Closed Right Eye

A Beginning of Division

2026-09-11T08:39:42.100-06:00

25 years...

Really?
In my own case the morning routines aren't part of my recollections of September 11, 2001. Instead it was the evening. I had just finished an evening run, highlighting by nearly tripping over a chain that was added across the route and which, in the dark I did not notice until it slashed against one leg and then the other just behind it, just below the knees. I didn't stumble into a heap but I came close. After a grope I realized what I'd run into and could recall this pathway being chained off on other occasions, seemingly at random.

My recollection is standing in my kitchen, a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream, spooned into a bowl as the NHK News, Japan's public broadcaster's news and the only one that was available in simultaneous English translation, began with the headlines for the night. In previous tellings of my recollection of this night I comment that the lead item was supposed to be about an breakout of mad cow disease in Japan (and that I didn't hear another word about that outbreak until November.) Such was the preoccupation that would unfold in the coming seconds past the stroke of 10pm in Kyoto that night.

Instead of turning to the news readers at their desk, the program segued to the New York skyline. The first tower, we've discarded North and South over the years, was smouldering and the details made me recall the accident of a plane crashing into the Empire State Building in the 1920s or 1930s. That was the first thought, but it was closely intercepted by the more recent memories of truck bombs in the basement in the past decade. I also recalled a Tokyo airplane hijacking in 1999 where a man tried to take over the cabin but he was subdued before he could crash the plane into downtown Tokyo. I sat rapt and while the memory of my ice cream does not resolve to melted goop on the counter, I don't recall eating it. How could I have?

The night unfolded for me as the daytime morning did across North America. The escalation of fear as the second plane hit live on TV. The collapses of each building in the following hour, the closed circuit footage at the Pentagon dubious because it was not as Bruckheimer-cinematic as the New York coverage and all-too-brief. As the night, for me, unfolded there were other details. The crash of flight 93 in Pennsylvania prompting the repeat of "What next?" and helping justify the battening down in response. I can't recall the speculation that came up in real time, perhaps that would hold for a day until there was some sense of that chapter ending, but all that really happened was the intensity of those few hours ebbing.

Fixated and still convinced there was an inevitable more a minute away, I stayed up until 2:30-3am that morning. I would have to tell a good friend who lived sans-TV a few minutes away in the morning that the world had changed overnight. Cliched and melodramatic, but the best the language could offer. Without the imagery of it or its suddenness the intensity was likely beyond him in ways that are ineffable and unescapeable even from the other side of the world then.

The next morning was that same striking, perfect blue in Kyoto as it was in New York the day before. I recall going to a nearby newsstand in the morning to see if the timing allowed the local papers to show anything and determine whether or not there was a cry of "Stop the Presses!!" some time during that restless sleep. On my way, I recall a mother out on her bicycle. The toddler in the back seat of the bike lolling a priceless innocence under the morning warmth. That stays with me. The newspaper had a scant few inches of a single column on the page with an image of the tower a little bigger than a passport photo and a hundred words or so about the seismic shift that occurred a few hours earlier. When I returned home with that scant account under my arm, my brother called to determine if I knew and whether or not I was okay. The normalcy of those tentative early moments of September 12 was odd, inappropriate, uninformed. How many people were up overnight as catatonic at the unfolding events as I was?

Later that day, there was a stark special edition of the paper that was being distributed in the streets, gratis. I picked up a copy outside Kyoto Station. It was a single piece of broadsheet, four pages to peruse. I studied the kanji of the headlines trying to discern what they were calling what the English have only been able to refer to by the date. I could grasp, attack and something about time... spontaneous. I was on my way to, of all things, a job interview and outside the station I saw a fellow immigrant or ex-pat. He was darker perhaps from the part of the world that was suddenly shrinking or growing with the change of perspective. There was a chance that we would have only been able to communicate in Japanese. Perhaps his English was as fluent as mine. We nodded to each other silently, too numb to gesture more than that.

It was months of checking the television constantly for the next development in the story. There was no social media, though that was merely 4-5 years away. There were message boards on news websites and comment areas to launch missives at one another and there was division.

In my own circle of expats in Kyoto and nearby Osaka, the language that we shared increasingly became all that we had in common. There were judgments of nations, positions, awareness and sensitivity to what was going on. There were struggles to absorb what was going on, guilt about leading our normal lives as we had leading up to this. We'd bicker, we'd point fingers and we would reveal to one another how little there seemed to be that held us together other than our common experiences as strangers in a foreign land with experiences that became more diverse and distinct than universal because, we simply didn't want to have that much to do with one another anymore. It was too hard to understand what was going on, it was hard to understand one another. We didn't make the effort to take the extra few seconds to call ourselves out on our own bullshit and acknowledge we didn't know what was next. In smaller groups, with those we truly trusted because of nationality, affinity, simple proximity amid the sprawl of the megalopolis of Kyoto-Osaka-Nara-Kobe or some odd common interest, we found kinship. It was hardly enough to keep that community together despite how much we had in common. We were, primarily, those male whites who were, inanely, gifted the privilege of knowing (to an extent) a language that was popular enough and compelling enough to earn us a comfortable living in a remarkable setting. Some of us tried to protest what was happening. Some went home to safety. Some took their refuge, indefinitely, in that comfortable developed country and shed the trappings of the passports that got them to Japan, eschewing their mother tongues in favour of the second language and the culture that confounded them but gradually became innate.

Those expats, however, likely never saw eye-to-eye again the way they did before this. Maybe the differences were always there, papered over for convenience and the opportunity, or perhaps the need to bond in the face of the unusual environment we were living in. I look back now and realize how easy it would have been for that group to have made peace amongst themselves in the face of this or to be honest enough about what they were socializing with one another to fend off the solitude that comes as a stranger in unfamiliar surroundings. It would be easy to be argue that we would have all been better off on our own, without the strife that comes from difference, but there was an opportunity to speak in to one another in the raw terms of loneliness, vulnerability and uncertainty that would have been more universal, more honest and real. Instead we coded our way along, hiding so much of the obvious until it was too much to get through the means of communicating that we claimed, in this setting, to be masters of. With maturity still eluding so many of us though, and a few compelled by something other than the benevolence of a teacher, many of us struggled to figure it out or to cultivate those acquaintances into the deep bonds that could have amounted to something impactful and lasting.

Looking back at the divisions that started emerging in my circle 25 years, divisions that prompted me to leave, I see a metaphor or a reminder of the simple work that needs to be done day in and day out with the people we cross paths with by chance and on a regular basis. The global understanding remains elusive and vital but no matter where we go, we have to be prepared to accept the things that remain universal no matter where, no matter when, no matter who, especially when we assume familiarity and harden a moment with expectation.

Avoid The Right Wing Gang

2026-09-03T20:52:27.636-06:00

On a somewhat regular basis, I have come across posters and other materials intended to discourage adolescents from getting involved in gangs and, dare I say it, organized crime. The campaign runs with the simple message: The Most Dangerous Gang is the One You're In. Apparently the campaign was initiated in Alberta but its simple message could transcend the borders of the province and even the age group it is targeted at.

Conservative ne'er-do-well Milo Yiannopoulos get a taste of that reality this week when he was apprehended by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for remaining in the United States after his visa expired. After years of being a mouthpiece for Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, it would have been quite the surprise or comeuppance to find himself in the crosshairs of Trump's thugocracy poster boys for his issues with his documentation. During his turn in the news cycle this week he has started referring to himself as "a persecuted human rights icon" in a remarkable about-face.

After spending most of the last decade touting Trump's policies on immigration and voicing his support for ICE policies and perhaps tactics, he has changed his tuned after finding himself on the receiving end of the treatment that he has long advocated for. The hypocrisy speaks for itself, but the facet of this story that needs to be underlined is the assumption that Yiannopoulos had made about his value to the group he was a mouthpiece for. There had to be, to some degree, a certain comfort or arrogance on his part that being on the side of the powerful during their ascent would assure him a degree of immunity or security in an environment that he advocated to make more toxic, dangerous and exclusionary. Years of cultivating the favour of white supremacists, calling Trump "Daddy" and courting controversy with his positions on religious groups, women and other minorities may have earned him favour from Trump and others but he was positioning himself within a group that, like him, discarded fundamental principles of respect for other in favour of a teetering, unsustainable hierarchy confident that they had the money, the might and the media favour to do as they wished in perpetuity.

Whether it was a matter of Yiannopoulos falling out of favour with the right or him meeting the consequences of making his bed with a group that is reckless and untethered in the ways that it exercises or demonstrates the extent of is power is unknown at the moment. His encounter with ICE, however, has parallels among other people throughout that unstable pyramid who gravitated to Trump and MAGA with the confidence that they could bask in the comforts and glories promised. Whether economic prosperity, the privileged repositioning of their creeds in the American dialogue or other promises of wealth or status have not come true. The blue collar folks who saw promise in Trump's declarations about bringing jobs back to America find themselves lower in the hierarchy than the tech bros who lined up to kiss the ring and join the retinue after his re-election. The people of faith who believed there was a restoration of Christianity in this pluralist age see they have pinned their hopes on an ultimately faithless man who has a preoccupation with mammon and his seemingly unbound lasciviousness.

There is a hierarchy, a pyramid and all of those who have contributed their votes, goodwill, dollars and gullibility to him rather than to generosity, rule of law, justice or equality would be hardpressed to show evidence that they got what they bargained for. Now, though as Yiannopoulos' misfortune, and it was that, demonstrates there isn't a lot of protection from Trump no matter how one might fawn over his promises and look past his policies failures or his graft.

Trump though is but the avatar or the analog of the current American variation on this scenario. The glib authoritarian accumulates as much power as he or she can. Part of it is gained by the mastery of the masses via the podium, the image and the rollicking tirades and poor taste that is blasted out to the public. Much of it today is via social media but that is just the contemporary platform. The repetition of lies, the cowing and neutering of the institutions of checks and balances expand that power and as it grows, more and more people queue up confident that they will get their share, get their say and have an ample portion of that accumulating metastasizing power that is in the hands of that voracious elite.

It is ultimately a deception, the outcome skewed to favour those at the very top for as long as possible. For those who aspire to more but are regarded as nothing more than underlings, dupes or pawns, the fate is certain and the only question is whether the damage that comes to you is intended or is mere collateral damage. The gains are fleeting, especially when they are earned at the expense of respect for others and yourself, the dignity of all and the gravity that is asserted by justice, our better angels.

This blight of the authoritarian right is not exclusive to the United States at the moment. There are other right wing powers that are just a few chapters behind in following this playbook. Their dupes and their mouthpieces have fallen for the false promises of a good fortune that will come as soon as the ascending party or the government in power accumulates more of the power that it aspires to accumulate. Those entities -- whether they want to tear themselves away from the fetters of national federations, discard the common and due respect for women, children, minorities, teachers, scientists and doctors -- will continue to clamour for more and more power and will refuse to fulfill the wishes of those it has duped. That would mean devolving just a small portion of the power that it wishes to monopolize.

There is much reason to be overwhelmed by the state of the world and with it reason to line up behind a strong man, or otherwise buttress yourself within a small enclave, perhaps a calved off province from a larger country to firewall yourselves for a sense of control and safety. The people, not to be mistaken for leaders, who wish to extend the promises of quality of life thanks to greater power (for themselves) are con artists. That is what we have seen in the United States. It has been demonstrated elsewhere time and again. That promise is a hollow one because there is little that an accumulation and wielding of power can actually do to push back against global forces, many of environmental magnitude and force, which require cooperation, understanding and sacrifice. We having been hearing for decades not only about environmental concerns, from which stems so many anxieties that we wish to resolve with the contribution of power to an authoritarian, but also the reality that next generations will not have the wealth of their parents and grandparents.

There is work that has to be done and we have to make the decision to work for our collective wellbeing and survival. The decisions we have to make meet their greatest resistance from habit and familiarity. The offer to evade those responsibilities, the insistence that truth can be discarded, that human rights can be unevenly distributed, that the rich need to be richer and that more of this will ensure it all works out in the end is proven wrong in the simplest and oldest of our stories. If we are uncertain about who to trust, we simply have to look out for, and make a point of avoiding those demagogues who surprise, overlook or outright abandon those who follow them.

GM Marketing Mavens Relieved After Trump Renaming Rampage Skips Them (Satire (?))

2026-08-29T13:29:37.311-06:00

As August 2026 wound to a close and automakers geared up for the introduction of new models for 2027, marketing executives at General Motors breathed another sigh of relief that President Donald Trump's most recent executive renaming order did not target their products. Satisfied that Trump insisted merely upon the renaming of Lake Ontario as Lake America, the comms team will wait yet a few more days for the impetuous shoe drops and they are required to rename their GMC Denali SUV as the McKinley.

The marketing team first sighed relief when Trump renamed the namesake Alaskan mountain, America's highest, as one of his first orders of business upon returning to office on January 20, 2025. After the peak was re-renamed as Mount McKinley, the automaker was not sure if it received a dispensation from the president or he just didn't know eff all about actually building something in the United States. Instead, it seemed he was intent on thumbing his nose at America's Indigenous peoples and letting automakers appropriate the ancient words in whatever quixotic efforts they saw fit to add a macho, adventurous flair to vehicles that have ultimately been deployed as overpriced portable storage units for soccer moms to patrol the suburbs while trying to peer through their rearviews and over the latest Costco run for a sense of what traffic they are holding up at 1:30pm on a Saturday afternoon

In the aftermath of Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, the Kennedy Centre, Fort Liberty, the Palm Beach International Airport, several golf courses and the kid who's been stuck with him in that lawn mowing meme, the feeling has grown that his renaming jags will cut ever closer to such brand names.

General Motors, however, remains in the clear. Once the attention of the IT and AI moguls wanes long enough for Trump to turn to other industries to bully into sycophancy, the marketing team may need to come up with another name for the Denali should Trump push the corporation to name the vehicle after the fellow tariff hawk. While that fate would definitely leave GM with an offbrand moniker that would clearly be out of synch with the Avalanche, Colorado, Tahoe, Yukon and Silverado, there are confident whispers amongst the team that, should push come to shove, a vehicle bearing the name of GMC McKinley would be just the handle to help GM get the product out of it Oshawa, Ontario plant and into the American market at a lower tax rate.

The Dawn of Sedentary Thought

2026-08-27T22:34:56.450-06:00

Artificial Intelligence has preoccupied much of our bandwidth for the last three to four years. While it has been an aspiration for much longer, in the years that have passed since the arrival of Chat GPT, AI has become another means for the wealthy to become wealthier. It has stormed into our collective consciousness as potential panacea, whipping boy or overlord. The potential gold rush that may have been uncorked has caused concerns as those relatively new corporate entities have thrown their weight around in pursuit of the accumulating the financial resources they accumulate to either continue going forward or compete in whatever measuring billionaires compete in.

To begin with, the fraught dilemma over whether or not to support and accommodate the construction of data centers, despite the evident environmental impact and water use, harkens back to previous eras when corporate might was used to bend local will to their interests and to give the suggestion that their enterprises were more sustainable or feasible than may have actually been the case. The Disney Corporation used significant pressure on municipalities in Florida and California to get the water access desired to accommodate the development of their theme parks. Water rights have continued to be one point of friction between municipalities in those two states as the behemoth has put its thumb on the scales for any decision making that needs to be made in those places. Similar pressures by large corporate “citizens” has been legion over the decades. Sports franchises’ pursuit of new homes and revenue opportunities are the next example that comes to mind but there are variations on these theme. A unique one was General Motors’ purchase of municipal rail services at the dawn of the auto era and shutting down those commuter rail services to in effect increase demand for their products.

The economic presence that current technology firms have in the communities where they do business or invite local courtship is monumental and the promises they make can prompt governments to push past required environmental oversight for the pursuit of a certain windfall. It is likely unclear whether these megaprojects will stave off or accelerate the job losses that AI is often linked to.

As all of that economic sturm and drang plays out, there is also the simple matter of how effective AI really is. While there is content – text, audio and video – that may be convincing there is a lot of AI-generated stuff out there that has clearly emerged with the faintest or laziest amount of human intervention. Slop has become the go to word to describe the output, which reminds me of a child’s random scribble on the page in imitation of an adult’s capable cursive. The gesture and motion are there, but it is meaningless and messy. It is adorable from a 4-year-old, but it should infuriate if it is the outcome of such a substantial investment of not only money, but societal goodwill.

On a theoretical level, or as something to tinker with in the garage, there will always be an interest in honing AI to the full potential defined by Alan Turing as the capability to be mistaken for a human. We are not there yet, and there is the risk that we are approaching a version of a human that is defined by compromises moral and financial in nature that will ultimately box an AI system (and us with it) into an iteration that is limited by the data that it is fed and the ability to provide the context for that data. We are after all, not talking about data, or we shouldn’t be. We ought to be referring to and drawing upon human experience, something that includes emotion, intuition, the content of dreams, the whims, the vulnerability to distraction and the sensitivity to facial expressions and other nuances that we respond to as they emerge moment after moment.

Among the shortcuts that are being made right now in the “feeding” of AI is the reliance on content that is laced with the biases and intellectual shortcomings that have been an aspect of our creations over the years. Racial, sexual, ageist, ableist biases are getting reinforced in the AI-topia that is being conjured up. Ultimately, AI will be an apt, speedy recycler, perhaps plagiarizer of the knowledge we already have and little more.

Lately, the old IT-chestnut of garbage in-garbage out has been overlooked. Given the ways AI is being train, it is more likely to reinforce notions and ideas that are outmoded and do little to provide answers to the bigger questions of our time or offer anything constructive or informed in response to the wicked problems we face. Still, the rush to monetize and profit from this technology may be outpacing any desires to get it right. Putting it as simply as “right” is an inadequate assessment of the challenges that are being undertaken with the pursuit of AI, but if the aspiration is to create something that contributes to our well-being, the "machine" needs to be capable of more than recycling an musty body of knowledge in a manner that risks overemphasizing certain notions due to their critical mass among the databytes.

