Alberta fighting division with division

Since the federal election in October 2019, there has been a clear increase in separatist sentiment in Alberta and other parts of western Canada. I recently blocked Wexit ads on Facebook because I was getting sick of them.

Many feel like we're under attack by the federal government and other provinces. Across our country, our health and quality of life are quite dependent on fossil fuels, and a significant chunk of that comes from Alberta. Yet in 2017 Justin Trudeau said, "We can't shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out." Even though he backpedaled on that comment, it gave many Albertans the impression that he doesn't care about our jobs and prosperity. The federal government passed laws that many in the resource industry think will make it harder to get resource projects done. And they created a national carbon tax.

So Albertans get the impression that Trudeau is against us, he has numerous scandals involving questionable ethics and competence, and then much of the rest of the country re-elects him. Yes, his party is reduced to a minority, but the balance of power is held by other parties that want more restrictions on fossil fuels, and the Bloc Quebecois that appears openly hostile to Alberta.

Justin Trudeau says he's been trying to build unity nationwide, but we've become more divided.

But as Albertans, we should not fight division with division.

First of all, let's acknowledge that human-caused climate change is serious and we need to work toward net-zero global carbon emissions in the coming decades. If you read through my Facebook feed, it's no secret that I support major action on this.

When people predict bad things in the future, the worst predictions are rarely right. In this case the worst predictions are human extinction or even the extinction of all life of earth, and I (with my limited understanding of the subject) consider these extremely unlikely. But predictions of 100 million premature deaths this century, even more in coming centuries, and accelerating extinction of other species are not the worst predictions; they represent mainstream science.

If you or someone you love works in the fossil fuel industry, it is certainly hard to support government policies that would eliminate these jobs in the coming decades. I get it. Renewable energy development, retrofitting of buildings, and transportation infrastructure construction will create many jobs, but I understand the fear of forced change. People don't know if change will help them get ahead or leave them behind.

For all of Justin Trudeau's faults, he actually brought in the most pro-Alberta climate policy of all the parties that support a carbon tax. The rebates all go to the province that the money came from; since Alberta has the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions and hence the highest costs, we get the biggest rebates. If everyone in Canada simply got the same rebate, that would be another net flow of money out of Alberta. The Liberals are also the only party to support both a carbon tax and a new oil export pipeline so that we can get a better price for our oil while we can still sell it.

As for the economic effects of a carbon tax, I challenge you to find a jurisdiction that has had a carbon tax for several years where the economy has done badly. I'll mention Sweden as a success story--it has the highest carbon tax on earth, and its economy has done just fine in that time.

When we get criticized for pipeline building, oil sands mining, and stuff like that, let's not pretend that cutting the emissions from our oil production or converting our coal power plants to natural gas is enough. Yes, let's talk about the progress we've made, but let's be just as vocal about our commitment to achieving net-zero emissions in the coming decades.

As a province and as individuals, let's:

• Invest in much more renewable energy, grid energy storage systems (pumped storage hydroelectricity is just one option that doesn't need a single new invention), and maybe nuclear power.
• Finish converting our coal power plants to natural gas.
• Invest in carbon capture, both from industrial stacks and from the atmosphere. (Carbon Engineering has a promising technology to convert atmospheric CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels. If it can run on 100% renewable energy, then it would produce carbon-neutral hydrocarbons.)
• Produce oil as cleanly as we can, to sell to the world for as long as they use oil.
• Actively work toward net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 (with a possible exception for industries exporting to countries that haven't achieved net-zero emissions by then).
• Diversify our economy so that when the world won't buy our oil--or anyone else's--we still have a strong economy.
• Support political candidates who show strong integrity and leadership skill, and support the kinds of policies (in many areas, not just climate change) that you think are a good idea. Speak out against hypocrisy, abuse of power, and neglect for our future.
• Don't insult people we disagree with especially if they're motivated by love and compassion; respond intelligently and respectfully. (I'm getting tired of the insults directed at Greta Thunberg on Facebook.)

The coming decades will bring an unprecedented level of change to the world. Much of it can be positive. Do we want to isolate ourselves and become an economic also-ran, or do we want to work with the rest of Canada and the world to meet this challenge head-on?

A couple of points about the election

Recently I've said some things that are critical of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, and a bit against Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party.  I haven't really talked about the other parties either, but I have my issues with them too.  But today I'm not going to be critical of any politician in particular; I just want to make a couple of points.

