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City of Calgary A politically incorrect view of Calgary - and new directions. General Synopsis Positive Aspects Spiritual Health New Ideas For Calgary Indian Village Wholesale Facility Roads Smoking Restrictions Transit City Counsel
Political correctness is basically dishonest. It is not honest to sweep the truth under the rug just to appease, or submit to others politically. This assessment of Calgary is an honest view by a native Albertan (who has lived all of his life in Alberta except for about four years) and has come from personal experience. Have lived in Calgary since the spring of 1989. Calgary is much changed from years back. There has been a tremendous influx of people from out of Province, and also very much immigration. A little over 20 % of Calgary's population consists of immigrants. The U.S. Consulate believes southern Alberta has one of the largest concentrations of U.S. citizens living outside their country in the world. There are roughly about 400,000 USA expatriates living in Canada in 2004. Betty Rice, a spokesperson for Calgary’s U.S. consulate, has said there are no firm statistics on the number of American citizens in Calgary. However, she says the figure is in the "tens of thousands." The Calgary chapter of Democrats Abroad estimates that eight per cent, or 80,000 Calgarians, are American. Americans tend to blend in and are hardly noticed, but we also have many visible minorities and immigrants from practically every corner of the world. We also have a large part of our population from other parts of Canada who were not born and raised in Alberta - particularly from Saskatchewan. An honest view of the City of Calgary, Alberta (July 2010) from a native son of Alberta. 1. Very cold and unfriendly, because most people's main reason for coming here is to make money. It seems like most people here in Calgary (aside from the very young, and some others of course) are selfishly pushing themselves to make more money - and that is it. There is nothing more to Calgary than that. Calgary is basically a city and society that is given over to the pursuit of money and materialism - most of its people worship before the great god of money. Know a young lady who moved here from Toronto. She said she was here for one reason - to work so she could pay off her student loan. Nothing wrong with that. We all need to pay our bills. If people want to come here to work and earn money to buy stuff and pay their bills - fine. It is your life. If someone wants to work I will not stop them. We need money and business, but man does not live by bread alone. The problem is that the balance has been lost. What about family ? What about recreation ? What about the spiritual ? What about culture ? We need money and jobs. However, we also need to have a life outside of work. 2. It has become boring, because most people are just selfishly pursuing their own interests and pursuing money - and selfishness is boring. It often seems like " the city that fun forgot. " Yes there are a lot of things to do, and a lot of cultural things. However, the mad pursuit of more and more money by more and more people has caused more and more people to just focus on their narrow little personal and selfish interests. It is very, very hard to have much fun with the work crazed, the shopaholics and the social climbers. Too many of them are too busy working , spending money and pursuing their selfish interests to even give you the time of day. 3. It appears that most people just see Calgary as a place to work in - not as a place to live in. Others are often just seen as stepping stones to their careers. Stepping on each other to get ahead. 4. Calgary is designed around the automobile - not around human beings. 5. Calgary is politically correct and over regulated - it is a hopeless government and corporate bureaucratic quagmire. It is ruled by big government and big business, which are both very bureaucratic. 6. If everyone in the world lived like your typical Calgarian it has been speculated we would probably need about seven worlds like our own to support them all. The environmental impact of the typical Calgarian is enormous. I do not consider myself a typical Calgarian, and certainly am not rich - for quite a few years due to economics we did not even own a working vehicle, but in the spring of 2007 I did buy a car, since I felt the family really were in need of one, and we could afford it. Very, very little has been done in Calgary to protect the environment from the ubiquitous automobile. Many, many streets and back alleys are unnecessarily wide. In many cases too many back alleys are needlessly paved, which once again is harmful to the environment. The following three pictures taken here in Calgary show you how little the City of Calgary cares for the environment. The back alleys in the pictures are unnecessary wide, and park space has been needlessly paved over to accommodate vehicles. As well the back alley has been paved right up to fence of the home owners in these pictures. Therefore the home owner cannot even plant flowers, or anything right behind their back yard fence. This paved over land on both sides of the alley has been taken out of the ecosystem for generations. A good ten to twelve feet at least of land (and maybe more) has been needlessly paved over. You do not need back alleys as wide as rural highways. And many of them do not need paving at all.
