Category Archives: Uncategorized

On the latest manufactured panic over water sales….

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The sale of water has long been a favorite issue for the hysteric-left to try and build up some good old jingoistic patriotism and protectionism. Maude Barlow with the Council of Canadians has built herself a good personal career spreading fear that the big bad Americans are going to come up and steal our local water supply to irrigate the deserts of Arizona and California. The logistics of such water thefts (or even sales) make it utterly impossible for the water to be reasonably moved south. Barlow and others in the fear industry are well aware of those simple logistical facts but of course overlook them when raising money for their very lucrative advocacy careers. Just last weekend I was driving along the very long and very full Koocanusa reservoir and was wondering to myself just how Maude thinks the USA will haul our water over these giant reservoirs in order to get it way down south.

The gormless-left have now evolved their water pap in that they have tied the evils of water sales into a nasty multi-national corporation. It has been released (as if this was something new) that Nestlé Canada has been bottling water without paying a per-litre fee. Check out the hysteric and loaded headline below as an example:

Billion-dollar Nestlé extracting B.C.’s drinking water for free

Nestlé Waters Canada takes 265 million litres a year of fresh water from a Fraser Valley well

Oh dear. Doesn’t that sound terrible? For “free”? Millions of litres per year??? Why, Langley B.C. will surely run totally dry within days at this rate will it not?

Now, lets look at some real numbers here. Facts are to leftist pap as light is to vampires, particularly when they are on their water hysteria.

To begin with, let’s look at what is considered “free” here. Nestlé is paying taxes to all levels of government here to the tunes of many millions of dollars along with employing over 70 people and spending money to extract and treat the water. Just because there is not a clear dollar-per-litre fee does not mean that Nestlé is getting the water for “free” by any measure. That is simply hyperbolic bullshit (as usual).

But what of all of those millions of litres of water taken from the eco-system? Surely this is a catastrophe in the making is it not? Not even close.

To be blunt, 265 million litres per year is squat in the scheme of things. My modest household well just south of Calgary is capable of pumping 9 million litres of water per year at capacity and I assure you it is a small well. Why don’t they go by litres per decade or cups per millennia if we are out to make it sound like such a nasty number.

Think of things this way; the Langley facility is in the Fraser River Valley. The Fraser River moves 3,475,000 liters per second! This means the river could theoretically sustain about 400,000 water facilities of the same size as this apparently evil Nestlé water bottling facility. I assure you, we will not see that many plants springing up.

Where do all these bottles of water go anyway? While perhaps not pleasant to think of, pretty much all of that water will return to the eco-system through sweat and urine. Nestlé is not taking this water and sending it off to space where it will never be seen again. At best, this water is being rented.

Resources get used and we don’t need government to tax every bit of it. Water is used in countless plants. So is air and sunlight. Get over it. The government extracts it’s pound of flesh in a myriad of ways.

Look at the prime ingredient in many products. All of these products will go up in price if we suddenly start taxing the crap out of water use. Do you want to pay more for almost all of your food products? All of your liquor products? Shampoo? Lotions? Paints? Water is used in the creation of them all.

Water pollution is a real issue as well as some of the water used in enhanced oil extraction where it gets pumped out of the cycle. Those issues are not simplistic enough however and do not lend themselves to the bombastic headlines that sell books for Maude Barlow as she tries to paint a picture of a world where water is being stolen and where we are at risk of running dry.

Look beyond the headlines folks.

Wildrose AGM 2013. Constitution time.

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It is undeniable that the Wildrose Party has made terrific strides in the last 8 years or so within Alberta. Our provincial government has been held to account more effectively than we have seen in decades as Alberta finally has a strong opposition party in the legislature.

As the Wildrose Party continues to grow we will of course have some growing pains and internal battles to hash out.

There is an element within the Wildrose Party that sees the grassroots membership and basis of the party as a necessary evil at best. Year after year we have to fight off attempts to centralize the management of the party among a small and unaccountable group while sidelining means of member control and party accountability. The Executive Committee is the branch of the party that is to be controlled by nobody else but the membership at large and this distinction and role is critical to the entire basis and purpose of the party. This power within the Executive Committee has constantly annoyed the weasel faction within the party thus constant efforts have been made to reduce the role and strength of the Executive Committee every year.

Due to party meddling and a large number of Executive Committee resignations within the party, the Wildrose Party found itself last year after the election with a do-nothing party executive that could barely bring itself to meet more than once over the phone every couple of months.

This ineffective Executive Committee so impressed some of the powers that be within the party that they even tried to defer the party’s annual general meeting for two years so that they need not risk getting an active Executive Committee chosen by the membership. This effort was exposed though and due to this being in complete contravention of the Alberta Societies Act, an AGM was suddenly and grudgingly slapped together to at the least meet legal requirements within Alberta.

With a meeting scheduled no other information was put out to the membership at large on details for things such as Executive Committee elections. It became incumbent upon party members such as myself to blog the information that the party refused to promote and to give a platform to aspiring candidates for Executive Committee positions. Party members Rob Woronuk and others worked to hold open candidate debates so that members could get to know the candidates as again, the party refused to offer such aids to the internal democratic process for some reason.

It took a great deal of effort to pull the party kicking and screaming into adherence with it’s own constitution in leading up to the AGM.

Thanks to the efforts of many dedicated and stubborn party activists, a good AGM was held where an active and effective Executive Committee was elected in the fall of 2012 (much to the chagrin of the weasel faction).

Now with the election and retention of an effective EC within the Wildrose Party, the weasel faction has turned to a new means to try and take control from the membership within the party. At this year’s Annual General Meeting in Red Deer, the membership will be discussing changes to the constitution and policies of the party.

A few of the proposed constitutional changes coming forth this fall are nothing less than outrageous and they are clearly modeled with the intent of neutering the Executive Committee and Constituency Presidents (thus by extension the membership) in the management of the operations of the party.  The members must understand what these proposals are and vote them down en masse at the 2013 AGM to send a message to the weasel faction that we are getting really tired of this.

The full list of proposed constitutional changes can be found in the link below.

ConstitutionAGM2013

It should be noted that almost all of the offensive propositions are coming from the Cardston-Taber-Warner constituency for some reason.

RESOLUTION 16

OK the first and likely worst proposed change to the party constitution would take the power of selecting an Executive Director for the party from the Executive Committee and put it solely into the hands of the Party Leader. I will use screen snaps for this as the layout from the file makes it easier to see in an image.

resolution16I like how the statement says it: “clarifies process for selecting Executive Director”. Uh no. This resolution does far more than clarify the selection process, this resolution essentially would not only give the Leader of the party sole-authority in not only the selection of an Executive Director but it would give the Leader sole-authority in setting the terms of reference and power of the Executive Director.

Resolution 16 is ridiculous and outright dangerous if approved. There are some very good reasons why the Leader’s office is a separate division from the management of operations within the party. The role of the Leader encompasses many things but the operation of the party is actually not one of them. There is no rational reason to put the party Leader directly in control of the party operations and in having such powers over the Executive Director the Leader’s control of operations would be full and unchecked.

The Leader, Party President and Executive Director are essentially the top three folks within the party structure. If any one of the three has unchecked control on the selection of the people for either of other two roles, we will have created essentially a dictator with no reasonable check against their actions.

While we need the Executive Director to work in a productive and hopefully cooperative manner with the Leader of the Party, we simply can’t put the entire power of selection of this powerful role into the hands of the Party Leader. The membership must strike this down soundly this fall.

RESOLUTION 28

resolution28This resolution from Cardston-Taber-Warner made me scratch my head and say “wow” at such a blatant move to try and undercut grassroots organization within the party.

If one wants to start a dictatorship, one of the first things that must be done is to isolate communications and organizing capability among the masses and that is exactly what this proposal is trying to do.

I understand that some people do not want their personal information floating around out there. Having one’s name on a list as a CA President is hardly an offense to privacy and the person chooses to be in that role in the first place. We are not talking about home addresses and phone numbers here.

I expect this will be soundly rejected at the AGM but should this resolution pass I will state this here and now:

I will track down the names and email addresses of all 87 Constituency Association  Presidents within the Wildrose Party and will list them on this site along with regular updates. I have the connections, the will and the means to do this so why don’t you weasels just drop this odious suggestion now?

Why on earth would we want to stifle communications between our constituencies?

RESOLUTION 11

resolution11One would think that after having nearly gone in contravention of the Alberta Societies Act with the attempted deferral of the 2012 Wildrose Party AGM that the weasel faction would have been supportive of correcting the constitution to reflect legal requirements so such errors would not happen again. While two resolutions help clarify the obligation and needs, Cardston-Taber-Warner wants reference to and obligation of AGM timing totally removed from the constitution. I wonder which of the three resolutions will be discussed.

Those who despise member driven parties like the Wildrose Party also despise AGMs of course as this is when the collected membership can exercise their rightful control upon the direction, management and policies of the party. Of course the weasel faction wants to get constitutional obligations for AGMs removed. I expect the membership to overwhelmingly toss this one in the trashbin where it belongs.

RESOLUTION 13

 resolution13In keeping with what became a pattern, Cardston-Taber-Warner wants terribly for some reason to deeply enshrine some pretty strong unilateral appointment powers for the Leader into the party constitution.

It is critical that the Leader takes a strong guiding role in the appointment of these positions but I do not see why this has to be mandated in the constitution to be at the sole discretion of the Leader.

A good leader will be able to work cooperatively with the caucus, Executive Committee and Executive Director in filling these roles without having sole authority to do it all directly. If the Leader can’t do their job under those constraints of cooperation and compromise, then perhaps that person is not the appropriate one to be the Leader of the party.

RESOLUTION 22A

resolution22aVetting and preparing policy for presentation to the membership at an AGM is an exhausting, thankless task. I know this well as I served two terms as VP Membership with the Wildrose Party and that was while the party was considerably smaller than now.

A policy committee is a great way to get more done and to bring minds together on what is a tough and messy process. Many policies come in that are unreasonable, poorly phrased or at times outright incomprehensible. Despite this reality, the committee simply can’t be empowered to revise or comment on a proposed policy without the consent of the person or people who submitted the initial proposal.