First of all, I don't believe politics can really solve the problems in our society.  It can do a lot of good and a lot of bad, but it can't truly fix things.  If violence, oppression, other crime, and inequality are going to go away, better laws and government programs can help, but ultimately it takes an attitude change on everyone's part.  If we all just put our own interests first, no amount of rules or government programs can fix these problems.  Do you really want police and politicians who only care about their own interests?  That's a recipe for corruption.

Mentioning corruption brings me to my second point.  When I was in China with my wife recently, I heard a few stories about corruption.  High-up officials will routinely "negotiate" discounts in restaurants after eating and getting the bill, and if the restaurant staff refuse, government officials could find "health violations" in the restaurant and shut it down.  A beautiful tree in a park, covered in flowers, disappeared one day.  One of my wife's relatives commented that only a government official could get away with stealing like that.  I'm sure there are far worse examples than these.  These stories of corruption make me appreciate democracy more.  Democracy doesn't make government corruption impossible, and as I said in my first point, it can't really solve our problems.  But it gives everyday people like you and me the ability to do something about government corruption.  You may debate whether it gives us enough of a way to eliminate corruption, but at least it's something.  So if you're a Canadian citizen, please vote tomorrow.

It's not just about policy

I've finally started looking at the party platforms for Canada's big political parties.  I wouldn't really consider myself conservative or liberal; I'm kind of middle of the road, and maybe totally out there on a few issues.  (For example, I think I'd like to shrink the economy.  Without sacrificing jobs or significantly reducing economic freedom, of course.  But that's a topic for another day.)  I don't know about you, but I find it hard to know which policies are good ideas.  For example, both the Conservatives and Liberals are proposing improved benefits for people caring for sick family members.  The Liberal plan seems to provide more, but then that could make it harder to eliminate the deficit.  So which approach is better?

Some policy ideas could be good if they're implemented right, bad if they're implemented badly.  And the party platforms go into very little detail.

So when I'm judging parties' policies, I think I should base my opinion more on the few issues that I'm more familiar with than the ones I'm not so familiar with.  But beyond that, there are some pretty important other factors.  So here are some things I'm thinking about, including some criteria I'm using to judge policies:

• Leadership skill - Can the leader get the team working together effectively?  Do they make smart decisions when faced with unforeseen issues like recessions, wars, disasters, or smaller day-to-day issues?
• Integrity - How much corruption goes on under their leadership?  Do they keep their promises?  (I think I'm actually more concerned with corruption than with keeping campaign promises.  For one thing, unforeseen circumstances can make keeping a promise a harmful course of action.)
• How much of a history of fear-mongering do they have? It's hard to know if the stuff they're afraid of now is legitimate or not, but we can look back at their past records.  For example, when those boats from Sri Lanka arrived in Canada full of refugees a while back, did they find evidence that any of them were terrorists as the government suspected?
• Are their policy priorities in line with my values?  It's hard to evaluate how they plan to act on their values, but its nice to know if their principles are similar to mine.
• Are the policies that I understand best based on evidence of what works, rather than just ideology or impressing voters?

I'd like to give a couple of examples on that last one.  The Liberals want to cancel the planned corporate tax reduction.  They think the tax reduction would reduce revenue by $5-6 billion per year.  The Conservatives claim that some experts say canceling the tax reduction would cost many jobs.  (I'm not sure if there are experts speaking out in favour of the Liberals' plan.)  Overall, I'm not sure where I stand on the tax reduction, but I do believe the loss of revenue would be less than the Liberals predict.

On the other side, many critics think the Conservatives' "get tough on crime" plan will actually make Canada more dangerous.  Here's an article from February critical of the idea, and here's an article that cites some statistics from the US suggesting that this is a bad idea.  Even if some of the Conservatives' other plans actually do something to address the root issues behind crime, their plan to build more jails and toughen sentences could undo some or all of those improvements.  Maybe a few of their "tough on crime" measures are good ideas, but by and large, I'm not optimistic.  And sometimes the opposition has supported these measures.

So do I vote for the devil I know or one of the devils I don't know?  Or do I vote for a party with no realistic chance of forming a government in the hope that voices outside the political establishment will gain a stronger voice?

I'm pretty sure I won't be voting for the devil I know.  But which alternative will I pick?

How I sometimes feel about politics

Corrupt, you're corrupt,
and Bring corruption to all that you touch.

Hold, you’ll behold,
And beholden for all that you’ve done.

And Spell, cast a spell,
Cast a spell on the country you run.

And risk, you will risk,
You will risk all their lives and their souls.

And burn, you will burn,
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell.
You’ll burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell for your sins.

And our freedom's consuming itself,
What we've become is contrary to what we want
Take a bow.

Death, you bring death and destruction to all that you touch.

