Letter to AB Legislature~Budget~Confederation~Conduct Unbecoming

Read, write, discern, get involved, participate in democracy! Raise your Voice!

*Copy for the public to Read* I encourage all Albertans to make their views known, loud and clear. These are my thoughts.

Catherine Whelan Costen

Alberta T0L 0L0

Email: whelancosten@me.com 

November 2, 2019

Mr. Joseph Schow

Cardston-Siksika

Constituency Office

Bay 1

555 Main Street, Carriage Lane Mall

Cardston, AB

Canada T0K 0K0

Email:

Cardston.Siksika@assembly.ab.ca

Re: Alberta Budget~ Our Place in Confederation~Conduct Unbecoming

Dear Mr Schow and members of the Alberta Legislature

 

I am writing to advise you, your leader Jason Kenney and all UCP MLA’s that your conduct in the Legislature and in media is unbecoming to the position you hold. It is disrespectful to be constantly insulting the leader of the opposition Rachel Notley and the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau. 

You were elected on promises of jobs, not gutting our healthcare and education, police departments, infrastructure. You were not elected to give big tax breaks to already wealthy corporations on the backs of the most vulnerable in Alberta. 

So far the rhetoric has been intentionally personal against people outside of Alberta or not on your UCP team. That is disrespectful to democracy and to the people of Canada. 

Rachel Notley and the NDP members did not cause the problems we are facing today. Over forty years of Conservative mismanaged resources and the downturn of the oil markets are the cause. If you do not have the skills to assess the situation fairly and apply appropriate policies you ought to get help from Rachel Notley and her team. You were not given a mandate to promote separation, or incite more anger and deflect blame. Justin Trudeau has not created policies to hurt Alberta, nor is he pushing anyone out of Canada; those words Jason Kenney is using are fabrications in his own mind and dangerous to the public. 

Mr Scheer’s party did not have a plan for Canadians, he had a plan for corporations; he ran on an extreme religious platform and the people of Canada rejected his attempts to deceive us. His deliberate hiding his American citizenship and his obvious Republican Party mindset do not fit with Canadian values of separation of Church and State. To suggest that this was a rejection of the West, is absurd and I’m sure you are aware of it. The ‘West’ did not vote as a block; many people voted for more progressive platforms. The Conservatives that won seats in the West are the peoples’ voice in Ottawa. Surely you don’t think they are inept at doing their jobs?

You and Mr Kenney represent Alberta and need to work with the government the people chose Federally.  That is democracy. Albertans are just as concerned about climate action as any other region in Canada. Funding education fairly is how we build a workforce for the future, we need skilled people to help us transition to the world we live in, not the world we wish we lived in, or the world of 50 years ago. 

We are also aware that Jason Kenney under PM Harper designed the equalization program and did nothing to get Alberta oil to new markets. You need to raise the bar and own your mistakes in order to move forward as a positive force for Alberta in a strong united Canada.  Equalization is NOT charity, it is an agreement all provinces made to ensure that people are free to move throughout Canada and have the social programs we all support. That is part of our Canadian Charter and Rights and Freedoms. Albertans come from all regions of Canada, many like Mr Kenney came from Ontario, or further east and helped build Alberta. 

We all contribute to Canada and that funds our federal police force, our military that stands on guard for all of us. We came together as one nation in part to prevent our culture and resources from being taken over by the greed of the capitalist system to the south. The attempts to erode our Confederation have been going on since our early days. Your UcP rhetoric is playing into that story and it needs to stop! Too much blood has been shed and lives sacrifice to fight the fascists, the dictators and religious states that threatened Canadian life. I recommend you and your party learn non-violent communication and the art of governance without fear/hate and competition. Nobody wins by stepping on others to get power over people. That is not democracy. 

