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Solar discussion invites more creative proposals needing discussion.

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Let us consider the carbon footprint issue in more ways than mega-projects. Let us start at home.
There is a lot of information about the average home. For example the average home has 2.5 residents. The average home costs $25.000 to install enough solar panels.( there is debate that it may be as little as 14,000 but I would like to prepare for costs overruns) It takes 75 hours of labour to install enough solar panels including electrical and non-electrical labour. So to go solar it would cost $10,000 per resident and require 30 hours of labour per person. This is based on the U.S. which is higher than countries like Germany who are more involved and takes advantage of economies of scale. Germany averages only 33 hours.
Red Deer has about 100,000 residents, so to go solar in such a big way would cost a billion dollars and require 3 million man hours of labour. Spread out over 10 years and 3 levels of government, federal, provincial, and municipal. It would cost each level of government 33 million per year. It would create 300,000 manhours of work and if a full time equivalent is 2,000 hours per year then it would create 150 full time equivalent jobs directly in installation. Each direct job would create several indirect jobs in manufacturing, transportation, hospitality etc. Someone offered 7 indirect jobs but I do not know.
When you look at previous bail outs for jobs, this is not that extreme. The economic impact would be huge. The tax base would increase, employment would increase, and our carbon foot print would decrease.
The economics of scale would lower the costs, the natural evolution of solar efficiency would lower the costs, and experience would lessen the labour time and costs but the benefits would be the same.
Red Deer College could get involved in training. The city could become an eco-friendly destination for residents and tourists.
If we were to download a portion of the costs onto the home owners through a loan, and incorporate into their property taxes based on 3% interest. 40% of the costs over 10 years would mean $100 per month for 10 years, which would probably be less than their current electrical bill. If as some suggest it would be $14,000 and even if the home owners bore all the costs then it would be $150 per month for 10 years.That is based on current costs on a small scale.
This will not happen overnight. Three levels of government, training, planning, and manufacturing etc. will take time. I remember satellite dishes that were once so huge, that are now so small, and the same goes for solar panels, once so huge they are increasingly getting smaller and more efficient.
The amount of money is not insurmountable. In a equal-shared scenario with the provincial and federal governments, the costs of building the planned footbridge from the Riverlands to Bower Ponds for example would convert about 2500 homes.
I hope the city continues to discuss and explore these possibilities with other levels of government. Talking about the environment, talking about innovation, and talking about infrastructure spending, here you go.
Another idea could be doing a neighbourhood project like Drake’s Landing Solar Community in Okotoks which had 10 years of uninterrupted service with solar fraction of 100% during the summer and a low of 92% during the coldest winter.
We could look at using our river for hydro-electric, mandate architectural restrictions like reflective roofs, encourage green roofs to name but a few as the dialogue widens.
I hope the city continues the discussions after their March 6 2017 meeting.

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National

Anger towards Trudeau government reaches new high among Canadians: poll

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Canadians’ anger towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government has reached a record high, according to a new poll.   

According to a national survey published by Nanos Research this month, 31% of Canadians feel anger and pessimism towards the Trudeau government, which marks an all-time low in satisfaction for government leadership.  

“Which of the following feelings best describes your views of the federal government in Ottawa?” the poll questioned.  

In addition to the 31% feeling angry and pessimistic respectively, 11% feel uninterested, while only 1% and 10% feel satisfaction and optimism, respectively. 6% were unsure of their feelings towards the Trudeau government.  

“Feelings of anger toward the federal government have increased or held steady in every region, with the largest increases among residents of Quebec (December: 12%; March: 24%) and Atlantic Canada (December: 21%; March: 38%). Pessimism and anger remain the top emotions Canadians say best describe their views of the federal government in Ottawa,” the research found.  

In recent months, Trudeau’s popularity has plummeted, with polls projecting a massive Conservative victory in the upcoming election.   

Trudeau’s popularity has been falling and his government has been embroiled in scandal after  scandal, one of the latest being a federal court ruling that the prime minister’s use of the Emergencies Act to end the 2022 Freedom Convoy was “not justified.”    

Even top Liberal party stalwarts have called for him to resign.    

