Is it too much to ask

Is it too much to ask that my kids keep to a few minimum standards around the house?

Is it too much to ask that they feed the animals THEY wanted?

Is it too much to ask that they try to keep their fighting to a minimum when I'm sleeping... after working all night?

Is it too much to ask for them to do their homework?

Is it too much to expect they speak to their mother and me in a reasonably respectful manner?

When do I get my life back?

I promise... I promise... when they have their own places, they can sit on the sofa as long as they want and I won't care a hoot. They can spend three consecutive hours in front of the computer and I won't say a word. They can join any club, team or group and cruise through it at their leisure and I won't raise an eyebrow.

... and I will respect their rules in their homes. I promise... I promise... I promise.... But for now, this is the house my wife and I bought.

Is it too much to expect that our rules might govern?

H1N1 Confusion

Last week, Battle-River Wainwright MLA Doug Griffiths and I had a bit of a spat on his Facebook page. On that page, Mr. Griffiths was lamenting the fact that the H1N1 vaccinations were not going smoothly, and much of the fallout was being shouldered unfairly (he thought) by the provincial government.

When I wrote that I felt some of the criticism was fairly placed on his government, he responded he was surprised how uninformed I was, and that I was guilty of politicising the whole situation for personal gain (I ran against him as a Green candidate in 2008).

Firstly, I want to make it very clear that I am not blaming MLA Doug Griffiths for the mass confusion over the vaccinations for H1N1. I know he works hard for the people in his constituency and his integrity as an MLA is not something I question. Yet, after having taken the day off to have my own children receive the vaccination (one of whom is in the high risk category) and being turned away when the clinic ran out of vaccine, I was responding as a worried dad. I still maintain the perplexing messaging about H1N1 vaccinations has confused many of us, and that some responsibility rests on decisions made by the government... of which Mr. Griffiths is a member.

Witness the comments made on Friday by Alberta's Health Minister Ron Liepert to the Calgary Herald. He criticised the media for the anger he faced from the many Albertans forced to stand for hours to get their flu shot. "I don't think it's too much of an extension to say I'm disturbed by the media coverage...."
He continued: "We launched this program asking that the first week would be for those who were most susceptible and at high risk. We also launched by encouraging all Albertans to get vaccinated because all of the indicators we had was that far too many people were going to say this, too, will pass and I don't need to get vaccinated."

Huh? Which is it, Mr. Liepert?

I will concede that I became very concerned about the well-being of my family after the news broke on Tuesday that Evan Frustaglio, the healthy 13-year-old hockey player from Ontario died of H1N1.

Even as recently as last Wednesday, Premier Ed Stelmach said, "We're the province that is offering flu vaccines for every Albertan, not just to the high-risk groups." On Thursday, Mr. Stelmach said, "We're not asking only those high-risk groups to get the vaccine first. It's open to all."

With our own premier making such statements, it seems I am guilty of nothing more than actually believing what my government is telling me. My comments were not made from political opportunism, but rather from a feeling that there has been a confused messaging around the vaccinations and that a clearer plan could have been created to ensure the supplies of the vaccine matched the demand as those supplies came on stream.

In conclusion, I certainly concede that there are many factors to the current furor that were beyond the control of the government. Yet as an Alberta parent who simply wants to act in the best interest of my children, I am confused about why a more effective plan was not in place... especially considering the length of time we have known about this strain of influenza and why there has been so much confusion surrounding the plan that WAS allegedly in place.

I will take my fair share of responsibility for perhaps worrying too much about my own family and not about the larger picture, but I think it is also fair for the Government of Alberta to shoulder some of that responsibility... and for Doug Griffiths too, even though I recognise he is not in any way personally responsible.

Hoghead Training

Lesson #1:

Two miles is only two minutes at 60 mph.

Lesson #2:

There's no cocky at at "Clear to Stopee."

Lesson #3:

Don't forget your thermos lid.

No Cocky at a Clear to Stop

For the last five weeks I've been training to become a locomotive engineer. At 48 years old I don't want to seem like a kid, but sitting at the throttle on a giant diesel locomotive with a 13,000 ton train behind me is pretty exciting stuff.

