The City of Regina is engaged in a controversial debate about a proposed public private partnership (P3) for the city’s wastewater plant. Residents formed a Regina Water Watch group to keep the facility public. They collected enough names to take the issue to a municipal referendum on September 25th, despite
Continue readingTag: Saskatchewan
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: An Irrational Mixup at SaskPower
Ten years ago, SaskPower was spending money to promote education about Climate Change. The poster contest is an important component of our efforts to educate the public about the climate change issue. There are increasing concerns that human activity – such as the burning of coal and other fossil fuels
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: On the Road Again, For the First Time.
*Note of correction: After further reading Paul Godsmark’s blog with regards to the public transit impact of a self-driving car, I have corrected the post. My initial comment that his thoughts were off base was highly incorrect, due to a lack of inform…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: On the Road Again, For the First Time.
Source: Huffington Post: Self Driving Cars are Coming to Canada Despite previously alluding to some of the topics we might talk about this week, I decided to go to a different route talk about something a little more abstract. There was news today that Canadian roads can expect to see
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Wood Mountain Folk Fest 2013
Beautiful weather, and beautiful music. There’s presently no planned music festival in Wood Mountain for 2014, but I hope that changes.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: P3 or No Federal Funding: A Third Option for Regina Wastewater?
The Queen City’s water debate has boiled over since I last blogged about it. City Council decided to build a new wastewater-treatment facility as a public-private partnership (P3), but a group of concerned citizens gathered 24,000 signatures to force a referendum on whether to “publicly finance, operate and maintain the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Go To Wood Mountain #exploresask
The Wood Mountain Folk Festival is today, Saturday Aug. 24, 2013, at the Mergel Ranch. On Friday I drove down from Regina in my $50 rental car (for 3 days, from Enterprise). It’s getting 5.7L/100km highway driving in ECO mode. 2013 Elantra, Hyundai. I successfully passed a semi along the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Photography As Art
Well, when isn’t photography art? Maybe quite often, but there’s no disputing the photos of Naomi Harris are art. She seems to take a lot of people photos, while I prefer landscapes and architecture as they are more readily available in rural Saskatchewan. “I just decided to do this trip
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Paul McCartney Rocks Regina
*Goosebumps* I got goosebumps up the back of my head when he played Hey Jude. Crash. A music legend played in the Queen City for the first time, and seemed to love it. The crowd sure did. What perfect weather, and a perfect night! A quick cheering poll identified most
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Renewable Energy Predictions Way Off
They were vastly underestimated. .@theturner And yet @SaskPower as recently as 2013 was highlighting a #solarpower study from 2000 to guide their grid planning. #skpoli— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) August 14, 2013 Here’s info about that out of date solar power study that SaskPower was touting. @JohnKleinRegina Maybe mention to @SaskPower
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Saskatchewan Budget Saved by Falling Loonie
Following last week’s troubling news about potash, the Saskatchewan government released its first-quarter financial report today. The headline seems to be “Oil Keeps Budget in Black”, with a forecast increase in oil revenue more than offsetting a forecast decline in potash and other revenues. But the forecast West Texas Intermediate
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Indian Head #sask Concert
I ended up at a house concert in Indian Head. It’s interesting where life takes you when you don’t plan your day. Dan Frechette and Laurel Thomsen are on their way down to southern California and across the USA touring very soon. Part 2 More may be coming later if
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Aggressive Cop Loses to Skateboarder
There might be a better way to entertain kids who want to skateboard in a city, other than yell at them, push them, and make their desired outdoor fun illegal. Baltimore wasn’t doing a good job 6 years ago. Regina’s not far behind. “Dude” cop loses his temper. Doesn’t file
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Experience Regina
I know it’s a joke song, but I like it anyway. It’s so bad, it’s good. And I finally found the original video.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: PotashCorp Reports Inadequate Royalties
PotashCorp reported today that it paid $81 million of “provincial mining and other taxes” on $975 million of potash sales in the second quarter of 2013. In other words, Saskatchewan’s potash production tax and resource surcharge amounted to 8% of potash sales. Adding the basic Crown royalty of just over
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Ralph of Many Trades and a Master of At Least One
Federal political candidates register their occupations with Elections Canada. I was recently looking through some election results and noticed that my old friend, Ralph Goodale, has had quite a varied career during his time as an MP. In every federal election he contested prior to 1993, Ralph identified himself as
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Freaking Saskatoon Police #YXE #SKpoli
I’m sure the Saskatoon Police do a lot of good work. They’ve really cleaned up their image since the 1990s, and it’s been decades since they’ve reportedly given anyone a [deadly] Starlight Tour. Unfortunately, a new frontier of ignorant neglect has popped up. Saskatoon Police are not taking the solicitation
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Harper Government Must Be Right On Track #cdnpoli
This morning, I dealt with indignant HarperCons on Twitter, while they didn’t take my advice about the validity of claims by a certain tweeter not shy of bending the truth a lot to fluff his dear leader. Sorry for what you’re about to see, because if you drill down a
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Northern Lights Animation
I have a few more of these aurora animations to create and upload to YouTube. Here’s a fun one to start with tonight though.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Sask Party Employment Math: From the Great Wall to the Berlin Wall
Last week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released my policy brief on Saskatchewan job-creation. Using Statistics Canada figures, it demonstrated that “workforce growth has been almost identical during the premierships of Brad Wall and Lorne Calvert.” Unsurprisingly, the main explanatory variable for Saskatchewan employment appears to be commodity prices
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