A Land of Milk & Honey ?
As some of you know, I am relocating to Edmonton during the second quarter of this year. The Alberta economy as a whole has been cresting ever higher of late, due in the largest part to the Oil & Gas boom of the last few years. This is expected to continue - barring the discovery of large, proven, and accessible reserves elsewhere.
The Transnational Oilcos have also recently announced that they expect to quintuple their investments in the Oilsands over the next decade - thereby heartening those of us who will be living there and seeking to benefit financially from this carbon lottery.
I have been travelling to Alberta on business for close to a half-decade now, and so am familiar with the chronic labour shortages that have been driving-up both wages, and, sadly for me, home prices. I have also been watching the economic trends there over the same period.
But somehow, this tidbit from 2005 escaped me.
How horrifically shocking !
What a terrible solution to the problem of labour market shortages.
But now, some would claim - good news.
But I guess how this is, and will be, interpreted is all relative.
I mean, they were considering allowing children as young as 12 years of age to work in the non-serving area of Bars !
How unbelievably Dickensian !
That Premier Stelmach was "not in favour of the idea" seems to me at least a very minor form of relief; but couldn't he have come out firmer against this idea?
As a Father and great admirer of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, I am truly appalled by the very idea. I truly wonder if we all fully understand that this is just what an unfettered marketplace can lead to. Do we really want to return to this kind of dark age?
As some of you know, I am relocating to Edmonton during the second quarter of this year. The Alberta economy as a whole has been cresting ever higher of late, due in the largest part to the Oil & Gas boom of the last few years. This is expected to continue - barring the discovery of large, proven, and accessible reserves elsewhere.
The Transnational Oilcos have also recently announced that they expect to quintuple their investments in the Oilsands over the next decade - thereby heartening those of us who will be living there and seeking to benefit financially from this carbon lottery.
I have been travelling to Alberta on business for close to a half-decade now, and so am familiar with the chronic labour shortages that have been driving-up both wages, and, sadly for me, home prices. I have also been watching the economic trends there over the same period.
But somehow, this tidbit from 2005 escaped me.
How horrifically shocking !
What a terrible solution to the problem of labour market shortages.
But now, some would claim - good news.
But I guess how this is, and will be, interpreted is all relative.
I mean, they were considering allowing children as young as 12 years of age to work in the non-serving area of Bars !
How unbelievably Dickensian !
That Premier Stelmach was "not in favour of the idea" seems to me at least a very minor form of relief; but couldn't he have come out firmer against this idea?
As a Father and great admirer of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, I am truly appalled by the very idea. I truly wonder if we all fully understand that this is just what an unfettered marketplace can lead to. Do we really want to return to this kind of dark age?
posted by Aeneas the Younger @ 8:25 pm
13 Comments
13 Comments:
It does sound kind of Dickensian, doesn't it? I was surprised to learn that B.C. also allows for the employment of 12 yr. olds. Who knew?
Red:
I guess I have a lot to learn about the far West.
I still have a lot of Upper Canada in me at times.
In this common in BC?
Aeneas,
Ah, nothing like the glorious end-result of a service-based economy. Somewhere, George W. Bush is smiling...
PST:
What have we wrought?
I shudder for my Children's future.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Not on topic here, but in response to a message left on my blog (Roundhead):
Just for the record, Aeneas, I don't subscribe to cable television, nor rent many movies (and when I do, they are usually French).
I've heard of all the individuals you have cited, and perhaps unlike yourself, I have actually read several of them (now don't try to say that you made it through "Minerva's Owl"...)
What you didn't tell me is what makes these individuals, in the context of the present day, conservative?
What makes YOU conservative, when you sound just like the Daily Kos
thanks
Roundhead
So, you're off to Edmonton, you poor bugger. Your blog is soon to become an Albertan Hadrian's Wall, standing at the edge of a hostile and barbarous wasteland, manned by a lone legionary of Loyalism!
You'll find that the natives aren't your typical Picts: they do paint themselves blue, but they splash on liberal amounts of red and white as well.
Keep both gladius and pilum to hand and in good nick, as public expression of patriotism is a capital offence in those parts, apparently.
In any case, Ave Aeneas!
Mr. Aeneas,
In response to your comments on my blog:
I’m not certain what “passing” knowledge refers to, but I have read Grant and Horowitz; with regard to the latter, I don’t agree with his proposition that settler countries represents cultural “fragments” of the mother countries, circa when most migrants came from the latter to the settler countries (or rather, Horowitz’s championship of these same ideas.).
I wonder why you don’t state precisely what IS a Red Tory, or what makes the latter distinct from a Liberal or NDP supporter, instead of saying, “If you haven’t read some obscure author [to those outside of Political Science or other academic discipline] you don’t know what you’re talking about…”
Clicking through on your “Red Tory” links, I found one article, from 2003, which states the supposed Red Tory credo (reproduced below).
However, again I insist, I don’t know from this what makes a Red Tory a Red Tory, instead of an NDP or Liberal supporter –
I am a Red Tory
I believe in a sphere for free enterprise and a sphere for an activist government. I believe that the Liberals have muddled the two together while the NDP and far-right proponents place too much emphasis on one over the other.
This is just rhetoric. In the present day, no one advocates total state control of the economy, or even significant intervention therein – even the NDP.