I demand you and your party stop insulting the people of Canada and disrespecting the intelligence of Albertan’s by feeding us a steady diet of your hate and malice. The people of Alberta are beneficiaries of the planets abundant oil reserves, but we didn’t put it there. Every region of Canada has abundance in some natural resource, while not in all and that is why we came together to share.  I strongly urge you to become acquainted with the facts and refrain from making our current situation a personal smear campaign against other regions of Canada or other governments. 

Mr Kenney and the UCP created a budget that will hurt Albertans for years to come. Your choices to feed the corporate appetite with funds that we need for education, healthcare, seniors care, policing in order to facilitate a safe, sustainable and thriving society is negligence and cruel. Government cannot be run as a business. If you support capitalism in business, then let them thrive or not under their own ‘capitalist rules’ not by gutting the social programs that support the people who live in the real world. Canada is NOT a capitalist country, if you want that then there are others you can live in, but do not try to govern Canada under another country’s ideology!

No parent pays off the mortgage on the house, while starving the children, nor would we not feed a child that cannot feed itself. That is what social systems are for and in Canada, we have fought hard for our Universal Healthcare, public education, fair policing, safe water supply and clean environment. We need regulations to protect the planet and our people. You have your priorities all mixed up with the current republican agenda or International Democratic Union ideology; but either way that is not what Canadians support. 

No we cannot feed the corporate greed and support people. That is a fact. Human life must be valued not just when it can produce or consume, but at all phases of life. Religion has no place in our government, that is a personal choice and your budget funding pro-christian schools while gutting public education is a clear indicator that you have forgotten what your role is. 

I realize that Jason Kenney is still under investigation by the R.C.M.P. for his takeover of the leadership of the UCP, however until that is resolved, I am urging all MLA’s to stand up for Albertans and stop the attacks, lies, smear jobs against the democratically elected government of Canada and the Prime Minister, along with the people of other regions of Canada. 

Your budget tells me that your intent is to destabilize Alberta, to fracture our Canadian Confederation for the profits of predatory capitalists to exploit. This is not good governance, in my opinion and I fail to see where you had a mandate to do what you are now doing. 

I am addressing this letter to you, Mr. Schow as my MLA, however I am copying it to all MLA’s in the hopes that you will reflect on my words and know that not all Albertans are enjoying any ‘Alberta advantage’ with the current hate, fear, hype and disrespect for us and our government. Many of us recall the gutting under Ralph Klein and the splurging for corporate masters. We lost a great deal of talented members of society, and eroded our social systems. Ms Notley had us on track to adjust, transition and adapt to the new world we live in, even with the financial mess the previous 40 yrs of Conservative mismanagement. Alberta is more than an oil state, it is agriculture, technology, new innovations and above all a spirited creative people. You’ve forgotten who we are. 

Good leadership requires vision, calm, practical policies that serve the people first, not the corporate greed. That’s what we need today. I strongly urge you to end this childish bully mentality in the Legislature, in your policies and in public. Our children are watching all of you!

I would appreciate you reading my letter in the Legislature for all Albertans to hear and if you chose not to, I would ask a member of the opposition to do so. 

Respectfully

Catherine Whelan Costen

Albertan 

Canadian

Cc: members Legislature Alberta

Public broadcast

Albertans~Denial Prolongs Pain

Albertans, especially politicians and media propagandists, like to blame its hardships today on the Trudeau government for the last 4 yrs. But seriously people, that makes no sense at all!

I thought I would share a little history with those of you who are interested.

In 2004 I ran in the Alberta provincial election. At every candidates debate, through my writing, letters to the editor and so on I tried to bring awareness to the fact that Alberta was not being paid fair royalties for our oil.  Norway was charging far more for their oil and had huge reserves of money from doing so. The response at that time was, ‘but Alberta is landlocked’ and there is nothing we can do about it. I also tried to bring awareness that Ralph Klein’s cuts to healthcare and education had created huge hardships on many people; but within the ‘Conservative machine that was somewhat drunk on new wealth’, they didn’t care to hear.

