DEAR ED: MAYBE ITS TIME TO THINK OF WHAT THE JAPANESE DO AT A TIME LIKE THIS

Dear Ed,

Since you became leader of the Tories in Alberta I’ve always liked you. I know, I know, I was rough on you often, calling you names like ‘Special Ed’ and all, but I want you to know that what I did was always in your interests. It was my way of spurring you on to do great things. I knew the mess you were left by Ralph’s dumb and dumber crowd. In fact, I’m sure you knew it too given that you took such a major part in it. See: http://darrylraymaker.blogspot.com/2007/01/fast-eddie-ralphs-big-stick.html

And I knew it was going to take brains and ability to clean it up. So my motive was to inspire you to do great things. After all Ed, I live here. If you succeeded so would I.

I think part of your initial problem was that you and your pals like Danyluk and Snelgrove thought governing was easy. You knew that your mentor Ralph for the most part had an easy time of it, didn’t he? Almost until the end he had all of the usual Tory political, business, and media establishment kissing his ample backside – the big daily newspapers, the fawning columnists (two of which are now working for you), neocon media barons and think tanks like Conrad Black and the Fraser Institute, etc. It seemed to me that all you guys thought about when you knocked off Dinning was that it was now your turn to divide the spoils – Calgary had its turn and now it was Northern Alberta’s turn. Governing is far more complicated than that Ed, as I’m sure you have come to realize.

And so the first thing you did was screw Southern Alberta by tossing out most of its ministers. It was your first big mistake. Oh, I know, you tried to make amends. You put Ron Stevens in as your deputy premier, and added a couple of people in junior portfolios, but it wasn’t enough. You know the Calgary Tory establishment. They think they’re pretty good. They don’t like getting pushed around. This initial action, Ed, poisoned the well for you down here for sure.

Then there was the small matter of a lot of things going to pot in the province. I mean, we had deteriorating health care, education, infrastructure, and most everything else the provincial government is supposed to be taking care of. The problem was that people began to figure out that the Alberta Advantage that Ralph talked so often about was really no advantage at all. Oh sure, the oil companies were making big bucks. Developers, too. But the sick were being treated in hospital corridors. Some had to be flown to Saskatoon or Great Falls, Montana for treatment, for God’s sakes. Seniors’ care was understaffed, overcrowded, and generally a joke. Roads were an insult to the vaunted money generating capacity of big oil. There weren’t enough places or money available for our big universities to provide for all of the young people who wished to attend.*
[*On the matter of education perhaps when you are retired you will find time to read the following piece published on October 15 by the Herald’s premier columnist Deborah Yedlin: http://www.chtv.com/ch/chcanews/story.html?id=2104358]

Geez Ed, did you know that Alberta had the highest high school drop out rate in the country? Or that Alberta had the lowest participation rate in the crucial 18 to 25 age category in post secondary education in the country? Did you? How about Snelgrove? Danyluk, even? No? I didn’t think so.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough you then goofed up on royalty policy. First of all, by ordering the task force study and then putting the study out for public debate just gave your opponents one big fat target to shoot at. Then when you decided on royalties you failed to provide for that dark day when oil and gas prices collapse (Did you know that it is an historical fact that they always do, sooner or later? Did you know that?). The whole royalty issue has won you legions of enemies and no friends whatsoever. Look at what oil companies put into the coffers of your party in the last year and a half. Hardly anything. Small gas producers are under the gun. It’s a helluva a mess.

I’m sure you will say that you couldn’t have been that bad because you won an election in the interim. Eddie – can I call you Eddie? – Eddie you won that election for two reasons. First of all, as Muhammed Ali used to say, the other guy didn’t ‘whup’ you, and secondly because the people wanted to give you a chance. It was not because the people thought you were competent, believe me.

While all of this is brewing, then we are hit by a financial crisis. That was something you and the Tories should have been prepared for. North America had been riding high for some time. There is a thing called the business cycle and it is more than a theory. Bubbles burst. Good governments prepare for that. The financial collapse forced your government to rocket into major deficit territory at a time when people were just figuring out that the Alberta Advantage for Martha and Henry was a crock. Bad timing for you, Ed. The result of all of that was the loss of Calgary Glenmore to the Wild Rose Alliance – even though you had a high profile candidate who ran a helluva good campaign.

