Sweet Home Alberta, Where the Ground's A Slick Hue

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard old Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
The CPC don't need him around anyhow

Neil Young has made some headlines of late.  He's declared the Alberta Oil Sands a man-made disaster, going so far as to compare Fort McMurray to a Hiroshima-like wasteland.

This was a bit over-the-top; Hiroshima was a crowded city that was flattened with the intent of massacring everyone in a demonstration of force to cow the Japanese military machine. 

Comparisons between the Oil Sands and Mordor are far more appropriate - it is a landscape rendered inhospitable by activity designed to grow profit and power.  Nobody (no human being, at any rate) was living there, so no direct effort to harm people has been at play.  

The Oil Companies are doing what they are supposed to do - finding easy ways to profit and maximize their profit through the cheapest means of production possible.  Alberta is benefiting from the oil-generated wealth, so from an economic point of view, they're happy.  

The Stephen Harper Government of Canada is determined to slay the deficit, reduce public services and get everyone focused where they should be - on profit and consumerism - so they're all for expansion in the Alberta Oil Sands.  Drill more, sell more, diversify markets, get all Canada working in the natural resource sector - what can go wrong in this picture?

Well, a lot, actually.  Lots has been written about the impact of Oil Sands development on the flora and fauna of the region (what was there before, not so much now), but it's the leakage and potential impact on people that's of gravest concern.  Since 2009, for instance, there have been correlations made between higher-than-usual cancer rates in First Nations communities around the Oil Sands development region.  It's taken years of intense lobbying to even get to a point where studies are being done on this correlation to see if and how a connection might be made.

This probably annoys the Feds to know end; they're trying to get out of the healthcare business and focus on the economy and all this health-and-oil stuff is a big inconvenience.  Like a dentist-weary patient with a growing cavity, it's one of those things best ignored in the hopes that the problem will just stay as it is and not get in the way of extracting all that black sugar.

So, through a spokesperson, Stephen Harper weighed in with his response to Mister Young:

"The resource sector creates economic opportunities and employs tens of thousands of Canadians in high-wage jobs, contributing to a standard of living that is envied around the world and helping fund programs and services Canadians rely on." 

It's so true.  If Albertans weren't making good money off the Oil Sands, who could the provincial government tax to pay for cancer treatments for First Nations folk?

Team Harper has gone on to criticize Neil Young as being a bit of the pot calling the kettle tar-black; 

"Even the lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day."

This is also true.  Just look at Mike Duffy, former fundraising superstar for the CPC - you think that sort of lifestyle comes cheap?  The same, incidentally, applies to former Ontario Conservative MPP Peter Shurman; his boss Tim Hudak wanted to keep Shurman's high-wattage star in Thornhill despite knowing he lived in Niagara; that kind of star power demands a certain privilege.  

If you want to talk about Canadian celebrities, though, even Neil Young has nothing on Rob Ford.  Celebrities are supposed to attract attention and catalyze opinion (Ford or against).  

Toronto's Mayor has become the world's most famous Canadian and loves the attention he gets; the problem is, being a a celebrity is really disruptive to the work of Toronto's Council.

More time is spent discussing Ford follies, more media ink is wasted on following the latest scandal than is being spent addressing the critical issues addressing the city - and the country.

Toronto has been repeatedly paralyzed due to the celebrity of its Mayor, much as Canadian Politics is often mired in the notoriety of its Senators.  Scrutiny is a good thing, but it's only part of the role of Parliaments and Councils - weighing the public's varied interests and setting direction and policy, one would think, are at least as important.

Yes, Neil Young has generated headlines over his comments.  Yes, policy makers like Stephen Harper are telling him to keep his nose out of business that's not his.  But the Oil Sands aren't just about the economic opportunities for Oil Companies, the province of Alberta or federal coffers; it's an environmental and health issue as well.  

In a democracy, such things are the public's business.  Given how cynical and disengaged Canadians have become due to the cynical spin of politicians and their spokespersons, any fan of transparency, dialogue and citizen engagement should welcome the intervention of non-political celebrities like Neil Young.

Love him or hate him, agree or disagree with what he says, Young's turning focus back to where in needs to be and catalyzing a conversation that our political celebrities and the Oil Companies themselves have failed to do.

So I hope Mister Harper will remember
As he puts old Neil down
That Canada's about more than money
That we're built on common ground.

Rob Ford on the Road to Damascus

"This is an absolutely staggering figure that puts pressure on our city," he said.  "At this point we need the province and the federal government to step up and assist us with these clean-up costs."

It's really easy to tell people to live within their means and blame them for poor planning when they falter.  Rob Ford has done so more than once.  