Well that was ignorance born of  40 yrs of PC government climate of indoctrination. They had their own ideas about managing our resources~ for some reason they had no interest in getting our resources to new markets. Yes Alberta is landlocked, ever since the big shift and receding glaciers created North America it’s been landlocked, but pipelines were still built to the USA. They could easily have been built to tidewater, had there been the will to do so. We fed the multinational corporations, instead of our own people. We practically paid them to take it. They left us abandoned wells and the cost to clean them up, (a recent court case suggests they may still have to pay for it, but we’ll see). That’s the reality.

Pipelines are not new in Canada we’ve had them since the 1940’s in Alberta. So it was a choice not to get them to tidewater. You cannot have a huge resource as we’ve had for over 40 years and then blame a new Federal government and a new NDP provincial government for their respective 4 yrs of governance, as if they caused the problem. That is nonsensical.

The downturn in the global economy was a huge factor, the mismanagement of resources for 40 yrs was another, the same people managing the provinces money, also destroyed their own PC party. Yet we keep hearing this is Justin Trudeau’s fault, or Rachel Notley’s fault. This is absurd, even to the uneducated. But for the many who know better, this is deliberate deception.

Yes I know that PM Harper signed a deal that tied PM Trudeau’s hands and forced him to buy the pipeline that the US company couldn’t afford or didn’t want to finish. Yes it put us in a terrible situation, but rather than laying blame on the new guy, let’s give him credit for making the best of an awful situation. He respects the Indigenous people and respects the process to get it done in the most environmentally friendly way. We’ve had a lot of pipelines in Canada for years and no major issues. We’ve had trains as well and although we’ve had deraillings we recognize that like automobiles, planes etc. all manor of transport will have risks.

If we were really serious about environmental risks, we’d pay more attention to the coal flowing up by rail, from the USA to our Western ports, because it’s too dirty to leave from the USA.  The coal dust is harmful to marine life and humans as well.

Albertan’s were riding high on big money for a long time; kids getting out of high school or leaving early and making $100,000 a year was not uncommon. They had one industry training and little else to fall back on. But nobody ever suggested they might need other skills. There was arrogance and ignorance from all sectors and any attempts to caution people, that this could end, were silenced.  There was no limit to excess everywhere, the culture of nouveau rich(drunk on new money) was generational. Ultimately with little preparation, it has caused a lot of depression, anxiety and blame when the things did changed.

The higher up the mountain you are when you fall, the more anxiety there will be on the way down. Denying you are falling will not stop the fall. Changing course before you fall, might prevent it. Once you are at the bottom, there is nothing left to deny. It happened. Now the choice is to get up and rebuild, or waste time and energy denying the fall. Life is about climbing and falling; for everyone. It’s not failure, it’s life.

For many they never knew hardship ever. They never knew about saving for a rainy day. They never believed it would ever end. Nobody prepared people for the possibility of another way of life. An excellent insight ‘the Myths’ here: https://thewalrus.ca/the-great-myth-of-alberta-conservatism/

As much as there was wealth, there was also poverty in Alberta but there was little compassion for anyone who couldn’t thrive in this environment. Whether it was lack of skills, or education, or healthcare, people found it difficult to be heard in a world of one party blue state.  If you were not part of the club, you didn’t count. The Alberta Advantage did not reach all Albertans. That lack of compassion is still playing out in many ways, because it hasn’t been part of the collective culture. It’s been a celebration of Wild West, us against them, east against west for so many years that anyone who lived on those highest mountains, now doesn’t want to accept they are just like the people they used to ignore or despise, or sometimes condemn. This is a fractured society and finding someone to blame is easier than examining reality truthfully.

