has the right to wear what she likes at a publicly organized gathering. Where do you stand? Comment with your view!

Flash Gordon: Just say "No"!

Apparantly, since I have not been paying attention to the states they have been experiencing new problems - a new cultural development, to be honest, since I don't see it going away - that has festered over into Canada this past week. Flash thefts have been documented in the States since early March, but the phenemenon of Flash mobs has been around since early facebook years.

A flash mob consists of a group of people that all travel to one location and do... something. Some examples include; wearing pyjamas and laying down for a little nap, doing a choreographed dance routine, or stealing hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise. The trend is remeniscent of "wilding", or "swarming", where a group would surround a hapless victim and strip them of possessions, but this trend is likely to be extinguished. The hassle of organizing friends into some semblance of event is obnoxious and tends to dry out any further activities with the ultimate cock-block: sober second thought.

The motivation behind this new activity is several-fold. First, the teamwork and group feeling that comes from breaking rules together is so compelling that people have formed whole sports around it (see: Rugby) this, combined with the modest positive reinforcement garnered from the reward, the loot, and the mild adrenaline rush, create an activaty that is certain to be plagueing us for many more years.

Unfortunately, as the poopulation rises the number that reflects even the smallest proportion of society will rise, and obscure desires that we would not consider 'mainstream' or acceptable, will rise accordingly. Not to say this desire is unusual, the urge seems almost primal - like hunting packs of old tribes, but we must begin to accomadate for such, whatever they are.  

Wildcard Weekend: Surrogate Camping Trip

Feeling stressed? Annoyed? Wish you could get out to the wilderness?


Stress no more! Just put this on, have a big bottle of water, and pretend you're breathing mountain air!
I'll be back with "Who Wants to be our New Premier?" next week.

The Bell Curve circa 2011

In the scientific community there are primarily two types of research: Directed and non-directed. Directed research typically involves noticing a problem and working towards solving it, such as curing cancer or breeding a seedless watermelon (guess which one we've cracked?) Non-directed is simply research for research's sake, such as the last time you were fascinated by the contents of your own bellybutton [The nature of navel fluff. (Medical Hypotheses) This is real, BTW]. It is rare, however, to see the second form in conventional newspapers - often the jargon is impenetrable and drawing independent conclusions can be frustrating early in the morning. [Nonacyclo-docosane, a Bastard Tetramantane (Journal of the American Chemical Society)also real]

The Edmonton Journal, however, is boldly going where no one has cared to go before with a map of ethnicity in our fair city, just in case violent racists were having trouble deciding which streets to riot. "Got a beef with purple people? 50th and main!" (In a sad coincidence the map icons even resemble targets) Through census information from 2006 which asked people to identify their ethnicity, they formed maps of Edmonton, displaying where people settled. In case that dubious concept wasn't upsetting enough, they tried to expand on the premise with some uncomfortable conclusions positioned as interesting factual tidbits. "The maps show many Africans concentrated around 107 Avenue in Queen Mary Park, as well as Beverly Heights, Sifton Park near Clareview and in the northeast, Kilkenny and Evansdale, all neighbourhoods with lower than average median household incomes." They just put that there. 'What do you think of that?' it asks, one eyebrow raised and a supercilious smile worming its way onto the stage. "Lower than average median household incomes" it says, staring so hard its eyeballs water.

I can understand some hype for their little map, but it's just a point of interest not the Rosetta stone for housing: " Those patterns reflect the length of time since the first immigrants arrived, how they’ve adapted to the city, and what values they prioritize." I am unsure how the fact that people populated a certain region indicates much about their values, but I have a cup of tea leaves I would love the Journal to look at. In a crazy twist it looks like these neighbourhoods  "shape large areas of the city." Freakish! Other large areas of the city are made of fluff and abstract concepts. I can not fathom how no one noticed that perhaps the people that perfer to live closely to others that match their ethnicity are also more likely to self-identify with that ethnicity on a survey.

The last failing in the map is that it confuses correlation with causation - a habit pernicious in common media. "Their preliminary data suggests that in some groups, the more immigrants participate in activities organized within their cultural community, the more they also participate in activities that bring them in contact with other Canadians, like a community sports team." Since we can't draw a causal relationship from this information (Correction: 'Shouldn't' draw a causal relationship; we can draw anything we want to - except ponies. Their legs are oddly shaped) functionally all they are saying is: the more immigrants participate in activities the more likely they are to participate in activities. Crazy.

I run into this sort of disillusioning article every so often when I open the paper and forget to disable my standards; undeveloped information that hides an ugly agenda under the guise of innocent fact-finding (See: all psychological research about race from the 70's). I totally support research for research's sake; I am a philosopher for heaven's sake, the same group who seriously considers the dynamics of a universe whose only occupant is a bucket of water on a string. When confronted with a direct goal for our musings we tend to shriek and melt like a witch with a water allergy, but sometimes we have to take a step back and wonder what the research is saying about ourselves.