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The Parkland institute reports:
Just add a few Oil Barons to make this Alberta specific.
EDMONTON— A new fact sheet released this morning by the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute says that the “flat tax,” introduced by Ralph Klein in 2001, is costing the province in excess of $5 billion a year. Given the projected deficit of $4.3 billion this year, simply returning to the progressive tax structure that existed in 1999 would be more than enough to move the province from a deficit budget to a surplus budget.
Holy cow, not rocket science. Progressive taxation is a good thing.
Alberta’s lowest tax bracket, for example, is taxed at a higher rate than that of six other provinces. And an Alberta family earning $75,000 per year in Alberta pays more tax than the same family in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, the Yukon, the NWT, and Nunavut.
The fact sheet also points out that returning to a progressive tax structure in Alberta would also serve an important economic stimulus function.
What? Tax-breaks for the poor will stimulate the economy? Enough of this crazy talk, we all know that only cutting taxes on the rich creates economic stimulus (see chicanery).
People are stupid. We hear the matra over and over again the Alberta has the lowest taxes in Canada. What utter horse-pucky. We have the lowest taxes, if and only if, you happen to be rich. Welcome to Alberta where we cater to the rich and special interests 24/7, 365 days a frakking year.
Bringing energy awareness to the next level!
The idea behind Earth Hour is a good one. Raising awareness of energy use and fossil fuel is a good thing, but really how useful is it?
Those people who are energy conscious will continue to conserve energy and treat it like the precious resource that it is. Conversely, those who are all about the consumption will continue to consume. I just wonder if having their ‘awareness raised’ is enough these days.
People’s awareness is certainly raised when it comes to paying for petrol at the pumps. Good heavens, we have been dancing around a dollar per litre for years now. Ironic considering that oil is a major export here in Alberta. But of course that is just the market working its magic, or so they say. Considering that oil is still floating around 80 dollars a barrel it still surprises me that our government cries poverty as well as the oil and gas sector. Those poor dears are being driven out of business by one of the lowest royalty regimes in the industrialized world.
I apologize, but the Alberta Tories repeated, unabashed love fest with Big Oil in Alberta rankles my feathers to no end. Back to Earth hour.
How we are going to raise awareness is make consuming energy less attractive. We need to add taxes to fossil fuel resources to bring them more inline with renewable energy resources. Take the tax revenue from the additional taxes and allow homeowner to retrofit and upgrade their dwellings for the new century, I guarantee that houses built before 2000 are not even close to the insulation standards we have today.
People will not change until it is too late. We need to address the energy consumption issue proactively when the people of Canada still have a choice about how to spend their energy dollar. The alternative, freezing in the dark because of market imposed energy austerity, is not a cheery future.
It is always nice to see the patriarchy at work. Devaluing half the population is just peachy keen here in good ‘ole Alberta.
The Parkland Institute reports:
“A new fact sheet, entitled “Women’s equality a long way off in Alberta” shows a persistent wage gap between women and men, despite the 2002-2007 oilsands boom. Alberta is also the only province/territory without any government ministry or advisory council on the status of women.
Alberta women who work full-year, full-time earn just 66% of what men earn. The Canadian average earnings gap is 72%.”
It gets even more fantastic if you read the executive summary! Our heroic Premier is a little busy licking the spittle off the lips of the oil and gas industry he really does care about the woman-folk, honest.
Whoops, not Canadian, no reproductive rights for you!
The Conservative government of Canada once again proves that it is anti-choice, anti-rational and anti-woman. The CBC said:
“A Liberal motion to include a broader range of family planning programs, including contraception, in a maternal health initiative for developing countries, was defeated 144-138 in the House of Commons Tuesday.”
A Liberal motion in the house of commons that was based on fact and evidence in the field was voted down.
“The motion tabled by Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said Canada’s maternal health proposal to G8 nations must be based on “scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths” and refrain from the “failed right-wing ideologies” of former U.S. president George W. Bush.”
Shocking as it may seem to the CPC, access to reproductive services saves lives.
“Earlier in the day, Rae said the government has refused to acknowledge scientific evidence that shows reducing deaths of women during childbirth in developing countries is inextricably linked to the availability of family planning”
So rather than own up to their anti-woman, anti-science platform the Conservatives decide this is an attempt to reopen the abortion debate? How the frack does this make sense? The question of Abortion in Canada has been settled legally (Access to facilities though is another story). Women have the legal right to access abortions and other health services when they deem fit. Nothing to debate. What minister Oda says is just a sad attempt to cover the Canadian government’s twisted socially conservative roots.
Denying Women Rights World Wide - A compassionate conservative.
“Oda described the Liberal motion as a “transparent attempt to reopen the abortion debate that we have clearly said we have no intention to getting into.”
She insisted the government understands the urgency of ensuring that women can have a safe, healthy pregnancy, and she cited statistics suggesting that as many as 80 per cent of deaths during childbirth are easily preventable by providing basic needs such as clean water and access to trained health-care workers.”
Just be open with us Bev, the freedoms Canadian women have should not apply to women of other countries, after-all it is God given right for a woman to die in childbirth.