Pay, you must pay
You must pay for your crimes against the earth.

Hex, feed the hex
Feed the hex on the country you love

And Beg, you will beg
You will beg for their lives and their souls.

Yeah,
Burn, you will burn,
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell,
You’ll burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell,
Burn in hell, yeah you'll burn in hell for your sins.

 --Muse, Take a Bow

I'm not aiming this song at one particular person, but here's just one example of why I sometimes feel this way.  Canada's government (which could get defeated in the upcoming election, but probably won't be) has proposed detaining many desperate refugees without evidence of crimes.  (There's a good critique of it here.)  I wonder what our evangelical Christian prime minister thinks about the Bible verse that says "Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner" (Exodus 22:21) and other similar verses.  Maybe he picks and chooses which parts of the Bible to apply.  But wait, evangelicals don't simply pick and choose.  They have legitimate reasons for saying certain parts of the Bible don't apply now.  I wonder why that verse doesn't apply.

I'm being tough on the Conservatives right now, but I've got issues with the other parties too.  Hopefully I'll write about a bit of that before the election.

Chalk River

So the Chalk River reactor got shut down again, and this time it could take several months to start it up. (Some background information in case you're unfamiliar with it: the Chalk River reactor produces about half of the world's medical isotopes. It's more than 50 years old. There's more information on Wikipedia.) So now Canada has to ration its medical isotopes and I suspect other countries have to do this too. Obviously the highest priority cases will get precedence, but a lot of other people are going to suffer because of this, and I wouldn't be surprised if people die too. Many elective surgeries will be postponed. These surgeries may not be a matter of life and death, but these people will definitely suffer. I have a friend who's waiting for wrist surgery that keeps getting postponed. Although this isn't related to the isotope shortage, it does show how important elective surgery is. Her wrist has been in pain for a year and she can't do much with that hand. Although she doesn't show it much, it's very frustrating!

I work in an industrial facility, so I understand that it's unrealistic to fix a serious issue in a short time. We're probably stuck with the isotope shortage for a while now. But many Canadian governments have neglected to keep that reactor in excellent shape. When the quality of life and even the survival of so many people all over the world are at stake, there has to be a long-term plan to provide a secure source of isotopes. I also wonder if it's realistic to have several smaller reactors all over the world rather than so few large ones. That would give us better backup during shutdowns like this one. When the next election happens in Canada, I hope to see the major parties give a workable, long-term vision for our supply of medical isotopes. I'm not a one-issue voter, but this issue will definitely be on my mind.

Becoming less conservative

I've heard that Winston Churchill said, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." It turns out this isn't true, but I'm going to talk about that quote today anyway.

By these standards, my brain has been atrophying over the last several years. My parents have generally supported right-wing political parties for as long as I can remember, so I was raised with a conservative bias. I let myself be influenced by other conservative people too, so by the end of high school, I might have been more conservative than my parents. Come to think of it, they might have been more moderate than I thought.

Conservatives tend to favour smaller government and lower taxes. This made sense to me. If people pay lower taxes, they can buy more, stimulating the economy. If companies sell more stuff and pay less taxes, they can hire more people, stimulating the economy. I cared about poverty too, but the old "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime" made me think conservative poverty-fighting programs were just as good as liberal ones.

More recently the media has talked about how the American economy did so much better under Bill Clinton than under George W. Bush. I know the president isn't the only factor, but here was a big example of economic success under a liberal leader. Last year, Scott Adams (the writer of Dilbert) commissioned a survey of economists to find out which presidential candidate they thought would be best for the economy. Overall, they favoured Obama over McCain. It also turned out that more economists are registered as Democrats than Republicans. (To anyone who thinks political affiliation biased the results: in general the Independents favoured Obama. Also, the fact that there are more Democrats than Republicans in the survey shows that economists tend to favour liberal policies in general.) So there's more evidence that liberal policies could be good for the economy.

Changes in my faith in God (yes, I'm still an evangelical Christian in case you're wondering) have made me less inclined to support socially conservative causes too, but I'm not going to get into the reasons for that today.

I've still never voted for the Liberal party. I'd generally consider myself moderate, not so much liberal or conservative. But my recent votes against the Liberals have had more to do with integrity and leadership than with policies.

