Alberta Releases New Environment Plan

The other day the Alberta Government released their new environment plan. Let's just say, I'm not impressed.

As I skimmed through the CBC article where I got all the information I noticed it seems kind of like a copy - cat of Stephen Harper's plan a couple years ago. One of Premier Stelmach's ideas is to bury the CO2 underneath the ground. Sound familiar? It should, in fact I think I mentioned it in the Christmas 2006 issue of Die Zeitung. NDP leader Brian Mason doesn't think this is a good idea either. "Carbon capture is not just expensive but potentially dangerous as well. A pipeline rupture near a populated area could be disastrous," Mason says. Another thing they mentioned in the article was that in the long term plan they were going to try to go for reducing 14% of the emissions from 2005 - by the year 2050! Also sound familiar? I believe I also mentioned that in the same article in Die Zeitung. Once again. and I';m getting tired of saying this but reducing by 14% in 45 years? That's just pitiful! Do they really want to stop Global Warming or are they just saying that?

My opinion is that our Conservative government thinks that they are too good for everyone else. For instance the Kyoto accord. I think we'd be a lot better off if we just joined in with all the other countries and started working with the rest of the world!

To see the article I got my information from click here.

Computer's Back

The Survivor Challenge is done and I finally get my computer back! I actually found that it wasn't that hard. I just read - ALOT! I forgot to mention before but the reason I was doing this all was for a fundraiser. As I said a couple months ago my class is doing many fundraisers to help World Vision. We asked everyone in our class to try to get sponsors for the Survivor Challenge week and the sponsors would go towards the charity. It was quite successful and we raised a couple hundred dollars.

I have a lot to write about on my blog including the promised completion of my interview with John. K. Samson and a follow up of my latest poll. But that will all come in the coming week.

Survivor Challenge

In my class we are doing a Survivor Challenge Week where everyone has to give up something that might have a negative impact on their lives. I am giving up the computer. This means that from Monday (tomorrow) to the next Monday I will not be able to post on my blog. I might try to go longer than a week so if I am still not back by January 21 don't worry:)

Subscribers to my newspaper, I am very sorry it is so late. But, I am sending it out tonight so check your inbox!

Write to you later!

News Stories that Caught my eye this Morning

Yesterday an article came out in the Edmonton Journal called Meet the People who care for the Arts by Todd Babiak. Today someone wrote a letter to the editor called Poet no match for ponies in dash for provincial cash. Basically, both of them talked about how the arts aren't getting enough funding. In the column by Todd Babiak he said that the Alberta Foundation for the Arts received 26.6 million dollars and that the Horse Racing and Breeding Renewal Program received 56 million dollars when Ralph Klein was premier. I think this is a bad thing because it seems that our government is encouraging people to gamble at horse races that are being funded by their government.

Another article in the paper today asked whether or not to introduce a mental health court in Edmonton. A mental health court is where, for instance, a lot of people who are homeless have mental health problems. This could cause them to be drunk in public and that is against the law. If someone from the police saw this they would probably have them arrested just like anyone else. With a mental health court they would be helped instead of just being treated like someone who didn't have mental health problem.

So those are just some things in the news that caught my eye this morning.

Water's Back!

After a long time we finally have our water back! When we woke up this morning we found out there was no water! We were without water the whole day and up until around noon we didn't know why! In the end we found that it was because of a water main brake which seem to be fairly common. When I got home from school today there were big trucks digging holes all over our street! Then finally after 6 - 8 hours of hard work it was finished! And we have water. All is well.

Police are Turning into a Similar Type of Role Model

Some police are turning into a similar type of environmental role model as Stephen Harper it seems. When I was in St. Albert over Christmas we drove past a place along the road where the police radar guy was waiting for people to come by speeding. My Grandparents told me that he was always sitting there in the same spot idling the day away waiting for speeders. When we came back down the hill I noticed he wasn't there but the grass all around the spot that his car was - was gone. The little bit that was left was brown and disgusting. That's what all that idling had done to the grass. I found this astounding and kind of embarrising. I found it embarrising that he would rather be nice and toasty warm inside his car than do his part for the environment. Last year when me and my mom were coming back from my swim club practice we noticed a police car outside our house with no one in it. It was idling. We thought maybe the policeman or woman had just gone into a house for a couple minutes at first. After half an hour though the car was still there idling. Who knows how long it had been there before that, he might have been idling for an hour for all we know! After half an hour he left though. We got the number on his car and sent an email to the police saying that we saw a police car iding outside our house for more than 30 minutes. We got an email back saying that they did not recieve the email because it had been detected as SPAM. I think that these days people who we look up to as role models are giving people the wrong idea. They say that we should all buy hybrid cars and not idel but yet we see Stephen Harper buying 844 SUVS and the police idling for 30 minutes outside our house! It's just plain horrible!

