The Other Alberta Boom

Homelessness. I got a job but no home.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of Alberta’s red hot economy. With the vacancy rate near the zero mark, and soaring house prices, the homeless count is rising in Edmonton with few short term solutions in sight.

Hundreds wait for a warm meal and a brief respite from the cold at the Bissell Centre. However, it’s a line that gets longer by the day.

A new report indicates there are 2,600 homeless people in our city; that’s up 19% from 2004. More than half are adults, ranging from 31 to 54 years old. When it comes to race, 47% are Caucasian, and 38% are Aboriginal.

Unfortunate side effect? I think not, its due to the Ralph Revolution and a lack of planning for boom times. Just like the lack of workers is a lack of planning. Thanks to King Ralph's automatic pilot government.

Homeless crisis due to poor decisions: experts

Alberta’s growing homeless crisis is not the result of its overheated economy, but of deliberate government decisions in the 1990s to cut affordable housing initiatives, says one of Canada’s leading experts on homelessness.

"In 1993, the province was spending $287 million annually on housing-related initiatives," said Michael Shapcott, co-chair of Canada’s National Housing and Homelessness Network.

By 1999, that was cut almost in half, he said. Even today, it is spending only slightly more than $280 million on housing — still less than 1993 levels. "If you are looking for culprits behind the province’s housing crisis, one of the culprits is definitely the provincial government. It has abandoned its responsibilities in funding," said Shapcott, one of the speakers at a three-day housing conference in Edmonton this week.

This is an issue none of the men who would replace Ralph have addressed in any serious fashion. It is a crisis, especially this week with record low tempratures and people dying.

But was it an issue in Wednesdays debate? Nope. Earlier in the campaign Dinning announced he would spend $20 million on affordable housing. Just so happens that is exactly the amount the NDP/Liberal Federal Budget of 2005 earmarked for affordable housing in Alberta. So much for Firewall Alberta. The PC's are willing to spend Fed money on housing, money that is supposed to be spent on housing, but they ain't coughing up any of their own.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Pinger Problems

For the past week pingomatic has been problematic, not pinging all its sites. Now Blog Flux has crashed. Sheesh. Can't these guys get their s--t together. Ah well what do you expect for free.



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Kennedy And Dion

A Bilingual Leadership



Hé espoir d'I vous pouvez m'aider pas simplement avec des voix, mais avec mon anglais. (Hey I hope you can help me not just with votes, but with my English.)

No surprize here, this had been predicted for the last week.


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Liberal Leadership Race


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Private Health Care A Commie Idea

Patients pay

Since 1980, spending by the Chinese Government dropped from 36% of total healthcare expenditure to 17 %, while patients’ out-of-pocket spending rose from 20% to 59%

Quick someone tell Ted Morton.

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Medicare is Communist

China

Medicare

Ted Morton

Conservative Leadership Race


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Liberal Values

This sums up the Liberal party renewal...... same old party, same old expectation of hand outs for the favoured......

Rae and his cash bar took flight the other night at Montreal's frenetically flashy W Hotel

"What? You have to pay?" The man, who's at a party for Liberal hopeful Bob Rae, looks askew, and then grunts at the bad-news-bearing bartender the way a Sicilian might greet a pizza with pineapple toppings. Let it be known: Hell hath no fury like a political conventioneer who wants to get sloshed, but is asked to fork over some cold hard cash.

We are entitled to our entitlements runs deep in the Liberal Party right to the grassroots.

Like I said the convention delegates were more interested in drinking and thongs than policy.


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Harper Supports Calderon

As I pointed out earlier our PM and his pal George Bush were in Mexico to legitimate the illegal government of Felipe Calderon. A goverment that has been supressing human rights, killing and torturing the opposition, in Mexico. But Harper was silent on that issue.

Oaxaca: The End of Tolerance
Why is this Repression Carried out Against the Popular Movement? And why Now?

And who should be joining Harper on his little trip, why none other than the spokesperson for Deep Integration of Canada with the United States and Mexico, corporate shill Thomas d'Aquino.

Unlike Hapers controversial remarks on China, the Official Opposition had nothing to say about this because they were partying all week in Montreal.

Harper watches brawl at inauguration ceremony for Mexican president

MEXICO CITY (CP) - Felipe Calderon was hurriedly sworn in as Mexico's president Friday in a chaotic ceremony packed with brawling legislators as Prime Minister Stephen Harper watched from the balcony above.

Calderon took the oath of office, ignoring whistles and catcalls from leftist politicians who dispute his razor-thin victory in the July election as tens of thousands of people swamped the streets a few blocks away to protest the new leader.

After legislators threw punches and chairs and blocked the front doors, Calderon was whisked in through the back, surrounded by bodyguards and ruling conservative party members as outgoing leader Vicente Fox presented him with the tri-coloured sash.

The ceremony lasted just minutes, with Calderon conservatives hugging each other and yelling in triumph while their rivals jeered: "Felipe will fall."

