Isn't summer the season of rest?
In Alberta, a break from political bull is the real pipe dream.
This Week in AB
An Alberta donair story
It was the best of times.
Alberta Today’s Catherine Griwkowsky was checking out the Government of Alberta’s surplus auction site last week and found one thing that was definitely not like the others: a donair costume.
Social media lit up with agenda-less curiosity and, dare I say, actual delight that managed to make things a little fun over on the gasping bird site. Then, the hardly worn costume that might have sold for a few hundred dollars was suddenly claiming bids in the thousands from across the country.
What began with the big question of why the GoA had a donair costume at all led to a startling discovery (for me, at least): donairs are Canadian.
According to local lore in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a Greek immigrant tried selling a Greek favourite, doner kebob, but it just wasn’t to the local’s tastes. So, he played with the recipe, exchanging chicken and lamb for beef, and using a sweet sauce instead of tzatziki, and that’s how we got the Canadian knock-off we know as a donair.
Also, Haligonians don’t add lettuce (as per King of Donair’s tweet above) which makes no sense to me at all — you’ve gotta have some green veggies to pretend to counteract that condensed milk-based sauce, man.
The buzz also led to a write up in The Guardian, where Alberta was yet again the target but this time it was for consuming more donairs than any other place in Canada.
Nom nom nom.
Danielle Smith isn’t a terf but she’ll never manage to be an ally
(terf; noun DEROGATORY: a person whose views on gender identity are considered hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people — Oxford dictionary)
Most people don’t want to share their bedrooms or bathrooms with the government but some conservatives snapped when they found out they didn’t get to decide who shares them either.
On the heels of clarifying support for the 2SLGBTQ+ community after Danielle Smith posed for a photo with a person in a neon green shirt that said “Thank a straight person today for your existence. Straight Pride.” on the front, with “Good people disobey bad laws” on the back, some people are questioning whether her words match her actions (and lack thereof).
Fun fact: there’s nothing wrong with being proud to be just like billions of other people who have never had to deny and hide who they are out of fear of jail, death, or being ostracized by their church, communities, employers, friends, and family.
It’s akin to taking pride in being conservative in rural Alberta: it takes zero courage to stand with a majority but fill your boots if it makes you feel better about yourself.
What I found surprising is that anyone could think they aren’t direct descendants of gay relatives who, forgive me for repeating myself, “had to deny and hide who they are out of fear of jail, death or being ostracized by their church, communities, employers, friends, and family”.
Not making other people’s lives about her is basically the only libertarian ideal Smith actually practices.
However.
Saying people are free to live their lives and ignoring the struggles they face to do so doesn’t make someone an ally — it makes them complicit in those struggles.
During one of the UCP leadership debates, Smith refused to answer a question on a “conservatives vs transgender” issue du jour by saying “I have a non-binary family member and I believe these decisions are very personal and it should not be debated in public. We shouldn't be making any child feel like the issues they're struggling with are… a political football.”
I’m sure the “decisions” she’s referring to are whether to live as they are truly comfortable or not.
It would be absolutely wonderful if we could rely on parents having all of the skill they require to access good resources for children “struggling with” their identity. Instead, we have idiots who think they can take down the government if they just break the law “with kindness”, and radio hosts who think providing a platform for widely debunked theories is somehow a public service to “get both sides”.
So, while I agree that there is no debate that should be had on other people’s life experience, because we are a society that no longer filters out lies and misinformation, good information needs to be offered to those who need it most — kids.
Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely Smith will ever become a true ally (to the public or anyone else) because her circle of influence and those who have supported her resurgence in Alberta politics will only continue to offer their support in return for her silence.
While there are a lot of things Smith pretends to know but doesn’t, this is one thing I have no problem believing that she truly understands.
Mandates abound
Smith has been delivering the mandate letters for her new cabinet and giving Albertans an idea of what is in store for our next few years.
Education
Common sense isn’t so common. ~ Voltaire
Less training for teachers who already have a post-secondary degree in something else. Here’s some background from my years of post-secondary education planning:
students in Alberta have at least four years of education to become a teacher
elementary school teachers have a broader range of coursework because they personally teach most subjects
secondary school teachers take two years of a specified program (science, math, or English etc) and two years of teaching pedagogy
pursuing an education degree after earning another degree currently requires an additional two years of education (the teaching pedagogy)
The concern most people should have is that not everyone is a natural teacher. People can be very smart in research and their own understanding of subjects but that doesn’t necessarily make them good teachers.
