Ron McMahon

Probably not your dad's perspective

Liberally New

Jun 20

Posted by Ron in Democracy | No Comments

Photo by Chris Wattie of Reuters as posted on National Post website

They say that the Devil sits on your left shoulder, tempting you and this is why you throw salt over your left shoulder – to blind him. Well, if this photo from the National Post’s website is any guide to eternal temptations, it places Bob Rae right in the ‘hot’ seat.

All the talk this past month about the Liberal Party of Canada and the National New Democratic Party merging in to a new ‘SuperParty’ called the Liberal Democrats has pundit tongues wagging furiously from every side of the political spectrum.  While the leadership of each party is quickly denying that this is happening, the truth is likely that this was a trial balloon, raised by the parties involved to measure if this idea has wings in the wider Canadian public’s opinion.

I for one really like the idea.  There are a number of really compelling reasons for each party to get solidly behind such a merger, but in the end the most important reason is power.

  • The NDP will not likely form a government in my lifetime, they are just too extreme in opinion or too beholden to unions for far too many Canadians to trust them with the future of their nation.
  • The Liberals have the great challenge of forming a majority government without a traditional support base from Quebec that has been permanently usurped by the BQ.  These ridings are never coming back as the most likely future of these seats will reside in a foreign nation.
  • The Conservative Party resisted amalgamation for much of the decade after Mulroney left the party a ghost of its 1984 power zenith.  Only through the elimination of vote splitting between competing right-wind parties did the right had any realistic hope of forming government.
  • Merger with like minded competitors has a very potent and successful track record in recent Canadian electoral history;
    • Consider the ‘BC Liberal’ Party in British Columbia – formed out of the ashes of the Social Credit and Liberal Parties when they merged together in the early 1990s and are now in power.
    • The Wildrose Alliance Party in Alberta – formed out of the  merger of the Alberta Alliance Party and the Wildrose Party.  Some political commentators (and politicians) fear that this young party will form the next political dynasty in Alberta.
    • The Saskatchewan Party –  a party that was formed out of the rump of Grant Devine’s Saskatchewan Progressive Conservatives and some frustrated members of the provincial Liberal Party now in power.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to this proposal moving forward is the entrenched interests.  There are plenty of people in both the federal Liberal and NDP parties who are very comfortable with the roles and privileges that they currently enjoy that may not come their way in a Liberal Democrat party.  In this case, however, the courage of a commitment to something bigger than one’s own self interest must overcome comfort.

Hopefully the results of this trial balloon will lead to brave and bold moves to form Canada’s next great federal party – the Canadian Liberal Democratic Party.  As the right succeeded by blending in the more extreme Reform / Alliance in with the historic Progressive Conservative Party, so too must the Liberals meld together with the NDP – and provide Canadians with a single and stronger left-wing federal option to counter the now-unified right.  To fail to do so will result in a long power drought for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Stealing Our Culture

May 25

Posted by Ron in Uncategorized | No Comments

Jasper Totem PoleThis is a copy of the letter I sent earlier today to Jim Prentice, Minister responsible for Parks Canada.

Mr. Prentice,

I am writing to you today in response to a most troubling event that I’m told you are the cause of.  A significant cultural artefact of Alberta’s 20th Century history is about to be permanently removed from our province, forever diminishing our contact with and connection to our province’s great history.

The Raven Totem Pole that has stood tall in Jasper Alberta for close to a century has, on your order, been chopped down and removed from its historical home without any public input.  The people of Jasper and Alberta are witnessing the forced removal of one of our historic artefacts that for almost a century helped to commemorate and mark the successful completion of The Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert through Jasper.

Generations of Canadians and global travellers have encountered this totem pole as they have arrived in Jasper by rail.  The great Haida skill that created these beautiful carvings inspired the leadership of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad to celebrate and share this great art with travellers at key points along its great length.  Thanks to Jasper’s aired climate its totem pole is probably the only surviving sample of 19th century Haida carving and now you intend on permanently removing this historic artefact from its Alberta home.

As you know, The Parks Canada Agency Act was created in 1998 with the specific and legal charge “to protect the nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage in national parks…in view of their special role in the lives of Canadians and the fabric of the nation, to present that heritage…giving expression to our identity as Canadians…to protect conserve and present that heritage…to commemorate places, people and events of national historic significance…to ensure the commemorative integrity of national historic sites…to protect heritage railway stations and the heritage character of federal heritage buildings…for this and future generations..”

