Mulroney shouldn't have slagged Trudeau in the press as a way to promote his book. It's in poor taste and does nothing to rehabilitate his own popularity, which was finally beginning to recover, albeit slowly.Amen.
" As a child, I remember three main villains in Canada: one was Hitler, who was going to start a war - it was as inevitable as the sunrise; the second villain (not necessarily in this order) was the Treasury Board, which was depriving Canada of enough resources to get equipment for the military, to fight the threat of Hitler; and the third great villain was Mackenzie King, who was prime minister, and was not only a draft dodger in World War I, but had no sympathy and no understanding of, and no interest in, the military and as a consequence damaged Canada's future."
Peter Worthington
William Lyon Mackenzie King returned to Canada to run in the 1917 election, which focused almost entirely on the conscription issue, and lost again, due to his opposition to conscription, which was supported by the majority of English Canadians.
Human toddlers outperform apes in social learningSometimes it takes an art historian to define what science and religion cannot agree on; what makes us human.
One theory holds that humans have distinctive "cultural intelligence," she said. Alternatively, some think humans hold an advantage in social cognitive tasks simply because they have more general intelligence.
Human toddlers show markedly better social learning skills compared to their primate cousins, a new study finds."Social cognition skills are critical for learning," Herrmann said in a news release.
"The children were much better than the apes in understanding nonverbal communications, imitating another's solution to a problem and understanding the intentions of others," she said.
Hermann's study involved 230 subjects -- 100 chimps, 30 orangutans and 100 children.
The children were two-and-a-half years old. That age was picked because the subjects could handle the test's tasks, but they were not old enough to know too much.
The apes resided in sanctuaries in Africa and Indonesia. They ranged in age from three to 21 years.
All the subjects were subjected to the cognitive tests of the Primate Cognition Test Battery.
In areas such as space, quantities and causality, the toddlers and the primates were found to be about equal.
For communication, social learning and theory-of-mind skills, the children scored 74 per cent and the primates only 33 per cent.
In "The Human Animal in Western Art and Science" (University of Chicago Press, 320 pages, $40), the Oxford art historian Martin Kemp offers a new solution.Mr. Kemp's new solution proposes to draw a line between man and beast not on the basis of reason or the presence of a soul, but in accord with a subtler distinction. Although some animals use crude tools, no animal uses what he calls "indirect tools." These are tools, such as a needle or a bow and arrow, which require a series of imaginative "pre-visualizations," both to invent and to use.
To conceive a needle, one must be able to envisage the process of connecting two pieces of material; this in turn involves picturing such implements as thread or the needle's eye and, in a further stage, the specific looping motion of sewing. As in chess, the ability to picture objects and processes in future and successive stages is required. This seems clearly beyond the capacity of any animal.
Mr. Kemp's argument is persuasive. Such strategic visualization, proceeding by a logic of images rather than of concepts, does appear peculiarly human. And yet, the puzzle of our apartness remains; to be human is to be caught in a strange midway kingdom. We sense but can't know the minds of our fellows in that neighboring realm. Montaigne put it best, in a remark Mr. Kemp quotes: "When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?"
NDP leader campaigns in anticipation of election
It was perhaps that headline that finally pushed him over the edge to actually respond to public challenges. However it was far from being decisive leadership, despite Neil Waugh's cheer leading, as the Edmonton Journal correctly points out.
Alberta's Ed Stelmach tagged with "Mr. Dithers" moniker, low support
Political analyst Jim Lightbody says now that Albertans have gotten to know Ed Stelmach as the new premier they're ``quite unimpressed.' Lightbody says Stelmach seems like a very nice man who is in way over his head. He says the Mr. Dithers tag on Stelmach is much deserved because the premier has been indecisive on key issues, such as nuclear energy.
- Up in Peace River, Brenda Brochu feels like she was "blindsided" when she heard her town was selected as the proposed site of Western Canada's first nuclear power plant -- and the first to be built in decades."When did we ever say we wanted nuclear power here?" said Brochu, who is head of the Peace River Environmental Society.
A lot of Albertans are feeling exactly same and so they should. With little warning and almost no public discussion, Peace River residents and the rest of the province are suddenly staring at plans for a $6.2-billion privately built and operated plant proposed by Calgary-based Energy Alberta.
And all this before there's been any formal public decision that Alberta should go down the path to nuclear energy.
