Alberta: The Times They Are A Changing
Photo by Lyle Richards on Unsplash
I thought it might help my friends and family to understand why I am pushing so hard against the Conservative vote in Alberta.
These are the major reasons I am asking people to vote Liberal.
Oil is the past, not the future. A good business plan never concerns itself where we were. It concerns itself with where we are going. The New Economy surprisingly will have its foundations in automobiles.
Last year I published a few articles regarding the oil industry in Alberta, climate change opportunities, empowerment, and social media security.
I challenged at large, anyone who read those articles to devise an actual action plan of how we will battle global warming. I came to realize an important thing. It doesn’t matter how many people read your article, its who reads it that matters.
People contradict themselves constantly. I read this morning that with 30% less parts in an EV that it will take less time to assemble one and therefore it will cause unemployment. LMAO. No, it means we can build more per day than now. And it also means that they will become cheaper by about 30% over time. Elon Musk predicted $25,000 for a reasonably featured EV in the future. I believe in some parts of the world where safety restrictions are weaker that some EV’s might fall well below $10,000. In the future. Our grandchildren won’t be able to afford a gas vehicle for several reasons. The price of gasoline will be way higher in the future. and availability will also be limited. The price jumped 30% this year, in Alberta. This is where we refine it and here in Edmonton the transportation costs are also considerably lower than elsewhere.
EV’s at the base of a New Economy leads to innovation in the tech world. You may have heard that there is a serious shortage of chips used for new cars. Microsoft is predicting 149 million new jobs in tech over the next 5 years alone (worldwide). And the Canadian government, including the RCMP say that cyber security jobs will jump in Canada. The following strategy was devised by the Liberal government and the former Deputy PM from Saskatchewan, Ralph Goodale, introduced this in 2019. https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/ntnl-cbr-scrt-strtg/index-en.aspx
We must move forward. The world today is not the same as it was 50 years ago. And it won’t be the same 50 years from now. However, we can directly impact how it looks 50 years from now by making wise decisions today. And those decisions all center around the changing climate. We are in serious trouble. And climate issues are impacting the entire eco system drastically. I liken it to a war. And thankfully, the USA is pulling back everywhere and is changing direction on real war for the war on climate. They know the science inside out — -most of its their science. When my friend Bill Gates says we have a climate disaster in our near future, I pay attention. And I would wish that everyone would be smart enough to do the same.
I don’t see any big oil companies coming to invest in the future. They want to continue the same practices that they have forged with the Conservatives. Practices that now are in serious jeopardy. No more fracking coming everywhere soon. If we don’t follow the Paris Accords, and our agreements with the USA, we will not attract any sizable investment to prepare for the New Economy. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has worked on this for years and I support those efforts entirely. We have a bargaining strength with our neighbours that we have never utilized correctly — -and it isn’t oil like most of you believe. And think of the future — -its where we are going that matters, not where we are.
Our real energy in Alberta isn’t coal or oil. It is our youth. Our people. Our future. It makes me sad that they are leaving for work when we could easily find them work here. That takes investment. Part of those 149 million jobs. I want those jobs for our kids and our grandkids. Most of them would never work in the oil patch (even if you have your whole life), and do you want them to? Let’s talk about the money. Money isn’t everything. Quality of life and quality of the air we breathe, or the cold clear mountain water that we drink in Alberta can’t be replaced by money. The money is always going to be good. That is based on supply and demand. Tech jobs pay very well.
Go to Linkedin and check it out. I applied on no less than 10 jobs in the last month or two. There are 10 million jobs in the USA and half of those can be done remotely. Work in the future will be changing with the times. We have something like 14–17 high rises in Calgary that are totally vacant. Who vacated?? Oil and gas, that’s who. They would rather send a few people from Calgary to Houston for fun. Former MLA who gave up his seat for the Premier I believe. Got rewarded with a nice cushy 300k job in Houston doing who knows what? We don’t need offices scattered all over the world at the provincial level. Why waste that money when the Canadian federal offices can easily direct on our behalf. It’s like Canadians use the British embassies or the US embassies at times when no Canadian embassy is warranted.
Let’s talk about Canada’s stature internationally today. Prime Minister Trudeau has done a great job of repairing the broken important relations. France, Germany — -all the EU, and especially the USA have a renewed respect for Canada. Stephen Harper really screwed that up with our most important allies. His treatment of a black President was unbecoming of Canadians. I have no use for racists, including it was our PM, nor leading our Premier Kenney around by the nose. It's out of touch people like Kenney and Harper that give whites a bad stereotype.
And our immigration policy is just, equitable, and good for our economy long term. We are Canadians, we shelter refugees and those without hope. That is part of who we are. We are good decent people, and we work at the social problems and try to make things better. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but we try. That is the point. We try. We fail. We learn.
We try. We fail. We learn.
I just read this a moment ago. Air pollution kills more people every year than smoking, car crashes and HIV/AIDS. But the air is clear compared to the past. Micro particles are virtually invisible. Most harmful gases have no odour or colour.
Old keys don’t unlock new doors! (Thanks Chantal!)
Cybersecurity. This is a huge upside for Canada. We have the right skills. We used to have a company by the name of Nortel. It reached a pinnacle as one of the most valuable companies in the world. And then within a short period of time it went bankrupt. It happens to the best companies in the world regularly don’t you think? Nowhere to go but down. Especially true if your stock price gets manipulated and your competitors are the ones who manipulated it. Long story short, Stephen Harper and the Conservative government at the time basically gave it away. Most of the technology was utilized by google and apple. Funny thing, they included RIM in the original deal as google bid up the price to the trustee, then once done, they manipulated RIM (Blackberry) and almost wiped them out too.
