Happy New Year

Well the "New Year" is here, I love this day! The "New Year" makes you give pause for the year that was and more importantly makes you think about what is to come in the year ahead. So 2009 and what a year that was I think I'll make a top ten list of things that happened in the last year that I found particularly important.

1. Steven Harper prorogues parliament again with no valid reason. many people think the only reason he is doing this is so that he can avoid a court order to release documents regarding the Afghanistan detainees. Others think that he is trying to avoid criticism from opposition while the world is watching us at the "Vancouver Olympics" what ever, it's just wrong period.
2. The Copenhagen Climate Conference of 2009 came and went without a binding legal agreement. Barrack Obama did have a last minute think tank session in which all the major countries were involved, however Canada was not invited (what a shame). Barrack Obama was able to get the U.S.A., China, India, Great Britain, Germany, and all the other major countries present, that this is the most serious issue facing humanity to date and needs to be discussed in further meetings A.S.A.P. (a step in the right direction).
3. Canada won the "Fossil of the Year" award in Copenhagen, many thought Canada was the most disruptive country there and they were said to have been obstructive at every turn. I know that all the M.P.'s from Canada were trumpeting the same message months before the Copenhagen Conference, Steven Harper at the G-8 meeting, Jim Flaherty at the finance ministers meeting, and any other news interview or sound bite, "that Canada did not believe anything productive or meaningful would be achieved at Copenhagen. Steven Harper operates the same way every time, when he is about to do something extremely bad he feeds it to the media in small sound bites properly prepared in advance.
4. Quebec passes legislation that requires automobile manufacturers to provide vehicles that have a better fuel consumption then the automobile being produced today, these specifications are the same as the state of California has legislated. What a shame that the federal government hasn't done anything to this effect in the last four years they have been in power.
5. The province of British Columbia legislates a provincial "Carbon Tax" and starts a major campaign to spend these new tax dollars improving bicycles paths and train transportation throughout the province. They have also launched a public awareness campaign to help assist people about the various ways they can do their part to help the environment, again what a shame the federal government can't or won't do anything like this.
6. The B.C. Salmon Stock collapse that took place this fall finally got a little attention from the federal government, on November 5th, 2009 Steven Harper announced that he would launch a "Judicial Inquiry" into the disappearance of over nine million Sockeye Salmon in B.C. waters. Maybe there is still hope for our environment yet, however with the whole prorogation and all I wonder if the inquiry will still go ahead. The bottom line seems to be that fish farms make huge political donations so the politician help keep them in business. We should be employing people to restock our oceans with fish, not enabling the industries that are suspect for the collapse.
7. On a municipal level, I and many other citizen of Kelowna were thoroughly disgusted by the actions of our city council in the recent months. The council contracted an artist to come up with a new logo for the city, and when he does sell the artwork for a mere eleven thousand dollars, we find out that the logo is almost identical to a company from the United States. After a barrage of complaints from the public, the mayor has the audacity to say on camera that, "they would not be holding a plebiscite on the matter because the council would be ignoring the results, as the public elected them to make these type of decisions". The total cost to tax payers to change all the signs and equipment for this new logo was seventy thousand dollars, and almost everyone agrees that the old logo described Kelowna extremely well and the new one has no resemblance to what the region offers.
8. Again on a municipal level, the council decided to make an H.O.V. lane out of the new right hand lane on Hwy. 97 (the main artery through town), this is not a freeway and in fact has a traffic light every block. People are finding it impossible to access all the shopping along this roadway and finding it hard to merge and exit the Hwy. What gets me the most is that Kelowna has no pedestrian over passes and people are constantly getting hit by vehicles on this roadway, this new H.O.V. lane only makes things worse. Again council wanted no input from the public they said they had made their decision, they rule as if they have no intention of being re-elected and by the sound of things, they won't be re-elected.
9. On a more positive note, the government of Canada continues to show true leadership in the development of national parks and conservation areas with the announcement that "Lancaster Sound" at the eastern part of the North West Passage would get five million dollars to develop a marine conservation area. Also in June of this year the government announces the expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve, to increase it six times it's original size making it the third largest Nation Park in Canada, almost the size of Vancouver Island.
10. Again on a positive note, Neptune Canada was completed and is up and on line, the largest underwater exploratory Lab in the world. This project started in 2006 with the university of Victoria launching the Venus program and now that has developed into the Neptune Project. This lab stretches over the entire Pacific tectonic plate (at its narrowest point), just off the coast of Vancouver Island and is accessible to anyone who logs on, very very cool!

Anyways that's my top ten thing of 2009 and because this turned out to be quite a large post I'll have to list some of my goals and inspirations for the year to come on another blog post. Again, happy new year.