Category Archives: Bureaucracy

Druh Farrell’s latest idiotic notion is backfiring.

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 Considering the generally sleepy nature of Calgary’s electorate when it comes to the near endless stream of stupid and expensive ideas coming from city council, the response we are seeing to Druh Farrell’s notion to close a portion of a major artery for traffic is a virtual groundswell of opposition. Farrell has hit such a new height in stupidity that even the left-leaning crowd are scratching their collective heads over this one.

 Druh did the usual political work of finding some figures to applaud this initiative. The executive director of the Kensington Business Revitalization Zone thinks this is a good idea. The head of the Sunnyside community association has endorsed Druh’s foolish plan as well. What people need to keep in mind is that both of those individuals are compelled to keep their noses buried deep within the recesses of the collective butts of city council in order to get funding for local projects. Should they be critical of crazy Druh’s ideas, they can kiss applications for new public swimming pools or sidewalk resurfacing goodbye.

 What we are seeing now is the response from the real community. Instead of speaking to some “revitalization” person, the Herald actually spoke to some businesspeople in the area in question. The people in this area who actually have to eke out a living are condemning this idiocy. These people have that quality that seems to be totally absent in city hall; common sense. Local businesses have no idea how snarling local traffic will help them in what are already hard times. They realize that all Druh’s initiative will accomplish will be to keep people away from that district in droves in order to avoid the traffic.

 As for the head of the community association, I shudder to think of the questions that will be asked when it is discovered that the already congested residential parking is completely jammed with cars? There is little to no parking down there already. Assuming that some individuals come down there to walk on hot pavement on a summer weekend, they will indeed need somewhere to put their vehicles. How will the residents of Sunnyside like it when they find frustrated drivers speeding down their residential streets in hopes of avoiding the traffic jam on Memorial?

 Druh has pointed out that there will be some entertainment to draw visitors to the area. Translation: Buskers.

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 Now, how many people are going to cross the city and fight for parking in order to watch an unemployed bongo-player who does not have an anti-capitalism protest to attend?

 The few hairy legged sandal wearing types who may actually go out of their way to watch this fine artistic display are not exactly what we call a high-spending demographic. Unless a person is running a discount organic granola stand, their business will not exactly see a spike.

 On both the CBC site that I linked to in my prior posting and the Herald site in the current posting, there is a comment section. This is the most telling aspect of how truly obtuse this idea is. These are everyday news readers speaking their minds. On the CBC, they are mostly left leaning. The condemnation of Druh’s stupidity is nearly universal.

 It is unlikely that this clear lack of public support will have any impact on Druh’s plans to make us all a little more cosmopolitan. City hall is notorious for ignoring the wishes of those unwashed constituents. Part of that is our own fault. We barely get above 20% turnout in municipal electios. Should we really be surprised that we have found ourselves with a collection of idiots in city hall?

 In the next election it is up to us. Get out the vote and vote out the fools.

More idiocy from city hall.

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 One has to laugh to keep themselves from crying when we see the stooges coming up with their idiotic notions at city hall. While city spending is out of control and municipal taxes are going through the roof, the priority initiative for Alderman Druh Farrell is to close a portion of Memorial Drive on Sundays for pedestrians and bicyclists.

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 Brilliant Druh.

 For those who may be unfamiliar with the area in question, here are some facts. Paralleling Memorial Drive in the section in question is a beautiful and expensive pedestrian/bike-path as well as a large parkway that follows the river. There is no need for extra pedestrian space in this stretch. Why in the hell would somebody choose to walk down the hot pavement of a main road when there is a path in a treed park right next to them anyway?

 People have long bemoaned the lack of interest in Calgary’s downtown on weekends. The failed experiment of Eau Claire mall was an attempt to bring a Vancouver-like atmosphere into Calgary’s core and draw people there on weekends. Memorial Drive is a main route into downtown Calgary and is already chronically congested. How will weekend closures of portions of that drive effect weekend visits by people to downtown Calgary?

 Druh Farrell was also in support of those stupid $50 million dollar pedestrian bridges that would come right from that pathway that follows Memorial Drive. Now if people were walking down the street instead of on the bike-path, how will they be able to take advantage of those great bridges designed by a supposedly famous Spaniard? Perhaps Druh is trying to reduce access to those bridges in hopes that they do not wear out too soon.

