| Parkland Institute conference
The Parkland Institute’s ninth annual conference will reflect upon Alberta 100 years after its creation and will examine where the province should be heading in the future.
"Let’s talk about where Alberta is after 100 years, look a little at our history, try and figure out where it is that we’re going right now, what direction we’re headed, and then start developing some alternative visions of where we could be going as a province," says Ricardo Acuna, executive director of the Parkland Institute.
The conference, which takes place from November 18 to 20 at the University of Alberta, will cover a wide range of topics, including: an examination of human rights abuses in the province; Alberta’s looming water crisis; how oil and gas development is damaging Alberta’s environment’ and Alberta’s role in Canada and the world.
Guest speakers at the conference will include Council of Canadians national chairperson Maude Barlow, historian and author Aritha Van Herk, journalist Andrew Nikiforuk and Globe and Mail columnist Heather Mallick.
One of the more controversial topics at the conference will be journalist Jonah Gindin’s presentation about Venezuala’s socialist revolution funded by the state’s vast oil wealth.
"I’m basically interested in providing some details about a totally different kind of vision about how to use oil wealth," says Gindin. "While everywhere else in the world is cutting back on public spending on social programs, privatizing everything including health and education, Venezuala is moving the exact opposite direction and has, for the first time, created completely universal, accessible and free health care and education…. Venezuala is useful as a model just because it proves there is another option."
Gindin will also speak at the University of Calgary’s Professional Faculty Building, Room 110, on November 21 at 7 p.m.
For more information on the conference, go to www.ualberta.ca/parkland or call 780-492-8558.
Protest against Calgary Downtown Association’s anti-panhandling campaign
The activist group Food Not Bombs will hold a protest outside the Calgary Downtown Association’s (CDA) office on November 22 to protest the organization’s anti-panhandling campaign.
The CDA has launched a campaign to discourage Calgarians from donating to panhandlers, arguing that most panhandlers use the money to feed addictions to drugs and alcohol. The campaign has featured ads in local papers (including Fast Forward) with photos of professionally dressed people holding signs that say "spare change for booze" or "spare change for crack." The organization has also hired people to dress professionally and hold up signs with the same slogans in downtown Calgary.
"Food Not Bombs believes that the campaign encourages negative stereotypes of people in poverty and that their money would be better spent lobbying governments for changes that would affect the causes of poverty, such as affordable housing, rather than targeting the victims," says a Food Not Bombs press release.
The protest will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at 304-8 Avenue S.W. It will include a free breakfast.
City council will hold fewer council meetings
Ald. Ric McIver says a decision last week to reduce the number of council meetings every month from three to two will decrease public accountability and damage the democratic process.
McIver says meetings already can run as long as 12 hours and if there are fewer meetings, he questions how council will get everything done in "a timely fashion."
"Either the meetings will go a lot longer, which doesn’t make for better decisions, or the meetings will be shorter because people are in a hurry," says McIver. "There won’t be any public debate in the council chambers where it should be, and it will be less transparent so for the public, I don’t see an upside."
Mayor Dave Bronconnier has told the media that a lot of the work council does is already done in standing policy committees, which the public can attend. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.