Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Wormius

A 16 year old has a lot more skin in the game than any 70+ year olds.

False.

Have you seen all of the skin hanging off of them? Its a lot.

[Slava]

Truthfully, of course teachers influence their students. It’s pretty basic human psychology, and impossible that they wouldn’t. It’s nothing intentional and nothing nefarious (necessarily), but maybe they spend a little more time on some issues or frame them a little bit differently because of their personal thoughts and feelings. Maybe they teach about part of the issues with a little more disdain than the other. People pick up on that and it influences their opinion on matters. To suggest that somehow teachers are impervious from passing along their thoughts is just laughable to me. Some try to be impartial and of course some make no attempt.

Personally, I just think that’s unavoidable. It’s not a factor in whether kids should vote though. Seeing adults engaged in the process and acting in the process is good for future voters.

And earlier calf was saying that 18 is arbitrary as the age of majority and he’s right, I think. But of course we’re going to have an arbitrary age somewhere. I don’t know how you draw that line.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Wormius

A 16 year old has a lot more skin in the game than any 70+ year olds.

I see people are warming up to my idea of age weighted voting...

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

Truthfully, of course teachers influence their students. It’s pretty basic human psychology, and impossible that they wouldn’t. It’s nothing intentional and nothing nefarious (necessarily), but maybe they spend a little more time on some issues or frame them a little bit differently because of their personal thoughts and feelings. Maybe they teach about part of the issues with a little more disdain than the other. People pick up on that and it influences their opinion on matters. To suggest that somehow teachers are impervious from passing along their thoughts is just laughable to me. Some try to be impartial and of course some make no attempt.

Personally, I just think that’s unavoidable. It’s not a factor in whether kids should vote though. Seeing adults engaged in the process and acting in the process is good for future voters.

And earlier calf was saying that 18 is arbitrary as the age of majority and he’s right, I think. But of course we’re going to have an arbitrary age somewhere. I don’t know how you draw that line.

One benefit of ensuring most people will have one election in high school that they would be eligible to vote on would be learning how to vote, learning about how to evaluate information, learning to debate honestly as part of curriculum and then having it end with actual voting. I think my kids social classes since about Grade 4 have had this during every election. Why the actual voting is important is it creates an behaviourial outcome after doing the work.

I think by having kids vote you create more good future voters.

As for age what criteria should we use? I think the capability of understanding the issues at play would be my threshold. (Note capability to understand and understanding are two different thresholds) I think 14 would be reasonable. Kids can reasonably articulate how they feel about policies and taxation and why they fee that way. Certainly no worse than average. At 16 you already trust them to do the most dangerous activity we do regularly.

If we want to go Brain Development we should be about 24-60 or so for voting age.

[Fuzz]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584355537470521344

You know you've succeeded when you get the Rob Schneider endorsement.

[AltaGuy]

There's a Sith Lord (Sovereignty Lord?) somewhere in Quebec right now sitting in darkness with their eyes glowing and fingers tented going, "Yessssss, yessssssssss..." as they watch Danielle Smith on TV.

Might be the ghost of René Lévesque.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by fuzz

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584355537470521344

you know you've succeeded when you get the rob schneider endorsement.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584277674503344128

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584355537470521344

You know you've succeeded when you get the Rob Schneider endorsement.

What the hell happened to him?? Was wondering why he hasn’t done any of those goofy SNL movies in a while.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I’m not sure why we’re pretending teenagers are incapable of having the maturity to vote when there are people who vote based on colour, a good speech, or even the belief that it’s actually a politician’s wife calling the shots.

Pretty sure a 16-year-old can rise to such a thoughtful approach to politics.

Ok, I did not purposefully seek this out, but had to laugh as I just saw the WS pitchbot and posted one of their postings about snow, and was on their page, and...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584356644032770048

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

Ok, I did not purposefully seek this out, but had to laugh as I just saw the WS pitchbot and posted one of their postings about snow, and was on their page, and...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584356644032770048

Having a tough time deciding whether I like the “14 year olds can vote for MY party but I’m against 16 year olds voting for other parties” angle (knowing this particular tweet is parody but having seen the take here) or the “If you wanted to have your say in who leads the province all you had to do was pay for it and fund the UCP, guess you’re too lazy!” angle.

UCP supports are bringing the dumbest heat imaginable and I have to say I genuinely love it. None of it makes sense and they’ve just stopped pretending to care if it does. Smith has broken their brains.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by calf

But why is 18 the cutoff for determining who and who isn't an adult? In 7 of 10 provinces, you have to be 19 to drink alcohol. 21 across the US even.

But we trust 16 year olds to drive. 16 year olds have reached the age of consent. 16 year olds can drop out of high school legally.