Okay, okay, you might say much of this is bad luck. And you might be right in saying so. But Geez Ed, you have to try to help yourself. That statement you made the other day about reducing your pay by 15% makes you look like a weasel - even more than usual. You cut it by only 5.7% and everybody figured it out in about five minutes. And many are convinced you said it was 15% to mislead the people. See: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Braid+Premier+falls+short+mere/2109526/story.html
And you still haven’t learned how to give a decent speech where you do not look like a dweeb, for God's sakes!

And now on top of all of this, you’re confronted by the loquacious babe who just won the Wild Rose Alliance leadership. I hear old Tory stalwarts and ministers like Doug Main and Ernie Isley joined the party and voted for her. The story is that all kinds of old Tories are signing up for her. They’ve had it with you and the old Tory party. See: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/10/17/edmonton-wildrose-alliance-leader.html

Well, Ed, when I started this piece I thought I could still give you some constructive advice that might pull it out of the fire for you before your moment of truth coming up in Red Deer in three weeks. But after giving due consideration to everything, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do or say to help.

Perhaps you might think of going into your den, taking out your beretta, wrapping yourself in the Alberta flag, putting on maybe some of your favorite Hank Williams or Wilf Carter records, having a couple of slugs of chokecherry wine, locking the door and then do the honorable thing. Or perhaps do what the Japanese do when things are hopeless and they have run out of options. But, Ed, I think its over for you, and it’s probably over for the Tories.

THE ZANY WORLD OF SPECIAL ED: TENANT RIP-OFF BECOMES TAX PAYER RIP-OFF

At first, Special Ed's response was to get his Municipal Affairs Minister King Kong Danyluk to threaten to use some of his ample muscle to get some avaricious landlords in line. When it was pointed out that there were too many of them for even a hulk like Danyluk to push around, he went for the legislative solution. He would help ripped off and suffering tenants keep their homes with his new 7 million buck Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Fund.

Basically, the fund was for rent subsidies to tenants to pay for unconscionable rent increases. In other words, with the Special Ed subsidy plan, everybody wins - poor and strapped tenants who couldn't afford the increases, and greedy landlords. Oh yes, there was one loser - the Alberta taxpayer who pays for it all. Better than rent controls says the government. Better to have the taxpayer foot the bill than greedy landlords.

Actually, we've seen this type of Tory program before, during the reign of Special Ed's mentor and patron, Ralph Klein. Remember the assistance to cattle growers during the mad-cow crisis? In that case, the bulk of the tax-payers' money (the fund), designed to subsidize the cattle growers (the renters), found its way into the deep pockets of the meat packers (the landlords).

As if the program wasn't deeply flawed enough, we discovered last week it is probably worse. The fund money is disappearing faster than the Tory vote in Calgary. 93 grand a week. In two short months, 4.3 million of the 7 million has already been disbursed. Its due to run out in September. And there are serious allegations of fraud.

It seems that government oversight of the program was so lax, that in no time at all two-bit fraudsters and con-artists figured out that here was a mother lode no self-respecting thief could pass up. The only documents anybody needed to qualify was proof of finances such as a bank statement, and a letter from a landlord threatening eviction or announcing a gluttonous rent increase. No income thresholds. No asset thresholds. Furthermore, it was reported that employees who worked on the disbursement of fund monies were informed by supervisors to dole out to anybody who asked for assistance. No delays. The government of Special Ed was in enough trouble. The result: false statements, forged letters, phony landlords and some of the money being doled out to anybody but the needy.

The allegations are so serious that Employment, Immigration and Industry Minister Iris Evans has ordered an audit to investigate any abuse that has taken place. The Premier stated Thursday that, "If anybody has submitted improper information, at the end of the day, we're going to go after them, because to me it's fraud." Yes siree, it's fraud alright, Mr. Premier! Which your government openly invited by instituting an ill-considered program based entirely on trust and administered with this upper-most thought in mind - take the heat off of the government for not putting the heat on greedy landlords.

The Premier characteristically added a few weasel words. He said, "I don't know when the audit will be complete, but we're certainly accountable to Alberta taxpayers and we'll release all the information to the public once it's done." For his part the Auditor General said that the earliest he could get to the file would be November. So you can bet that it will be some time indeed before Albertans will find out what really has gone on. Surprise, surprise, it may even be after the next provincial election, given the recent election rumblings coming out of the Special Ed bunker.

