Vision PEI

12/26/2022

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — It took nine tries before Green party leader Peter Bevan-Baker managed to win in an election. Bevan-Baker, who is a dentist by ...

08/03/2022

Can't resist posting Ranald's letters. The man is awesome.
GETTING ALONG WITH NEIGHBOURS
The Guardian (Charlottetown)3 Aug 2022
I really like the Mennonites. Thank goodness they are moving here. I’ve had a lot of dealings with them. All good.

They buy farms. They farm responsibly and sustainably. They are good business people, so they don’t suck huge quantities of taxpayers’ dollars.

I’ll take a thousand more Mennonites before I’ll take another friggin’ Irving. Ranald Macfarlane, Fernwood, P.E.I.

07/06/2022

UNLESS THERE IS AN ISLAND-SHAKING ISSUE OR EVENT THAT FORCES ME TO YELL AND WHINE PUBLICLY, THEN THIS WILL BE MY LAST VISION PEI POST. DALE SMALL

WE WERE WARNED. WHAT COMES NEXT FOR OUR SUCCESSORS?

Palanisamy Nagarajan is an emeritus professor of economics and an island studies fellow at the University of Prince Edward Island. A country can cut down ...

06/29/2022

C'mon Greens! PEI NEEDS YOU! Surely you have not been infected by the political virus. The one that changes otherwise fine people into self-centered, entitled know-it-alls. Show Islanders what a new, visionary, honest government will do.

View the The Eastern Graphic for Wednesday, June 29, 2022

06/20/2022

A timely, thought-provoking read.
DS

A growing and influential intellectual movement aims to understand why human progress happens – and how to speed it up. Garrison Lovely investigates.

06/15/2022

June 15, 2022

Statement on the out of touch and callous response by King government to predicament of Islanders facing record inflation levels

Reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake”, the suggestion by the King government for Islanders to “tighten their belts” reveals the Premier and his Ministers are simply out of touch with the very real, very painful struggles Islanders are facing each and every day.

For example, the cost for someone to travel from the Minister of Finance’s district to Charlottetown and back is around $15 a day or $75 a week if they were doing this everyday as a commute to their workplace. That means for a minimum wage earner, more than the first hour of their work day is just to cover the expense of getting to their job. Their fuel expenses aren’t covered by taxpayer dollars.

Fuel costs are just one area that record inflation on PEI is creating unsustainable expenses for Islanders. Yet, the cost of fuel affects everything from access to goods and services for things from food, medicines, and healthcare.

Shelter is also a major concern for Islanders. Financial experts are sounding the alarm that as many as 1 in 4 homeowners will be forced to sell their home because they will be unable to make their mortgage payments. The King government has made no substantial improvements to our public housing supply, no rental registry to protect against illegal rent increases, and no efforts to crackdown on housing speculation that hurts prospective homeowners and tenants alike.

During a meeting of the Standing Committee on Education and Economic Growth yesterday, it would have been frustrating for Islanders to hear finance officials say “the worst is behind us.” Especially in light of the fact that Premier King has failed in his promise to deliver his emergency inflation relief during this time.

Premier King and his ministers may be able to hide from committee, but Islanders cannot hide from the rising cost of living. The Department of Finance claims that prices are expected to return to some sense of normal by mid-2023—yet government seems to have no clear plan of action for the next 12 months.

Islanders need help now. They don’t need moral support; they need financial support. This government is showing itself to be at best out of touch with reality and at worst uncaring and callous towards the very real struggle Islanders are facing. Neither bodes well for our province.

Lynne Lund, MLA Summerside-Wilmot
Education and Economic Growth Legislative Standing Committee Member for Official Opposition Green caucus

Trish Altass, MLA Tyne Valley-Sherbrooke
Education and Economic Growth Legislative Standing Committee Member for Official Opposition Green caucus

06/12/2022

Island media can seem like it doesn't ask the hard questions at times, or ignores tough issues, but there are exceptions, and here is a glimpse at one's frustrations trying to do his job:

From CBC PEI journalist Kerry Campbell
Friday, June 10th, 2022
via Twitter

It's now been 590 days since I filed an access request for the Brendel Farms report. It's been 1,345 days since I asked for information on a death at Sleepy Hollow that, in other provinces, would have been made public as a matter of routine disclosure.

"I think this is the most open and transparent government in the history of Prince Edward Island. I’m very proud (Indistinct)," Premier Dennis King said in the PEI Legislature on May 3, according to Hansard.'

Under the previous govt I got used to the province not asking me to pay for most access requests. Those were the good times. Now invoices in the hundreds of dollars are routine, and I don't feel like departments are engaging with me in good faith as I try to whittle those down.

A functional access-to-information system is a critical component of a healthy democracy. When it takes four years (and counting) just to find out whether a person who died in custody received appropriate medical care, that's a problem.
'm also still waiting on these records I applied for in early 2020. These are forms corporations submit to IRAC on land ownership. Technically, their land holdings are public information, available through PEI's land titles office.

My frustration today is over a request for records on

's ambulance system. The bill came back at $330. I asked for a breakdown, then told the province we could eliminate the item responsible for 6 of 14 hours of searching in response to this request. The bill is still $330.

That request was spurred on by the story of George Kinch, as told by his daughter, who died of a heart attack earlier this year. I don't know that he could have been saved, but it took the ambulance more than an hour to arrive.

Hey everyone, thanks for being there for me. Sometimes a journalist just has to vent, you know? ....

---Kerry Campbell,
June 10th, 2022

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"Democracy dies in darkness" is the slogan on the masthead of The Washington Post, a phrase based on a quote from a United States judge several decades ago, and it fits here, too. We probably need to be more vocal about reminding the provincial government that they are *not* living up to their assertion of transparency (this goes for all levels of government, too).

Kudos to Kerry, and Stu Neatby at The Guardian, and Rachel Collier and publisher Paul MacNeill at The Graphic publications, and citizens like Martin Ruben for their perseverance.


Yours truly,
Chris Ortenburger,
Citizens' Alliance of P.E.I.