The written speech was what I was originally gonna say. But all those lights...! Luckily, I'm really good at this, and can still get the message out. The tech and producer just blinked at me when I was finished. They totally advised me not to do another take and keep this one I did. I took that as positive advice, and not like they were secretly trying to make me look bad or anything. Since they seemed genuinely nice, and I just kinda assume that most people are generally good and helpful. Because I know I am. Maybe that's a flaw on my part, but I'm not changing it.
And again, this is before the orange wave, which I totally anticipated, but it was still not a done deal.
Original written speech:
Greetings. My name is Trey Capnerhurst and I'm running for the Alberta Greens in Edmonton Decore.
My 13 year old daughter said to me today "We're the heart of Canada's oil industry. Why is everyone getting cancer?" She is willing to make the connections that most Albertans are not.
One in two Albertans will get cancer in their lifetimes. One in four will die from it. That's your kids, your family, your nieghbours... That's not normal. We have the worst polluted air in the country, and one of the highest child asthma rates on the planet. My son was born nearly perfect, except that sometimes, he literally can't breathe. That is the price we are paying for oil being our primary industry.
Some parties want us to have even more jobs in that resource industry, because we somehow don't have enough already, and yet also expand our health care. Which is really handy, because those go together. We need to expand our gutted healthcare, but prevention saves even more money and lives.
I still remember a time when Alberta was a world leader in so many industries. Oil may have been discovered in the 40's, but it was always part of a balanced economy. In fact, oil wasn't even one of the top three in the 80's. Agriculture, forestry, and believe it or not, the arts, were our most profitable industries. The Arts alone brought in 2 *billion* a year in 80's! And all of these sustainable. We could have flourished on them for generations. Then came the push for the tarsands, and suddenly austerity measures, with slashing of social programs and the war on the poor, and all of our other industries sacrificed to the Tarsands idol. Of course we now need the tarsands, because we have no other jobs left. We could be great without the tarsands, as we once were. Alberta could still even be an energy leader, if we acknowledge that petroleum is on its way out, and we need to fully prepare for the new. Or get left behind...
Alberta also has, for all practical purposes, a flat tax, and corporations are getting away with using our infrastructure and killing our citizens, while still paying some of the lowest rates on the planet. We could easily transition to sustainable industries if we insist that everyone pay their fair share. They've certainly got the benefits from it already...
It's time we got our head out of the tarsands. The price is far too high; for us and for the world. We are a wonderful, caring people, and we can do so much better than this. Speak out. Demand more. Vote Green.
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