I had been considering reviving it in a new form, but after a lot of soul searching I decided the best course would be to close it. I plan to keep the site up. You never know. Someone may be interested in buying it and turn it into the Edmonton news site it really should be.

So, why close YegNews? 

There are many reasons, but really it boils down to dollars and cents. It wasn’t turning a profit and I just couldn’t keep it going without any cash flowing from it.

The way the project started, I truly believed it would have been making money in a reasonable amount of time. And really, it would have. Enough to vacation in the Caribbean? Not right away, but I think it could have provided a modest income as it grew.

When my project partner decided to bail that threw a serious wrench into the works, and dramatically changed the nature of the project and my role in it. It’s a shame too, because we got a great start out of the gate and a huge amount of traffic to the site in the first weeks.

A few weeks after that I almost closed YegNews and really I probably should have. It’s not easy, because I don’t give up that easily. In fact, it’s been a major step for me to take, and certainly quite a public one.

I’m sure there will be some analysis (thanks Karen!) and second-guessing about what we did wrong, the mistakes we made, etc, but I’m not worried about that.

As for mistakes, well, there were definitely many made! I am hoping I’ve learned my lessons, but at least I gave it a shot. As the old saying goes, better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all.

Fundamentally though, it virtually wasn’t making any money at all. Believe me, Google Adsense did not pay well, though that wasn’t the revenue model we had planned to rely entirely on.

How can online media work?

If I had it to do over again, I would look at the original online media model I proposed. I just think that would work much better.

I’ve worked as a journalist and even volunteered my time (quite willingly) but I do believe journalists should be paid. That is something we were working towards at YegNews. While I wasn’t ever really happy with not being able to pay our contributors, people are willing to write for free and do so for their own reasons.

It’s obvious I have an entrepreneurial spirit, because ever since I made the decision to close YegNews, I’ve been thinking of how I could correct mistakes and what I could do better. It’s not going to happen any time soon, at least not unless the conditions might be right to do it.

There is a place in the Edmonton media landscape for a daily online newspaper that only publishes online. In the shrinking media landscape we could use more, independent voices and diversity of opinion. Competition in the media is a positive thing and having a range of story angles and voices is sorely needed. I’m not a pack journalism kind of person and would actively discourage that.

Like any startup, funding is crucial and YegNews was underfunded. We did it on a shoestring but I thought we could work around that. I realize now what a mistake that was. If I had the $3 million budget I discussed, that would be more than enough to have a really serious newsroom. By really sharpening the pencil and tightening things up, you could still have a solid operation on a lot less money. And, to make website visitors happy, no ads! I think a subscriber-only model can work.

I’m still considering approaching investors who might be interested in funding a venture like this. Know anyone who might be?

And now?

I’ve certainly made a huge sacrifice for this project and right now am in recovery mode. I am looking for a day job and/or contract work and a chance to replenish my neglected bank account. My SEO consulting business has suffered as I have devoted to YegNews a good portion of my time since March.

I feel much better having made the decision and feel as if a weight has been lifted off me. In fact, I’ve had several personal situations resolved this fall too, so I feel really positive going forward!

There are nearly 500 media organizations who accept wire copy with little or no fact checking.

Collective stupidity is kind of scary, but we’re being subjected to the media’s obvious lack of fact checking with apparently “new video” surfacing from the day of the 9/11 attacks. The video, shot from a helicopter, shows the World Trade Centre before and after the collapse.

Nobody but the media seems to be up in arms about this “new video” and I wonder if there are any fact checkers employed by media organizations these days.

A five second search on YouTube for “9/11 helicopter video” will turn up the same video touted as being new. (I checked as soon as I saw this and it came up. Now the original result is being pushed down.) The post date? February 11, 2010, with a reference in the title of the video that it was released in 2009. I’ve embedded the first video, and you can also see part 2 of the original 9/11 police helicopter video.

In fact, there’s 9/11 helicopter video footage from July 12, 2007 that appears to be the exact same footage as that they’re saying now is new. It’s from July 12, 2007.

Even CBC is running the inaccurate 9/11 helicopter video story, normally a source of pretty good journalism, has run the Associated Press wire copy without verifying that the video is new. They’ve also closed off comments to the story. I expect more from CBC, but I have had some real concerns with them lately.

