Alberta (barely) Votes!

It's been a while since I updated you all, so sorry for that. We've been engaged in the usual stuff, plenty of weekend skiing, an awesome day's snowshoeing with the new Aussie exchangees and beavering away at school. My skiing is really coming on. Last weekend I went to Sunshine, our favourite local mountain, with Peter, Roger and Chantal from school as well as Kylie and Iain from Oz. I found some new black runs I hadn't explored before and found myself comfortably getting down a run I had had to walk off just 3 weeks previously. It was very satisfying to see such tangible evidence of my progress because it's hard to be objective. Whenever we go out I push myself to ski better on harder runs, so I generally feel like I'm out of my depth until I can compare my skiing to previous experiences on the same run.

Alberta voted yesterday, or at least 40% of them did. A very poor show and representative of the general apathy about provincial politics here. Whether that apathy is the cause or effect of the fact that the Conservatives won their 11th straight victory and after 37 consecutive years in power now hold about 80% of the parliamentary seats I don't know, but I am stunned. That kind of track record doesn't help keep politicians honest, doesn't make them motivated to make any changes and the poor turnout doesn't give much of a mandate. That said, anyone suggesting putting up taxes to pay for schools and hospitals would not get much of a hearing over here. Canadians are amongst the nicest people I have met, but Albertans persist in driving over-sized trucks everywhere which precludes the economy of scale necessary for a good, green public transport system. There is very little fair trade anything available and many people are utterly unfamiliar with the concept. There is very little courtesy shown on the road. All of these point to a selfishness in Albertans when considered 'en-masse' which I don't be live is present in the individuals I meet. How it is possible I don't know, but I'm disappointed.

So; Vote! Drive sensible cars! Buy Fair trade coffee! Drive nicer! Canada expects...