With respect to this totem pole, which Parks Canada acquired with the 2000 purchase of the Jasper Heritage Railway Station from CN, you sir have not met the charge made to you by being the Minister responsible for enforcing this Act.

The removal of this Alberta artefact is the cause of at least three violations of the Parks Canada Act;

  1. Removing the original totem pole, with the intent of returning it to the west coast will ensure that what remains of this nationally historic art will soon, as is the Haida custom, rot to oblivion – stealing the opportunity from future generations of Canadians to physically experience a Haida carving from the 1800s.  I believe that this violates section (a) of the Parks Canada Agency Act, where you are charged with protecting Canada’s cultural heritage.
  2. I agree that removing this totem pole from its existing outdoor location was a prudent move to protect both the public and the pole itself from harm should it topple.  However, removing this pole from the town where it was deliberately placed and stood for close to a century deprives Canadians from being able to experience this art in the location it was meant to be in.  The Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad acquired this totem pole from the Haida and there has been no outstanding claim of theft or malfeasance on the part of those visionaries who knew that promoting Haida culture in this manner would enhance and expand Canadian culture.  Removing this artefact from Alberta impoverishes its citizens and culture and casts a questionable shadow on the respect and dignity that should be extended to the thousands who toiled for years to give us the great northern route to the Pacific.  Failing to ensure that this historic artefact remains in its Jasper home is an abrogation of Parks Canada’s responsibility to present that heritage to Canadians.
  3. The decision by your department to deface this totem pole by stripping it of its colourful paint has not only permanently damaged the pole, but it has also cast a revisionist pall over the history of this Jasper jewel.  The reliefs on this pole were colourfully painted numerous times by its owners as a means to both protect and enhance this landmark.  Removing this embellishment is akin to tearing down the Jasper Railway station because it isn’t the actual original station.  The Act doesn’t direct Parks Canada to perform revisionist presentation, but to “to protect heritage railway stations and the heritage character of federal heritage buildings”

I call on you, Minister Prentice, to stop the destruction and theft of an important Alberta cultural and social icon.  While I understand the desire to bring to Jasper a new Haida-built totem pole, this does not negate the ownership and value of the original totem pole.  There have been no Alberta-wide public consultations that I am aware of to measure the willingness of Albertans to simply give up one of their treasures that has been entrusted to us by our forbearers as a celebration of their great accomplishments.  Your decision to unilaterally remove one of our young province’s cherished historic artefacts is something that future generations will surely question and rue.

I ask that you cancel this project and instead invest in an appropriate facility in Jasper where this beautiful example of the community’s first and probably greatest public art can continue to be presented, protected and preserved for the enjoyment of our and future generations of Canadians.

Ron McMahon

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Guard For Thee?

May 20

Posted by Ron in Civil Service, Democracy | No Comments

Canadian SoldierLast week’s announcement by the Federal Conservatives that they would be mothballing 50% of the country’s naval coastal patrol fleet showed that our country is quickly spending itself into an unsustainable debt with the war we are fighting in Afghanistan.

The Federal Government has been very reluctant in revealing solid and timely figures as to the actual cost of this war, but one outstanding civil servant, Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report (to Parliament, not the governing Conservatives who want to keep this a secret from you) last year showing that this war would end up costing at least $18,100,000,000 by 2011.

That $18 Billion dollars has to come from somewhere, and right now it is coming from debt taken on by the Federal Government, which works out to $1,500 for each household in Canada.  How long does it take you to earn $1500?  Are you happy to have been required to give up that much of your money for something that doesn’t improve your country one bit?  That is a pretty big slice of your taxes going to pay for us to ‘encourage’ Afghans to adopt democracy (or we’ll shoot them, I guess).

Rather than continue to borrow money to fund this ‘vote-or-die’ war the Federal Conservatives are hunting for spare change in the sofa.  One shinny penny was found in the idea of shutting down half of the already tiny fleet of vessels employed to guard our country against those who really do pose a direct and immediate threat to our nation’s security.  I guess forcing democracy on to the citizens of a nation on the other side of the planet is a far more worthwhile endeavour than ensuring that coastal Canadians can rest assured that someone is on guard for them.