The good news is that people can learn to be teachers… you know, if it’s a job requirement.
Transportation
Amazing what you can learn when you have to look for it.
Living in a satellite community of Calgary, I’ve often thought of how beneficial it would be to have rail. I didn’t realize there were people pushing for this for longer than it took for the Minister of Transportation to be tasked with studying the feasibility of connecting Airdrie and Okotoks on an existing rail line.
Edmonton-area councilors have expressed interest in similarly connecting their satellite communities and it’s probably still a decent idea but it was a fantastic idea 50 years ago.
I don’t mind conservative caution but when it comes to infrastructure, they seem to consistently be decades behind. Think National Energy Program.
Tech is moving so swiftly that automated vehicles will reduce the need for more lanes and the convenience offered in a western society that values greater personal freedom, commuter lines may be a daydream of the past — especially post-pandemic.
Advanced Education
Ever hear about parents remortgaging their homes to put their kids through post-secondary in Canada? No — that’s an American problem.
Amazingly, it costs about the same to get an education in both the U.S. and Canada — the difference is that we decided at some point in the past to make education affordable so that our kids would have access to opportunities to better their circumstances.
Alberta’s accredited post-secondary education is publicly funded at around 70 per cent. A four-year degree costs around $20,000-$30,000 instead of $65,000-$75,000.
And some of us complained about our student loan debt.
The problem with for-profit post-secondary education in the middle of a conservative-identity province with publicly-funded post-secondary education is that it’s more fiscally conservative to attend school elsewhere.
Does anyone remember that Devry used to have a Calgary campus? They closed in 2013 due to “low enrolment”. Again, the problem with for-profit education is that you have to be able to make a profit.
In this case, I have to allow some charitability for Smith thinking Albertans wanted this — they gave her a mandate, after all. If Albertans don’t want to spend more on for-profit education, I guess they’ll just fail — the way the free market intended.
Finance
The provincial revenue agency and Alberta pension plan weren’t part of the UCP’s re-election campaign “because I think we've got so many things that we have done that we're excited about,” Smith replied, deftly changing the subject.
Smith said things like the pension plan and replacing the RCMP can be revisited after the election.
“We have said that we're going to do consultation on a number of these issues. I think our sheriffs, for instance, are doing a great job,” she said.
“The other ones, we are waiting for a couple of reports. And I've said as soon as those reports are available, we'll make them public.”
CTV News, May 5, 2023
Election over, and handily won by the UCP, these are now back on the table without having to worry whether they’re popular with Albertans.
On the one hand, federal employees make way less than Alberta provincial employees, so there is a chance that we could totally get a deal on their labour.
On the other, we don’t have them as a direct expense now, so it’s kind of like buying a China cabinet you don’t need, but your grandmother always said you should have one, and you feel like going into debt to get one will somehow make up for the fact that Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister.
That paragraph goes really deep but if you know about Harper’s Trudeau issues and how that led to the Firewall Letter, and Alberta Prosperity Project founder Dr. Dennis Modry’s irrational revisionist history, you know.
Final Thoughts
Logical fallacies: don’t make it harder on yourself
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is when we seek meaning, explanation or information that validates what we already believe.
One of my philosophy profs had the following template for assignments: thesis, supporting arguments (but for every supporting argument, find TWO dissenting), conclusion.
An extremely useful learning tool that forces you to confront confirmation bias and either change your thesis (mind) or work harder to maintain your position.
It will also stop you from making public comments like this:
Some may have had hard feelings about earlier when I was being charitable to Danielle Smith. I do that because a) I know my subject matter; and b) because it stops me from making foolish statements like suggesting the PM had anything to do with right wing nuts showing up at an event in his public itinerary.
I mean, even Brian Lilley gets it.
At this point I’ll give kudos to Harper — by restricting who could attend events and not doing public ones, he avoided this kind of thing.
Frustrated in Alberta
I don’t think our education system is perfect (though it was once 2nd in the world) but something that will never fail to irritate me is people who didn’t attend school here knocking our education system.
The only thing that irritates me more is anyone taking that inexperienced snowflake’s word for it.