The tech industry in the USA is ruthless. They hate each other. They frequently steal technology from each other if they can get away with it. We were at fault as Canadians to entrust anything to Stephen Harper and the Reform party. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about your mother, your sister, your daughter. Ask them about abortion and the right of choice for women. Seniors, ask them what they are going to do to increase the services available to you for your health care. Moms who work need modest costs for childcare. The conservatives don’t want you to work. They want you to have a substandard life to punish you.
Say it isn’t so. For every group they have an alternative negative action plan. Its why our infrastructure in Alberta is crumbling. We should have the best highway in Canada between Calgary and Edmonton. But we don’t. It’s destroyed by big trucks, (no fault of the truck drivers), it’s just that these highways, that one particularly, need constant upgrading and repaving. Last year when we lost 300,000 jobs and threw away 9 billion, we could have repaved that road and employed a lot of workers. Mostly workers who go between paving crews, the oilpatch, and pipelines. The conservatives and their oil industry buddies didn’t care about their own, let alone the rest of us.
I did some analysis last year on the effect of conservative policy on jobs in Alberta. The UCP and Jason Kenney blew about 9 billion dollars the last two years. Wasted, gone, nothing to show for the 9 billion. It doesn’t matter if they did it through tax cuts, or refunds to their corporate friends in the heavily subsidized oil industry, they wasted 9 billion dollars including the dumbest gamble in modern history — -Keystone. They broke their fiduciary duty of care. Plain and simple.
If we had used the 9 billion dollars to create jobs this last year in Alberta here are the numbers. 180,000 jobs at 50,000. Per year. If you project the income at 75,000 it would be 120,000 jobs. At 35,000 per year, it would have been 257,142 jobs. They attracted about 500–1000 new jobs and lost 11,000 in health care alone. These fellows and ladies of the UCP don’t have a competent person in their ranks that has any idea what to do.
If you vote that same bunch in federally to represent us when the rest of the country is going to send them packing, you are wasting your vote. You might as well stay home and not vote. Or for once in your lives, go and vote Liberal. Do your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, and every future generation in Canada and in our beloved Alberta a huge service and vote Liberal. These other people don’t have a clue what they are doing. And Liberals are not perfect. But I know one thing, they have a great plan, and we need that. It all begins with that. I helped write it through my influence therefore I trust it.
Conservatives do not care about you unless you are a white male, making 200 thousand or more per year. That’s the truth. If they did care, we wouldn’t be in the worst possible shape ever in Alberta — -land of milk and honey. They took all the milk and honey and left nothing for everyone else. Norway has a trillion-dollar wealth fund, and that fund was based on the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund. The conservatives have messed with that fund for 40 years and that’s why it’s only about 20 billion. It should be bigger than Norway’s fund, but it isn’t. Tell me why that is? Better management? You might argue it that if we had fired the managers we had, including the current one, that we would have 800 billion. We don’t have 800 — -we have 20. Not enough to cover Jason Kenney’s deficit this year.
When we put all our eggs in one basket called the conservative party of Alberta, now aka the UCP, why would you continue to blame Liberals? Liberals haven’t had power in Alberta for over a hundred years provincially and federally we have had very little influence because we never get enough MPs into caucus. I will take that a little further. When Justin Trudeau had 4 MPs from Alberta in his first term, he gave Alberta 2 cabinet ministers. If he had 12 MP’s, would he have given more cabinet positions? Maybe, at least he would have had a much better depth of MP to choose from. He did not punish Alberta for constantly voting Conservative. I get angry when people attack Justin Trudeau. At least he has Canada’s best interests at heart all the time. I am happy to back him up. You want a strong country? Open your minds.
Jason Kenney is a federal conservative. He and Stevie boy and Erin the tool go way back together. Birds of a feather flock together. You are who you hang with. If you hang out with shady people like Conrad Black and Stephen Harper, you become shady.
It’s not generally discussed as such, but the repeated hacks of United States servers by Russian agents is likely the first major cyber war ever waged. An effort in the United States and Canada to secure the North American networks from outside attacks is crucial and especially concerning are wireless networks. What turned out to be alarming more than any other thing associated with this, is the fact that it included some high-profile Republicans in the USA and high-profile Conservatives in Canada. They compromised their own countries national security. Why would they do that? I want to know why, but more importantly I want Canadians to demand their resignations in Alberta — the entire UCP party, guilty by association with their leader because they did nothing to prevent it.
And federally, I trust and pray and hope that the good people of Quebec and Ontario come to our rescue in Alberta and vote Liberal across the board to turn this country around to its full potential. Liberals are the only party nationally that can do it today. Average citizens fund the Liberal Party, and the Liberal party has no large corporate sponsors.
Touching back on employment and the opportunities that are there. The reason that Canada and the USA are having a problem filling job vacancies has to do with skill mismatch. It signifies the need to train people and anticipate those needs more quickly. I have only had one rejection letter and it stated that they didn’t even bother to look and outright rejected me. Most likely because I have no degree in anything. Most of the jobs I applied for ask for a degree. Aside from the degree, I probably qualified easily for most of the jobs. Business for self, and you must learn everything without a degree.
We are on the cusp of incredible breakthroughs. Vote Liberal in Alberta and everywhere in Canada to ensure you have a seat at the table and can participate in the future of an increasingly global world.