Of course once word got round of this inane idea and Canadians began to express the foolishness of its government, the idea was withdrawn in the midst of awkward and illogical excuses as to how such a beastly idea ever saw the light of a press release.   I think that we all breathed a sigh of relief to see that the Federal Conservatives might actually value its own citizen’s safety more highly than the effort to make the Prime Minister look good for his allied partners in the Afghanistan mire.

The problem is; there are few other pennies to be pulled from the sofa, leaving yours the only other pocket to pick in order to pay the costs of this foolhardy war.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Don’t Build Against the Inevitable

May 11

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service | No Comments

Clean To The Core AshtrayThe people in charge of the ‘Clean To The Core’ project in downtown Calgary seem to be attempting some social engineering that is bound to fail. They have the mandate to set up policies, systems and equipment that will help to make Calgary’s downtown core cleaner.   This includes adding more police to foot patrols along 7 and 8th Avenues, installing additional garbage cans and newspaper recycling bins along C-Train stations.

In general this project has really helped to clean up the City’s core, but there is one problem with how they are approaching one aspect of this initiative.   Anyone who has spent some time people watching almost anywhere that people smoke outside buildings will note that there is a flow at these sites.  Smokers come outside and light up, puffing their way through their cancer sticks until they reach either the end or a time deadline, at which point they snuff the cigarette, leaving it either in a provided receptacle or on the ground.  At various points during the day other smokers will come along and gather the remnants of tobacco for reuse.  This is a disgusting behaviour, but it is something that we are likely to see as long as cigarettes cost money and we have the poor (forever).

The designers of the Clean to the Core project seem to have forgotten this fact and have attempted to build cigarette butt receptacles that are purposed to be inaccessible to these roving recyclers.  The result hasn’t been very pretty.  Almost every one of these receptacles has been vandalized as someone has violently acted against it in an effort to unlock its treasure (there is literally a lock on these units).  The end state is a broken receptacle and a pile of ash and butts all over the ground, resulting in an even bigger mess than existed before the receptacle was installed.

By attempting to prevent the inevitable these designers have set themselves up to fail.  What they should have done is recognize the reality of this behaviour and designed policies and receptacles that both facilitate and take advantage of this behaviour.  It can be done and it is not that hard to do.

When was the last time you saw a pop can lying in the gutter or on the street downtown for two days straight?  Probably never.  This is because we pay people real money if they hand them in to a recycling depot.  This decades-old policy has prevented the mass littering of our streets, given the poor an incentive-based reward for effort and has ensured that billions of tonnes of metal and glass is effectively and efficiently recycled.

While there may not be the ability to physically recycle cigarette butts in to new products like we can with pop cans, we can apply the same principle of deposit and return on each cigarette filter.  Applying a 10 cent recycling fee to the cost plus a 5 cent environmental levy to pay for the program and volia! The scourge of cigarette butts littering our streets would be gone overnight.

The same innovative thinking needs to be extended to other items that are currently recycled for a fee, like bottles and cans.  As with the newspaper recycling bins at the C-Train stations, the City needs to install can and bottle recycling bins that would be designed in such a way that they easily facilitate the removal of contents by those who gather these valuables for recycling.  Such a design has to be durable and safe for all its users and so what if someone other than a City employee empties the bin, the $1.50 worth of cans it contains SAVES the city money by not requiring a civic employee to go and empty the bin, freeing them to focus on keeping the rest of the C-Train system Clean to the Core.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

When Worlds Collide

May 10

Posted by Ron in Democracy | No Comments

Gattaca Movie Poster

Happy Mother’s Day.

One of my all-time favourite television series has to be Connections with James Burke.  What I’ve always found so appealing with the show is how Burke is able to knit together a riveting story of progress in the face of ignorance and challenge spiced with a generous helping of accident and luck.

One of the show’s common themes is that how our world is today, especially when it comes to technology, was no certainty.  So many technological leaps that have brought us the world we have now are shown to be the result of happenstance and accident, where one incredible discovery or another would not have happened save for a chance meeting or incidental interest.  Burke shows that those who are responsible for so many of our fantastic leaps of knowledge and understanding are often not those whom we’d expect.  It most often isn’t the leaders or the wisest or those who are solely engaged in research and study who’ve come up with the truly transformative ideas, observations and applications, rather it is those in the shadows, the cast-offs or those whom society has chosen to demean, dehumanize and disregard.

