Edmonton Headlines: Friday, May 19, 2017

I don’t know why our school boards don’t have taxing power. Right now the Edmonton Public School Board is hoping new high schools get built in time for an expected crush of students in a few years. Trustees will make political moves, and push for the construction, but they don’t ultimately control their own revenue, so it does depend on the decision of the provincial government of the day.

Maybe high school students will just have a night shift.

I know, with the long list of issues facing schools in Alberta taxing power is pretty much near the bottom of the list, but I’m just musing here on a Friday morning.

Speaking of reading and writing… St. Albert residents have halted a new library because of taxes. *sigh*

I should clarify. More than 10% of the people living in St. Albert have halted a new library. And over a minor tax increase to increase the capabilities and programming of the city’s library system too. This one is likely going to be a referendum question during the October municipal elections.

Around the city

As Edmonton prepares to look at all new ways to run our transit system, we could see distance-based fares, especially for those coming into the city from the rest of the capital region.

Edmonton Police received more than three complaints every day last year, an increase over 2015.

The federal government is making it easier for cities to open supervised injection and drug consumption sites. Edmonton is currently waiting to hear back on four sites around our downtown.

The last year has been a big one for the University of Alberta as it set a fundraising record.

Our historic Mill Creek bridges will be kept around and restored.

Mill Creek Trestle Bridge, photo by Jeffery J. Nichols (Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

You See Pee

They did it!

Oh, wait, they didn’t. But they announced how they might do it!

“It” is, of course, the long awaited amalgamation of Alberta’s centre-right and far-right parties into what is now known as the United Conservative Party, or UCP.

Basically, if you hate taxes, if you question climate change, if you wonder if we really need to treat gay people and women with respect they’re asking for and you love goatees, this new party could be for you. I could be wrong on some of those items but the new party doesn’t have policies or direction yet so we’ll have to wait to dig into the details. Stick around this summer for members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties to vote on joining forces.

And, yes, people reacted to the UCP name in a hilariously juvenile way. But it sure made a boring political announcement fun to watch on Twitter.

As angry as those two right wing parties are about our economy, Alberta is supposed to lead the country this year. Thanks, NDP.

Speaking of free enterprise… the provincial government has a new loan to help bail out all the oil and gas companies that have left the province dotted with abandoned wells.

I think that loan to help cleanup well sites speaks to the larger political picture in Alberta. While the right wing parties have spent the first half of the term (two years now) trying to figure out how to join forces and will spend the second half figuring out how a new party will work (another two years), the NDP government has rolled out bill after bill, policy modernization after policy modernization and the province will be in a better place in 2019 regardless of that election’s results.

And finally…

Canada’s media continues to double-down on its whiteness, so let’s listen to someone we should be hearing from on cultural appropriation.

Here are a few good tips on spotting “fake” news. Or just bad news, really.

And it’s the long weekend, so let’s talk about some upgrades to our provincial parks. Thanks, NDP.