Premier Ed Stelmach should have consulted Albertans, developed a consensus that nuclear power was the right option, or not, with everyone fully aware of the serious issues nuclear energy raises.
Instead, there were private talks, with a handful of municipal politicians in the Peace River area keen to attract the jobs, business spinoffs and tax assessment that will come with such a massive project.
They may be elected officials, but those private talks are no substitute for the broad public discussion Albertans need to have first on whether they want to go down this road.
And who knows perhaps with Alberta's tradition of wholesale turnover and electing upstart parties, which the NDP is, well anything could happen if Stelmach calls an election this fall or next spring.a growing number of government MLAs have announced they won't seek re-election under their new leader, Ed Stelmach.
The most recent retiree is Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA LeRoy Johnson.
That means thus far seven have indicated they will step down when the election is called. That's only about 10 per cent of the government caucus.
It's not as if anyone has to widen the legislature exits to accommodate the departures.The trouble for Ed Stelmach is unless more government MLAs quit this time around he will have to run with "Ralph's Team" for the election expected in 2008.
That's not a good thing for a premier trying to rebrand the Tory party as something new and re-energized -- not as a bunch of oldsters, some of who were first elected when Brian Mulroney was in the prime minister's chair and Toad the Wet Sprocket was in the top 40.
Since Alberta joined Confederation in 1905, only four parties have ever formed governments. When political change came, it was wholesale and the victor was a party that had never governed the province before.
Liberals, 1905-1921
Won Alberta's first election in 1905 under Alexander Rutherford. Re-elected under Mr. Rutherford in 1909 and under Arthur Sifton in 1913 and 1917.
United Farmers of Alberta, 1921-1935
Won 1921 election under leader Herbert Greenfield. Re-elected 1926 and 1930.
Social Credit, 1935-1971
Founded as Social Credit League of Alberta 1932. Won 1935 and 1940 elections under leader William Aberhart. Re-elected under successor Ernest Manning 1944, 1948, 1952, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1967.
Progressive Conservatives, 1971-present
Won 1971 election under leader Peter Lougheed, re-elected 1975, 1979, 1982 and 1986. Led by Donald Getty in 1989 and 1993, then by Ralph Klein in 1997, 2001 and 2004.
Tories to set record
On Sept. 18 the Alberta Tories will surpass the Social Credit party's 36-year record as Alberta's longest-serving government. The country's longest-serving political dynasty was the Liberal Party in Nova Scotia, which held office for 43 straight years, until 1925.
Then there's Craig Chandler.Funny thing the small-c conservative comment was left by a Craig on a Progressive Bloggers post about Chandler.He is proudly confrontational, and his official web page sports a photo of him with fists raised.
This is a guy who makes Stephen Harper look like Jack Layton. Even so, I had trouble believing Chandler actually wrote the outrageous quote attributed to him that is making the rounds of the Internet.
It sounds suspiciously like a parody of what a right-wing nut would write as advice to newcomers to Alberta:
"To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative. You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home, and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture.
"Do not destroy what we have created."
You might want to take a moment and re-read it. Yes, it really does say you must vote conservative or leave.
I phoned Chandler for a comment.
"That seems a little taken out of context for me," he said initially. However, as we talked he e-mailed me the whole article he had written for a weekly newspaper under the heading, "If you move to Alberta -- Adapt or Leave." Hmm. The quotation is entirely accurate and not at all out of context.
The only parody here is inadvertent self-parody.
Chandler took pains to say he meant small-c conservative, not necessarily the Conservative party.
Thomspson sums up our hopes and fears.Advocate for Democracy, Part II
I had a post about a week ago about a couple of politicians who were ignoring the basic rules of democracy and it seems someone may be in damage control mode. I had this comment posted to the entry:
"I never said anything about people voting PC. I talked about small 'c' conservativsm.
Craig"
Now I can't verify that the post is from Craig Chandler himself, one of his supporters or just a random troll. I could but I don't track people down on the internet... I'm too busy doing real life things.
His comments are of course undemocratic, mean-spirited and head-shakingly stupid.
Consequently, the New Democrats and Liberals would dearly love for him to win the Tory nomination in Calgary-Egmont.
Alberta's Conservatives might be dropping in the polls, but you have to wonder if they've dropped so low as to be on the same level as the likes of Craig Chandler.