7. Calgary is basically a government and corporate dictatorship - bullying flourishes in Calgary especially among management in business. It seems to run right through the fabric of the society here. It seems engrained within the social fabric, particularly within the corporate structure. There are strong fascist and dictatorial tendencies here - and we should be doing all we can to greatly reduce this and understand it. The former Premier of Alberta Ralph Klein lives in Calgary, and he was well known for his bullying style, and for his bashing and bullying of the poor. The basic management style in Calgary is backward. It looks to me from personal experience that most managers in Calgary do not know how to get the best out of people. It seems like most of them are mainly concerned with control, dominance and bullying, which is backwards. Yes there are some really excellent managers here, but certainly not enough of them. There is little room for initiative, innovation and freedom within the schools, businesses and governments of Calgary. 8. The poor are despised in Calgary, because they don't have enough of the almighty god of money. The former Premier of Alberta (Ralph Klein) encouraged poor bashing, and he was very popular and he lives here and the voters kept re-electing him. 9. About the only thing that keeps Calgary going is the tremendous natural resources of Alberta - otherwise it would certainly not be as rich as it is, and may even be a poor area of the country, like Alberta used to be a have not Province until oil was struck. The tremendous natural resources and blessings of Alberta are and were created by God - not by Albertans. 10. Calgary in general is a very proud city - there is a serious shortage of genuine humility here. This writer try's to be humble (and has many reasons to be), but humble folks here in Calgary are generally regarded as weaklings, due to the fascist nature and makeup of the place. 11. The City of Calgary claims to be such a good place for business, yet it is home to one of the greatest corporate frauds in business history - the BRE-X Scandal. There is simply too much corporate corruption here. The Bank of Montreal is suing hundreds of people in Alberta (a lot of them from Calgary) including Lawyers, mortgage brokers and four of its own employees in one of the largest alleged cases of mortgage fraud in Canadian history. BMO claims it may lose up to 30 million dollars. Much of this alleged mortgage fraud happened in Calgary and dealing with real estate and speculation in real estate. 12. There is this Pollyanna, phoney positive attitude and boosterism that is promoted, which is disconnected with reality. This is part of the corporate culture of Calgary - where they want to project a phoney positive image of the city. It is designed to create a positive perception, and thus make people feel confident about investing and living here. It is designed to promote a positive business climate. Those who are honest, and who have honest negative feelings about Calgary and its working and living environment - are suppressed and often labelled as having bad attitudes. Political correctness once again. Promotion of Calgary in fine. Calgary has a lot to offer. However, the promotion should be honest. The problem is that political correctness is preventing many smug Calgarians from seeing some very uncomfortable truths about their city and their fellow Calgarians. 13. What makes a city ? There are many factors, but probably the biggest is the people who live in that particular city. Now there are all kinds of different people in Calgary. But if you were to describe the characteristics of a typical Calgarian - what would your description look like ? I do not want to paint everyone with the same brush, but what I see as typical is first of all a lot of volunteerism and charitable work being done by a lot of Calgarians, which is good. I also see a very proud people generally speaking, and there is the right kind of pride and the wrong sort of pride. I also see people who are smug, self-satisfied, materialistic, preoccupied with their own personal pursuits, and who exhibit a persistent phoney Pollyanna attitude. 14. Calgary today in 2010 seems like the city greed built. Greed expresses itself in so many areas of life in Calgary. Here are some common ways greed manifests itself in Calgary:
Positive Aspects 1. Crime is lower here than in a lot of other major cities. 2. There is a stronger religious Christian influence here than in a lot of other cities. Southern Alberta and Calgary is home to a large population of Mormons. There is a strong connection between the American State of Utah with its major city Salt Lake City - and Southern Alberta. Quite a few Albertans go to Salt Lake for their higher education. 3. The employment situation is very positive. There are a lot of jobs here. 4. Calgary is a large urban centre with a population of a little over 1,000,000 souls as of May 2010. You can meet and mix with people from almost every corner of the world. You can see the people of the world by just going out and about the city, because there are people here from practically everywhere. 5. On paper we still all have the basic freedoms here in Calgary, Alberta, like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and so on. The problem comes when you want to, or try, or need to exercise these freedoms. What is on paper and what is the reality in the real world here - just don't mesh, especially on the job. But it sure looks like we have a lot of freedoms on paper at least. 6. There are a lot of large and excellent parks here. Some areas have a shortage of parks, like the east side, but generally speaking we do have a good number of excellent parks within city limits. 7. Calgary is still a fairly good place to do business. 8. City infrastructure is basically well maintained. 9. We do have many very good schools - with committed and dedicated educators. 10. We have a highly skilled and educated workforce. Products are made here that are shipped all around the world.