The coalition

It's finally time for me to weigh in on that coalition that almost replaced our minority government here in Canada. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• In Canada, we technically elect our Members of Parliament (MPs), not our Prime Minister. Parliament has the right and the responsibility to hold the Prime Minister and cabinet accountable. Forming a coalition to defeat the government was within the rights of the parties involved. We don't have rules to distinguish between legitimately holding the Prime Minister accountable and making a shameless power grab. Nor should we. Bad policies and lack of leadership skill are legitimate reasons to defeat a Prime Minister, and I don't think we can make a rule to define these situations. If the opposition parties really do make a shameless power grab, hopefully the public will see through it and punish them for it in the next election.
• In Canada, we technically elect our MPs, not our Prime Minister. But when we vote for our MP, we know which party each candidate is in, and we know who their leaders are. I'm sure many people in my riding voted for Tim Uppal because he's in Stephen Harper's party, not because he's Tim Uppal. Likewise, I'm sure many votes across Canada were influenced by the party leaders more than the local candidates.
• More people voted for the Liberals, NDP, or Bloc Quebecois than for the Conservatives. This gives the coalition some democratic legitimacy.
• More people voted for the Conservatives than any other individual party. This should count for something. While I believe most NDP and Bloc Quebecois supporters would rather have Stephane Dion as Prime Minister than Stephen Harper, there are many exceptions. They voted against the Liberals for a reason.
• When Stephen Harper threatened to take away government funding of political parties, I think that gave the opposition parties a legitimate reason to defeat the government. To do that on such short notice would cripple the opposition. But Harper changed his mind, taking away a major justification for the coalition.
  
• When I saw Stephane Dion on TV during the election campaign, it sounded like he thought Canadians were morally obligated to defeat Harper and make Dion our Prime Minister, because of Harper's lies. (I'm not even going to touch the issue of whether Harper was lying or not.) When he announced his resignation after the election, it looked like he would be only the second Liberal leader in Canadian history not to become Prime Minister. Did he decide to bring down the government because of some post-election bitterness? I suspect a shameless power grab.
• While I don't like the idea of suspending parliament to prevent a non-confidence vote, that's apparently within the rights of the Governor General. And based on opinion polls showing a strong Conservative lead, suspending parliament was probably the only way to keep the government that the most people wanted.
• Without the threatened loss of party funding, the coalition used the government's lack of action on the economy as its justification. I have no idea what would be best for our economy. I would lean toward a small bailout, but I'm no expert. Since I'm not very sure which path to take, I would favour keeping the Conservatives in power because they won the last election.

While I think Harper should remain Prime Minister for now, he hasn't been very cooperative and he seems to take pleasure in hurting the opposition. He needs to watch himself. Meanwhile, I'm glad to see that the new Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is sounding more cooperative than Stephane Dion. Maybe our government can accomplish something this winter, and if not, maybe it will be defeated for a more legitimate reason.

Making fun of Stephane Dion

"I didn't know Celine Dion had a sister."
--John Stewart talking about Stephane Dion

The four most romantic words

"It's a minority government."
--Helena Guergis, a Member of Parliament from Ontario

With those four words, Helena Guergis convinced her fiance, recently defeated MP Rahim Jaffer, to get married that day. They went out, got rings, found a marriage commissioner, and got married. They had planned to get married on October 18, but called it off when the Prime Minister called an election. Although the election was over before the 18th, I bet it would've been hard to campaign and plan a wedding at the same time.

So they found a way to guarantee that an unexpected election (which can easily happen when there's a minority government) wouldn't interfere with their wedding. Congratulations!

Here's an article about it if you want more of the story.

Fearmongering

With the election less than a week away here in Canada, I guess it's time for me to comment on it. As usual, there's plenty of fearmongering, especially the governing party trying to make us afraid of the opposition party. The last few elections, the Liberals have warned us about the Conservative Party/Canadian Alliance's hidden agenda. Now the Conservatives are warning us that the Liberals' environmental policy will endanger our economy. They say these tough economic times are no time to try out risky new policies.

To be fair, the other parties want us to be scared of the Conservatives. But what's riskier: going too slow on environmental protection, or damaging the economy? And if Elizabeth May is right, a carbon tax (with an income tax cut) can actually stimulate an economy. She claims it worked well in Sweden. She even said it during the big debate, and I didn't hear anyone claim that's not true or give a reason why Canada is so different it wouldn't work here.

Speaking of Elizabeth May, I'm starting to warm up to her. During the last election campaign, I was impressed with the Green Party's claim that, "We're not left or right; we're forward." While that could easily be a nice soundbite with little substance to it, I liked it that they're trying to reach out to all ends of the political spectrum, recognizing that some conservatives want stronger environmental policies too. Then Elizabeth May became the leader. She became very critical of the Conservatives while forming a special agreement with the Liberals, despite the Liberals' lack of action on climate change when they were in power. And she decided to run against Peter MacKay in this election. She seemed more left than forward.