Without this check in place in the constitution, the policy committee could theoretically change every policy submitted to them unilaterally with no consultation with the people who submitted the policy in the first place.

The policy formulation process will always be tough, time consuming and messy. There are improvements to be made.

Deleting this critical check on the power of the Policy Committee as proposed by Cardston-Taber-Warner would not be an improvement by any means.

There are some other questionable and debatable suggestions in the proposals and I expect more vigorous examination and discussion of these issues in the next few months. Policy will take me many long-winded postings but these constitutional proposals must be nipped in the bud and addressed right now.

Who are the people with Cardston-Taber-Warner who put these together? I certainly would love to see some attempted rationale for this clear effort to centralize the management of this grassroots party that we all worked so had to build.

Grassroots organization is messy and tough but it can work and it is worth it. We have to remain vigilant and keep knocking down the weasels who think that by setting aside our principles that we can get where we need to be. If we wanted to be in a party like that, we would be with the Redford Progressive Conservatives.

Calgary tax dollars at work.

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The other day, I ran across a picture on a Calgary discussion board that depicted the all too typical scene of a large number of city employees standing around while one or two fellows actually worked on the rather simple task at hand.

In this case the task was to paint a green square on the road on a bike track. The forum was at http://www.beyond.ca and the picture was posted by (and presumably taken by) a poster who goes by rage2.  

bike

The picture sort of says it all. We have had a Mayor and council constantly pleading poverty in Calgary while trying to justify a whopping 32% increase in property since Naheed Nenshi took the Mayor’s chair less than three years ago. Our Mayor and city council constantly pretend that it is utterly impossible for the City to streamline or even cut expenditures while scenes like that pictured above show that there is plenty of room to have the expenditure of our tax dollars done in a more effective manner. The excuses fly while countless dollars are wasted on foolish studies of whimsical plans and outright idiotic gameshow style “consultation” circuses that are ignored when the taxpayers wish something different than His Worship intended them to.

I tweeted the image and it took off as dozens of people retweeted this little piece of dark comedy.

This brought about the attention of Mayor Nenshi who to his credit is very responsive to social media. What Nenshi tweeted in justification of the depicted scene is below:

 

This whole scene was apparently a training session.

Umm….. OK… I guess I will just have to come right out and say it: HOW MUCH TRAINING DOES IT TAKE TO PAINT A GREEN DAMNED BOX ON A ROAD????

Seriously folks, we are in a city with over a million people that has thousands of civic employees and city contractors. None of them had been trained already in painting things on the road?

I wonder, is a special training course required to paint the image below:

leftturn

Does another differently trained crew need to come in and flip the stencil at other intersections or will they only need a different supervisor or two?

rightturn

Now we are going to get tricky. The painting job below requires two colors and possibly two stencils. How many workers were required? 20? 30? How many months was the training course?

handicapped

I have to admit, I could use a gig like training folks to paint boxes on roads. I had a great deal of informal training in my youth with more complicated design as pictured below:

chalk

I can provide my own training manual so that there shall be no confusion for trainees should they find themselves in a circumstance where they may need to paint something with less than 6 supervisors present.

paintbynumber

As a surveyor I am familiar with complex tools such as graph paper and measuring tape so will be able to “confirm final design” on painted boxes with possibly as few as two assistants. I have ArcGIS and could confirm such things alone from the comfort of an office in about 30 seconds but I do understand that our city has a limited amount of resources and needs to be led in baby steps here.

Is it really surprising that Calgary City council managed to blow the West LRT budget literally by 100% in light of how complex painting a simple box on a road appears to be?

In light of all this, I wonder what portion of our city budget is dedicated to road painting alone in Calgary. We have a great deal of pavement out there.

I really have not seen such a scandalous waste of tax dollars on paint since Mulroney purchased the masterpiece below for $1.8 million Canadian tax bucks.

voice

Calgary really needs to flush out City Council this fall in favor of some candidates with at least a little grounding in fiscal reality.

I am making light of this, but the issue of out of control spending by municipal governments is deadly serious. As Detroit how they are loving that great art collection these days.

 

Response-to-City-Budget

ImagineCalgary document dissection Pt. 4

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Most of the ImagineCalgary document delves into areas that are completely outside of municipal jurisdiction (for now). That in itself indicative of just how much Naheed Nenshi and Brian Pincott who are among the authors of the document such plan to expand the size and reach of our city government at any cost. In this installment I will go into their plans for housing which at least is directly within the scope of a municipal government though the plans are no less extreme and unrealistic. I will get back into their plans for our children’s collective self-esteem in the document in later posts (yes they even go there).

The depth of the density zeal is evident in the sudden firing of planner Stan Schwartzenberger in order to make room for the controversial density extremist Rollin Stanley. Schwartzenberger sued the city of Calgary asking for $640,000 and eventually settled for an undisclosed amount that doubtless is well into six figures.

Rollin Stanley has quickly gotten to work and has alienated citizens and developers alike with statements as ridiculous as comparing Calgary to Stockton California as he tries to make his case for an extreme civic density agenda. That prompted homebuilder Avi Amir to take out an article to correct Stanley’s hogwash which of course brought on the increasingly petulant wrath of Nenshi who does not care for the exposure of his hired density zealots such as Rollin Stanley.

Now, back to the crazy $3.4 million dollar Calgary city plan called ImagineCalgary:

HOUSING

Goal:
Calgarians have a choice of housing options that are affordable, accessible and eco-efficient and that support a variety of lifestyles. Housing reflects local environmental conditions and resources and is adaptable over time to reflect changes in technology, climate and demographics.

The housing section begins with the fluffy statement above. What is lost is that such a choice already exists in the free market. People can buy homes at whatever price range, accessibility and eco-efficiency that they like. Not all people are in a position to afford all choices but that is covered in later sections where ImagineCalgary feels that the city government should control income levels in Calgary.

STRATEGY 1
Support an increase in residential density, particularly in strategic locations at transit stations, in employment areas and close to goods and service providers.
Change the Municipal Development Plan policy to allow higher densities within new communities.
Communicate/increase awareness of the ecological impacts of low-density housing.
Develop housing intensification policies for strategic locations (e.g. near LRT stations and employment areas).

They get straight to the point of increasing density which is unsurprising. There is nothing wrong with straightforward goals. As the document continues though, the motive and means become more apparent and disturbing.

The MDP does not need to be changed to “allow” more density in newer communities. The battle in new developments is to try and spread homes out as it is. “Sprawling” developments are labelled as “crap” by Mayor Nenshi as he defends the essential abuse of the regulatory system in order to hinder developments that don’t fall within his density vision. The city does not want to “allow” more density, they want to force it. That is a huge distinction.

Part of the plan is in “increasing awareness” of the apparent ecological merits of Manhattan style density. That means spending our tax dollars to “educate” and shame our suburban butts for daring to live in homes with yards.

STRATEGY 2 Increase the mix of uses within communities.
Encourage livable streetscapes that are active throughout the day.
Educate consumers to increase awareness of different housing types and mix.
Develop of standards for complete communities.
Promote existing mixed-use developments in Calgary.
Develop mandatory design guidelines.
Revise City policies that restrict opportunities for the development of mixed uses.

None of the above is all that unreasonable. They are coming out and using the word “mandatory” at least rather than talking around it using the word “encourage” as they usually do. They feel that they must “educate” us unwashed folks further though which is condescending and irritating.

Planning communities and having city enforced standards is a reasonable thing. It is a matter of the degree of course and the use of guidelines to throttle “crap” as Nenshi likes to do that is a problem.

STRATEGY 3 Support the development of underdeveloped land for population-intensive activities and uses.
Support changes to the tax system to encourage the development of vacant lands within established areas.
Provide mortgages, guarantees and revolving loans for brownfield sites that meet restoration criteria.
Support the remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites for appropriate development.
Encourage the redevelopment of greyfield sites (old malls and commercial sites that are no longer economically viable).
Support the intensification of existing communities, particularly in strategic locations like those near transit stations.

Whoa whoa whoa folks! I have to quote this again below as this is the sort of thing that leads to disasters and government bankruptcies.

“Provide mortgages, guarantees and revolving loans for brownfield sites that meet restoration criteria.

That’s right, the ImagineCalgary folks actually want the City of Calgary government to provide loans and mortgages as well as guarantee other high risk loans. The loans in question would of course have to be high risk or they would not need a guarantee in the first place.

It is not enough to choke and regulate developments that do not fit within their density visions. The visionaries behind this document understand that it is economically unviable to invest in their ideal communities thus they must provide taxpayer financing to build these developments.

One needs only to look at the outright fiscal disaster South of our border to see what happens when government gets into the mortgage business. Lending institutions have come up with their lending standards for damn good reason. If people don’t qualify for a loan with established lending institutions, then they simply should not be loaned money.

We are not paying our tax dollars so that the City of Calgary can lend them to high risk borrowers!

What is this supporting changes in the tax system about? One can only imagine that it would be selective tinkering with rates so that preferred development gets breaks while we tax the piss out of those evil folks in the suburbs. The city is prepared to fight consumer choice and supply and demand with every tool at their disposal.

“Encourage” and “support” are terms for some very heavy market meddling with a very high risk of loss of tax dollars invested according to ImagineCalgary.

STRATEGY 4 Promote innovative housing forms that are able to adapt to a variety of housing needs.
Support backyard infill housing (e.g. granny suites).
Encourage co-housing or other forms that provide innovative living arrangements.
Encourage flex-housing to enable the spaces within residential units to be converted over time to meet changing household needs.
Support streamlining processes for housing developments that are innovative and support more sustainable lifestyles.
Develop a provincial strategy to address the shortfall of affordable and accessible housing for people with disabilities.

Now with this statement we have to wonder to what extent “promote” goes to. More education for us? More loans and subsidies?

