I could blog all night about how much we loved watching baseball at Telus Field, and I would be complimentary of the Edmonton Oilers for an amazing job in running the team and making nights & days at Telus Field a great family entertainment product. If the Oilers can’t make a team in this league fly, frankly no owner can. (I DO wonder if with a first rate owner like the Oilers involved, Edmonton couldn’t take another run at a Triple A league team; but I digress).

So as I sit here, wishing for baseball, and wondering about how our great community can withstand such a hole in it’s summer schedule, I day-dream about something else we could do with the Telus Field. Here is my crazy idea:

A 100 team Slow-pitch tournament. A corporate challenge if you will.

• 100 Teams
• Played out over the May – September baseball season
• $1000 per team entry (proceeds to the United Way)
• City donates the field (less whatever they make in Beer and Hot Dog Sales)
• $1.00 per person entry ticket (proceeds to the United Way)
• A “March-Madness” style tournament where the 100 teams play down into a “City Championship”
• CRAZY uniforms, and mascots encouraged
• Throw in some local celebrity teams as wild-card games on a couple weekend evenings with concerts & fireworks
• FUN encouraged, and over $150,000 raised for the United Way

It’s crazy, would be fun and the Oilers could do the administration / logistics of the tournament. BECAUSE WE ARE LENDING THEM A COUPLE HUNDRED MILLION for a new arena

Why not Edmonton? Why not Oilers?

As I drive along, holding my hands in front of the heater vent, I curse myself for not buying a car with a heated steering wheel.

I ponder what it would actually cost buy a properly engineered luxury vehicle, with heat embedded into the leather of the steering wheel; as opposed to the existing new German luxury automobile I own now.

This morning I actually super-imposed the thought of my cold hands, into a math equation. Wondering what kind of stock market movement would need to happen, for me to buy this new marvel of heat purveyance, of course without taking on any debt. The answer; if bank stocks fell by 10% this year, I could buy a new car, and warm my hands like a proper modern gentleman.

Gloves never cross my mind.

This is a true story, and a telling metaphor for my life.

Dolphins are smart, beautiful and whimsical. Humans, perhaps out of envy, perhaps deservedly, look up to dolphins. This is why the film tells of the “best” dolphins avoiding slaughter and being shipped to far-off dolphin parks, where humans can marvel at them, and for $119 USD, swim with them. Kiss them.

I watched the film this year with my family. The women cried and I beamed my manly rage of protest, my disgust in us… all of us humans. “Our social consciousness seems to be battling, and winning, against Darwin’s theories of evolution”….. I silently raged from my very comfortable, wealthy white-man pulpit, known as the leather recliner.  Certainly we humans are better than this.

I confess to you, I am not.

I’ll start with the defense, and the crime will become obvious. I am want for nothing. I have wealth, health, a beautiful and loving spouse, and two daughters whom mean as much to me as oxygen. And not oxygen in it’s basic, keep you alive form, but that rarified hospital delivered oxygen, which practically gives you life.

So, I confess, I felt no option this morning but to treat my girls to the opportunity of swimming with the beautiful and whimsical caged dolphins of the Bahia Principe Resort. The girls laughed, smiled and marveled at such a decibel, I have neither regret nor guilty conscience. Truth is, when it really comes down to it, I’d probably slaughter a truckload of dolphins for them if it were necessary, assuming dolphins were portioned by the truckload. Thankfully it isn’t and they are not.

You could argue that the only principled stand on “captive dolphin experiences” is to boycott, shame, protest and embarrass them out of existence. That is perfectly reasonable and I would respect and listen to that.

I know, and would argue with you, that my girls might have been just as happy or happier to join me in protest instead. Creating an even stronger bond between father and daughter, one based on principled ideals and the best of humanity.

But we caved.  We took the easy hit of happiness. $119 USD gave them instant gratification from the chance to experience what only a small percentage of humans get to do. $157 got the HD-DVD and 163 professionally shot images. (The dolphins are in the pool, but the sharks are trying to sell you pictures afterward).

I am no further along the evolutionary process than I was yesterday, and quite possibly I have gone backwards. But as I reflect on the big and small guilt, mistakes and missed opportunities which accumulate in one’s life… I am glad to have a family to share all of them with. Even if we are not perfect… we are not perfect together. Which I suppose is why you need a family in the first place.

Happy New Year… hug your kids, and donate to save the dolphins.

Edmonton Mayor - Stephen Mandel

Who calls the Mayor of the 4th largest City in the country to complain about the snow in front of their individual house? If you answered “Bat-Shit” crazy people, you are half right. If you answered “people who look to the Mayor when they are very frustrated, BUT are also Bat-Shit crazy”, then you would be 100% right. My point? Some people expect our elected officials to dote over their every need. I personally think it’s crazy… but it is the way that some people have used to connect to their elected official for many years.