One risk we are subject to is the knowledge that an AI engine accumulates and the way it determines its value. Could it emphasize, for instance, the accumulated knowledge surrounding fantasy football, or the scholarship around Shakespeare? Another question is whether the AI has been goosed to favour income generation in accordance with a modern interpretation of the “if it bleeds it leads” ethic that guides some journalism or if there is a more aesthetically informed motive. I doubt notions of collaboration or altruistic thought are guiding the current AI entrepreneurs in their work as they compete amongst themselves to earn too-big-to-fail status or to capture the endearment of President Trump and the eroding vestiges of prestige and opportunity that will come with that. Apart from the malfeasance of the aspiring CEOs, there are accounts of AI bots, untethered, going off on mischievous endeavours that have put other machines and human lives at risk because the more humane directives have been ignored or conveniently interpreted.

Don Draper at Esalen in the final
episode of Mad Men

One of my biggest questions about AI is whether it will facilitate or ultimately disable divergent thinking. The whole sales pitch with the time and labour savings that AI will offer us will quickly diminish our capacity or motivation to do writing, research and other tasks for ourselves. Will that open up our energy to thinking creatively and divergently or has the tedium and groundwork helped sparking the idea-making and question formation that leads to new ideas, perchance solutions to the problems we face.

The pursuits in information technology has been going in a direction that betrays its roots. Going back 60-75 years, the history of Silicon Valley is illuminated by the eurekas of garage entrepreneurs who came up not just the answers that brought us to the place we are today, but the questions as well. It is worth noting that many of the business leaders and inventors of that era had the Esalen Institute in their backyard and pursued their ambitions and exploration when Timothy Leary was doing his work breaking through limitations as well. The accomplishments achieved in the 1960s and 1970s owe at least a small part of their legacy to their dabbling with psychedelics and their openness to diverse ways of thinking whether they were taking hits or not. It is well documented, still has its place in the culture of Northern California but may not have the cachet it did two generations ago.

AI does not strike me as a product or entity that is capable of, on its own volition, raising questions that would give us pause to reflect on ways forward. Those innovators of the 1960s and 1970s were inspired by possibilities and their own curiosity. In his book, How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan not only suggests that the use of psychedelics that was in vogue in that part of California had a positive impact on the ability of these inventors and entrepreneurs to expand their horizons but that there will be a new era of psychedelic use as the stigma of illicit drug use wanes and legitimate therapeutic applications emerge to benefit mental health. If with that ascent, they prove to reinvigorate our ability to capture and articulate new ideas and solutions rather than pacifying ourselves with the recycling of old, stagnant concepts we may find in that a route to better achieve our individual and collective potentials.

AI, with it repurposing of nothing more than the information and data that has been fed into it, is unlikely to offer or uncover revelations and fresh perceptions. Overreliance on it risks leaving us less routinized to the processes and preparation that can inspire creation, critical thought and problem solving in this emerging era. Give the myriad crutches that AI is offering, crutches that will likely do more to inhibit than free thought, we ought to pause and ask what exactly is the gain in investing so much time, energy, wealth and water into something that may arrest us in place with a body of knowledge that will ossify a limited perception of our world and potentially impede our capacity to expand upon what we collectively know.

Bumper Stickers Versus Flags

2026-08-18T10:34:37.807-06:00

From what the polling can discern or indicate in Alberta as things countdown to referendum day, October 19^th, there seems to be very little “soft” support on either of the stay or vote again sides on the separation question. Much of the din across the province is about the intricacy of the vote, and questions about whether Elections Alberta can facilitate the referendum in an transparent, legitimate manner or whether it will be bogged down in a surfeit of inefficiencies and red tape to cast doubts upon the process and, in keeping with the conduct of the United Conservative Party, put enough thumbs on the scale to justify sustaining the conflict further.

Unlike the scenario in Quebec, where the 1980 referendum was a 60-40 split in favour of staying in confederation and then the nail-biter fraction of a percent in October 1995, the gap between stay and go is substantial. Whether a consequence of the purported 80-20 split of the vote or the dynamics of social discourse in an era of social media, there doesn’t seem to be much dialogue or effort on the part of the respective sides to make a sound case to the other. There are occasions where gatherings of the Separate spawn video and audio recordings of incendiary comments that show the aspirations of the group or a pattern of behaviour and mindset that is consistent with the vaccine-averse and the blockade-friendly.

It seems unlikely that members of either side are going to expend the effort to communicate with one another to sway opinion and make the emotional, social or economic case for or against staying. Ultimately, the referendum may be decided by the trust that each side has in the information available to them. Rather than dialogue, the opposing sides seem to be defining themselves or their positions by their means of “communicating.”

It's a battle of flags versus bumper stickers.

There are of course slight variations on the means of communication. The blue flag does get rallied around, much to the detriment of its reputation. Many of the people who hang or fly the Canadian flag have adopted it as a complement to lawn signs supporting various causes: public education, public health, water protection, alternative energy and parks to name just a few. The fact that these sign and many of the Canadian flags appear in people’s front yards for their neighbours to see is indicative of the commitment these people have to their positions. URLs and QR codes are available with more information on the issues and the signs are present and clear, like the nose on one’s face if you happen upon these neighbours while out for a jog or you’re walking your dog. The people with their flags and lawn signs are making a clear stand. They are not making it because it is an easy stand to make, but one they are committed to. Despite the purported majority the flag bearers are a part of, it is still actually a difficult stand to make. They are supporting status quo, they are – if they had to make the case to a Separatist – supporting the intrinsic benefits and intangibles of remaining a Canadian. They want to keep things as they are more than less. If you sounded them out on their commitment to the other things they value: education, health, water, parks, etc. they would likely be equipped to engage in the discussion.

In my travels around the city of Calgary, I think I have seen two, maybe three yard signs of the “Free Alberta” variety. The bumper stickers, of course, are more numerous. They are hardly enough to give the sense that there is a cohort of support surging in numbers and that they may make it a closer outcome in October than anticipated, but it does help characterize the group that does cluster around that cause. The roads are by no means a public forum. Instead, they are the embodiment of transience. They are the home of the hit-and-run, the drive-by and the other notions of evasiveness and marauding. As proud as these drivers might be of their “Fuck Trudeau” and “Fuck Carney” positions – a world view encompassing the profundity of two entire words – these people are no more than megaphone and muscle. When pressed to articulate a convincing position they would menace and glower rather than articulate and convince. They would cite the math and the apparent economics in what they believe is a rational case, but it is a thin veil, subject to the vagaries of rote recall, faintly disguising the more emotional of the two sides in this ... referendum.

The aspirations of the Separate side are strictly transactional. They would scoff at the arguments to stay but do so because they desire a version of freedom they very much like the one that turned Pinocchio into a jackass. Their vision of Alberta merely resembles a boy’s clubhouse with an extensive list of who they wish to exclude. When pressed, they might cite the promises of windfall that bear more resemblance to an email from a Nigerian Prince than a sound foundation for creating a nation of all things, but they will not trouble themselves with an investigation into the validity of the pipedreams. Nor will they pause long enough to realize how little that new largesse will actually be worth when they have to pay for so much more out of that apparent nest egg. Despite themselves, they are too keen to give more power to a government that is more intent on providing a playground unfettered by the financial integrity and the environmental oversight that the very richest would enjoy rather than meeting the needs of those who claims themselves to be “true Albertans.”

As these two sides keep their distance from one another and communicate through the methods they have chosen to this point, there is likely an attribution of naivete to the other side. The Separatists likely regard their Canadian neighbours as dupes falling for the schemes and machinations of the federal government and throw about the word “Ottawa” with the disdain reserved for something to scrape off their shoes. Those who wish to remain in Canada and stand willing to be troubled with the substantive questions about what they stand for, have a willingness to accommodate the challenges and compromises that come with living in a diverse, complex and imperfect nation in a world that has and will continue to defy efforts to oversimplify the way things work. For the most part, those who wish to stay recognize that provincial and national borders only do so much to define who we are individually and collectively as Albertans, Canadians and humans. The majority of us, regardless of how we wish to brand ourselves, aspire to the hard work that we are called to as citizens of each community which we are a part of individually and collectively.

Just because Americans, billionaires or other interest groups are looking to elbow their way to a larger share of whatever pie there is available in this era of "might is right" avarice, doesn't mean it is a solution or a proper way forward. It is nothing more than a desperate response from groups that know their decline is imminent, if not underway. Exhausting resources, energy and goodwill in a pursuit of the girth to be "too big to fail" or to firewall yourself from your fears is only going to leave you that much more vulnerable when the inevitable casts its shadow.

Rising Insurance Rates Versus the Carbon Tax

2026-08-10T11:44:36.720-06:00

This past Saturday, I was having lunch with friends when the subject turned to our umpteenth annual "smokiest summer" ever. Summer 2026, at least in Calgary, had a more optimistic start than of late, with less smoke than anticipated through May and June. With the recent spate of days where the air quality index hit its maximum of 10 and challenged us to reconsider the meaningfulness of the scale, things have returned to their bleak normal. There are likely more and more occasions where worsening air quality has exceeded the thresholds for the measly rating of 10 and the same smouldering shade of red on the graphics.

The laments about the weather proceeded and turned the to subject of home insurance and how much one gets for it and the consequences of making a claim. The changes to insurance rates after daring to use an insurer's (apparent) services and making a claim to cover for the losses seem to almost turn punitive and many people are left doing the math involved in weighing the consequences of making a claim for anything less than the most catastrophic of losses. It raises the question of what one is actually getting for the insurance that are paying for. As insurance rates go up, there seems to be some sympathy for the well being or solvency of insurers but they are very much in control of the math and the assessment that occurs when determining to process a claim (if one is filed) and and facing the repercussions of punitive increases in insurance rates after making a claim. Whether one is making a claim for hail damage, flooding, or the impact of wildfire, the insurers despite all the claims that they make (and we may still fall for) about their reliability and their overall "being there" thing, they hold a few too many cards. They influence the rates we pay, the coverage we have and how much of a deductible we have to bear with before getting any support from them.

The evidence is manifest in the streets. Oodles of cars still roam the roads bearing too much resemblance to a golf ball, because people defaulted to this fate rather than going through the financial initiation hazing they would encounter upon filing a claim for repairs with their insurer. This is the most obvious example but there are other compromises that people make because the agreement they make with insurers is more fraught with compromise than support and protection. Lost food because a power outage took out your fridge and freezer for a while? Insurance will cover you, but. Your home flooded? We can do this but. Your home flooded twice? You're too much of a risk. And so it goes.

Despite this relationship with insurers, there is little complaint that is voiced against them. There is little call for them to revise the extent of coverage or quality of service. As rates go up and we are forced to make more and more compromises about whether to file a claim with them there is little examination of how insurers are faring financially until they face the consequences of a more catastrophic event that may lead to multiple claims and often prompts governments of all levels to step in to provide emergency relief as well.

In these instances, we regard it as a basic sign of good government when the resources of the government are mobilized in response to such an event and whatever impulse there is to throw the word "socialist" around and accuse the government of overreach or frivolous spending goes quiet during these very times of need. People often expect this of governments and give little thought to the deficit in that moment. Puzzling all around how the expectations of people morph during times of need. It is almost like those moments of necessary compassion last long enough for people to catch their breath and show enough respect and concern for other to hold their tongues for the short-term rather than spouting off whatever misinformed vitriol they indulge in on a regular basis.

Of course, that moment of restraint passes, often before the clean up is complete and some people, once again return to their bully pulpits to complain, once again, that their short term interests, lower taxes for example, are not being attended to. While we stew silently at the prospects of paying more for less insurance coverage and seeing our rates climb in part because of the risks others have exposed their property to, or the convenient math that insurers may be doing for the sake of maintaining the expected return that they target on a quarterly or annual basis, we turned our venom at governments for establishing a carbon tax. The tax was aimed at those who used carbon not and it was a graduated program that included rebates and payments back to people to achieve a certain neutrality to the tax. Above all, it helped provide the government the resources to respond to a long-term economic and environmental challenges. IF all the government used the revenue for was disaster response, the tax would be a valuable intervention between mounting expenditures as governments, as they are widely expected to do, respond to Canadians' need during the most dire and disruptive of situations.

Perhaps it is an allergy to the "T" word, a lingering insistence on denying that climate change is occurring AND requires a response other than wishful thinking or the whiff of punitive measure that a carbon tax possessed (past tense) but it was sound policy. Poor politics or not, it seems that it part of the issue was that it was such a public and collective an initiative rather than the private perverse one inflicted by insurers. The distinction seems to be the one of the era: certain people taking it upon themselves to foist upon society a naive trust in corporations while playing upon our distrust of politicians. Poor politics or not, people united against the wrong enemy. Perhaps it is easier to mobilize against a government than again one or several industries. Taking the easier route here has risked slowing our response to the challenges that face us collectively and continues to let large corporations fatten their wallets with little resistance from us.

Right, Wrong and "Middle" Ground

2026-07-14T10:09:13.671-06:00

As we crest mid-July, with Canada’s participation in the World Cup and Canada Day behind us, it is time to acknowledge the staying power of Canadian flags that adorn balconies, windows and car roofs as evidence of the sentiments of the majority of Albertans. There are reasons for uncertainty, especially on social media where the separatists or the bot farms churning on their behalf manage to congregate to provide some modicum of presence and their one-note snarl rather than anything resembling a coherent and compelling case.

Despite that and polls that indicate that the Stay vote would come in at around 80%, there remains reason for concern. It is after all the fate of the nation that is at stake and even if there is a sense of inevitability about the vote’s outcome, enough sense that may prompt many voters to shrug and say, “There are enough voters to win this,” there is significant risk in assuming that this is a done deal.

In light of the outcomes on the Water not Coal petition and the governments conflation of the pro-Canada petition started by Thomas Lukaszuk with the eff-Canada petition that was cited swiftly as evidence to add the separatist phrasing of the question for the referendum despite the opposition of the court, we are dealing with a government that has and will continue to game this process at every turn. We can speculate about whether this is a ham-handed effort to appease extreme interests within the United Conservative Party, an effort to wrest greater control from the federal government for the province or some other pursuit, the simple fact is that this is a game and one that will not easily end on October 19, 2026.

Apart from the likelihood that the government will not change its tone or policy on intergovernmental relations, and this can apply to the desire of the UCP to widen its lane to infringe on the powers and responsibilities of the federal and municipal levels of government, is their discard of right and wrong in favour of the position they occupy, which they seem to assume is the “middle” ground because of their position in the legislature as a majority government and the amount of bandwidth they can occupy with their road show of announcements.

Let’s back up the truck on this a little bit. The position of this government seems to be that, despite the legal requirements of the Canada Health Act, the UCP feels it is entitled to prioritize the integration of a profit margin into health and, judging by the policies and inactions of this government regard that as more sacrosanct than an Albertan’s right to get in and out of ER alive. The noise is there in the announcements of the feeble “initiatives” they are undertaking (pun-intended) and the fleet of four health ministers all arrayed to gawk at the real health issues of the province at declare “I’ve got it” like a group of little league outfielders who are assured to miss the ball, collide into one another or even throw the ball over the fence instead of actually doing the jobs that they would be expected to do. The difference between right and wrong is obvious when it comes to health, education, human rights and the environment, but this government seem to apply a modus operandi of laying down a policy that splits the difference, tries to appease while agitating for and amplifying the desires of a select few who want something else, no matter the negative consequences for Albertans.

This is why Danielle Smith felt right to involve herself in the noise-bylaws in Calgary prior to the Stampede. The right thing is to let people sleep in their homes through the night and to wake up in the morning without having to clean up their yard because people were too damn entitled and disrespectful to care about somebody else’s private property, no matter how sacred their own is. There should not be a compromise around things of this nature. Just as there should not be a compromise around several other things that undermine the fundamental rights around which we have formed this country. We still do a poor job on several of those fundamental rights, but the whole designation of a “middle ground” between right and wrong and a move to occupy it defies the spirit of compromise because it, for example, undermines one person’s right to clean water to facilitate someone else’s privilege to make a profit.

I need to acknowledge American writer Rebecca Solnit, and especially her book No Straight Road Takes Your There for her observations about the “middle” and the occasions where it has been misidentified or misappropriated. As the referendum looms here in Alberta in October, one likelihood to prepare for is that of Danielle Smith -- under the guise of the neutral party or the “Stay” voter – declaring that Albertans need to meet the separatists halfway. If the outcome of the referendum were a 51-49 or 60-40 split there might be a need to look within and reconsider our relationships with our neighbours and with the rest of Canada, but if we are headed toward an outcome of 75-25 or 80-20 in favour of staying in Canada, it should not be an occasion for the majority to kowtow to the loud and entitled. Smith’s speechifying that night will be an obscene bit of wordplay, and I trust that she and her master communicators are already working on ways to craft her messaging that night to ensure that her quest for the power to further undermine the province’s future will go on. Despite the UCP’s intentions to drift further and further to the right, pull Alberta along with it and insist that there is a new desire or mandate to further erode the rights and opportunities of Albertans, this opportunity to express your opinion and values as Albertans and Canadian mustn’t be squandered.

A robust response from those who wish to stay, will be a message to the Premier and her puppeteers. There is little to gain in letting this issue drag on to the courts and to give the Premier the opportunity to declare that: the rule of law; the treaties that have been signed; the rights of Indigenous nations here; and the rights that are granted to all Canadians by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other laws binding upon all Canadians and levels of government are a package of impositions from Ottawa that are shackling the aspirations of the people and government of Alberta.

A message can be sent to the provincial government that will insist that this government’s drift away from service to and respect for Albertans must stop and indicate that the shortcomings of the United Conservative Party are too glaring and damaging for the to retain the trust of Albertans with this adventure of grievance that they wish to undertake.

Government or Apex Predator?

2026-06-21T09:46:03.441-06:00

With the Alberta Legislature adjourned for the summer, the sense that the United Conservative Party can be held accountable withers. While the sense that the party will go ahead and do whatever it wants persists, the institutional period of recess and the cranked up campaign mode that the Conservatives seem most interested in clogs the airwaves. Most recently, the government has announced that Albertans can apply for a $100 energy rebate, ruled against adding a legitimately completed petition for a referendum question against the development of coal mines that would threaten water in the province and a government spokesman said that Indigenous communities in the province should deal with their own problems rather than accuse the Premier of treason.

It is nothing more than day-of-the-week, tip-of-the-iceberg reality with the current provincial government and there seems to be little, least of all self-restraint or a sense of decorum, to rein in the actions of a government that is indifferent to its responsibilities or the actual potential of the province that it rules. The courts and the RCMP may be taking steps toward responding to the government, but the UCP's petulance in the face of court rulings about the unconstitutionality of the separatists' proposed referendum question, not to mention the "try and stop us" indifference to the concerns about the data leak that may have bolstered the signature numbers for that petition. The shamelessness with which this government conducts itself continues to drive its popularity downward, but there remains a defiance, perhaps a sense of security that they can continue to do as they wish and thumb their noses at the majority of Albertans with impunity.

It may simply be that they feel that comfortable within the pocket of the separatist members of their own party and secure that if they do the bidding of the handful who want to drive forward with the referendum on separation despite the opposition to the endeavour, the process, the negative likely outcomes for Alberta's economy and the erosion to relationship with the rest of Canada. Smith cited the economic consequences with a comparison to the outcomes that the British have encountered post-Brexit, but has diverted her glance and her rhetoric away from legitimate offramps to forego the separatist referendum or, more appallingly, make the appropriate response to Albertans when they do step forward with legitimate and verifiable referendum petitions.

Among the moves the Alberta government has made is the adjustments to social programs that has effectively reduced payments to disabled Albertans. The effects of these programming changes were anticipated last year when the government announced the changes, and drummed up propaganda that the system had long been abused and was prompting people to move to Alberta to take advantage of the program. The Conservative government has been quick to point out the random "thems" who are abusing the province's generosity and making the case that the fiscal challenges that Alberta faces are a result of such abuses and parasites rather than the government's unwillingness or inability to do the job effectively. Last week, a Calgary man died after voicing his concerns about the impacts these changes were about to have on his ability to make ends meet.

As the provincial deficit grows, as the royalty scheme for petroleum producers remains favorable to those producers, the government is making life altering and life ending decisions about the quality of education, health care and human services throughout the province. There resources available within the province to make ends meet and to ensure a high quality of life for all Albertans, but this is a government that goes out of its way to determine which Albertans deserve what resources. Again and again, this government favours the select few and will go out of its way to provide corporate welfare and favorable conditions for resource extractors, such as the coal companies that are facing opposition from Albertans and consequently gets a sweetheart handout just as the cost of doing business.

Fossil resource extractors know the resistance that they face in their industry today as people become more conscious of climate change and the feasibility of renewable resources such as wind and solar. They are quite capable of putting their ink on a contract that acknowledges that there is resistance and there are certain consequences to pursuing the work they do in situations where there is greater sensibility around environmental review. In Alberta, however, there is a government that will quite happily fork over money to resources extractors and bulldoze aside any risk of opposition that might emerge amongst an informed public wary of the moves of a government that has undermined as many aspects of its life as the government of Alberta has proven itself to be.

I don't know if the courts, the RCMP, CSIS or other institution of oversight can pull the curtain on this government far enough back to lead to their formal, orderly ouster but the evidence of this government's malice, incompetence and utter lack of moral compass is abundant. These bodies and the members of the media who are not lapdogs need to exercise their willingness to reveal this government's shortcomings extensively so that Danielle Smith, the UCP and those enabling them are made clear enough to lead to, at the very least, resignations.

Crowd Control and Conservatives

2026-06-11T10:57:52.104-06:00

Calgary, AB May 29, 2026

As May 2026 wound down and Alberta continued its way toward the referenda it will be grappling with in the fall, there was a study in contrasts offered by the Premier and her opposition. While the Premier was reluctant to forcefully and explicitly express the position she was taking on separation, the most significant difference was the energy that seemed evident at each gathering.

On May 29, in a province-wide day of protest, groups of significant size gathered in communities large and small throughout the province. Full disclosure, I was at an event in Calgary and found an exceptional energy from the people gathered. There were people to get to know, causes brought together under several banners. There were opportunities to sign petitions to not only keep the country together, but to protect our water from coal extraction and support other causes that Albertans have seen the need to initiate because of the work the provincial government is doing against the wellbeing of the province's citizens and residents. People protested against cuts to public schools (I do need to make that distinction) and health care, again public health care I ought to add.

For all the things that we were apparently against, the occasion was not a downer. It was energetic, connecting and empowering. A group of strangers rubbed elbows, applauded and sang before dispersing with a greater sense that something could be done and that the seeds of a movement were present, watered already and ready to thrive as the challenges ahead increase in significance. It was energizing to see this and be a part of. The experience deepens the commitment to come together. For all of the things these people gathered to oppose, the pillars of things the majority favoured were abundant and undeniable: equality, security, human rights, safety, and respect. These may only scratch the surface. The sense of community and unity that emerged from the event was quite energizing.

In contrast, the Premier visited the home of a well-heeled Albertan, who among other things, is a recipient of provincial government funding for private schools in Alberta. It seemed a cozy setting, but emphasized the type of company the Premier likes to keep. Any Woman-of-the- People notions she might strive to evoke when she’s working the flapjack circuit this summer got kicked down the road as the urgency of the province's future came to the forefront. Compared with the energy and connection that was palpable throughout the protests on May 29, it seemed that the mood in the room, despite the Premier’s glowing account, was wary. It looked to me like the setting that Ryan Gosling’s character crashed to declare his love for Rachael McAdams' character in The Notebook -- somehow both tepid and icy. As burnished as Smith's host's home was with its trappings of wealth, the overwhelmingly transactional tone of proceedings would never capture or project the energy that comes when people gather for a cause greater than their own wellbeing. As quick as the Premier and other attendees might be with the right words about cordiality and constructive dialogue, a deep sense of mutual trust would be fostered among a group preoccupied with their own self-interests. And that’s who Smith has thrown her lot in with.

Many have suggested that Danielle Smith has exceptional communication skills, but when the messaging comes across as exceptionally tone-deaf as her social media posts from the cotillion for conservative donors following the day of protest ultimately looks like risky levels of doubling down. As much as Smith will try to portray herself as a non-Separatist, it is extremely unlikely that she would draw an enthusiastic crowd willing to hear her speak to the cause of unity. That very enthusiasm would be to her detriment right now. The tone and the character of the gatherings that occurred with the Day of Protest on May 29 and Smith's gathering are too distinct from one another.

Smith would be foolish to try out her populist charms on large spontaneous audiences. Going forward, she is more likely to ensconce herself in the controlled, two-questions only and only from pre-approved representatives from sympathetic, uncritical media reps to give anyone the suggestion that she is anything but remote, isolated and out of synch with the needs and interests of Albertans. The efforts she will make going forward, even if she is issuing truth-bombs such as the one about the cost and consequences of separation, will prompt viewers to want more context rather than care too much about what she is saying. The self-inflicted irrelevance is quite the thing to behold.

While Jason Kenney found himself in a similar squeeze during the pandemic when struggling to strike a balance between those who wanted the government to protect public health and those in the minority suspicious about vaccines and government intervention, Smith finds herself in a similar place between those who wish to stay in Canada and those who think Alberta has the means to successfully go it alone. The distinction is that Smith, like many before her who have situated themselves on the far right, has long made a point of stoking these resentments. She has been voicing her grievances for so long and cozying up to the most fringe right representatives of the United States despite the damage to her credibility as a leader, a federalist or a Canadian, that any efforts to sing from the hymnbook of federalism is entirely out of character. Factor in the extent of the mismanagement of the portfolios that her government has been responsible for, Albertans are becoming warier about the misuse and abuse of power and have reason to regard that the whole Separation adventure is an effort to distract Albertans from issues that are more substantially undermining their quality of life and/or an effort to bolster the government's power despite their ambitions to reduce their responsibilities and accountability for the wellbeing of Albertans.

Smith can no longer insist on surprise when the consequences of her destructive work in government solidifies into the damage that has been done to the infrastructure of the province and the wellbeing of Albertans. The suggestion that things have gotten out of control despite her vigilance denies her explicit role in currying the favour of the most ardently separatist members of her party membership. At the same time, though, the division that is emerging among conservatives in Alberta is making it less and less likely that she will generate and foster the energetic support she needs to have for whatever it actually is that she intends to do.

At the moment, her opposition -- the majority of Albertans who simply want a decent quality of life, education that will benefit their children (and the province's future) and health care that will improve outcomes and quality of life -- are recognizing the energy that comes when they gather to express their need for these fundamental desires as well as the preservation of individual rights. There will be continuing growth of energy and enthusiasm that aligns with the righteousness of their cause and the confidence that they are right. Conservatives, meanwhile, will struggle to tap into the same energy throughout the coming months. While they try to wordsmith their way around saying what they need to say to retain the favour of the Separatist puppeteers in the UCP, they will remain incapable of connecting with Albertans. Factor in their failure or refusal to meet the basic requirements of their work as members of a legislative assembly in a Canadian province, of which the evidence is growing abundant, and the fate of UCP MLAs remains in the hands of those who are wavering in their commitment to this party.

Alberta, Choose Your Elites With Caution

2026-05-29T19:43:21.356-06:00

The elite, however people might define them, have often been subject to the disdain of the common man. Often the term elite is defines the highly educated, the eggheads as it were, for the insights that they bring to the public forum. It is easy to caricature them as those most comforted by the sounds of their own voices and their flurries of 25-cent words. Think of the character in the movie queue in Annie Hall man-splaining his insights on Marshall McLuhan, only to have his ego and reputation punctured by the guru himself. The passage of time has added layers, and I-told-you-sos to this example, of course. Not only for that character’s blathering way back in 1977, but also to dare to watch a movie made by the very type of elite who has since been cancelled and for much of his life, some might argue, made movies were inaccessible and hyper-intellectual. I know I've opened a can of worms with Woody Allen, I assure you.

Apart from that “elite,” who may be disdained and disregarded for their bookish knowledge or their trust in the scientific method, another group is denigrated. The other perceived elite, at least according to the UCP government in Alberta and other like-minded parties and governments, are the front-line workers who are the backbone of our province's enterprises in health care and education. As the Danielle Smith government would have it, these people are a "start with me" cohort looking out only for themselves and their radical special interests -- but Teachers and medical professionals have their eye primarily on the collective well-being and future of the province. The province's health and education professionals are disrespected by a government who wants to accuse them of being a selfish elite striving to get their noses deep into the trough while they can. Branding the people in these professions as an elite that the public should be wary of builds a specious but PR-friendly case to dismantle education and health care in Alberta.

Oddly enough, the group that is not scrutinized as an elite are known far and wide as The Rich. The likes of Jeffrey Rath and Mitch Silvestre are at the vanguard of this separatist movement in Alberta and it is assured that there are many similar sorts in the background eager to extend their support and resources to drive the separation campaign forward. Despite such wealth and influence that has demonstrated itself to be grossly lacking in benevolence or altruism, the elite Albertans pushing for separation and eager to float pipe dreams to Albertans are subject to the most fleeting and superficial consideration, just like wealthy elites just about anywhere. Their aversion to paying their fair share of taxes, despite the benefits those taxes would indeed accrue them, surfaces occasionally but is often leavened by fear about what they would do should they be subject to paying even a faint modicum or a “fair” level of taxes. Whenever pondering the threat of the wealthy finding some place to further shelter themselves from taxation — as if they have not already —governments back down in the face of the threat of losing what little revenue is collected from these people.

More commonly, however, and let me take this opportunity to underline the word elite and attribute it to wealthy and over-entitled. We are seeing more of these wealthy individuals and organizations throwing their weight around to dictate what governments do. Rath and Silvestre are both acting like the Premier owe them more than she does the general electorate of the province. Perhaps she does, but that raises questions about Smith's character and perceived obligations to the separatists and/or the wealthy. Again, let's note the utter lack of benevolence and altruism among Alberta's wealthiest.

The billionaires who have been at the forefront of the separation movement in Alberta have been appalling and much of the vision they have for a separate Alberta is very much the template of a group striving to fend off its last feeble gasp however it can. They want to find ways to further reduce their taxes and their responsibilities within a separate Alberta and they also want to add a little christofascist spin on things. Mitch Silvestre wants to deny citizenship to anyone not born in Alberta, establish mandatory military service (now that he'd be too old to have to serve) and is musing about ways to increase the birth rate in the province or nation or province. I'm not sure how he would achieve that, but the two best known routes would be to subjugate Alberta's women, or tank the economy so badly that the demographic pressures once cited throughout the developing world would be back in vogue. So, in short, he's going to go the dystopia route. His aspirations to turn back the clock on that global demographic trend are proof of how outright delusional he is. Keep in mind for all the paeans that the far right makes regarding family values, they have done a great deal to prove that they have never cornered the market on morality. Stereotypes are convenient but their toxicity when smearing a group you dislike more often than not turns more ironic that the finger-pointers would like.

Alberta's looming referendum on separation is about ensuring the comfort and ease of these fragile, pale, male and stale billionaires threatened by a flawed and fading value system that has been questioned and dismissed by people for generations. This is the last whimper of a small group against progress because they known they are accelerating toward irrelevance. A remote island in the Pacific doesn’t appeal to these louts, no matter how devout their climate denial, so they are going to bait who they can to take them up on their offer of snake oil revenue. Fool me once, and the nation is imperilled for a few frauds.

When weighing the distinctions between these accused elites and those who are the real menace, a key thing to bear in mind is what exactly each of these groups want. The argument seems to be made that the egghead, brainiac elites or the "sinister socialist elites" of the education and health care systems want to have their way to the detriment of Alberta's future.

FALSE.

The reality is that the intellectual elite would be quite happy to want sound processes to be restored and followed and for us collectively to be thinking thoroughly and thoughtfully about the way we are going to proceed in the face of the challenges we face. If there is a “more” that these apparent elites want, they may be quite content with the time and content to further and more deeply contemplate the world, a few more books to read, a place to walk with their thoughts and the company of the like-minded for the sake of the stimulation they would enjoy from connecting. Teachers and health care workers want work conditions where they are able to proceed through each day without feeling they their efforts are all for naught because of the dysfunctions that this government has deliberately built into their workplaces.

The elite that is getting the free pass, however, want to address their an unbridled voracity for control, power and the most toys -- a pathology that Danielle Smith is committing slo mo political hara-kiri to satisfy.

In the United States, the billionaires have seen their wealth increase by obscene orders of magnitude this decade and many are contemplating the next steps to the brass ring of trillionaire status. They asserting increased control over aspects of life and immolating the quality of life of Americans and people throughout the world as well. They have appropriated the coattails and favour of Donald Trump to essentially abstract the numbers representing their accumulating in return for a deeper yet well-fogged and excessive influence on power.

As the referendum campaign unfolds and the Alberta billionaires transmit their false promises of windfall, Albertans have to bear in mind that the wealthy elites will be the only ones who will enjoy the projected per capita largesse that is being fantasized about. They, the rich, are getting it all, make note of this now. It is not prescience, there's no crystal ball. It is just the same old, same old. Whatever average Albertan thinks they themselves will actually see of the sudden wealth Rath and Silvestre are talking about ain't coming. There won't be a sudden $40,000 in everyone's pocket and an F-150 in the driveway. Just look at this government's record. They are too busy retreating from basic obligations to take them up anytime soon. Post-separation, a UCP government will declare it needs to spend on playthings to bolster their power in the aftermath of separation. This government will NOT be increasing spending money on education and health care not unless they realize that their fates are tied to a sudden emergence competence and compassion for the electorate. They will do anything they can to further curtail spending in health, education and human services while denigrating those professionals for their skills, their approach to practice and the varieties of elites they represent.

Which elites do you really wish to take issue with?

Smith Wants the Stage and the Power, But For What?

2026-05-27T14:31:32.883-06:00

It would be easy, exceptionally so, to rail about the deception, the corruption and the limitations that Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP caucus have brought to the job throughout their time in government. The long-telegraphed, you-can't-possibly-be-surprised, steps Smith and crew have made toward the call for a referendum on Alberta separation since they were first elected have been their standard operating procedures throughout their time in office. They may not have explicitly declared themselves a separatist party, but their interest in starting a provincial police force to replace the RCMP, their stacking of committees on the notions of breaking away from the Canada Pension Plan and the whole brain fart around what side to take in Winter 2025 when the vast majority of us sorted out the Team Canada thing make for a blizzard of red flags.

While posturing about Alberta's raw deal with Ottawa, cozying up to the most toxic of US Republicans, and giving tacit support to the convoy that blocked the border at Coutts, this government has bungled or opted for malice with each of the portfolios it ought to be stewarding as a government, whether they are provincial or something else.

If Smith has proven anything throughout her career, it is that while she likes the games and the politicking of the job, the capacity for governing and serving are entirely absent. The thing to keep in mind is that Smith's political instincts are not what she assumes they are. Her floor-crossing to the Progressive Conservative while leader of the Wildrose Party stole defeat from the jaws of victory for the right. More recently, when campaigning in the by-election to return to the provincial legislature she campaigned for a time in the wrong jurisdiction. Just the way to convince your constituents that you care and that you have the skills and attention to detail for the job. It is not the only time when she has missed or overlooked the detail of what she ought to be doing. She has no grasp of what her job ought to be and is keen to elbow other levels of government out of the way. Her outright bullying of Alberta municipalities is particularly galling.

She is quite happy to don a Team Canada jersey... when it is gifted to her and... lets her tog up for an outing to a luxury suite for a big game.

The reality is that she doesn't have much appetite for governing. As keen as she is to accumulate as much power as she can, she doesn't have much interest in doing anything constructive with it. Power for the sake of protecting herself and lending her weight to expiring forces that will fade with a whimper despite their vitriol. As for governing, her cabinet members have taken more initiative to dismantle their departments or retreat from their mandates than actually serve Albertans. Health and Education have their share of headlines, needless to say and the the recent move by the Minister of Indigenous Affairs to vote against the interest of Indigenous peoples of Alberta is, well, pretty much par for the course.

While Smith has taken time to indicate she would be voting to stay in Canada, she has consistently seized the opportunities to air grievances against Ottawa instead and to make the case for the separatist cause. Not only that, she appears prepared to use Alberta taxpayers funds to appeal against the courts recent decision to declare the "separate" side's petition question invalid because of its disregard for Indigenous treaty rights. Despite what she asserts, she is no longer representing the will of the people on this matter, not matter what daft, yes daft math she trots out to gaslight the voters. Whether it is a lack of wisdom or a surfeit of petulance, her insistence that the courts are wrong essentially doubles-down on the bet that Albertans will regard the court's decision as federal interference, albeit against the will of Alberta separatists.