God works that way, of course.  1 Corinthians 1:18-30 covers it quite well and it is summarized in verses 27-28: “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are…” We have a line of history so rich in western culture that shows this to be true again and again, yet our culture actively refuses to acknowledge it.

The world of faith and the world of science have been colliding for centuries, probably long before Galileo fell out of favour with the Pope.  While the two have long since come to agreement with the construction of the solar system, there still remains a vast gulf between what God tells us about the world and the workings of the universe and what science thinks it knows and is furiously trying to prove. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him…”

Humanity is constantly trying to pursue wisdom, knowledge and understanding.  The Bible provides a great foundation upon which to work from in our fundamental understandings of the universe (cosmology), human nature (psychiatry), our sinful nature (sociology, economics, criminology, social biology, etc. etc.).  I’m not saying that one should consider the Bible to be an end-point of knowledge, but if you solely look at it as a book of wisdom (rather than God’s message of love to you) written 2000-3500 years ago, it stands up pretty well as something that gives us guideposts and basic principles upon which to set forth from and on to greater human knowledge and understanding.

Our technology has now advanced to such a degree that we now can know things that used to be a surprise, like the sex of a child before birth.  Our research in to genetics and our natural human biases (the sin of pride,  jealousy and covetousness) have combined to create a world where we now murder our children before they are even born.  The ancients (whom modernists scoff at as primitive) fell under the spell of thinking that sacrificing your first-born son to Moloch would bring prosperity to a family.  Have we really advanced from that point of view and behaviour or have the worlds of science and human selfishness collided in this new genocide?

Since science is the modern religion, and those who practice science are its priests, we trust them to lead us in our worship.  Mothers are poked and prodded, scanned and sized almost from the moment they conceive.  We are told that this effort is all about ensuring that mother and baby are well, but what isn’t spoken is the ‘what if’, the consequences of an unexpected discovery.  Last year in Canada alone 100,000 children were victims of abortion.  The ancients have nothing on us when it comes to sacrificing our children to help ensure that we are successful and prosperous.  After all, we are told that to give birth to an imperfect child will cost us dearly, first in expensive healthcare and then, more importantly, this child will cost us opportunities to see first steps, or to hear first words or to experience great academic report cards.  By choosing this easy ‘therapeutic’ path our modern sacrifice to Moloch is once again putting the desires and interests of the powerful ahead of the weak.

Perhaps you don’t think that this is really happening, if so I challenge you to keep your eyes open for children <15 years old who are in wheel chairs, or who walk with wrist or arm crutches.  When was the last time you saw a young Canadian child with a cleft-lip or any other typically common birth defect?  No, these children are incredibly rare today because they are being killed before they are even born, sacrificed on the Molochular altar of convenience.  Mothers are being told that this is for the best, freeing them to have another child next year that can be the perfect child they always wanted.

The prospects for the future are even more dim. The movie GATTACA is a fine example of what we are likely to end up with in respect to being able to some day determine a child’s entire life capability and span with an instant scan of DNA.  Unlike the movie, such as scan would happen in-utero, and will likely result in another jump in the number of children denied the right to a life on the basis of someone else’s evaluation of their value.

The movie GATTACA presents a great argument as to why such pre-determinism is wrong and anti-human.  It is a story of the human spirit, which (so far) can’t be measured or quantified as a ratio on which to determine one’s right to life.  It is a story of one man’s determination to be more than science told him that he could be and another man’s repudiation of his perfection, and like one of James Burke’s great tales of human discovery and innovation we see how our greatest value is not in how strong our bones, muscles or mind is, but in the shape and strength of our character.

What mother wouldn’t choose a child of great character above all other characteristics?  I don’t think that we’ll ever get to a point where we will be able to quantify a person’s character before birth, perhaps God will keep us from such a discovery by “[destroying] the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”  And that is a good thing.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Monkey in the Middle

May 7

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service, Democracy | No Comments

Not a happy monkeyIf you are like me, you are filled with mixed emotions when you recall what it was like to play Monkey in the Middle as a child.

You know the game; gather three together and try to keep the ball from being intercepted by the person in the middle as it is thrown between the two other players.

