Protesting Is Not The Way

I don't understand the idea of mass protests. I do understand disagreeing with something or wanting to change government policies but I don't understand how protesting would do that. It seems if you don't like the colour of your neighbour's house, protest! I don't understand riots either. From what I've been seeing in the news, riots break out when the protester’s idea of democracy doesn't work. The image I currently have of protesters is “Hey wait, the government didn't bend to my will, break stuff!”

Here are the protests that currently stick out in my mind. The Occupy Movement and the Quebec student protests. What do these people expect from their actions? Why is their idea of democracy more important or more valid than anyone else’s? I vote, I participate in government decisions as often as I can. I speak to my representatives as I need to. I don't go out onto the street, march in large groups and light vehicles on fire when things don't go my way.

When Occupy Calgary was active, they showed liberal hypocrisy at it’s finest.  Occupy Calgary decided their movement would camp in a downtown park, which is not legal in this city.  When they were told they could not do this, and were even fined for it, they whipped out the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  The occupiers stated it was their Charter right to camp in the downtown park for as long as they wished.  They had “Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” since they were a protest movement (just with no tangible message).  What this section doesn’t mention however, is camping.  It does talk about people coming together collectively to defend a common interest, so why couldn’t the occupiers do this during legitimate park hours?  Next, in the name of democracy, the occupiers said they would stay in the park until the government met their ridiculous list of demands.  I’m sorry what?  What government, democratic or otherwise, bows to force like that?  I also have to question why they think their democratic right is more important than mine?  Ah yes...  They have an entitlement complex so big it doesn’t fit into most stadiums.

What started the Quebec student protests was a tuition increase to post secondary education. Their tuition is to increase by $325/year for 5 years. It was then changed to an increase of $1800 over 7 years which works out to about $260/year. The Quebec student protesters believe the tuition either remain the same or be struck all together.  I question while they rage against the tuition increase, how many of them have smart phones?  How many of them pay the bill, and what would they do if their monthly rate increased?

It has become well known that tuition in Quebec is lower than anywhere else in Canada.  The rest of the tuition cost is paid for by Canadian taxpayers.  If tuition is to stay where it is now, it means the equalization payments they currently receive (which is also the highest in Canada by more than twice as much as the next province) would have to be budgeted to subsidize the schools, yet be taken away from something more important like health care.  Taxes would also have to increase in Quebec by a substantial amount for the working class to subsidize the entitled class.  If these protesting students were ever to become working class, they may no longer feel increasing taxes is an acceptable solution.

Some of the protesting rioting students want free post secondary education.  They truly believe it should be fully subsidized by the government.  I have an even bigger issue with this.  Where do these small minded, highly entitled rioters think the government’s money comes from?  I personally don’t want my taxes to increase to allow them free access to university.  If, by some weird chance they did get their way, I would want course availability be ones that create productive working class citizens to be paid for by the government.  I don’t only mean trades, other examples would be business applications, nursing, and so forth.  “Psychology of the Exceptional Human Experience” or “Learning from Youtube” should not be tax payer subsidized as they would be useless in the real world.  If someone wants to learn “Philosophy of Star Trek” (honest to God) they can do that on their own dime.

As it stands, I truly believe Quebec’s equalization payments should decrease by a substantial amount.  They need to get their house in order, so to speak.  As long as Quebecers are willing to destroy their own cities, they should not be deserving of the rest of Canada’s money except for food, clothing, health care and police.  Why should they get more, they’ll only burn it.  The protesters and rioters are of the age of majority, and as it stands, we in this country believe that those over 18 years old should be responsible members of society.  That also means they need to learn to live with the consequences of their actions and right now, what they are doing is affecting their entire province.  The protesters are getting out-of-province union money, they don’t need anyone else’s.  Perhaps they can use that money to fix the damage that’s been done.

These protesters, all of them, not just the Quebec students or the occupiers, have not considered what they’re asking for when they demand a fully socialist government.  These people say hate the rich, take from the rich, tax the rich.  What happens if the socialist protesters win?  There will be no more rich in their perfect world as capitalism will no longer exist and everyone will be on equal footing.  The currently rich will only exist for so long then the money is all gone.  The evil capitalist corporations they hate so much, that support the system they decry but pay the taxes they love will be nationalized in said perfect world and their money is gone.  People who were rich or working to become rich no longer have anything to work towards.  There would be no point.  They would only lose it all to entitled socialist brats who have never had to work for anything more than a passing grade.  And even that is slowly disappearing from our educational system in the name of “self-esteem.”