The Spiritual Health of Calgarians - in General Terms is Extremely Poor There are too many here who are smug, self-satisfied, materialistic, and with a false pride, and this has caused many to be blinded spiritually. Therefore generally speaking Calgary is home to the spiritually blind. 1. God's true servants are persecuted here. 2. The great false god of money rules - the pursuit of money and materialism is the preoccupation of most Calgarians. Therefore this is a society that generally speaking is immersed in idolatry. 3. There is this tremendous all pervasive false pride. God gets little credit for anything much here in idolatrous Calgary. 4. Foreigners are treated better than our own people, particularly better than native bred and born Albertans. This is a spiritual disease. 5. Calgary is basically a professing Christian society (there are Christian church buildings in practically every neighbourhood), yet so much wickedness is tolerated. We have abortion-on-demand, strip clubs, prostitution (city counsel even licenses it and supports it - by granting licenses to escort agencies - and so many of these businesses are just fronts for prostitution), gambling casinos, gay rights - they can even marry now, and drug running and drugs. As well undisciplined kids are a serious problem, divorce and family breakdown is very high, and there are too many who are uncouth with poor public manners. 6. There is way too much bullying and abuse in the workplaces of Calgary by corrupt management, and even by workers abusing other workers, which is shameful. However, most of the bullying comes from management. Government is also deeply involved in this bullying. 7. It is a wonderful place for the rich, but for the average Joe there is no Alberta advantage.
Some New Ideas For the City of Calgary Innovation and creativity are in severe shortage here. This is because we are living within a dictatorship in Alberta, and so many of our freedoms are suppressed within the corporate prisons so many of us must work within every working day. The stifling fascist mentality suppresses free speech and free thought. Many of our workplaces resemble prisons. Many workers are so thoroughly dominated and humiliated within the government and corporate prison we live under that they cannot even hope to muster up the weakest of straightforward resistance to the oppressive social environment. They are too vulnerable, and therefore too frightened to speak up. Bullies flourish within the workshops of Calgary. This is the Alberta of today. This is the Calgary of 2008. It is not a pretty picture. However, one positive aspect was the recent dramatic shortage of labour due to the overheated economy of 2009, but things have slowed down a bit since then. This served to lessen the degree of bullying and intimidation by management. This had helped labour make some gains and decreased their level of vulnerability, but there is still a long way to go for labour here in Alberta - a very long way to go. There are still some of us (like me) who have not been defeated. We still speak up. We still resist. Although humiliated and bullied within the corporate world of Calgary, we endure and we resist. We need the money, and so must patiently endure abuse, but we speak up. Here are some new and innovative ideas for the city of Calgary.
Indian Village on the Stampede Grounds - picture taken in 2009
Create an Indian Village in Calgary. A permanent Indian Village. Use it to for the promote and sale of native art work , music, and native crafts. We have many very talented native artists. Start from the base of the Indian Village at the Stampede in summer - this land is on the stampede grounds. Expand this area, but keep it on the stampede grounds. This would be a tourist attraction, and naturally a place to do business for natives. It needs to be structured and designed by the natives themselves, and run by the natives. It will be a place to sell and promote their art work. And a sort of gathering place too. Now we are talking culture here folks. Wouldn't all this stuff bring more life to Calgary ?
A Public Wholesale Marketplace Build a publicly funded wholesale market establishment, owned and run by the City of Calgary, and run on a non-profit basis. Where Alberta producers can rent out a stall at a very minimal cost. Where Alberta producers can sell their products straight to the consumer at or very near the wholesale level. This is not to be another retailer. It will be designed to give producers an opportunity to have their products, so they are available to the public at or very near the wholesale level - with only marginal mark-ups permitted. A city owned cooperative.
Road Construction Existing road construction plans as of 2010 are fine the way they are.
One of the busiest roads in Calgary, well maintained, safe and a quick and easy transportation corridor. Deerfoot Trail is operated and maintained by Alberta Transportation.