With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.
"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.
More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
As I wrote in Gothic Capitalism; "the term Robot first appears in the Czechoslovakian science fiction novel/play; R U R (1920) aka Rossum's Universal Robots by Karl Capek. Robot is shortened form of the Russian word for worker, robotnichki, it also refers to work or drudgery."
Because of the immigration issue, migrant workers are becoming a difficult entity to find," Maconachy said. "If growers have a crop that needs to be harvested and there aren't the people to do it, they'll need to find a mechanized way to do it."Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said it was still unclear if heightened immigration enforcement would drive away enough workers to justify huge expenditures by growers on new machinery.
And the number of variables involved makes it difficult to determine how much, if anything, growers could save by switching to automated systems.
Regardless of mechanization, there will always be the need for workers. Mechanization of farming was the origin of capitalism, transforming self sufficient peasant's into wage slaves in the growing industrial metropol's.
“If the whole class of the wage-laborer were to be annihilated by machinery, how terrible that would be for capital, which, without wage-labor, ceases to be capital."
Karl Marx
Spies will soon have own social networking site Experts say the service will only be as effective as those who use it. And with many older workers puzzled by their younger colleagues' obsessive use of Facebook and its ilk, full-blown use could take time.
Mark Lowenthal, president of The Intelligence & Security Academy and the government's former assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production, admits he's baffled by social-networking sites and isn't sure if A-Space is the ultimate solution to fixing problems in the agencies.
"Clearly, we don't always behave like a community so anything you can do to help foster that to a degree is a good thing," he said. "We want to do better. Anybody who's dealt with adapting technology to the intelligence community will tell you that the intelligence community has not been brilliant in catching up."
A community of spies is a community spying on itself.
Within a few years, it became obvious that Ron Gostick’s warnings were more than valid. Not until the early ‘70s did a few right of centre journalists like Lubor Zink and Peter Worthington dare to say what Ron Gostick had said in 1968.
That is why they are once again making common cause with the nationalists to demand special status for Quebec. That bunch of snivellers should simply have been sent packing and been told to stop having tantrums like spoiled adolescents. But our current political leaders lack courage. By rushing to the rescue of the unhappy losers, they hope to gain votes in Quebec; in reality, they are only flaunting their political stupidity and their ignorance of the demographic data regarding nationalism. It would be difficult to imagine a more total bungle.
Premier Ed Stelmach will travel to Toronto later this month to tout Alberta's contribution to the Canadian economy."I'll also leave a message about what we're doing with respect to the work we're doing on the environment," Stelmach said Wednesday.
The premier said he will attempt to drive home the message that Alberta's boom is Canada's boom, a theme he has told national audiences before.
Stelmach will spend Sept. 24 and 25 in the city and deliver a lunch-hour speech to the Empire Club on the 25th.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is being criticized from within his own ranks for agreeing to make a speech in Toronto during the Ontario election campaign.A senior cabinet minister, who did not want to be identified, says there's no way the premier should make the Sept. 25 speech to the Empire Club, especially if it bashes Ontario.
"This is a mistake," said the minister as he left a three-day caucus planning session. "He shouldn't have agreed to deliver this speech."
But a Stelmach spokesman says the premier never hesitated to accept the speech when the invitation was extended by the Empire Club.
The Alberta Advantage will be John Tory's disadvantage.
Alberta
Drops in honey production, combined with low prices, could financially sting beekeepers."It's going to be a real struggle for some operations across the province," Kevin Nixon, central director of the Alberta Beekeepers Association.
"Another year of low production combined with lower prices ... could really damage things within the industry."
Lee Townsend of Stony Plain said he thinks he will get about 81 kilograms of honey for each of his 1,600 hives compared with his normal yearly harvest of 122 kilograms per hive. About 30 per cent of his bees died this year.
"It was just one of those years when everybody was hit with high losses ... . You could talk to anyone in the province right now and they would say the same thing," Townsend said.
A mysterious bee epidemic in the United States is alarming commercial beekeepers in Canada, but the government isn’t moving fast enough to provide money and support for research and surveillance programs, says the Alberta Beekeepers Association.
Although the border was closed between the US and Canadian bee industries in 1987, it is impossible to halt all bee migration between the countries. According to Kevin Nixon, Central Director of the Alberta Beekeepers Association, “any pest or disease that affects bees in the U.S. is usually seen here four or five years later.”