Infill housing can be a good thing but the degree has to be watched. Parking and general neighborhood densities are real issues despite the utopian bicycle and pedestrian’s paradise envisioned by these planners. Those who purchase a home with a yard in an area with other single occupancy dwellings do so for a reason. It is not reasonable that they suddenly have a neighbor who tosses in an infill and basement suite and suddenly has groups of revolving renters coming and going.

This apparent supporting of streamlining of processes that are “innovative” and fit within what they define as “sustainable lifestyles” is an admission that the city wants to purposely abuse the regulatory regime to model things to fit within their idealism. Either streamline all regulations or none. The selective route is just a disingenuous means to choke supply and demand.

What exactly is a “sustainable lifestyle” anyway and who the hell are these guys to tell us what that is? The City of Calgary endorsed ImagineCalgary plan actually takes it upon itself to manage our choice in lifestyles. Again, the term social engineering is not at all an exaggeration here.

This calls for “developing a provincial strategy” as well. These people don’t even consider for a second that this is a civic document. What other municipalities do is none of your damn business. Rest assured the pap within ImagineCalgary is intrusive enough without trying to expand to controlling other cities.

STRATEGY 5 Review the rules for housing construction and community development to determine how they may be unnecessarily limiting innovative housing options.
Develop flexible rules within the Land Use Bylaw (create opportunities for mixed use, building setbacks, etc.).
Explore options to streamline the permitting process to encourage desired housing forms and make them more financially feasible.
Review the Alberta Building Code to identify how it may be limiting innovative housing options.
Research the appropriateness of alternative policy mechanisms, such as objective-based policy versus prescriptive-based policy.
Research options for alternative housing forms, such as legalized basement suites.
Research options to improve the Ward system of political representation.

Develop “flexible” rules? Either we have solid rules or we don’t. Selective application of rules means no rules at all but it sure does empower City Hall to pick and choose who they will or won’t enforce laws upon. Again, in knowing that consumer choice does not allow for their goals in city modelling the planners here want to take a disingenuous, backdoor route to their objectives.

Streamlining permitting to encourage desired housing forms? How about streamlining it all? Yet again these people want to abuse regulatory systems in order to force development into ways that would not normally happen. Maybe these developments are not “financially feasible” for a reason. Financial feasibility has never been a real priority for the kind of folks who built ImagineCalgary though, remember Druh Farrell’s name is attached to it.

The looking into options to improve the Ward system of representation is a neat one. What is at issue for the drafters of ImagineCalgary here is that due to the rep-by-pop nature of the Ward system, our city gets properly represented by the majority of the population which predominantly resides in the suburbs. Suburbanites are tiring of the demonization coming from city hall and they will clearly wake up electorally as the kind of goals such as the ones in ImagineCalgary are pursued. To get around this pesky democracy things, the ImagineCalgary bunch want to change the whole system of local representation. Why else would they mention revising the Ward system under the heading of housing? There is already an entire section on governance in ImagineCalgary that I will eviscerate later.


TARGET By 2036, all new and retrofitted residential buildings are built to be within five per cent of the highest energy-efficient design available out of all economically competitive products, as measured on a life cycle basis.

Want to see a great way to drive cost of living right through the roof? The above statement is the way to do it. Don’t believe that “economically competitive” statement for a second, they have ignored that principle in the entire plan. Why would they care what is economically competitive now?

STRATEGY 1 Develop education and awareness programs that identify the benefits of eco-efficient design.
Identify the ecological impacts of different forms of commercial development.
Provide benchmarking to indicate how eco-efficient non-residential buildings are and where we rank against other cities of similar size and characteristics.
Develop a system to rate commercial types according to eco-efficiency standards.
Develop a single comprehensive labelling system for “green” buildings, products and technologies.

Most of the above is not all unreasonable. It really all depends on how extreme the standards get set at.

The labelling system sounds like a disaster though and working towards potential shaming of businesses that fall outside of what the city considers as “green”. Really not their turf.

STRATEGY 2 Streamline the development approval process for buildings that demonstrate eco-efficient standards.

How about just setting standards and following up on them? Why the constant call to use the approval and permitting process as a hammer?

STRATEGY 3 Develop incentives for adopting eco-efficient standards in buildings and site design.
Consider subsidies for eco-efficient buildings and site design.
Provide financing incentives for buildings that are more energy efficient.
Support local groups and businesses that offer green building products and technologies through information and awareness packages.

Ahh we knew they couldn’t last too long before wanting to jump right into direct subsidies for businesses that they determine to be green.

We can’t let these people begin picking and choosing businesses to give our tax dollars to. Corporate welfare is bad enough on the federal and provincial levels. We do not need the city to piss our money down this road.

There are few realms that invite corruption better than giving government power to directly subsidize businesses. If these efficiencies are so good, rest assured businesses will be pursuing them even without having our tax dollars lavished upon them.

Wonder why our city is so deeply in debt while our road infrastructure languishes? This is a good indicator. The city feels it is mandated to spend however and wherever they please.

TARGET By 2036, all commercial buildings are accessible to people with disabilities.

A good enough goal. It depends on how much it would cost with some existing buildings though. A degree of grandfathering has to be allowed here.

TARGET By 2036, all Calgarians have the option of spending less than 30 per cent of their gross family incomes on housing.

Now this is quite the target. An irony (or idiocy) of this kind of goal being in ImagineCalgary is that high density cities all have huge housing costs. Have a look at housing costs in Manhattan or San Francisco to see what happens when you build a density paradise. It is through the expansion of a city as a whole that housing costs are kept under control. This is totally lost on ImagineCalgary though.

STRATEGY 1 Encourage innovative practices or standards that reduce the costs of new housing.
Explore modified parking standards to reduce housing costs, especially where housing is close to transit, pathways or employment.
Research if quotas could be applied to affordable housing.
Ensure a certain percentage of rental units are for low-income households.
Investigate options for setting land aside for affordable housing.
Research options for providing more affordable housing, such as legalized basement suites.
Establish policy and land use districts to support single-room occupancy units.
Support programs that help integrate affordable housing into the community at large.
Support an increase in funding for programs that meet the complex needs of those who are at risk of becoming homeless.
Support the construction trades to ensure we have enough labour to fulfill the demands for housing construction.
Develop information and awareness on choosing the housing trades as a career.
Support streamlining processes for housing developments that are innovative and provide affordable housing.
Encourage mixed-income neighborhoods. Explore options for alternative financing to integrate affordable housing within all communities

OK where to begin. Many of these things are already happening. The only thing debatable is the degree. Do we really need to force the construction of a single-room occupancy building in an outlying suburb for example?

They do save the best at the bottom of their lists of strategies of course. Is it the city’s role to direct career choices of people? They appear to think so. Better to keep cost of living low and attract the tradespeople who will continue to be drawn to Calgary. These folks can’t let market determine such things though of course.

Next we get into “alternative financing”. This goes back to that call to have the City of Calgary provide mortgages and loan guarantees. Do you want the city to take your tax dollars to give to an unviable low income complex (future slum) to be developed next to the dream home you worked your ass off to buy? That I exactly what ImagineCalgary wants to do.

STRATEGY 2 Support the concept of a living wage for all Calgarians.
Identify a living wage standard for Calgary.
Develop awareness programs for employers on the benefits of paying employees a living wage.
Develop training programs that enable people to earn enough to afford housing and to sustain this affordability over time.

Now they are dipping deeply into the well of insanity again. The ImagineCalgary planners want to tell employers what they have to pay their staff.

“Living wage” could be anything these zealots determine. It need not be based in reality and it sure as hell won’t reflect market demand. Policies such as this would bring down the cost of living as businesses flock from the city to avoid these policies though. Doubtless we could look forward to more “incentives” for businesses that adhere to this living wage policy.

Training programs? It looks like our city will be opening trade schools and other sorts of post-secondary institutions too. Just how big do our civic officials think they can make city hall?

If we want affordable housing the answer is simple; open up the thousands of square miles of undeveloped land surrounding our city for development. The virtual suburban development freeze that we have right now is pushing real-estate prices through the roof.

STRATEGY 3 Support public/private partnerships to develop integrated affordable housing.
Encourage government to act as a land banker to absorb the risks of providing affordable housing in new communities.
Support streamlining processes for housing developments that are innovative and provide affordable housing.
Encourage mixed-income neighbourhoods

Ahh great. Our City Hall not only wants to become a banker that provides mortgages, it wants to become a “land banker”. Why simply risk tax dollars in cash when we can put whole tracts of city owned land at risk as well? Quebec has cracked down on their civic corruption lately. I bet their municipal gangsters would love to get a piece of these city business and land partnerships.

It is frightening how many ways these people can imagine to take our money and redistribute it based on their idealism.

By 2036, the Calgary market can meet the housing needs of those below the Low-income Cut-off (LICO).

Again a nice but frightening goal. We are talking about a massive civic welfare state here and nothing less. This simply is not a municipal government’s role.

STRATEGY 1 Fully integrate non-market housing into communities throughout the city, with a mix of rental, owned and mixed-income tenures.

Want an ever growing pile of government owned housing tenements opening up in your neighborhood? That is exactly what this is calling for. The theory is that if government owns enough of the housing that they can control the overall costs of housing for all. The cost to fund this will be through ever increasing taxation upon the productive of course which will drive more of them into low income situations creating need for more low income housing meaning more tradespeople will need to be trained in City owned trade schools…….. Big government just keeps getting bigger.

I was fortunate enough to have been able to tour Moscow in the 80s. I assure you that large cities full of socialized housing are not terribly pleasant.

STRATEGY 2 Increase the stock of affordable housing along the continuum: from emergency shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental units, to formal and informal rental units, to affordable owned homes.
Support the development of hostels and single-room occupancy dwellings like boarding houses, special care facilities and lodging houses.
Support the development of emergency and transitional housing to accommodate specific subgroups within the homeless population, including youth under the age of 18, families, women with or without children who are fleeing violence, people leaving addictions treatment and people with mental health issues or cognitive or physical disabilities.

Some of this is OK but how much? How many hostels are we obligated to provide for travelling hipsters with Liberal Arts degrees for example?