So, does anyone check facts anymore or search Google just to see what’s going on? Apparently not. No, it’s easier to just post garbage wire copy. It appears nearly 500 media organizations (for now) have picked up the story. What an embarrassment.

Considering it’s the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 this year, it’s no wonder the panic pump is being primed. 2012 end of the world shows will be replaced by fearmongering 9/11 propaganda. Quick. Is there a flag somewhere that I can wave around, while singing the national anthem?

We saw enough cheerleading during and after 9/11, I had hoped we might see some serious journalism on the topic (not the obvious tripe we’re seeing). I’m not sure I can take much more “chilling video.”

Though never convicted, it is strongly suspected Joran van der Sloot murdered Natalee Holloway. Van der Sloot has now confessed to murder of a young woman in Peru.

I have a confession to make. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s worse. I… admit…. I used to watch Nancy Grace on CNN. I know. I still can’t believe it, but I did. I’ve stopped now, but have occasionally relapsed for 5 minutes, every now and again.

With the recent arrest of Joran van der Sloot in Peru, where he apparently confessed to murdering a young Peruvian woman, the story of the murder of Natalee Holloway in Aruba five years ago is back.

I remember it well. Nancy Grace would go on and on and on. It seemed that she was obsessed with it for months.  I don’t know what possessed me to watch. It was a sad story about a young woman who vanished while on holidays in Aruba and her body’s never been found.

Aruban resident and Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot had been arrested, but never convicted. I don’t think he ever even went to trial. His dad is a judge there. Hmmm. Not sure how much that had to do with it.

So now he’s in trouble in Peru and up to his old tricks, sadly. I don’t think he’ll get out of this one. I don’t think Peru’s justice system has a reputation for letting people off easy. Karma’s a bitch, Joran.

If you haven’t seen Nancy Grace, you ought to give it a try just once. She’s certainly a pit bull and any semblance of journalism is out the window. It’s pure TV tabloid and everybody’s guilty. It’s like watching the same car wreck in slow motion, every night. It’s terrible, but oh so delicious, and mind-rotting, but delicious none the less.

You’ll see the same snippets of video, over and over and over again. CNN has mastered the video loop. Every detail of whatever case she’s on will be fine sliced, over and over and over.

If you’re looking for spectacle, you’ll find it here. I think my IQ may have recovered now.

The story is based on the 2009 book The Vegetarian Myth. I’d just like to say that I don’t have anything against vegetarians or vegans. I understand why they do what they do.

I haven’t read the book yet, only the article, but it seems that the author is really interested in delving into the nature of the modern factory farming agricultural system. Lierre Kieth, a former vegan, suggests that the vegetarian path is not going to accomplish the goals that most vegetarians seem to have. These reasons include tend to revolve around health, protecting animals, helping feed the hungry and not participating in factory farming.

All those are honourable goals, but is being a vegetarian really going to accomplish them? Avoiding meat for health reasons, particularly if that meat is coming from the factory farm process, is quite sensible. I’m not going to go into those reasons, but I certainly understand them. I would prefer to consume naturally raised animals instead of genetically modified, steroid and anti-biotic injected, confined and often diseased animals.

I would also prefer to eat fruits, vegetables and other food products that aren’t genetically modified, coated in pesticides and herbicides or contaminated with harmful bacteria such as E. Coli. Is that too much to ask? Apparently to factory farmers, it is.

Keith covers a broad range of topics in her five-page summary published in Mother Earth News, dealing with food security and factory farming. I tend to agree, from the reading and research I’ve done in the past, that these are far more serious issues that being a vegetarian is not really going to adequately address.

It is not easy to break the factory farming cycle, but we’re beginning to see rumblings among citizens that indicate people are becoming fed up with the crap we’re being fed, both from agribusinesses and politicians. I certainly don’t blame the small farmer who’s being driven to the edge of bankruptcy by what is a fundamentally corrupted food system.

The popularity and awareness of farmers markets has really increased in recent years. I’m not sure if gardening has as well, but I hope it has. We really do need to examine the relationship between what we eat and where it comes from to our personal health and the health of our land.

If you’re interested in your health, your family’s health and the health of agriculture, this article would be a good start. I’m definitely going to be picking up the book.

Dr. Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist, just happened to be living in Cordova, Alaska at the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. What are the chances of that? Rather inopportune for Exxon and now for BP.

She spoke this morning about the long term effects on the people who cleaned up the Exxon Valdez spill and is warning that the same process is unfolding in Louisiana. Have we learned nothing from past oil spills? It would seem that our governments and oil companies haven’t.