I believe that the free market, individual initiative and self-reliance should be encouraged as the keys to prosperity. I want government to collaborate with businesses, not work against them, to reduce needless red tape and taxes that hurt competitiveness. However, I do not adhere to the American Republicanism that is manifest in the Canadian Alliance. I do not agree with the neo-conservative belief that individuals should be entitled to follow self-interest for its own sake, magically leading to some "public good" through the invisible hand of the market with no government role beyond protection of property rights. I believe that faith in the law of the jungle will produce a jungle.
Again, more rhetoric. Who advocates “self-interest for its own good”? Some libertarians that no one votes for…
I believe that faith in the public good will lead to the public good. I believe that the invisible hand of the market is important, but it must be steadied by the hand of public responsibility. I believe that a conscious and direct consideration of an individual's free-market activity should be the public good, and government involvement is an integral part of this.
Yet more rhetoric: “the invisible hand important, steadied by the hand of public responsibility”; not only rhetoric, but reification: after all, is there some being called Public Responsibility with a steady Hand who will ensure goodness for us all?
I believe that the greatest financial gains in the world do not make a society better if they are accrued through environmental destruction, creating an underclass of the working poor, or the starvation of key public goods. The free market has shown itself to be a poor provider of universal education, health care, a clean environment and public infrastructure, such as water systems, which exist for the benefit of all and which, ultimately, make us more economically competitive.
Here again, I don’t see that this differs in any way from the rhetoric of the NDP or Liberals – even of Marxists. First, the “free market” does not create a permanent “underclass” of the working poor, nor yet environmental destruction. The poorest, most environmentally destructive economies were those in the Eastern bloc, which had no functional markets of any kind. And just what are “the key public goods”?
I respect the marketplace, but I do not worship it as the solution to all problems. As part of this, I oppose flat taxes, the privatization of core services and the far-right dogma of massive tax cuts trumping all other policy considerations -- a dogma which unite-the-righters such as Mike Harris and Preston Manning have already espoused as a main policy of the new party.
Again, who “worships” the marketplace? More empty rhetoric…
I embrace multiculturalism and biculturalism as important Canadian values. In a world bled by intolerance, these values make Canada "a light unto the nations." If these are important, then government involvement in their promotion is not a waste, but a virtue.
Multiculturalism or biculturalism is hardly akin with old Toryism, no matter what…
I believe that immigrants add to our prosperity and immigration to Canada should be increased. Immigrants do not increase our crime rates or steal our jobs or take our university spots. Those who exploit isolated crimes by immigrants for political gain do not deserve public office. Those who fan the flames of fear of rising crime, when Canada's homicide rate has steadily declined from its 1976 peak, also do not deserve public office.
This ignores much valuable research done on the impact of immigration on established societies. I believe in immigration as well, but I’m not so naïve as to think that, if you allow masses of individuals from low-wage countries to immigrate to Canada, that this will not affect the wages of native born working poor (so much for the “Red Tory” love of the undertrodden). Leftist have been screaming through one side of their mouth about the stagnant wages of the “poor”, whilst screaming out of the other side that any suggestion that immigration should be limited, is “racist.” The high immigration and low wages for unskilled are linked. (and don’t throw up any crap about “immigrants taking the jobs that natives don’t want” – the latter “don’t want” the jobs because the pay is so poor…)
I believe that aboriginal self-government, which is both an inherent and a constitutional right, is the key to aboriginals growing in self-reliance and harmonious relations with Canadians as a whole.
Again, no different from the NDP or Liberals…
So, again, how does the “Red Tory” differ from the Dippers and the Sharks?
Was George Grant a neocon? He appears to have been a Straussian.
Aeneas,
I am from Edmonton. I hope you find the people friendly, industrious and honest. Spring is a good time to move there.
It is a town with a lot of energy and is the least conservative place in the province.
Tomm
Kawania che Keekeru!
Happy St. Tammany's Day, aeneas!
When Superstition's dark and haugty plan
Fettered the genius and debased the man.
Each trifling legend was as truth received;
The priest invented, and the crowd believed;
Nations adored the whim in stone or paint,
And gloried in the fabricated saint.
Some holy guardian, hence, each nation claims --
Gay France her Denis and grave Spain her James.
Britons at once two mighty saints obey --
Andrew and Greorge maintain united sway.
O'er humbler lands the same odd whim prevails;
Ireland her Patrick boasts, her David wails.
We Pennsylvanians these old tales reject,
And our saint think proper to elect --
Immortal Tammany, of Indian race.
Great in the field and foremost in the chase,
No puny saint was he, with fasting pale.
He climbed the mountain and he swept the vale;
Rushed through the forest in unequal flight --
Your ancient saints would tremble at the sight --
Caught the swift boar and swifter deer with ease,
And worked a thousand miracles like these.
To public views he added private ends,
And loved his country most, and next his friends.
With courage long he strove to ward the blow,
(Courage we all respect e'en in a foe),
And when each effort he in vain had tried,
Kindled the flame in which he bravely died!
To Tammany let well-filled horns go round;
His fame let every honest tongue resound;
With him let every generous patriot vie
To live in freedom, or with honor die!
Nor shall I think my labors too severe,
Since ye, wise sachems, kindly deign to hear.
**and a belated Happy St. George's Day!**
Hey babe, how's it hangin'?
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