Ralph Surette

Tired of waiting for solar energy? Make your own.

rabble staff — Tue, 03 May 2016 13:42:30 +0000

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

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I got fed up waiting for solar energy to show up, so I made my own. You can see it in the photo. Works like a charm.

If a half-baked handyman like myself can get this going, that should tell you something.

First, about solar. Last year the world invested more in it than in coal and gas-fired electricity combined.

The big players -- the U.S. and China -- are doubling and tripling their installations within a year or two.

Ralph Surette was fed up waiting for solar energy to show up, so he made his own. Read on to learn how you can do it too.

Ringing the alarm on Nova Scotia's new hospital construction project

rabble staff — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:41:39 +0000

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

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Here's something to feed your nightmares. According to the last estimate, it would cost a cool $1 billion to replace the troubled Victoria General hospital in Halifax.

Obviously there's a need to swallow hard in a province that's already feeding a considerable herd of white elephants. If anything goes wrong this could be the alpha bull.

The Nova Scotia government is about to release a plan to go forward with replacing the troubled Victoria General hospital in Halifax. Ralph Surette has some words of advice.

As oil deflates Alberta's swagger, it's time to face some harmful economic myths

rabble staff — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 13:54:39 +0000

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

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Now that the "swagger" is gone out of Alberta, as the news reports say, and Albertans are getting on pogey as the oil economy has collapsed, you'd think we'd at least be spared the lectures about how economically virtuous Albertans are as compared to us bedraggled Maritimers.

Now that Albertans are getting on pogey as the oil economy has collapsed, you'd think we'd at least be spared the lectures about how economically virtuous Albertans are compared to Maritimers.

Community-ownership models offer an alternative path for the Chronicle Herald

rabble staff — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:39:45 +0000

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

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In the midst of a labour dispute, the good news is the Chronicle Herald is a rare "independent" and thus far better placed than most to do what a newspaper is supposed to do in a democratic society.

In a time of media meltdown, the Chronicle Herald is the last of news as we know it

rabble staff — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 15:27:05 +0000

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

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We in the media, who report and comment on the world, are not so good at reporting and commenting on ourselves. But here goes.

The media world, the newspaper business in particular, are in something resembling a full-bore meltdown.

We in the media, who report and comment on the world, are not so good at reporting and commenting on ourselves. But here goes.

Rough ride ahead for assisted suicide legislation

rabble staff — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 13:15:13 +0000

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

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Here's some serious business that's in a muddle.

The Supreme Court decreed last February that assisted suicide can be allowed under the Charter of Rights and gave the government a year to pass a law conforming to this ruling. The Harper government dragged its feet and the election intervened. The Supreme Court, doing the issue no favours, has given the new government a measly four extra months.

The Supreme Court decreed that assisted suicide can be allowed under the Charter and gave the government a year to pass law conforming to this ruling. Here's some serious business that's in a muddle.

The best hope for reforming the worst Senate

rabble staff — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 14:59:35 +0000

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

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Have we given up on Senate reform? The debate seems to have drifted down into a muddle about how to fill 22 vacant seats.

This is not good enough. Let us remind ourselves of what the real scandal is. It's the fact that the damn thing costs nearly $100 million a year to run -- or nearly $1 million per senator -- something largely lost amid the expenses scandals of this or that senator.

Have we given up on Senate reform? The debate seems to have drifted down into a muddle about how to fill 22 vacant seats.

Climate change charges on unabated

rabble staff — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 23:24:26 +0000

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

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For all the nations of the world to agree to anything is remarkable enough. To have them take fright and agree to pull in their belts on climate change is as unusual as having them pull together to create the United Nations and other world institutions at the end of the Second World War.

Humans continue to pollute faster than improvements in energy efficiency can keep up with, says Ralph Surette

Teachers' contract talks raise questions of education reform

rabble staff — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 14:24:34 +0000

Friday, December 18, 2015

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I must admit, it did look a little bit surreal -- that teachers and the bulk of civil servants would quietly accept a long-term contract with hardly any increases in pay, even if it was duly negotiated by their unions.

The teachers have thrown the whole thing into a cocked hat by massively turning down the agreement. Civil servants are due to vote in January on theirs.

When Nova Scotia teachers turned down the province's contract offer, they said it wasn't about the money but about the worsening conditions in which they have to do their jobs.

Nova Scotia sparks hope for a better energy policy

rabble staff — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 15:09:29 +0000

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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Having watched the electricity spectacle in Nova Scotia since the early 1970s, my expectations have taken a hit over time. Whereas I once naively believed that, surely, reason would prevail, recently I've been inclined to consider it progress if a government -- any government -- can serve its four years without leaving behind yet another white elephant or equivalent bung-up.

After decades of electricity spectacle in Nova Scotia, the McNeil government's new electricity plan brings renewed hope for the province's energy policy.

Right to the centre: Canadian politics after Harper

rabble staff — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 14:54:43 +0000

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

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Let us join the hallelujahs arising from the capitals of the Western world and beyond, celebrating the disappearance of a nasty troublemaker from the global stage -- a Canadian, embarrassingly -- and thank our lucky stars that our flawed democracy still works, and that we could get rid of a budding despot.

When things get complicated for a new government that has -- as usually happens -- promised too much too fast, when hope bogs down in the usual politics, here's how to understand what's happening.

Harperism is finally facing the end, and just in time

rabble staff — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 12:33:17 +0000

Monday, October 19, 2015

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It's election day and, at last, hope that what has to happen if this country is to recapture its integrity is actually about to happen: that Stephen Harper and his scurrilous despotism are about to get the heave.

If so, it will be just in time. The world is suddenly paying attention, and what it sees is not pretty -- one of the rocks of democracy and human rights in the world coming unstuck.

It's election day and, at last, hope that what has to happen if this country is to recapture its integrity is actually about to happen.

Harper trumpets Canada's international role even as our reputation declines

rabble staff — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 13:51:57 +0000

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

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There was a cute moment in last Monday's leaders' debate on foreign affairs. Stephen Harper, with the worst environmental policy in the developed world, was arguing that he actually had the best -- the most "responsible," "balanced," "transparent" and so on.

"He's always doing that!" an exasperated Justin Trudeau blurted out, but he couldn't nail him down.

We are becoming a ship of fools adrift on international waters, and not only is that obscured by Harper's doubletalk, but the opposition parties have failed to bring any of this to light.

Are you sure you can vote under Harper's Unfair Elections Act?

rabble staff — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:28:43 +0000

Monday, September 21, 2015

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Are you sure you can vote? Are you sure that on election day you won't be told that your ID, including your voter identification card from Elections Canada plus testimonials from sound citizens as to who you are that used to suffice, isn't enough under the Harper government's Fair Elections Act? It is the centrepiece of the Harper government's assault on democratic process and arguably its most devious piece of work.

Are you sure you can vote this election? The centrepiece of the Harper government's assault on democratic process, the Fair Elections Act, may stand in your way.

Atlantic Canada needs new federal strategy as Harper shipwreck sinks

rabble staff — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 14:25:10 +0000

Monday, September 7, 2015

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The federal approval of a problematic drilling project in Nova Scotia points to a bigger issue: the need to work out a strategy to deal with Ottawa as the Harper shipwreck is hauled out.