While she is quite happy to don a Team Canada jersey, whether to tout Alberta hosting the World Cup of Hockey in 2028, or to acknowledge the forthcoming world Cup of Soccer in June, that is about as far as her commitment to federalism seems to go. Superficial, fleeting, only when it is gifted to her and especially if it lets her tog up for an outing to a luxury suite for a big game. In her initiatives to start a provincial police force and to calve off an unreasonable portion of the Canada Pension Plan for her bureaucracy to bungle away on pet projects and yet a handful more golf courses, she is keen to take on more power, but she has yet to demonstrate the competence or the vision to navigate the province to a prosperous future. She may be keen to ensure the viability of the oil and gas sector here until its last gasp of irrelevance, but she has of late scared away investment in that industry while she strives to appease Alberta's handful of loud, spoiled separatists. Given the small numbers of separatists, it should make more sense to the Premier to address the needs of the vast majority of Albertans. However, there is that whole indifference to service and government that defines this administration.

Smith currently finds herself in the midst of a song and dance that will required a prima ballerina's virtuosity and grace, but she will only be able to muster a diva's demand (though not command) of the spotlight.

While Smith's math skills leads to massive deficits and blames the federal government rather than a royalty regime on oil and gas that continues to enrich the extractors at the expense of the province and while educators and health care professionals are portrayed as siphons and radicals intent on undermining the province's future and wellbeing. Imagine what her political career could have been if she was pragmatic enough to read the room and actually address the needs of the province?

She currently finds herself in the midst of a song and dance that will required a prima ballerina's virtuosity and grace, but she will only be able to muster be a diva's demand (though not command) of the spotlight. Would an audience of Albertans wanting to stay in Canada remain polite while she generates the word salad that will express the desire to stay while airing the grievances she can't help but resort to? She probably cannot help but recite these in her sleep, she won't be able to mute herself on these matter and muster the sincerity she needs to fake to keep from being booed down from the lectern. Her encounter with reality when fact-checked by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew needs to happen repeatedly over the coming months as this audacious and energy-consuming charade to appease the separatists unfolds. It needs to be made clear to her time and again that her pursuit of further power -- including command over a justice system that, as she would prefer, is accountable to her rather than the opposite -- is an overreach and that her fondness for the campaign needs to be set aside in favour of responsible stewardship of the wellbeing of the province's citizens, its resources and infrastructure. We do not wish to see the province handed over piece by piece to the special interests that Smith hopes to cozy up to. Alberta should not be traded off for the handfuls of beans she is intent to settle on.

Albertans also need to remember that the resolution of the referendum in favour of staying in Canada cannot be the end game. The larger matter of having a government that is intent to meeting its responsibilities to Albertans will remain paramount until this Premier and her government are removed from office.

Dani's Chilling Game of Gray Wordplay

2026-05-20T15:01:23.834-06:00

Within Canada Alberta is unique for its affinity to the United States, perhaps innate to the western frontier fostering kinship with neighbours in Montana and Idaho and its status as petroleum heartland connecting it with the stetson-and-suit crowds throughout Texas. Beyond the similarities rooted in ranches, wheat and oil, a more concerning similarity is surfacing. Like America, Alberta is bound to, and consequently limited by, a monolithic definition of itself.

The perceived definitions of "America" and "Alberta" have provoked troubling policy decisions and antics by the respective governments. The Trump administration drags that nation through myriad debacles and controversies to protect a version of America that is ultimately brittle and betraying imminent rupture. In Alberta, the government seems very much in opposition to its constituents: undermining health care and education systems that were once models of success and ignoring Albertans’ petition drives to stay in Canada and protect scarcer-than-admitted water resources while morphing plebiscite requirements to grease the rails for efforts to hold a referendum to separate. It is getting harder in both the US and Alberta to believe that the governments prioritize their citizens’ interests. Instead, there are brazen initiatives to expand powers, limit accountability and provide wealth to friends and pander to special interests.

In both jurisdictions, Christian nationalists, despite what is actually stated in the Bible, are further empowered to marginalize anyone they deem a challenge to the fragile sense of self and their vague in-crowds – be it a transgendered athlete, a credible health professional, an educator, a racial minority, a woman. they are striving to protect as sacrosanct above change. The current governments of the United States and Alberta have proven themselves quite willing to yield to that group out of political pragmatism or just the sheer glee they get from the menace of it all.

In the States, the president and his staff try all they can to assert that it he or the United States is still a dominant power, and that the long ago heyday that preceded the transformations of the 1960s -- which brought expanded voting rights for African-Americans (which have recently been diminished by a US Supreme Court decision), the pill and the altered empowerment of women and other changes that redefined the United States -- can be rolled back and restore a preeminence that was fostered by America's largesse, industrial might and support of its allies after World War II. Alberta's United Conservatives are keening for a new age of entitlement where the government is above the scrutiny of Elections Alberta, and enjoys the non-oversight of toothless ethics policies. Throw in the United Conservative government’s disregard of the update electoral map proposed by an independent, non-partisan boundaries commission and the above-the-law behaviour by the provincial government gives little indication that it has the interests of Albertans’ ahead their own or those of the extreme right-wing crowd they have favoured throughout their time in office.

The main character in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Mother Night is a double agent/PR shill on trial for his equivocal exploits. The shill did the job quite well, claiming to have pretended to be serving the desires of his client, but he did it all so, so well. The questions linger throughout the novel. Were you on this guy’s side or not? If this guy actually won would you toe the line gleefully or would revert to your intended side and regret the outcome?
Premier Smith tries to manoeuver that same fine line; one week complaining about the raw deal and the economic hardships that come with being part of Confederation and the next praising the partnership when she gets her way on petroleum and pipelines. The same thing when she uses the notwithstanding clause against striking teachers but rejigs the requirements for a referendum when the fragile right-wing fringe wants to push for the separation referendum. She’s going to be happy when the side she’s shilling for gets its way. Among other things it will afford her the opportunity to discard or chase off the likes of the RCMP, one of the few institutions that occasionally shows it has the teeth, will and mandate to hold the United Conservatives accountable. Writing her own constitution, choosing the judges she wants and setting up her own police force and military would all be exciting steps toward shoring up the power of a government that is so lacking in credibility and competence.

And that would ensure the province’s demise.

Alberta's aspirations to greatness as an economic power are legion. The potential is there but it has not been fully leveraged. The current provincial government continues to tout that potential, citing data and projections for continued growth (within a united Canada), while chasing away, even banning, certain types of investment, most egregiously in renewable energy. Beyond that, the government's mismanagement of health care and education would diminish the interests of the newcomers that Alberta will need to expand its economy the growth it anticipates.

The misplaced grievances demonstrated whenever Alberta Conservatives – both provincial and federal – have mused about firewalls will only exacerbate the province’s decline as uncertainty chases away the thoughtful investment that the Alberta and its citizens need to ensure continued growth. Instead the UCP will render Alberta its own fealty, or a bauble to hand off for exploitation by those who see the weakness in Albertans’ misplaced attachment to a perfect, unchanging Alberta that did not and never will exist. Keep selling that mirage and you will outstrip PT Barnum.

Of A Long Walk

2026-04-06T10:56:00.002-06:00

A few years ago, online I should add, I came across a book called The 12-Hour Walk. I have yet to find or order a copy of it, but the idea intrigued me. I have been pondered undertaking that for a while, but always procrastinated on it. The weather was never quite right or it would interfere with running and training for a marathon. About 10 days ago, however, I came across a fundraiser for Parkinson's Canada on Facebook about doing 50K throughout the month of April and I decided it was time to paint myself into that corner and go for that long walk I've been putting off. Motivated to do it for this cause in particular, I signed up for the fundraiser and decided I would get done in a single day rather than over the course of an entire month. Given the amount of walking I already do on top of my running, giving myself the entire month to do what I can do in a week or a weekend, did strike me as particularly exceptional. The time had come.

I knew a 50K walk would not take me 12 hours, but it would scratch that itch about how much of the city I would cover in a single walk. I've occasionally walked 8-12K in a shot (and back) to go to a bookstore or a movie and even did that this past Friday as a "warm-up" for the 50K walk and my daily step count, even on the most pedestrian... or would it be least pedestrian(?)... ORDINARY!!... ordinary of days was considered substantial by more sedentary friends and acquaintances. Over the years, perhaps even going back to adolescence, I've enjoyed long walks and when I was a more active photographer I loved lugging the camera around just to see what my eyes would fall to, but often lost creative steam after 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

The weather Sunday was just the sort that should have prompted me to put things off a week or more, but with misplaced confidence that the forecast of only two hours of flurries was accurate and that I'd be graced with a break in the weather and some milder temperatures by mid-morning, I decided to get out sooner rather than later. I headed north, following my route to work whereupon I would follow the route I used to run home at the end of most workdays. This would minimize the traffic signals I would wait for throughout the day. With my a few audiobooks on my phone, a flask of tea a bottle of water and a few protein bars, I set out.

I didn't start off making particularly good time, but I started with a steep uphill, the first of the handful of traffic signals and a bit of the just-out-of-bed, do-I-have-to stupor clinging to me before I established a rhythm. After my second traffic signal, one that did not turn for me despite my timely pressing of the "beg button," I settled in for a long uninterrupted stretch that took me through a residential neighbourhood and then down to the Bow River, which I follow for most of the walk. Runners were out for their Sunday morning longs, including one runner wearing the salmon-coloured 2018 Boston Marathon windbreaker that makes me want to stop and exchange war stories from that epic adversity. This runner, now well into his mid-80s, has been well known for his long participation at Boston and on this morning, poignantly, he was moving along with a walker. Something tells me he is of the "be-damned" mindset and that he will give the race one more go in two weeks' time. I didn't need to be reminded that the weather for this walk -- -2 with steadier flurries that the meteorologists forecast -- was just fine. I didn't have to worry about sweating through my jacket just yet, either.

While the route I chose would minimize the interruptions by traffic signals, I was not as likely to allow me to be the observant flâneur taking in the surroundings as I would if I were wandering through the fabric of downtown. The flurries amply cloaked my view of the trees and hills that were on the south side of the river and the view of the towers downtown was shrouded to faint lines until I got right across the river from them.

About a quarter of the way through the walk, I crossed paths with an indefatigable colleague/neighbour who I see about as often on these paths as I do in the office or on Zoom. She noticed my backpack of provisions and could tell from the way I was dressed as well that I was not out for a training run. We each removed an earbud and I confirmed her assumption that I was "going long" and that I had already managed 13K to that point. No small feat at 9am. We went our separate ways a after a few hundred metres I discerned the spectacle of a massive bald eagle perched on a piece of driftwood in the middle of the river. It was the one moment of the day when I regretted not having the extra weight of my camera for the day. I paused and took a few shots with my phone but they amount to the clarity of quick, abstract oil colour paintings when precise best captures the awe. The bird took flight after a moment, giving me the option of capturing the black arc of ink I have often drawn to represent a bird, or a rushed scribble of my letter "r," which I alone may believe is not an "n" or a "v."

At the 15K mark I decided to detour to "civilization" for a tea, a cookie and the available facilities. To my surprise I dumped a huge accumulation of snow off my baseball cap and my surplus to requirement sunglasses. I shook that snow off into the toilet, wiped a few clumps off the toilet seat to spare subsequent users from a shock of cold, completed my ablutions and headed out again after assuring the barista that I was prepared to pay for the second teabag that I wanted for my flask.

Among the things that I would be curious about with the book that inspired me to do this was what would happen to my frame of mind over the course of a longer walk. I have read several books on walking, more than I've read on running, actually, and I appreciate seeing my surroundings at human scale and pace. What I was wondering about with the longer walk was what would happen mentally as the walk went on. I had an incongruous issue with déjà vu as I walked. I thought I was experiencing déjà vu when seeing discarded tabs from energy gels on the path, specifically a tan tab of salted caramel gel. (I suspect I'm speaking a language only a few can understand at the moment.). The first time I saw one I noted it and a few kilometres later upon seeing a second, thought I was experiencing it when actually it was evidence that the salted caramel may have been a popular flavour. The third time I saw it I quickly regarded it as more evidence, when the reality was I was retracing my steps. Maybe I should have just picked the damn things up. I acknowledge that my flurry of excuses for not doing so, the best of which being that my backpack likely would have clonked me in the head as I bent over, is the paradigm of feeble. Maybe I need to bring tongs on my next long.

My mind did not drift the way it can during a marathon, but I was not as locked in for the walk as for a race. There were times when I made more effort, others when there was less but there was not a concern about wilting under the burden of the distance and not finishing. I was well accompanied by the audiobook I started and finished, Justin Currie's The Tremolo Diaries. Currie, who was diagnosed with PD about 3 years ago, gives an account of life as a touring musician living and working with the new challenges and describes it all with barbed attention to detail that makes for a compelling entertaining read, especially when draped with his dulcet Scottish brogue. I'd seen him 4 years ago in a bucket list show that was delayed 10 years when visa issues kept me from seeing him on the tail end of a trip to northern California for my first marathon. The tremor was evident then and his hunger for the road and stage another thread of poignancy on my walk. He makes do as well as he can with medication and exercise and describes ambitions walks that fill his time away from the 30-40 minutes of spotlight each night.

After walking the majority of the available pathway available along the Bow River -- there is a stretch of the river on the south side that is snow and ice-packed throughout the winter and well into May or even June, I turn south for a few more traffic lights (there've only be 4 over the first 30K) one more "aid station" cafe for a tea and on to the reservoir which has featured in many of the races I've run over the years. The last time I covered this route was on a dark Tuesday morning in November to get the results on a biopsy. That morning was too dark to make out much more that the pastels to the east but this time I see a few quirky details on the houses I pass. A house with half of a Japanese torii over the path to their backyard makes me wonder if they would retain that should they ever put it on the market. I digress and I move on.

When I get to the reservoir I follow the shore for another 6 or 7K, taking in the minimalism imposed on it all by the snow and ice, which is starting to concede its transition back to liquid is coming, but not yet. I start to track the distance remaining to 50K and know that if I continue on my clockwise path around the reservoir, I could be in for 8-12 more kilometres than necessary and as comfortable as I'm managing to be, still, it would be better to get a break and perhaps a reward. It has been about 8 hours to this point and I have an idea of what that longer walk can impart to me. Of less importance, but significant enough to motivate, is the fact that the batteries on my phone and watch are just about tapped out and I retreat from the monochromes of the reservoir for brick and cement-lined routes north to complete the distance.

At the end of the day, I think there's a chance that I could do 12 hours, though I would be curious about whether or not the author of that book did it straight or rested with a certain regularity. Whatever the case, there's no competition on a walk. We've all got our own destinations at starting points. I just looked up the book again and the paperback can be pre-ordered for delivery in 2046. The library has it, though and the author also has a book about walking across Antarctica. The Bugger.

The Double Whammy of UCP Failure

2026-03-08T13:30:00.002-06:00

With the recent call for a fall referendum on, among other things, immigration, and the nothing-to-show-for-it deficit budget that was brought down at the end of February, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has revealed her government’s ideology as a melange of impulses that contradict the traditional conservative pillars of individual liberty, business friendliness, and minimal government intervention. Alberta’s United Conservatives have proven once again that they are unashamed of throwing a toddler tantrum or putting its thumb on the scales to have its way rather than doing the right thing by its constituents or letting the right thing happen.

 Conservative governments have never been hounded by the accusations of being bleeding hearts overwhelmed by the touchy-feelies when making policy and putting forward budgets. If anything, conservatives everywhere regard themselves (at least superficially) as rational bean counters with their eye on the bottom line, though they have failed more often than not in that mission. For generations, they have fired the epithet of “tax and spend” liberals or lefties as if it were a grievously harmful -ism rather than a government strategy that, for its basic logic and the assurance of public services, succeeds where the corporate welfare of spend and spend “fiscal” conservatives founders and as the evidence proves time and again generates obscene deficits.   Despite the reputation that conservatives have tried to maintain for clear-sightedness and pragmatic approaches to governing, Alberta’s United Conservative Party has been nothing short of quixotic in its efforts to avoid doing the obvious right things — fund health care, build schools, respect the bargaining rights of unionized teachers, help the infirm, the weak, the elderly, foster innovation, and provide a business-friendly jurisdiction — in favour of expending what limited natural and financial resources the province has on shoring up and maintaining industries and interest groups who need to find ways to stand on their own two feet or acknowledge the inevitability of change. A coherent platform may sound like it is all too much to expect of a government, but if it is more than a government feels it can manage, that ought to disqualify them from government. If the libertarian impulse within the UCP caucus is that strong, perhaps it should choose other areas for the government to not involve itself in.

The UCP has retreated from addressing Alberta’s health care challenges. It has put more energy into reorganizing again and again a bloated, paralyzed bureaucracy that claims to be running the health care system rather than getting money to the frontlines to reduce emergency room wait times, create more beds, keep facilities open for longer than banking hours, and ensure that hospital facilities can actually meet building code. While the province has fewer hospital beds than it had 25 years ago, the province is instead pointing a neon-glowing finger at a target, immigrants, that betrays the emotionality of its ideological impulses. Ultimately, this is an effort to starve the health care system of funding while peddling the specious argument that the federal government, immigrants, and a constitutional model that seems to work for the majority of Canadian provinces are to blame. The strategy provides a bounty of pithy sound bites, but ultimately, it is an abandonment of the potential this government actually has to govern and lead in a manner that maintains a quality of life in the province that would be the envy of many.   Instead of putting its energy into providing the services that improve the quality of life for all Albertans and contributing, if I may make the business argument, to the infrastructure that would make the province an appealing place to live and start a business, they have chased away investment in industry and innovation out of the province. Banning investment in wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources for the most specious of reasons neuters the province’s opportunity to make itself into a multi-pronged — heaven forbid I say ‘diverse’ — energy superpower.