STRATEGY 3 Research and develop new ways of providing non-market housing.
Develop new ways of providing non-market housing in Calgary by having The City’s Affordable Housing Implementation Team work with the Community Action Committee addressing homelessness, the Community Land Trust and other partners in public, private and community sectors.

The repetitiveness of the goal of increasing state-owned housing is rather telling. ImagineCalgary see’s no other recourse for housing issues without massive state participation. This strategy has failed everywhere else but hey, lets let Calgarian taxpayers try just one more time.

STRATEGY 4 Identify specific buildings and parcels of land that can be set aside for the development of non-market housing.
Provide the option of subsidizing people, and not projects, to expand the supply of affordable housing.

Oh look, another strategy to pursue more state owned housing tenements. How creative of them.

STRATEGY 5 Bring together developers and non-profit organizations and guide them in seeking federal and provincial funding for the development and operation of affordable housing.

Well this is something interesting at least. They want to bring others with them when they go begging for more money from other levels of government. Nenshi may have a hard time getting those homebuilders to come with him if he keeps banning them from his committees when he has his periodic tantrums though.

STRATeGY 6 Support appropriate relaxations to regulations on a site-specific basis for development that meets the needs of low-income households.

Oh good, let the standards down on the low income developments. Hell, get rid of the smoke detector requirements and allow smoking within them. That should reduce our low income population right quickly.

We either need regulations for all developments or none.

STRATeGY 7 Support initiatives to eliminate homelessness.
Mobilize community partners and other orders of government to develop a comprehensive 10-year plan to eradicate homelessness that would lead to a shift from our current temporary/ transitional shelter approach to one that uses prevention combined with rapid re-housing and supportive housing practices.
Focus short-term efforts on families with children that are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, as well as on children and youth at risk of becoming homeless later in life due to childhood housing instability.
Support a Mayor’s task force to reach out to vulnerable group at risk of becoming homeless.
Continue to introduce and support social programs that help the homeless become self-reliant.
Enhance programs and supports that help unemployed and low-income people achieve economic self-sufficiency.
Use a collaborative and shared investment approach with not-for-profit, industry and government sectors.
Provide adequate training or education and services for life skills development, job preparation and job placement to the homeless population and those at risk of becoming homeless.
Support various employment supports, including transportation subsidies, child care and eligibility for health benefits.
Support early childhood development that assists parents in providing children with healthy environments for full development.

Most of the above is standard fluff in speaking to homelessness. When they say “eliminate” though, reality is already lost. Homelessness can be mitigated and reduced but it will never be eliminated. If we don’t plan for realistic outcomes we will never see the ones we want. Many of the initiatives listed above are already in existence. The term “enhance” is used to mask a call for increased spending though.

As usual, ImagineCalgary goes way beyond civic mandate though in calling for child care and health benefits. Early childhood programs are not a municipal role either so lets just get off it.

Well, that is the ImagineCalgary housing dreams in nutshell along with interpretation and in only 4000 words. Writing on their self-esteem goals in a future installment will be a cakewalk after having written this one. 😉

ImagineCalgary document dissection Pt. 3

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For today’s trip into the surreal world of the ImagineCalgary civic plan I am going to have a look into the city of Calgary’s plans to manage our goods and services. This section demonstrates just how intrusive Calgary’s city management wants to get in our lives and businesses.

The first part of the ImagineCalgary goods and services plan delves into food. They really do want to tell us what to eat. That plan inspired the more in-depth;  “CALGARY FOOD SYSTEM ASSESSMENT & ACTION PLAN” which is possibly even more crazy than the ImagineCalgary document itself. I broke down the food plan in all it’s loopy glory in last year. I do recommend reading it and will leave the food section of ImagineCalgary alone in this posting.

Now on to ImagineCalgary’s plan to micromanage our goods and services. In this case they start with fluffy statements and then get more specific into the crazy direct interventions as you read along to the point of proposing free land for select business friends.

System Built environment and infrastructure
Goal
Calgarians access a wide variety of locally produced goods and services and consume these in a responsible manner. We support and consume responsibly produced goods and services from around the world.

OK here is the broad goal. Not only we are to access locally produced goods (I hear those Calgary bananas are terrific), but we are expected to consume these goods in a responsible manner. Does that mean I can’t eat too many of these locally produced bananas lest I get fat? Does this mean I will be monitored to ensure that I compost the peel?

Now I see below that this “We” does indeed support consumption of imported goods (again only if done so in a manner that they deem responsible) as long as these goods and services were produced in a manner that they deep to have been responsible.

This of course is the sort of garbage that inspired the delusional city councilor Brian Pincott to crusade against legal items on menus in Chinese restaurants in Calgary. The ImagineCalgary people and their flakey proponents like Pincott truly do want to tell us what we are allowed to eat or utilize as consumers in general. Courts in Ontario have already proven that this is totally out of the jurisdiction of civic governments. Despite these legal realities, our ideologues on city council want to waste court and legislative time further trying to beat those legal precedents.

As I have said before, if one has the stomach to delve deeply into the ImagineCalgary plan, one can see where much of the city council lunacy stems from.

1 TARGET By 2036, over 50 per cent of Calgary businesses adopt a protocol for sustainable practices and report on it regularly.

The along with the word “vibrant”, the ImagineCalgary crowd loves to beat the hell out of the word “sustainable”. The word appears well over 100 times in their blueprint alone. The reason that word is beloved by the framers of ImagineCalgary is that the definition of the term is vague and can be bent to whatever need they like. Environmentally sustainable? Ethically? Economically? The word is only limited by the user’s imagination.

Now in light of it being so tough to determine what “sustainable” means in this context, it does make it disturbing to imagine half of our city’s businesses being strong-armed into adopting binding protocols on this that as is said above would have to be reported regularly. Reported to who? The sustainability police? What if the business does not meet the definition of sustainability that day? Will there be fines? Revocation of licenses? Sanctions? Finger waggling?

Business people are ambitious and independent minded. I can’t see even 10% willingly binding themselves into something like this. Clearly the ImagineCalgary creators realize a bit of this as this is one of the few goals that they have with less than 90% compliance expectations. All the same, I fear for how these busybodies plan to get half of businesses to get on board with this.

Oh but wait, they of course do give some indication of their strategies:

STRATEGY 1 Develop incentives to support businesses that operate in an environmentally sustainable way.
Support the attraction and retention of sustainable industry. Support the design of eco-efficient industrial and business centres.Enhance e-commerce infrastructure within Calgary.

Now none of the above strategies needs any help from the city. The free market will decide which industries can be sustained here and efficiencies in consumption come rather clearly through supply and demand.

To allow market choice would be to lose control and the ImagineCalgary gang could not abide by such. Real markets likely would not fit within their definition of sustainability thus must be stunted.

Develop incentives? Attract and retain?

Let’s face it folks, the only way governments try to do this is by taxing the hell out of the successful businesses in order to pad and subsidize the economically non-viable ones.

There are few better recipes for market collapse and corruption than the empowerment of government to pick and choose businesses that they will “support” at the expense of others. We can’t let Calgary city hall get any more deeply into this game than it already is.

STRATEGY 2 Develop a sustainable business ethic that Calgary businesses can sign on to.
Promote sustainable business and products (through labeling, associations, etc.).

This kind of gimmick is neat. It is a form of public shaming that local governments can use to push businesses around.

First, bureaucrats at city hall draft a “sustainable business ethic” of their own definition. An business association of sorts is created that of course only allows businesses who have bound themselves into this sustainability definition. The city will use tax dollars to promote and advertise that consumers should try to only go to businesses that display such and such sticker to indicate they are part of this association.

While I am sure the city would never outright tell us not to go to a particular business, they will happily imply that you perhaps are not a good citizen should you take your money to one of those icky businesses that refused to sign on to their protocol and join their new association.

Now we start to see how the ImagineCalgary folks expect to get as many as 50%of businesses to sign on to their “protocol” thus losing choice in operating their own enterprises. Sneaky but effective. Not really a new strategy, think back to the “look for the union label” campaigns only imagine a powerful government doing it.

STRATEGY 3 Ensure Calgary businesses adopt cradle-to-cradle responsibility of products. Ensure businesses think longer-term when selling goods and services.

When they go from “encourage” to “ensure” one rightly hears alarm bells. This is the sort of statement that leads to legislation and penalties.

What is “Cradle-to-Cradle” you say? In short it is a flakey environmentalist ideology that would demand profound market intervention to enforce and would put the cost of consumer goods through the roof. It is an ideological theory that businesses are welcome to willingly embrace but we would be crazy to allow our city busybodies to enforce such practices as they would like to.

STRATEGY 4 Encourage the trade of locally based goods and services.
Ensure businesses think longer-term when selling goods and services

This one starts with “encourage” but ends with “ensure” so again we see the barrel of the government gun-to-the-head peeking out.

In this case “encourage” when it comes to protectionism means tariffs. Of course such things usually only apply to countries. Now we can see part of why Naheed Nenshi and many of his compatriots are so eager to expand the taxation powers of the city. Taxation is not simply a way to raise government funds, it can be and often is used as a punitive form of control over citizens and enterprise.

The ways of “ensuring” along with targeted taxation are limitless and who defines what is thinking in the longer-term? Will this be a license requirement for business? Another mandatory-but-not-mandatory business association?

Alas though, we are still only at the tip of the iceberg with where these people want to go in building their ideological utopia out of Calgary.

TARGET By 2016, Calgary has a strong and diverse portfolio of locally based businesses.

This one has a very short timeline and really is a fluff statement with no measure. Most of the targets in the plan have those ridiculous targeted percentages attached to them. I guess we should be happy that this one lacks this.

The entire goal above can be reached simply through having a good environment in which to do business. That means reasonable (needs reduction) red-tape and regulation. Reasonable local costs for real-estate, taxation etc. and free consumer and business mobility to ensure that services develop to fit the needs.

Sadly, the ImagineCalgary goal is to massively increase market intervention through regulation and raised taxes as well as raising cost of operation due to explosive real-estate prices through mandated density targets. This will only backfire with catastrophic consequences but despite so many world examples of why government needs to stay clear of business the likes of the ImagineCalgary gang plan to push forth and micromanage our lives and endeavors.