Nixon is worried that colony collapse disorder, or CCD, could prove devastating for Alberta’s $350 pollination industry if it moves north. CCD is a disorder which has killed between 50-90% of some bee colonies in 24 US states.
The Alberta Beekeepers Association has given Alberta Agriculture and Food a list of demands that includes the hiring of an additional provincial apiculturist and numerous full-time bee inspectors. Nixon would also like to see more funding for research programs.
“The cattle and grain farmers are getting allotted large amounts of money here in the province. It’s extremely frustrating to see this money being given to other commodities. The government doesn’t seem to understand the importance of what’s going on in the US.”
Beekeepers Eligible for Compensation
Ontario Beekeepers can now apply for compensation for lost hives over the winter.
As many as 22 thousand hives are thought to have been wiped out over the winter -- but no one really knows why.
The province has earmarked 2.4 million dollars for direct compensation.
The Ontario Beekeepers Association is also getting some money.
They'll get 600 thousand dollars that will go toward research and Ontario honey promotions.Danny Walker, president of the Ontario Beekeepers Association, also applauded Dombrowsky's response.
"They're the first government I know of that stepped up and put up money for farmers," Walker said.
But beekeepers were asking for $6 million to help them recover, he said. They're now waiting on Ottawa to ante up the difference.
The federal government chipped in nearly $137,000 this spring for research to determine what has been killing bees.
Stephen Page, spokesman for Agriculture Canada, replied in an e-mail bees and beekeeping are a provincial responsibility, but the federal government is working closely with the Canadian Honey Council and provincial apiarists to monitor threats to the health of Canada's managed bee colonies.Added to the low price of honey and the imports of Chinese and Argentinian honey marketed as Canadian honey, the return for the producer is less than the cost of production. "The price of honey is the biggest problem we face," Vichos states.
If the current situation continues, Vichos sees "a real demise in the industry. We’ve been able to struggle through and get our numbers up, but you can’t go on like this year after year.
You can only do this for so long and then you have to walk away.
"Had this been the poultry or dairy or any other agricultural industry, all hell would have broken loose," says Vichos. "People don’t understand the importance of the industry, which isn’t due to honey or wax, but pollination. This problem has brought a bit of light and people have started to see. For every dollar that honey produces, there’s hundreds of dollars in pollination that the bees have accomplished."
"It’s not enough money and it’s not a small problem," says Jeff Benson, a beekeeper supplier in Metcalfe. "The government has to realize that pollination is the most important aspect of this, and that without pollination, there’s not going to be any crops."
Why it is happening is another question.DISAPPEARING DISEASE 1. EFFECTS OF CERTAIN PROTEIN SOURCES GIVEN TO HONEY BEE COLONIES IN FLORIDA USA.
Source: American-Bee-Journal. 1982; 122 (3): 189-191.
Publication Year: 1982Abstract: A commercial beekeeper's report of disappearing disease stimulated an investigation utilizing the diseased colonies. The effects on population growth and honey storage, of giving 1 comb of pollen, of feeding Fumidil-B and of feeding soybean flour with yeast and soybean flour alone were observed in an experiment involving 36 colonies of bees. Addition of 1 comb of pollen led to a significant gain in bees and the production of more honey. Fumidil-B had no effect. Feeding of expeller processed soybean flour, from a supply 3 or 4 yr old, especially without yeast, hindered population growth. Inadequate amounts of natural pollen along with feeding an inferior pollen substitute were 2 causes of this beekeeper's losses.
Update Code: 1983
DISAPPEARING DISEASE 1. EFFECTS OF CERTAIN PROTEIN SOURCES GIVEN TO HONEY BEE COLONIES IN FLORIDA USA", the next study, demonstrates:
That shortage of pollen can cause dwindling.
Fumigillan did not help, so we can assume that nosema was not a prime contributor to decline.
Old soy flour, fed alone, made matters worse.
Bad pollen supplement was worse than nothing
Adding yeast helped
Feeding combs of pollen had a good effect
This study raises questions that are not answered, but seems to indicate that old soy flour can be worse than nothing. Nothing is learned here about fresh soy flour, and we are not told the age of the yeast or pollen.
