Me

Norm Greenfield was born in the Vancouver area and currently lives and works out of Calgary, with an urge to return to Vancouver or set up a stake in Edmonton and enjoy the new scenery.

He has worked in every facet of the communications field, including with politicians, policy consulting, political policy research and development, marketing communications firms, demographic/database communications, printers, newspapers, radio and television stations, as well as photographic labs and photographers, with a brief stint with the Vancouver Coroners department while going to college.

Currently Norm is working in the media and government relations areas, as well as corporate communications, and his client base consists mainly of green technologies, organic and local farming organizations, new and digital media companies, e-learning, and social issues groups. As one of the few that will tell the world, Norm is also a Registered Federal, B.C. and N.B Government Lobbyist.

Needless to say, he would be interested in hearing from anyone looking for an eclectic mind and collection of life experiences. He has worked and learnt in the field of corporate, marketing and political communications since the mid-70’s.

Thank you
Norm Greenfield can be reached at 403-807-1251 or at provocostatusquo@hotmail.com.

His web site is in the middle of being renovated but the remanants of what it is can be seen at www.porovocostatusquo.com .

Alberta Green Party and First Nations’ Issues

Alberta Green Party and First Nations’ Issues

When we work on the policies for the Alberta Green Party related to First Nation’s issues, we must be aware of what is provincial in the way responsibility and what is federal. The fact of the matter is the Federal government has jurisdiction of First Nation’s issues as far as education, health, treaties, and land claims. This includes natives on and off reservations.

My favoured way of helping the Alberta Green Party to best address Alberta’s First Nation’s issues and policies would be to go to them, instead of having one person from one First Nation come to us.

If we have the money I think it makes more sense for the Alberta Green Party to develop a group of people from around the province to attend that various meetings and conferences involving their local First Nations.

By sending people out to the various First Nations’ groups we can accumulate discussion, impressions, and issues that directly relate to local or region members of First Nations. Of course there are going to be trends or similar issues and concerns province wide, from which we can find big picture policy ideas, and then from that will flow policies that better reflect region issues and differences.

The other benefit from working out a plan like the above, is that the Alberta Green Party will be going to the communities of the First Nations, and actually talk to them and listen. It will build a longterm relationship that we can build on, not only for policy development but maybe even memberships and candidates.

The issues are very different for natives that live on the reserve or in the large urban centres, plus the smaller centres in between.

The issues involved with the reserves in the southern part of Alberta, vary quite a bit from those in northern remote areas of Alberta, from even those around Fort McMurray.

In the north the natives are wanting to be part of the oil and gas boom, not only from a point of money, but water and meaningful employment and business development for long term benefits.

You have the issues involved with the Metis, Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, and female natives are all different, with some of the issues being common.

There are First Nation’s communities that farm and ranch along side of other non-native Albertans, with the same issues but do not necessarily have the same access to the various funding or agricultural agencies. Federal or provincial.

The First Nations people want their traditional hunting and fishing rights enforced, but this may come in conflict with the environmental protection regulations designed to help refurbish certain species that are in danger of disappearing or being over harvested. This can also be in conflict with what the Alberta Green Party has stated in previous policy statements already endorsed at Policy conventions and those to come.

A prime example of this is the recent change to the hunting and fishing regulations passed by the current Minister of Community Development in the Klein government. The regulations were made in such a way that the natives were given full hunting and fishing privaleges through out the province, in and out of season, with no restrictions. It was not what the natives wanted, it was in conflict with the rules and regulations that non-natives had to follow, and the regulations did not go through the regular channels for public consultation, nor even cabinet approval.

For instance, the Bioregional Management Boards. How do the First Nation’s communities fit in with the boards, as they are governed by federal law, treaties, and what has afforded to them through common law or the courts.

I think we need to set up the committee of AGP members to organize a fan out to do local or regional research into the issues involved in their area with regards to the First Nation’s communities.

This would, as I suggested up above, involve sending them to the various communities themselves, or conferences, or meetings. We would need to make sure there are notes taken and inputed to the policy development process. We also have to make sure, as George mentioned at our last policy meeting, make this an ongoing process and I would think also interactive from both sides of the issue.

Here is a selection of some of the most recent issues being talked about in Canada. Yes, they are from other parts of Canada, but if they move ahead they will have an affect on First Nation’s people in other areas of Canada.

In the Ottawa Citizen, on July 14, 2006 editorial the day after the re- election of Mr. Fontaine as the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says, “that Canada's First Nations don't need a kinder, gentler paternalism.” In fact they put the position forward that the First Nations people, and “all Canadians, need leaders who will ask tough questions: Will continued segregation help aboriginal people thrive? How can remote communities prosper? They need leaders who will look at old problems with fresh eyes.”

