Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[direwolf]

Haha, these separatists are absolute clowns. So people would still be able to keep their Canadian passports and pension plans and it’ll be a pipeline utopia for all eternity, lol. Sure, bud. I’m sure that’s exactly how it would go down.

Holy f*** these people are morons.

[aaronck]

of all the business' that separation would chase away due to the uncertain economy and government (and essentially everything else, let's be honest) would the Flames and Oilers stick around? Operating out of a sovereign freeland with little healthcare, Education and economy, would be easier for the teams and players to move to a more stable location.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think you miss the second component of populism. A key point in populism is anti-elitism. It isn’t just look at how good these policies will be for the people. It’s look at the current group serving only the elites our policies will be for you the people.

Creating the enemy of “the elite” is the key component in any populist movement.

Except the notion of "elite" has been corrupted by RW "populism". It ignores oligarchs/ultra wealthy/robber barons and focuses on educators, scientists and public servants as "elites" to be taken down.

[edslunch]

O Captain! My Captain!

[Drak]

Clown looks like Alex Jones’ Canadian doppelgänger.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by edslunch

O Captain! My Captain!

Is it pure coincidence these people all resemble Pakleds?

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...tion-1.7532890

Well, it's a good thing you are operating in the realm of reality, where these things will absolutely happen, some how. Presumably our treaty partners will be happy to learn they, based on nothing at all, that they can still use the Canadian passport. That should placate the legal issues too.

Can someone buy this guy a one way plane ticket to Texas already?

See, reiterating my reply to GGG; if you were promised this by someone and paid money for it, that would be fraudulent because none of that shіt is gonna be true if Alberta were to leave.

[dissentowner]

They can have a vote on seperation, it's all just noise. There are way too many obstacles for it ever to become a reality. Even in the event the there was a majority of people who voted yes the House Of Commons can squash it. It's never happening. This is just a bunch of far right goof balls trying to divide the country.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/...involving%20at

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by GGG

So you guys don’t believe that of Quebec answers to separate on a clear question that they should be able to separate or that Brexit wasn’t a valid projection of democracy.

Your argument of if you don’t like it leave would apply to you in Alberta if remain is a minority position in Alberta.

The argument that all of Canada would have to agree is just a tyranny of the majority argument which is used to suppress populations. While I am steadfastly in the remain camp and would likely move to retire in Canada if this this happened people wanting independent nations aren’t traitors.

The existence of Canada is essentially the British recognizing that locals should rule themselves in order to avoid violent revolution.

As the law link I provided shows it is a Canadian decision and the call of the House Of Commons of Canada. Not the government of Alberta.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

See, reiterating my reply to GGG; if you were promised this by someone and paid money for it, that would be fraudulent because none of that shіt is gonna be true if Alberta were to leave.

So how do you build a framework to make lying illegal. The harm done by lies like this is to mildly increase separatist sentiment which likely as a mildly negative affect on investment and no way of demonstrating damages or people harmed by the action.

Instead damages only occur after the thing you want to prevent happened at which time holding those people to account is rather immaterial to the #### storm created. Civil or criminal cases against Farage doesn’t undo the damage of Brexit.

So how to you make intentionally bad speculation illegal. We do it in company reporting so could you hold individuals liable for false forward looking statements. It seems like an impossible task when even obvious crypto and penny stock pump and dumps go unchallenged.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Why it'll be one Yankee Doodle Dandy Star Spangled tailgate party all of the time, and pipelines of oil, milk and honey (separate of course) in all directions!!!

Originally Posted by Yamer

Is it pure coincidence these people all resemble Pakleds?

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by GGG

So how do you build a framework to make lying illegal. The harm done by lies like this is to mildly increase separatist sentiment which likely as a mildly negative affect on investment and no way of demonstrating damages or people harmed by the action.

Instead damages only occur after the thing you want to prevent happened at which time holding those people to account is rather immaterial to the #### storm created. Civil or criminal cases against Farage doesn’t undo the damage of Brexit.

