On Above Ground Transit Corridors

So … the UCP wants the Green Line to be above ground as it passes through downtown.  The reasoning for this is ostensibly the “complexity” of dealing with water issues.  I call bullshit on this for a number of reasons.  

First, the original plan for the LRT was an underground line (yes, this goes back to the 1970s), and we ended up backing away from it “because of the costs”, and the result is the 7th Avenue “Transit Corridor” which has been a disaster from day one. 

Why do I call it a disaster?  For many of the same reasons that I consider the alignment of the original line with the railway lines running out of south Calgary.  First and foremost, it created a “people hostile” zone along 7th Avenue.  Some of the creepiest parts of downtown Calgary are along there because redevelopment along a transit corridor is hard - nobody wants to live there, and street level businesses get decimated because nobody actually wants to be along that chunk of real estate - lots of people “pass by”, but everybody is rushing to either get the next train / bus, or to get to some other part of downtown as quickly as possible. 

Then there is the ongoing problems of pedestrian and vehicle interactions with the train at crossings.  There is a regular stream of collisions with transit LRT vehicles along that corridor, and for all that officials keep reminding the public to be “careful around the trains”, it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference.  

It has long been my opinion that the “7th Avenue Transit Corridor” should have been slammed underground on day one.  It wasn’t because Calgary is notoriously cheap about major infrastructure projects.  

As for “the difficulties of managing water table issues”, the more you look at it, the less sense this makes.  Every major city that has underground public transit has to deal with this issue.  They all seem to be able to do it successfully.  Arguing that it’s “too hard” with a relatively minor river the size of the Bow river in the vicinity.  Compare the Bow to the major rivers in other cities with underground infrastructure and the answer is “no, it’s not that hard to deal with”.   The Thames in London is much larger and more complex and subway infrastructure was being build under it back in the 1800s.  

I find it laughable that the UCP is arguing against an underground alignment for the Green Line on the basis of “cost”.  An above ground, or even elevated alignment is just going to carve Calgary up even further, and make it significantly harder to move around and through the areas where the LRT tracks exist - effectively isolating parts of downtown and inner city Calgary from each other.  

This isn’t about cost - it never was.  This is about a UCP government hell-bent on punishing Calgary for the perceived slight of having dared to vote NDP last election.  They’re going to try and cast this as being about Nenshi and wanting a “caviar and champagne” solution for transit, and in the process they are going to fuck over decades of complex urban planning work which will end up costing Calgarians even more in the long run. 

… and don’t get me started on so-called “PPP” options.  Those are never a “win” for the public.  NEVER. 

The UCP Is Being Petty and Vengeful

The UCP government is now becoming vengeful - openly so.  In the 2023 Alberta Election, rural Alberta voted UCP, and urban Alberta didn't (at least not the kind of sweep that the UCP seems to think they are owed).  Now, it's not unusual for political parties to "reward" ridings that vote for them, but this is taking on a whole new tone that I think we need to discuss.  

What Is The Untold Story Here?

This morning, in a move reminiscent of UK media, Canada's National Post published the following story as front page news:  Ontario school hid girl's transition, called CAS on parents questioning trans identity.

It's a semi-predictable article:  Child explores their gender identity, parents find out and panic ... yada yada yada ... It's riddled with tropes and inferences that speak to this being yet another hit job being used to prop up anti-transgender activists.  The bigger questions in my mind are "the parts of the story not being told" here.   

Let's dig in and explore just how fucked up this story really is, shall we? 

How The UCP Is Lining Up To Steal Your Healthcare (and Rights)

Things are beginning to line up in terms of the UCP's plan and we can see now how they are going to attack health care and Albertans.  There's quite a sequence of things here, but the picture they paint when you draw it all out is quite interesting - and not in a good way interesting.

An Attack On One Is An Attack On All

As we move from the summer doldrums to the fall political season in Alberta (and Canada in general), there are some things we need to talk about.  Specifically, we need to talk about the concept of rights - both as they exist in legislation and the spirit of that legislation in contrast with the legislative plans of certain politicians. 

When we talk about rights, we tend to think about legislation that enumerates those rights for us. In Canada, that is primarily the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (The Charter), although there is also an older Bill of Rights that is now subservient to the Charter, and a range of court rulings that build upon the framework of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Similarly, provincial legislatures have often implemented their own rights legislation frameworks, such as Alberta’s Human Rights Act.

The first point is that these acts all make provision for Individual rights.  That is to say, they set out the boundaries of what we can reasonably assume to be true both in practice and in legislation in terms of our interactions with the state, and to some degree our interactions with each other.  The Charter is an interesting document for several reasons - first, it doesn’t describe “absolute rights”, but instead its first clause stipulates that the rights may be circumscribed by “reasonable limits” as set out in legislation.  In terms of understanding the Charter, this is hugely important because it tells us that rights in Canada have limits and we can expect those limits to be set out in legislation.  Second, it also hints at the idea that our individual rights exist in a degree of tension with each other.  So, for example, while we have a right to “Freedom of Expression”, that right exists only to the degree that its exercise does not unreasonably impinge upon the rights of another individual. 

The Charter does not establish a clear hierarchy of rights.  That is to say, the order in which rights appear in the Charter does not inform us in any way whether any one right supersedes or can override a later right - they are all “equal”.  The only thing the Charter establishes in terms of “hierarchy of rights” is the notion of individual rights being more important than collective or group rights.  

