Journal double hit

What’s happening to the Edmonton Journal? Yesterday they called for higher taxes, now today they’re blasting the provincial government both on scapegoating Lorne Gibson, the electoral officer, and for having no plan.

After building a strong defence of Mr. Gibson’s actions, writer Paula Simons finishes:

For a thoughtful, non-partisan public servant, who risked his career in an effort to make Alberta’s elections a little more fair and democratic, [not renewing his contract is] a shoddy thank-you indeed — and a disturbing message to every other independent officer of the legislature whose job it is to provide government oversight.

Right on the money.

I pointed out on Sunday that Lloyd Snelgrove had claimed that the recession would handle the tar sands issues, and now the Journal has a slightly more snappy response to the government’s documents on the issues:

Give the man with a plan credit. A plan to have a plan is better than having no plan, even if — as seems likely with this man — the eventual plan is likely either a) to have yet another plan, or b) to have no plan after all, because the economic downturn not mentioned in the plan has rendered a new plan unnecessary.

We refer, of course, to the Alberta government’s new, marvellously titled oil-sands document Responsible Actions, which is, of course, anything but.

Some readers — you sobersides out there! — may be concerned that this editorial is taking a long time to get to the point. Well, exactly! If it works for Ed Stelmach’s Tories, why can’t it work for us? Indeed, the initial proposal for this article was simply to develop a series of content-development strategies but the editor — who must be a Liberal! — was concerned that a blank space wouldn’t look very attractive.

And anyway, the recession is already slowing oilsands development, the federal government is starting to put on the environmental pressure, and those ducks have already made actual ground-level change unavoidable on tailings ponds policy.

As a result, it’s possible most of what needs to happen is going to happen automatically — and then the government can declare, in another self-congratulatory brochure five years from now, that that was the plan.

Instead of actually cleaning their room, young Albertans could prepare a document for their parents entitled The Future of the Bedroom: A Strategy for Sustainable Apparel Management. The necessary photo of the family dog, with sunset light flowing through the window, could be taken by cellphone camera in a friend’s tidy room.

Great editorials, it almost makes me forget how right wing the Journal can be (like when they used a full page of letters and editorials to blast the secular convocation issue).