As a Provincial party it may be a policy position that we agree with the Kelowna Accord, the $5-billion agreement the Liberal government signed last year with premiers before it was voted out of office. It was meant to fight poverty, improve living conditions and increase education and health standards for First Nations.

The final sentence in the Citizen editorial states, “The old ideas have not served the young people growing up on reserves now, and they owe those ideas no loyalty.”

As was reported in the Toronto Star on the matter of Fontaine’s re-election, “support in Toronto for the head of the Assembly of First Nations is wavering following his re-election to a third term. "The AFN has been almost irrelevant in terms of urban aboriginal issues," said Joe Hester, who runs Anishnawbe Health Toronto, a local drop-in clinic.

In Toronto’s case 26 per cent of the homeless people are aboriginal with less than 1 per cent of people in Toronto being native.

As Michael Cheena, Executive Director of the Urban Aboriginal Alliance of Toronto, "We're not at the table," and added that "the federal government only deals with the AFN and the First Nations chiefs, and the urban aboriginals get left out." Cheena said he didn't know if that would have changed if Bill Wilson had been elected instead.

So we see that there is even dissention amongst the groups that work with and for the First Nation’s people.

As a provincial party it might be a policy idea to, advocate the province of Alberta join the
native leaders of Alberta, in the fight to convince the Canadian government to agree on the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Or maybe the province should adopt the declaration as a policy and put it into law.

As an example of one issue that is of interest to the northern native communities in Alberta that might not be an issue to natives in southeast Alberta, are "livelihood rights," a doctrine developed to give practical modern meaning to century-old Indian treaties.

The Edmonton Journal writes about a very real example of this by referring to the Resistance by the Dene Tha' in the High Level region against the Alberta leg in the $7.5-billion Mackenzie gas project is only the first attempt at using the new approach to try changing a development, said Jim Webb, a policy adviser to northern native communities. Livelihood rights are cornerstones of 1980s and '90s aboriginal treaties in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Arctic "comprehensive land claims settlements" are built on native resource ownership, development partnerships, endowment funds or revenue shares for acquiring businesses assets and roles in supervising resource projects through regional regulatory agencies.

This is real issue that also extends to other First Nations groups with regards to the oil and gas industry through out Alberta, but most recently in the north.

The national agencies have so far refused to pick a fight with Alberta by intervening. The decision on the Arctic pipeline's Alberta leg is being left up to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. A Dene Tha' lawsuit is still only in early stages in the federal court.

Provincial authorities know all about the attempt to import the northern version of aboriginal rights. The Alberta government has observer status in three-year-old negotiations between the federal government and the province's native communities on translating old Indian treaties into modern agreements akin to the Arctic claims settlements.

This is an example of where jurisidictions overlap with no one prepared to stand up for the people of the First Nations.

Webb points out that a provincial policy describes processes for adapting the northern approach to Alberta conditions, including integrated land use plans and "regional management forums" of government, industry and aboriginal representatives.

But the apparatus only exists on paper, Webb said. An early attempt to put the theory into practice in the Fort McMurray region ended when the province withdrew from the exercise rather than let it develop a controlling role in oilsands development, he said.

The status quo, however, is spawning increasingly acrimonious regulatory and legal duels over modern meanings to be read into the old Indian treaties.
The original pacts did not spell out the livelihood rights idea, which is that Canada owes its original inhabitants the means to make new livings in exchange for taking away all their territories except for small reservations.

Maybe a policy area for the Alberta Green Party to look at is in fact developing a process for the Provincial government to participate in making sure that the people of the First Nations are equal participants in the industrial development of the province in the same way that counties, cities, and municipal governments are, while trying to look at the old agreements with our modern eyes.

‘Life, Money and Illusion,’ is the latest book by Mike Nickerson

‘Life, Money and Illusion,’ is the latest book by Mike Nickerson centred on sustainability and the world we live in today.

It is the follow up to his book ‘Seven Generations,’ which put forth the long standing idea of looking at what we as humans are doing in our world and its impact on Seven Generations down the road.

‘Life, Money and Illusion,’ points out the basic inconsistencies between the life paradigm and economic convention. People are slowly learning about the ecological reality of the basics of resource limitations, and how the unfolding impacts of these issues are having a direct affect on our well-being.

One idea that Mike is trying to get on the social and political agenda is the idea of how we measure our success in our world He wants us to switch from the economic growth model and look at our ‘Well Being Measurement.. How we might establish a, 'Genuine Progress Index.’

Mike Nickerson will be in Calgary on July 4, 2006 to address a group of people on the above subject as a part of his cross Canada book tour.

