Kevin Libin

For centuries, the justice system has made special considerations for mothers who kill their babies, as long as they do it quickly. I explain how the latest conviction of a murderous Edmonton mom suggests that may be changing:

When Mothers Kill

Maybe all those scary, right-wing Conservatives should go back to hiding their agendas, at least judging by the firestorm befalling Iris Evans, the Alberta Tory finance minister. Seems that expressing even a fairly standard conservative point of view—in her case, that kids are best raised by a stay-at-home parent, and not a daycare worker—has become in some peoples’ minds a firing offense. That’s how I see it, anyway:

When Conservatives apologize for being conservative

The public shaming of so-called “deadbeat” dads is a hot new trend in justice circles.

So . . . next on the agenda: A website aimed at humiliating “mendacious moms”?

Didn’t think so.

In divorce disputes, only men are deadbeats

My, don’t children just love their Marlboro and Camel cigarettes? Just ask Health Canada, which seems unable to differentiate between the kiddy-themed fruit and candy flavoured cigarillos most everyone seems eager to ban (present company excluded; I think smoking helps children mellow out, and think more clearly), and the throat-searing, lung-bruising American adult brands. Oh well, they only risk setting off a trade war.

Tobacco bill snares ‘adult’ smokes too

Imagine a world where government agents evaluate how well you’re raising your children. Not just whether you beat them or neglect them, but whether you’re a smart enough parent, whether you’re teaching the kids the proper notions of multi-cultural tolerance, or whether you’re providing them with the approved level of emotional support. And if you’re not, they take them away.

No need to imagine: That is exactly what Canada’s child welfare system has become, as I write in this lengthy look at what is probably the most powerful, most unaccountable, most disruptive government body in the country today:

State as Mother

Also, see my blog posting on the dozens of Canadians who have written me to express their gratitude, and share their own stories about the devestation that child welfare workers have unleashed in their lives—with a special guest appearance from Ontario’s own Ombudsman, who writes, tongue-in-cheek:

“Betcha the slick CAS PR machine is busy writing a protest letter to the NP about how ‘unfair’ this was to them”

Should the Boys in Blue be free to work blue? Not according to Edmonton’s police chief who has ordered all officers to keep their language clean, even when doing the kind of work that isn’t.

Surely you’re wondering what I think about all this? Wonder no more: my column on the EPS’s new %&$#(@# anti-swearing policy:

Banning the F-bomb leaves Edmonton police one less non-lethal weapon

Ontarians wonder why Westerners just won’t change their channel. Always with the complaints about how the West is getting left out, or screwed by this or that policy that favours the Centre. Trust me: we’re as tired of complaining as you are of listening to it.

So why do we do it? Because it keeps happening. Yesterday: A $14 billion giveaway to Ontario’s auto industry, and not even a lousy, cheap-ass tax break for Alberta’s energy sector. What’s not to love?

Western Canadians looking for ‘equitable support’

If the Alberta Tories are trying to distract voters from the soaring unemployment rate, the royalty-devestated energy sector, and their enlargening powers against property owners, they have succeeded. Bill 44—which will make the provinces Human Rights Commissions even more arbitrary and powerful than they were before by allowing the Christian bullied to bully back—has been keeping liberal and conservative columnists busy for weeks. Like me for instance:

Alberta opts for hillbilly human rights

Lots of Palestinians dismiss the idea of a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians—the favourite solution of Barack Obama and the Europeans—often because they only want one state, with no Jews, where Israel used to be.

Khaled Abu Toameh, the Palestinian journalist in Calgary yesterday, doesn’t like a two-state solution either. Not because he’s Hamas. But because he thinks that only one of the two teams actually deserves a state right now. Guess who it isn’t?

The illusion of a ‘two-state solution’

FUN FACT: In the Jehovah’s Witness religion, children are considered sinners—and ostracized by their family and friends—if they agree to a blood transfusion that might save them after an accident or if they have cancer!

Of course, the Jehovah’s Witness organization, the Watchtower Society, doesn’t want that, so they send lots of lawyers and priests (sometimes they’re the same person) to stay with the kids 24/7 and protect them from doctors and judges who might try and make them sin!

Lawrence Hughes thinks that’s not so much fun, after watching his daughter die while in custody of the Watchtower gang. He’s suing to put a stop to it.

Jehovah’s lawyers are not pleased.

