mymanchris

joined 1 year ago
 

City Hall leaders say the consultant drafting the report on the catastrophic failure of the Bowness water feeder line needs two more months before the findings can be shared with Council, but can't say why there is a delay.

Council barely blinks, but the mayor asks a few blunt questions that go unanswered. General Manager of Infrastructure Services, Michael Thompson, says he had no good reason, just that they need more time.

 

The Alberta government has backtracked on funding cuts to the low-income transit pass in the province’s two biggest cities.

According to information provided by the Alberta government, they will backstop the funding commitments they’ve made to both cities. In Calgary, that amount is $6.2 million.

On Tuesday, both of Alberta’s big city mayors spoke out about the funding cut, with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek saying that it was a “cruel” decision by the province. Calgary city council, after discussing the item behind closed doors, unanimously approved a plan to urge the province to reduce its requisition of the education portion of the property tax and ask them to pay the full amount of property tax on provincially owned properties in the city, up to the $6.2 million.

Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services Jason Nixon spoke with media via Zoom on Wednesday afternoon. He said they’ve always wanted to ensure the low-income transit pass programs continue.

“The province does not want to see the low-income transit program in our two largest cities go anywhere, and we will make sure that we’re there to support if that’s what’s needed to be able to have it continue,” Nixon said.

He said that after conversations with both cities he recognized that cities needed further support to continue the programs.

 

Calgary could have to fully fund the Low Income Transit Pass (LITP) moving forward, as the Alberta government has pulled their contribution to the affordability measure.

“I don’t think there’s any way to explain this other than saying it’s just cruel. This is an absolute cruelty to low-income Calgarians who absolutely need this funding to be able to get through their lives,” she said, noting that it’s another example of the province offloading costs to municipalities.

“They’re expecting us to find the money somewhere to make this whole, and you also know what that means – that impacts your property taxes.”

The mayor said Calgary already foots 83 per cent of the $38 million – or $31.8 million.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

My wife and I once had enough saved up to buy a used car from the dealership. The sales manager told us their incentives were structured around financing, so paying cash up front wouldn't count towards their monthly sales figures, and to them it was "useless".

Ended up financing with an open loan and paying it off, in full, on the first payment. Probably lost them ~$1000 in processing fees but they knocked off another $150 for my first interest payment.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nobody is saying that women are inadequately equipped for those roles, they are observing that women don't choose those roles, even when barriers are removed. It's not a coincidence that everyone is clamoring to bring equity into the C suite and boost women enrolling in STEM programs, but nobody is trying to bring equity to mining jobs, janitorial services, garbage collectors, etc.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

In John Wick, when he interrogates Francis the bouncer outside the Russian nightclub, John asks him if he's lost weight. Francis responds, in Russian, "yes, 23 kilograms," but the subtitle converts it to "over 60 pounds." This completely destroys the fact that Francis was using code to tell John there were 23 guards inside.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know. Patrick Stewart seems to have done ok too.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No you're understanding is incorrect. There is a big difference between an expired cheque and a reissued cheque.

If I walk into a bank with an expired cheque, they will not honour it, so there is no risk of 2 people cashing the separate cheques. If I walk in with a valid certified cheque, they MUST honour it, even if someone already cashed the reissued cheque.

You are correct that the recipient could wait ~1.5 years for the cheque to expire and then issue a new cheque, but that's a significant delay and the estate likely wants to close its books before then.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

It's due to the capabilities of the wait times reporting system. Alberta has integrated reporting on all acute care sites, updated every 2 minutes, due to having a single organization (AHS) overseeing the IT and reporting infrastructure of every hospital in the province.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's amazing to me how quickly we forgot that carbon pricing was a conservative policy proposal. It was literally a concession the Liberals made to the Progressive Conservatives in the early days of planning to address "global warming" back in the days of the Kyoto Accord. PC's wanted market solutions instead of regulatory heavy handedness to shape Canada's way forward. LPC preferred cap and trade, but couldn't get it passed, so they agreed to support carbon pricing because it was better than nothing.

Fast forward to today and suddenly carbon pricing is Liberal policy and ignore/deny is the CPC strategy.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 year ago

The Nazi party was outlawed following the war. The Nazi ideology was not stamped out. The reason why the Nazi party didn't fight a guerilla war to maintain power was because they didn't have to. Prominent Nazis with valuable skills were pardoned and welcomed into mainstream life (e.g. Werner von Braun became one of the lead rocket scientists for NASA). I don't believe they even had to recant their ideology or party affiliation.

One need only watch a few far right rallies before a swastika flag or three will show up and announce that Nazism is still alive and well 80 years later.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

It makes sense that they are rebranding to X given how many people have broken up with them in the past few years.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a silent era film, but you should add High Noon (1952) to your list of classics to watch. Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly and loads of tension.

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I strongly recommend the book "The Four" by Scott Galloway. He does an excellent job of breaking down how the Four Horsemen (Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook) destroy regional competition by leveraging their power as content gateways yet constantly skirt regulations that apply to broadcasters. Their cries of "we're not a broadcaster, we're just an aggregator" ring hollow when their algorithms determine what articles & headlines people see and they have shaped public opinion on various topics (e.g. elections, supreme court decisions, labour negotiations, public demonstrations, etc). He outlines how Google outmaneuvered the NYT and became the defacto gateway to all journalistic content because they were able to freely link to content created by others, while still putting an editorial spin on stories through their aggregation (eg should the story talking about "BLM protestors" appear before or in place of the story about "counter-racism demonstators" (narrator: they are the same story).

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 year ago

Because when your boss is doling out shit for everyone to digest, everyone sits there with a wide smile on their face to show how impressed they are with boss's fecal dissemination talent.

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