The first three weeks of training were in the classroom and the closest I got to running a train was sitting at a simulator console looking at a computer generated screen. It was interesting enough, but it wasn't really until I kicked the brakes off a real train and let it start rolling downhill toward a signal that the power and responsibility of it all started to click.

I was lucky on my first couple of trips; I had relatively light trains during daylight hours and I could see where I was going... and the lay of the land. That gave me a sense of the speed and power of a train that I'd never had before as a conductor... sitting in the 'other seat.'

Although there have already been a lot of lessons, the most impressed on me so far are:

1. At 60 mph, two miles is only two minutes (as obvious as that is... it now means something completely different to me).

2. There's 'no cocky at a clear to stop' (for non railroaders this won't mean much).

3. You gotta make the train do what you want it to do (I'm still working on what this really means and how to do it... but I like the idea of being in control of the train rather than letting it control me).

4. I gotta learn to trust the equipment; it will stop if I do things when I should.

It's been a long road standing near the tracks at my grandma's house as a six-year old, with a lot of detours... but doing this really something I've always wanted to do... and to be honest... I kind of feel like I'm six again.

Enough of Ed

Okay, I will come clean!

I bought a provincial Progressive Conservative membership back in 2006 so that I could vote for... yikes... Ed Stelmach. At the time, I thought he was the best candidate out of the bunch, and the only one who appeared to want to reach out to others.

Okay, okay, even back in 2006, I recognised Ed was not the most articulate of the leadership candidates. But maybe that wasn't a bad thing, I thought. We'd had an era of leadership from a guy who was a "pro" at handling the media and speaking to people. After Ralphie, maybe having a shy guy who would stay at his desk working rather than running around the planet shooting his mouth off might not be such a bad thing.

Well, I guess I was wrong. After watching the lacklustre informercial our premier bought with our money, I admit defeat. Ed Stelmach may still be a nice earnest guy, but he doesn't have what it takes to lead Alberta.

With Danielle Smith looking as if she will win the leadership of the Wild Rose Alliance Party (WAP), it looks like it is going to be a very interesting November. On the 7th, the Progressive Conservatives will vote (in a secret ballot) whether to keep Ed Stelmach on as leader or not. My guess is that if they do, this will be the last PC government this province will ever see. If they vote non-confidence and then go on to select a new leader, then the whole scene will become more interesting because they may survive but split the right vote and leave more Liberals and NDs in the legislature and Alberta will have a real democracy... with different parties and all.

Either way... wow.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Prime Minister Harper will announce the next Quarterly Economic Report Card from New Brunswick on Wednesday, September, 30. He will announce it not from the House of Commons in Ottawa, but far away from the media pundits most likely to ask the toughest questions. By announcing the Report Card from an out-of-the-spotlight location Mr. Harper gets to swoop in below the radar and hide the statistics that show his much vaunted stimulus programme is not working.

Recently, Prime Minister Harper has become quite adept at avoiding the tough issues facing Canada and the world. He is playing to his base of supporters while ignoring the most pressing issues on the planet. The economy of the country is in crisis but our prime minister is nowhere to be found. The leaders of the world showed up last week at the General Assembly of the United Nations but Mr. Harper chose instead to cut the ribbon at Tim Horton's opening in Ontario, where he talked of the importance of a Double-Double on cold mornings at the rink.

Iran is hiding nuclear processing plants and test-firing missiles... the world is facing perhaps its greatest climate threat ever... the world economy is still in tatters... Afghanistan is withering... and our prime minister is avoiding the issues in a practiced way. What happened to the Stephen Harper who used to tell it like it is... I mean was?

The fact of the matter is things are not going that well for Canada, and Mr. Harper knows it. What he is patently trying to do his best to stay out of the line of fire while "playing the heart-strings" of his party base. He doesn't want us to start noticing things are not better than they were four years ago when he took the reins of power. His goal is to lull us into a sense that... "sure, things may not be perfect, but we are still pretty well off." He is doing this because he plans on having an election... and soon. He might not get one before the Vancouver Olympics in February, 2010 but it won't be much longer than that. Those pesky socialists and separatists keep supporting his government, even though he really wants to run against the Liberals right now... when they are still weak and disorganised.

