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If the new EV registration tax was about heavier vehicle weight, it would also apply to large gas-powered trucks and SUVs, which get larger and heavier every model year. That it doesn’t is telling.
If the new restrictions on renewables were actually about agriculture and pretty views, they’d apply to all energy and infrastructure developments. That they don’t is telling, unless I missed the memo that coal mines and tailings ponds are now “aesthetically pleasing.”
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For all the sophistry spent in justifying these measures, the message to Alberta’s fastest-growing economic sector is very clear: “Drop dead”.
Alberta fancies itself as Canada’s Texas, but the latter has one of the fastest-growing renewable power sectors on the continent. This past week’s actions seem more likely to make Alberta into Canada’s West Virginia — a place so fixated on what it was, and so determined to remain so, that it’s blinded to what it could be.
Cameron Climie, Ottawa
Flaws in city’s housing plan
Re: Plebiscite needed on housing strategy, Feb. 28
There are many issues arising from the proposed housing strategy, the main being that affordable housing will not occur.
Another is that the strategy is not environmentally friendly. Multi-family developers are allowed to build on 62 per cent of a property in comparison to 45 per cent for single homes. This densification of housing results in trees, which capture carbon, being cut down and not replaced. Houses that are three stories high are being built, resulting in neighbouring yards and gardens being shaded. Shading will not allow people to grow their own food to lower their food costs. Less plants and trees can lead to a decrease in bees that pollinate plants, which reduces food production.
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Developers only have to provide four parking spaces for an eight-unit complex. Parking issues have occurred in communities with this type of housing. Back lanes and streets are cluttered with garbage and recycling bins.
Development of empty or underutilized city lots has received limited attention.
Other cities that employed this strategy failed to provide affordable housing. For some cities, increased crime and social breakdown occurred.
New strategies are needed for affordable housing.
Cheryl Wong, Calgary
Praise for past leaders
Re: Brian Mulroney, the prime minister who made the modern West, Opinion, March 1
Don Braid’s column makes a sad but accurate point. He says: “In the end, Brian Mulroney was widely disliked in Western Canada, despite some of the best policies the region has ever seen.”
Braid, who has been covering Alberta politics since the late 1970s, could make the same comment about former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed. There are Albertans who respond to Lougheed in the same way they do Mulroney.
Both Lougheed and Mulroney led the greatest change in Canada in the country’s history.
Those of us who grew up in the 1970s enjoy a high-quality lifestyle with few equals in the world. That lifestyle is thanks to those two leaders. In 2024 Alberta could definitely use Lougheed to replace the gang that can’t govern straight.
To the critics of Lougheed and Mulroney, shame on you.
Brenton Harding, Calgary
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