Agriculture Department scientists are mobilizing to fight the puzzling and potentially catastrophic collapse of the nation’s honey bee colonies.Citing a “perfect storm for beekeepers,” alarmed officials admitted Friday that they don’t know why bees are dying in large numbers in more than 22 states. But pushed by Congress and farmers alike, the scientists will be devoting new resources to protecting the diligent pollinators
Huge monocrop farming systems and specialisations, and the spread of suburbia across natural habitat, are removing natural diversity. Bees have been lumped together in the millions, in a factory farm type environment not so unlike that of our chickens and other livestock animals. Many of these bees are transported across several states to perform pollinations in orchards and farms around the country. Today they are in contact with substances they shouldn’t have to deal with - pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and pollen from genetically modified crops. Researchers are scrambling to find answers, and as the spring season is upon us, time is running out.But we do know that the honey bee population in Alberta, and across Canada, is integrated with the U.S. where it became apparent last fall that there was a problem. And they too are addressing it, unlike Alberta's farmers government.
By 1994, an estimated 98 percent of the wild, free-range honeybees in the United States were gone. The number of managed colonies—those maintained by beekeepers—dropped by half.The honeybees may have been especially vulnerable to the varroa epidemic. When the honeybee genome was sequenced a few years ago, researchers discovered fewer immune-system genes than you'd find in other insects. This despite the fact that the honeybee lives in tenementlike conditions, anywhere between 15,000 and 30,000 of them crammed into a hive the size of a filing cabinet. To make matters worse, a weakened hive often becomes the target of honey-raiders from healthier colonies, which only helps the parasites to spread.
It's possible that if the American honeybees had been left to their own devices, they would have died off in epic numbers and then evolved natural defenses against varroa (like more effective grooming), as they did in Asia. But crops had to be pollinated and no one had the time to sit around and wait.
Beekeepers opted to keep their colonies on life support with selective breeding, and by sprinkling them with medicine and insecticides aimed at the invading mites. This was no longer a hobby for amateurs. The only honeybees left—i.e., the ones that started disappearing in October—had become the cows of the insect world: virtually extinct in the wild, hopped up on antibiotics, and more likely to reproduce via artificial insemination than by their own recognizance.
The cause of colony collapse disorder is unknown, although poor nutrition, mites, diseases and pesticides have all been suspect. There is also concern that some genetically modified crops may be producing pollen or nectar that is problematic for the bees, says Mr. Brandi.
"Lesser known is the fact that some pesticides can also kill or deform immature bees, adversely affect queen and drone viability or may cause bees to lose their memory, which prevents them from flying back to their hive," he says.
It’s frightening to note as well that research in Britain indicates that birds near mobile phone base stations or towers don’t breed well. The sparrows have disappeared completely from cities at least four years ago in England as mobile phones grew in popularity. A recent article in The Independent suggests that both birds and bees are impacted negatively by phone waves.Wild bees and flowers both declining, survey finds
Bees are important pollinators for agroecosystems. Due to a decline in the availability of honey bees, many growers are now looking to wild bees to pollinate their crops. However due to land clearance and intense agricultural practices, potential wild bee habitat is disappearing. To quantify these effects, we assessed wild bee abundance and diversity in canola fields adjacent to either tilled fields or semi-natural pastureland in southern Alberta, Canada. Habitats were assessed within 800m immediately surrounding fields and their impact on bee diversity and abundance was determined.
How Honey Bee Genomics explains the Demise of the Bees.
And while commercial Apiaries are suffering so will secondary and tertiary industries, since Alberta produces high quality commercial and export grade honey, and byproducts.The intoxicating nectar is mead, an archaic drink made by fermenting honey with yeast and water. The elixir was reputedly the booze of choice for Zeus and other Olympians.
The drink fell out of favour in most of Europe more than 500 years ago. But today in North America, mead is enjoying a renaissance. In Canada, almost two dozen meaderies have opened in the past decade, and connoisseurs are quaffing the ancient libation.
Not all mead makers have their own beehives, though.
Alley Kat Brewing in Edmonton became Alberta's first commercial mead maker when it introduced a spiced variety last Christmas, using honey supplied by local beekeepers. The sparkling mead sold out in liquor stores within days, says Alley Kat owner Neil Herbst.
Honeybees play a role in pollinating a number of Canadian fruits, vegetables and crops, particularly cucumbers, melons, blueberries and cranberries and canola, according to the Canadian Honey Council.