If you would like to talk to him as a part of an interview or story, please call Norm Greenfield at 403-807-1251 or provocostatusquo@hotmail.com

Basement Suites, "Should they be legalized?"

July 10, 2006 – Alberta Green Party Policy Meeting


Subject: Basement Suites, "Should they be legalized?"

Can this be a provincial issue? Can it be a federal issue? It is both. It is not though, a civic issue as the issue owes its solutions to the powers of enacting laws and regulations by the provincial and federal governments in a variety of ways.

Building codes and fire codes, and electrical codes are set at both levels, and if not met, the insurance industry will not cover a building, nor will organizations like the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (a federal government crown corporation) will not insure your mortgage.

This is not creating a "two-tier" housing scheme, but rather it is improving upon a currently occurring situation that is undesirable from a number of standpoints.

Safety is NOT being compromised AT ALL in this initiative - quite the opposite - the goal is to ENHANCE safety requirements - such as requiring smoke detectors, requiring windows large enough to crawl out of, etc.

A house not built according to code may not be eligible for mortgages.

From the political side:

The demographics of people wanting to rent basement suites, is often quite different from those in upscale apartments - they are servicing different types of customers, and thus basement suites are not in direct competition to apartment investors. People living in basement suites, often cannot afford normal apartments - and thus basement suites are only competing with homeless shelters.

Furthermore, "preventing competition" as a consideration of why such suites should not be allowed, should not be allowed as an objection in a free-enterprise economy.

This is an idea well worth considering. It has a great deal of merit in dealing with the housing shortage in Alberta that is affordable and decent.

It is also an idea for a proactive and visionary policy that the Alberta Green Party should adopt and it is a policy idea that the average person in Alberta can grasp, understand, and agree with a reasonable way for the government to deal with a real problem, by just getting out of the way.

The Issue:

Currently, since there are no building codes specifically designed for Basements suites in Alberta, Municipalities have by default, been applying building codes which were originally designed for Duplexes and Apartments instead - which in most cases, means that Municipalities do not have the power to approve basement suites, since they cannot meet these codes.

For example:

Duplex and apartment building codes require an 8 foot ceiling, and a separate furnace in each living unit. Since most houses built decades ago, were not required back then to build 8 foot ceilings in the basement, most basement suites today have ceilings somewhat lower than 8 feet, and thus it is impossible for a homeowner to comply with this requirement (or the two furnace requirement).

For The Idea:

Keeping these suites "illegal", is not a good solution - from a pragmatic practical standpoint, it is only discouraging and preventing a number of desirable goals from being achieved, such as ensuring tenant safety, and ensuring a good supply of affordable housing units on the market being created.

Almost all the complaints about basement suites being undesirable, is not really the point here. They are already there, for the most part, and as such many of the fears about creating problems such as parking complaints, etc, wouldn't change much under this proposal - and in fact may even be alleviated.

Opposing this initiative on the basis that you are opposed to basement suites in general, is not what we are doing here- this initiative is not about where or if they should be allowed or where they would be allowed, it is only about how should they be built - if and only if they are allowed by the Municipality. Primarily, it is about whether or not the Municipality, "should" be given the power to make a decision to approve a suite, under different codes than what currently exist - a power that they don't have now - they can only condemn them.

This is not creating a "two-tier" housing scheme, but rather it is improving upon a currently occurring situation that is undesirable from a number of standpoints.

Safety is NOT being compromised AT ALL in this initiative - quite the opposite - the goal is to ENHANCE safety requirements - such as requiring smoke detectors, requiring windows large enough to crawl out of, etc.

The demographics of people wanting to rent basement suites, is often quite different from those in upscale apartments - they are servicing different types of customers, and thus basement suites are not in direct competition to apartment investors. People living in basement suites, often cannot afford normal apartments - and thus basement suites are only competing with homeless shelters. Furthermore, "preventing competition" as a consideration of why such suites should not be allowed, should not be allowed as an objection in a free-enterprise economy.

These situations exist now - it is not creating a "new category" of sub-standard housing. Poor people are living in basement suites now - and most of them are not properly inspected and may present safety concerns.

There are no building codes, specific to basement or secondary suites now - the only codes being applied, were developed with apartments or duplexes in mind, and thus are not applicable to the unique circumstances of secondary suites in older existing homes. Thus, there are almost no existing basement suites that could comply except at tremendous cost - and thus, homeowners do not try to get approvals through the authorities - they know they would be rejected. So what happens in reality is that they build them anyway, but just don't tell the municipal authorities, because they know the municipal authorities could not approve them, even if they wanted to.