Minutes before he arrived, legislators were still shoving one another to the floor.

"That was interesting," Harper said as he left the heavily guarded building. "Our parliament is tame after all.

Harper, the first foreign leader to call him and offer congratulations, was invited to the inauguration when Calderon visited Ottawa in October.

His trip was vital in bucking up Calderon, said Thomas d'Aquino, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

"It it important for Canada to support Mexico in its voyage through this difficult period," said d'Aquino, who also attended the ceremony.

"I know that the conflict and disruption are painful. President Calderon faces an immense challenge but he is very determined to get the job done. In my view he is going to have to build a strong coalition and I believe he has the smarts to do it."

Harper's visit to Mexico seen as boost for Calderon

With Mr. Calderon's leftist opponents vowing to disrupt and even stop the swearing-in ceremony, saying the conservative's July election victory was fraudulent, the presidents of Peru and Ecuador have bowed out of a ceremony already short of big foreign political names.

Mr. Harper, scheduled to be in Mexico for just 15 hours, has already been promised a seat in the front row of visiting dignitaries, who include former U.S. president George Bush and Spain's Crown Prince Felipe.

"As far as I know, politically speaking, Harper is the highest-ranking leader who is coming," said Rossana Fuentes, a foreign policy analyst and former editor of the daily newspaper Reforma. She said Mr. Harper is living up to Canadians' reputation in Mexico as "los gringos buenos" (the good gringos).

"Calderon is a president who needs all the help he can get and he will appreciate Mr. Harper's effort to come down and be with him at a time when is facing a very difficult moment in his presidency," Ms. Fuentes continued.

"For the Prime Minister to go sends a very important message to the Mexicans that the relationship is extremely important to Canada," said Eduardo del Buey, executive director of the Canadian Foundation of the Americas, and a former Canadian diplomat in Mexico.

In deciding to attend the ceremony, Mr. Harper is repaying Mr. Calderon a favour. In October, the president-elect made a point of visiting Ottawa ahead of Washington in a series of courtesy trips to hemispheric allies before officially taking office.

Mr. del Buey said the two leaders have a lot in common. "They're both centre-right conservatives. They're both religious. They're both in their 40s. They're both a generation away from their predecessors. And they're both forming minority governments."

Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press

After attempts to block entrances, fisticuffs and much protest from losing leftists, the ceremony for Felipe Calderón lasted four minutes.

Mr. Calderón and members of his conservative National Action Party defeated attempts by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party to block the entries to the Congress. With his own partisans crowding the dais, the new president and his predecessor, Vicente Fox, were spirited in by bodyguards through a door near the front of the chamber at 9:50 a.m.

Mr. Calderón quickly took the oath of office, and Mr. Fox handed over the traditional presidential sash and left the chamber. The entire ceremony lasted four minutes.

All the while, opposition politicians blew whistles and held up banners suggesting Mr. Calderón was “a traitor to democracy.”

Just before the public swearing-in this morning, Mr. Lopéz Obrador held a mass rally in the city’s historic central square, the Constitutional Plaza, attracting more than 100,000 supporters. Then he led a march down Paseo de la Reforma toward the National Auditorium, where President Calderón was to speak.

Speaking to his supporters, Mr. Lopéz Obrador charged once again that the election was fraudulent and that Mr. Calderón’s victory was engineered by a “neofascist oligarchy.” He claimed the “imposition” of Mr. Calderón as president amounted to a “coup d’etat.”

“We are not rebels without a cause,” he said. “Sometimes they forget the heart of the matter, which is that they robbed us of the election.”

See:

Murder Most Foul

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

Dual Power In Mexico

Mexico



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Britney Needs a Liberal

Thong.

Britney's Crotch Shots Take Web by Storm

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Housefrau Belinda

She does blonde better. This makes her look like a frumpy housefrau. Hmm, maybe she is trying to pretend she is a REAL Woman.


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Scary Thought

This Liberal delegate in a thong. Ohh that image.



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I Am Lib-Blogging Too

Look I am a political junkie with the best of them, I actually went to my neighbourhood pub last night and because there were no hockey games on, I got to watch the Liberal convention much to the chagrin of my bar pals. Though they understand that for me politics is like sports.

Well I got watch most of the speeches I admit I missed most of Iggy's because some guy wanted to watch Sportsnet news.

Anyways so this morning I go to Progressive Bloggers, or what I thought was Progressive Bloggers, cause it sure don't look like the old PB, it looks like Liberalblogger heaven. Don't they have a blog aggregator of their own? Yep they do.

And it's just as bad over at the Blogging Tories, though at least they have some blogging about the Alberta PC leadership race which uncoincidentally is having their final vote today and the usual

Enough with the live blogging and analysis of the Liberal race, is there nothing else going on in the universe that you could be discussing? Sheesh. It is after all for progressives not Liberal Party Hacks, though some confuse the two. Heck there wasn't this much coverage of the NDP convention on the PB.