Now on to the strategies. It is not an exaggeration to call the strategies below socialism. This is the definition of it, only the degree is in question.

STRATEGY 1 Provide incentives to diversify our economic base.
Provide seed money to help support the establishment of local businesses and industries in strategic sectors.

Explore options for utilizing publicly owned land to help support/incubate locally owned businesses.

Explore the option of using vacant and underutilized buildings as local business incubators.

Support tax incentives for local business.

Create economic development programs to diversify local business.

Well in this one they come right out and say it: “provide seed money” and in “strategic sectors” of course. I imagine organic hemp-shops and bicycle repair shops will be determined as “strategic” thus worthy of being lavished with “seed money” that will be taken from the pockets of the productive through taxation. This is corporate welfare even if the recipients may indeed to be from some smaller businesses. This is direct market intervention and this will fail at monumental cost to us all as it invariably does.

While these folks are in love with the term “sustainability” the concept is completely lost when the word “economic” is placed in front of it. There are reasons why certain businesses do not exist. Usually it is because nobody wants the damn things. Supply and demand have been proven infinitely more effective in determining what businesses we need or do not need than any government ever has. It is ridiculous that our City Hall wants to go down this insane road.

Google MagCan or Novatel Alberta to see to relatively recent and local examples what happens when idiotic bureaucrats determine that they can create local industries with “seed money” from taxpayers.

Of course just giving money to friends and preferred businesses is not enough for these utopian urban-planners. This plan calls for giving land to certain businesses as well. Why dedicate civic land to things like parks and paths when it can be given to vibrant, sustainable, handpicked business ventures with some tax dollars on top?

Oh but as we see, land and money are not enough alone. The plan here also says that buildings that they determine (by what measure) to be underutilized can be given to the business friends they have gathered as well. This does not even specify if these are public-owned properties or not, only that they have determined that these have been underutilized by some unknown measure. What sort of utilization quotas are we speaking of now?

If free money, free land and a free building are not enough for the Chosen Ones to flourish as businesses, we can see that there are plans for “tax incentives” as well. In other words, these businesses that are determined by the tall-foreheads will get tax breaks in order to ensure that they may directly compete and possibly eliminate other businesses that do not offer the practices, goods and services that ImagineCalgary deem to be good for the collective.

STRATEGY 2 Develop information that promotes locally based businesses in Calgary and its region.
Create a directory of locally based businesses.
Create economic development programs to diversify local business.

I guess one should go farther into the ideology of what these people consider “locally based businesses” as are not all businesses in Calgary based locally by their very nature? You see, this is another of those ambiguous terms that can be used when they begin to pick and choose between the businesses that they feel are good for us or bad. WalMart while employing thousands and providing affordable consumer goods for example is bad as they are multinational and sell foreign produced goods. A small shoemaker who considers himself an artist and only uses organic leather from nearby cows that were massaged daily and put to sleep with poems from Calgary’s poet-laureate would be a good local business and must be preserved and promoted at all costs.

Create a directory of locally based businesses? With all of the money and time spent on this documents and these assholes suddenly have decided that they can invent the Yellow Pages???

The framers of ImagineCalgary while being ideological zealots are not complete idiots. They know that countless directories on paper and online list local businesses. What they are getting at is that they will determine their own list of worthy businesses and advertize them in order to create yet another competitive edge for their Chosen Ones.

Money, land, buildings, tax breaks and now free advertising for certain businesses. As one can see, it can pay very well to be connected to the right folks in Calgary City Hall as these plans develop.

STRATEGY 3 Support flexible standards to encourage a wide variety of local businesses. Enable buildings that can adapt to a wide range of business types.
Provide land use districts that facilitate the development of flexible spaces.
Support mixed-usecommunities.

As with many portions of the ImagineCalgary document, this is a bit vague.

Like the sudden discovery of the yellowpages though, it looks like ImagineCalgary has stumbled across the concept of the shopping mall when speaking of buildings that provide a range of business types.

Of course all of these things can and will come into being without the direct manage of City Hall. To allow nature to take it’s course in these matters would be to lose some control. That clashes directly with the goals of ImagineCalgary.

There is so much more to cover in this blueprint of madness. I have hit all I can for today. In finishing on the theme of control though I do want to hit one more target.

TARGET By 2036, all Calgarians consume more responsibly.

It is the short and sweet targets that scare one the most. How will they get us all to consume in what they determine to be a responsible manner? Not just some, but “all”.

Lofty and scarey goals indeed.

Remember, Naheed Nenshi some members of our current council took part in making this document. These people believe in the goals and means within ImagineCalgary and intend to pursue them.

Want to conserve a resource? Make it a commodity!

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An unfortunate reality is that the more critical a resource is to the population at large is, the more likely and effective efforts will be to put the management of the resource fully and directly into the hands of governments. I say this is unfortunate as when a resource is collectivized; a sense of consumer entitlement arises leading to even more consumption and more irresponsible management of the resource.

Few resources demonstrate the above principle more clearly than fresh water. Based on the simple reality that fresh water is indeed essential in life, advocates for intrusive government expand from there in demanding that water never be traded or used as a commodity in a private manner. What is overlooked whether purposely or not is that water already is a tradable commodity and it must be in order for modern society to function. Industry and agriculture have been purchasing water since the invention of canals.

Despite the hysterics of groups such as the Council of Canadians, nobody is really coming to steal or buy all of Canada’s fresh water. Our supply of fresh water as a nation is quite safe. Treated water for household use and consumption however is indeed a resource that is expensive to produce and hard to keep up with citizen’s demands for it.

Last Saturday evening was dedicated as the time for people to observe “earth hour” as designated by the international lobby corporation known as the World Wildlife Fund. Despite ads, gimmicks and general lobbying, Calgary happily ignored the hype and I am proud to report that we as a city showed utterly no change in our energy use as during this hour of greenwashing. The usual suspects in the environmentalist world are of course decrying us as rednecks and enemies of the earth for ignoring their foolish little exercise.

Assuming that Calgarians are indeed the heartless, environment-destroying, capitalist bastards that some in other regions like to try and paint us, how on earth did we manage to be the city with the lowest per-capita water consumption numbers in the country?

What inspired so many Calgarians to install low-flow toilets, track down leaking pipes, use rain-barrels and reduce the amount of treated water that we pour on to our lawns? Was it successful lobbying by Greenpeace and the like with their door-to-door work and flyer drops? Was it ads in the paper wagging collective fingers at us for overconsumption? Was it an earth-shattering speech from a civic leader? None of the above apply of course. The key element in the reduction of Calgary’s domestic water use has been household water metering!

I know that we like to envision society as being altruistic to the point that they will embrace every conservation initiative that is fed to them but in reality it is only self-interest that moves people en masse to change anything. Through making water a measurable commodity that people pay for based on individual use Calgary succeeded where decades of socialized water distribution failed. By simply being charged by the liter and being able to see a measure of household use, citizens were suddenly inspired to seek effective ways to reduce their consumption.

Hipsters do love their irony so they should appreciate the figure below from Statistics Canada.

Chart 4 Households in single-detatched dwellings more likely to use water-saving fixtures

wateruse

While the majority of our urban density zealots who preach of the wasteful lifestyles of suburbs live in dense neighborhoods (and their parent’s basements in the suburbs), it appears that they have some issues in practicing what they preach. Why is it that the areas most densely packed with environmental idealists are not embracing water consumption reduction initiatives nearly as much as those evil bourgeoisie devils in single detached homes?

The answer is pretty simple; in apartments and other multi-unit dwellings utilities and resources such as water are much more likely to be collectivized. Renters abound and utilities are often bundled in with their rent. Despite high-idealism, direct incentive to reduce consumption is not seen  so consumption simply isn’t reduced. Like most socialists, it is expected that somebody else has to do it but the demands on everybody else are to be shrill, sanctimonious and as can be seen, often hypocritical.

The principle of making a resource a commodity in order to control consumption works pretty much anywhere. Environmentalists love to screech indignantly at the practices of logging companies. One would assume that crown land under the tight scrutiny and control of government would be where best practices would occur then no?

In reality, private woodlots are far more efficiently managed than crown lands. While only 11% of Canada’s woodlots are privately owned, 19% of our timber products come from them. Private woodlots are carefully managed for erosion control, esthetics and of course productivity. Sustainability and replanting are critical simply due to the element of self-interest in maintaining a healthy, balanced forest. That is not to say that no sustainable practices are done on public lands, this is just pointing out that private practices prove to be superior to public management.

If public ownership of resources were the key to wise environmental practices and sustainable growth, China would be leading the world in clean industry.

If public ownership of critical resources led to more efficient production and a sustainable cost of living, Soviet Russia would have had the most stable food supply on the planet. Google bread-lines or starvation in Ukraine to see what happens when government is given the management of a resource simply on the premise that because it is critical that it should not be left in private hands. Food is a need. Despite that, government management of food has always proven to be a failure with extremely dire consequences.

We need to keep these principles in mind when looking at other resources too. Where are our largest areas of public expenditure? Where are these expenditures growing the fastest?

Healthcare and education prove to be the most important issues to voters and both are proving to be unsustainable to the public purse. Because of massive government subsidization and control, a sense of entitlement has caused an unsustainable trend in demand and direct management of these resources. Nations are going bankrupt around the planet due to entitlements and as we see all levels of government in North America spending far more than they bring in it is clear that we are heading towards a crash as well.

Water and food are needs and we have found that treating them as commodities has been the best way to ensure that these needs are sustainably managed for all. Healthcare and Education are needs as well yet we refuse to recognize them as commodities due to flawed and outdated ideologies.

It should not be an entitlement to go to an emergency room without direct personal cost every time your child has the sniffles nor does every child need post-secondary education. Treating healthcare and education as commodities would mean directing resources towards real need rather than entitled wants. This is not to say that we need to move to a fully private model for either of these areas by any means. What this means is that we have to change how we look at these resources in a new way if we really actually want to conserve them in the most responsible manner.