A 1998 study by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada estimated the value of the bees to pollination at $732 million, a value the council now says has climbed to more than $1 billion.
There are about 10,000 beekeepers in Canada, operating a total of 600,000 honeybee colonies, according to the CHC.
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba produce about 80 per cent of Canada's 154 million kilograms of honey annually.
Besides honey, they play key role in food production
A landmark study of private-public partnerships around the globe concludes they don’t save taxpayers money, undermine democracy and hurt small business – even as Alberta is making P3s a key component of its long-term plans.Ok let's see the Stelmach government studies. Opp's it appears we can't. It seems it's all anecdotal.But the Alberta government’s public relations department says it’s confident its projects won’t follow that trend and called the study “a nice academic exercise.”
The study, released by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities – the group that represents most communities across Canada – looked at schools, hospitals, road systems, subways systems and waterworks.
It found no cost savings amongst any of the studied projects. Further, when overruns, changes to long-term contracts and shifting public priorities were considered, many cost more money than their publicly funded equivalent.
A key reason was borrowing powers, said researcher Pierre Hamel. All of the projects, whether public or private, were funded with long-term borrowing.
“Promoters of P3s typically answer that by saying that although the borrowing cost is higher, they’re much more efficient. But in fact they simply limit their upfront costs by paying staff less money. And they put that back into their profit margin, not into savings to the public.”
Hamel concluded most P3s end up costing about the same as the public equivalent.
But there are downsides: a lack of political accountability if a project goes awry, because the responsibility has been downloaded to a private company; ironclad contracts that cost a fortune to get out of if public priorities change; and project development plans so complex – and privately guarded by the companies – that future contracts can often only be bid on by the initial P3 operator.
“The biggest company cannot borrow at a cheaper rate than the smallest municipality,” he said.
“Promoters of P3s typically answer that by saying that although the borrowing cost is higher, they’re much more efficient. But in fact they simply limit their upfront costs by paying staff less money. And they put that back into their profit margin, not into savings to the public.”
Hamel concluded most P3s end up costing about the same as the public equivalent.
But there are downsides: a lack of political accountability if a project goes awry, because the responsibility has been downloaded to a private company; ironclad contracts that cost a fortune to get out of if public priorities change; and project development plans so complex – and privately guarded by the companies – that future contracts can often only be bid on by the initial P3 operator.
Alberta has its own research on P3s that supports them, said Jerry Bellikka, with Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation.
“That’s his clear opinion. We’ve been very clear on all of them that when we look at it, we do a complete business case analysis of every project, and in every example where we have gone to P3s we are confident that we are achieving major cost savings for the taxpayer.”
FCM RELEASES NEW REPORT ON PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
OTTAWA, Aug. 31 – Can public-private partnerships (P3s) meet the infrastructure needs of cities and communities?This question has assumed growing importance, with Canada facing a more than $60-billion municipal infrastructure deficit and the federal government increasingly favouring P3s for infrastructure projects.
A new report by Professor Pierre J. Hamel of Montreal’s INRS-Urbanization looks at specific examples of municipal P3s to determine how, and how well, these projects work. The new report, Public-Private Partnerships and Municipalities: Beyond Principles, a Brief Overview of Practices, presents his findings.
And that is the last time anything was posted on Alberta Infrastructures P3 page.
In August, the Calgary Regional Health Authority – normally known for spearheading privatization - cancelled Calgary’s planned P3 hospital and replaced it with plans to build the hospital publicly.
The Calgary Courthouse P3 boondoggle in 2004 had cost overruns of 67% caused by private partners.
March 14, 2007 Alberta Hansard
Private/Public Partnerships
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Mr. Chase: Thank you. Obviously, the minister is dealing with a 25-watt bulb. My last question is to the Minister of Education. Why is the minister suggesting that we saddle Alberta taxpayers with a 30-year debt to not only build P3 schools but maintain and operate them privately when we have the money to build them publicly and transparently now? Debt or no debt, Mr. Minister?
Mr. Liepert: Well, Mr. Speaker, first of all, as we discussed earlier, we need schools where kids live. Despite what this hon. member says, we do not have $7 billion laying around to spend on schools. There have been a number of P3 and alternative financing projects around the world that have been successful, and there have been a few that have been unsuccessful. The research I did was that every time a P3 was unsuccessful, it was commenced by a Liberal or a socialist government.
