What is going on in Calgary these days? You’d think that the New West© would be a bit more on top of these things. There’s been plenty of chatter about how Calgary is the new hotbed of white supremacism in North America but nothing seems to have been done. This is the logical conclusion of right wing extremism: exclusiveness and intolerance. This cannot be good for Calgary in the long run. How do I know? My hometown is a beacon of racial intolerance (or it was) and I’ve had that commented to me on three continents, in thirty countries over three decades. That kind of stuff sticks.

But hey, they’ve got ninjas.

Alberta, the province of the beast

I was shocked to read about the Toronto incidents of people with Liberal signs on their lawns having their tires slashed, their property defaced and even their brakes cut, almost causing several accidents.  What the hell are brown shirt tactics doing in Canada? Are we going to have a Night of Long Knives as well?

And its not just Toronto, apparently this is country wide.

One guess which party they are in favour of, though its probably one more then you need. I’m sure the Official Conservative Party has nothing to do with these dangerous and undemocratic people but of course the Official Party never does, they just encourage their nut bar supporters to hate and belittle and attack any belief that is not their own, brainwash them and say things like ”Alberta is the nations whipping boy and its payback time. (Okay, Somewhat Paraphrased.)  Their Bully tactics are influencing their supporters who feel they are justified in terrorizing people. Is it a wonder that the other  parties aren’t even bothering to run candidates in Alberta because they not only wouldn’t win an election but they would be subject to constant abuse and harassment. Don’t think so? Well apparently in the contested ridings of Toronto being Liberal can get you killed with the simple snipping of a few key wires.

This along with the message from many small Conservative candidates to “Vote Conservative Or Else.”

One candidate put it best when he stated “we need to have a member of the Ruling Party as its MP so things can get done in this riding.” This is because everyone who disagrees with Conservatives can go to hell and will if the good Lord delivers us this election.

So good luck in getting your roads paved if you don’t have a Conservative MP, that’s just the way things swing here in the new Conservative Canada.

I am also deeply disturbed by the slander mongering. Canada should not be a place where listening to the oldies station involves ads segments where a voice comes on and whispers things like “The Ottawa NDP doesn’t speak for BC.”  This tells me nothing of your platform or about your party, but it is becoming a nagging voice, a 1984 voice because Harper has been trash Campaigning his entire Prime Ministership, with attack ads sometimes even paid for by the tax Payer.

Apparently attacking the opposition Liberals is more important then running the country, especially since you can’t delegate much to your slack jawed minions without them saying something speaking pretty clearly to the level of their incompetence.

So do I want to live in a Steven Harper Canada?

Four more years of Big Daddy Harper?

Living in the ideal of Alberta’s one party, small town sleazy, bully boy, head up Ass, Anti-Government Government. I’d rather not.

Dion’s proposed carbon tax has everyone in a tizzy. Its not a bad idea in and off itself, the only problem is its about twenty years to late.

The point of a carbon tax would be to ween society off of fossil fuels by making other options more economical. Also, proceeds would go to create a new sustainable infrastructures that people could switch too. Thing is, to really work it has to be in place BEFORE oil prices skyrocket. You know, ease the blow, create a smooth transition of rising cost rather then smack people with a sudden skyrocketing and no well established alternative to turn too.

To put an extra cost burden on fuel, even if it is compensated for with other tax adjustments, makes living and doing business in Canada that much more difficult. You may know that your getting a tax break elsewhere but people still need to save money, and cutting back on fuel will become a significant way to do so. This may be the whole point of a carbon tax but putting it in at this late a date presents some problems.

Adding extra cost for people to buy fuel on top of the record high prices is ludicrous, especially for the poor and working class who are stuck in an oil based system and have no choice but to forgo other expenses in order to meet essential fuel needs.

Canadians have large essential fuel needs. We’re cold so we need heating, we have an increasing amount of snow to plow, we’re fucking huge geographically and spread out very thin so we need to drive and fly around more then probably anyone else in the world. Also, due to gentrification many working class people are forced to live outside of the city they work in and have to commute. Many small business owners also have no choice but to drive trucks and van’s and other fuel guzzlers. You cannot blame them, or tax them, for not being able to afford a million dollar condo and a brand new hybrid.

An increasing number of people are living with increasingly tight budgets thanks to our selling out of good paying manufacturing jobs for the shitty serve the rich jobs that are replacing them. These people will likely benefit little from other tax adjustments but will still need to buy fuel to live and so have to pay into the carbon tax while not being able to afford the luxury of low fuel consumption. As well, a fuel tax would affect food, clothes, tools and other essentials which will again hit the poor harder then the rich.

Your barren waste land or mine?

What we need is something other then a consumer oil tax. We need a producer oil tax.

Major producers of Carbon emmissions should indeed be penalized, but we also need a tax on the production of carbon based fuel. They should be paying for the flooding of our markets with cheap dirty fuel. The oil bums may bitch and moan but can you really take them seriously when oil companies have record breaking levels of profit, and not just industry based profit records but records in entire history of profit, records that they re-break every year. (To think that they could beat out the East India Company or the Spanish crown’s rape of South America!)

Yummy!

They are rolling in retarded amount of cash as the cost to produce oil remains the same yet the price per barrel continually rises. So they should pay for the carbon producing product, bare the burden of the filth they put out on the market, not the consumer who as yet has little choice whither to buy fossil fuel or not.
On top of this there should also be a water tax. This is not for water use so much as for stressing water.

For too long we have had a pretty lackadaisical approach to water use. If someone breaks an environmental law involving water, they first have to get caught by an underfunded and often neutered enforcement agency and then maybe they get fined but that’s okay because the money made from contaminating the water is much more then the little fine that had to be paid. Besides, the company can just go defunct and leave that huge expensive mess for the tax payer to clean up.

But what if we we’re to put this into our tax structure. Not paying taxes or cooking the books is taken a lot more seriously then slap on the hand environmental fines.

Major users of water would have to keep accounts of everything their water is subjected to, everything put in, taken out, where it came from, where its going. Then an accounting system would tally water taxes far all the stress and damage to our water or water systems.

Proceeds could then go to protecting, cleaning and managing our water which is central to the well being of every living thing in every eco-system in the known universe, including us.

Permanently toxifying water would involve astronomical taxes, as would damaging water sheds, head waters, or wet lands. Not that these shouldn’t be protected by sever limitations and steadfast regulation but we will always need to use some water and right now companies are doing these things with little thought or repercussion.

Water use would then have the funding and the clout of tax authorities who could audit water use, see if it is breaking water use regulations or if water use is being properly recorded and paid for. Also, politicians may gut our environmental regulators but no government is going to cripple its tax collectors. Also, the environmental issues become more integrated into doing business and less an afterthought.

I’m no expert on these things and could be entirely wrong but where are our politicians with effective and timely solutions? Something needs to be done soon. Once these resources are destroyed they are gone for good. We will never get back those lakes after the mining companies are through with them and Alberta will likely have no potable water left at all if the tar sands has its way. These things cannot be undone. Its about time our politicians got off their asses and started to confront these things before its too late.