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Thursday, March 12, 2009

be careful where you dump your wastewater.

- What is it about the current government and concealing information until after elections? In 2004, it was access to flight logs, and in 2008, it appears that the governing PCs didn't release information about charges that had been laid against Suncor in relation to the dumping of undertreated waste water into the Athabasca River. Meanwhile, on the topic of Oilsands, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have published a response to a recent National Geographic feature on Canada's Oilsands.

- While the Council of Alberta University Students met with over 50 MLAs at the Alberta Legislature this week to advocate on Post-Secondary Education issues, the Alberta College & Technical Institute Student Executive Council practiced a much less effective method of advocacy.

- Former Cabinet Minister and Medicine Hat Conservative MP Monte Solberg is once again blogging. After writing a popular blog during his time in the opposition benches, Solberg stopped blogging when he became a Cabinet Minister in 2006. After serving 15 years in the House of Commons, Solberg did not seek re-election in the 2008 election. Solberg also writes a regular column for SunMedia (h/t @BreakenNews).

- Following Michael Ignatieff's visit to Alberta last month, two Liberal MPs will be visiting the province. Beaches-East York MP Maria Minna will be speaking at a Calgary Liberal fundraiser on March 20, and Willowdale MP Martha Hall Findlay will be speaking at an International Women's Day Brunch in Edmonton on March 22.

7 comments:

Nastyboy said...

I love it when Liberals come here and pretend they don't hate Alberta.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, I think the pathological hatred of the federal Liberals espoused by the more-vocal amongst right-leaning Albertans, likely far outweighs animosity felt the other way around.

And before someone trots out the corpse of Trudeau and the NEP ghost -- get off it. That's done with; The man's been dead nearly a decade. The NEP was dust while the average Albertan was in grade school - if they actually grew up here. So let's move on.

Anonymous said...

The NAIT stunt was sort of stupid, but hardly warrants blanket assertions about the effectiveness of different advocacy strategies. Over-earnest Student Union types who brag about how effective their "lobbying" is don't understand what goes on after they leave the room! And they tend to look at social change with a one-year time horizon. CAUS is just lucky they get new, naive students leaders every year so they can continue to justify their existence.

Anonymous said...

What the hell is wrong with tuition the way it is? Us taxpayers pay 75% of students tuition as it is, so should we pay more? not likely.
Tell you what, i'd gladly recommend more of my tax dollars go towards tuition, but then i want more control over the students whose tuition I pay...

Anonymous said...

To what, Jeff J? Have sex with you?

How would you control students in a manner that would justify the extra tax money?

Party of One said...

Jeff J is right to question the use of taxpayer's dollars to fund just about anyone.

I don't think access to education should be determined by ability to pay. I think the only academically defensible way to allocate scarce resources(why they're scarce is of course another issue!) is on the basis of ability, with some provision for "late-bloomers" to attend on a provisional basis, after having been in the work force for,say, five years. Or in tech school.

Look at the number of people attending first year relative to second year, of almost any four year program. A LOT of people drop out after first year. Wouldn't it be better to not fund those people and put those resouces to better use?

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, Monte!