Duncan Kinney’s Blog

Since I have curator in the subhead of my blog here I figured I'd give it a go. As you know I attended the snappily titled Conference on Alberta's Future this past weekend.

Around 100 politically engaged Albertans attended the event. It was put on by the Manning Centre "to generate ideas, proposals, and plans for shaping a more positive and inspiring economic and political future for Alberta."

Here's the coverage around the internets.

- Ken Chapman wasn't impressed

What I saw come out of this event was predictable and perpetuation of traditional conservative thinking. I did not see anything that made me think that there is something new and refreshing coming from the “small c conservative” approach to politics and policy. If the outcomes from this weekend are what the conservatives see as the future of Alberta, I have to say it looks more like a passion to repeat the past. I saw nothing about them being able to rethink, redesign and be able to adapt to the new economic, environmental, societal and political realities. I saw nothing new, nuanced or newsworthy except the same-old same-old stuff of personality based leadership driven politics.

- Stephen Taylor, co-founder of Blogging Tories, was extremely diligent in covering the event. He liveblogged and transcribed the Friday night panel with Danielle Smith, Wildrose leader against Kyle Fawcett, PC MLA. To get a feel of the exchanges I'd recommend you check out the video and read the transcript. He interviewed Preston Manning as well as a few others at his website.

- Trish Audette of the Edmonont Journal was there as well. The headline was illustrative "Manning gives truant Tories a disappointing report card". Manning also wasn't impressed with the PC party's participation at the event.

"I think it probably would have had a more profound impact on the people here ... if the government had sent a cabinet representative," Manning said.

- Well known blogger and Calgarian compadre DJ Kelly attended the event and offered up his though as well. Kelly was extremely happy he went but had some beef with the format.

I guess the reason I was disappointed with the format boils down to this: I thought the Conference on Alberta’s Future was occurring, in the words of Nicholas Gafuik, Executive Director of the Manning Centre, “because Alberta is in a time of change and there is a need to generate ideas, proposals, and plans for shaping a more positive and inspiring future for our Province” and I didn’t feel like participants were given much of an opportunity to help achieve any of these goals. Instead the Conference was a conversation about the solutions put forward by the six speakers. Which is still valuable, it just doesn’t help achieve this inspired goal.

Chris LaBoissiere had some issues with the event as well. Darn bloggers, never satisfied with anything.

A tweet I made from the event summarized it all for me. "My "feeling" so far about #projectab. It's all about money. I love money, but I don't think it's all about money". The reality is that the conservative movement in Alberta is moving even further to the right, and the concept of "Progressive Conservatism" is very much under attack. This scares me, and is the reason I am going to talk to my friends and work to organize our voices for a more moderate government.

Werner Patels looked at the Edmonton Journal coverage and couldn't resist getting a shot in at the left wing parties in Alberta.

Linda Duncan, a federal NDP MP, who was at the conference, complained that the focus was solely on the Tories and the Wildrose Alliance. Well, since according to all polls recently only the Tories and Wildrose are in the running for the top job in the province, it would have been a waste of time debating the “merits” of the Alberta Liberals or NDP.

If I missed anything or if as I suspect, something new comes out Monday morning, I'd love to see them in the comments and I'll add them as we go. Thanks!

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I totally forgot my own post on the subject. Check out my stab political punditry.

It certainly seemed like a tap-toe job by Preston Manning on the PCs; setting up Danielle and the WAP as the logical successors to the stale PCs. I don't think Ed Stelmach is sitting very comfortably as leader at this point and it's entirely likely that the PC party tears itself apart or veers sharply to the right in the next 18 months.

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Allow me a brief dip into political punditry. I don't often write on the subject but this weekend I attended the Manning Centre for Democracy's Conference on Alberta's Future. Put aside the terrible title for a moment (Snappy!) and let me recap it for you. Friday night started off with an introduction by Preston Manning (he of the Manning Centre and grand puba of conservatism in Alberta) followed by a two hour discussion with the leader of the Wild Rose Alliance party Danielle Smith and Progressive Conservative MLA Kyle Fawcett.

