FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VIEWPOINT Despite the likelihood that Al Duerr will win with another landslide and the same old names will be put back on the city council roster, the 1998 municipal election should be one of the most interesting ever. In a great victory for democracy, Calgarians will be voting on two plebiscites and one Senator-in-limbo. These three votes are surrounded by trends and implications that extend far beyond Calgary's boundaries. The two plebiscites show the political logic that creates consistency out of inconsistency. City council made a quick decision to put a relative non-issue such as fluoride on a ballot. VLTs only made it on the ballot after Calgarians presented council with a 120,000-name petition. City council constantly deals with issues that have larger long-term effects on our lives than fluoride, but they never appear on a ballot. Transportation, taxes and all the other chemicals that are poured into our water, onto our roads, and on our grass and trees are dealt with by council or city employees. Only fluoride is sacrosanct because 40 years ago, Calgarians decided to have a plebiscite on the issue. Once an issue is placed in the hands of the people, it can never be taken away. Woe to the politicians that overturn a decision on which the people have spoken, even if, as in most municipal elections, the people are only 30 to 40 per cent of voters. The debate on fluoride is now littered with scientific and pseudo-scientific claims. Science is no closer to an answer than it was during the last plebiscite. It leaves two questions, neither of which will be on the ballot. Why is city council wasting our time on this issue? Facing a deficit of millions of dollars, why is the Calgary Regional Health Authority, a body responsible for our health, not our teeth, spending $250,000 to tell us the benefits of fluoride? It may be good for your teeth, but on the health side it is either neutral or unhealthy. The chance that fluoride can be bad for you makes the CRHA's actions irresponsible. As for the other plebiscite, VLTs are unhealthy for politicians' careers, and city council knows it. Caught between hotel and bar owners, social welfare groups and churches, and the provincial government, city council will not show any leadership on such a touchy issue. Council was not going to make a decision on VLTs. It would not even send the issue to a plebiscite, unless the public told it to. Now that it is the people's decision, 40 years from now you will still be voting on whether some form of gambling should be allowed in Calgary. And people worry about too much progress. Albertans love VLTs, and that love has created one of the greatest social debates ever to occur during a municipal election. The battle lines appear clear - purveyors of sin (booze and gambling, anyway) and the provincial government are lined up against social workers and church leaders. Thirty or more years of institutionalized gambling, however, make a mockery of any efforts to paint this as a black-and-white issue. Gambling is everywhere in Alberta - church bingos, casinos and lottery tickets are all a part of the gambling culture that most tried to ignore until the VLTs arrived. Who controls gambling and its revenue and for what purpose is integrated into the layers of government and society. VLTs are the most efficient and technologically advanced form of taking a gambler's money away. VLTs net $500 million annually for the provincial government, funding the government was hoping to rely on for its social programs when the economy hit the skids. On the other side, gamblers and their families can pay a terrible price for this expensive addiction. This complex social issue, however, will be decided by a most blunt instrument, a plebiscite that says "yes" or "no" to banning VLTs. There will be no room for the freedoms of many to be balanced with the needs of a few, and Albertans will be no further ahead in dealing with the real issues that revolve around gambling. Other than giving the rest of the country a laugh at the expense of Alberta, the Senate election can only be chalked up as another failure in Alberta's Senate reform efforts. Only time will tell how much this fiasco has hurt the Klein government's credibility in constitutional reform matters. If the Calgary Declaration helped Alberta's reputation in redefining federalism, this clumsy, unilateral attempt to reform a federal institution has undermined any of those gains. Klein's inappropriate remarks about appointed Senator Doug Roche have done the same for the premier's aspirations to become a player on the federal level. All in all, it is a lot for a little municipal election. Enjoy; you will not get another one like it until the next fluoride plebiscite. |