But life doesn't always respect one's means; an unexpected accident, a sudden illness or accumulated injuries both physical and mental can get in the way.  When the demands of life exceed your means of sustainability, what then?

That's where Toronto is at with the clean-up.  

Toronto has powers of taxation.  It's got a lot of really wealthy people and strong businesses that, being as committed to planning ahead as they are, should be investing in their community to promote the kind of sustainability that will improve their business opportunities in the future.

Yet here we are, two majors storms in and more expected in the near future, looking for assistance from other levels of government.  This is in spite of Ford's so-called gravy-cutting, too.

This doesn't make Toronto weak; it makes us human.  $60 million is too much for the city; scale down, and it can be a few thousand, or even the cost of groceries that's out reach for individuals.  It's the exact same thing - only the scale differs.

There's a lesson in this.

The Politics of Living Within Our Means

Humans are a very adaptable species.  We've seen people grow used to slums, adjust to concentration camps, learn to live with what fate hands them.  If our future is to continuously degrade our planet, lose plant after plant, animal after animal, forgetting what we once enjoyed, adjusting to lesser circumstances, never shouting, "That's it!" - always making do, I wouldn't call that "success."

I would imagine that a bit of both theories - human degradation of the ecosystem as well as the introduced rat population - are correct.  People like to think in linear, one-off terms; co-morbidity is generally too much for us to fathom.  

There's plenty of precedent for each theory (the collapse of the Mayan civilization for the former, the death or decimation of countless species in the Americas from the introduction of humans during the Ice Age through to colonization and even purple loostrife).  Easter Island's not that big a place, after all.  

It's the other piece that I find really fascinating, though - the notion of our ability to adapt to ever worsening conditions.  This is totally true, and true for a reason.  Like any species, we are designed to survive, by whatever means necessary.  

You're right, this is exactly what the Republicans do, and it's about time we learned from them.  They're more disciplined than we are.  I've been in this business for twenty five years and I have seen way too many Democrats bite the dust because they wouldn't get down in the mud with the fucking elephants.

Playing dirty, playing hard, culling the weak and taking every opportunity to muddy or bloody your opponents - that's survival of the fittest.  When there can be only one winner and the prize is power, anything you can get away with goes.  Envelopes get pushed, circles get smaller and eventually, you end up with oligarchies and dictatorships.

It's interesting to note that right now in Canadian politics, as elsewhere, we're seeing political power increasingly focused in the hands of leaders and their inner courts.  Economically, we've got a shrinking middle class, more wealth concentrated at the top.  What's the message both tiers are passing down to the masses?  "You people need to start learning to live within your means, work harder at pleasing us and then you can earn success, too.

The Canadian government is all about living within its means, as in fully exploiting what it has now, full stop.  We've got natural resources, we've got oil - who needs innovation when there's so much to mine right now?  If budgets are getting tight, simply turn off the taps, make do with less.  That's the ticket to sustainability.

This is what the people are doing.  We're increasingly buying our resources at Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store.  The poorest of the labour force are working three, four jobs trying to earn enough money to keep roofs over the heads of their families and keep food in their children's tummies.

Individuals are learning to live within their means, push off home upgrades, buy cheaper stuff, invest less in savings and education.  It's not The Grapes of Wrath, thankfully, but it's early days yet.

At least, individuals with less are learning to make do with less - those with money and access are continuing to live as they have always done, enjoying the finer things, looking for corners to cut, finding ways to download cuts to others.

Therein lies the biggest problem society faces today.  When the increasingly poor are told to live within their means, because the economy can't support them any more, but they see the wealthy living large, they can see something's wrong.

It's all well and good for the haves to tell the have-nots it's up to them to earn more, but when all the resources are in the hands of a privileged few who refuse to share, what is there to earn?  

The same thing applies to politics.  When the people who keep the trains running are told to work harder, take on more work, sacrifice more for the job - but see the people at the top passing the buck and taking advantage of expense loopholes - they get a little jaded, too.  It's true for the electorate, too.

This is the mood the current conservative wave has been capitalizing on - those who don't live within their means, be they unions, the poor or the urban elites, have been branded as the bad guys.  But those doing the branding are still living pretty large themselves.

Easter Islanders learned to live more simply, giving up on the trappings of civilization - including complex, hierarchical leadership and specialization.  They also didn't live in urban environments, like most of us humans do now.

Cities are manufactured ecosystems that require people to live beyond their individual means to function; if everyone is a gardener, a clothier and a carpenter, nobody is fixing roads, keeping water clean or putting out fires.  

When Cook found Easter Island, people were getting by on what they had, which was less, and had ceased to accomplish great works.  They also had no government.

There's a lesson in this.