When the game is played with unequally sized children (with the smallest typically ending up in the middle) It is an experience of frustration for the ‘monkey’ and a thrilling power trip for the ones passing amongst themselves.
The leaders of Alberta’s School Boards must be feeling like they’ve been invited to play in yet another round of Monkey in the Middle.
This time the player who brought the ball, Dave Hancock the Alberta Minister of Education, is playing keep-away along with parents of all Alberta students.
The schoolboard trustees are left in the middle, trying their best to wrestle away the ball from the bigger and more powerful players who’ve made all the rules and seem assured of victory no matter how hard one tries.
The real problem here is the fact that this is no mere game, regardless of what taxpayers and the minister may try to tell you.  Careers and the quality of our children’s education is what is on the line in this ‘game’. The minister keeps on playing coy as if he thinks that it will all ‘work out ok in the end’, and tells school board leadership to go and use up funds that have been socked away for other purposes just to cover the bills brought on by his government’s agreements.
This is no game.
It is time that this Honourable Member showed real leadership and rather than playing games with the public and those entrusted with educating the next generation, he should be taking this matter seriously and sitting down with all involved and developing a real strategy and plan for ensuring that sufficient, sustainable and secure funding for education is in place regardless of the daily winds of economic change that blow around this province.
To fail to do so  is simply an aping of leadership.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Get Off The Road!

May 6

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service, Democracy | No Comments

Rail Diesel CarThe Alberta Government is about to finally release $470 million of the $2 billion that it set aside 2 years ago to help fund ‘innovative transportation ideas’ in its Green Trip transit fund.

Today’s Calgary Herald has an article that covers these facts and for once I have to congratulate the Conservative minister of Transportation, Luke Ouellette because he is complaining that “most transit ideas haven’t been ‘innovative’ enough.”

He’s right!

None of the proposals identified in the article for the use of these funds call for the purchase or subsidy for the lease of Rail Diesel Cars like the one on the left.  These units are still very plentiful, as Industrial Rail Services in Moncton, NB has focused on gathering a large fleet and preparing them for rebuilding to 21st century standards.  A few weeks ago the Federal Government announced a $12.6 million dollar contract to have six units rebuilt by Industrial Rail Services for use across northern Ontario.

VIA Rail used to run this type of train between Edmonton and Calgary, but that stopped decades ago.  There is also a lot of talk about building a high-speed rail service between the Capital and Calgary and that is a great idea, but what we also need is a viable and quickly available commuter solution.

Those of you who live in Calgary will know that today we were hit with yet another big snow storm that brought Deerfoot Trail and other roadways to a standstill.   It is ironic that our ‘leaders’ are clamouring to bring us ever more road-based transit ’solutions’ when a superior and cost competitive option is available.  I’d like to propose to the minister that his department consider funding a 2-year trial run of The Calgary Clipper commuter rail service between Airdrie and downtown Calgary.  This would be a service that won’t get stuck when our already overloaded roadways get greasy and it will make a huge difference in our CO2 emissions to boot!

What do you think about The Calgary Clipper? Do you think that we should get ‘All Aboard’ this idea or are the more traditional bus-based solutions that Calgary and its commuter communities are pitching a better option for the minister to fund?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Keeping Up Appearances

May 4

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service | No Comments

Brentwood StationCalgary is a city that prides itself on being world-class. We have this belief because we hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics and we put on a world-famous 10-day party every summer with the Stampede.

The problem with being ‘World-Class’ is that it is a never-ending race.  In order to truly be a member of the club, you have to continue to work at keeping up with your competitors.  This isn’t a bad thing at all, after all it is part of what drives humanity forward and without this drive cities would still be content to have open sewers and few if any municipal services.

Calgary, unfortunately, needs to pick up its pace if it is truly serious about staying in the club.  If we really want to stay world-class then we need to look it as much as we do it.

I learned a hard lesson back in the mid-1990s.  A supervisor of mine at the then newly-named ‘Nortel’ gave me a rather dim performance review.  I was stunned.  I was completing all of my assigned tasks and my clients were very happy with the service that I was providing them.  My work performance was well within the stated requirements, yet he was rating me as a failure.  When I presented him with all of the above evidence that I had at my fingertips he dismissed it with the statement ‘Perception IS Reality‘.  Even though the facts were otherwise, his opinion stood because this was how he saw me and my performance.  If I wanted a better review then I would need to ensure that not only was I doing my job, but that he would also SEE that I was doing a great job. Doing a great job that the boss doesn’t notice was as good as failure to him.  This was a painful lesson that I’ve never forgotten.