 Druh has always been a sucker for “green” initiatives and is second only to Brian Pincott in the eco-flake department that resides in city council. Now think of this. With part of a main thoroughfare being closed on weekends, how much extra idling will occur as drivers languish in what will inevitably be a traffic jam stretching for miles? How many air conditioners will be on?

 We have about a year and a half to prepare to throw this crop of fools out of city hall in the next municipal election. The time to get some candidates with common-sense in place is now.

Begone foul critics!!

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 Special Ed Stelmach seems to be dedicating much more time to trying to shut down critical comment than actually governing. That is rather apparent in his shameless breaking of provincial law and posting a record deficit.

 Stelmach set the precedent when he fired Lorne Gibson (head of elections Alberta) for Gibson’s having dared question the government on electoral procedures and submitting a long list of recommendations. Now Stelmach is setting his sights on Auditor General Fred Dunn.

 While the Progressive Conservatives could afford a 20% increase in funding for the Executive Council and their Ministry of Truth, they could not afford any increase for the Auditor General thus Fred Dunn had to shelve 27 of 80 planned audits for next year.

 The warning through funding did not get through to poor Fred it appears. He still thinks he is supposed to do his job and he has dared to be critical of the provincial government. One would think that is the role of an auditor, but clearly that is not the case in Ed’s world.

 Stelmach’s lapdog on the treasury board (Snelgrove) is outright ordering Fred Dunn to quit poking his nose into government business.

 Yes, even the Auditor General dare not question the actions of government. It is pretty clear that Fred Dunn is on the road to being fired as Gibson was. Doubtless an Auditor General will be found and appointed who will realize what side his bread is buttered on and we will nary hear another critical comment on Stelmach’s government again.

 The lack of respect for democracy and critical comment by our provincial government has moved beyond being simply distasteful and into the realm of the frightening.

Some more on Iris Evans’ “Good news budget”.

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 It has been hard on the stomach watching our irresponsible provincial government officials patting themselves on the back due to their being able to reduce their spending increase to a mere 3.7% this year. Remember, these people have not stopped increasing spending, only the rate at which they will increase it. They have done this masterful feat by running a potential $7 billion dollar deficit and raising taxes (property owners are taking it yet again). The last decade of double digit spending increases has given the government a rather heavy addiction to our money.

 Miring through the budget documents is a painful exercise and the government works as hard as possible to find out exactly what they are spending all of our money on.

 The Executive Council is one department that seems to have been spared the savages of spending restraint. The Executive Council is the premier’s office of course. Bundled in with the Executive Council is the Public Affairs department that many fondly refer to as the premier’s ministry of truth.

 Last year the Executive Council got a funding increase of 27%. In light of our tighter times, they have limited the raise in funding this year to a paltry 20%.

 You see, in the eyes of Ed Stelmach it is much more important to convince Albertans that government is doing a good job as opposed to actually doing a good job. The Ministry of Truth employs 118 full time little monkeys who are tasked with producing pretty flyers, advertisements, press releases and lacklustre blogs that blow sunshine up the collective asses of Albertans.

 It is not hard to see why the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta is always rolling in money. The party needs not spend any of their own money on advertisers. The Public Affairs department spends almost $15 million per year telling Albertans why the Progressive Conservatives are heaven sent.

 With this tax-funded propaganda machine working around the clock, we can see part of why it is difficult to dislodge a government that has been in power for almost 40 years.

 Special Ed clearly sees this importance as well. Why else would he keep pumping these massive spending increases into that department in these times of supposed government restraint?

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Trying to polish a turd.

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 Yes I think the saying about the futility of polishing a turd is quite appropriate as we see Iris Evans somehow managing to table a record deficit budget and telling us it is “a good news story”. Geeze Evans, I shudder to think what you would consider a bad news story. In light of the Progressive Conservative’s astoundingly terrible fiscal management, I suspect that Evans will have to disclose a bad news budget within a year.

 I had the opportunity to go to the legislature and watch this travesty of a budget in person yesterday. Rest assured, the turd looks no more shiny when observed in person.

 The first order of business in the legislature was to sheepishly table a new version of the “fiscal responsibility act”. The reason for this of course is that the current budget is illegal. Sadly, when government breaks the law, they simply re-write the law. Sheepish is really not enough, the members of the Progressive Conservative government should all hang their heads in shame.