Whether we like it or not, government resources are finite. We simply can’t fund everything to keep up with every entitled demand by interest groups. We have to look at supply realistically before trying to fill every demand.

I know people fear private provision of services. If we continue to live beyond our collective means as we are now though, the dog-eat-dog system that will come post-crash will make controls that we could make now appear to be a cake-walk. Have a look at Spain, Greece or Russia for examples.

ImagineCalgary; a blueprint for big government madness. Pt. 1

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In 2005 it was determined by the municipal powers that be in Calgary that we apparently had way too much time and general resources as a city and had to piss much of it away in what was one of the world’s largest of municipally funded navel gazing exercises which they coined: ImagineCalgary.

Apparently 18,000 Calgarians were asked the five simple questions below:

What do you value about Calgary?
What is it like for you to live here?
What changes would you most like to see?
What are your hopes and dreams for the next 100 years?
How can you help make this happen?

Groups were formed that included the likes of Naheed Nenshi, Brian Pincott and Druh Farrell who interpreted the answers to these questions and created the almost surreal 211 page document called the: imagineCALGARY Plan for Long Range Urban Sustainability.

This document is so packed full of pie-in-the-sky pap, calls for insane goals and massive government intervention that one would think this is some sort of satirical parody rather than a serious (and bloody expensive) municipal planning blueprint. While the ImagineCalgary website is packed full of platitudes, it is near impossible to find a copy of the document itself. I suspect that even they realize that if Calgarians actually take the time to read the idiocy within it that they will reject it universally. I have kindly loaded the entire document on my site where people can access it in perpetuity through the link in the paragraph above this one.

Below I will be going through the notions in this document piece by piece.  The ideas within do indeed prove that fact is indeed often stranger than fiction. I really don’t think I could make up stuff as loony as what has been packed into the ImagineCalgary manifesto. This is indeed going to be a long posting.

Now dear reader, before we get into this dissection I am sure that many are thinking: “So what? The city wastes money on stupid studies all the time. This one is eight years old and the money is gone. Note it and get over it!”.

I do wish this was something that was just a passing notion that we could forget about but unfortunately Calgary City Hall under Nenshi’s guidance is using the ImagineCalgary document as their main planning plank. The density obsessed “Plan It Calgary” states right on it’s main City of Calgary page that it is modeled directly from the ImagineCalgary lunacy. Our city planners and managers are actually trying to put this insane document and it’s recommendations into action.

At the City of Calgary’s “Office of Sustainability” (yes there actually is one) site, ImagineCalgary is highlighted along with the crazy local food policy that it inspired which I covered at length in a past blog posting.

So yes folks, what I will be looking at below is not something from tinfoil hat country or anything that I made up. These are real items from the long-term plan for Calgary City Hall under Naheed Nenshi’s leadership.

I will begin with the goals laid out under “Social” in the document today. It is going to take a series to cover all of what is packed into ImagineCalgarys’s goals and strategies. This part of the document is among the most lucid so I may as well begin here.

TARGET By 2036, 90 per cent of citizens report that Calgary is a beautiful city.

Isn’t that statement cute? Doesn’t that just feel nice? Now of course, there are few areas more subjective than that of judging what is esthetically pleasing. How exactly these folks plan to get 9 out of 10 Calgarians to agree on what is beautiful is not very well laid out but it sure is a pretty goal and well worth spending a fortune trying to reach is it not? Strategies are laid out for this of course.

STRATEGY 1 Develop and use measures to regularly report Calgarians’ opinions regarding the beauty of the city.

Ahh good. Measuring opinions of beauty is priority one indeed! I expect we shall be opening an office of “Measuring Calgarian beauty opinion” in city hall right away along with the associated supports and bureaucracy.

STRATEGY 2 Establish design performance standards for new residential, commercial and industrial construction to ensure beauty is considered in all new development

Of course we can’t let those unwashed Calgarians determining all by themselves what they feel is beautiful! We must enforce through legislation as the above quote from the plan states! An office of “Establishing and enforcing construction beauty standards” should be opened in city hall along with associated supports and bureaucracy as well as a field measuring and enforcement arm!

What better way to get all those Liberal Arts graduates who are currently making coffee into more lucrative employment than to create a department of City Beauty Police?

STRATEGY 3 Create and protect beautiful public spaces to provide more opportunities for aesthetic enjoyment.

Ahh but of course. We can’t simply rely on home and business owners to make things beautiful no matter how hard the Beauty Police come down on them. We must purchase, create and protect even more beautiful things and places in the city. We can always borrow funds and/or raise taxes again to cover all that.

STRATEGY 4 Foster an understanding of and appreciation for the aesthetic value of our built environment so that citizens, developers and others can enhance our physical resources.

Huxley would be proud of the newspeak used in the strategy above. We can’t assume that these unwashed taxpaying citizens will really understand or appreciate all these beautiful things that are being built for them. We must “foster” these sorts of things. Perhaps mandatory courses in aesthetic value should be held. Maybe these courses will only be required if the Beauty Police find citizens who do not perform the appropriate “oohs and ahhhs” at the city’s great beauty initiatives. Either way, we clearly can’t let people simply decide for themselves what may or may not look good!

STRATEGY 5 Create and protect developed and uncultivated natural areas to ensure we can enjoy these areas now and in the future.

Yards and gardens bad! Natural areas good!

There is something of a clash here with density goals too but that can be ironed out later. I am not sure if these folks have heard of Nose Hill and Fish Creek parks yet.

Time for a new target:

TARGET By 2036, 95 per cent of Calgarians report that they have a range of opportunities for the aesthetic enjoyment of nature, arts and culture.

I can’t think of a day that goes by when I don’t see a Calgarian seated on a curb weeping openly due to the deficit in aesthetic enjoyment opportunities in their lives. This travesty indeed must be addressed!

STRATEGY 1 Develop and use measures to regularly report Calgarians’ opinions regarding the range of opportunities available for aesthetic enjoyment.

Step one: open office of “measuring Calgarian satisfaction with aesthetic enjoyment opportunities”.

I see now that Calgary City Hall will have to build a new office tower to house all these new departments. I hope their design passes the muster of the Beauty Police.

STRATEGY 2 Increase public support for the arts to develop additional ways for citizens to enjoy natural and created aesthetics.

Money! Money! Money!

We can’t hire every Liberal Arts grad in the Beauty Police department. With spending of more money though, we can contract the rest to decorate the city further.

STRATEGY 3 Undertake cultural impact assessments for all public or private initiatives, so we can properly consider and enhance the cultural life of our city.

Oh good! Let’s not just let any initiative happen whether private or not! We must assess how that will impact culture! I expect we will spend many millions defining what our culture is and how we intend to enhance and consider it. In the meantime, I guess we will just sort of cook these assessments.

It certainly calls for an entire new “office of cultural assessments” along with the associated bureaucracy.

TARGET By 2016, 90 per cent of Calgarians report that they have opportunities to express their unique gifts and talents

They certainly set the bar high. I am more curious about how many Calgarians actually feel that their unique gifts and talents are actually being hindered. Let’s see how our city plans to get us all to that nice 90% zone.

STRATeGY 1 Develop and use measures to regularly report Calgarians’ opinions of the availability of opportunities for creative self-expression.

Ahh yes. Why did I even wonder? What we need first is to form a department of measuring “availability of opportunities for creative self-expression” along with the associated bureaucracy.

STRATEGY 2 Ensure Calgarians have the support systems necessary to foster artistic excellence and innovation as expressions of their gifts and talents.

This looks like a nice expensive and rather wide open strategy. What does it mean? Art schools on every corner? Free galleries? Subsidized advertising? Free paint? Who qualifies? How? How many?

Yes, this is a formula for a tax-dollar sinkhole.

STRATEGY 3 Identify ways for the full range of stakeholders to co-operate and create connections to realize the full potential of the arts.

The above is pretty much fluff but I imagine money can and will be spent identifying these required “ways”.

STRATEGY 4 Ensure the Alberta Government continues to recognize and strengthen its level of financial commitment to arts and culture in Calgary.

This strategy is easy to figure out and not now. Beg for more money from other levels of government. Nenshi is already demonstrating a strong talent in this.

STRATEGY 5 Boost the strategic roles of the cultural industries and local media for their contributions to local identity, creative continuity and job creation.

What exactly is a “cultural industry” and how and why do we need to “boost their strategic roles”? I am not sure if I want to hear the answer.

How about the apparent “boosts” to media when it comes to their apparent and possible contributions to local identity? How so? Do Calgarians not have an identity? Is it the media’s role to create and maintain this identity? Is this identity defined and is a goal to be reached?

STRATEGY 6 Provide accessible informal and professional arts educational programs to Calgarians of all ages and abilities.

Yes, in this target the best and most expensive strategy was saved for last. We as taxpayers are to be obligated to provide both informal and professional arts educational programs to people of all ages and abilities. I do love that they include “abilities” in there. It means we should have to pay for shitty artists to be taught along with talented ones. 🙂

Yes folks, ImagineCalgary expects the Calgary taxpayers to create an indiscriminate arts Mecca here in Alberta. Police and fire services can wait.

TARGET By 2021, 90 per cent of Calgarians report that Calgary is a city that promotes creative freedom.

While I haven’t seen evidence that creative freedom is being stifled in Calgary, it apparently is a critical goal to ensure that we promote creative freedom even further somehow. How so though?

STRATEGY 1 Develop and use measures to regularly report Calgarians’ opinions of how well we promote creative freedom in our city.

Boy I sure didn’t see that strategy coming. Create an office of “Measuring Calgarian’s opinions of how well we are promoting creative freedom” along with the associated supports and bureaucracy.

STRATEGY 2 Ensure the arts and culture sector plays a leadership role in Calgary’s future, so we can build creative freedom into the most influential levels of decision-making processes.

OK this one is getting interesting. I would say considering how much artistic pap has been included in this ImagineCalgary plan that the arts and culture sector is already leading too damn much. How much more is required?