Man sees subtle victory in fight against Jehovah’s Witnesses

What sin hath Albertans committed to be expelled from our Eden? I know I didn’t do anything. It must have been the rest of you. In any case, in sorrow shalt we drinketh our beers all the days of this summer—now that our days of cheap booze are over. Check it out:

Alberta no longer the King of Beers

Even the bitterest of Bush-haters have a hard time vilifying Condoleezza Rice. Whether you support her politics or not, can there be a more inspiring tale of success than this black granddaughter of an Alabama sharecropper who has tenure at Stanford, risen to the highest American office of any minority woman, is an expert classical pianist and figure skater, and scores high on all the shallow matters—fashion, looks, etc.—too?

And so, Ms. Rice’s visit to Calgary for the official launch of the university’s new public policy school, had all the city’s movers and shakers enamoured, and even a handful of critics couldn’t seem to come up with anything more vituperative than their weak-assed chants of “Condi Rice, not very nice!”—which, from what I witnessed, seemed not even to be true. Read all about it here:

Rice a perfect policy fit

Can Ontarians learn to love again? Love innovative tax reform, I mean.

They have been hurt so many times. The health care premiums. The HST . . . politicians can be so cruel.

Be strong, Ontario. Take down those walls around your heart. It may well be that Tory leadership hopeful Christine Elliott’s flat tax is the ‘one’.

Ontario can overcome its flat-tax-phobia

It’s election day in the Larry Dallas of provinces, aka B.C.—Alberta’s wacky, swinging neighbour.

So, if you haven’t read my analysis, the time is now. I have a feeling, that things are about to turn out badly no matter what . . .

B.C. squeezes in election thriller between hockey games

When my editors cut out my last line from this piece, I instantly lost whatever love I once had for it. Really. That’s why I didn’t even bother blogging about it till now.That’s the kind of damage editors can do to a person. Let it be a lesson to you all. Editing has real, human victims.

Anyway, here it is, me profiling Bob Woodward, of the Watergate exposé fame, artfully turning it into a lament over Canada’s culture of stealth, though it would have been far more artful if, well, you know . . .

The Canadian way with government secrecy

Perhaps someone should report premier Ed Stelmach to the Alberta human rights commission: his government’s latest proposals for human rights commission reform has people all over the province making hurtful wisecracks and hurling insults at an identifiable group—Alberta Progressive Conservatives—as I write today in my column about the Bill 44 debacle.

Ed Stelmach, up to his knees in turd

What do you think it would take for someone in Edmonton lay off the Nancy Reagan, “don’t do drugs” condescension, and actually warn kids, who we know won’t listen anyway, that there appears to be some poison circulating in the clubs?

Apparently three dead girls still isn’t enough, as I write in this feature today:

Doctor suspects Ecstasy tainted

Stand back as I drop some science on the Alberta’s great Grizzly-bear hysteria—not an easy thing, you should know, given the timorousness of otherwise solid sources claiming that questioning the dogma has, in their mind, become akin to “anti-Semitism.”

Alberta’s grizzly debate

What’s Alberta to do with that $75 billion, with a ‘b’, we got squirreled away like a crazy cousin in various reserve funds? We could bury it in the yard. Or buy a buncha gold. Hey, why not postage stamps? That was where Gramps always said the money was.

I guess we could maybe invest it. There are these things called equities some of the folks at the 4H have been telling me about and it looks like that’s the route the Alberta Investment Management Corporation is taking. Only thing is, it turns out some of those equities are based in Alberta. Hey, it turns out a lot of them are! And they’re really good equities, too—some of the biggest, most profitable corporations in the country. But don’t let AIMCo buy ‘em. Too suspicious, if you ask us Albertans. If they want equities, let ‘em buy some stock in GM. Right?

Wrong:

Can Alberta handle its own economic maturity?

Those landowner activists (read: farmers) who took control of the Green Party of Alberta last year had a point when they insisted that in order to become a political force bigger than a fringe, Gaia-worshipping campus cult, the party would have to accommodate a critical mass of real Albertan conservative values—the kind of blue-green coalition, in other words (or redneck-green, if you prefer), that Preston Manning’s been talking about for some time. What occurred to no one, it seems, is that without its lifeblood philosophy of state enforced eco-nannying, the Green Party likely cannot survive. Which is why, as I write in my latest column, the party appears to be going out of business.