 The PCs are trying to present this as a budget of restraint. They have reduced the increased spending to match that of population growth plus inflation. That spending model is what fiscally wise people have been telling government to follow for over a decade. Sadly Special Ed is a decade late in figuring it out. Last summer we were projecting a surplus of almost $9 billion. In less than a year we are facing going almost $5 billion into the hole.

 The government is patting itself on the back for the fiscal restraint being shown. Reducing an increase is not an example of fiscal restraint, reducing spending is!

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 Yes Evans is gazing into a crystal ball. You see, part of the budget is pure speculation. While the government is already admitting that they are spending $4.7 billion more this year than they are earning, they are sort of quiet about there being another $2.2 billion in revenue required to make their spending commitments. Essentially the government is praying that oil will massively spike in price in the next few months. If this spike does not occur, the real deficit is close to $7 billion.

 How much faith can we have in the prognostication powers of the government? Well considering the idiots were off on their projected revenue by over $10 billion over a period of some eight months or so, I must say that I am not terribly confident.

 The issue is not too complex. Our problem is not a sagging world economy or low commodity prices (though that does not help), our problem is that the government has been spending money like drunken sailors for over a decade.

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 It does not take an economist to look at the above image and realize that Alberta has been on a collision course with deficit for years. Many voices from the Taxpayers Federation to the Fraser Institute to the Canadian Federation for Independent Business have been pointing this trend out to Stelmach for years. Stelmach blindly and idiotically ignored those voices and continued to piss away the hardearned tax-dollars of Albertans.

 How must it feel for those PC MLAs who sat in the legislature in the 90s? Those MLAs who endured the complaints and pressures to spend as Alberta tightened her belt and ended deficit financing? How does it feel to go so swiftly and deeply back into deficit after all that work guys? I watched the PC seals in the legislature pounding their desks in applause as Evans tabled that document which will place the burden of payment on our children. Can you guys really sleep at night? Have you any shred of principle left?

 This is the sad outcome of a government that has been in power for almost 40 years. There is no principle, there is no vision. The government exists for the Progressive Conservative Party’s interests. The interests of Albertans were discarded years ago. There will be no healing for this sick administration. They are entrenched, visionless and parasitic. The government takes no path aside from what they view as the path of least resistance. In cowardice they have bent to every spending demand and we now are all paying the price.

 Alberta needs to sweep this lost government from the legislature. We are prone to doing that every few decades. It is clear that such a housecleaning is more than in order now.

 The Wildrose Alliance Party is promoting fiscal responsibility and is wisely planning for Alberta’s future. Meetings are being held across the province and growth in the party is unprecedented. Despite the fast growth of the WAP, it will still be a tough and uphill battle to unseat a government that feels they are in power by divine right. It cannot be stressed enough how much Albertan’s need to shed their traditional apathy and to get involved. People need to work to make change. The campaign for election 2012 must begin now if we are to make change in Alberta. Don’t wait for somebody else to do it, they will not.

 If things are left as they are, we will be leaving a sad and shameful legacy to future generations in this province. To have so much potential wasted is intolerable.

It’s bonus season!!

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 As we see the economy slip into the tank, as we see layoffs in all sectors, as stress in households grows with decimated retirement portfolios and as we hearthe Stelmach government tell us that they must borrow our grandchildren into debt for lack of room to cut spending, we hear that the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta has handed out $110,000,000 in “achievement” bonuses for senior civil servants in the last 3 years.

 Considering the explosive increases in spending in the last few years, all we can assume is that the rewarded “achievement”  is achieving excellence in creatively pissing away the hard earned tax dollars of Albertans.

 Bonuses can be an effective means of getting better performances from employees. These bonuses only apply to a few thousand of the senior elite in government however. The civil servants working in the trenches don’t see these lucrative perks. Most of this bonus money has gone to deputy ministers who make an average of $250,000 per year and have seen their salaries increase by 61% since 2005.

 Would not those disproportionate raises in the last few years constitute something of a reward for these people already? Apparently not.

 While the government is bound to report the spending on these bonuses in their respective departments, one department is unsurprisingly exempt from disclosure; that is the Alberta Executive Council.

The Executive Council is made up of the Premier and cabinet ministers.

Well Ed, how many perks have you lined your own and the cabinet’s pockets with bonuses? I guess those 30% raises last fall were not enough. Sadly as Albertans we are not allowed to find out these numbers.

 Keep these kinds of things in mind in a couple weeks as the government releases a deficit budget and claims they have no way to avoid budgeting on our collective credit cards.