This Province Pisses me off

Guest Post by tr1c14's partner Sardeth
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Alberta’s government (see Kleptocracy) has energy wealth gushing from every greedy pockmarked pore. Let us see what the grand ‘Alberta Advantage’ has done for us. Do we have superior infrastructure? Do we have five dollar a day Day-care or even viable Senior Citizen Care? Do we have any sort of plan for the future for what to do with our very temporary energy windfall?

The answer to the questions above, of course, is a big merry fucking “No”. The farce we call a government around here is pulling the plans for Alberta’s future straight out of Ralph Klein’s asshole. This shit is not good. The 400-dollar prosperity bonus is about as sensible as skates for a donkey, not to mention a waste of public dollars that might actually do some good if allocated with a whiff of sense.

Our government is naturally inclined to key policy decisions behind closed doors with little or no public debate. Government committees are almost always staffed exclusively by the government's own ministers. It is a rare and joyous occasion when an opposition member gets to sit on one of the minor boards, usually deciding such important provincial issues as what carols to sing at Christmas or the décor for the flipping staff bake-off. No debate, no oversight, no democracy in other words. The fucktards that get their shit all hot and bothered over the federal liberals had better do a 180 and look at the stinking pot of corruption here in the land of big oil, bigger cowboy hats and strangely enough a shit-for-brains electorate.

Imagine a cow. Imagine a cow stunned 20 times with a taser. Imagine the flatulence that issues from said cow during the stunning process. That flatulence is the apathetic, ignorant mass of a body politic that we have running and living in this province.

The scandal here at home is just mind-boggling. Some of the big ones first. Energy Deregulation, the miracle of the Free Market brought to us by the Alberta Conservative Retards in Power for Perpetuity party. ACRPP for short. Our formerly public energy sector was doing quite nicely, providing a Western-world necessity: power available for a reasonable rate. Our nice public utility was actually making a modest profit.

“Ohhh….but the market will make things better, competition will bring low prices for everyone” said the ACRPP. (The market FYI is craptacular at a whole bevy of products, but especially public services) The ACRPP in their unquestioned brilliance (see the vital air of democracy from above) decide to sell off our public utility to Direct Energy. Yes, that is right folks, the same bunglers that took the people of London England for a merry ride while hornswaggling them for billions of dollars. “Ohhhh..”says ACRPP, “that wouldn’t happen here…they have cleaned up their act, they are the very model of corporate goodwill… and happy smiles for all.”

7 Billion dollars later, Alberta now lives in a quasi-regulated free market abyss that is royally dry humping the citizens of the province. We have a Energy and Utilities board to watch over the corporations though, staffed by experts from the industry and, you guessed it, members of the government. These bastards are pulling our guts out through our assholes and we have the audacity to rant and rave about the Federal government of Canada losing a couple of million dollars. (120 million-ish but beside 7 billion a mere drop in the bucket.) Some of the wizards in the ministry of energy just graduated with advanced degrees in selling the people of Alberta down the river.

Let us not forget about the oil royalties that we letting slip through our grasp. The royalties we take from the oil-sands is in the area of 1%. Hugo Chavez manages 40 – 50% royalty rate for his oil. And here is the kicker, he maintains a low domestic price for his people for the refined products of oil. Thanks to Brian Mulroney and his cavalcade of conservative clownage we signed NAFTA, which prohibits us from selling oil domestically at a cheaper price than what we export it for. We are currently embroiled in a trade dispute with the US over softwood lumber, and surprise they are acting unilaterally (*gasp*) and not respecting a NAFTA panel ruling in Canada’s favour. Our Prime Minister, showing signs of a backbone, is attempting to gain a little leverage by threatening the US with countervailing energy sanctions. Hoooo..the storm that raised here in Oil-town! When Ralph Klein isn’t actively pulling fecal laced policy from his own posterior he’s on a fucking safari trying to find his missing olfactory organ in the chummy anal-cavity of Big Oil. Hence we get dire warnings about keeping our biggest trading partner happy and how we should negotiate a settlement… even with the little fact that we won the damn NAFTA case.

Our behaviour as Albertans is reprehensible. Its late and I’m all ranted out.

I’m still pissed off, but feeling much better.