So my assessment of last night. Yes, yes I know I am contraciting what I said above, but well hell I just had to say it. I will also be blogging on the Tory race as I have been doing. I at least maintain some balance.

Well an inordinate amount of bloggers at PB seem overjoyed with Dion. Huh? Dion and the Belmonts maybe but Stephanie Dion, please gimme a break. First he still has to learn English. A Liberal leader after all should be bilingual, at least that what all the pundits and hacks are criticizing Gerard Kennedy for.

Dion gave three quarters of his speech in French, he opened in French and then somewhere after about ten minutes realized he should speak English. Maybe because he saw the quizzical looks on folks faces that didn't undersstand him. He did have a funny zinger though, " there is more culture in yogurt than in the Conservative Party".

And he on the road to Damascus Dion has found the faith, he too now opposes the war in Afghanistan. A shameless attempt to copy Kennedy's stance on the issue, the only candidate who has consistently opposed the Conservatives Afghanistan mission.

He was and is the loser in this race, right behind Iggy. He had 25 minutes for his speech like everyone else, and he blew it. He was cut off, ala the Academy Awards, and failed to get out his all important punchline that he could beat the Harper. Lucky for him his speech was provided to the media so CBC's Don Newman could fill us in on the missing punchline. Thanks Don.

Big opps that. Missing your punchline, going over your alloted time. So he goes off stage in a huff, the media scrums him, and he ignores them scowling , which did not look pretty. Uh oh Mr. Dion is pissed off. And it shows. On national TV.

And the voting results, well neck and neck with Kennedy. Still. Oh sure you can say he has .1 more votes than Kennedy, but he needed more than that.

And Iggy, well Iggy like his Alberta counterpart, Jim Dinning, has nothing to cheer about this morning. He is the biggest loser, and it was his to lose. And he got exactly the same amount of votes as Dinning did last weekend. It was like Deja Vu.

Michael Ignatieff, the long-time front-runner in the Liberal leadership race, was stuck at a disappointing 29 per cent in the all-important first round of balloting last night. It's below the 30 per cent he was supposed to have already and well below the 35 per cent mark he needed to show winning-potential momentum.

Michael Ignatieff: 1,412 votes, 29.3 per cent * Bob Rae: 977 votes, 20.3 per cent * Stephane Dion: 856 votes, 17.8 per cent * Gerard Kennedy: 854 votes, 17.7 per cent * Ken Dryden: 238 votes, 4.9 per cent * Scott Brison: 192 votes, 4 per cent * Joe Volpe: 156 votes, 3.2 per cent * Martha Hall Findlay: 130 votes, 2.7 per centI

As I said the similarity between the Alberta PC race and the Liberal Race is more than mere coincidence. Both have back room boys in the lead, while the grass roots rejects them. Its an anybody but....Iggy/Dinning....race today in Montreal and Alberta.

Now who came out ahead.

Well Gerard Kennedy, and Bob Rae. Kennedy reminded folks that the Convention was about reforming and rebuilding the party. Too late for that though, since the delegates were too busy getting pissed up and exchaning Iggy Thongs to bother attending the resolution workshops or sessions on the floor.

Kennedy is the only candidate with Western roots he reminded folks. Mentioning Edmonton, the Pas, etc. Note to Gerard, it's the 'North' Saskatchewan river, not Saskatchewan river that runs through Edmonton. Been out of town to long bud.

Like a scion of thenamesake Kennedy clan he had his horde of true believers around him chanting on cue GK, GK, like it was 1968 and he was that other Kennedy, Bobby! Bobby!.

And speaking of Bob's, Bob Rae did what he does best, no teleprompter, just him and mike. It was stand up comedy night. Take on a skeptical crowd and try and sell yourself. He began with apologizing for having been an NDP'er. Now he has seen the light and become a true Red.....Liberal.

What the hell is with his need to gum his words? That strange cud like chewing motion he makes. Don't his dentures fit? The folks overlooked that as he invoked the names of the greats in the room, Turner, Chretien, Martin, and unlike sourpuss Dion he literally flew off the stage to embrace them all, shocking a staid Chretien, and making him smile. Dat's my boy..

So today its Kennedy and Rae's to win and Iggy and Dion's to lose. Four ballots for sure.

And in Alberta it doesn't look good for Dinning despite his being a Saggitarius like me. Steady Eddie is a Taurus, figures, he has the personality type. And as they say slow and steady wins the race.

Tory leadership hopeful Ed Stelmach may be getting some help from the stars during today's big vote.

According to one astrologist, Stelmach, a Taurus, might be in for something unexpected: "Something surprising might occur with shared property, inheritances, other people's money, or wealth and jointly held possessions today. You could win or you could lose."

Sagittarius Jim Dinning can expect something from out of left field: "Something unusual or out of the ordinary will occur today."

Ted Morton may be in for a rocky road, suggests his Aries horoscope.

"Unexpected news or delays and cancellations with travel, higher education, publishing and the media (also medicine and the law) are likely today."

See:

Liberal Leadership Race

Conservative Leadership Race

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