All businesses regarded as non-smoking. Smoking rooms permitted, but at the discretion of the business. Businesses can ban smoking on their premises if they want to. If people want to smoke they can do so outside on public property, on the property of the business outside - if allowed, or they can smoke at home.
Transit fares must be reasonable - which they are not in 2010. There should be a roll back of fares to $ 70 for a monthly bus pass, and $2.50 for a single transit fare. Back in the spring of 2007 the transit union and transit management were involved in a labour dispute regarding the renewing of the contract. Basically what happened is that the union was in a legal position to walk out, but they were threatening to engage in rotating walk outs - that is they would target a certain area for a temporary stoppage of work, and then move to a different area, but still provide service for the rest of the city. Management countered by threatening to lock the transit union, and transit workers out, if the union chose to engage in any rotating walk outs. I was dependent upon transit to get back, and forth to work - as were and still are many other Calgarians. And here these goons and clowns are playing games with my livelihood, and the health and well being and livelihoods of many other Calgarians. I realized right then and there that basically these people (certainly not all of them, but too many of them) didn't give a damn about me, and how I had to take transit for five years - and with my round trip to and back to work taking me roughly 3 to 3 ˝ hours each day. It was a big disappointment for me, because I had met so many pleasant and friendly people while taking the bus and train to work (but I also encountered my share of creeps and bums too, you run into every kind of person when taking transit regularly). I had also gotten to know quite a few bus drivers personally, and had a lot of very enjoyable and pleasant conversations with a lot of bus drivers. There were some drivers that I really admired. One especially was a really special driver, who made riders just feel good while riding on his bus. Anyways I feel the lions share of the blame for the labour dispute was with transit management, but the union had to share some of the blame too. So I went ahead and bought a car, and have almost never taken the bus or train since. I really miss some of the people I got to know, and some of the drivers. But I found out that basically for these people - these transit people - they really didn't give a damn about me.
Counsel meetings must be usually in session, when most Calgarians could attend. So this doesn't mean sneaking through controversial matters in some 11th hour secretive meeting when most folks are unaware of what is happening. We don't need anymore of these 11th hour counsel meetings. Counsel needs to be much more open to the public, and much more accountable. The Mayor if referred to as His Worship. Isn't it time to get away from this ridiculous idea of Alderman calling the Mayor - Your Worship. There must be some way to stop such nonsense, since we should only be worshipping God.
The Future The future of the City of Calgary is being determined by the attitudes of the majority of its people today. Too many are proud, smug, hopelessly materialistic, and selfishly pursuing their own interests - and there is no future for a city like that. Because if there are better material opportunities elsewhere, many will pack up and leave, because they are not rooted in the earth - not rooted in the land, and such people have no love for the people of Alberta, or the land. Instead they just have love for themselves and their money. So when times get tough many will leave. I just wish and hope someday to find or meet someone, just somebody here in Calgary who has come to Calgary from outside of the Province, or is an immigrant - who tells me they came to Alberta and Calgary for some greater reason other than money.........like to be free maybe, or like because they love the land and the people here. You know it is so, sooo very tiresome to see these people coming here who don't give a damn about Albertans or Alberta, but who just come to screw Alberta. This pervasive greed here in Calgary makes it harder and more difficult for people to live and manage here. Calgary's future is to begin shrinking and being diminished. In fact in the last year from 2009 to 2010 Calgary only grew by about 6,000 persons, and this is way, way down from the numbers that have been flooding into the city before. There is still a good future for some of us here. There are those like myself, who are rooted in the land, and who have made commitments, and who love Alberta and love the country. We don't love how it has been mismanaged, but we are not going to run away when times get tough, because this is our home. I come from here - this is my home and land - this is my Alberta.
There will be a lot more innovative ideas for the direction of Calgary in the future. Keep in touch, and spread the news. Spread the news that freedom, and free thinking is still alive. Yes sir folks there are still some freedom loving free thinkers alive in these here parts. There are still some people who will not be bought, and who resist. They have not all died. This is the west of the west. We must never allow freedom to die out here.
Telephone (403) 274-5253
E-mail
07/27/2010
Mailing Address: Ray Wegner P.O. Box 475 Stn. Main Calgary, Alberta T2P-2J1 Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms and Fundamental Freedoms (from the Canadian Constitution) The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association. This web site built, designed, and owned by Ray Wegner
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Indian Village
Deerfoot
Trail, Calgary 