So how to you make intentionally bad speculation illegal. We do it in company reporting so could you hold individuals liable for false forward looking statements. It seems like an impossible task when even obvious crypto and penny stock pump and dumps go unchallenged.

I have no idea, although at least with your stock pump and dump example, there is a fair bit of regulation about what you can and can't say, especially when you're holding a position in the asset or security that you're doing the speculation about. It's why articles on stock trading and such always have a disclosure statement at the bottom, disclosing if either the author or the site or its proprietors hold positions in the discussed underlyings or derivatives thereof.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by GGG

So how do you build a framework to make lying illegal. The harm done by lies like this is to mildly increase separatist sentiment which likely as a mildly negative affect on investment and no way of demonstrating damages or people harmed by the action.

Instead damages only occur after the thing you want to prevent happened at which time holding those people to account is rather immaterial to the #### storm created. Civil or criminal cases against Farage doesn’t undo the damage of Brexit.

So how to you make intentionally bad speculation illegal. We do it in company reporting so could you hold individuals liable for false forward looking statements. It seems like an impossible task when even obvious crypto and penny stock pump and dumps go unchallenged.

The framework would need to start with regulations around media, social media, and search engines.

- Media should be held accountable to only publish factual stories. Making false claims should result in fines, forced retractions, and with enough penalties you could lead to disbanding of the organization.

- Social media should have fact checkers. People who are intentionally lying or spreading hate should be banned from social media and have their posts corrected and/or deleted.

- Social media algorithms should be audited to ensure they are not promoting political content over factual content and that disinformation is not being promoted through the platform.

- Search Engines should be held responsible for promoting truthful websites ahead of misinformation websites (or should perhaps end up banning websites that are established to be dishonest).

There would obviously need to be checks and balances to ensure that the framework cannot be weaponized against truthful content that people strongly disagree with. However, when your starting point is to have platforms like X, Truth, Facebook, and Instagram all working hard to promote right wing content over truth, then it really feels like you need to bring a heavy had to the reset button to try to get us out of an age of misinformation and into an age of accountability.

Looking at Alberta, I imagine that if Nate Pike and the Breakdown had a column on the Calgary Herald then a lot of people would be waaaaaaaaaay more upset about what the UCP is doing to the province. However, since most boomers would rather read the paper and will believe it when it says the UCP is doing a great job, they will never know exactly how much of our money is being grifted to MHCare or how openly corrupt the government is getting.

[Yamer]

Am I missing something, or do slander and libel already still exist?

You want to battle misinformation within any semblance of reality and concept of freedom of expression? Make advanced critical thinking and media literacy cores of fundamental education going forward.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Am I missing something, or do slander and libel already still exist?

You want to battle misinformation within any semblance of reality and concept of freedom of expression? Make advanced critical thinking and media literacy cores of fundamental education going forward.

Slander and Libel laws are specific to defamation of a specific person. I do not believe that they can cover someone lying about vaccines and saying that it is better to get measles instead of getting vaccinated against measles.

Misinformation laws in Canada seem to be specific to if you have intent to injure or harm someone through false information... I am not sure it has enough teeth to really push back on misinformation. Also, if you try to use the False Information law against Facebook, they would probably just say that they are not accountable for the content posted by their users and then throw an army at lawyers at the case to make it go away.

Modernizing the laws and building appropriate corporate regulations for these online media companies would go a long way to reducing the spread of misinformation. While they are at it, they may as well start building regulations for AI to dunk on misinformation and promote validated information.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by edslunch

O Captain! My Captain!

Is that a murse?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Is that a murse?

It's what he carries the remnants of his dignity around in.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Is that a murse?

Colostomy bag.

[puffnstuff]

I saw it but wasnt going to comment, I mean their lifestyle choices are really none of my business.

[puffnstuff]

Ric McIver has resigned his post as Alberta's Municipal Affairs minister.

Schow will be interim in addition to his other duties, govt house leader and tourism and sports minister