Since homeowners do not apply for permits, other minor safety code features that might have been achieved through a pragmatic, proper permitting process, do not get installed - and thus tenant safety is compromised, as a result of too-stringent safety demands.

If you set the bar too high - people CANNOT comply, and therefore WILL NOT APPLY. If you are reasonable about it, more people would apply properly - and it would be better to get some major safety features - than none at all - which could be the current situation.

In fact, if you allowed approval of these suites, landlords considering upgrades or creation of a new suite, would not be so worried about having their entire investment continually at great risk - and would therefore have incentive to spend more money and do better upgrades than what they do now. No one spends a lot of money on basement suites if they know they could be shut down at any time - approved suites, could allow for substantially more investment and quality, by responsible landlords.

For example:

Does a single-family house, wanting to put in a basement suite, really need to have two furnaces? If having to put two furnaces into a basement, in order to get municipal approval, prevents people from applying for a permit in the first place - and going underground instead and not seeking an approval - does this make sense to keep it as a minimum building specification? Or can this requirement - developed for duplexes - be dropped?

Without basement suites, tens of thousands would be homeless, or face much higher apartment/duplex rents, or be forced into multiple person living arrangements with compromised privacy, etc. - all of which can create numerous other problems, also creating safety concerns.

The Issue:

Basement suites in existing homes, especially older existing homes, cannot comply with modern building codes without enormous costs being incurred - thus building codes, specific to such situations, and "grandfathering" should be considered.

It is possible that the permitting process could include different requirements and/or different specifications for absentee landlords, vs. resident owner-occupied landlords.

On-site Parking requirements:

This could be a condition of proper approval for a legal basement suite. Thus, a proper approval process, might greatly improve upon the current situation, where basement suites are already existing anyway, and creating parking problems on a block. The Bar-b-que out back might have to go, in order to create on-site parking to get the cars off the street - but municipal authorities could require that, as a condition of approval of what is currently an "illegal" suite where everyone is currently parking out front. It would help, not hurt, the current situation.

People living in basement suites pretty much includes the majority of the population at one point of their life or another - they most certainly are not "undesirables", any more than any other renters in apartments of duplexes are. It is a stage of life issue, an affordability issue, a "going-to-school issue, or a life-style choice - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with living in a basement suite in order to save money on rent, for anybody.

Most suites, are not problematic to the neighbours at all, most tenants are not problematic at all, and tenants often are people who take the bus, thus helping improve bus services into a community. Having a properly approved basement suite, increases property value for the homeowner, allows for proper insurance, allows for proper financing (CMHC will not give high-ratio mortgages to young people if they have a "mortgage helper" basement suite tenant living in the basement - which is really strange, when you think about it!) and so on.

Seniors/widows and widowers:

Could earn some badly needed income, students could use the cheap rent, communities wouldn't be emptied out as the kids grow up and leave, young couples could use the "mortgage helper when buying a new home" - there are many benefits.

Conclusion:

The many benefits of allowing secondary suites, greatly outweighs the negatives - they should be allowed in properly zoned areas, starting with a major overhaul of Provincial building codes which are creating major barriers to legalizing basement and other secondary suites. The power to ultimately approve or dissaprove of such suites, will still rest at the Municipal level, and Municipalities have many other tools in the tool box to deal with any negatives that may be created. However, unless the Provincial building codes are changed to allow for such approvals, Municipalities currently do NOT have the power to approve these suites at all - they have no discretion on this, they must apply the Provincial building codes. This does not allow Municipalities to be able to make those common-sense, logical decisions - instead, they are forced to "go by the book" and dissaprove all such suites, if for example, they don't have an eight foot ceiling. The Provincial building codes should be changed to allow Municipalities the power and the discretion to deal with these suites locally.

What does your buying farmed salmon in your local supermarket or restaurant or you having some exotic fish dish at the top dining room in the city

What does your buying farmed salmon in your local supermarket or restaurant, or you having some exotic fish dish at the top dining room in the city, and the collapse of the fish stalks in the lower half of the food chain? The fish farm industry is a voracious consumer of wild fish ground in to fishmeal, and there is almost 44 billion pounds[1] of fish discarded in the process of catching that tuna, salmon, cod and swordfish.

Why should this concern you?

We have got to understand that the earth is a close environment system, and what we do in Alberta does affect what happens elsewhere in the world.

We also have to start you look at our water in the context it is provided to us by Mother Nature, or the Great Creator.

We cannot treat it as if it can clean itself of all things that humans throw in it.

Alberta’s waters flow in to two of this earth’s oceans.