This is a lesson that Calgary needs to learn and soon! When our global guests begin arriving for our Stampede Party in July (8 short weeks away!) what will they think about Calgary when they encounter infrastructure like is shown in this photo of the Brentwood C-Train station?  This is the north side  pedestrian walkway over Crowchild Trail.  As you can see, the expansion joint has worn out and half of it has been cut out and replaced with a crude wooden plank.  I walk along this platform twice a day and this wooden patch matches another larger and older one near where the people are standing.  This half patch is relatively new – only about 4 months old, the larger one is more than a year old and shows no sign that Calgary Transit has any intention of performing a proper repair.  I guess introducing a slippery surface with two new tripping hazards is just fine when your tariff prevents your customers from suing you for creating an unsafe environment.

Even more important than legal risk is the fact that the Brentwood Station, 20 years old this summer, has pretty much been abandoned by Calgary Transit as far as maintenance is concerned.  The platform’s roof is full of leaks, half-assed wooden patches replace worn out rubber joints.  The idea of painting to prevent rust has long since given way to Calgary Transit’s goal of creating our very own Gotham City look of rusting hulks.  Safety lighting used to be part of this bridge, located in the thicker vertical pillars (like the one to the right of the wooden plank).  This public safety idea was abandoned years ago when each of these lights was extinguished and covered over by a sheet of metal.  There used to be a thriving news kiosk in the station that served up snacks and reading material while also providing a modicum of security to a station that is now ‘manned’ by CCD cameras.

The perception that this station gives is anything but World Class, and unfortunately this perception is also quickly becoming a reality.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Being Honest

May 3

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service | No Comments

Speed Trap

I think that most of us expect our governments to be honest with us.  We also expect the media to be truthful.  Here in Canada I think that we are generally well served by both even though each will often tilt or shape the facts to fit a certain political view.  The key, I guess, is to always have your sceptics’ glasses on and be aware that what you are reading and hearing, while likely true, isn’t the whole story.

One excellent example of this was splashed all over the cover of the Calgary Herald in an ’Exclusive Report‘  last week, decrying Albertan’s driving, calling us ‘Neanderthals’.  This is one time where the Provincial Government report that this article was based on was more balanced and informative than the story that reported on it.

The Calgary Herald clearly must have it in for drivers or it simply supports greedy cash-grabs by police.  I say this because the article attempts to make the point that convictions for driving over the speed limit have jumped between 2004 and 2008, but it ignores the fact that the vast majority of convictions (85%) are for drivers who were driving less than 30 km/h over the speed limit.

In Calgary the arterial road network is a mess.  Past strategy changes for moving people around in the city have resulted in primary roadways being dead-ended with bus traps (Centre Street North, Edmonton Trail, Varsity Estates Drive, 69Ave. NW, etc. etc.) and a wholehearted dependence on an arterial transport model that isn’t funded or built-out enough to support the resulting traffic levels.

Part of this problem is the fact that some of these arterial roads, 4 lane divided by a median, have multiple speed limits at varying points. This map is of Beddington Trail in the City’s north end.  It is an excellent example of this speed-up-slow-down-speed-up design model.  There is no good reason why this multiple speed limit design exists; Beddington Trail varies in its set-back from residential properties and in the number of traffic lanes (it varies from 4 to 6 lanes). There is no obvious correlation between speed limits and what might be a possible cause of why these speed limits change along the length of the road.

So, if speed limits change multiple times by 20 km/h within a 3 km distance without any correlating reason, what is the cause of these frequent speed changes?

Taxes.

I firmly believe that the designs, specifications and people behind the design of roadways in Calgary are the primary reason why these roads aren’t properly serving their primary purpose (move people safely along as fast as possible).  Instead, we’ve cheaped out on our hiring of road designers and planners and are as a result getting a second-class infrastructure.  We’ve saved a few pennies in wages but are spending dollars in gridlock.

But it is worse than that.

You see the Calgary Police Service is always looking for ways to expand its bottom line and justify its mandate.  Showing that convictions for speeding are on the rise is proof that enforcement is effective AND necessary.