Dr. Riki Ott’s interview is in Hour One. It’s just under 28 minutes long and worth every minute.

She’s also written a couple of books on the Exxon Valdez oil spill: Sound Truth and Corporate Myths – The legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and Not One Drop – Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez oil Spill.

I’ve been a member of the mainstream media and I’m now a blogger. I’m on Twitter. The lines between media and social media are occasionally blurred.

I don’t buy into the hype saying that blogging and Twitter will replace the mainstream media.

We still have radio, books, magazines, newspapers, television, etc. Nothing replaced them. New forms of media have simply changed them. They all still have their place in the media landscape.

Mainstream media is changing

In the summer of 2009 I heard an interview with David Black, CEO of B.C.-based Black Press; apparently it’s Canada’s largest newspaper chain with more than 150 newspapers. He’s still expanding his newspaper empire. Puzzling, considering how many are claiming the media is dying.

What does he know that the pundits don’t? He knows is that the media is not dying, but is changing. Technology has driven the change and the recession has accelerated it.

Small local papers will be around for a long time and some lessons can be taken from them. The biggest advantage they have is that they have a local focus and I believe this will be the primary advantage of successful newspapers in the future. Citizens want to know what is happening in their community and local media still is one of the best ways to do so.

Today the media landscape is littered with wire copy. It’s cheap and easy filler. It has its place and is important in finding out what is happening around the world. On a daily basis, local news tends to be most important to readers. So what’s the best way to get that local news?

The future of newspapers: new form of media organization

The first step would be to form a co-op and everyone in the company is going to earn the same amount. Everyone’s going to be equal, have the same vote and be an equal partner in the organization.

Co-ops aren’t exactly new, but it’s not a common model for media organizations. Journalists typically aren’t a particularly entrepreneurial lot. CHEK TV on Vancouver Island is a fairly recent example of an employee owned station. I believe it’s a corporation, but it’s a similar idea.

Maryland allows social or benefit corporations with California and Vermont possibly following their lead. It essentially allows a corporation to have social goals as one of their primary goals, and not just profits. It could possibly allow a corporation to survive a hostile takeover by a larger, richer media organization seeking to reduce competition. I wouldn’t mind seeing something like this in Canada.

Second, the newspaper would be entirely online. Traditional newspaper and broadcast media are increasingly finding life online, but it’s different, and not as lucrative (yet). By not having a paper version, operational costs are kept much, much lower. One of Black Press’ key advantages is its ownership of presses. It’s expensive and creates many difficulties. While traditional newspapers will still be around, online publications will be the key to the media’s future.

Third, it would be ad free and would be completely subscriber-based. Yes, the dreaded paywall. The idea is to have the newspaper be strictly focused on journalism and not on advertising. The logic is it would be a publication free of any perceived advertiser bias. Those who aren’t subscribers would be allowed some limited views of stories. Partial views of stories would also be allowed in Google News.

I think that people would be willing to subscribe to a quality newspaper free of any perceived bias from advertising. You might not cover the entire market, but could find a sufficient number of subscribers interested in quality journalism that could make the online newspaper a go.

Details: using Edmonton as an example

I’m based in Edmonton, and here’s how I can see it working. According to 2001 census figures, Edmonton has 265,000 households. Now, and including the surrounding area (Spruce Grove, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Leduc, etc), let’s roughly estimate that at 400,000.

Let’s give journalists a healthy wage of $50,000 each. Using the Edmonton Journal as an example, there’s approximately 90 people in its newsroom and production (estimated).

With an all-online edition, 40 people for an online only, daily publication, to start would be reasonable.

The total payroll would be $2 million. Allowing an extra 50 per cent for overhead such as office space, libel insurance and other costs, you would be looking at an annual budget requirement of $3 million. Seems like a lot, but without ads, how do you do it?

Well, how much would a subscriber be willing to pay? Getting the Journal every day costs $256 per year. Not bad, but would someone be willing to pay $100 per year to get ad-free news delivered to their inbox, online, iPad and to their smart phone? I think they would. With GST that would be $8.75 per month for daily news, or 29 cents a day. (Seattle Post Intelligencer is all-online now and I’m curious how well they’re surviving.)

With a $3 million budget and $100 per subscriber needed you only need 30,000 subscribers. That’s only 7.5 per cent of the households in the Edmonton metro area.