“Build creative freedom into the most influential levels”? How influential? How built?

Are we talking artist quotas at senior management levels? Seats preserved on city council exclusively for folks from this apparent arts and culture sector?

Will these artists have veto power on every project? What will their budget be?

STRATEGY 3 Promote the development and continuity of the cultures of First Nations, Metis and other indigenous people, as they are the bearers of the historic and interactive relationships with our land.

Ahh yes because native culture is not promoted and funded enough by every other level of government. Why do once what can be done over and over again? This is a municipal priority? I think not.

STRATeGY 4 Ensure newcomers from other regions and countries can access, participate in and express themselves through the evolving culture of Calgary, ensuring the richness of our creative freedom is continuously strengthened.

They already can.

STRATeGY 5 Review, revise and develop policies and practices that foster creative freedom, rather than censorship.

Would love to see some examples of this apparent censorship. Hate to think how much will be spent trying to find it though.

TARGET By 2026, 90 per cent of Calgarians report that participation in creative activities is an important part of their lives.

Now we are getting to the real attitudes here. The Nenshi gang loves to be dismissive when people use the term “social engineering” but what else can you call the above city target?

Here we have a city document setting out a goal that 9 out of 10 Calgarians must consider creative activities (to be determined by city bureaucrats) as being an important part of their lives.

Piss off! I don’t have to consider those things important nor does anybody else. It sure as hell isn’t the cities role to make me prioritize what I feel to be an important part of my life.

How are we to get there? Let me guess:

STRATEGY 1 Develop and use measures to regularly report citizens’ opinions of the importance of and levels of participation in creative activities.

……along with associated bureaucracy.

STRATEGY 2 Create public opportunities for all Calgarians to recognize the intrinsic value of arts and culture as an important element of our vibrant city.

I have to admit I am surprised that I got this far before encountering the term “vibrant”.

Public opportunities to recognize this eh? We already have those so it must be assumed that we are expected to go further. Mandatory presentation at workplaces? Street displays during rush hour? Ads on TV during the Stanley Cup playoffs?

What if some of us refuse to recognize these things as being intrinsically valuable to us or important? Are we allowed?

STRATEGY 3 Ease or eliminate restrictions on the forms of creative expression that can occur in public spaces, so citizens can participate in and appreciate a wider range of formal and informal creative activities.
Consider abandoning or easing busking bylaws for musicians and artists.
Identify ways to lessen the impacts of liability insurance requirements.
Assess the types of signage regulations that affect the development of murals and other informal expressions of visual art.

OK where to begin.

Not all of us want to listen to some untalented nut playing bongos or be followed by a mime begging for quarters while we eat our lunch outside. We may not even want to listen to the artists with real talents at all times. We have appropriate areas and times for these means of expressing and generating income. Busking need not be banned but yes it damn well needs a degree of regulation in crowded urban environments.

“Lessen impacts of liability insurance requirements”????? Now you nuts are starting to scare me. The only way to lessen those impacts would be to have somebody else assume liability for the actions of street performers. That somebody would be the city and that means me! There is a reason for these requirements. I do not expect nor deserve to be on the hook as a taxpayer when some mentally unstable performance artist hits a passerby with body fluids!

Now on one hand the city wants beauty police and on the other they want to reduce laws so that we can see an expansion of graffiti throughout the city. That idiotic experiment already failed dismally with a city park and would continue to do so elsewhere. Some call them “graffiti” artists and most call them vandals. This strategy is nothing but newspeak for decriminalizing graffiti and seeing even more ugly spraypaint visually polluting our environment. It will take a lot of work for the Beauty Engineers to get 90% of us to say that graffiti is making our city look better I assure you.

STRATEGY 4 Promote creative expression in public spaces to make Calgarians more aware of, and allow them to participate in, a wider range of cultures and creative experiences

Just more words saying more buskers and graffiti.

STRATEGY 5 Build the leadership and facilitation skills of cultural leaders, so they promote the kinds of events that directly engage people in creative experiences.

OK I guess first we will need to find these cultural leaders. Which cultures? How will we build these skills? Free courses? Books? Seminars?

Why is any of this a city responsibility?

STRATEGY 6 Attract and support new talent and creative leadership in the community, including support for and the promotion of local artists from diverse communities.

Attract new creative leadership? What about all those creative leaders that we are already grooming and facilitating in Strategy 5 above? How many creative leaders can we maintain? What if we have creative leaders clashing? Creative turf wars? General chaos!!

Really though, what are we speaking of here? Classified ads in other cities? Craig’s list?

The word “support” is used multiple times. That is an easy translation of course: lavish with tax dollars!

STRATEGY 7 Ensure Calgary artists are recognized for their excellence, to honour the important roles they play in encouraging other citizens’ to participate in and value creative self-expression.

OK we don’t really need this but it will be cheap and easy enough to do. Issue a ribbon for participation for every artist in Calgary and be done with it.

Well that is a breakdown simply on the “Social” portion of the ImagineCalgary plan that is the model for almost all current city initiatives. Believe it or not, the above goals and strategies are among some of the more rational in the ImagineCalgary plan.

In days to come I will break down: Conflict resolution (some beauties in there), Equity, Transportation, Environment, Equity, Employment, Waste Management, Economic, Access, Governance, Health and Infrastructure from within the document.

This will be a long and cynical road but in going through ImagineCalgary one at least can see where the City of Calgary’s government inspiration and plan is coming from even if it is unattainable and irrational.

If Calgary really keeps trying to follow through with ImagineCalgary’s plans, we will make Stockton California look like a paradise within a couple decades.

Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien had the right idea.

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trudeau

It is a rare occasion when I agree with Trudeau or Chretien’s ideas on much of anything but way back in 1969 they addressed one of Canada’s most pressing issues in drafting a policy document called the “White Paper”. Unfortunately the lawyers, activists and other assorted parasites within the growing “Indian Industry” had already been entrenching themselves well and managed to exert enough pressure to get the Trudeau government to back off on a policy direction that would have worked towards bringing hundreds of thousands of people out of the misery of poverty, crime, health issues and general social dysfunction living racially segregated under Canada’s racist Indian Act.

Many activists within the Indian Industry speak against the Indian Act and demand that we adhere to treaties and the obligations within them. These same activists go utterly haywire when somebody actually proposes the abolition of the wretched Indian Act or points out that Canada already goes well and beyond the obligations laid out in treaties. The bottom line is that there is a large and well organized element of parasitic people who thrive on the horrific status quo of native affairs in Canada and these people fervently and effectively fight every possible effort to end their existence based on the misery of countless natives living in the horrific racially segregated enclaves that we call Indian reserves.

The Statement of the Government on Indian Policy is a relatively short (24 pages) document and is concise on the goals for changes to native policy and the means to reach those goals. I strongly recommend that this document be read from end to end.

I will highlight some parts from the document below. In the past and currently supporters of the status quo of native misery have predictably dismissed the document as racist and having no goal aside from assimilation. That as usual is utter garbage but the hot-words of racism never fail to quell rationed policy debate thus the shallow self-serving supporters of the Indian Industry never fail to claim racism whenever something may threaten their income from the system. The irony of it all is that the White Paper was explicitly working towards ending policies of racism in Canada.

Below is the preamble from the paper which gets to the gist of things:

 

Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969
Presented to the First Session of the Twenty-eighth Parliament by the Honourable Jean Chrétien, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

 

To be an Indian is to be a man, with all a man’s needs and abilities. To be an Indian is also to be different. It is to speak different languages, draw different pictures, tell different tales and to rely on a set of values developed in a different world.

 

Canada is richer for its Indian component, although there have been times when diversity seemed of little value to many Canadians.

 

But to be a Canadian Indian today is to be someone different in another way. It is to be someone apart – apart in law, apart in the provision of government services and, too often, part in social contacts.

 

To be an Indian is to lack power – the power to act as owner of your lands, the power to spend your own money and, too often, the power to change your own condition.

 

Not always, but too often, to be an Indian is to be without – without a job, a good house, or running water; without knowledge, training or technical skill and, above all, without those feelings of dignity and self-confidence that a man must have if he is to walk with his head held high.

 

All these conditions of the Indians are the product of history and have nothing to do with their abilities and capacities. Indian relations with other Canadians began with special treatment by government and society, and special treatment has been the rule since Europeans first settled in Canada. Special treatment has made of the Indians a community disadvantaged and apart.

 

Obviously, the course of history must be changed. To be an Indian must be to be free – free to develop Indian cultures in an environment of legal, social and economic equality with other Canadians.

What is most striking is how even 40 years later, the statement above is just as valid as it was then. Today problems are much larger and more acute on native reserves though and until we change things they will only get worse.

Below are the policy recommendations of the paper. Native life would be so much different (and far better) had the Canadian government of the day stuck to it’s guns and implemented these policies.

 

1. that the legislative and constitutional bases of discrimination be removed;

 

2 that there be positive recognition by everyone of the unique contribution of Indian culture to Canadian life;

 

3. that services come through the same channels and from the same government agencies for all Canadians; 4 that those who are furthest behind be helped most;

 

5. that lawful obligations be recognized;

 

6 that control of Indian lands be transferred to the Indian people.

 

The Government would be prepared to take the following steps to create this framework:

 

1. Propose to Parliament that the Indian Act be repealed and take such legislative steps as may be necessary to enable Indians to control Indian lands and to acquire title to them.

2. Propose to the governments of the provinces that they take over the same responsibility for Indians that they have for other citizens in their provinces. The take-over would be accompanied by the transfer to the provinces of federal funds normally provided for Indian programs, augmented as may be necessary.

 

3. Make substantial funds available for Indian economic development as an interim measure.
4. Wind up that part of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development which deals with Indian Affairs. The residual responsibilities of the Federal Government for programs in the field of Indian affairs would be transferred to other appropriate federal departments.

Race based policy created the abhorrent state that Canadian natives live in. Only through ending race based policy will we see an easing of the disaster that is our reserve system. While pointing out what is required is simple, actually getting to a racially blind system in Canada is anything but. With the passing of 40 years problems on native reserves have gotten far worse by every measure and Canada is no closer to implementing the simple measures that are absolutely required to work towards ending this misery.

