vanuatu.

First of all, I would just like to say that I was very glad to see The Departed emerge victorious during last weekend's Academy Awards as Best Picture and Best Director for Martin Scorsese. Well deserved.

If you've noticed a break between posts, it has everything to do with the other stuff I keep myself busy with in my other life. I'm actually the campaign manager for a campaign of which I will not mention here. Ask me on March 9.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Spring session of the Alberta Legislature. Just as I was excited when Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft announced an aggressive legislative agenda in the face of the "Conservative oppositon" as Taft called the Stelmach Tories, my good friend Duncan seems just as excited about Stelmach. It should be interesting to see how the session plays out. Rookie Premier, rookie Ministers, new dynamic within the Tory caucus. Power politics at play. Does the opposition smells blood? All-party committees? Two upcoming by-elections!

Will Alberta be raised to the level of legislative democracy shared by such beacons of democracy as the Republic of Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia? We shall see.

Also, on another note, municipal politics are heating up in Edmonton as Councillors and Councillors-to-be are buying new walking shoes and warming up their campaign engines for an October 2007 election...

daveberta.ca

Yes. I've finally caved and bought a domain name.

It's just being forwarded, so daveberta.blogspot.com still works fine.

If anything, I can just sell it in a couple months and make at least $15 bucks.

clint had a point?

"Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good; but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell." - Clint Murchison

How fitting...

Tax revenue and investment income lift Alberta's surplus to $7 billion

Spending unchanged from second quarter forecast
Third Quarter Fiscal Highlights
* Revenue is $36.6 billion, an increase of $1.5 billion from second quarter forecast
* Expense is $29.7 billion, a decrease of $40 million from second quarter forecast
* The surplus is forecast at $7 billion, an increase of $1.5 billion from second quarter forecast

Edmonton... Strong business profits and returns in world equity markets are bolstering the province's bottom line in 2006-07, as reported in the Government of Alberta's 2006-07 Third Quarter Fiscal Update. Revenue is now forecast to be $4.2 billion higher than budgeted, increasing the forecast surplus to $7 billion.

mmm. gold bars.

So... some excitement in Edmonton...

[David] Suzuki said Friday in Calgary that if the premier "doesn't realize not doing anything about greenhouse gases is going to wreck the economy," he doesn't deserve to be a leader, according to a story in the Calgary Herald.

Alberta needs to ease up on oilsands development until industry catches up with more efficient ways of extracting energy, Suzuki said.

Stelmach hit back on Saturday. "Tackling the issue of greenhouse-gas reduction will require more than hot air and grandstanding."

I agree. It will take action, from our politicians like Stelmach... which we have yet to see any... Stelmach continued...

"Mr. Suzuki's comments reflect the unproductive emotional rhetoric and personal attacks that distract from efforts to find constructive solutions."

Well, I'm sure if our political leaders were actually looking for and enacting "constructive solutions" there would be much less "emotional rhetoric" floating around.

I wonder if Mr. Stelmach has seen Al Gore's now Oscar Award winning Inconvenient Truth?

thursday update.

A couple of things...

- I presented to Alberta's Affordable Housing Task Force yesterday afternoon in Edmonton. The committee will be traveling Alberta to listen to Albertans thoughts and recommendations on how to solve the affordable housing crisis until February 28. Task force members include MLA's Len Webber (Calgary Foothills), Bruce Miller (Edmonton Glenora), and Ray Martin (Edmonton Beverly-Clareview) and Edmonton City Councillor Karen Leibovici. See here for the hearing locations and dates.

- Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft delivered an alternative Speech from the Throne Tuesday night at the Royal Museum in Edmonton. Fresh from the release of Taft's new book Democracy Derailed, last nights event was a packed affair with hundereds of Albertans crowding the theatre to hear what Taft had to say. It was a positive speech and gave Taft the oppurtunity to present his team of MLA's and candidates along with a positive vision for Alberta's future. Taft also focused on the need for action to be taken on environmental issues in Alberta.

Though it will be an uphill battle for the 15 MLA caucus, Taft outlined the Alberta Liberal Caucus' legislative agenda for the upcoming Spring Session which will include a number of Bills including a Sustainable Communities Act, a Consumer Advocate Act, a Child Care Accountability and Accessibility Act, a Restriction on School Fees and Fundraising Act, and legislation that would strengthen water resource management, review gaming in Alberta, require health impact assessments for major government initiatives, and reverse laws designed to hide the results of internal audits for 15 years.

It's a very interesting twist in Alberta politics how the Alberta Liberals are attempting to turn the tables on the seemingly disorganized Stelmach Government in terms of presenting a strong and united vision for what road Alberta should take.

- Looks like Quebec is off to the polls on March 26.

- I'm off to the wild border city of Lloydminster for the day today (hopefully those rowdy Saskatchewanites won't be too much of a worry).

hot potato, hot potato.

A little less serious than my previous post, but I found this too funny not to share. Enjoy.

Happy Family Day long weekend to all those lucky Albertans out there.

To the rest of you, enjoy Monday at work. :-)

wente way off the mark.

Here's a letter that I emailed to the Globe & Mail yesterday...

Margaret Wente's column yesterday has bought, hook line and sinker, the argument from McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum: low tuition is bad because it doesn't help people from marginal socioeconomic groups access post-secondary, and it hurt education quality.

The argument misses the point entirely: the question is, is Education a public good or a private good? Primary and secondary schooling is an undisputed public good, and post-secondary is still something of a public good to the extent that it is still somewhat publicly funded; however, post-secondary education being privatized right under our noses in the sense that quality post-secondary is increasingly the exclusive domain of the socioeconomic elite.

Consider the popular argument that lowering tuition would represent a subsidy to wealthy students (and their families) who can already afford to attend — the heart of this argument is an admission that the elite are over-represented, which should itself be a point of serious concern. However, it also ignores the disparate reality that there are a lot of students (let's say at least the half who emerge with student debt) who struggle to make ends meet and are thus distracted from their studies.

The result is a kind of three-tiered education environment: there are those who can afford to study without financial stress, there are those who can afford to study but only under the condition of financial stress (which is a significant disadvantage), and then there in the third group are people of more than ample aptitude who have written off post-secondary out of aversion to financial stress.

Economists like to say that price sends a strong signal: so far this debate seems to have focused on the notion that high tuition is required for high quality, but the flip-side of this argument is the signal high tuition is sending to young people: 'higher learning isn't for everyone, this is just for the best of the best.' In this sense, it is a question more of values than of value: do we want to distributed advanced learning primarily among the elite, or do we want to make it accessible to all Canadians on a level financial playing field, with room for everyone who is qualified?