I was glad they let her into the leaders' debate last week. I may not have been a fan of the leader, but I like what she and the party stand for. But she impressed me in the debate. She seemed smart, passionate, and articulate. She showed that she values both the environment and the economy (for example, she talked about revitalizing our pulp and paper industry). And among leaders that seem to care most about insulting their opponents and scaring voters, she seemed to have an optimistic, long-term vision for this country.

Yes, she's a tad left-wing for my tastes, and she probably has some ideas that aren't so great. I don't think the Green Party has the Parliamentary experience needed to run this country either, but I'd like to see them elect some MPs and maybe even hold the balance of power in a minority government.

How concerned should I be?

As regular readers and my friends probably know, I am a Christian. You probably also know that the Bible says homosexual activity is wrong. With that in mind...

When Canada introduced gay marriage nationwide a couple years ago, I wasn't thrilled but I wasn't very concerned. On one hand, I don't think every sinful activity needs to be illegal, but on the other hand, this seemed to be giving society's blessing to a sinful activity, not just allowing it. But on the other hand, I just didn't see how gay marriage would harm our society. The Supreme Court said churches couldn't be forced to do gay marriages because that would violate religious freedom, so one of my biggest concerns was allayed.

A couple years later, for the most part I don't see problems in our society stemming from allowing gay marriage. In the legal world it gets kind of tricky though. First there's the issue of forcing marriage commissioners to perform gay weddings (which I already addressed here and here). Then there's the issue of forcing organizations that own buildings to rent out their buildings for gay weddings. I heard about this happening with the Knights of Columbus. But then I searched for an article, and I found out the BC Human Rights Tribunal decided that because Knights of Columbus is a Christian organization, they can refuse to rent out their buildings for gay weddings. They only got in trouble because they cancelled a booking after first accepting it. I have heard that businesses like Bed & Breakfasts can't turn away couples for being gay though. I'm not sure where I stand on that one. I can see that B&B owners would be concerned that they're facilitating sin if they have to rent to gay couples, but then how far should the law go in allowing businesses to discriminate in serving customers?

I think my biggest concern about this issue right now is about freedom of speech. Some people get in trouble for speaking out against homosexuality. I may not fully agree with everything the people mentioned in this article wrote, and I would prefer if they said it in a less inflammatory way. But I'm not a big fan of "hate speech" laws. Don't get me wrong, I think encouraging violence should be illegal and I think any form of hateful speech is deplorable. I just think the line between legitimate criticism of a group and hate speech is too murky. No group should be immune to criticism. I'm not sure exactly where the law should stand on this issue, but I suspect it's going too far now.

Throwing one more link and monkey wrench into this: I have seen arguments that it is okay for Christians to be in committed homosexual relationships. There's a page here that talks about that perspective. I think they make a good argument about Sodom, but I'm not so sure about their arguments about Paul's references. Their interpretation of Romans 1 certainly isn't the most obvious, from my reading. As for the other references to homosexuality in the New Testament, they base their arguments on the original Greek, which I haven't studied. Do any Greek scholars want to comment?

Reminiscing about politicians

The years 1993 to 2003 were special years for Canada and especially for Alberta. No, I'm not saying this because of economic growth or paying down the government's debts. One reason I miss those years is this: we had hilarious political leaders at both the federal and provincial levels. I've seen Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003) and Ralph Klein (Premier of Alberta from 1992 to 2006) on TV in the last two days, and it's had me reminiscing.

Chrétien was known for trying to strangle a protester, defending himself against an intruder with an Inuit carving, and most of all, for bungling the English language. Hardly a week went by without a gem in the news. Like the time someone asked him about the increased drug traffic across the border and he said, "It's more trade." (He thought they'd asked him about increased truck traffic.) Or the time some protesters got pepper-sprayed and he said, "For me, pepper, I put it on my plate."

Ralph Klein was known for his drinking (which he cut back on after the infamous homeless shelter incident that most Albertans probably remember) and for speaking without thinking. He accused eastern creeps and bums of driving up the crime rate in Calgary. He said dinosaur farts caused the ice age that killed the dinosaurs.

Stephen Harper and Ed Stelmach just aren't that funny.

(In case you're wondering, Jean Chrétien was on TV having lunch with Rick Mercer, and Ralph Klein was on TV giving horse racing advice to Lynda Steele, a local news anchor. If you want to see the Jean Chrétien clip, click here, navigate to Season 5, Episode 7, and click on "Mercer: At Harvey's with Chrétien.")

"I'm telling you, it feels good to get up without a hangover."
--Something Ralph Klein learned in his third term as premier