"It's a trap" - Admiral Ackbar 

I don't know which PC strategist believed it was a good idea to send a rookie backbencher MLA to speak at an event contre Danielle Smith but yeah, terrible idea. Apparently, Stelmach was supposed to represent the PCs, but he backed out and it fell to new Minister of Employment and Immigration Thomas Lukaszuk (in fact that was the name that appeared on the agenda). Then Lukaszuk backed out with a family committment. Kyle Fawcett was only informed that he'd be facing the formidable Danielle Smith two days before the event occurred. Poor guy.  

It certainly seemed like a tap-toe job by Preston Manning on the PCs; setting up Danielle and the WAP as the logical successors to the stale PCs. I don't think Ed Stelmach is sitting very comfortably as leader at this point and it's entirely likely that the PC party tears itself apart or veers sharply to the right in the next 18 months.

Saturday featured speakers opining about specific subjects. They would give the province a grade on the subject they were speaking about. After they were done we broke out into our tables for discussion. We were tasked with three questions. Did we agree with the speakers grade, did we agree with his proposed solutions and what alternative solutions would we propose?

In the spirit of the format I'll grade the speakers -

Fiscal Responsbility - Mark Milke – D+

A simplictic examination of the issues with little new or innovative to offer. Privatize, cut, rinse and repeat. Considering Manning started the day off with a brief talk on vision this was a disappointing first speaker.

Balanced Economic Growth - Mark Percy B

It seemed as if Percy took a Richard Florida presentation on social quality of life and encouraging the creative economy and adapted it to a conservatve audience. Didn't agree with many of his conclusions but considering the day was dominated by business and fiscal concerns it was refreshing.

Environmental Conservation - Marlo Raynolds A-

Raynolds is the executive director of the Pembina Institute, not really a speaker you'd figure to see at a conservative conference but given Preston Manning writings on the environment lately, no surprise. Raynolds had some good ideas on changing the oil sands project permits process, a much heavier carbon tax, as well how things like feed-in tariffs (a pet issue of mine) have bubbled up from municipalities. 

Democratic Participation - Peter McCormick A-

A truly engaging examination of the democratic participation issue. He touched on the terrible participation numbers as well as things like open data and social media. Like so many things, the accounting has to change and the current way of measuring democratic participation, voter turnout, isn't enough. A little short on meaningful ideas but a great presentation.

Health and Education - Peter Cowley and Nadeem Esmail - F

These presentations were best summed up by a tweet -

@atypicalalbertn: I find it fascinating that the Manning Centre used two economists as their experts on health and education. #FAIL #ProjectAB

Not just economists, but Fraser Institute economists. I'm not denying that both of these areas need solutions but I'd suggest that worthwhile solutions won't be coming from ideological policy wonks. Given the general areas of agreement on the centre-right and the centre-left on most things it will be these two portfolios that will truly separate the Wild Rose Alliance/PC's from whatever progressive alternative emerges in Alberta.

Leadership on the National Stage - Monte Solberg D

Maybe because it was the end of the day, but this presentation struck me as particularly superfluous. Solberg is a decent speaker but didn't offer up anything of substance.

Here's where it gets weird

So at our tables there was great discussion about these issues. It was respectful, it was healthy and frankly it's what Alberta needs. Engaged citizens talking about what they want from our representatives. We wrote down what the table was talking about dutifully and handed in our peice of paper after every presentation.

At the end of the day some people associated with the Manning Centre assembled the papers and summarized them in a Powerpoint. Those Powerpoint slides were then presented to us and we were asked to "vote" on them. They all "passed".

This wasn't billed as a policy conference but if they use these things that "passed" as some kind of consensus I would argue with that. The agenda and speakers were chosen by the Manning Institute, the discussion and resultant notes would inevitably be colored by their choices. Just weird. 

Wrap-up

It was a pleasure to meet people interested enough in politics to come to a two-day conference. The presenters were a mix, but having a legitimate conversation about politics without devolving into labels or left-wing/right-wing bull is refreshing.