So when you look at the water situation in your own back yard, think about the fact it has flowed through, across, or under someone else’s backyard, and unless we all get our backyards cleaned up, we will all suffer in someway, by the water that runs through, under, or across our own backyards.

Economics and ecology both have their roots from the Greek word ‘oikos,’ meaning living place.

Most people I know that earn their living from the earth they walk on will tell you that their pay-checks are directly related to how they take care of the environment around them. Unfortunately, this is a philosophy that is quickly disappearing through the lure of the all might dollar that the large multi-national agri-industries are waving in front of the family farmer.

In his book ‘Seven Generations’[2], Mike Nickerson uses the illustration of wine making and the ecology. He says that the limitation of toleration is shown by the fact that when the yeast eats enough of the sugars in the fruit juices used for wine making, alcohol is excreted as a by-product. When the level of alcohol reaches 14 percent, the yeast can no longer tolerate that environment cannot tolerate it and dies.

If you have tapped into the money flow from the oil and gas patch, you will probably not want to see anything change.

The fact is that Alberta could turn the nozzle down on the current economic growth and see virtually no change in the growth of the province's economy, and in fact see the growth become manageable, and the future of the environment improve.

As this article is probably being read by people that work on the land, you already know in the back of your minds that there is a bigger problem with the environment that people in the Klein Government want to talk about, can talk about, or need to talk about.

Whenever there is a comment made about the environment, those of as that talk about it are set to the side with names or labels that designed to take the attention from mainstream Alberta away from us.

As the two major centres of Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton expand at unsustainable rates, and the Oil Sands industry expands at a rate that is unsustainable both in environmental and human resources, it is time to take a look at the way the provincial government looks at our water.

Water in this province is looked at as a renewable resource that will always be there, and has the capacity to provide us with all that we need.

It does, but it is quickly becoming stretched passed its limits even now, and there are no reasonable plans to look in to the future and see what we need to do now, to fix the problems of the past and truly put forward thinking policies in place so our water is there for the springs seven generations down the road.

Our current governing party in Alberta can only see to the borders of the province, and the short-term benefits of the booming economy.


The Deserted Village, A Poem

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)

Even in 1770, In the Dedication of the poem, 'The Deserted Village,' to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith writes: "... it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages; and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular, as erroneous. Still, however. I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states, by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone."

Is Alberta destined to follow its craving for the luxuries that another oil and gas boom has to offer at the expense of our environment?

It would seem the provincial governments only reason to be, is to encourage and foster more and more growth in the energy sector, with no idea as to the costs we have and will incur in other areas of our lives and society, such as the environment and our water.

One solution to the above problem is to redeisgn democracy in Alberta.

This would involve not only how we elect our provinical governments, but where they work. It would involve rearranging the administration of provinical government as well as the laws, regulations, and the divisions of both the counties and electoral districts.

It would involve setting a province wide set of environmental, planning, and business development laws and regulations.

It would involve folding many regulatory agencies, boards, and departments into one focus. It would involve providing all Albertan’s with one point of contact, whether they are applying to build a hog processing plant, a pulp mill, oil or gas processing facility, drill a well, bury a pipeline, take arable farm land out of agricultural production and use it for an industial purpose, or build homes on it.

It will mean that the EUB, municpal planning boards, county planning boards, renewable resources development authorities would be folded into a new way of doing business.

What I am talking about here is divide the province up into a bioregional management boards, based on the watsheds. It means rearranging the county and municipal districts so their boundaries coincide with the boundaries of the watersheds, and not stradle them.

For too long industrial development organizations or companies have known they can play one county off against another to see who will relax their planning and land zoning by-laws the most. Sometimes a plant could be applying to two counties, yet their plans call for locations the plant on one side of a river or the other.

We forget in this province that when a pulp mill or oil refinery discharges its waste water, or takes its water from a rivier system, that the downstream communities and evnivorns are affected.

We forget that the water sources we can not see, can be affected for miles, if not hundreds of miles around us, either positively or negatively.

This new concept of how we govern ourselves would fold all stakeholders in the various watersheds, or bioregions. It means that the residents can elect their own people to sit on the boards, to deliberate and approve any and all development in the watershed.

This would mean oil and gas activity, logging, residential, industrial and recreational development, in accordance to the environmental, planning, and development laws and regulations.

In addition to the above, our provincial legislature would also change. It would have members sitting in it as MLA’s elected through a Proportional Representation, and they would also be expected to sit on the Bioregional Management Boards as a conduit to the provincial legislature, but not a voting member of the Bioregional Management Boards.

Our current legislature does not have any sort of mechanism for public participation in much of any policy development. In my new arrangement the Legislature would be radically changed, and so will the way it does business.