Indeed, Canadians anger and dissatisfaction with Trudeau has become a topic of conversation on many social media platforms, with Canadians detailing how the Trudeau government has made their life less affordable.   

Numerous videos are being uploaded to social media by Canadians explaining that they struggling to make ends meet amid the rising cost of living and Trudeau’s ever-increasing carbon tax, while many immigrants are telling others not to come to Canada.  

 

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Budget 2024 as the eve of 1984 in Canada

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Michael Melanson

Those who claim there are unmarked burials have painted themselves into a corner. If there are unmarked burials, there have had to be murders because why else would anyone attempt to conceal the deaths?

The Federal Government released its Budget 2024 last week. In addition to hailing a 181% increase in spending on Indigenous priorities since 2016, “Budget 2024 also proposes to provide $5 million over three years, starting in 2025-26, to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to establish a program to combat Residential School denialism.” Earlier this spring, the government proclaimed:

The government anticipates the Special Interlocutor’s final report and recommendations in spring 2024. This report will support further action towards addressing the harmful legacy of residential schools through a framework relating to federal laws, regulations, policies, and practices surrounding unmarked graves and burials at former residential schools and associated sites. This will include addressing residential school denialism.

Like “Reconciliation,” the exact definition of what the Federal government means by “residential school denialism” is not clear. In this vague definition, there is, of course, a potential for legislating vindictiveness.

What further action is needed to address “the harmful legacy of residential schools” except to enforce a particular narrative about the schools as being only harmful? Is it denialism to point out that many students, such as Tomson Highway and Len Marchand, had positive experiences at the schools and that their successful careers were, in part, made possible by their time in residential school? If the study of history is subordinated to promoting a particular political narrative, is it still history or has it become venal propaganda?

Since the sensational May 27, 2021, claim that 215 children’s remains had been found in a Kamloops orchard, the Trudeau government has been chasing shibboleths. The Kamloops claim remains unsubstantiated to this day in two glaring ways: no names of children missing from the Kamloops IRS (Indian Residential Schools) have been presented and no human remains have been uncovered. For anyone daring to point out this absence of evidence, their reward is being the target of a witch hunt. As we recently witnessed in Quesnel, B.C., to be labeled as a residential school denialist is to be drummed out of civil society.

If we must accept a particular political narrative of the IRS as the history of the IRS, does our freedom of conscience and speech have any meaning?

To the discredit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, fictions of missing and murdered children circulating long before the Commission’s inception were subsumed by the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Unmarked graves and burials were incorporated into the TRC’s work as probable evidence of foul play. In the end, the TRC found no evidence of any murders committed by any staff against any students throughout the entirety history of the residential schools. Unmarked graves are explained as formerly marked and lawful graves that had since become lost due to neglect and abandonment. Unmarked burials, if they existed, could be construed as evidence of criminal acts, but such burials associated with the schools have never been proven to exist.

Those who claim there are unmarked burials have painted themselves into a corner. If there are unmarked burials, there have had to be murders because why else would anyone attempt to conceal the deaths? If there are thousands of unmarked burials, there are thousands of children who went missing from residential schools. How could thousands of children go missing from schools without even one parent, one teacher, or one Chief coming forward to complain?

There are, of course, neither any missing children nor unmarked burials and the Special Interlocutor told the Senate Committee on Indigenous People: “The children aren’t missing; they’re buried in the cemeteries. They’re missing because the families were never told where they’re buried.”

Is it denialism to repeat or emphasize what the Special Interlocutor testified before a Senate Committee? Is combating residential school denialism really an exercise in policing wrongthink? Like the beleaguered Winston in Orwell’s 1984, it is impossible to keep up with the state’s continual revision of the past, even the recent past.

For instance, the TRC’s massive report contains a chapter on the “Warm Memories” of the IRS. Drawing attention to those positive recollections is now considered “minimizing the harms of residential schools.”

In 1984, the state sought to preserve itself through historical revision and the enforcement of those revisions. In the Trudeau government’s efforts to enforce a revision of the IRS historical record, the state is not being preserved. How could it be if the IRS is now considered to be a colossal genocide? The intent is to preserve the party in government and if it means sending Canada irretrievably down a memory hole as a genocidaire, so be it.

Michael Melanson is a writer and tradesperson in Winnipeg.

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