As of March 31, the Edmonton Journal had a paid circulation of 125,589. Readership is estimated at 268,900 to 458,000. The assumption with readership is that there are multiple people reading the same paper.

So, what happens if there are 60,000 subscribers? This would mean revenue of $6 million per year. There are a couple possibilities here. It would be wise to create a reserve of working capital for the operation, but then what? The excess earnings could be distributed to those in the co-op as a dividend. It could be donated to charities.

More importantly the newspaper could expand its coverage and team. It could begin to invest more in investigative journalism. These days the trend is to cut newsrooms, not expand them. Investigative journalism has suffered at a time when North American citizens need it most.

Should there be ads?

It’s certainly possible to produce a quality newspaper, online or otherwise, without ads. I’m sure there’s a large chunk of the newspaper audience that hates the ads. I think it would be a big selling feature for a lot of people. If readers know they’re getting a quality product with honest reporting, that’s also a big selling feature. That’s not to say that just because you have ads you can’t trust the reporting.

People do read the ads in newspapers, no question. Some people pick up newspapers for the ads. Many small community papers seem to be little more than something to hold all the flyers that get delivered.

If an ad-free online newspaper were to be started, it would certainly leave room in the marketplace for competing newspapers to offer space for ads. What would the potential audience think? Good question. Before a venture like this got started, it would certainly be wise to do a great deal of market research to confirm that there would be demand for it. Or maybe an “if you build it, they will come” approach could be in order.

Beyond one city

This model can easily be expanded to more than one city. I can see something like this spreading across Canada and elsewhere. With a common look and content management system for the web, you could brand the network and pull in news from everywhere into that network. It could function as its own wire service.

Ad-free news from across the country, and maybe the world? I would definitely subscribe to that. Surplus funds from larger locations could be used to help new “bureaus” get started in other locations and bring them into the co-op. Once one location was successful, the goal would be to self-fund the entire organization.

If you were an unemployed journalist, would you rather sit at home on EI, or get back to work? If a group of journalists were suddenly laid off at a major paper and got a settlement package, why not pool those resources and start a publication like this? Take a risk! I think it would be more than fair to repay those who funded the organization with surplus funds the organization generated.

Would it work?

I believe that this is a realistic model for future newspapers and helps to solve the problem of shrinking the newsroom as a way of increasing profits. I think that employees would be even more committed to the success of the organization because they share in its successes. It works for companies like Lincoln Electric and Westjet.

I would like to hear your thoughts on whether you’d be interested in investing in something like this, would subscribe to it or why you think it may or may not work.

Ann Coulter is in Canada to eat your babies. No, seriously.

Canadians are now able to bear witness to the typical political spectacle normally reserved for our American friends.

If you haven’t heard by now, American conservative ‘pundit’ Ann Coulter has been on a speaking tour in Canada and she ran into some opposition at the University of Ottawa.

Coulter is known for pushing the limits of free speech and, ironically, is claiming she may file a human rights complaint after a letter from a University of Ottawa provost Francis Houle reminding Coulter about Canada’s laws on hate speech.

This came after her speech at the University of Ontario where Coulter told one Muslim student who questioned her about past remarks about Muslims that if they didn’t like being denied a flight they could “ride a camel” or a magic carpet.

The whole thing feels like it’s been scripted. Coincidentally, Ezra Lavant, not one to shy away from confrontation or attacking human rights commissions, was present for the festivities as master of ceremonies. How apropos. (I read this after I wrote this blog post. I think Neil MacDonald did a great job and it really reinforces the thought I had that this whole thing seems scripted. It’s not the first time Ezra ‘Chicken Little’ Lavant’s been up to this.)

I’m all for free speech, and think that people should be able to push things a little further than maybe our human rights commissions may be comfortable with. Coulter is well aware of the reactions to the kinds of things she says. She’s trying to evoke that reaction in audiences.

Ann Coulter has a truckload of t-shirts to sell. Get'em before they're gone!

Of course Coulter’s friends and fans are trying to frame the issue as a violent riot and that Coulter was scared (kind of like Democrats have been threatened in the US). One random, unverified comment on the Small Dead Animals blog apparently about huge Egyptian student union/club member overturning a table gets turned into ‘they were throwing tables.’