Mr. Harper has been consistently vague and misleading about telling Canadians what the Federal deficit really is and why. He has played his hand politically and at the detriment of Canada and Canadians. This is a very serious time for this country... for our own affairs and to secure our place at the global table. Yet Mr. Harper recently faded into the shadows; he stays in the in the dark because he knows if Canadians hear the truth about our economic situation and our deteriorating place in various world rankings, we might start to question why. The answers to those questions will not cast Mr. Harper and his party in a very positive light. It's true that there are no obvious leaders ready to take Canada into a non-partisan political future... not from within the Liberal Party of the NDP, but Mr. Harper knows full well that his government's performance will not stand up to hard scrutiny. That's why he is laying low... waiting for the next election... trying to lull us into a state of well-being that simply is not reality.

If we escape an election call this week (and that seems increasingly likely), look for Mr. Harper to keep avoiding the limelight and staying off centre-stage. And isn't that odd for a man who until now has stood at the center of every single policy his party has ever announced.

Yoo-hoo, Stevie... come out, come out, wherever you are.

Dodged a Bullet

Canadians were lucky to escape a summer election. We may yet be lucky enough to escape one this autumn. But make no mistake, even if we dodge a fall bullet, there’s a federal election coming to a polling station near you within the year. Canadians who follow the political scene may understand why the possibility of another election so soon after the October, 2009 exists, but for most people, it really doesn’t make sense to be having elections every year, especially when they cost more than $300 million a shot.

The latest threat of election is coming from the Liberal Party, which senses it has better chance to form a government if there is an election soon rather than waiting. The Conservatives argue there is no need for an election and that the opposition parties need to work with the government to make this session of parliament work.

Huh?

Wasn’t it just eleven months ago that Prime Minister Harper called an election three years early because he sensed he might be able to win a majority government? In most parliamentary democracies (like Canada’s) elections are held every four or five years. Even with minority governments, other countries can make things work because parties cooperate with one another. Here in Canada we are controlled by a tyranny of two parties that cannot bring themselves from playing political power games with Canadians rather than to put the good of the country first.

In fact, in order to call last year’s election Prime Minister Harper broke a law passed back in 2006 that required federal elections to be held on the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after a previous election unless the opposition brings down the government. Last year, without the government being brought down, Mr. Harper simply dissolved parliament and went to the polls where nothing changed much anyway.

Now Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says he won’t support the government under any circumstance and will send Canadians back to the polls as soon as he can. Unless either the NDP or the Bloc Quebec support the Conservatives over the next few months, the government will fall and we will have to go back to the voting booth very soon.

Did you get that? In order for the Conservatives to survive, they will need the help of either the “separatists” or the “socialists.” If you have been following this “Keystone Cops” political situation, you will remember that the Conservatives and their supporters went ballistic last December when the Liberals and NDP proposed a coalition that had the agreement of the Bloc Quebec not to vote against said coalition for 18 months. Back in December, the separatists and the socialists were bad. Now they are “part of the democratic” process.

Huh?

Where the hell did the integrity go? How did we find ourselves with politicians that put themselves first at every opportunity? Why do so many of us blindly support one side over the other when it is apparent that neither side is out for the betterment of this country or to support everyday Canadians? If we are ever to get passed this partisanship that is destroying Canada, we “little people” have to get back involved in the process and demand that the politicians we choose to support act with more integrity than we have seen lately.

When this election comes… and come it will… the Conservatives are going to tell us that it is unnecessary and that the Liberals are selfish and uncaring power hungry rats. Take that with a large grain of salt and remember October, 2008, when Prime Minister Harper broke a law his own government enacted just so he could seek a majority parliament. This next election is our opportunity to hold the politicians’ feet to the fire and demand they act with more honor and integrity. It will also be an opportunity to listen to policy and decide on the character of candidates by the virtue of their words and their conduct rather than the party banner they run under. Next election, it’s time for all of us to perform our role in this democracy of ours.