A man wears a mask as he rides a bike to work in the polluted town of Linfen. Linfen, a city of about 4.3 million, is one of the most polluted cities in the world. China's increasingly polluted environment is largely a result of the country's rapid development and consequently a large increase in primary energy consumption, which is almost entirely produced by burning coal.

PHOTO: The NDP Government refuses to fix Alberta’s air-quality problems with effective market-based solutions and instead wants to force Albertans to ride bicycles like these and be tied up in communist Red tape. If the people illustrated here had true freedom, they could choose the quality of air that suited their own breathing preferences.

Alberta’s Opposition Wildrose Party proposes “market-based breathing solutions” to ease the province’s air quality woes.

The province’s NDP Environment Minister said Wednesday that the results of a national air-testing program show the province will soon have the worst quality air in Canada.

“Alberta’s dangerous experiment with the NDP has been going on for more than 100 days now,” said a Wildrose spokesperson, who could not be identified because he was out campaigning for the federal Conservatives. “Obviously their socialist/communist approach isn’t working or they would have fixed these air-quality problems by now.”

Instead of North Korean-style socialistic experiments, the Wildrose spokesperson said, Alberta needs to implement market-based breathing solutions now.

“Albertans should be able to choose the level of air quality they wish based on their lifestyle and breathing preferences,” he explained. “Choice is good. Freedom is good. And the market has the answer to everything.”

“Only the market can fix the air quality problems in Alberta, not more regulation and red tape from busybody bureaucrats, activists masquerading as government scientists and nanny state advocates who believe in junk science like physics and chemistry,” the spokesperson explained.

Join the Conversation

12 Comments

  1. Years ago Gunter wrote that some volcano spewed more CO2 than anthropogenic sources. If he had spent five minutes on the Internet he could have found out that all the world’s volcanoes emit only 1 or 2% as much. But he keeps getting paid to spew this crap.

  2. On second thought, I’m not sure this is really all that amusing. The Government of Alberta has already applied that free market philosophy to ground water contamination and hydraulic fracturing. If your rural well water is contaminated with flammable chemicals you are perfectly free to sue a multi-billion dollar company, spend 15 years in the attempt, OR move to the city.

    Journalist Andrew Nikiforuk will be launching his new book on this subject this evening in Rosebud, Ab.
    https://www.facebook.com/events/1485411728444698/

    The bitter part of this is the new Alberta NDP Government is still carrying on with the same captured regulators and civil servants. Rural landowners are still facing punitive court cases and the same abusive regulatory processes put in place by the Conservatives.

    I thought we elected the NDP, but so far it looks like we are getting liberal lite.

    1. re: ‘I thought we elected the NDP, but so far it looks like we are getting liberal lite.’

      The very thin NDP cabinet and political staff are dealing with hundreds of upper management civil servants in most of AB’s resource focused departments that are very pro-industry.

      Revolving door with industries for decades now.

      The remaining civil service after more than two decades of cuts that is actually tasked with protecting the environment is very very small.

      Energy dept., forest service in particular are hugely pro-industry. Most will obstruct and delay any changes that would raise costs for industry. They intend to wait out a one-term NDP gov’t.

      I’m speaking from both direct experience over 14 years of experience as a volunteer or staff environmentalist trying to get more provincial parks created. In the 1990’s I had a couple years of direct experience of these industry dept. staff blocking any effective access to information about energy and forestry development footprint, e.g. seismic lines, leases, clearcut logging plans. It once took 9 months for a FOIP request. We finally went before the information commissioner in a hearing. And it was the logging company that finally agreed to release timber inventory data. Not the gov’t.

      All this obstruction by the pro-resource development civil service in the parks creation process was despite supposedly direct instructions of the Klein gov’t to support the new parks program called Special Places 2000.

      The NDP will need more than one-term to effectively deal with the pro-industry team inside our civil service.

      It’s not a reality-based expectation that the NDP can make the civil service suddenly become pro-environmental protection, in my experience.

      Alberta’s resource extraction corporations and their collaborators inside the civil service hold most of the effective political power despite a majority government.

      1. Here in Crowsnest Pass we have an Ozzie company promoting an open-pit coal mine in the “Crown of the Continent”. Our Council is “business-friendly” and very cozy with the promoters. Some folks from Alberta Geological Survey (part of our “Alberta Energy Regulator” AER) including:

        “Todd Shipman, PhD. Landscapes and Geological Hazards Manager”

        came down and attended an “in camera” session with our Council.

        The Public was not told about any hazards.

        I emailed Todd, Ph.D. about this and got this reply:

        “Thank you for your email message about AER personnel meeting with the Crowsnest Pass Municipal Council. Since your concern relates to an allegation that the meeting contravened a requirement that affects the conduct of the council, you should raise your concern with the council. The AER is not in a position to address your concern about the meeting.”

        I replied, pointing out that the AER “Stakeholder Engagement Framework” speaks of “Openness and Learning” and “Transparency and Trust”.

        Haven’t heard back yet.

        I guess the AER is not concerned about the legality of secret dealings with private companies either.

      2. As someone with over 35 years of forestry experience in 3 different political jurisdictions, 9 of which were with the gov’t of alberta, I completely concur with your assessment, Sam. The acme and the proof of this political capture is the AER. Self-regulation is no regulation at all.
        I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again because it is the reality of our situation; until and unless the Notley gov’t fires 30% of the civil service, starting with DM’s and ADM’s, we will not have any significant change in the governance of this province.
        These people are the working end of the stick of ideology that the Klien gov’t used to beat the citizenry into submission and steal from them to give, literally, to the wealthy few who bankrolled his reign. It is beyond belief that these people would now, or ever, support the precepts of a fair and just society.

      3. Your observation that the industry captured civil servants intend to wait out a one term NDP government is very accurate. However, Cabinet has the legal power to remove whole layers of industry-captured ministries and boards.

        The historical precedents for doing so are many and almost universally successful. The failure of the Sask. NDP to purge a civil service contaminated with Devine Conservatives stands as an example of what not to do.

        As people come to realize that it is business as usual, Alberta NDP support will evaporate in spite of the small number of good policy decisions they have made already, playing into the hands of the Wildrose society wreckers.

  3. Don’t laugh. Only a matter of time before the atmosphere is privatized. According to Karl Marx, eventually everything is going to be monetized.

      1. What you call tyrannical governments are in fact puppets of corporations. In the 21st century, there is no difference between government and their corporate overlords.

        The market economy only benefits the corporate elites and not the general masses.

  4. Too bad this is fake news – market-based solutions work without punishing jobs. I am hopeful the NDP will adopt this approach.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.