Attacks On Rights

Recently, we have seen numerous proposals to legislatively attack the rights of minorities.  Specifically, transgender youth, and drug addicts here in Alberta.  In January 2024, Premier Smith proposed a sweeping group of policy and legislation that attacks transgender youth on numerous fronts. Further to that, the proposals being made for a “recovery focused” addictions treatment program which includes forced treatment. 

In both cases, you might look and argue that these are “reasonable limits” on rights.  After all, how can a youth or child “consent” to something as life changing as gender reassignment, right?  I have seen arguments that addicts cannot provide consent when they are in the throes of active addiction.  To the extent that such statements are true, one can see them as “reasonable limits”.  The issue is that the extent to which they are true is very limited.  

The fact that the Alberta Government is already talking about using the “Notwithstanding Clause” (S.33) to insulate its legislation from Charter scrutiny is a clue that they already know that it won’t stand up to a court challenge.  Invoking S.33 is essentially an admission that they know that these laws are invalid under The Charter, and they open those who are being targeted by them to discriminatory treatment not merely within the framework of the legislation, but in other aspects of their lives as well. 

What Happens If These Laws Stand?

This is where the slope becomes very slippery indeed.  If provinces (or the Federal Government) are allowed to slap S.33 on anything they please, they will effectively render The Charter moot. It suddenly becomes trivial to revoke or severely restrict rights simply by invoking S.33 to “protect” any piece of legislation that the legislature passes.  

If a legislature decides that it doesn’t like the idea of women being able to vote, they can simply pass a piece of legislation that revokes that right, or makes it much harder for women to meet the criteria to be eligible to vote.  Invoke S.33 to protect it, and presto! Your rights have just disappeared back to the 19th Century.  

It’s easy to set the precedent with small, poorly understood populations like transgender people or drug addicts.  Once the precedent has been set, it’s very easy to extend it to other topics.  Poilievre has already alluded to doing similar things in the realm of criminal justice at the Federal level.  

An attack on the rights of one group can very quickly expand into being the erasure of rights for all.  Just because you aren't affected doesn't mean that you won't be. 

Why I Left Twitter

Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter(1) and renamed it "X", I've been toying with abandoning the platform.  I don't like Musk to begin with, but at the same time the platform is often a firehose of information about politics information that I find useful.  BUT - there are limits, and over the last year or so, I've watched Twitter descend from merely awful into being a cesspool of hostility, disinformation, and outright lies - I've also found myself targeted on the platform by waves of troll bot accounts - we'll come back to that.  

Up to a point, I've been willing to put up with that, but the last few months has been a breaking point for me.  Moderation on Twitter has become a joke.  Right wing hate accounts can get away with calling people pedophiles (and worse), but call them out or react at all to them, and you either get suspended or auto-locked.  Try using the term 'cis' on there, and your post gets auto-flagged.  Meanwhile the harassing accounts get away with virtually fomenting hate.

I've watched as hate mongers like JK Rowling have the red carpet rolled out for their utterances, while accounts who challenge them, or contradict their declarations get suspended, or shadow blocked.  

The uproar over a boxer in the Olympics was astonishing to watch on Twitter.  As soon as someone thought that there was "something odd", accounts associated with anti-trans hate suddenly got promoted, and accounts which were reasonably pointing out that the hate accounts didn't have a single fact on their side just had their views plummet.  

I've watched for some time as a coordinate hate campaign has been gathering steam, attacking trans people and trying to roll back civil rights for that community.  Musk's version of Twitter has played a role in accelerating that campaign, and increasingly I was finding anything I posted was being targeted by troll accounts.  

Some people might think "well, it's just online hate", but I've already had that online hate spill into my real life - and I have had to spend the last couple of years protecting myself and my family.  When there is a band of people who are all convinced that one aspect of your existence makes you some kind of evil, it quickly becomes important that they don't know where you live or who you are in real life. 

When Twitter's "auto moderation" software immediately locked my account for reacting to a hateful post directed at me, I decided "fuck it".  If Musk wants Twitter to become a haven for hate and extremism, then I don't have to spend my time there.  

When he took over Twitter, Musk called himself a "free speech absolutist", but it turns out that he isn't.  He's very much willing to give platform to hate, conspiracy theories, and other malcontents while actively working to suppress those who challenge the hate.  That isn't a neutral position.

I want to be very clear here - the idea that "not intervening in speech" is somehow neutral is false.  It gives equal weight to hate and disinformation while ignoring the corrosive effects of hate.  Elon Musk isn't being neutral - he's handing a megaphone to hate.

(1) Yes, Elon, I'm going to deadname your platform - if you can't find it in your heart to call your daughter by her chosen name, I don't have to respect your choices either).  

About Sex Testing and The Olympics

There's been a whole lot of fuss made over a couple of athletes in the Olympics who don't appear female enough to satisfy some people that they are in fact women.  I'm not going to link to the various stories on the specific incidents in part because I do not wish to contribute further (or in the future) to their harassment.  

A large number of people are running around going "If your chromosomes are XY, you are a man".  This is false - a wide range of variations can result in people having atypical chromosomes and their bodies still being female, or predominantly feminized.