And the beat goes on.....Oink, Oink

Is it just me or do our elected officials at times seem to be suffering from memory loss or possibly even dementia?

Just two days ago I posted an article about 21 Alberta MLA's who have been lining their pockets to the tune of $1000 a month for sitting on a Legislative committee that hasn't met in the last 39 months. The article was aptly titled Like pigs they head straight to the trough.... Well, this particular incident of pork barreling appears to have annoyed the public at large more than the regular gouging of the taxpayer that our elected officials participate in on a daily basis. It's the talk of the town, featured on the nightly news, in newspapers, and on talk radio everyday. It has actually gotten so bad that Alberta's Premier, Alison Redford addressed it personally from out of the country last week.

Last Thursday Premier Redford who was in New York conducted an interview with the Calgary Herald in which she stated that she was unaware that 21 government and opposition provincial representatives have been paid $1,000 a month - a total of $261,000 annually - to sit on a committee that hasn't met since 2008.
"I did not know," Premier Redford stated. She continued by saying the situation with the committee "wasn't something that connected to me at all. But it's not right."

Now lets jump forward a day to Friday when speaking with reporters the Premier went on to say that the fact provincial representatives were paid to sit on a committee that doesn't meet was "a ridiculous situation." "It isn't the way that Albertans want politicians to be paid," she said. "It's why I asked for an independent panel to look at how everyone in the legislature is being paid."

Now before we go any further just so I am clear on this, the Premier has called a panel to look into a committee? Wasn't enough financial damage done by the first committee, I guess not as she feels it necessary to form a second one and pay them as well. Although I suspect there is a deeper and more thought out reason for forming an "independent panel" to look into the payroll issue. Such a committee will make recommendations for changes moving forward, they will not make judgement or access any blame on individuals based on how they were paid within the guidelines previously. This will further support the MLA's who were paid for serving on, but never attending the The Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, Standing Orders and Printing. After they were simply being paid under the guidelines that existed at the time, they did nothing wrong. Whereas, if the Premier were to take a strong a stand on the issue, agree that it is wrong, and insist on immediate rule changes she will have to by default answer questions about the integrity and honesty of the MLA's involved.

So why is this something she would rather avoid? Well the most obvious answer is that it is making the governing party look bad, something that is not desirable for her in an election year. However, if you dig deeper there is another issue that I suspect worries our Premier equally.

Water, Water everywhere but not a drop to .....

For those of you not familiar with the city of Edmonton (which is about about 99% of the known world) here are a few facts about the city. Located on the North Saskatchewan River the city is the capital of the province of Alberta (yes readers, the capital of Alberta is on the North "Saskatchewan" River....strange but true) and the province's second-largest city. Situated in the Canadian prairie's the surrounding geography is pretty uninspiring, mostly flat with the nearest mountains located in the Jasper region, about a 3 1/2 hours drive northwest of the city. From a tourism point of view our cities main claims to fame are undoubtedly, West Edmonton Mall one of North Americas largest shopping centers, and during the summer months a large number of music and cultural festivals that draw tens of thousands are held within the city. The winters are harsh and long (October through April)  most years with temperatures at times dropping as low as -40 at the worst of times.

So to say that Edmonton is not a tourist hot spot is not unreasonable, but by the same token many of us view Edmonton as home and would not live anywhere else by choice. Over the years attempts have been made to make our city more interesting (some successful, some still in the works, and some just plain laughable). One of these attempts made back in 1980 was the creation of a "waterfall" on one of the bridges that cross the river. Although the term "waterfall" may be a bit of a stretch in describing a long pipe fitted with sprinkler heads,(hey its Edmonton remember). Now before you decide this falls into the "laughable" category consider this, Edmonton is not blessed with a lot of natural wonder and this particular man made one draws thousands of spectators every-time it is fired up, which is typically 3-4 times a year. Here's a video of Great Divide Waterfall in all of its glory (sorry for the short commercial at the front)

Apparently this "iconic" piece of Edmonton may have seen its last days. Why? Well in large part simply due to government regulation, or more to the point conflicting regulation between different levels of government.

Like pigs they head straight to the trough....

Every year the Canadian Taxpayers Federation announces the annual winners of their Teddy awards. For 14 years running these awards have been presented for the best examples of government waste, federally, provincially, or at the municipal level. In fact upon reading the details of the winners there are times when the thought that this is fiction crosses your mind, unfortunately folks sometimes the truth about our elected officials is just plain ugly. These awards are a great public service as they bring to light just how frivolous those that we elect are with our money.

As an Albertan, when I was reviewing the winners of this years Teddies one in particular caught my interest for a number of reasons.... Here you go , courtesy of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (I love these guys)

Robocalls, Is that anything like Robcop?

Over the last couple of weeks it seems the "talk of the town" for Canadian news media has been the "robocall election scandal" and who is responsible for it.

Was the Conservative government behind it?
Was it perpetrated by a third party to discredit the ruling Conservatives?
Were riding's that were in a tight battle for votes specifically targeted?
Is this a plot to destabilize Canada?
Could extraterrestrials (ET's) be involved? (I threw this one in myself for fun)

Now before I go any further with this, just in case any of you are wondering what I am referring to, here it is in a nutshell. It has come to light that during the last election  thousands of automated pre-recorded calls (thus the name "robocalls") were made that allegedly misdirected Guelph-area voters to non-existent polling stations. On top of this allegations have been made that all kinds of telephonic dirty tricks were used, including everything from live callers who made harassing phone calls to Jewish voters on the Sabbath, and others who promised to drive voters to polling stations, and then never showed up.

How serious is the issue? Well, within just the last couple of days Elections Canada has reported a steady stream of complaints from Canadians since the robocall scandal first broke, so far 31,000 and counting. This will almost certainly grow as the opposition parties keep this as their focus and plead with Canadians to report any such calls they may have received to Elections Canada.

Now while the media is busing running this as their lead story every day (I assume due to the lack of any other news that might be important to Canadians?), parliament is also embroiled in the scandal. Virtually every day accusations are flying across the floor of the house with one party blaming the other, with suggestions being made that this may have changed the outcome of the last election (I imagine that's a lot easier for the Liberals to accept than the real reason they got skunked), and so on and so forth. It inspires me with confidence to see our elected officials focusing on the most critical issues of the day.....sheeeh! Shouldn't this investigation be the responsibility of Elections Canada, or maybe the RCMP? Once the facts are determined then parliament can spend time debating it, until that point they are simply wasting time (and taxpayers money) discussing innuendo and rumors (oops , what am I thinking based on that alone, it is business as usual for parliament).

Now trust me, I don't have any inside information as to who is responsible for all of this and as a Canadian I can only hope that the guilty party is determined and brought to justice. After all as Canadians we are proud of the fact that we are a democracy that holds honest elections, not some third world banana republic where the election outcome is announced before the votes are counted. However I do have a solution to prevent this from ever taking place again, and in fact it is very simple.