I look southward and see the swirling Health Care debate in the United Stated and (still) marvel at the public system 
we have set up here in Canada. Yet, the Alberta Tories seem to think that Health Care is a bad thing. I quote from David Eggen’s Op-Ed from the Edmonton Journal:
“ […] As it happens, health expenditures in relation to gross domestic product in Alberta have stayed at between five and seven per cent for the last 15 years. We continue to compare favourably to other jurisdictions. The Canadian average is about 10 per cent, France and Switzerland are at about 11 per cent and the United States is at 15 per cent. To me, this sounds pretty sustainable.
This helps to reveal the real agenda behind Liepert’s and Duckett’s draconian actions. It is not about “saving medicare” or responding to the recession. People don’t stop getting sick when the economy is weak.
The Alberta government’s real plan is to destabilize our health-care system so it can implement private, for-profit experiments to “fix” medicare. They are purposefully breaking the health-care system so they can hire private contractors to repair it at inflated prices. […]”
Eggen is right on the money when it comes to the model of first breaking the public system, and then rebuilding it 
with private contractors reaping the profits. They tried that in Bolivia; it did not work out so well.
The problem here is the Zombie Electorate which would happily vote a frakking can of beans into office as long as it represented the Progressive Conservatives.
If you would like a non governmental view of what is going on with the Health Care system in Alberta check out the Friends of Medicare Web page.
The Alberta government is lowering royalty rates for the gas and oil industry. It is a bold initiative, that will bring jobs, prosperity and pink frakking Unicorns back to our lovely province. Apparently the old royalty review was just too darn hard on the industry.
Douche-Nozzle and Premier of Oilberta
We have just spent the last year and a half recovering from the last bout of fiscal looting and pillaging brought on by the business class so it is right about time to lower government revenue because we need less money, not more, to fund out starving public sector. Great Scott we need to close a few more schools and hospitals as right now we are falling behind in the race to the bottom.
The paucity of morals and commitment to the people of Alberta is vomit-worthy. Honestly, could the kowtowing and subservience to the Oil Patch be any more blatant? This is not even the right question.
The million dollar question is will people actually give a flying flaming hoop about how they are being sold down the river by our government and will they care enough to vote the PC’s out of office?
Oh, by the way the competition review was written by the Gas and Oil Industry. Certainly a fair shake for all Albertans. If you read closely you can actually hear the smirk and audacious tone Mr.Collyer uses.
Dave Collyer, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers:
“I think it was a significant step forward in restoring investor confidence in Alberta and I think that makes it a good day for not just the industry but for Albertans. This is really about getting investment back into the province, getting Alberta back in the game and that creates activity and that drives jobs and that’s good for the province overall. So I think it was a positive announcement in both tone and substance. So we’re encouraged by it but we’ve got a ways to go yet in terms of getting the industry fully back on its feet.”
Contrast this with what Amy Taylor has to say from the Pembina Institute:
Amy Taylor, senior economist with the Pembina Institute:
“First and foremost, we have concerns with the process that the provincial government embarked upon in which they came to the conclusion that they needed to make adjustments to the royalty scheme applicable to oil and gas in Alberta and more specifically, they made that decision based on conversations and meetings and negotiations that they had over the course of the last several months with industry and industry alone. And we’re talking about a resource that is owned by Albertans. The citizens of this province own the resource and it’s imperative in our opinion that they be consulted when these kind of changes are being considered.”
Transparency and the interests of the people of Alberta have always been low on Ed Stelmach’s list of things to do, but this is just outright pillaging. And for what? Because the Wild Rose Fascists are undermining the government from the Right? You bet it is. Albertans are getting a dry splintery broomstick in the anus, in regards to resource royalties, because the quavering lick-spittle progressive conservatives are afraid of alienating their ‘base’ and will not stand up for the peoples’ interests.
The people of Alberta need to put a stop to these shenanigans, the sooner the better.
This story will not make very many people happy. If you happen to believe in left-wing media bias and that Israel is an undeserving oppressed nation (and other farcical notions), please stop reading now. Things will only get worse for you the farther you read into the article.
The story of the Canadian NGO Rights and Democracy has recently received media attention for the firing of three new appointees to the board of directors. As the CBC says:
“Three senior managers at the federal government’s human rights agency who were suspended for publicly declaring their lack of confidence in three Conservative appointees to their organization’s board of directors earlier this year have been fired.”
To understand the how and why this is so particularly egregious requires a fair amount of back story.
“Rights & Democracy, created under Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government to encourage democracy and monitor human rights around the world, has been in turmoil since the Harper government appointed new board members [the ones mentioned in the first quote] last year.
The new members challenged grants being made to three human rights organizations known to be critical of Israel’s human rights record.”
One of things that you do NOT do is criticize Israel (despite the country’s atrocious human rights record), especially if you are in a government funded organization. It appears that these firings stem from this defacto political axiom. Furthermore, if you do have the temerity to question Israeli policy you may be hounded into an early grave:
“Federal opposition politicians and the family of former president Rémy Beauregard, who died in January, are calling for an independent inquiry into the organization. […] Beauregard bore the brunt of the new board members’ outrage over the grants. He died of a heart attack after a stormy board meeting.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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