Dear Editor,
Some people have no idea what is going on outside the bubble of their immediate personal concerns, and little interest in becoming more informed to change that. Other people watch the evening news and believe that is enough to tell them what is happening in the world around them. Unfortunately, most of what happens in the political realm is never broadcast on traditional media. And because of how many people still believe it improper to discuss politics and religion, they never learn otherwise. For those reasons, it is disturbing when the local paper prints articles containing blatant bias and/or erroneous statements.
I noticed such with the article “Alberta’s decline” and the one from our Wildrose MLA.
It sounds like Orr and his Wildrose have quite the ego: “We’ve managed to guide the NDP.” Personally, I wouldn’t want to be going anywhere the Wildrose would hope to guide us. Why could he not just present the truth that the Wildrose did indeed present a list of democratic reforms and chances are good that the NDP will implement at least some of them since they were good ideas and the NDP has similar ones. Orr’s adversarial tone is completely unnecessary since the NDP operate in a cooperative way, completely foreign to what we are accustomed to in politics.
As for Orr’s remarks about the interim supply bill (which he called a “mini-budget”), it’s appalling that he doesn’t know enough to realize that the interim budget was to keep Alberta operating as per the PCons agenda until the NDP have time to properly analyze the financials and create a proper budget for the autumn. It was inappropriate for Orr to say “We are hoping” the NDP will be more open and transparent about the state of Alberta’s finances.I expect they will be when they have had time to completely and responsibly assess the dismal financial situation they inherited.
I had to laugh at Orr’s statement “We are trying to help the government make the right decisions.” Then Orr makes totally false statements. To correct his ignorance: Notley has said that she is in favor of east and west pipelines, just not the Northern Gateway (which everyone knows is not going to happen, so why flog a dead horse) and she is not going to waste time advocating for the Keystone, which is encountering so much resistance because of the shoddy past environmental record of the oil industry and Con governments.
Second totally erroneous and misleading statement: “They just hired one of North America’s leading anti-pipeline activists to run the Energy Ministry.” In fact, our new Energy Minister said that Graham Mitchell, who was hired as her chief of staff, was an interim director for LeadNow (an independent advocacy organization that brings generations of Canadians together to achieve progress through democracy) and as such, had to be on the lobby list, but that he is totally supportive of Alberta NDP policies. If you believe that the Alberta NDP are against oil, you would be totally wrong.
As for Orr’s claim that the NDP are “pressing ahead with a royalty review that is already causing investment to leave the province,” I heard the NDP say that they intend to eventually do a royalty review, but it is not on their immediate agenda. Investment leaving the province is mostly just ignorant fear-mongering talk. No sensible business would leave a province that still has the lowest taxes to go to another place that is also experiencing a downturn because of how OPEC is affecting the oil industry everywhere in North America.
As for the article by Mark Milke who “is a Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute”, outside of right-wing caves, Fraser Institute lacks credibility.In the misleading fashion of a drama queen, Milke emphasizes the “20 percent” which sounds larger than to simply state as he did after in brackets “to 12 per cent from 10 percent”. And so he pontificates his fear-mongering nonsense, leading into his assertion that jobs and prosperity could move to Saskatchewan or British Columbia. Contrary to his view of Alberta declining, now that we are free of decades of PCon corruption and oppression, Alberta is set to soar forward making this one of the truly best places on earth to live.
In response to all the flap about raising the minimum wage, don’t you think it is odd that when we discuss the obscene wages of CEOs, even those paid from the public purse, we talk about the necessity of paying top dollar to get the best qualified people, but when we start discussing those at the bottom of the pay scale, the talk deteriorates into babble about how an increase in minimum wage will throw businesses into bankruptcy.
I don’t understand what good purpose it serves to lie or misrepresent the truth. Perpetuating falsehoods, prejudices, fear and hate the way right-wingers tend to do fuels actions such as that tragedy in Charleston last week; yet another example of just how dangerous ignorance can be.
Evone Monteith
Ponoka