18 is an arbitrary number.

16 year olds will also be 18 for half of a four year mandate.

[Ozy_Flame]

Things 16 year olds have done / can do:

- Get a Drivers license
- Get a Job
- Start a business
- Pick a post-secondary education / career path
- Support family and parents financially
- Finish school early and go to university, including becoming doctors, physicists and mathematicians.
- Give TED Talks
- Compete in the Olympics.
- Play in the English Premier League.
- Own firearms (in the US).
- Climb Mount Everest.


But voting? Get outta town with that witchcraft.

[Torture]

^^
Vote in a UCP leadership race too

[RedHot25]

Out of province employers recruiting on the back of all this.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584544302058786816

[Muta]

I wouldn't be surprised if more doctors now left the province. As a healthcare worked, I'd hate to be bizarrely demonized throughout a pandemic and even after it, even though all you're doing is helping and saving lives on a daily basis. It's ####ing weird.

I don't blame other provinces from recruiting from Alberta, why would you put up with the hostile workplace environment here in this province.

[TheIronMaiden]

Parents teach their children values ( directly and indirectly).

Teacher teach children how to participate in a work place ( yes that includes working with LGBTQ folks, or BIPOC so yes they need to learn about this in a structured environment).

Good public education = a good economy.

Don't let anyone fool you otherwise. You make the money you make because you were taught the skills you need to participate in the Albertan economy.

[Yoho]

UCP Unified.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1584530441939300354

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Muta

I wouldn't be surprised if more doctors now left the province. As a healthcare worked, I'd hate to be bizarrely demonized throughout a pandemic and even after it, even though all you're doing is helping and saving lives on a daily basis. It's ####ing weird.

I don't blame other provinces from recruiting from Alberta, why would you put up with the hostile workplace environment here in this province.

Unless things drastically change in the next decade I will be strongly discouraging my kids from looking at healthcare as a career option. Over worked, over stressed, underpaid, and demonized by right wing idiots just for doing their job. Who in their right mind would sign up for that?

[Fuzz]

Danielle Smith has been railing against education for years. Like this wonderful Herald opinon feces, I mean piece, calling for "indoctrination" to stop. Hold on to your bootstraps!

Some of the assertions in the test were things like, “Free trade is behind many of the ills of the modern world. It makes people poorer and deprives them of power by putting the economy in the hands of transnational corporations. It should be stopped.” And an exercise where a student is supposed to identify irony, showing an editorial cartoon of a T-shirt shop with anti-trade and anti-capitalist slogans on it. Get it? It’s ironic that the shopkeeper makes a profit selling “Capitalism Sucks” T-shirts. The takeaway for the 14-year-old student probably isn’t the nuance of adult hypocrisy. The takeaway is that capitalism sucks.

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...ooms-must-stop

Now, Danielle completely misses the point of the exercise, which, when you actually read the thing, is laying out things people may think, and the type of person who may think it. There is zero indoctrination. It's given various examples of a diverse range of opinions, which, *Fuzz clutches pearls* must be absolutely terrifying to someone like Smith who seems insistent on forcing her world view upon the rest of us, reality, facts and science be damned.

The student is never asked to ponder whether the statement is true. Is Canada’s boreal forest the “lungs” of the earth? Is continued development going to “tear a hole” in those lungs? With most future development of oilsands to take place with such innovations as steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, instead of mining, it seems unlikely.

Why would they? That wasn't the point of the exercise. They were never presented as fact checked "true" statements. She's got the reading comprehension of Macman. Maybe they got the same education?

So what is the point of this? This is not education. It’s indoctrination. And it’s got to stop.

Grind that axe, you numpty. But now I suppose we can expect her and LeGrange to go through the curriculum with a fine toothed comb to weed out this Marxist threat to Alberta Hegemony.

[Macman]

Originally Posted by Muta

I wouldn't be surprised if more doctors now left the province. As a healthcare worked, I'd hate to be bizarrely demonized throughout a pandemic and even after it, even though all you're doing is helping and saving lives on a daily basis. It's ####ing weird.

I don't blame other provinces from recruiting from Alberta, why would you put up with the hostile workplace environment here in this province.

It’s still a good job/career which I don’t think would be hard to retrain people and fill these positions if needed. A lot of people also lost their jobs the past two years and even before that with the downturn in oil and gas. And things still haven’t bounced back for a lot of people in that industry.

People are still moving to Alberta because of the can-do attitude and overall quality of life.
Maybe the province is just looking at ways to cut costs in health care, it’s not like they’re firing people, it’s still a good career and provides well for these professionals and I’m sure a lot know and appreciate it as well.

Maybe things aren’t quite as dire as some are making out.