It’s job will be to create a province wide set of policies, laws, and regulations with regards to the environment.

This set of policies, laws, and regulations would be deliberated, discussed, and proposed through a new system of committees of the Legislature, and sit in public, with their proceedings open to public view via television, the internet, or attendance in person.

Our committees would be mandated to use as a large to net to grab the most up to date, and unpoliticized data, research and opinion as they can.

Their view of a situation that will be used to measure their success, will be how the first nations have looked at things. The first nations have in their tradition, as looking at what they do now, and its affect on the next seven generations.
[1] Swing, John Temple, “What Future for the Oceans?’ Foreign Affairs, Volume 82, No 2, September/October 2003
[2] published by Guideposts for a Sustainable Future, P.O. Box 374, Merrickville, Ontario K0G 1N0 @ $4.95

Water. Water is the essence of all life.

With out it, humans and all forms of life on earth will not exist.

Water is something men have died for, on, in, and under.

Water or traces of water are the first thing that our astronauts look for when looking for planets and the chance of human life ever being there.

So why do humans continually contaminate their own water, and why specifically do we in Alberta treat water as a throw away commodity as we do with our cars, food, entertainment devices, and lives?

In Alberta like many other jurisdictions we have gotten use to this notion that if we throw it in the rivers or the ground and it goes away, it is no longer our problem. An out of sight it is out of mind out of mentality.

While visiting a conference centre many years ago an elder from a near by First Nations that explained it to me this way. Every one of our seven oceans starts with one small drop from a glacier in the mountains on one of the continent. He went on to say that the reason our oceans are dying, is that the respect for the water far up in the mountains has died as well.

We consider the rivers and waterways our very own flushing system to which we have no connection to as they pass in front of our homes. Or we think we don't.

Rooted in the Greek word ‘oikos,’ meaning living place, are the two words economics and ecology.

Rooted in the Greek word ‘oikos,’ meaning living place, are the two words economics and ecology.

We have got to understand that the earth is a closed environment system, with what we do in Alberta affecting what happens elsewhere in the world.

Our current government’s myopic view of the world is quickly sending us down the wrong path.

We cannot treat our environment as if it can clean itself of all the things that humans throw in it.

Most people I know that earn their living from the earth they walk on will tell you that their pay-checks are directly related to how they take care of the environment around them.

In his book ‘Seven Generations’[1], Mike Nickerson uses the illustration of wine making and the ecology. He says that the limitation of toleration is shown by the fact that when the yeast eats enough of the sugars in the fruit juices used for wine making, alcohol is excreted as a by-product. When the level of alcohol reaches 14 percent, the yeast can no longer tolerate that environment and dies.

The fact is that Alberta can turn the nozzle down on the current economic growth with virtually no change in the growth of the province's economy, while the growth becomes manageable.

As the two major centres of Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton, expand at unsustainable rates, parallel to the Oil Sands expansion, it is time to take a look at the way the provincial government looks at our water.

Water in this province is looked at as a renewable resource that will always be there, has the capacity to provide us with all that we need.

Our current governing party in Alberta can only see to the borders of the province, and the short-term benefits of the booming economy, and can be given away free to the oil and gas industries.

The Deserted Village, A Poem

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)

Is Alberta destined to follow its craving for the luxuries that another oil and gas boom has to offer at the expense of our environment? Our environment tomorrow or next century?

It would seem the provincial governments only reason to be, is to encourage and foster more and more growth in the energy sector, with no attention paid to the real costs we will incur in other areas of our lives and society, such as the environment.

One solution to the above problem is to redesign democracy in Alberta.

This would involve not only how we elect our provincial governments but also how and where they work. It would involve rearranging the administration of provincial government as well as the laws, regulations, and the divisions of both the counties and electoral districts.

It would involve setting a province wide set of environmental, planning, and business development laws and regulations – in the open and available for input from all Albertans and those that live downstream from us.

It would involve folding many regulatory agencies, boards, and departments into one focus, providing all Albertan’s with one point of contact. This being whether they are applying to build a hog processing plant, a pulp mill, oil or gas processing facility, drill a well, bury a pipeline, take arable farm land out of agricultural production and use it for industrial purposes, or build homes on it.

This also includes any and all by-laws and land use decisions contemplated by the large urban centres.

It will mean that the EUB, municipal planning boards, county planning boards, renewable resources development authorities would be forced to start doing business in a new way.

One small way will be to start using the Triple Bottom Line accounting system, that takes into consideration economic, social and environmental factors when deliberating.

No longer can we have quasi-judicial boards like the EUB with its members appointed by the sitting government behind closed doors, with the power to exclude whomever they want.