Somehow the pulling of a fire alarm is equated to yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. Well, it’s a theatre alright; the theatre of the absurd

Coulter’s fans are also trying to frame her opponents as being opposed to free speech, ironically while exercising their own right to free speech.

The absurd theatre will continue at the University of Calgary but, now that she’s really whipped everyone into a frenzy about the apparent lack of free speech in Canada and crazed left-wing mobs, comes the real reason for her visit. I heard it from one source that she has a semi-trailer full of Obama Joker t-shirts and she’ll be selling them at her speech in Calgary.

She’s got so much attention here now that everyone will want a memento from her speech. Well, it’s either that or she is trying to get some free healthcare while she’s here in Canada, sort of like Rush Limbaugh did when he was in Hawaii. Oh, wait, no. Apparently everyone can get healthcare in the U.S. now. Forget it.

What Ann Coulter has done with her bit of performance art is to remind us that Canada is not at all like the USA in its political discourse. Thank you Ann.

The usual format is that there is a presenter who talks about the latest social media related project they’re up to, and then we have a group discussion about current social media topics.

iNews 880 – on top of social media

This Social Web Meetup had two presenters. First was Brittney LeBlanc, a reporter with the Edmonton radio station iNews 880 talking about how the station she works for uses social media.

Brittney is definitely an avid Twitterer (Tweeter?), and is, apparently, one of the first Edmonton media people to be on Twitter. Many other Edmonton media personalities have jumped on Twitter recently and are still learning. Brittney (@britl on Twitter) seems to have mastered Twitter.

Dub5 – web-based calendar

Also presenting was Adam Rozenhart of Dub5. Dub5 is a web-based calendar application being developed in Edmonton.

Adam said the genesis of the calendar project came about when a friend realized he’d missed a friend’s wedding. It was the day after the wedding and he woke up thinking about buying a wedding gift, wondering when the wedding was. He realized his error once he found the invitation.

It looks like an interesting application. I haven’t signed up for it yet (going to). It will send out text messages to people associated with an event to remind them it’s happening.

Adam said all the big calendar applications like Google Calendar, Outlook and others are all in their space. He said calendars seem to be an afterthought of those companies and aren’t as well-developed as they could be; something Adam’s company intends to remedy.

Good attendance for Social Web Meetup

The weather is getting better here in Edmonton and I was worried not many would show up for the social media gathering, but we had 28 people show up for the Meetup. I suspect the summer turnout, if the meetings happen in July and August, may be low. That of course depends on how the weather is then. Let’s hope our “spring” is no indication of how our summer will be.

I was surprised just how good the attendance was at Brewster’s Pub afterwards. We’ve made a tradition of heading over to the Oliver Square location after the meeting and this time we had around 25 people show up for that.

It’s always a good discussion after the meeting and good for networking too. I know most of the people at the Social Web Meetup, but we usually have a few new people show up to each meeting.

The discussion after the presentations was quite good, as usual. One of the main topics was whether or not the media is sensationalizing coverage of the swine flu outbreak. There’s too much to cover here, but it was fun.

My Edmonton SEO company

For me it was a good opportunity to hand out a few of my new temporary business cards for my Edmonton SEO company, Page One SEO. I’m making it official with my new website.

I’m quite excited and it’s been a long time coming. I’m doing search engine optimization, copywriting and editing and Internet marketing consulting. Many of you are already aware that I have been doing search engine optimization independently since October 2008.

So, if you’re an Edmonton company looking for search engine optimization, website copy, press releases or pay per click advertising campaign setup & management, I can give you a hand. I’d be happy to meet with you and discuss your Internet marketing needs.

Who advises these guys? Looking at this whole thing from a public relations perspective, and with the Alberta oilsands under attack from practically the rest of the world, you’d think they’d realize that you should put the bad news out first. All of it.

Be right up front with the disaster and lay it all out. You don’t want people thinking that you’ve swept it under the carpet, have something to hide, have skeletons in the closet, etc. Of course, that’s the line of thinking. People inherently don’t trust the oilsands companies anyway, but there would be a chance of that if they handled these things properly.

The perception might change slightly if you’re the first to the table with bad news, exactly what happened and what you’re doing to stop it from happening again. It defuses the media a bit because they’re so used to the opposite. It will hopefully help the perception that you’re truly sorry and are really taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And, hopefully, the company really is.

Any true PR professional would have advised Syncrude to go public with all the details immediately and not extend the news cycle on this fiasco. If Syncrude executives didn’t listen, shame on them.