SPECIAL ED'S RESPONSE TO THE MAYORS: TAX THIS!

Stampede week was a good week for Special Ed. He flipped flap-jacks, gave some big bucks to the Stampede (15 million) along with Bush's pal Steve Harper who gave another 15 mil out of the Feds' coffers. His new lady minister from Calgary got some ink about the depleting assistance fund for renters, and that she would fight for more. Even some of the Herald and Sun columnists who have been beating on him for some time seemed to go easy on him. "Ah, shucks," as Eddie and his classy pals at the Stampede Board would say, "It's Stampede time. Everybody should get a break during Stampede." So Special Ed got his break.

However, this week is a new week. Special Ed is back at work. And - too bad for him - he and his good ol' boys are up to their usual standard of ineptitude. This time it is Special Ed government's largely non-response to some proposals from the Minister's Council on Municipal Sustainability. The Council's report was submitted by Mayors Mandel of Edmonton and Bronco of Calgary, together with the heads of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties. The report contained specific proposals designed to help Alberta cities, towns, villages and municipal districts financially meet the public needs of their residents.

First of all, the government, whose spokesman was Municipal Affairs Minister Ray Danyluk, turned down the request of the municipalities to receive some portion of oil and gas royalties to meet their infrastructure needs. No matter that in many places in Alberta the roads and bridges are beaten up by oil and gas heavy equipment and trucks, Special Ed's boys said no dice. The royalty rates - some of the most generous of any jurisdiction in the world - would remain the same, and remain within the exclusive domain of the Province.

However, to show Albertans how generous they may be with the people's money, Danyluk said they would graciously look to giving municipalities the right to raise more taxes from their own residents - through an amusement tax perhaps, or a tourism tax, etc. - but that would take more study and consideration. So, as far as royalties were concerned, Alberta towns and villages were told, "Get lost!" As far as other sources of revenue are concerned, "Well, we're still thinking about ways that you can stick it to your own residents."

One good thing was announced by Danyluk - the return of the Regional Planning Boards, to settle disputes between municipalities and to bring more coherence to planning respecting adjacent municipalities.

Regional Planning Boards had been mindlessly abolished in 1995 by the Klein government as part of its attack on deficits and debt. For the same reason at about the same time, Klein combined the Public Utilities Board together with the Energy Resources Conservation Board under one roof - the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB). Prior to that, the Public Utilities Board (PUB) was concerned with regulating the orderly development and transmission of electrical power and the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), with regulating the orderly development and transportation of oil and gas resources. With the Klein measures the EUB dealt with both.

The result of these reckless moves in the case of the abolition of Regional Planning Boards was planning chaos, and in the case of the new EUB, more work than the Board members and their staffs could keep up with.

The government has recently announced that it would again separate the two energy functions into the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board which will now only regulate only oil and gas, and the Alberta Utilities Commission, which will handle power. And now, Danyluk announced that the Regional Planning functions would be reinstated.

So Special Ed at least has cleaned up a small part of the mess of the Klein years, in which he played so prominent a role ( see Darryl Raymaker Blog, FAST EDDIE: RALPH'S BIG STICK, January 27, 2007). Too little, too late.

FAST EDDIE AND RALPH: JOINED AT THE HIP

Fast Eddie's 'Revenge of the Farmer' government has been in the saddle now for three months. So far, it has shown that with one single exception it is no different from the Klein government. The exception of course is the new government's treatment of the Province's major cities. It took power away from the cities and transfered it to rural Alberta.

Without belaboring the point, the cities of Calgary and Edmonton have about two-thirds or 67% of the Alberta population. Eddie has given those two cities only four out of a 19 member cabinet - about 21%.

The hallmark of the Klein government was that it was cheap. It did not like to spend money (unless it was on its many friends). It did not like to spend money on health care, on schools, on universities, on roads, on most of the responsibilities a Provincial government has in this country.

The Klein government's many fans, sycophants, as well as neocon ideological campanions and cheerleaders in the establishment print media, all thought that this was quite alright - because Alberta would soon 'hit the wall' as far as deficits and debt were concerned, because the single important legacy that could be bestowed on future generations was a debt-free Province, because belt-tightening was good (so long it was their belt that wasn't being tightened) and so forth.