Even through all of this, what troubles me most about these protesters/rioters is their hypocrisy and the fact that they can’t see it.  In a lot of cases, when their own hypocrisy is pointed out to them, they simply ignore it.  If you even try to tell one of these protesters that what they are doing is not democratic, they tell you that you are wrong.  They don’t debate, they dictate.  Giving a government an ultimatum in any other country is called a coup or terrorist act.  Here, they call it freedom of speech, only with burning cars and injured officers.  

I hope one of these days these useless and damaging protests and riots end.  Maybe these people who are so eager to yell at the world will realize that protesting every little inequity doesn’t change anything.  I also hope that the entitled class realizes that just because they don’t get their way, they can’t throw a temper tantrum and break their neighbour’s toys in retaliation.  The rest of us stop listening to them and will never take them seriously.  Attacking or injuring a police officer may seem cool today but tomorrow we’ll all see it on TV and guess what, we’re the ones that might see your resume on our desks.

We could go out and protest about the evils of the world...  Wait, no we can’t.  We’re too busy working for a living.

My View of Mayor Nenshi

Ever since Mayor Nenshi was elected into office, I've had serious reservations about his qualifications to represent and lead this city. I'm sad to say, in my eyes, he's proven that a guy who's never served in a political office of any kind should never be elected to such an important position. What he feels is important seems to differ from not only his own election platform, but from reality a lot of the time.

I really started to pay attention when Occupy Calgary set up a little shanty town in Olympic Plaza. Mayor Nenshi seemed not only to endorse their squat, but unequal enforcement of the law. If a person pays taxes and owns assets of any kind, enforce the law. If they appear to be entitled 20 somethings and are protesting something or another, meh, leave them be.

Mayor Nenshi, in my opinion, has forgotten that the aldermen represent us. They aren't supposed to represent his perfect idea of Calgary.  When Gord Lowe asked for more detailed information on the airport tunnel, Mayor Nenshi wanted to move off that topic even though we, as a city, repeatedly heard it would be no higher than $295 million.  When the deal was signed, the price increased to $425 million at minimum. The Mayor even spoke over Druh Farrell when she tried to back up Gord Lowe. As far as I understood it, council is the time to debate unresolved issues and the Mayor is supposed to listen, debate and resolve, not speak about his own personal agenda and carry on. I guess this is what Mayor Nenshi calls a more efficient City Hall.

But now, it's budget time and Mayor Nenshi is getting grouchy that it's not going his way. He seems to think that since he pretty much forced the airport tunnel deal through, all his ideas are golden.  The Mayor criticizing the aldermen for treating us taxpayer-types like ATM’s is a little pot and kettle-ish.  Water rates, electricity rates, pet licensing rates are all increasing along with our property tax rates. They're saying it's a 6% increase so far and for each 1/2% it's “only” $13. The water increase is only $8, the pet license increase is only $6, how many more “only's” are we in for?  When all is said and done in a year, what do all these increases add up to?  How much will it all “only” cost us?

The Mayor wants the essential services to cut their budgets and *run more efficiently* without truly considering what the detrimental effect of that will be. The biggest argument to date is the police budget. He's since lost that argument but, Mayor Nenshi was hoping that the province would bail him out of this situation. Why? The province already provided a $42 million tax rebate (that was supposed to come back to us) that the Calgary City Council took and blew, instead of using on essential services. Considering the police want/need $10 million, why did some of that money not go towards police and fire services? Why are they looking at cuts? It's not just the aldermen that are playing games with the budget, it is the Mayor as well, and he's just hoping we all have short memories.

Mayor Nenshi is also proving to be very arrogant and condescending. Not only does he not permit the alderman to finish a sentence in council when they bring up a topic he doesn't like, he says things on social media that no political representative should. The City of Calgary has a code of conduct for it's employees and Mayor Nenshi seems to believe himself above it. In the code of conduct there is a section on Acceptable Use of City Technology Policy and the Public Statements and Media Relations Policy, yet he still openly insults people and argues with news media. For example, in arguing with @wernerpatels on Twitter, he said “I know I should not bother you when you're off your meds...” and when called on it, he didn't apologize for the statement; he apologized that people were offended by it. What I was upset about was the lack of professionalism by our political representative. If he was speaking on a personal account that said nothing about him being Mayor, I wouldn't have cared, but the twitter account specifically states “Mayor of Calgary.” In my opinion, Mayor Nenshi must abide by the code of conduct while speaking on this account.  The sad reality is, this isn’t the only time something of this nature has happened.

On many occasions Mayor Nenshi has shown his lack of professionalism or qualifications to lead the City of Calgary in almost any form.  The only thing he has shown is one can lead an election through the use of social media, but that one really should know what the hell he’s doing once he’s in the drivers seat.  I hope over the next three years he smartens up, shows he can be a professional, and leaves his arrogance at the door.