I believe that with the event Manning is tacitly throwing his support and idealogical heft behind Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Alliance Party. This was my first time meeting and seeing her in person and it's easy to see why the media has given her and her party hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free airtime. She's a great speaker and a sharp lady. I don't agree with her on many things but she will definitely be a worthy opponent in the upcoming provincial politics shakeup.

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This is renewable energy blog post 200 of 200.

Coal plants. There are 18 of them in Alberta providing the majority of our power and making Alberta one of the dirtiest and most inefficient power producers in North America. What do we do with all of them? Well Green Inc., the New York Times excellent enegy and environment blog, pointed me towards a study by the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology suggesting that coal plants convert to biomass to produce cleaner energy.

Here's a quote

“The study results suggest that biomass utilization in coal generating stations should be considered for its potential to cost-effectively mitigate” greenhouse gases from coal-based electricity, the paper concluded.

The team tested the life-cycle emissions and costs of “co-firing” scenarios involving fuel with 10 to 20 percent wood pellet content.

Ontario co-sponsored the study as they're trying to phase out all coal plants by 2014. It's an interesting idea and considering the coal plants existing in Alberta a way to wring cleaner power and a longer life cycle out of these dirty, inefficient power generating plants.

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I was lying in bed Saturday morning and this great idea came to me. I should write 200 posts on renewable energy in the next year and at least a third of these posts should relate to Alberta. A deadline and a limit on the posts should give me the sufficient motivation to stick to a regular writing schedule.

I'll be writing about renewable energy policy, success stories, clean echnology, energy efficiency, sustainable shelter, new transportation and the sustainability industry in general.  I plan on doing link journalism, quote and comment blogging, opinion pieces, profiles of people in the industry, success stories, number crunching, data visualization and Google maps mashups. 

For transparency's sake you should know that I think the energy system is due for substantive change. I think these changes will lead to a more positive, sustainable world. I want to foster and engage people in discussions on the economic opportunities available from this upcoming shift. I hope you come back and read this blog more often over the coming 11 months.

While I've written a lot about this on my Twitter account I need a longer, more structured way to get my thoughs down as well as do some occasional reporting.

If you have any ideas or want to tell me about something ping me at duncankinney@gmail.com

Cheers

-dk

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Why? Because then I will have the internet at my new residence.

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Millions of people have started blogs only to abandon them. I am not one of those people (and besides I've been blogging since 2006). Quite unfortunately, my laptop was stolen out of my car last Friday. This explains the lack of activity.

As a result I'm a bit of a sad panda.

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Easy custom domains

Setting up duncankinney.com (my former photography portfolio site with Livebooks) to point to Posterous was an easy three step process. It was even more complicated than it had to be because I was set up with GoDaddy. Another bonus, no hosting fees.

Simplicity

The format is so simple that I can definitely see myself getting back into the swing of more quote and comment style blogging. While I don't see myself blogging from email I could if I ever wanted to. 

Fast

It's so lightweight and there are so few things to worry about compared to my old Wordpress blog that it's way, way faster.

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I blame the internet for turning me into a chronic oversharer.

Before the internet came along I didn't think anyone would be interested in my reading list. Now I know that there may be five, maybe even a dozen people who would be interested in it. For this micro-niche audience I bring you my Google Books list.

I'm using this list to review the books I've read, to remind myself of the books I'm going to read and to keep a catalogue of what I've read. As I frequently trade in the books I've read for new ones I'm of the mind that I need a list like this. It's an idea I essentially stole from MJ Sikorsky. I interviewed him about his reading list for Unlimited Magazine (I'll add the link later).

Right now I'm trending towards non-fiction and towards eco-business type titles. Beating anthropogenic climate change is the biggest challenge and the biggest economic opportunity of my generation. Here are the books I'm most excited to read in the coming months. I heard about these books through Calgary-based writer Chris Turner and his book "The Geography of Hope".  I recommend it. It's a hopeful look at the world we need and it's heartening to think that it was written by a Calgarian.

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