>>REVIEW
THE RETURN OF THE TROJAN HORSE: ALBERTA AND THE NEW WORLD (DIS)ORDER
Edited by Trevor W. Harrison
Black Rose Books, 346 pp.
The Return of the Trojan Horse should be required reading for anyone living in Alberta who is just focused on making money as fast as possible and doesn’t give a shit about how the Klein government is running things as long as the economy continues to boom.
The book of essays is a sequel to The Trojan Horse, which was published in 1995 and took aim at the early days of the Klein Revolution. One of the outcomes of the original book was the founding of a left-wing think tank, the Parkland Institute. In the sequel, well-known Alberta journalists, activists and social critics come out swinging on a variety of topics, including the province’s democratic deficit, the fight for women’s and gay and lesbian rights in Alberta, the move towards private health care, Alberta’s looming water crisis, the province’s lack of environmental stewardship, its harsh treatment of the poor and how the government has tried to rein in the labour movement, to name a few.
Some of the writing is too academic and is difficult to wade through. There’s also no pretence of being non-partisan here. Most writers take as many shots at the government as they can within their given space. But in a province where the mainstream media often fawns over the provincial government, the unabashed critique in the book is frankly enjoyable and often thought-provoking. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that we live in a democracy where left-wing points of view can also be represented in the public debate.
There are many strong arguments here that deserve to be heard by as many Albertans as possible. For example, author Jean Lafrance argues there’s a link between the government’s slashing of people from social assistance payrolls and the rising numbers of poor children being taken away from their parents by child welfare. James Byrne says that Alberta is in denial about our looming water crisis and he argues that unrestrained economic development shouldn’t be happening in a province that’s so short of water. And Keith Brownsey provocatively claims that Premier Ralph Klein’s legacy "is the degradation of the democratic principles of parliamentary government" and backs up this assertion well.
The book offers a litany of reasons why Alberta needs new vision and leadership as it moves into the 21st century. |
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