A Slap on the Wrist

No one gets fired from the Ralph Reich. They all piggy up to the trough, say they are sorry, won't do it again and all is well in Alberta Land. Unless you are a social worker or other frontline employee of the Ralph Regime. Then you DO get fired, and have to file for arbitration to get justice.

Alta trade rep in Washington to be reprimanded for taking oil firm board job
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein says he will send the province's trade official in Washington a letter of reprimand for initially accepting a directorship with a junior oil and gas company.
Klein said Wednesday he wants to know if former energy minister Murray Smith accepted a seat on the board of Calgary-based Tusk Energy Corp. before or after being told by the ethics commissioner not to. Stelmach has said the matter is closed as far as he's concerned, and Smith won't be fired from his post in Washington.
Klein said what Smith did was wrong because of the potential conflict of interest, although it wasn't a firing offence.
It's not the first time Smith has raised eyebrows over the job he took late last year.
Figures show he is receiving more than double his old salary as energy minister. It includes $223,000 Cdn in base salary and benefits, a tax-free international service allowance of $21,608, a car, accommodation and other perks.
It was Smith who closed Alberta's trade offices in the mid-1990s as a cost-cutting move when he was economic development minister.

Smith blinks
Alberta's man in Washington resigns from oil firm board
By Rick Bell
Of course, TUSK Energy didn't see a problem. Their head honcho called it a non-issue. Murray didn't think there was a problem. He was Murray, the premier's pal with enough clout to score a cushy post right after retiring from politics and not even having to worry if it's perceived as patronage, an evil Murray once campaigned against.Reining in Murray, the premier's compadre, was tougher."But how did this happen without clearing the appropriate authorities? Here again is a member of the Conservative glitterati who think he's in a world of his own, operating under his own rules. He has got to go. "When it comes to credibility and integrity we have a long way to go across this country, all governments have a way to go," concludes Stelmach, of this baby step.

Nope this government has a lot longer way to go than any other in Canada. Period.

A Little Rae of Sunshine for the Liberals

It's been said that the NDP are Liberals in a hurry. Well it appears that the old canard may have legs. Rumours are abounding in the Press that former NDP Premier of Ontario Bob Rae is being courted by the Federal Liberals to run in the upcoming election next spring. It helps his brother is a long time Liberal backroom boy. And it helps that since he has retired from politics Bob's profile has been kept up with royal commissions, and other public policy work, where he has moved further and further to the centre, making him the ultimate prize for the Liberals.

Strange days as they say, but he proved himself a liberal when he was Premier, and took on the unions and the left of the party with is New Social Contract, which ended up being the prelude to Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution.
Paul Martin slayed the deficit dragon with cuts to social programs across the board, Bob did the same in Ontario. Birds of a feather.

Heck next the Liberals will be courting Ralph Klein, after all he used to belong to the party. Just kidding. He is retiring from politics, or so he says, we are still waiting with bated breathe for that joyous day.

The public eye bats its lashes at ... Bob Rae
JIM COYLE
Who'd have thought that, at 57, the onetime boy wonder of Canadian politics would find himself being courted by federal Liberals obviously looking beyond the current occupant of the prime minister's office to who might fill it nextAnd who'd have thought Bob Rae would seem so appealingly suited to the task?

Liberals want Rae to join fold
Ex-NDP premier says Air-India his current priority
After that,
The case for a Rae candidacy was bolstered with the release yesterday of a Toronto Star-SES Research Associates poll.It said former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, 57, now the Canadian ambassador to Washington, is the frontrunner in the undeclared leadership contest with support of 23 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed.Rae and former deputy prime minister John Manley, 55, were tied for second at 11 per cent apiece followed by former federal minister Martin Cauchon, 42, and Harvard University professor Michael Ignatieff, 58, at 4 per cent.Among Ontarians polled, 20 per cent favoured Rae compared to 17 per cent who back McKenna.

Taken it to the Man

As I have blogged here before the arguement by the Western Seperatists including the soft right wingers who support Alberta Uber Alles, claiming a constitutional right to mineral & resource rights and defying the idea of sharing the spoils with 'Eastern Bastards" fails to recognize that these land rights are illegal, illegitimate, and based on stolen land and broken promises to Canada's indigenous peoples.

Using their arguement that the 1935 constitutional accords allowed provinces the right to mineral and resource stewardship, justifies Alberta's position of telling Ottawa to bug out when it comes to oil and gas, coal, etc. revenues generated by the province one can then say that earlier legal agreements; treaties, supercede the Alberta governments right to resource revenues.

Link Byfield who I challenged over this is still humming and haaing over the question.

However Stewart Steinhauer, writing in the Dominon in his column, agrees. The Land belongs to the first nations, and they have as much say if not more in who should benefit from the revenues as does the Alberta Government.

Insurgency In Occupied Alberta

A Voice From The Coffin

We're getting down to the heart of the problem, the heartbeat of our Great Mother. Land. The indigenous insurgency in Alberta comes down to a call for Canada to adhere to international law, and recognize Indigenous title to land. The major shareholders and their corporate managers of energy corporations like Exxon Mobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell, to name a few, have other ideas, for oily reasons; powerful forces are keeping Canada from following the rule of law.

This distain for the rule of law, when it does not suit the interests of the powerful, is not a new phase in the history of Canada, or of western civilization. I came across a petition signed by my great-great grandfather, Henry Bird Steinhauer, and his son, Arthur, my great grandfather, among others, addressed to Canada's Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, calling for recognition of Indian title to land. The petition, dated 9 January, 1871, reads:

"We as loyal subjects of our Great Mother the Queen whom your Excellency represents, wish that our privileges and claims of the land of our fathers be recognized by Commissioners whom your Excellency may hereafter appoint to treat with the different tribes of the Saskatchewan…our friends the plains Crees, who have not been taught as we have, think that their lands and hunting grounds shall be taken from them without remuneration. As loyal subjects of our Great Mother the Queen, we pray that all the privileges and advantages of such subjects may be granted to us as a People by your Excellency's Government."