The whole situation with the oilsands is going to take more than just a $25 million publicity campaign by the Alberta government to make it go away. For world opinion to change, there’s going to have to be real action to clean up the tar ponds and minimize the carbon footprint. There are no shortcuts.

I’m just curious how they’re going to handle it when it happens again, because it will.<–>

If you haven’t noticed, Alberta has a new slogan that will surely inspire us to create and achieve our way out of this economic black hole. May it also inspire the rest of the world to ignore what’s happening up in Fort McMurray.

I really must be inspired this morning because I woke up at 7:15 a.m. thinking about writing; some I wanted to do for fun, like this, and other writing I wanted to do for work.

I started the morning off with coffee and a quick skim through the Edmonton Sun that we get on Sundays. Yes, a dead tree publication. I don’t feel like carrying my laptop everywhere, thank you very much.

Sunday newspaper

Seems like an appropriate time to digress. We get the Edmonton Sun on Sundays. One day a week. The family seems to like it. I would like to get the Edmonton Journal, but why not just on Saturday? Think the Journal will do that? Nope. Monthly, or Friday, Saturday, Sunday only. That’s it. And, the weekly price is about $26 while the three day price is about $21.

I only want it on Saturday though. I guess I’ll have to get off my lazy ass and go for a walk to get it.

Having a look at the Edmonton Journal’s subscription prices, I also realize that there is no incentive to sign up for more than a month at a time. There’s no discount for signing up for 3, 6 or 12 months. As crazy as it seems, it’s slightly more money to sign up for 3 or 6 months!

Does that seem crazy to you? It’s not like $3 makes that big a difference in my life, but I take it where I can get it. Who’s asleep at the switch in the subscriber department at the Journal?

With newspapers having problems staying afloat, you’d think they’d do the math and actually give people incentives to sign up for as long as possible. If it’s possible to only sign up for the digital edition, it’s really not obvious on their site. Sigh.

For someone who’s a big defender of the newspaper business and mainstream media in general, I’m disappointed. Please, hurry up and get it. Adjust your business model to reflect the changing times. I want the mainstream media to survive so we won’t be subjected to thousands of bloggers who think that they’re journalists and who will subject us all to opinion masquerading as news. (I fear it’s already happening/ed.)

I’m extending my invitation to the Journal and other media organizations to give you a hand. I’ll help you out. Want an outsider perspective? Would you like someone who has experience as a journalist and the web? Even better, I’ve published my own newspaper. I get it. I’ve been on both sides of the fence.

$25 million down the drain?

How the heck did I go from wanting to talk about Alberta dumping $25 million down the drain on a new slogan and PR campaign to offering to be a consultant for the media? The mind works in mysterious ways!

So, about that $25 million. I had to laugh at Martin Hudson’s column in the Edmonton Sun. (Neil Waugh used to write that column on the comment page, but I heard he got the boot. Now it seems Waugh is writing the outdoors column for the Sun. Not a bad gig I guess. Hope the mortgage is paid off.) Hudson speculated that perhaps the slogan was spotted at the bottom of a bong. Ahh, that made me laugh. Perhaps if there had been a bong involved in the process, there would be better slogan.

Being a resident of Alberta for less than two years, I hadn’t realized that “Alberta advantage” had been the province’s slogan. I won’t get into that one here, but being able to compare and contrast Alberta to other provinces, I’m not sure about some of the advantages. That’s another blog post though.

The Alberta government has opened the floodgates for copycat slogans that will inevitably focus on the folly of Alberta’s ruling party.

Just a word of advice to the Alberta government: if you want to change how the world perceives Alberta, it’s going to take some real action on the environment and not just a new slogan and an ad campaign. If only it were that easy.

I’ve talked with a variety of Albertans about oil, politics and the environment. I’ve talked with conservatives, liberals and greens. They all care about the province, and despite what our government might think, they are all concerned about keeping the province as unpolluted as possible.

When it comes to industry and the environment, it is possible to be clean and non-polluting. It’s up to the Alberta government to make this happen. We can have our cake and eat it too. We owe it to future generations of Albertans to give them a province with a clean environment and sustainable economy. The question is: does this government have the vision and the will to do it?

It would seem that 21.6 per cent of eligible voters in Alberta think so.(52.66% of the 41% of voters who turned out to vote.)