Greens sink in the red

When you can’t count on the lawmen, the men must count on their own law—or something like that. That’s how things go, apparently, in Tees, Alberta, where local son Brian Knight is quickly becoming a folk hero for dealing with scoundrels the good old fashioned way, as I detail in my Saturday column:

A Hero in Handcuffs

Before discovering the career gravy train that is Alberta’s Conservative caucus, the provincial finance minister, Iris Evans, played sweepstakes for a living. No, really.

I used to occassionally wonder how qualified that made her to preside over the treasury of the country’s wealthiest province. After this week’s budget—in which the province effectively gambles its very financial health on the chance of a quick and vigorous turnaround—I can see why they picked Lady Luck Evans for the job.

Read about the province’s high-stakes game of chance in my budget-reaction column, here:

Alberta proves lucky, even at incompetence

Too busy tweeting. Twitter’s the hot, new craze, dontcha know.

http://twitter.com/kevinlibin

Boys and girls in the same changeroom? That may be how they do things over there in France, but in Canada, the very notion of such a thing is scandalous enough to risk killing imminent plans for Edmonton’s first public outdoor pool in 50 years. Read all about it here (but please, leave your trunks on):

Group threatens to pull funding for pool over change-room design

That, in a nutshell, is the real thinking behind Alberta’s carbon-capture subsidies for the oilsands, since—as environmental policy goes—there are much easier, more efficient and more effective ways of reducing CO2 emissions. For the details, and a delightful dose of smarminess, check out my column in this month’s Financial Post Business magazine:

More Smoke and Mirrors

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s been all up in our news grill of late, with his decision to cut funding Canadian Arab Federation for their heretofore heavily subsidized anti-Semitism, er, I mean, anti-Zionist-running-dog-ism, his refusal to overturn the government’s ban on MP George Galloway, for aiding the Hamasians, and much, much more—all part of an effort to defuse the radicalization of certain unnamed ethnic groups and ensure immigrant loyalty to Canada.

For his troubles, he gets two things: 1) a threat assessment serious enough that he now has a full-time RCMP escort and 2) a big-ass profile in the National Post, by yours truly.

I think you’ll agree it’s a more than fair trade, when you read:

This man wants to reinvent multiculturalism

Things have not been easy here in Alberta. At least not since September. Before that they were utterly fabulous. But my, what a difficult few months it’s been. Our unemployment rate is up to, what, like 4% or something? Tragic. Oil down to $40? Heavens. We haven’t seen prices like that since 2004. Urban housing prices have dropped a gut-wrenching 10% since last year. Sure, they’re still roughly double what they were just five years ago, but, you know, it still hurts.

Luckily, the announced mega-merger between Suncor and Petro-Canada this week offers us hope that these bleak few months may be finally coming to an end. A long bet on the future of the oilsands, a mighty, global-sized goliath to fight the green lobby and politicians who dream of our demise, a possible revival of mothballed multi-billion projects. Alberta, your ship has come in. Again.

Read all about it in:

Cancel the funeral; oilsands aren’t dead yet

As far as I can tell, the remarkably condescending Salon economic explainer series, “Talk to me like I’m 5″, didn’t last long. Meanwhile, the National Post series “What the #!%*,” which manages to respect your maturity while still acknowledging that you might be utterly clueless, carries on. In this week’s instalment, I try and explain—to those who didn’t already know it—why economic forecasts aren’t much worth the paper they’re written on.

What the #!%* is up with economic forecasting?

What qualifies me to psycho-analyze Peter Pocklington, the brash Edmonton mogul now facing fraud charges in California? Why, I spent an hour or two interviewing him four years ago in his gated community in Indian Wells, California—as if it’s any of your business. And what did I surmise from that? That, my friend, is most definitely your business, and you are welcome to read about it here:

The tragic flaws of Peter Puck

While Americans are still dining out on eight-year-old George Bush insults (like the still-popular Will Ferrell impression referenced in my title), Calgary’s elite lined up in the cold yesterday for hours, subjecting themselves to insults and attacks by travelling Bush-bashers, endured humiliating full-body cavity searches (well, at least that’s how mine went) and paid $400 just to hear the man spend an hour repeating many of the same things he’s been saying on the news since 2001. Sound kooky? You don’t know the half of it. Which is why you absolutely must read my account of it here.

Bush finds friends and foes in Calgary