I Guess I Have Pretty Left Wing Readers

According to the poll that just ended I have pretty left wing readers. Here are the results:

What Political Party do you Want (Not Think) To Win the Next Election?
Conservative - 1 person with 7%
Liberal - 5 people with 35%
Bloc Quebecois - 0 people with 0%
NDP - 7 people with 50%
Other - 1 person with 7%

So according to that half of my readers are left wing. That's nice to see.

I will put up a new poll as soon as possible.

Could Lower GST Mean Lower Standards?

I am on the PMO's (Prime Ministers Office's) mailing list for news releases. Early this morning I got a email from the PMO saying that Stephen Harper is planning to fulfil his promise to lower GST again this year to 5%. Many people may think this is good because they don't have to pay as much when you're buying something such as a book. For instance, if you're buying a book it might say it's $12.00, with 5% GST it would only be an extra $0.60 extra so the total would be $12.60. If Canada had 25% GST a $12 book would cost $15, 3 dollars extra. So that could be the good side of less GST.

Some studies show though that lower GST could mean worse health care, worse education, higher poverty rates, more drug use etc. But if you have higher GST it's exactly the opposite. With higher GST it could mean better health, better education, lower poverty rates and less drug use. This is a section of a study by the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives that explains higher standards in the Nordic Countries:

According to the study, tax cuts are disastrous for the well-being of a nation’s citizens. For example, the high-tax Nordic countries have:
lower rates of poverty, more equal income distribution, and more economic security for their workers;
- higher GDP per capita;
- higher rates of household saving and net national saving;
- greater innovation, including a higher percentage of GDP spent on research and development;
a higher ranking on their growth competitiveness by the World Economic Forum;
- higher rates of secondary school and university completion; and
- less drug use, more leisure time, and higher life satisfaction.

To see the study click here.

So I think that it would be a lot better if they started raising the money for GST so that we could all have a higher quality of life. I think that if we have to pay more for GST it's worth it if we will all have better health care, education, lower poverty and less drug use.

Gas guzzlers favoured by Harper's Tories

This was one of the headlines for the Winnipeg Free Press on December 27. Apparently Stephen Harper has purchased 844 SUV's. They defended their purchase by saying that one third of them are hybrids. Personally I don't think that's good enough. I think that a least three quarters of them should be hybrids but I'd rather have all of them be hybrids. Actually, I'd rather them have a whole different vehicle that doesn't guzzle as much gas. This paragraph from the article shows how much the government's purchase of SUV's has increased in the past years -

Even as the government offers rebates to encourage Canadians to drive more fuel-efficient cars, its own spending on SUV's rose 88 per cent over the previous year. The Public Works Department ordered 844 new SUV's last year, a large leap from the 500 purchased the year before and the 366 in 2004-05, the last full-fiscal year under a Liberal government.

This section shows that other domestic departments are also purchasing SUV's -


Some domestic departments also made large SUV purchases, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of Canada's food supply. The CFIA spent more than $3 million on SUV's last year, compared to $32,236 the year before, to replace an aging fleet of vehicles.
All but two of the SUV's purchased were hybrid engines.


So unlike the SUV's that Stephen Harper purchased, the CFIA's SUV's were almost all hybrids.

To see the original article in the Winnipeg Free Press visit the Gas guzzlers favoured by Harper's Tories article.

Newspaper Delay

Lots of people who receive my newspaper are probably wondering why they haven't got it yet. Well, I'm working hard, that's for sure! It will hopefully come out very early in the new year. I am very sorry about the delay.

On a different note - I have come across a great blog written by a kid around my age. It's called Ollie's Book Blog. A recent post talks about how the Windsor city council is planning to cut the amount of money that the libraries receive. As a matter of fact the person who writes this blog is the daughter of the person who writes Scale Down Windsor. (See post from December 13) So this is a very cool blog and I suggest you check it out.