When the opportunity to bring revenue, investment, and funding into the province is offered, whether private or public, this government has instead chosen to act like a breath-holding 4-year-old in the candy aisle.   It had rejected the federal government for child daycare, instead increasing the bureaucracy around the funding model for daycare in a way that likely made it hard for parents to determine what was available to them in terms of both funding and placements. This supposedly “small” government consistently creates such uncertainty around the services it could provide that Albertans are uncertain about what is available to them as time and again, the government intentionally creates space and opportunity for private enterprises to add a profit margin for services that could simply be supported and facilitated by a government that sees a clear rational to acknowledge the rights all Albertans have to health care, education, and day care, and providing them rather than forcing people to compete for them or navigate complex policies to meet these basic needs in a manner that allows them to still make ends meet. These services should be organized around the needs of families rather than the aspirations of businesses looking for ways to pad their profit margins regardless of the quality of services they ought to provide. The refusal to acknowledge this results in for-profit daycares poisoning children and encountering a paltry fine as a consequence for violating health codes in their kitchens. The UCP aspires to downsize government to the extent that government is small and accommodating for the wealthiest of Albertans and non-existent for anyone else in the province they can marginalize: the elderly, the differently abled, the unionized, the young, to name just a few. Despite what they wish, excluding these people is ultimately to the detriment of the province and the government’s bottom line. Their budget deficit and debt are evidence of that rather than a rationale to go further in determining who to exclude next.

Many of the questions for the Fall 2026 referendum are about topics that Albertans have already and consistently indicated in the polls their disinterest in leaving the Canada Pension Plan, nor Canada itself. It would be quixotic for a government to continue to press on these issues despite the apparently steadfast opposition, if only it weren’t for the malice and incompetence that the UCP has brought to bear on their work. Businesses have expressed their unwillingness to invest in the megaproject of new pipeline access that the provincial government wants because the threat of separation, which is steadily stoked by interest groups that have the ear and sympathy of this government, creates too unstable a business environment to make such a massive investment.

The UCP perspective on the matters of the day remains moored to its Christian theocratic “Lake of Fire” roots despite the evolving political climate. While the rest of the country has been in full-on Team Canada mode for the past year, the Premier of Alberta continues to cultivate and broadcast her efforts to deepen relations with American Republicans, seemingly because of the direction many of those governments have gone at the federal and state levels rather than cooperating with the rest of the provinces and the federal government. Like the American governments it feels a kinship toward, the UCP’s attention has rejected the opportunities to take informed, pragmatic approaches to the actual challenges of the day, preferring instead to distract the masses with populist red meat that squanders government resources and goodwill to undermine human rights, further exacerbate the environmental challenges we are unable to deny, and attempt to tighten the grip on power despite the reality that it is as compliant with a tight grasp as a wet bar of Ivory.

While bumpers across the province still bear the “F**k Trudeau” sentiments that this government has cultivated in its worship of oil and gas, there were once many that stated the well-worn chorus not to piss away the largesse of the next big oil boom… again. Still, there is an arrogance that comes with the assumption that the province’s plenitude is the product of talent, grit, and intelligence that could have taken hold and generated wealth we have without the lucky intersection of geology and market demand catalyzing it into the something more we take for granted. With the passing of time, however, the return on energy investment has been diminishing. We have to do more than stand by and wait for the flukes of geopolitics to goose our wellbeing and put a dent in the deficits that result from an immature, irrational government that is only interested in the needs of the handful that want to shore up a bygone status quo.

Alberta deserves and needs leadership that is conscious of the challenges we face, collectively and individually. When the Alberta government brought down its deficit budget in February, it was based on oil priced at $60.50 a barrel. Since that time, the price has gone up to $90, all in the space of 10 days. Albertans have known this volatility for generations, and while there may be a sigh of relief today about the deficit, the government needs to put in the work to define Alberta’s future rather than leaving the province to the whims of the markets. Alberta had a wealth of institutions and infrastructure that, until not so long ago, were enviable and encouraged Albertans to stay here and immigrants to come here and to make contributions to the life and economy of this province. For several years, however, whether you want to go back to Ralph Klein’s demolition of hospitals or Danielle Smith’s myriad ways of underfunding the infrastructure of this province, conservative governments here have had a nasty habit of pissing away the assets that have assured our collective wealth and well-being. We will not be able to replenish these as a consequence of a fleeting boom in oil price alone. Without the foresight, the pragmatism, and the simple rationality required to look after one another and leave no one behind, Smith will take the province down with her, and Alberta will not be resurrected with a quick rebrand and a flurry of sound bites.

My Favorite 2025 Reads

2026-01-04T12:45:00.001-07:00

A resolution in 2025 was to get my to-be-read (TBR) pile down to a "manageable" size. I got it from 79 to 40, which benefited from fewer purchases throughout the year. I still picked up a few books that insisted on my possession of them with how precisely they fit some of the more elaborate Venn diagrams of my interests -- running, walking, music, Japan --- and drew my hand to their places on the shelves.

The "Venns" (as it were) are among the harder to find reads and are perhaps harder to explain. Run The Song (music and running) and Things Become Other Things (walking and Japan) were the esoteric, but quick, immersive reads that appealed with the direction they went from their unique starting points. The first book of the two, written by Ben Ratliff, a music journalist who is a disciplined runner, disciplined as in no tracking and no competing. During his runs, Ratliff focuses on the intersection between movement, the constant changing surroundings he finds running through his part of New York and how they respond to music intended for dance, a concert hall or anything but the steady forward movement facilitated by a pair of sneakers. (I think I said a bad word.) It was a fascinating look at how those things can intersect and brings to mind a change in how we perceive our environments.

Craig Mod's walking memoir is, in the moment, an account of his hike through relatively remote and rural Wakayama Prefecture, which juts into the Pacific south of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. While he describes his accounts with the local holdovers still trying to cultivate a lifestyle in one of those remote corners of Japan that are gradually being ghosted as younger generations gravitate to Tokyo, Mod gradually discloses his past, his relationship with his homeland and, tellingly, makes the distinction between an expat and immigrant, saying in essence that an expat remains aloof, and holds to the assumption that home is better than the place hosting him. An American who's been in Japan for decades, his declaration that he is actually an immigrant is a significant comment but about the differences between those countries and the values we all may profess to hold.

At the time I bought Things I also picked up a book about Japanese artisanship called Water, Wood and Wild Things. Primarily an account of the lives and craft of farmers, sake brewers, chefs and tea masters in one of those remote mountainous corners of Japan experiencing the same challenges Wakayama faces in Mod's book. It is an inspiring tribute to slowness and the subtleties that emerge with ancient mastery. On that topic of craftsmanship, Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction by Gary Rogowski assures that such artisans are not just hidden away in remote mountain enclaves of Japan.

Another walking book was Six Walks by Ben Shattuck. The memoir is a delicately trod reflection on the paths and writings of Thoreau. Written in the aftermath of COVID, it is one of several great books that stemmed from the diversions people sought through the pandemic. However, unlike sketching or bird-watching, Shattuck's hikes were an opportunity to grapple deliberately with the changes and the constants that have persisted through the nearly two centuries since Thoreau beat his path to Walden Pond.

My favorite book exclusively on music was James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue, a look at the lives of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans as they intersected for the Kind of Blue recording in 1959 and gradually went their separate paths. The least known of the three is Evans and the descriptions of his genius and his addictions makes for a tragic thread through the book. It is hard to declare that his potential was not achieved or that his loss was greater than Coltrane's, but for some reason, for me, there is more of a feeling of what if.

Coltrane, of course, was lost far, far too soon, but his legacy seems safe, if not sacred. All said, the book gives an excellent description of that collaboration between those three in particular and its lasting impact on music.

Some might think it odd, but I have found some satisfaction in bios and memoirs of musicians I have not listened to. Serj Tankian's Down With The System outlines his upbringing as an Armenian-American and how he found away to take the political stands he could through the group System of a Down which he fronted in the 1990s and '00s. The memoir outlines his family background, his political activism in the US and in contemporary Armenia and a music career that has been eclectic and wide-ranging. It hasn't propelled me into his discography but his is a strong political and creative voice and the book as a great read. Neko Case's memoir is another that I read despite not knowing her music that well. To take that theme a step further I addressed the accusation that I missed the 1990s by reading 60 Songs that Explain the 90s by Rob Harvilla. Opening with Celine Dion and closing with Mariah Carey, I'm not sure if I actually missed that much, but there were a few things that I was not under a rock for, but just on the other side of the world. Other musical reads include Warren Zanes' Deliver Me From Nowhere which is the source material for the Bruce Springsteen bio-pic of the same name. I haven't gotten to see the movie yet but the book gives a great description of the inflection point Springsteen was at on the heels of completing The River tour and grappling with the responsibilities and guilt that came with fame and creative challenges at that point of his life.

My favorite memoir of the year, however has been Cameron Crowe's The Uncool. The first third of the

book reads like the rough notes that formed the spine of his film Almost Famous. Engaging with its behind-the-curtain look at the musical era he was a scribe to, and amusing and poignant with the framing of his involvement in the stage production of Almost Famous, the book leaves you fulfilled with the account of the lives he encountered, but hungry for a deep dive into the articles that he talks about writing throughout. One of my faves of the year and I'm sure to re-read it again. There better be more books coming out by him.

In my ambition to slay that TBR pile, the "what took me so long" read of the year was Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell. Written in 2009, Solnit takes a look at disasters over the last century or so and outlines how they, in essence, brought out the best in people and, arguably, the worst in governments. Whether out of fear of social disorder or mindsets made rigid by misconception, protection of power or the pursuit of profit, government's have gotten in the way more often than they have risen to the occasion while the citizens find a community spirit that is astounding with its generosity and flexibility. If we could capture that in a bottle... Apart from this book and her walking book Wanderlust, she has proven to be throughout 2025 a reliable, insightful voice.

The must-read of the year was Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. A profound account of El Akkad's education and early career as a journalist along with a close description of what has unfolded in Palestine over the last 2+ years. It is a call to the conscious and one that insists quietly and in searing detail how the tepid response among so many is due to misinformation and disinformation. Brutally necessary read. A similarly strong, contemporary book is Carol Off's At a Loss for Words which examines the meaning, history and misuse of a handful of words that have, over the last generation or so, become flashpoints exploited to steer and accelerate us down the road we are on. It is good equipment if anyone is looking for better ways to make the cases for justice, equality and peace.

Okay, before you tap out and get back to your own reading, a few quickies on other books I would reread.

Potpourri
Stanley Tucci - What I Ate in One Year - Another great gustatory sweep through Tucci's mostly Italian favorites. Not as poignant as Taste, his first food book, but lip-smacking just the same.

Derek Delgaudio - Amoralman - A memoir, perhaps, by a illusionist and card cheat about a dark path through seedy, dare I say cutthroat, high-stakes poker.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang - Rest - About exactly that and its importance in many facets of life.

Chris Ballard - One Shot at Forever - A sports book with only the slightest sliver of fame to it. A 1971 high school baseball team from a small town... You've seen movies like this and wanted to believe it was true, well here's a true story you'd appreciate as a movie. Worth finding.

Adam Higginbotham - Challenger - One of my first "where were you when" experiences but unpacked in keen detail. As you read, bear in mind that this and the Chernobyl disaster were just 3 months apart.

Entertainment
Susan Morrison - Lorne - I probably average an episode of SNL a year, but this was still a treat to read. Part Michaels bio, and part look at the boiler room challenge of the prep leading to 11:30ET each week.

Politics
Jacinda Ardern - A Different Kind of Power - I'm not entire sure how popular Ardern is currently in New Zealand, but I trust that with the passage of time the leaders who got the planet through COVID will be regarded with more generosity and accuracy in the history books than than have been in the moment. An exceptional chapter one.

Cody Keenan - Grace - The account by one of the most formative and challenging weeks of the Obama presidency, told by the speechwriter who helped draft many of speeches during his second term, including the one he gave in Charleston in 2015.

Samantha Power - The Education of an Idealist Another - Obama era staff member's account of their time working the the Obama administration. Competence and decency. Also look for Ben Rhodes' The World As It Is for more accounts from a capable, compassionate American government.

Anne Applebaum - Autocracy Inc. - Want to know what's happening right now? No ads, not really the news but all the truth you need right now.

Randi Weingarten - Why Fascists Fear Teachers - A valuable map to what you may be seeing unfolding as politicians go after Education and drum up ways to justify privatizing it and undermining it in other unseemly ways.

My Reliables
Percival Everett - Dr. No - Not the Bond novel but a spy novel with lashings of philosophy, humour and theoretical physics. Fun. This put him on my list of reliables after 3-4 other books by him.

Jess Walter - So Far Gone - Time and again. Gentle humour a book that is of its place and time. A master.

Michael Chabon - Telegraph Road - What took me so long to get to this?!

Nick Hornby - Just Like You - Some might have said that Hornby has lost something since High Fidelity and About a Boy, but this has those familiar elements in a Brexit-era (era's the wrong word, oh well...) novel, Hornby make be making the subtle case that for all the political identification we may want to cling to we remain defined by the movies, music and hobbies that we love and commit ourselves to more than anything we might feel expected to align or identify with.

Steve Martin - Steve Martin Writes the Written Word - Two of his novels alongside briefer comedic pieces to remind us that he is the current renaissance man, even with an arrow through his head.

2026?
Not sure if I'll get that TBR pile down by another 39, maybe by half as there are a lot of doorstops that I have been avoiding. If I do get to them, they'll be a large commitment than average. I will want to track down Justin Currie's The Tremolo Diaries, I may finally pull Samuel Hawley's Daikon from the store shelves and David Baerwald's The Fire Agent has been pre-ordered for its June release.

Remembering Reiner

2025-12-16T16:47:00.001-07:00

If I ever took on the challenge of movie karaoke, I would promptly opt for the oeuvre of Rob Reiner, especially the movies from that stretch from This is Spinal Tap to The American President, (just over) a decade of brilliance that would hold up well in comparison to any other director in the history of cinema. Look at the best decades of the likes of Hitchcock, Wilder or Spielberg and you would give at the least a begrudging nod of appreciation for the diversity of genre, the popular and critical appeal of Reiner's work over the course of those movies that he started his career with.

Combined, those movies provide an ample festival of consolation as we absorb the shocking loss of Rob Reiner and his wife. In my own case, I've advised my son that he will be encountering Stand By Me at some point in the coming days and I'll weigh other Reiner works to complement what he has already seen. With my Inigo Montoyo, "Hello my name is..." mug, my "inconceivable" and "11" T-shirts and my Vizzini, Fezzik and Inigo socks to cycle through I'm paying tribute in my personal way and acknowledging the long-standing impression Reiner's work has left on me for over 40 years.

The Reiner highlight for me, however, goes back a few decades to when I was teaching junior high school. I was in a small, remote Inuit community teaching a class of 8 kids from ages 10 to 19. Keeping the kids engaged throughout each day was a challenge and a futile one on Friday afternoons. While trying to dig in to make the point that the kids had to work throughout the entire week, the challenge of engaging them and holding their attention on Friday afternoons was always a challenge, especially when other teachers were opting to lighten their load with some entertainment to reward the kids for being engaged throughout the week to that point.

It wasn't always the best way to end the week. There were times when the Friday afternoon kicked of with an excursion to the Co-op to scour their selection of VHS tapes and, I suspect, unwittingly facilitate the kids' shoplifting from the store's confection shelves. more often than not, those movies did little to sustain the engagement of the kids despite whatever action mayhem those "stories" may have been leavened with. It often left me wondering if there was an alternative to the movies, especially when they had come to the conclusion that the violence and conflict of movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day were capturing and sharing the day-to-day reality of "south" life routines that I eagerly returned to as soon as the flights south for Christmas or summer holidays were available to me.

The misconceptions and the failure of the movies to grab and sustain interest among the kids, made those Friday afternoons a frustrating part of my week and I was convinced that there were better things to do and engage the kids with. I thought about afternoons of board games or something to keep them busy in the gymnasium, but with either of those, all it took was a kid or two in a bit of a mood to land me in a protracted negotiation to get that one kid to join in before the others arrived at the conclusion that they weren't interested in those things either.

All of that influencing the way Fridays, I looked for ways to have my imprint on how those afternoons unfolded in a manner that somehow engaged my students. In the fall of 1992, just five years after it came out and it was still saddled with the cachet of a cult favorite rather than branded an all-time classic, I brought my VHS copy of The Princess Bride to show the class. I turned down the lights and sat at the back of the room, worried that these kids would be so jaded that not even this could lance their disinterest in engaging with the entirety of a movie.

As the movie played there were moments when kids got up to wander away from the room and others where kids looked for something else to do, but once Buttercup encountered Fezzik, Inigo and Vizzini, they got a sense that there was plenty to hold their interest. I didn't fret over whether or not they were getting each throwaway aside and as kids shushed each other and wandered off to summon friends who bailed too early to appreciate all that was unfolding.

Before Inigo and Westley made confessions about their dexterity, the entire class was sprawled on the gym mats that covered the classroom floor for occasions like these and they followed the rest of the ride. It is tempting to attribute a certain innocence of age or era to them, to say it was like the 50s and they had a quarter in their pocket or that they were turned back to a less world-weary moment of their brief youth and allowed to be real children for a while. It was more likely that they had the sense that they were at a real movie for the first time and had something akin to the cinema experience that had likely eluded them to this point. They probably tapped out on other movies as early as they did because the formula was barely hidden by the fire, sound effects and tumbling cars that were standard issue. All those focus-group tested elements guaranteed that the product the kids were watching turned stale before the opening credits were complete.

They revelled in Inigo's revenge and may have grasped how hollow it left him and thrilled to the resolution of Westley's resurrection not to mention Billy Crystal's and Carol Kane's manic marital display as they fought through their backstory and the depths of Miracle Max's genius and disregard for Humperdink. When the movie ended and the credits rolled, the kids chattered to one another in English and Inuktitut about what unfolded and did their best to reenact the sword fight. Before the got to the end of the hall in their sprint to head downstairs, out of the school and into the weekend, a few of them returned to ask if they could see it again. The movie reached these kids, who had so much baggage in their everyday lives, the way few things ever did during my time with them.

