Wow. Look at this. There are other places in Canada that are stuck in the 19th century aside from Ontario!

A Catholic education is the only local option for the Kirsop family and everyone else in Morinville, Alta., a community of 8,100 northwest of Edmonton. It’s a unique situation, rooted in the town’s origins as an outpost of French-Canadian Catholicism in the late 1800s. But this fall, when five-year-old Sarah Kirsop declared she had converted to Catholicism, her mother joined a group of local families who are challenging the status quo.

If one of my kids came home and said that – I’d move elsewhere.

So it’s not only Ontario where an anachronistic and duplicate system of education dawdles along. The unfortunate folks of Morinville Alberta have no choice but to enroll their children in a non-secular system.

Morinville’s unique situation, in which the only public school board is a religious one, came about through the collision of that history with a redrawing of the district maps 16 years ago.

Only Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta still have patchworks of public and separate, protestant and Catholic school divisions. Over the years, protestant divisions have become secular and many have amalgamated with like-minded neighbours. Mass amalgamations in 1995 in Alberta left Morinville being serviced by a single public Catholic board, while the region’s secular board, the Sturgeon School Division, was confined to areas around Morinville.

Time to take apart these patchworks, wouldn’t you say? The simple economics of dual systems will eventually kill the non-secular systems, but this will take time – and political guts.

Who will have the balls to stand up and start the process to end this? These systems are wasteful and discriminatory but will likely need a Constitutional amendment to make it happen. Mr. Hudak? Ms. Horwath? It is clear that Mr. McGuinty won’t take the lead here.

Will either of you?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

So here’s the thing, we all know that the tar sands are having a devastating effect on the local environment in northern Alberta. Just ask any duck.
We also know that the GHG emissions resulting from these operations are off the map. AND we know that the stated environmental policy of the Obama admin. is to steer away from “dirty” fuels to “cleaner” ones. So why did the United States approve Enbridge Inc.’s $3.3-billion Alberta Clipper pipeline project yesterday?

The U.S. State Department said allowing construction of the 450,000-barrel-a-day line serves U.S. interests by adding secure oil supplies from outside the OPEC nations at a time when political tensions in some producing regions threaten to interfere with oil shipments. “The department found that the addition of crude oil pipeline capacity between Canada and the United States will advance a number of strategic interests of the United States,” it said.

Most of the oil shipped on the line will come from Canadian oil sands producers, which have been under attack from some U.S. environmental groups and legislators for boosting greenhouse gas emissions because of expanding production in the oil sands in northern Alberta.

The fact is that these facilities exist. They employ people and communities have developed around them and none of this is going to go away overnight; no matter what environmentalists say. Am I in favour of turning the Fort Mac area into Mordor?

Pic of Mordor

Of course not! I think the Alberta government has been negligent to the point of criminality in allowing this project to take place on such a scale and without the appropriate pollution abatement and control technologies in place.

But the reality is that I don’t yet have a time machine to be able to go back and talk some sense into ex- Premier Klein while there was still time to change the course.

Plus, the chickens will come home to roost when the U.S. their deficit and debt hits a breaking point. Then the Yanks may get just desperate enough down the road to march over the border and just take what they want – Canada’s oil AND our water… just watch.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

There are some great observations out in the blogosphere about how some of the Harperite’s crazy cash (aka Economic Stimulus Funding) is being doled out.

I wrote a note about this last week with regards to Clement’s refurbishing of public washrooms in Muskoka. One commenter to that post rightly pointed out that it is the habit of politicians to roll out the ol’ pork barrel when they have the opportunity. I agreed but noted that the ReformCons seem to do it more than the Grits did while in power.

Happily,  we (as in you and I) are giving the spa industry a much needed massage:

The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, today announced the awarding of $200,000 in repayable funding to Spa Le Montagnais under the Community Economic Diversification Initiative – Vitality to undertake the work necessary to establish a Nordic spa… The coexistence of a Nordic spa with other local attractions is bound to attract novelty-seeking visitors.

But giving 4 million smackeroos to a private christian school? Well that takes the cake and it strongly offensive for a hell-bound(1) atheist like me.

I thought we were a secular nation… you know… all that separation of church and state and stuff.

If so, why are Canadian taxpayers footing part of the bill for this project? IMO, this is clearly a case where the religious right is being thanked for its unwavering support for the Harperite socially conservative agenda.

Thanks to Paulitics for pointing this out.

Question – who goes to these schools? There does seem to be a lot of them. Especially out west.

Anyhow, we’re gonna see a lot more of this crap, so I am already planning out the 3rd pork barrelling post, and the fourth and the fifth….

1. As an atheist, I obviously don’t believe in the existence of a heaven or hell, or valhalla… or leprechauns either. But christians sure think I’m destined for fire and brimstone!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Alberta parents will soon be able to cherry-pick what their kids can and cannot be taught in the province’s schools.

Think that gays and lesbians are hell-bound monstrosities sent to earth by Satan?

No worries!  You can pull your kid out of the class that teaches about sexual orientation (and I guess tolerance and human rights might be taught in these classes too!)

Think that humans were created by a big bearded guy who lives in the sky?

Piece of cake! That Grade 9 biology class where they teach that pesky little “theory” called evolution is NO place for little Johnny!

School boards will have to give parents written advance notice any time classes deal “primarily or explicitly” with religion, human sexuality and sexual orientation, or risk facing a human rights complaint as punishment..

This is obviously a move designed to keep the christian wackos happy and the back wood rednecks from reachin’ for their guns.

I have no problem at all with parents choosing how they want little Johnny or Jane taught. That’s what private schools are for.  But if you want to suck at the teat of publicly-funded education, then accept the curriculum as designed by the educators!

Next thing you know, they’ll have separate but publicly-funded school baords and schools based on religion or language!

Wait a minute, that’s Ontario!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario