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The Age of Disruption

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Welcome to ” The Age of Disruption”

I am writing a series of articles that will discuss the world of disruptive technology, and the human impact both positive and negative. I will be attempting to put a Red Deer and Central Alberta spin on the technology implications. I will also welcome your questions and comments.

The drive to produce this series of articles is based on my own experience of being downsized in the last recession(2009/10) and then as a result of changes in the economy ending up being structurally under-employed ( living in a place where appropriate jobs are no longer available) But a place where my wife has a good, stable, well paying job. Moving crashes her career for the sake of my career, staying in Red Deer means I don’t work at my highest paying possibility… unless I can find a way to take geography and the traditional workplace environment out of the equasion.

About Me – The Author
I had a very traditional career, in accounting at a high (pre-professional designation) level working in industry; but I came into that career by a somewhat untraditional route, an MBA taken online. To be honest, its not even a true MBA, Simon Fraser University, one of the top universities in Canada, packaged up a portion of the core MBA courses into something called a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, so basically nobody knows what this is. It sounds like an undergraduate diploma, except that it is graduate (MBA) level work, its like 1/2 an MBA or an MBA without a specialization. In short it is something that is not transferable to anything else unless I want to move to Vancouver and finish it off and SFU is the only school that will give me advance standing for these courses. With a wife, family, and mortgage, simply impossible, SFU only offers their MBA in an on campus mode, I have researched dozens of other MBA programs but can’t get more than one or two courses to transfer so would basically be repeating, and spending big $$ to repeat the coursework.

In terms of Red Deer and central Alberta, we don’t have the large private companies that employ lots of accountants at all different levels, Basically there are large numbers of Bookkeepers, some do very advanced work, but generally the pay rate is hourly, and $25 hour is upper end, then there are the Professional Accountants, some work as Controllers and CFO’s at private companies but most in Central Alberta work for CPA Firms doing Public Practice Tax and Audit work. A funny thing about accounting, many people go from Public Practice Accounting to Private Industry but almost nobody goes from Private Industry to Public Practice, my biggest problems in this area is that I have never worked public practice, and I have no desire to do so.

While I don’t want to work public practice Audit & Tax, I would like to work advisory and consulting services and with the number of industries that I have worked in I believe that I would have something to offer. With out a professional accounting designation in Red Deer, those options are limited. Now nearing 50, I also have no desire to enter the CPA Professional Designation process, which most likely would have me competing with 20 year olds, at an entry level pay grade, doing public practice accounting work. Two years ago I talked to the CPA organization and due to the dates of many of my courses, they advised that I really would be starting out back at square one. I guess time to take a look at a new career path.

In the interim I have been a contingent worker, working several short-term gigs in my profession and running a couple of small sideline businesses. I have also started to educate myself on using the WWW, Cloud Technologies, and Social Media to earn an online living. I am amazed at what you can learn on line or very affordably with Groupon’s. Yes technology is even disrupting traditional learning as well, there are many great courses you can take on line for free, and even better ones that you can take at steeply discounted prices with Groupon coupons.

I have spent three years part-time building out my new technology knowledge base only to find out too often that working in technology is a younger person’s game. Age Discrimination is a very real problem in many technology firms, and also in many non-tech companies. Not saying that Red Deer has many tech firms, they do have some very good ones, but the roles that they have are limited mostly to coding and development that would require a whole new degree. I am still earning the majority of my income from a somewhat more traditional “JOB”, but the goal for 2017 is to earn 10% of my income from online sources and to become a referenced source of knowledge on technology economic and social disruption.

My motto is ” Work Any Place, Any Time, on Any Device” using technology.

If you or your company has a disruptive technology please write to me and we will discuss its impact. I would love to feature it in my posts.
I hope you enjoy my posts, I will try and write here weekly.

Les Brown is a writer, commentator on technology, a Futurologist, Writes for the “Age of Disruption”, Social Media Manager & Business Consultant.

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Opinion / 7 years ago

The Age of Disruption

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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