Rob Reiner transcended expectations and conventions in so many ways with the movies he had made. Exposing those kids who had already lived too much and felt, on top of that, like they had already seen all that Hollywood had to offer them, is illustrative of that. To have seen them turn as enthralled and enchanted by a form that they indulged in simply for the cheap payoffs and get as much as they did out of it was a testament to the quality of the work that Rob Reiner had done not only with The Princess Bride, but tried to infuse into as much of his work as he could. Many of us can cite and perhaps even do a choral reading of the ones that succeeded and for that we can be thankful and happily take on the mission of passing them on.

The Decade-Year

2025-12-01T21:34:00.001-07:00

Several years ago, George Clooney had said during a particularly adverse year, something to the effect that everyone has a year where they age a decade. It was a chestnut worth filing away — an advisory to equip me for a tricky stretch and hopefully not a rogue adage waiting manifest itself due to my memory’s capacity as a steel trap for trivia.

With the passing of time of smirked and blushed at the replies of, “You’re not!”, or “Really?!”, when I’ve disclosed my age so I assured myself that if or when that stretch came along it would merely be a levelling rather than a massive setback. Long distance running and a walking routine that some might describe as compulsive have kept me relatively lean most of the time and often, when the haptic jolt of my watch prods me off my butt at 10 minutes to the hour, I can drop for a set of push-ups that exceeds my age. I’ve done what I can and my worst vices are in the form of carbohydrates.

If anything, there may have been a risk of overdoing it, but for the most part I’d been able to keep up the pace I’d set for myself. In July 2024, however, I’d had a weekend with a bit too much sun. Over the course of four days, I’d coached my son’s soccer team through four games in high 20s temperatures that kept officials cautious about water breaks and a spike in the mercury that would abbreviate or even end games — and then I through in a half-marathon in those temperatures to indulge in my version of “me time.”

On the heels of that, I woke up feeling a bit out of sorts but trusted that breakfast and the walk to work would shake off whatever variation on cobwebs I was slogging through on that day. At work though, I was overtaken by chills and I knew that I had not shaken things off. Instead, I was off. I called it a day, turned down a drive, and walked home and called the health line. After the consultation and a spike in temperature I was directed to the Emergency Room and a nearby hospital. After a length wait and the unceremonious discharge before I was seen, further testing got underway and something was up but nothing could be concluded on the spot. With a prescription or two in hand, I headed home for recovery and the puzzle of what was up.

“Your PSA is 69.”

I took that news with a stoic nod of recognition and sorted as well as I could through the next steps that my nurse practitioner was outlining. There would be further tests but for the time being I kept my cool, but caution as well. For a few weeks I stopped running home from work. The heat and the summer smoke holding me at back until there was more clarity. During soccer practices I dialled down my energetic tone-setting when the team did their warm-ups, sparing them my insistence that they should be at least trying to keep up with me.

Meanwhile, the specialists and their test requisitions became part of my routine. I told myself it was a rite of passage. I took some quiet pleasure in the 75 minutes walks I took first thing in the morning to do my bloodwork without pretzeling myself into the schedule of a clinic that was booked, it seemed, for months in advance. I could stop for my ritual tea and cookie on my way from the lab to work and take in the various stages of dawn as the days lengthened or shortened and catch how the light could pass clean through the emptied Hudson’s Bay at 6:52am.

I gradually put parts of my routine back into place. In a fit on ennui, I went for a run one Sunday morning a few weeks after I was in ER and put in a steady, desperate 22K just to be sure I was fine and to express a needed defiance, even if only to myself. Still, other things fell by the wayside. I never brought that physical energy to my coaching since then, but it was more a matter of desire or motivation rather than an effort to conserve energy. I did bail on a marathon that I’d registered for. The two weeks between that “eff you” Sunday morning run and an actual race were not quite enough for my to race with the promise of something other than real discomfort on the horizon. I would make a point of rounding into shape and raced a satisfying time in the marathon on Thanksgiving weekend.

My mindset was changing significantly, however. I decided to go see Electric Light Orchestra, as much guided by my own doubts as the fact that they were definitely touring for the last time. My writing diminished and I spent more time distracting myself rather than looking inward deliberately enough to daisy chain enough thoughts to arrive at some new phrase or conclusion. I continued running once I got back into the routine of it, but as the year proceeded, the persistent pain in my left foot earned a bit of resignation from me and I conceded a visit to the podiatrist. Diagnosis: arthritis. Orthotics and topicals have been added to my routine, but 10 days after that diagnosis I ran my fastest marathon in 9 years. Some defiance to take some comfort in and assert that maybe I’m not aging that fast, just the one decade for now and no more. It was a bit of comfort as the regimen of testing and imaging went on.

Beyond the bloodwork, the ruling-out routine persisted as the urologists sought to rule out every possibility. Ultrasound. More blood work, with the numbers easing but only stubbornly so. More imaging. The techno trance of the MRI made the time and confinement pass quickly. The kicker was having the session booked for the first Saturday night after I was told to expect a 10-to-12-week wait for a time slot.

As the year turned into a year and a half and there was no promise of clarity, and perhaps with it the threat of a battle that I felt healthy enough to beat back for round one, I have been shoring up my energies. I decided that twenty was round enough a number and that I wouldn’t need to run any more marathons. My solitary thoughts turned to estate planning and an adamance about where I would not want my remains left. While I might be somewhere on a worrying spectrum, I wouldn’t consider myself a catastrophist. With time to myself to practice, however, I was definitely honing those chops.

Now, I just have to shed those well-honed catastrophe chops. With the results of the MRI, the doctors cited a few growths as reason enough to schedule a biopsy. As the doctor tried to intercept any worries I might have had, I can safely say he failed. I probably feared the B-word (biopsy) more than the C-word, for which I was prepared to be in a combative mode. The testing is just something you have to be submitted to, treatment is something (I think, at least) that you can take on.

After a lengthy wait for the announcement that the results were negative and that tracking from here on out can proceed at a more relaxed frequency, I have found myself slow in snapping out of the funk that caution and uncertainty have landed me in. I was hoping that there would be a burst of endorphins that would snap me out of whatever rut this has been, but endorphins seem to have a relatively short lifespan. But as you can see, I’m trying to put thoughts together once again and we’ll see about how many baby steps it will take to shed the health dread and wrestle with the decade-from-hell world affairs has disintegrated into. I'm not inclined to make any declarations, but for now getting my fingers moving for a thought or two is a start.

Alberta's Ulterior Government

2025-10-28T21:26:00.002-06:00

Well, Alberta, here are the basics:

My son has about 80 kids in his junior high physical education class. Three teachers in the gymnasium for that, but the square footage will defer to the cinder blocks of the old building. Freedom of movement is at a premium with that many awkward adolescent bodies bouncing around. Those guardians of their growth and well-being are all the more conscious of the risks for collision and collateral damage from errant missiles. This is not anything resemble consciousness of our students health and well-being.

Last night, in deference to the UCP's back-to-work order, I completed the parental permission form for my son to cover the sexual education portion of his health class when he returns to school. Granted, I can understand the desire by a number of parents to “protect” their kids from the information they would get in a sex ed class, but ultimately there need to be things that we must cooperate on and come to an understanding about. The Alberta government’s instinct for dissension whether it is with municipal and federal governments, other provinces or its own citizens. At a time when the rest of Canada is doing so much to work together and collaborate in the face of a challenge, Alberta's current premier shows a distinct incapacity for pragmatic government or decision-making. If the options are to atomize Albertans into disparate solitudes rather than exercising the skills that emerge when we familiarize ourselves with the demands and opportunities of interacting, collaborating and ultimately acknowledging the complexities and paradoxes that define human existence and endeavour, the government will favour and pave that low road. As our horizons contract, let us be damned.

I’ve been in Alberta for over 22 years now. During the first decade of my residence here, there were neighbours and acquaintances who assured me that they were not that conservative, a chorus that has been indelibly silent for much of the last decade. The UCP, veering toward a satiric, self-destructive commitment to the contemporary strain of conservatism, is rendering Alberta ever more brittle and fragile with each eroding policy they come up with. It is usually an effort to buttress the oil and gas industry and to preserve a bygone to stave off the changes that are undermining a charmed, sepia take on an Alberta that never was. Instead of adapting to the inevitable, implacable changes that are our reality, this government has exhausted itself with head-in-sand gestures that will ultimately prove futile.

The UCP is rendering Alberta ever more brittle and fragile with each eroding policy they come up with.

As I ponder this government's record, I am unable to identify a landmark piece of legislation that has been aimed at improving the current life and the future prosperity of Alberta and its people. I would be more than happy to give this government kudos for an improvement to life in Alberta, but this is an empirically incompetent government. If I chose to be I'd regard them as malicious.

Sure, they have come up with user fees for provincial parks, expanded coal extraction at the expense of potable water and tourist-attracting vistas (granted only to retreat on that to hefty expenses to the mining contractors), new layers of red-tape and expense for those seeking to vaccinate themselves for their own health and for the protection of an eroding health care system’s capacity, the rejection of the development of renewable energy alternatives, acknowledging the regular threat of forest fires only as a rationale to postpone elections rather than a call to improve fire protection and combat. What have they done right? Their response to the strike by the Alberta Teachers Association has expressed a desire on the government's part to denigrate or demonize teachers and unions en route to the dismantling of public education in favour of a private, union-free model. A long-term endeavour like education is something that governments ought to be best trusted with. Education policy requires a long-term vision rather than a preoccupation with quick payoffs, short-term efficiency or a place for profit margin. It ought to be something that governments regard as central to their mission. Not so in this instance.

It is hard to tell if this is a cynical government or a pessimistic one. Their abuse of the province's educators has undermined the education system and it will have a lasting impact on whether or not this will be a place where people will have the opportunity for the success and the quality of life that their parents claim to have had here. This government's refusal to make the sufficient investment in education cannot be justified, not when the government has underfunded the system for as long as it has. Teachers are not asking to be the last ones to get their nose into the public trough. If they were, the UCP would happily accommodate them, regardless of the return on investment. They are simply making the case and setting the parameters for an investment in education that will ensure the system is sustainable. They are asking that this government find the optimism and the simplest long-term perspective to see the point in investing in our youth.

Teachers are not asking to be the last ones to get their nose into the public trough. If they were, the UCP would happily accommodate them, regardless of the return on investment.

The UCP and its predecessors have long demonstrated a capacity for the politicking and the strategic sleight of hand to get their way and game the system in their favour rather than use the levers of government to lead, serve or implement a vision and a plan to prepare the province for the future and, like it or not, inevitable change. They may be keen to crow about their “wins,” but those victories, those monumental surpluses are hollow in the end. There are too many bills that are being ignored that will come due, with interest. Their adamant, immature refusal to heed their responsibilities will punctuate their incapability as a viable, constructive political movement. Albertans are not better off than they were 6 years ago. They have not delivered anything in terms of policy or infrastructure that will benefit Albertans now or in the future.

They have brought comfort and assurance to those in the province who are, rightly, uncomfortable and frightened by the amount of change that is taking place in our world, but the firewall mentality of conservatives, whether provincial or federal, does nothing more than burn through the sparse patience, goodwill and non-renewable resources that the province has. Just as Alberta cannot assert that a pipeline must be punched through treaty lands in British Columbia because, dammit they just have to, the province does not have the resources and means to keep the clouds from crossing the Rockies and into the province and ensure our wellbeing and prosperity in face of the literal and figurative hot air that the UCP produces with abandon.

It is evident throughout the world that mature, forward-thinking governments that are able to recognize the challenges we face, acknowledge their complexities and implement sound, rational and compassionate responses is necessary. People are not expecting perfection, they respond positively to humane and innovative solutions to problems. This government is not capable of that and their refusal to take education seriously is evidence of their inadequacy to the challenge of leadership and service. If they make concessions to teachers, students and Alberta families, they will likely frame their actions as something that they were always going to do it it weren't for the teachers being so "difficult." That will merely emphasize their efforts to game this rather provide Albertans with the service they deserve.

Greed and Gratitude

2025-10-12T20:03:00.000-06:00

Last time out, I surprised myself with a marathon that was my fastest in 8 years (3:39:39) and followed that up with a solid half-marathon that gave me the confidence that I still had plenty in the tank. A year after telling myself that the 3:47 I ran in Victoria would be a Boston Qualifier as the calendar turned I was salivating over the possibility of obliterating the qualifying standard with a pace on par with what I ran in August. For weeks, I pictured jubilance and a shoulder separating fist pump at the finish in Victoria for my second go around. There were lingering questions about whether I’d left that faster race on the streets of Edmonton two months ago and all of the little nags and tweaks that have become more common at this age. The new orthotics that will mitigate the arthritis in my left foot only arrived 12 days before the race and after a wobbly 12K training run to get accustomed to them, I decided to hold off on racing in them. The week started off with a nasty cold that laid me up on Monday and left a lingering cough that is but a tickle in the chest now.

In pursuing the Boston Qualifier before I suspected that I may have gotten too preoccupied with it and let it get into my head and drain my focus and energy away while I was doing math. When I did get my BQ in 2017, it was almost as if I snuck up on it, placed it firmly in my sights before I had a chance to think too much about it. There may have been something similar to that that kept goals at arm’s length when I had that great race tow months back as well. Could the mental game get in my way today? Duhhh.

To keep that from becoming too much of a preoccupation I decided I would fall into step with the 3:40 pacer for the race and see what I would do to pick up the pace somewhere between 12 and 20K. I’d have a sense of how things were going and let the pacer do the pace-math. We settled into the corral to get on our way and when we kicked things off the temperatures were a mild 8 Celsius on a cloudy day that threatened a bit of rain. With the visit to sea-level for this, I felt the conditions were favourable and that I had a decent shot at getting finished in under 3:40.

Once things got started I settled in at a good pace, helps to be going downhill. As we proceeded through downtown, I took a glance at my watch — already?! Settle in… relax… keep it simple — and saw that at that moment I was going at a 4:57 pace. Way too fast. I had a 5:10 average in mind as the ideal and to be that much faster that early in the race — maybe 2K in — wasn’t good strategy. I figured I could bring things down a bit and keep the pacer in range rather than try to keep up with him. A few K further through the race, the pacer announced that he was about 50 seconds ahead of the required pace to that point and, well, I was in earshot for that announcement, so I wasn’t doing as much to conserve my energy as I could or should have.

Around 16K I knew that I would not have the gas in the tank to get under 3:40. That goal (and the pacer) were slipping away. I was still keeping up a good pace but I was getting into my head about where I was and how well I was faring. People were starting to pass with abandon and it would have been easy to get on myself about having a “bad” race because I was running at a 5:20 pace instead of a 5:10. OH NO!!!

Fighting that voice was going to take some doing, especially with 26K to listen to myself. I focused on deliberately breathing nasally on a regular basis. Most races, my breathing is quite instinctive and casual rather than laboured and . It almost seems like the impact of my feet to the ground is knocking the exhalations out of me and providing the vacuum for intake to fill my lungs as I go forward. Today, I made a point to breathe through the nose. I kept telling myself, “This is fuel,” and pushed on. There were also signs of the cold I’d been fighting as well. About 6K in I felt a bit of an obstruction and, realizing it was phlegm, tried to spit it out only to have a blob of greenish yellow about 2 inches in diameter plummet from my lips to the asphalt rather than taking, well, taking flight. I congratulate myself for not getting any of that on myself. No small achiev… TMI. Sorry. Moving on.

Throughout the second half of the race it was a matter of keeping myself moving, regardless of the pace. I was still moving well and even though there were people passing me frequently and easily, I was still managing a decent time. But I knew I’d slow and there was a lot of race remaining. I dug into my breathing, enjoyed the music I was listening to even though I could not respond to it the way I wanted and tried as hard as I could to treat it as a Sunday long and keep myself going as well as I could. The forecast for rain proved accurate. It was drizzle to begin but it persisted and remained for the rest of the race. There were stretches where I mustered a bit more speed, including a hill late in the race, when I passed a few runners who were lagging it was unlikely that I’d found another gear. We were all fighting it. As the last 14K lay before the math began. From that point on, I calculated 11 minutes for each 2K — 14K meant 77 minutes, 12K meant 66 and so on. Doing that math I was able to assure myself that I would have a good shot at coming in under 3:50 and getting the BQ for 2027. I just had to keep from walking. The previous year in Victoria, pain in my shoulder brought me to a walk a few times throughout the last 5K then. Doing it this time was going to put 3:50 out of reach. The shoulders were hurting once again but I didn’t have the margin to stop and shake that pain away.

So I trudge on, recalculating what was left as the last few K remained. At the 39th kilometre though I felt a stab of pain shot through my left calf, that pain sent me into a brief moment of flight as the pain shot through. I managed to keep moving though and pushed on to the finish. I came in with the race clock reading 3:51 but I knew I had some time to spare because I started in the second wave and my watch was reading 3:48. I wasn’t ready to making any declarations that I’d done it. The result: 3:48:43. It reminded me of a Ken Dryden quote from the 2022 documentary about the Summit Series: “Nobody got what they wanted, but they got what they needed.” Not that I needed a Boston Qualifier, I’m not going to use it, but it fulfilled prophecy of running (in essence) the same time as last year to qualify. Physically the body wasn’t quite doing what I’d hoped today, but I managed to keep my worst habits at bay and gut this one out.

A Wrong Government for the Times

2025-08-29T09:45:00.001-06:00

It is a challenge to politely describe the efforts of a government that surveys the circumstances we are living in, the threats that may emerge and upon reviewing the good and bad policy options to choose from, and consistently select the most damaging, regressive or short-sighted option available. Their policy decisions have pummelled the infrastructure and social resiliency that Alberta will need to ensure prosperity or even some modicum of "getting by" in the face of the challenges that we will face.

If they have scanned the horizons, the United Conservative Party (UCP) government has responded with deck-chair rotations or policies hellbent on easing the overwrought moral panic of a minority right-wing cohort that will, in due course, prove to be wallowing in scandal and hypocrisy.

Throughout 2025, the Prime Minister and several of the provincial premiers have made it evident through gesture and policy that they have the backs of their constituents and will ensure our collective well-being in the face of what has been unfolding since the tumult of the COVID pandemic and the Trump administrations. The initiatives by various leaders throughout the country have, apart from indicating a capacity and strategy to respond to the threats that the Americans can impose at any given moment, have rallied people together and fostered a strong sense of community among Canadians.