Canada has known for over a generation what needs to be done with native affairs. The only question now is how horrific will things have to get in our system of racial apartheid before a government gets the courage to face-down the defenders of the Indian Industry and make the changes that must be made.

It is the 21st century and still Canada insists on maintaining racial segregation though the Indian Act. It is embarrassing and it is a disaster. Even Trudeau knew this. Alas, Trudeau chose to make the Charter his legacy instead of the abolition of the racist Indian Act in Canada.

 

Calgary’s Petulant Purple Peacock is pouting.

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Naheed Nenshi and peacock

Last week Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi took great umbrage when Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Doug Griffiths implied that with an election looming that Nenshi would be prone to puffing up like a peacock on issues. It appears that Griffiths’ statement was quite prophetic as Mayor Nenshi is indeed puffed up and posturing at the Calgary Home Builders Association in what can really only be considered a temper tantrum on the part of the Mayor.

Naheed Nenshi took Calgary’s mayoral throne in the 2010 municipal elections thanks to a vote-split by the center-right and an impressive galvanization of the normally electorally apathetic hipster population of Calgary. Nenshi has since enjoyed something of a love-in from national left-leaning media outlets such as the CBC and Toronto Star since then but the realities of his role as the mayor of a major city are beginning to cut through the limelight for Nenshi and they are clearly getting on his nerves.

The thin veneer of Nenshi’s support of free enterprise and citizen choice really faded away when notable planning extremist; Rollin Stanley was sought and hired to pursue an extremely questionable and ideologically driven obsession with increasing city density in Calgary despite the wishes of citizens who are increasingly moving out to the suburbs. Taxpayers have already seen the cost as settlements have been paid to planners displaced by the new density driven specialists.

Nenshi is now discovering that despite his density agenda, citizens and businesses are simply moving to the suburbs or even out of the city to escape the urban congestion of his creation. Nenshi wants to increase taxation powers, set up a charter and drag neighboring municipalities into His municipal fifedom. Finding himself halted by provincially elected officials, mobile citizens and those developers that Nenshi so clearly despises, Mayor Nenshi is now beginning to lash out in a way that can only be described as childish.

Nenshi has called new developments “crap” and has been unapologetic in using city bureaucracy to hinder legitimate city expansion that does not fall within his personal utopian visions. When developers dared to speak up and address this at a dinner, Nenshi went off the handle and is now trying to ban developers from city planning activity.

The tone and condescending arrogance in the letter sent from Nenshi’s office to Calgary developers is simply stunning. From the Sun:

The letter demands “a written apology, satisfactory to our office, be sent to each of your members” and posted on its website, the CHBA must also acknowledge they have been an active and supportive participant in City initiatives and they must “commit to working with the City and other industry partners in a constructive and
respectful manner.”

Honestly Nenshi just who the hell do you think you are? You differ with the views expressed at a dinner and pull this sort of stunt? These are Calgary business leaders who represent the interests of the hundreds of thousands of Calgarians who have utterly no interest in living in your crowded downtown dream. As other Councilors are pointing out, you probably don’t even have the authority to ban these important people from city committees anyway.

Nenshi had better learn quickly that not everybody shares his vision and business indeed does have the right to vocalize that view. While it is unlikely that Nenshi will be unseated in this fall’s election, he still indeed is only one vote on council and may find himself regularly defeated in votes if he does not lose this growing thin-skinned Messiah complex.

The Mayor is supposed to bring leadership and vision to City Hall. Right now all we are seeing is petulant arrogance and an antagonistic approach to Calgary business leaders and provincial Ministers. This is not going to lead to any kind of “smart growth” and I do hope our Mayor smartens up and grows up himself soon.

Appeasement no more!

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It seems lately that we can hardly make it a week without seeing some illegal protesters costing taxpayers and workers untold dollars due to the growing Canadian cowardice in handling them. This week, we are watching the ongoing illegal blockade of a road to a DeBeers mine in Northern Ontario by some members of the grossly dysfunctional and likely totally corrupted Attawapiskat native band.  

Never mind that the road being blockaded does not even enter the Attawapiskat reserve. Never mind that DeBeers has hired hundreds of members of the Attawapiskat reserve over the years. Never mind the many many millions of dollars that DeBeers has paid to Attawapiskat in good faith to operate 90 kilometers away from the reserve. Never mind the free housing DeBeers donated to the reserve (which they trashed). A handful of natives feel that they have not extorted enough from a legitimate enterprise and dammit they are determined to block a road to the mine until they get more money for having drawn oxygen within extortion range of the enterprise!

With this clearly illegal extortion effort happening, what have we seen in response from Canadian authorities? Sadly and predictably pretty much nothing. After weeks of this a Sheriff has been flown out to present the illegal blockaders with a piece of paper which they promptly disposed of. In the meantime, untold dollars are being lost by a legitimate company. Authorities are essentially in collusion with the extortionists in their hopes that DeBeers will simply pay them off before any real law enforcement is required and will hide behind paper and sit on their cowardly hands in hopes that this becomes somebody else’s problem.

Few things make the collective testicles of authorities shrivel faster in all Canadian jurisdictions than having to deal with protesters. The knackers of officials suck totally into their figurative abdomens when it turns out that the protesters are natives.

Years of cowardly appeasement have put segments of people above the law as long as they are claiming to be protesting something. Never mind that there is no Charter right to illegal demonstrations. How many times do we need to cave to parasitic lawyers and waste the court’s time (and our money) to prove this? Does a police officer need to get an injunction for you or me should we say block the door to a 7-11? Of course not.

Despite what should be an almost self-evident reality in the limitations of legal demonstration, authorities use this fictional charter right to dodge doing their job and protesters and extortionists have figured this out quickly.

Let’s look at things from a protester’s point of view for a moment. Greenpeace is huge multinational corporation with tens of millions of dollars to spend annually. Despite that monstrous budget, Greenpeace would rather keep it’s professional fundraisers and protesters employed (not to mention highly paid management) than blow money on expensive advertising campaigns. At an economic summit in Calgary a couple weeks ago, for the price of a poorly made banner and a couple idiots holding it, Greenpeace managed to get free advertising throughout Canadian media as they illegally trespassed and disrupted a legitimate meeting. No charges were laid on the banner holders and they were escorted out at a cost to the local security and loss of the valuable time of legitimate meeting participants and viewers. At that cost, Greenpeace has been virtually invited to act illegally!

Why is it so hard to simply charge these people? Why so tough to issue fines?

Of course when somebody asks that the law be enforced on illegal protesters, some vapid clown will almost inevitably say: “Oh so you want police to just jump on in there and bust some heads!”.  No you figurative wanker! Heads need not be busted and nobody is proposing such.

In the fall of 2011, I set out to demonstrate the double standards of law enforcement when it comes to protesters when our callow authorities refused to remove illegal squatters from Calgary’s Olympic Plaza. As expected, I as a law abiding taxpayer was charged within hours of breaking the very bylaws that the illegal squatters were. Along with demonstrating the legal double standard though, I also (admittedly unintentionally) demonstrated how rationed law enforcement works.

Upon noticing that I was parked in such a way as to violate local bylaws, I was approached by bylaw officers and asked to move. No billyclubs, no teargas and no initial charges. I was simply and politely asked to move. I politely replied that I was not moving as I was exercising my right to express myself and like the squatters around me, I was above the law. The bylaw officers then called the police who arrived and politely asked me to move. I explained my position again and politely told them to pound sand. After much headscratching and many phone calls, the Calgary police decided to charge me with bylaw violation and to tow my truck. I was told of this and asked to leave my truck so that it may be towed. I asked what would happen if I refused to leave my truck. I was told that I would be forcefully removed and charged with criminal obstruction. At this point I decided I had made my point and left my truck voluntarily. Below one can see the collection of fines I acquired as my truck was towed away. Well worth a few bucks to make the point though.

tickets

 

Now was that all so hard? Did they have to beat my head? Did it cause a riot? There is utterly no reason that the same process can’t be used on other illegal activities.

As the “Idle No More” thing fell apart, their demonstrators felt they would hold one more earth shattering “day of action” last January. Roads from four directions were to be choked in Calgary during rush hour as masses of demonstrators illegally marched down them.

The reality was quite pathetic. Rather than thousands, the protesters numbered at best in the dozens. Police took the event very seriously (as they should) and had as many officers (if not more) on the ground as there were protesters along with a helicopter. Now with the dismal turnout, the protesters essentially narrowed their scope to coming from one direction rather than four and came up Macleod Trail.

As they numbered only in a few dozen, these demonstrators could very easily have simply walked along the sidewalk and made their point. Alas no, Calgary Police “negotiated” with them and not only allowed the illegal and un-permitted disruption of traffic in Calgary but facilitated it by blocking cars as can be seen below.

cowards

How much did it cost to appease this handful of directionless malcontents? How hard would it have been to simply tell them to stay on the damn sidewalk? This mess was brought about because cowardly authorities had let a handful of them block a bridge in the city only weeks earlier. Appeasement only leads to more lawbreaking.

The collective temper tantrum of Quebec students cost us $90,000,000 as taxpayers as authorities hid and kept trying to negotiate and appease this group of spoiled brats for months. The “occupy” joke caused likely millions of dollars in damages to parks across the country when combined along with millions in law enforcement costs.

Aside from the monetary costs, lets look at the resources. Personally, I would rather see police officers chasing down pedophiles or drunk drivers rather than babysitting screaming hipsters and whining natives. Our law enforcement resources are finite. When we dedicate time and people to these protesters, we lose law enforcement in other areas.

The tantrums and protests are getting more frequent and more destructive as while most of the participants are indeed idiots, they do understand that they can reap havoc with impunity in Canada. When will we hit a breaking point here? When will citizens staple some figurative cajones upon their elected officials and demand that our laws be enforced? I do think it will happen eventually, but can’t happen soon enough.

Appeasement is a policy of cowardice and failure. It has to stop.