We idolize elected officials who take these calls and solve these problems. No matter how inefficient and ridiculous these requests may be.

Now imagine with me a web-based technology where our Mayor, or any Mayor, could have that conversation with the individual citizen, in plain view of thousands of other citizens. The level of responsiveness would of course be direct, as well as provide a highly amplified/leveraged way to also send the same message to the thousands watching.

So you know, that technology exists, and it’s called Twitter,

Calgary Mayor - Naheed Nenchi

So when I read this article by Calgary Herald Journalist Karen Klassen, I laughed out loud. Her’s is a desperate attempt to suggest that “Real Mayors Don’t Tweet”. For some reason, Ms. Klassen thinks that “tweeting” is for the kid-set, perhaps those who like to play on their iPhones in-between games of Angry Birds. She was attacking Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary.

She is dead wrong.

Twitter is to many tech savvy citizens as the telephone is to disgruntled citizens who prefer that tool. The difference, which she fails to appreciate, is that Twitter is real-time and viewed by thousands. It can be the most efficient way for any public figure to engage one individual, while allowing a whole group to participate in the discussion.

When reading her article, I replaced “Tweet” with telephone, and I began to appreciate the hands-on service Mayor Nenshi of Calgary and Mayor Stephen Mandel are providing their citizens using the medium of social media. It’s efficient, responsive and transparent. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey has become a national icon by using this medium to rally his citizens to identify potholes, exercise more, and take more personal responsibility for their communities. It’s ONE way to communicate with citizens, and should be no more dismissed than the Mayor taking a phone call to his/her office.

Ms. Klassen also misses the bigger picture about the impact of Twitter on her industry, the newspaper medium. Real stories, the REAL pulse of her community, are being discussed every day on Twitter. By rejecting the medium, she is missing many stories. She mistakenly makes the medium her story, by showing disdain for it, when the real story will always be what is being discussed in the medium.

She is a dinosaur, and she will soon be left behind by the citizen journalist, the social-media connected professional journalist and the web-savvy citizen.

Good riddance.

Grane Prairie Mayor - Bill Given

(Afterthought: Many great Mayors are active and accessible on Twitter. One who has become almost 100% accessible to his community, and by doing so has transformed the role of Mayor… is my friend Bill Given of my hometown Grande Prairie. He get’s the value as much as any politician I know.)

However tonight, I came to a somewhat selfish realization that for at least one thing, I am very proud of MYSELF as a father; let me share with you the reason why.

I have two children. Both girls, one 18 and the other 13. They each are individual in their nature and demeanor, but it was this one topic, which intrigued me tonight.

Religion.

One daughter is religious and openly practicing religion by attending church weekly, participating in “prayer discussion” and learning about the bible and Christianity. She seems to gravitate to larger groups, loves team sports, and gains energy from consensus and a feeling of belonging. She is a caretaker, and is always the first to try and find a common ground when the family is fighting (especially her parents).

The other is a non-believer by any standard, skeptical of organized religions, and although spiritual in some natural ways, has little time for any man-defined version of a “God”. But she loves the premise of humanity and us caring for those who are disadvantaged. She values equality, freedom and has a highly tuned sense of social consciousness.  A future human rights lawyer; her dad hopes.

Jill and I have influenced neither in the area of religion; but I see bits of each of us in both of them. We have never attended a church service with our children, refuse to enforce any particular religious tradition or ideas on them, and yet strongly encourage open thinking.

Somehow we have a bible-thumper and atheist (maybe agnostic) in our midst. In the category of religion, we ended up with independent thinking, if not polar-opposite children. For this, I am proud.

My children know what I DO value. Authenticity, self-confidence, respect for diversity, and a wholesale demand for honesty with oneself– coupled with the demeanor to stand up for those things.

The fact that they can openly practice different beliefs, in our same one-house, means we are doing something right.

For that I am very proud.

I have always been impressed with their rapid and topical communications on day-to-day events, even if sometimes they do seem to be reaching a bit. But today I was struck with the particularly negative / abrasive tone to their message. I am not a big fan of complete negativity. I love satire, I like tounge-in-cheek, but I really don’t like a baseball bat of meanness on every message. My hunch, which is completely unprofessional, is that Albertans will reject this type of politics. We may be fiercely independent, risk-taking cowboys and cowgirls here in Alberta; but we still subscribe to some good old-fashioned western manners.

Here’s an excerpt from the most recent email to Alliance supporters:

Dear friends,

They did it again.

For years, the PC Party has drifted farther and farther from Albertans’ core values - and they’ve become just as arrogant and scornful of democracy and conservative principles as the federal Liberals ever were.  But this fall, they had one last chance to get back on track. (Underline added by me…. you gotta love the reference to the Federal Liberals. Like that gun still has bullets).