Against this backdrop, the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith and her government, have been off-key with its elitist and individualistic approaches to policy-making. Smith and her minions' fondness for current right-wing American policy has been well-documented throughout her time as premier. Smith's visits to Mar-a-lago at the start of 2025 demonstrated that while also indicating that she was not going to be in sync with the rest of Team Canada as governments unified to collaborate and present a common front internationally and domestically. What Smith has done in Alberta demonstrates that she has no capacity or inclination to bring Albertans together. In fact, she seems opposed to making any policy moves that would cultivate a greater sense of community. Instead, she seems more interested in discarding the potential that the province would possess when all its citizens are put on firm, equal footing and allowed to live here confident that the government has the character, compassion and capacity to improve life for all.

The UCP government has been churlish in their ongoing conflict with other levels of government. Those outside the province roll their eyes at the reminder of Alberta's litany about federal policies while often opting out of federal programs that would benefit Albertans. The province's refusal to participate in $10-a-day child care program while reducing its childcare subsidies for Alberta families might be sending a message to Ottawa, but I doubt it. Instead, it indicates their perverse indifference to the needs of Alberta families. The province cited other expenses as rationale for opting out of the federal program, saying that it had to consider looming expenditures in health care and education but is running up a substantial budget surplus while neglecting health care and education for the sake of saying those systems are broken and ought to be reexamined. In short, it is all meant to stage their flirtation with privatization and a refusal to respect educators, front-line health care workers and other human services employees and recipients throughout the province. The provincial government is behaving more like a stingy condominium board of directors keen to pad its reserve fund than a group of leaders whose roles requires them to support the people who live within their borders and ensure that they have a quality of life and an overall well-being that allows them and their communities to thrive. This government of Alberta either doesn't get this or it is on a mission to undermine that quality of life at every given opportunity. Its recent decision to further bureaucratize processes and charge people for COVID vaccinations from this point forward is evidence of this government's myopia.

Within the province, however, the Alberta government has made a point of remaining in conflict with the municipalities as well. The most illustrative recent example was Premier Smith’s umbrage at the way a report on the response to the wildfires that swept through Jasper in 2024. Noting that Smith came to Jasper only to preen and boast rather than assist the community, the report made it clear that the UCP government was more interested in squabbling over roles of various levels of government and getting in the way rather than demonstrating a coherent or comprehensive response. Such an accurate assessment was not of course met with recognition of the government’s limitations in responding to the crisis. Smith is more interested in her close-ups and selfies than she is in serving the people of the province. The glaringly callous timing aside, this is but a small and unsurprising example of the provincial government’s unwillingness to cooperate or collaborate with other levels of government. It does illustrate that when the government does engage in its battles with municipalities or the federal government, it is not because it feels it can do the job better, but perhaps because this government doesn’t feel anything should be done for its citizens whatsoever. Firefighting, childcare, education, health care are all in the sight lines of this government but there is no willingness to bring innovation and improved services. It is merely intent on gutting services in anyway it can and gloating about the the mounting surplus that results from regarding Albertans as nuisances.

The gas-lighting by this government is intended to impart the assumption that taxes are an outright evil rather than the means for a community to benefit from the economies of scale to pool their resources to provide this province with the amenities and the quality of life that not only assures everyone in the province, heaven forbid even those who are not making 6 figures a year, to contribute long-term to the quality of life that this province could boast as a social and economic advantage to attract businesses and new residents. Such a reciprocity between a government and its citizens is being undermined at every turn by this government and instead of fostering a community of people with an attachment to the province, they are coming up with new ways to abandon many of the constituencies they have been elected to serve. Their commitment to retract the province’s horizons to focus on the comfort of an intransigent and phobic few and consequently ignore future threats (climate change) and opportunities (alternative energy development) in a way that will compromise our quality of life and our long-term well-being will be a textbook example of governmental irresponsibility and squandered financial, human and natural resources. This is a government that fears synergy, collaboration and equality and is putting its energy into protect an elite that fears change. As a consequence of accommodating these most irrational fears rather than strategically surveying the current situation and adapting to it, the government will assure that we will be unprepared for the changes that are inevitable and and will seem almost vehement in their unpredictability. Of all of this government’s evident limitations, they have proven themselves least capable of responding constructively and comprehensively to emergencies and disasters. Their commitment to pre-exacerbating the challenges they face into inevitable clusterfucks (I told you I could do this politely) that they'd be certainly incapable of addressing appropriately is a unique brand of incompetence. Perhaps they are keen to construct an ongoing cycle of Shock Doctrine kleptocracy to keep the corporate welfare going from taxpayers to party donors. Given how callous they have been throughout their term, it would be a challenge to regard their work as incompetence rather than malice.

The government’s rationale for its cuts may be austerity and the need to deal with the hard times we are living through. They have seemed inclined to assert that the unions, government employees, health care workers or families who desire for their children to continue to receive the quality public education want nothing more than to get their noses a little deeper into a shallow trough is a surfeit of fertilizer. Given the UCP’s propensity for indulging in conflicts of interest and legislating lowered standards for the ethical conduct, their suggestion that people’s expectations are unreasonable. This government is defined by its own greed and its adventures in corporate welfare. Smith and the UCP continues to regard the diverse compassionate people of this province as a nuisance and instead insists that what can be done in other jurisdictions in Canada, North America and around the world can simply not be done here despite the wealth that we do possess collectively.

The conduct of this government has taken it outside of the realm of a typical contrast of right and left wing perspectives. They have conducted themselves in an irrational way. Their recent management of health care is one example. Their decision to charge individuals for the public health benefit of COVID and other vaccination will only accrue greater expenditures and lesser efficiencies in the health care system as individuals who would have been kept out of hospital will end up going through the system and do so at greater expense than the cost of a vaccination. That was the calculus that so many governments calculated five years ago when responding to COVID while it was a pandemic. Time and again, this government has opted for the petulant, stingy response to a situation rather than coming up with that the move that respects the needs of Albertans and is buttressed by sound thinking and a clear vision of the future. They have been entirely bereft of that.

The question of Alberta sovereignty has been met with a strong positive response to remain Canadian. A petition on a pro-Canadian plebiscite question has drawn strong support from across the province. Apart from an attachment to Canadian citizenship, which is NOT and surrender to the touch-feelies of the maple leaf, there is an innate understanding of the sense of community that is stronger amongst us despite our distance from Ottawa. It is Canada which has done it best to cultivate this sense of community and the understanding of our collective potential rather than denigrating it on a daily basis by cutting away the services, supports and institutions that can ensure that Albertans live and work together in a place where we all have a right to thrive and survive. As intangible as community may be, our nation strives to offer that in a way that assures more certainty and comfort that the hollow promise that Alberta can put a dollar or two more in our pockets along with the assurance that we would not have to put up with one another any more than necessary all in the name of enjoying a freedom that gives some the freedom to forego vaccinations and the other aspects that come with the formation of community but disdains the expertise of librarians and educators to select the books for their work with the freedom that they have accrued and merited through their experience and their sensibility.

The Man in Black and the No-Wall Marathon

2025-08-17T20:44:00.000-06:00

Last week, in preparation for the Edmonton Marathon, I ran about 16K. The plan was to start out easy get my speed up for about 6K and then downshift to a comfortable pace to wind things up. The outcome was one of those that has embedded the word "trudgy" in my lexicon. It also had me anticipating that the title for my post today would be "The Penultimate." I have another marathon scheduled for Victoria in 8 weeks' time and with the recent diagnosis that I have arthritis in my left foot, thoughts have turned to "shuttin 'er down." The marathon has been unpleasant throughout the 2020s and the red flags of arthritis and a lack of speed could easily and validly be interpreted as signs of overtraining. Each of the races over the last 5-6 years left me certain that one tweak or another -- a little bit more training, a change to the diet -- could get me back to the form I had when I was more competitive. After the trudgy run last week, I made quiet resolutions with an eye to October and prepared myself for the reality that age was starting to play against me. I knew, however, that my cardio was as good as it had been for some time, but I'd needed to see how willing the legs would be.

To my amusement the night before the race, I discovered that I had not packed any T-shirts for the run. I was convinced I had put two in the bag with a potential spin on the treadmill in the back of my mind to loosen things up, but no. Zero T-shirts. Fortunately I bought a new T-shirt at the Race Expo, but it was black and it was not very wise to run in new stuff. New socks would be safe but a new T-shirt could be a bit abrasive. And black. With a forecast of cloud for the first 3 hours of the race I wasn't too concerned. It would do.

Race morning started pleasantly enough with a break from the solitude I usually find myself in pre-race. I was about to plug into an audiobook for a few minutes while I limbered up when a Korean-American man started chatting me up, expressing his incredulity that there was no one in the chute even though the race was less than 30 minutes away. I appreciated the chance to connect with someone prior to the race and soaked up the conversation. I assured him that it would fill up soon enough and that with 1700 racers there wasn't as much urgency to beat the crowd for a spot on the line. He compared the chute to his experiences at other rates, which, as his hat indicated he had done Boston in 2010. We talked about personal bests and things like that and after I told him mine, he told me, "Good motor." I hoped so. He asked my age and in response he said he was 24 years older, putting him at 82, but he expressed his concern about meeting the cut off to be allowed to finish the race. He would need to finish the first half in in 2 hours, 50 minutes if he was going to be allowed to continue the second half of the race. I found it hard to believe he was 82 and assured him that he would be fine. As the chute filled, I weaved into a spot in front of the 4:00 pacer and contemplated asking her when she volunteered for the role. The race had been looking for 3:45 and 4:00 pacers even the day before. I had thought about it, but I didn't want the pressure of keeping to that pace, especially if the legs were not going to cooperate. At the start line, I felt a twinge or two in my right calf, but for the time being my left foot was not barking at me.

Things set off comfortably enough and I kept myself attentive for the opportunity to chat with someone a bit and take my mind off the distance for a while. I overheard two guys deep into discussion about their upcoming NFL fantasy draft and I felt a bit of envy at having that distraction. I thought about chiming in, but suspected that I would only betray my limited knowledge or worse still get sucked into a longer discussion that might have been more demanding than the race. At the first water station another runner nearly ran me over and after he apologized, I patted him on the arm and assured him it was not a problem. I turned of my headphones for a few moments to ask him where he was from, but he did not answer. I decided to just settle in and see what was in store. I kept comfortable and did not dwell too much on my watch or the distance I was covering. I'd taken my first peek at my watch when I passed the 10K mark. I'd covered that in 47 minutes and I did a bit of (far too early) math and concluded I was in decent shape.

As I rounded 14-15K, my pace was holding up pretty well and I decided that it just might be a day where I was going to push as hard as I could and live with it. If I conked early and did the second half or last 10K in a poor pace, I could live with it. I would at least get a sense of what kind of pace I was capable of and file that for any overthinking I was going to marinate in between this race and the next one. From that point on, though I wasn't getting passed. There was one runner who got a few strides ahead of me, but I overtook them a few minutes later. I had imagined the chance that the two of us could push and pull one another along, but that was the only time we had that back and forth.

I had a chance to see the gentleman I chatted to pre-race. He was running alone at the back of the pack and I gave him a shout, but I had a hunch that he would be hard-pressed to get past the half-marathon. If he was not fast enough over the first half, the marshalls would tell him that he'd have to stop. He would get a medal for the half, but his day would have to finish early.

Meanwhile, I was comfortably keeping the pace I'd been going at through the first half and managed to keep it up as the second half unfolded. There was more space and solitude there but I was becoming confident that I was going to be able to finish the race in under four hours. I'd finished the first half in 1:48. I wasn't going to pressure myself to duplicate that time for the second half, but for a moment I entertained the possibility of finishing under 3:40, something I hadn't done since October 2017. I didn't get too caught up in the possibility and regularly told myself, "Strong... steady" as the distance ticked away. When I got in the 30-32K point of the race, I knew that I was an hour away from finishing. It would just be a matter of whether I was going to go hard and race at nearly 5 minutes a kilometre or let up and coast in for a less demanding pace of 6 minutes over the last 10K. At this point, I knew I was safely in the 3:40s and I did let up a bit, coasting a little closer to that slower pace.

One of my favorite moments of the race occurred around this time. I was in the midst of a lot of the half-marathon runners at this point, many of them trudging or walking along, unfamiliar with the distance and fighting the heat as well. As I passed one of them I gave a "Good work, keep it up," and reached my hand back for a high-five that risked being a miss. We made contact though, gently, but we did. We each carried on with our races and I kept my eye peeled for the Korean man as I completed the race, scanning the oncoming marathoners for his face. No luck.

I was not particularly conscious of how I drifted with my pace in the second half until I made the final turn onto Jasper Avenue, the thoroughfare through downtown Edmonton that was the start and finish of the race. I had 3K to go and I looked at my watch, which read 3:24. To this point of the race, I'd consistently found the mileage markers a few hundred metres earlier than they should have been. This meant I had about 3.2, maybe 3.3K to go and 15 minutes to spare if I wanted to get under 3:40. I avoided doing a lot of this math throughout the race, having done it too many times in previous races, constantly calculating how many seconds I was giving away or gaining at the pace I was at. This was something I often did for as much as 2/3rds of a race. Here though, it was straight and simple. Time for a final kick. I knew I didn't have to kill myself to get those 15 minutes in, and my legs were telling me, "This is as much as we're giving you" for that last stretch. It was around then that the first throb of pain in my bad foot sent me a message and I knew the legs were a little wobbly or tied up after all the distance I had put in to that point.

As I picked up the pace for this last stretch I wasn't too worried about what the final time would actually be, but I did have a sense of what the difference between 3:39 and 3:40 would be on an emotional level. At this point, the race was decided. It was the best I'd run since the pandemic and it would silence the doubts I had been having through so many races of late. But that handful of seconds would be really, really nice. I hung in there even though it felt like it was all up hill and when I stopped the timer for myself I had all curvy numbers: 3:39.39. My best time in nearly 8 years.

The real race kick of the day though was from a elderly Korean man who started off slowly. He ran the first 10 of the race in 1:28.52, which made it really tight for him to complete the 11K to the half-way mark to stay in the race. He increased his pace by nearly 2 minutes per kilometre over that distance and got to the 21.1K mark with 15 seconds to spare. With his chance to run the whole distance clinched, he finished in 6 hours 10 minutes. My awe and admiration for the people who have a clear and unsettling idea of how long they will be out there grew immensely today. I'm not sure if I will be able to adjust my goals in the marathon to heed the passage of time and the mileage life has dealt me. The early evidence for me is not good on this front. However, today I got a great reminder that all runners, all of them, deserve a great deal of respect for what they strive to do. I wish you all a speedy recovery.

The Redacted Race Report

2025-05-25T17:03:00.004-06:00

Whatever I might say about my attempt at completing marathon number 19, the simplest option would be that I didn't have it today. It is not a biggie and it may not be that surprising even without too much further reflection. The Calgary Marathon tends to be the most problematic for me even though I'm in the environment that I train in year round. It is not the place for me to expect personal bests and it is very much a race and route that I regard in a separate category from other races I have done. This marathon is consistently hot and it is one that definitely challenges my will. Today, I managed 30K, but reached a point where the accomplishment of finishing wasn't worth the physical price I was going to pay to add the last 12.2K to the workload

From the outset of the race, I could tell that I had hit my top gear and that the legs did not have the zip in them for me call upon when I felt warmed up and ready to kick it up to a gear that would allow me to compete. I settled into a decent pace from the outset, the type that would be good to lay into for the first 10-15K of the race, but I quickly came to the realization that the best I could do was hold and maintain that pace for the balance of the morning. Acceleration wasn't in the cards. I hadn't spent any energy looking at my watch and doing the projections that could occupy the mind throughout the balance of the race. I got my bearings from where I was vis-a-vis the pacers.

Going into this race, it had taken a little bit more to coax the body to the line. Twinges and aches have lingered a little longer with the passage of time and the body needs a little more babying than it did when I first started running seriously in 2009. I also took a glance at my mileage since last August and, uhm, its more intense than I thought. I'm on pace to run 3000K from August 3, 2024 to the end of this coming July, about 250K more than I've done in a year. To put it another way, I'm currently three months ahead of last year's workload: mileage on May 25, 2025 is 1228.1K and on August 17, 2024 the mileage to date was 1227.2. I've been dealing with a dodgy big toe that flares up from time to time and when it started acting up today the completion of the marathon started to ring up diminishing returns for what I was putting into it and with the mounting heat and the toe acting up, the decision to protect my body was made without any regret.

It is time to read those articles about running post-50 that I've been ignoring and work on tweaking the diet and routine a little more to get more protein in to help accelerate recovery. Looking at ways refine the training rather than piling on the brute amount of distance will need to be looked into. Some training plans suggest running less and adding in strength work to ensure development, but I need to figure out whether those modification fit where I'm at currently. My cardiovascular is actually continuing to improve thanks to the effort I've been putting in, and now I have to determine how to ensure my legs have the pop I know they can have on race day.

On this day, though, the fire wasn't in my belly and the indifference to the event was probably the most evident thing about my race. There have been times when I appreciate the opportunity to chat a bit or even linger my eyes on someone for a while and determine whether I wanted to keep up with them or attempt to pass them. My two most memorable races are highlighted by the sense of connection, whether there was a lot of conversation to count away the miles or just a competi-supportive back and forth to push one another along toward "The Wall" and beyond. For some reason, I wasn't as engaged in this race as I have been others. "Competing" wasn't as clear an opportunity as it has been in other races. With changes to qualifying standards for the Boston Marathon changing as significantly as they have over the last few years, I'd have to beat the standard I met 8 years ago. However, this fall I will be eligible to qualify in ahem the next age group, which is quite doable and ought to engage me a little more next time around. Mind you, given my unwillingness to go to Boston the goal is just an abstract benchmark rather than one that opens a portal I would actually breach.

The result has prompted, as it often does, a re-examination of where I'm at and determine what little tweaks to apply to up my game for the next go around, whether I do another marathon later this summer or not until the fall. A bit less sugar, more sleep, more speed work, more protein and, okay more ice, are all starting points. With that in mind, I'll see how engaged I am when I toe the line the next time around.

