Hello Chestermere! It has been an incredible week, and I want to again thank so many of you who take the time to invite us to your events, associations, meetings and into your homes. We have posted most of our adventures this week on Facebook so please follow us!
I would like to single out a very important person to our community this week. This lovely woman travels from Olds everyday to work in our community, and I followed her this week as she works with many of us to improve the community and bring the relevant stakeholders together under one roof to discuss important issues. Sharron Matthewman who is the coordinator for Community and Neighbourhood Services, City of Chestermere has been very busy between the Seniors Coalition Inaugural Meeting with the Action Group for Aging in Place to the Chestermere/SE Rocky View Inter-Agency meeting and all of the other incredible things she does, including carving out some time to speak with me. Sharron’s contact information is 403-207-7050. This incredible person is truly a gift to our community. She is doing an incredible amount of outreach to new members of our community, so please reach out to her and let her know about upcoming events, and cultural events. She wants to meet you! Thank you, Sharron for your dedication to our community. It has been wonderful to watch you at work this week, and I look forward to working together. Sharron is circulating a survey regarding a senior’s facility in Chestermere, and aging in place. If you are a resident of Chestermere, please take the time to fill out the survey.
I would also like to talk about the Community Therapy Dog Society (CTDS), and our wonderful Steve and Marilynn King who run Listening Tails at our schools. CTDS is a volunteer driven organization that now has more than 86 dogs which they bring to schools, hospitals, and seniors facilities under the names “Listening Tails”, Visiting Tails”, and “Caring Tails”. With “Listening Tails” students read their books to a very happy puppy that simply wags its tail and does not judge. It truly makes a difference in the lives of all who are involved, the child, the handler and the dog. The mandate is helping people one dog at a time, and their mission is “TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF PEOPLES’ LIVES BY PROVIDING A POSITIVE CONNECTION WITH THERAPY DOGS.” We are so honoured to have this program and such wonderful people and puppies in our community. You bring so much joy to so many people.
Finally, I would like to speak about the cap on our oilsands. You may remember a person with the name Tzeporah Berman. She is an environmental activist who was hired with your tax dollars to work on the OSAG panel (oil sands advisory group) to make decisions and recommendations to advise the NDP government here in Alberta. The NDP paid her $23,000 to advocate against the Trans Mountain Pipeline. She compared the oilsands to the wasteland of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. She supported the B.C NDP (friends of our NDP Government) for its decision to destroy the Trans Mountain project that would bring billions of dollars into Canada and get our amazing, world class, green, responsibly developed resources to countries around the world at world price, not a US$30/bbl discount. Our Premier refused to fire Tzeporah Berman.
To make matters worse, we were treated to the sight of the head of Suncor, Mr. Steve Williams, standing on a stage with the Premier as she promised us that a Carbon Tax would buy us the “social license” to get our products to the coast, all the while knowing that a cap on emissions from the oilsands meant that he would have a monopoly on the business. Think about that for a moment. The juniors in this business have been kicked to the curb because their leases on mining were no longer viable, and left only the leases owned by the larger corporations, who by the way do not pay the carbon tax as they follow the rules of the Specified Gas Emitters at least until 2030. This is a supply side policy that has nothing to do with combustion. There goes the competition, and that means less innovation, less jobs, less production, and less for Albertans and Canadians. To add insult to injury, Ms. Berman will now be invited by the ATA to present. I am not against having controversial speakers at conferences, but this is a slap in the face to every Albertan that lives, benefits and prospers in this province. This is a slap in the face to every group and association that works in community and social services, needed services that are funded directly from the energy industry. She is actively working to stop pipelines from being built and not only that she makes statements that she knows are false such as our oilsands product being “The dirtiest oil on the planet.”.
Please check out Don Braid’s September 17 column in the Calgary Herald and ask yourself if the ATA should be inviting speakers who spout falsehoods and advocate breaking the law.
This summer she said, “It took us 10 years to stop Northern Gateway. It took us five years to stop Energy East. We’ll stop this one, too.”
The truth is that the oilsands themselves have created more energy efficient methods of decreasing GHG’s, because we as a society care about our earth, air and water. We should always strive to do better. Co-generation is a result of these kinds of innovations happened because the industry knows they have to do better, and they desire to be the cleanest (which we are). That innovation led to a 30% decrease/barrel of GHG emissions. Most of our emissions come from our own vehicles. Prime Minister Trudeau and his alliance with our Premier have created policy that will stop growth, technology innovation and will stop Canada from being prosperous. The most egregious piece consequence is that other nations will produce this oil, and it will continue to be sold to us even though they have no respect for human rights or the environment. We will be putting these products into our cars at a cost of billions of dollars to our economy as long as Canadian oil stays in the ground. As always we love to hear from you