Instead, they chose Alison Redford as their leader.  The PCs were hoping that by picking her, Albertans would be lulled back to sleep and go back to supporting their worn-out, 40-year dynasty.  But boy, were they wrong!  Redford has had one of the shortest political honeymoons I can think of.  Her claim to be an “agent of change” has been exposed as a sham, as she hides from accountability by trying to cancel the fall sitting of the Legislature and refusing to say when the next election will be. (emphasis is theirs).

That’s why today, we launched our first TV ad campaign, spotlighting some of the many ways the Redford government continues to fail Alberta.   It lets people know that now there is a better way, with new leadership and a new government: a Wildrose government.

Beyond the nastiness in the newsletter, we are informed of some new Television Advertising about to hit the airwaves…. now I am really starting to feel like I am in Texas… and the guns are blazing for the Governor’s mansion.

And finally… what I love best…. Danielle Smith’s last line in the video “Albertans are tired of politicians who will do anything for power“. If that were true, then I really look forward to hearing more from the fiscal hawk Alliance on why their party is hell bent on buying an airport in the middle of our City, which loses nearly $90M a year in opportunity cost revenue for the City of Edmonton. Since we can be assured that this was not simply doing politics for power, the justification of a nearly Billion $$ policy initiative without member endorsement, must be strong indeed.

I can’t wait to hear all about it. Assuming they can justify buying an airport…. maybe they’ll take our old bridge too?

There  is ONE political party that has governed for 40 years and seems to be so hell bent on staying in power, that for the last few years have been making decisions based on what will save them electorally, not what’s best for Alberta. They are now choosing a safe leader, a past Cabinet Minister/ Insider, one who in my opinion will be faced with an immediate internal struggle the party has yet to have to ever weather.

There is ONE that has struggled for 90 years since last forming government, and has been forced to take it’s biggest gamble yet. Bringing in a lightning rod outsider, with the hopes of putting a new coat of paint on a broken model. They refuse to change the engine and chassis of the party, thinking a fast driver can fix an old car.  As someone else has said, this will end badly; and like a fast driver behind the wheel of an unsound car, it might get messy.

There is ONE that has never governed and is considered too fiscally progressive for an Alberta that will be an economic powerhouse for decades to come, and it’s citizens who would like for it to remain that.

There are TWO parties which are NEW and deserve our attention. In my opinion, these are the two parties that will eventually dominate the political landscape of Alberta in the next 2 – 40 years. I am not going to insult you and argue that the Alberta Party or the Wildrose Alliance Party are going to form government in as little as 6 weeks, in fact the three parties above will be spending every last bit of their waning political capital and electoral options to prevent it. But I make this prediction based on one simple observation; these two parties have the luxury of building themselves from the ground up,. They both genuinely want to reengage new voters, give more direct power to citizens with meaningful electoral reform, balance the budget, and drive transparency into caucus and government decision making.

But, in my opinion, there is ONLY ONE Party, The Alberta Party, that can give Albertans a government which;

• respects our powerhouse energy economy while working to build another, knowledge based one for our future,
• understands the difference between responsible and “conservative” fiscal planning, providing stable long-term funding and measuring returns on investment differently
• celebrates the diversity and differences of our people, seeing in it another “Alberta Advantage”
• sees a role for government to care for those constituencies who can’t protect themselves, people and our beautiful natural environment

If you want to learn more about the new Alberta Party, I encourage you to bring your family and friends to an information event we are hosting at Enterprise Square, this Wednesday September 21st. A great opportunity to learn about our polices, meet some of our candidates, executives and great volunteers from Constituencies all across the Capital region. Come get involved!

Learn more about the Alberta Party - This Wednesday!

This leads me to a very simple question: Will they do the right thing and properly investigate and discipline the leadership contender that violated the confidentiality agreement – BEFORE the September 17th, vote? It’s patently unfair for a PC member to have to vote on September 17th, knowing there is a 17% chance their candidate has no respect for their privacy. It simply goes without saying that at the very least the Party should disclose the violator, even with a wrist slap, so the Party members can vote with this important information. (And let’s be honest, there will be 10′s of thousands of regular Albertans who will chose to vote in this race, regardless of normal party affiliation, to participate in the selection of the next Premier).

So, Bill Smith, will you govern yourselves accordingly?

Edmonton Streetcar

I was driving around downtown today and admit was thinking about the great things we have done, and some of the even greater things we have on tap for Edmonton’s downtown. Then I drove over the High Level Bridge and marveled at the people out in Garneau, and finally along Whyte Avenue. It came to me how much of a shame it was that these all vibrant locations were not really that easy to visit together without getting into your car and driving from one to the other. Sure an active person could easily do them all on a bicycle, but that’s much less likely to happen when it comes to tourists and regular fat guys like me.