Competence and the Sovereignty Stunt

2025-05-06T22:18:00.004-06:00

It is hard to determine whether "western alienation" is more buzzword than movement, but at the moment, it is being amplified in a number of ways by the current provincial government in Alberta. The Danielle Smith government has explored a number of ways to assert greater control over the life and resources of the province and/or the powers of the provincial government as well. Despite not campaigning on such policy changes during elections the United Conservative Party have used the interregnums between formal campaigns to establish Alberta-based alternatives to what the federal government has established and succeeded at for generations. The separation talks is, of course, not new. Alberta has flirted with this on a regular basis for decades, but the most credible and sustained effort to separate from Canada was initiated by Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois.

The PQ's efforts at separating from the rest of Canada sparked referendums within the province and across the entire country. They also substantially shaped the context, if not the motivation for the efforts to repatriate the Constitution and draft the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. Levesque's strived to not merely elevate Quebecois from their status as second class citizens and enshrine the protection of the French language and culture within Confederation. Levesque strived for more than that and despite falling short of his goal his impact on Quebec and Canada remains lasting. Today, as Canada grapples the uncertainty of the toxic whimsy of the Trump presidency, Quebecois have lined up with the rest of Canada in a commitment to the Team Canada effort and spirit. Whether it is out of a strong sense of Canadian nationalism or a pragmatic consideration of fate of French language and culture in a Trump dystopia. Quebec has demonstrated a tactful sense of the moment.

Alberta, however, differs on this. Its sense of timing is consistent with the attention-seeking that the Alberta Premier has dealt in, whether crossing the floor to torpedo the Wild Rose Party and seek political gain as a member of Jim Prentice's government in 2014 or trying to making hay overstating frictions with the federal government and, in turn, denying Albertans $10 a day child care and participation in other federal programming. Meanwhile, her own government has mismanaged key files including education, health care and renewable energy and made a deliberate point about being obtuse on matters of governmental jurisdiction, blaming the federal government on matters of provincial jurisdiction and undermining the authority and autonomy of municipal governments with new legislation.

Whatever Smith's political instincts, she has proven tone-deaf throughout 2025. Her insistence that Pierre Poilievre is in synch with the policies of the Trump government made it a challenge for Poilievre to insist otherwise and her current sabre-rattling about Alberta sovereignty has proven an embarrassment to the majority of Alberta citizens. Her suggestion that Donald Trump mute his tariff threats merely for the duration of the federal election campaign was offensive for its opportunism and the utter absence of principal and national pride.

Throughout her term has premier Smith has initiated moves to accumulate power for the provincial government. There have been studies conducted to examine what stake the federal government owes Alberta were it to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan. There have also been preliminary steps toward establishing a provincial police force as well. The sense is that the government's record would not inspire a great deal of confidence in their ability to manage a provincially run pension plan and there is significant questions about the cost effectiveness of replacing the RCMP with a provincial force.

"Would you trust the UCP to write a constitution?"

It is convenient to complain about Danielle Smith's timing of her pursuit of sovereignty given the influence that Donald Trump is trying to assert on Canada's economy and politics, but the fact is that she has been toying with this for quite some time. The distinction is that she did not campaign on sovereignty in the 2023 general election in Alberta.

Fine.

Let's circle back to 1976. Rene Levesque and the Parti Quebecois may have brought a great deal of discomfort to English-speaking Canada during their term in office, but their government during their work from 1976 to 1985 was, outside of aspects of Levesque's personal life, largely scandal-free. As Premier, Levesque knew that he had to make it clear to Quebecois that he and the PQ were capable and competent in government and that they were not merely campaigning on a mission to protect language and culture in Quebec. They succeeded in earning the voters' trust. During their term in office from 1976-1985, they put together a socially progressive platform that met the needs of Quebecois and strived prove their competence in day-to-day governance before plunging into the "big ask" of the 1980 sovereignty referendum. They lost that referendum by a significant margin but they earned re-election in 1981 with a larger percentage of the popular vote than they had when first elected to power in 1976.

Danielle Smith is beating the sovereignty drum because it might afford her a better chance of skating past scandals regarding competence and conflicts of interest regarding health care, oil industry regulation, pension plan management, which continue to occur with remarkable frequency even while the government is trying to gut oversight of government conduct. it is apparent that she is nothing more than Tarzaning her way from one wave of anti-Ottawa sentiment to the next despite the tepid appetite for this among the voters. The sovereignty issue is not entirely one of her making but it is not representative of the wishes of the majority of Albertans. It is clear that voters are opposed to many of the pillars of her initiatives. Albertans remain skeptical about Smith's dreams of taking over a chunk of the CPP. Not the least of the reasons that Albertans would rather the pension stay in federal hands is the uncertainty about whether or not the government would heed the expert advice to leave it to the financial experts to handle pension funds. Even the Fraser Institute expressed its concerns about the Alberta government's desire to intervene in the management of AIMCo, the province's pension fund manager.

In light of the UCP's indifference to disadvantaged groups, public educators, health care workers and environmental concerns, there is reason to make the case that the current government is driven my ideology rather than a pragmatic or cost-effective approach to government. They seem intent on driving the province into the ground as long as they are able to govern whatever is left of it. This raises a question that is overlooked while Smith & Co. distract Albertans with their sovereignty roadshow: "Would you trust the UCP to write a constitution?"

A review of the UCP's Member Policy Declaration indicates some of what the government plans to entrench should they be charged with the task of writing a constitution for the province. It reads as a short-sighted commitment to a range of freedoms that is intended to bolster the rights and entitlement of the largest collectives that comprise the population with blithe disregard for the complexities of the matters that it is Dunning Kruger confident about. The UCP's approaches to governance, intergovernmental relations, ethics policies and economic management are all sorely lacking and would prove embarrassing to government that was possess of any self-awareness and self-respect. It is not a government dedicated to service of any sort. Smith's conduct on the international, national and provincial stages is too shambolic for people to trust her with anything resembling the task of nation-building.

Of Avatars and Pylons

2025-05-01T00:07:00.006-06:00

With the job title for Pierre Poilievre subject to reconsideration after the April 28 election, there is the opportunity to cite him as a case study for the question of whether a Member of Parliament represents the constituency in parliament or represents the party to the constituents. Are our MPs representing our needs and concerns within a national discourse or nothing more than a jelly bean bringing one of 4 or 5 different colours to the jar?

Poilievre will do what he can politically to shore up his status as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, there may be some question about whether he would still be referred to as His Majesty's Leader of the Loyal Opposition while not in the House of Commons. In short, he cannot official hold the title because he has to be an elected MP. Needless to say, the speculation of the politicking and manoeuvering that will be taking place within the CPC caucus will foster chattering galore until Poilievre returns to the house or is permanently replaced.

The question of an MP's job or orientation between riding and party is worth revisiting in light of the outcome of Poilievre's re-election bid. There are ridings throughout the country where parties could confidently run a short-haired Manx and get it elected. The party brand is that strong in the constituency and with that brand strength comes a degree of entitlement and laziness on the part of MPs elected from such jurisdictions. In the same ridings, there is probably little interest on the part of competing parties to put up much more than token opposition. Resources are better used elsewhere and on down the line.

Given the tortoise and hare mismatch that was presumed in the Carleton riding that will be represented by Bruce Fanjoy due to the outcome in the recent election, there are easy metaphors to apply to the riding. Did Poilievre and his constituency team take the seat too lightly? Was it a struggle for Poilievre to strike the right balance between the local and national campaigns? I suspect that was not an issue. As an Ottawa area MP, Poilievre had time and convenience to cultivate strong ties with his constituents over the course of his 20-year-career as their representative. Despite his length of time in office, Poilievre has left the impression that he is still a shrill, angry young man without a mature vision or policy for the country. His attitudes about freedom and low taxes remains immature and while he struck a chord during the pandemic, his insistence on these things at all costs has been exposed for its limitations to respond to reality. Voters and his grassroots support in his constituency should have been motivated to support their MP as Prime Minister-in-waiting in pursuit of his goal, but the voters in his constituency lost their appetite for him.

The likelihood is that Poilievre was the type of MP that is more inclined to represent his party than his constituency. This likely a common occurrence with the two main parties and to be clear, it is not necessarily an approach to work in the House of Commons among all members of the two main parties. There is a continuum between the poles of representing party versus representing the voters in Ottawa. That continuum is encompassed by members of all parties, thought I believe the smaller parties, the New Democrats, Green and the Bloc Quebecois emphasize representing their constituents because of the work that have done to promote their respective parties' platforms to the voters. They have had to distinguish themselves from the two main parties in terms of policy and likely in a deeper commitment to the level of service to their constituents through their local offices and the staff that work to cultivate relationships based on that on going connection to those voters.

Over the course of his career, Pierre Poilievre has emerged as one of the more strongly partisan voices in the House of Commons. He has rarely voiced a conciliatory or cordial tone toward anyone on the opposite side of the aisle and over the passage of time he has emerged as a leading avatar for the Conservative brand, willing to indulge in the bloodsport of politics rather than any more nuanced approaches to policy making and horse-trading in the House of Commons. His needling of Jagmeet Singh's support of the Liberals during the last session of parliament as a self-serving pursuit of his pension when the policy positions and temperaments of the two parties helped foster a strong sense of cooperation that resulted in policies that aligned with the NDP's platform and mission.

That line of attack from Poilievre served him and his party in their pursuit of power, but it reinforced the antipathy toward him by progressive voters at the same time. His conduct during the trucker's convoy protests in Ottawa suggested that he favoured disorder and even brought it donuts, rather than expressing his respect for law and order. Bringing donuts and coffee to that mayhem potluck disrupting the everyday lives of non-partisan citizens communicates a distinction ignorance of the old Tip O'Neill adage, "All politics is local."

Poilievre seems more interested in the airwar of politics rather than the grassroots ground game. He kept his ear turned to the right and tuned out anything that invited a moderation of his tone and approach as leader of the opposition. Throughout his career as an MP he played the role of attack dog or shrill critic rather than anything more nuanced. When it became apparent that his approach had brought him to his ceiling and that he was starting to turn stale, he or the party opted for a make-over rather than a reexamination or reframing of the policies that they have stood for. Merely updating Poilievre's look amplified that party's unwillingness to adapt on the policy level. Since November, 2024, Poilievre and the Conservatives, hare-like failed to adapt to the changes that were occurring. Part of the reason for these short-comings on Poilievre's part is the mix of entitlement that comes with regular reelection, his decision to indulge in frontrunner's syndrome even though the polls throughout the election showed him in second, and growing too fond of the next not-so-pithy turn of phrase he could come up with. While he dusted off a more mature version of himself at times on the campaign trail in 2025, it is still evident that his approach to policy is too hamhanded to meet the challenges of complex times.

At the constituency level, it seemed that the voters in Carleton tired of him and a record that left them wondering if he was representing them in Ottawa or not. They opted for the candidate that offered a little more promise that they would be represented in Ottawa rather than the CPC in their riding. Voters want that more than being used exclusively as a platform for the pursuit of power.

In sharp contrast to Poilievre -- pylon rather than avatar (well at least not NDP avatar), smaller party rather than one of the big two -- would be Ruth Ellen Brosseau. Brosseau, who served two terms with the NDP from 2011 to 2019 is best known for the start of her term in Ottawa. Her electoral win in 2011 was a heralded outcome of that election as she unwittingly coasted Jack Layton's Orange Wave through Quebec and the rest of the country to a seat in the House of Commons while she was still working at a waitress in a bar in Ottawa. A single mother with a wavering command of the first language of her constituents she went into the job with her eyes open and a commitment to serve the people who elected her. She was a "pylon" as it were, there to fill the orange line on the local ballot with little expectation of winning that seat. Throughout her term she put in the work the develop the language skills and the understanding of local issues to represent her constituents. She summoned the will and maturity to take on the job that was asked of her and she lived up to the expectations any constituent in the country would have of their MP. She earned reelection in 2015 and though she has not served in Ottawa since 2019, in many ways she remains a model of an MP that served her riding.

There is an opportunity for Poilievre to work on striking a more mature, nuanced and policy-informed approach to performing the role of an MP. The voters of Carleton have indicated that his performance in this area of service as an MP needs work. Poilievre needs to make the adjustments to tone, policy and receptiveness to constituents' needs to serve as an adequate MP. If he returns with the assumption that he is entitled to resume his pursuit of government without making necessary adaptions to his approach to the job as an MP, he will strand himself in the role as avatar of a right wing movement rather than a viable option as an MP or a potential prime minister in waiting. He cannot assume it sufficient for his party's faltering comms team to go brand him as prime minister in waiting. He has spent his career to this point defining himself as an unappealing alternative who is more of an anchor on his party than an asset. Until he starts to demonstrate the humility to serve his constituents rather than making his next riding a soapbox for his tired act, he will not be prime minister material.

In Richler's Words

2025-04-26T16:33:00.003-06:00

About 25 years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Mordecai Richler speak at the university where I was teaching at the time. Somehow, he managed to maintain a charming balance as established enfant terrible and eminence grise an admired man of (occasionally profane) letters, who imparted the distinctive view of the Canada and the world as he saw it from his bastion in Montreal. It remains easy to picture him as a dissolute, shambling figure rumpled in his suits, his readers and the suggestion that he just wanted to get outside for a smoke, whether a cigarette or some upscale cigarillo, and not worry about offense.

"The Canadian kid who wants to grow up to be Prime Minister isn't thinking big, he is setting a limit to his ambitions rather early." - Mordecai Richler

During that evening, he trotted out his old line that "the Canadian kid who wants to grow up to be Prime Minister isn't thinking big, he is setting a limit to his ambitions rather early," something that captured the inferiority that has been long imparted to Canadians weary of growing up next to their competitive, ambitious cousins to the south. It has been humbling and aggravating to grow up next to the United States, which despite our superiority in land mass still managed to have the largest mountain and river on the continent despite the edge Canada hoped it had in geography. At least we had hockey, okay

curling, to put over on them with consistency, though Mike Weir's victory at the Master's in 2003 coincided with Colleen Jones' loss in the World Women's Curling Championship to a team from Wisconsin on the same day. There were consistent reminders that competing with the United States was going to prove frustrating more often than not, though the intermittent Canadian victories in the Olympic Men's 4X100 relays proved truly, truly satisfying. Unity, focus, interdependence and humility could occasionally lead to glory, no matter how strong the advantage.

The competitions with the Americans have been fierce and fraught and there has been the learned resignation to the fact that economies of scale, the brute force of the 10 to 1 population ratio and the sunnier climes favoured the United States in ways that left us thwarted. There have been times throughout our lives when we admired America's accomplishments and earnestness, sometimes even unbegrudgingly. The moon-landing was a clear example and others such as the election of Barack Obama to the presidency were lauded, though at the same time regarded as overdue and less than sufficient for past sins. Its musicians, its writers, creators and scientists have brought comfort, wisdom and relief to countless people in every corner of the world.

However, along with the largesse of wealth, population and military strength that the United States has been able to exert to its purposes over the last century, there has also been an abandon that has entrenched opposition to the exceptionalism it has indulged in to protect and expand its interests. There has been a rampancy with superpower status that has left Americans unbridled by empathy, foresight or rule of law and as Canadians are conscious of, the United States remains unaware of the world beyond its horizons and even less self-aware it seems.

Regardless of what Canadian kids might be doing to their ambitions growing up here, they grow up a little more aware of the world beyond our borders. We are always conscious of the elephant next door that might roll over on us in its (kleptocratic) stupor and we are conscious of the nations that we are formed by. Apart from the English and French influence there is a consciousness beyond that of the nations that were here when settlers first arrived and we are growing more familiar and comfortable with the discomfort of this uneasy, complex and yet unrealized relationship here on this land. Beyond that there is our history of peacekeeping, Lester Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize for his work resolving tensions over the Suez Canal and the familiarity with different missions throughout the world for the sake of exercising our soft power in partnership with allies throughout the world rather than imposing our will for profit.

"Canada is one of the few places left where the small decencies are observed. If, as a young man, I was scornful of the country because we always seemed so far behind style-setting New York, I now thank God for the cultural lag. Ours, after all, is the good neighbourhood. A society well worth preserving." - Mordecai Richler

Canadians are not blindered by wealth or power the way Americans are and we would do well to retain the cosmopolitan view of the world that makes us as welcome and welcoming as we have been throughout most of our history. There is a tone-deafness in the impulse to exclusion. There is a crassness in the chase of inordinate, excessive wealth and a toxic freedom that is nothing more than a pursuit of plunder and escape from accountability. While our ambitions may be defined and limited by our borders and flag, so are the threats we may encounter as well. There are challenges in having a significant threat to our sovereignty and wellbeing where an ally once used to be, but that nation faces even more significant threats and concerns as justice, human rights and the once-vaunted Constitution seem queued for a run through the shredder. We face threats, but we should not discard individual rights and freedoms as a means to fend them off. We should not succumb and falter from within when the option of looking after all of one another is the most obvious option at hand.

Those individual human rights, along with our principles, should not be subject to trends or a political drift to the right to resituate a "centre" that drifts away from the right thing to do and stand for as exclusion and institutional ostracism is proposed as policy instead of law and order. Richler, eventually, set aside his mirth about low ambitions to say that "Canada is one of the few places left where the small decencies are observed. If, as a young man, I was scornful of the country because we always seemed so far behind style-setting New York, I now thank God for the cultural lag. Ours, after all, is the good neighbourhood. A society well worth preserving."

The well-being of this society, as it always has, requires imagination, ambition and a compassion to go far together. America's perceived rugged individualism is poisoning the country as the powers-that-be put their money, practically and figuratively, on the rich despite the mounting evidence of diminishing returns to advance the wealth of hoarders. Canada risks leaving people behind, but is more disposed than our neighbours to looking after one another. We wish to go far and we know that we best do this by going together with know one left behind. It is not just a nation, but also an ethos that needs to be preserved. Once again that cultural lag can spare us. For all of Pierre Poilievre's fomentation for non-confidence motion over the last few years, an election after the second Trump administration has provided us warning of what is at risk if we choose to entrench collective rights for the white and wealthy and regard everyone else -- in the most topsy-turvy, funhouse mirror calibre propaganda -- as parasites. While the United States is discarding rule of law for the opportunity to disappear people off to Salvadoran prisons, arrest judges, deport a 2-year-old and create a registry of people with autism, Canada has the option to renew its commitment to not just our sovereignty but civil liberties as well.