The problem is that this really isn’t the whole story.  You see, packed away in the original report and slightly mentioned in the news article is the fact that a mere 12% of driving-related fatalities involved speeding.  That is 1 in 8.  When you look at the percentage of drivers who’ve been convicted of speeding at 31+ km/h over the limit, the number is an almost identical value of 15.6%.

While the original report doesn’t connect the dots on this, it strikes me as an easy conclusion to see that excessive speeding is deadly and that common speeding (the other 85% that is below 30 km/h over the limit) isn’t.

So, am I recommending that we just all flout the law and speed up to 30km/h over the signage?  Not in the least. What we need to demand from our leaders and enforcers is the following:

  • Bring in consistent and reasonable speed limits along the entire length of arterial roads.
  • Eliminate the quotas for the number of tickets issued that are imposed on police officers.
  • Publish monthly reports that detail where revenues from speeding fines are being spent.
  • Mandate that police track the issuance of warning and speeding tickets, providing drivers with a mandatory written warning for a first offence for speeding within 30 km/h of the posted limit, and a mandatory ticket for all subsequent offenses.
  • Seek out the superstars of city and roadway planning and hire them!
  • Remove all bus traps that impede the smooth and direct flow of traffic around the city and then have the city report and cash-in on the CO2 emission savings.

These changes will improve the flow of traffic throughout the city while eliminating the current speed enforcement policies that make 85% of drivers fish in barrels that officers are forced to shoot.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Transparency Is Everything

Apr 28

Posted by Ron in Calgary, Civil Service | No Comments

Calgary Police Chief Rick HansonThe Calgary Herald had an excellent article in today’s edition that deserves to be commended and shared as widely as possible.  You see, our police service, led by this man, Rick Hanson, don’t believe that you deserve to know which of his officers have been charged with a crime.

Hanson says officers are different from other professions because only they are legally authorized to use force on the job.  I find this assertion amazing.  If anything this legalized permission to use force (not right) is all the more reason why, when officers have broken the law and are criminally charged, that their identities be revealed just as any other citizen’s identity is posted for the world to know.  This publicity is a key part of how our public judicial system works and is a tool that often brings to light additional information that is helpful to ensuring that justice is done.

I’m proud to note that The Calgary Herald has actually done some research in to this and has had the courage to publish the names of those officers and the crimes that they have been charged with.  They are as follows:

  • Const. Clinton Graville, 32, and
  • Const. David Stewart, 34, are accused of assaulting a 50-year-old homeless man in December 2008 following a traffic stop.
  • Six-year CPS member Daryn Swanson, 29, faces charges of assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon, a Taser, after allegedly zapping a 73-year-old man after a traffic stop.
  • Dennis Vink  is charged with assaulting an impaired 23-year-old woman.

Each of these charges are serious and are in relation to the permission to use physical force, a right that ONLY the police service has in the public realm. (Corrections officers do too, but you have to be a convicted criminal to fall under that circumstance…the general public is safe from them.)

Police Chief Hanson says that some officer’s names would be published if The Calgary Police Service determines that “…it’s in the public interest or not.”  It is rather difficult for the public to know if a criminal charge is in the public interest if the public is kept in the dark.  Assertions of ‘trust us’ just don’t wash.  Not only must good leadership and policing be practiced, but it must be seen to be practiced, and this includes the complete transparency and equality of how our legal system treats citizens.

This effort by the Police Chief can only be seen as secretive and discriminatory and creates a very dangerous precedent.  Who is next to be excluded from mention of crimes?  Shall we stop reporting when judges fall on the wrong side of the law?  After all it would so tarnish their role and reputation (and rightly so!).  Would the Police Chief stand in support of hiding from the public the sexual crimes of religious leaders because of the trauma it causes families and faith communities?

All citizens, regardless of their role in society are accountable to our laws.  Some would argue that those who uphold these laws should be even more accountable due to the potential conflict of interest.  If anything, transparency and openness to a fault by the police and other legal groups (lawyers, judges, jailers, etc.) should be the norm, not the reverse.

Nothing good can come of this policy by the Police Chief, if anything it will further degrade the trust in and support of our police service as being fair, impartial and trustworthy members of our society in whom we look to for an exemplary demonstration of integrity and trustworthiness.  This secretive policy destroys so much that the typical officer works daily to build in the hearts and minds of Calgarians.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,