So I started to dream a little about the possibility of extending the High Level Streetcar into a year-round transportation link between the three. Like San Fransisco’s trolley system, I wonder aloud if we could spend some money and create a nostalgic yet functional extension of the existing system. Imagine with me for a second what it might mean for our city if we had the following:

-  An expanded station behind the Stathcona Farmers Market where at least a 2-car system could function and turn-around.

-  A station at the base of the High-Level bridge in Garneau, where passengers could disembark for the Garneau area

-  A stop at the existing station behind 109th street near the Legislature

-  Extend the track from 109th street running along the centre of Jasper Avenue

-  Add a stop at 104th street and Jasper

-  Extend the track east along Jasper to 99th street with a turn northbound on 99th Street (close the street north to Churchill)

-  A station at Churchill and 99th street with a “turnaround” on the east border of Churchill in front of the AGA

I know it seems like a big investment, and maybe it’s simply too difficult to pull off. But maybe not, and perhaps it would add a significant local and tourist amenity that would compliment several great existing Edmonton landmarks, like Whyte Avenue (Market), Garneau, The Legislature, Capital Blvd, 104th street, and Churchill Sq.

Why not dream?

Here is a VERY amateur plan I created in 5 minutes using my screen capture software.

The Edmonton Connector

But his op-ed today in the New York Times has people raising their eyebrows. In the article, Buffett states in his folksy way that the super-rich should pay more in taxes. I was alarmed, and to be honest had thought for a second that maybe the “Oracle of Omaha” was losing his mind. If money was a religion and to some it’s darn close, you might even think he was “Losing his religion”.

Obviously some super wealthy, and their political friends, have argued that he has no idea what he is talking about. I actually first fell for the counter-argument many were making, when it was cast that Buffett’s idea was actually supporting “double-taxation”, as paying income tax rates on dividends and capital gains usually is. As Buffett suggests, most high-wealth individuals don’t earn a “salary” like us regular folk,  but actually make their money “with their money”. If that was what Buffett was saying, (taxing normal capital gains or dividends at income tax rates) then I would line up to dunk him at the Bershire Hathaway shareholder meeting dunk-tank.

But that’s not what he was saying. As is often the case when you really listen to what he is saying, he is simply suggesting a common sense review of a financial system of “loopholes” that have pervaded the financial system. What Buffett was arguing is the end to two taxation “loopholes” that have been created over time. Not created even on purpose, but more have simply failed to evolve in a time where the capital markets have changed dramatically.

1) Firstly, Buffett tells us about “carried-interest“, which is basically trading profit made by hedge funds. To try to keep this really simple, a hedge fund is a private, aggressively managed investment fund, using others peoples money to trades all kinds of different things to make a profit. The trading of these funds is the “job” of the hedge fund owner/manager, but the owner manager does not pay tax on their profits as “income” like you and I do. The US government has a taxation loophole that allows hedge funds to avoid reporting their profits as income, and can take the first large percentage of their profits as carried-interest (at the capital gains lower tax rate). The typical carried-interest is 20% but it can range as high as 50%.

So, for a moment, even I thought that Buffett was going nuts; taxing profit after they had already been taxed. It turns out he is actually suggesting that these profits are simply taxed as they should be. The income of the hedge-fund manager.

2) Secondly, Buffett argues against a trend that is becoming very prevalent these days. Allowing “traders” to move in and out of certain investments in time-frames as short as milliseconds and pay the lower tax rate allowed under capital gains exemptions. NOW, I have to tell you… I love to do this. not the milliseconds part, as I have yet to figure that out; but I certainly enjoy making multiple short-term trades sometimes holding stocks or ETF’s for only minutes, then selling them for a profit. But I can easily see that this is not what capital-gains in the original sense was meant for. Back before computer based trading, and when one’s investments were made with a longer-term vision, capital gains were easy to understand. In that context, hey incent people to invest their money into markets that need risk-takers to help capitalize them. Lend money to your brother-in-law to start a car-wash, or buy a rental property. Even invest in a public-company so they can buy equipment, hire sales-people or open new markets. But buy a 3X’s leveraged stock ETF, holding it for a minute and selling it a minute later for a profit, and even I will argue that you are providing no social value for your investment. You are simply creating in an other income source.

Again, this is not a lack of understanding of the economic system by Buffett. It’s a criticism for sure, but one that has some merit. Buffett has written in his autobiography that he is a proponent of changing this “loophole” so people who hold investments for certain minimum amounts of time would qualify for capital gains. You may disagree with that as a policy, but it’s a point worth-debate.

So there you have it. If you fell for the folksy charm of a billionaire today saying that he and his rich friends need to pay more taxes. Now you at least should understand the wisdom behind it. If you were one of few people I know, or one of the rich pundits who criticized Buffett for not understanding economics, I would argue that both you and he probably know exactly what he meant, but he is the one with the guts to at least have the conversation.