Oh, the Klein government liked raking it in. VLT machines started pumping the greenbacks into the government coffers to such an extent that it even surpassed its annual take from oil revenues. One senior Klein Minister was reported to have joked to some of his colleagues that with the VLT machines, the government had finally discovered a way of taxing the poor. Some joke. Yes, raking it in was fine for the Kleineys. But paying it out was quite another matter. In a perverse reversal from human nature, they could take it but they couldn't dish it out.

Going logically hand-in-hand with the reluctance to spend was utter inaction in doing things. Not wanting to spend meant not wanting to build. The result: Alberta's crisis-level state of crumbling infrastructure and the exponential growth of costs to improve it, a deteriorating health care and education system, and homelessness that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. Among other problems.

For the first three months of his administration Fast Eddie's Government has shown itself to be a clone of Klein's. They are not spending. They are not building. There are no hospital construction sites being excavated. Ditto for schools. Medical staff shortages, doctors, nurses and the like remain in short supply.

And a crisis is growing from the lack of affordable housing. This past week, the cold spell in Calgary coinciding with the closure of a temporary homeless shelter brought the plight of affordable housing to everyone's attention. Fast Eddie's response, as parroted through his Jeremiah Johnson look-a-like Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Ray Danyluk: it's Calgary's problem, not ours. Let the City deal with it. In other words, its business as usual. Don't look to us to solve your problem.

But on the 'raking it in' side the Stelmach government is as alert as its predecessor. Broadening the use of Photo Radar to catch speeders incidentally increases the cash cow production of hidden cameras for government coffers. That's OK with Ed. Let's do it, he says.

So, don't expect much from Fast Eddie's so-called new team. His new team consists of most of the old team as well as the bench warmers for the old team. The bench warmers are just as inculcated with the Klein way of doing things as the city slickers that are now on the back benches.

Alas, to get government working again and doing the things they should be doing, the people are going to have to throw Fast Eddie and his gang out of the saloon. They must be beaten at the polls and confined to the trash heap of history. And the sooner the better.

It is extremely disconcerting that there is nothing novel or challenging coming from this Tory government. Its steady as she goes and do as little as possible. Most of the reasons for this must be laid at the doorstep of the the Premier and his Tory politicians. The buck must certainly end there.

But what about the senior bureaucrats? Have they become so steeped in do-nothingness, that they don't have any ideas either? Having regard to the boring and lacklustre performance of Fast Eddie and his posse, it would seem so. And so, when the house cleaning comes . . well, it should be quite a house cleaning.

JILTED TORIES, BUSINESS BY BACKSIDE, AND THINK BOXLESS

Jim MacDonald's CP report on Fast Eddie Stelmach's Country Cabinet, published in this morning's Calgary Herald, should result in some genuine dread entering the mind of any thoughtful reader. There was something awful for just about everybody.

The loyal old guard PC's - Ralph's pals and Dinning's disciples - were reminded of their colleague Ty Lund's pain, no doubt that he wishes to share with anyone who will listen. Lund said 'it was a slap in the face when he was "booted out' of the new cabinet.' Furthermore Lund whined, "It's so unprofessional that it's pathetic."

On the Stelmach's side were the new powerbrokers, Vermillion's most famous ex-turkey farmer, Lloyd Snelgrove, the new Treasury Board Minister and the hirsute Ray Danyluk, the Pride of Elk Point and newly minted Municipal Affairs Minister.

Snelgrove's soothing words were: "If you think business is done at such a high level, you will never be successful," and "Business is done by the seat of your pants." This bodes ill for those Albertans who believe that a Government should prepare a plan for governing, and follow it. Isn't business done 'by the seat of your pants', the Ralph Klein School of Government. In Eddie's world what are Plans? Hell, we don't need any stinkin' plans. We need reinforced seats on our GWG's.

Danyluk's words were no less foreboding. He opined: "When I was a youth secretariat panel chair, I told my kids there's one thing that's very important and that's not to think outside the box, but just throw the box away." How does one interpret those comments? One reasonable view is that the Stelmach Government will spend a lot of time reinventing wheels. It won't do much good for the people, but it will provide a lot of employment for the new team's croneys.