Today we see that it is usually the critics of the oil and gas industry being the ones to be excluded that the EUB excludes and needs more in it’s mandate than, ‘the discovery, development, and delivery of Alberta’s resources and utilities.’

What I am talking about here is, dividing the province up into a bioregional management boards, based on the watersheds. It means rearranging the county and municipal districts so their boundaries coincide with the boundaries of the watersheds, and not straddle them.

For too long industrial development organizations or companies have known they can play one county or town off another to see who will relax their planning and land zoning by-laws the most.

We forget in this province that when a pulp mill or oil refinery discharges its waste water, or takes its water from a river system, that both the upstream and downstream communities and environs are affected.

For too long we have seen politicians in one area of the province lure industry by making decisions that they think only affect their little piece of the earth. In fact we are seeing the affects of the decisions made on the oil sands developments poisoning people far away, down stream and away from the eyes and ears of the local politicians. We cannot continue this policy of, ‘out of sight, out of the way,’ of planning.

Not only is it the water we can see, but also those that which we cannot see, can be affected for miles, if not hundreds of miles around us, positively or negatively, for decades if not centuries into the future.

This new concept of how we govern ourselves would fold all stakeholders in the various watersheds, or bioregions into management boards. It means that the residents can elect their own people to sit on the boards, to deliberate and approve any and all development in the watershed. There would be fixed terms, lobbyist legislation, and a whole list of conflict and ethical rules to be followed by all elected to the boards.

This would mean oil and gas activity, logging, residential, industrial and recreational development, will have to conform to the environmental, planning, and development laws and regulations. There would be no meddling by the minister. If the decision is made based on the deliberations of the management board, and it conforms to the standards set by the legislature, then the minister could not intervene.

This set of policies, laws, and regulations would be deliberated, discussed, and proposed through a new system of committees of the Legislature, and sit in public, with their proceedings open to public view via television, the internet, or attendance in person. Behind these policies, laws and regulations must be a set of substantial penalties to be used when the carrot does not.

The set of policies, laws, and regulations would conform to or exceed the set of national standards. It is not only Albertans that are affected by our decisions, but people far downstream or downwind, alive now and in the future that are affected.

Unlike Shelly Willson’s recent comments in an op/ed piece in the Calgary Herald on Jun 9, 2006, our ways of living and how our forests and environmental concerns are managed are not about land use by-laws and some sort of, ‘hierarchy of land uses taken in isolation,’ by the stakeholders in one area of a watershed, or bioregion.

Our thinking must be about the actions taken in an area such as the area west of Bragg Creek that Spray Lakes Sawmills wants to clear cut and what that will do to the entire watershed, as well as the next seven generations from the headwaters of Bragg Creek to where it ends up, the Hudson Bay.

The decision on a situation like the clear cutting of a forest should not just focus on the hikers and their ability to see a, ‘pristine forest,’ or ‘glimpses of moose.’

The decision should be focusing on the bigger picture.

The big picture lies further downstream, and much further in the future.
[1] published by Guideposts for a Sustainable Future, P.O. Box 374, Merrickville, Ontario K0G 1N0 @ $4.95

It is obvious from the falling turn-out at the polling stations at the previous provincial elections,

It is obvious from the falling turn-out at the polling stations at the previous provincial elections, and the turn off by young Albertan’s towards their elected officials and the institutions that they are supposed to be over seeing on behalf of Albertan’s that there is a problem with democracy in Alberta.

When you consider that Alberta is the garden that Preston Manning sewed the seeds for the Reform Party of Canada, and that the majority of the current MLA’s and many of their constituency associations are card carrying members democratic reform would be a given here.

It is not.

In fact under the Ralph Klein government, secrecy and shrinking democratic practices are the norm, not the rarity.

We have short legislative sittings, that seem to be more of a pest than a place where the Premier and his government bring issues, ideas, and policies to be discussed, debated, and passed into law.

We have no all party committee system here in Alberta, but a system of one party Standing Policy Committees, where only the sound of the voices of the governing party are heard, and where the majority of the legislative business is conducted. Out of the reach of the Legislature, it’s record of proceedings known as the Hansard, and most of all, out of ear shot of Albertans.

Do you know that you can go onto the web site of the House of Commons, the place where you send your M.P.’s to deal with the business of the nation, and search for any and every word that your MP has said, either in the House of Commons or during a committee hearing?

You can watch and read all of the proceedings of the House of Commons, Senate, Committees hearings, and what is being told to them from outside agencies, special interest groups, bureaucrats, and research conducted for specific purposes such as to help develop good public policy?