This is not to say that Albertans could not be charitable, because they most definitely can be, but it has often come from a place of grandiose, pity or a great tax write-off unfortunately. Harsh perhaps, but when government suggested raising the minimum wage so people could actually take care of themselves instead of relying on foodbanks and other people’s charity, one of the chief complaints I heard so often was; we’ll have to cut back on our charities if we have to pay our employees minimum wage. It never occurred to them that their charity might not be necessary if people could take care of themselves. Or that it’s far more empowering and healthy for society when people can meet their own needs.

Rather than help people adapt to the reduction in demand on fossil fuel, the reality that our environment has changed and we have to adapt or perish, we have governments telling people it’s the Federal government of Justin Trudeau or Provincial government of Rachel Notley’s fault for all their woes. That is not leadership, it’s not true and it’s dangerous. Every period in human history requires us to adapt, to change with our world and denying it is irresponsible for government and society.

It is not so different than the gold rush periods of our history. Those periods did end, new ones began. That is life. I’d rather have leadership that can own their mistakes and help us move forward than continue to deny, while they get rich off our pain and circumstances. Good leadership is not, telling us they must cut education, healthcare, infrastructure, while they continue to earn high income, give tax breaks for large multinational corporations and make us believe this is the only way.

It’s not the only way, but that fear is what is used to manipulate us, make us believe we are victims and show us who to blame, as long as it is not them. We need adults in government and facts to make informed choices.

These are the tools used by Nazi’s in Germany, blaming the Jewish people for the economy, it is the same tool used in the USA propaganda about the Mexican immigrants taking jobs, or committing crimes. It is that fear, that feeds hate, destabilizes society and gives rise to fascism. We are seeing it now in Canada and it’s ugly.

I’m tired of having my intelligence insulted by childish snide remarks between politicians or political pundits on news shows, personal attacks and no actual substance from politicians on campaign trails and in the House of Commons. This is not a reality t.v. show, this is our lives. We deserve better.

We do need to address our economy, our environment, our infrastructure and maintain human rights, civil society and protect minority rights from being run over by the majority. If we are led by fear and propaganda, we’ll be manipulated into giving up freedom under the guise of security and money. That was the purpose of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which still requires constant protection today.

Alberta is undergoing change, as is the rest of the world. The situation will not be rectified by denial. Equalization payments are not the issue, this is not an east vs west conflict, this is a manufactured chaos being exploited for the political gains of a few, on the backs of the masses. We do ourselves no favours by accepting the rhetoric without doing our own research for facts.

The article linked here, reveals erosion of Alberta’s systems was long on the spiral down before Rachel Notley or Justin Trudeau were in the picture. Quote from the article:

“Prentice went on to unilaterally overturn a funding decision by an independent legislative committee and cut the budget for investigating deaths of children in care.

A Calgary Herald investigation revealed the Tories inked a secret, multimillion-dollar deal to fix a mountain golf course operated by party insiders.

As oil prices continued their precipitous slide, Prentice started warning Albertans that tough times were coming. On March 4, he told CBC radio host Donna McElligot that: “In terms of who is responsible, we need only look in the mirror.”

When leadership is able to own their mistakes, make compensation and course correct, that empowers people to do the same. Alberta has much to be grateful for, leaders like Rachel Notley were helping us adjust. I believe we can grow and learn from the past, but not by denying it. As always, the enemy is within. We face it and heal, or deny it and keep fighting a losing battle.

We are facing a choice in our current Federal election. A lot of the information is based on the illusion of East vs West, ‘somebody is not getting enough’ mentality. The truth is not found in the hyped propaganda, it will only be found by examining information more thoroughly.  Much of Alberta’s current financial issues have to do with our own provincial government, more so than anything else, although the economic changes are playing a part.

We’re not going to solve today’s problems by blaming the past or blaming other politicians who had nothing to do with creating the mess. We have to examine facts, truthfully and make better choices going forward.

Please examine the linked articles if you wish to gain more insight into how we got here.

It is my hope that by sharing my opinion on this matter, I have given you food for thought.

This is some information on pipelines in Canada, for anyone interested.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pipeline