In fact you can read every word of the presentations yourself and comment on them to the committee. If the committee feels your input is important enough, they can invite you to present your ideas in person, and question you on it? All of this is open to the public, from anywhere in Canada or the world in fact.

We cannot do that here in Alberta.

We can search the Hansard, but your results get kicked back to you in PDF format, to which you must read every word, and search for the information that you had asked for.

This method is archaic and disrespectful to those people that have come before the current governing party and set up our parliamentary and democratic system.

The question that needs to be asked, is why? When a government starts to close its doors along with their lips, you must wonder what they have to hide.

Did you know you could also go to the web site of the House of Commons and watch much of the proceedings in either real time, or from their archives?

This can help you put faces to words and names, and also watch exactly what your MP’s and Senators are doing.

We don’t seem to be able to do that here in Alberta. Is that because we might not like watching our M.L.A.’s reading golfing magazines instead of thinking and deliberating on the more pressing needs and concerns of real Albertans?

You might be want to throw scorn on the Senate of Canada, more commonly known as the Upper Chamber or sometimes knick named as the Body of Sober Second thought, but this group of people have been producing some rather interesting, intriguing and useful research and deliberation into some of the long-term plans and policies this country needs to look at and adopt in some for or another.

Ever seen that sort of work come from your MLA’s? Ever been able to read what your MLA is doing, other than what is sent to the media from the Provincial Public Information Bureau?

Do you know that, someone in the Public Information department reads even your letters and e-mails sent to your MLA? A reply you think is coming from your MLA is really coming from a person in the Public Information department with the only bit of content provided by the MLA is their signature?

Why do Albertan’s not participate in the elections nor really care about how their provincial government operates behind closed doors?

Is it because we have become so self-serving, that unless it is something that affects us directly we really don’t care?

Is it because we have forgotten that we are the government and those people you send to either Ottawa as your MP or to the Legislature in Edmonton, are representing you and should be open to your scrutiny, as you see fit, not how they see fit?

Ralph Klein is an embarrassment to Alberta.

Ralph Klein is an embarrassment to Alberta.

He suffers from a self-centred and short-sited view of his position in Canada and the place that Alberta can occupy in the history of Canada to come.

Alberta did not suddenly arrive at the enviable position it does not find itself in now, nor did its current position have much to do with whether we had Ralph Klein as premier, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle the Moose as premier.

It had more to do with the infrastructure and vision of the political leaders that both Canada and Alberta have had in the past 133 years.

Alberta could not have been, without the vision of someone sitting in Ottawa saying that we needed a railroad from Coast to Coast.

Alberta could not have survived its early history of being a ‘have not’ province in serious trouble of being unable to feed its people, until the first oil well was drilled and completed.

Alberta, except for oil and gas, has little to support it.

Our agricultural industries are fickle at best, at the behest of Mother Nature and world markets. Neither of which Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle can have much power over.

As we have seen our lumber and tourism industries have never been reliable in the long term because they rely on many outside influences and pressures, that again Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle can have much power over.

When Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle take a look at all of the things that Alberta gains by being a part of Canada, and can benefit from by not being a skinflint when it comes to equalization payments, something that if Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle are premier, they have much control over anyways.

It benefits Alberta and Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle as premier to have strong provinces with strong post-secondary and health systems.

It benefits Alberta to have a strong confederation with every province being able to contribute in some way to both the past and future of Canada, that it makes you wonder why Ralph Klein’s whining is paid attention to any, but the far closed-minded right wing of his party.

Of the three, Ralph Klein, Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle, can point out who sees that this sort of pandering to the far right wing of the Tory party here in Alberta is good for Alberta, Albertans, and Canada.

Since Ralph Klein only received 21% of the popular vote when getting the set of keys to the Premier’s office, even Bullwinkle can see that the first leader that offers viable, believable and grown up political vision and leadership, will be able to wipe the Alberta Legislature clean.

Alberta is changing. Alberta is growing up. Alberta is becoming far more cosmopolitan and visionary with a view of the world that obviously Ralph Klein has chosen to ignore.

If any leader, be it Jim Dinning, or Bullwinkle want to lead Alberta into a future that can be endless and a leader of good in the world, then they must remove the blinders that are the trademark of Ralph Klein and his tired myopic Tory party of today in Alberta.

Can Jim Dinning do it?

I doubt it. He is chasing the same people for their support that Ralph Klein chased to get elected so often. Saying little to offend them, and showing no vision to attract the people in this province who have seen no reason to vote, for either the Tories or anyone else for that matter in Alberta’s provincial political landscape.

Jim Dinning should follow the sage advice of Bullwinkle. Always look for greener pastures where no one else is looking. Who knows, maybe Jim Dinning will find his Rocky to lead him to the greener pastures.