The Age of Disruption

Jazthedog

Published

9 years ago

7 minute read

Welcome to ” The Age of Disruption”

I am writing a series of articles that will discuss the world of disruptive technology, and the human impact both positive and negative. I will be attempting to put a Red Deer and Central Alberta spin on the technology implications. I will also welcome your questions and comments.

The drive to produce this series of articles is based on my own experience of being downsized in the last recession(2009/10) and then as a result of changes in the economy ending up being structurally under-employed ( living in a place where appropriate jobs are no longer available) But a place where my wife has a good, stable, well paying job. Moving crashes her career for the sake of my career, staying in Red Deer means I don’t work at my highest paying possibility… unless I can find a way to take geography and the traditional workplace environment out of the equasion.

About Me – The Author
I had a very traditional career, in accounting at a high (pre-professional designation) level working in industry; but I came into that career by a somewhat untraditional route, an MBA taken online. To be honest, its not even a true MBA, Simon Fraser University, one of the top universities in Canada, packaged up a portion of the core MBA courses into something called a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, so basically nobody knows what this is. It sounds like an undergraduate diploma, except that it is graduate (MBA) level work, its like 1/2 an MBA or an MBA without a specialization. In short it is something that is not transferable to anything else unless I want to move to Vancouver and finish it off and SFU is the only school that will give me advance standing for these courses. With a wife, family, and mortgage, simply impossible, SFU only offers their MBA in an on campus mode, I have researched dozens of other MBA programs but can’t get more than one or two courses to transfer so would basically be repeating, and spending big $$ to repeat the coursework.

In terms of Red Deer and central Alberta, we don’t have the large private companies that employ lots of accountants at all different levels, Basically there are large numbers of Bookkeepers, some do very advanced work, but generally the pay rate is hourly, and $25 hour is upper end, then there are the Professional Accountants, some work as Controllers and CFO’s at private companies but most in Central Alberta work for CPA Firms doing Public Practice Tax and Audit work. A funny thing about accounting, many people go from Public Practice Accounting to Private Industry but almost nobody goes from Private Industry to Public Practice, my biggest problems in this area is that I have never worked public practice, and I have no desire to do so.

While I don’t want to work public practice Audit & Tax, I would like to work advisory and consulting services and with the number of industries that I have worked in I believe that I would have something to offer. With out a professional accounting designation in Red Deer, those options are limited. Now nearing 50, I also have no desire to enter the CPA Professional Designation process, which most likely would have me competing with 20 year olds, at an entry level pay grade, doing public practice accounting work. Two years ago I talked to the CPA organization and due to the dates of many of my courses, they advised that I really would be starting out back at square one. I guess time to take a look at a new career path.

In the interim I have been a contingent worker, working several short-term gigs in my profession and running a couple of small sideline businesses. I have also started to educate myself on using the WWW, Cloud Technologies, and Social Media to earn an online living. I am amazed at what you can learn on line or very affordably with Groupon’s. Yes technology is even disrupting traditional learning as well, there are many great courses you can take on line for free, and even better ones that you can take at steeply discounted prices with Groupon coupons.

I have spent three years part-time building out my new technology knowledge base only to find out too often that working in technology is a younger person’s game. Age Discrimination is a very real problem in many technology firms, and also in many non-tech companies. Not saying that Red Deer has many tech firms, they do have some very good ones, but the roles that they have are limited mostly to coding and development that would require a whole new degree. I am still earning the majority of my income from a somewhat more traditional “JOB”, but the goal for 2017 is to earn 10% of my income from online sources and to become a referenced source of knowledge on technology economic and social disruption.

My motto is ” Work Any Place, Any Time, on Any Device” using technology.

If you or your company has a disruptive technology please write to me and we will discuss its impact. I would love to feature it in my posts.
I hope you enjoy my posts, I will try and write here weekly.

Les Brown is a writer, commentator on technology, a Futurologist, Writes for the “Age of Disruption”, Social Media Manager & Business Consultant.

Jazthedog

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The Age of Disruption

Alberta

Alberta taxpayers should know how much their municipal governments spend

Published on October 16, 2025

Todayville Content Team

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Austin Thompson

Next week, voters across Alberta will go to the polls to elect their local governments. Of course, while the issues vary depending on the city, town or district, all municipal governments spend taxpayer money.

And according to a recent study, Grande Prairie County and Red Deer County were among Alberta’s highest-spending municipalities (on a per-person basis) in 2023 (the latest year of comparable data). Kara Westerlund, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, said that’s no surprise—arguing that it’s expensive to serve a small number of residents spread over large areas.

That challenge is real. In rural areas, fewer people share the cost of roads, parks and emergency services. But high spending isn’t inevitable. Some rural municipalities managed to spend far less, demonstrating that local choices about what services to provide, and how to deliver them, matter.

Consider the contrast in spending levels among rural counties. In 2023, Grande Prairie County and Red Deer County spent $5,413 and $4,619 per person, respectively. Foothills County, by comparison, spent just $2,570 per person. All three counties have relatively low population densities (fewer than seven residents per square kilometre) yet their per-person spending varies widely. (In case you’re wondering, Calgary spent $3,144 and Edmonton spent $3,241.)

Some of that variation reflects differences in the cost of similar services. For example, all three counties provide fire protection but in 2023 this service cost $56.95 per person in Grande Prairie County, $38.51 in Red Deer County and $10.32 in Foothills County. Other spending differences reflect not just how much is spent, but whether a service is offered at all. For instance, in 2023 Grande Prairie County recorded $46,283 in daycare spending, while Red Deer County and Foothills County had none.

Put simply, population density alone simply doesn’t explain why some municipalities spend more than others. Much depends on the choices municipal governments make and how efficiently they deliver services.

Westerlund also dismissed comparisons showing that some counties spend more per person than nearby towns and cities, calling them “apples to oranges.” It’s true that rural municipalities and cities differ—but that doesn’t make comparisons meaningless. After all, whether apples are a good deal depends on the price of other fruit, and a savvy shopper might switch to oranges if they offer better value. In the same way, comparing municipal spending—across all types of communities—helps Albertans judge whether they get good value for their tax dollars.

Every municipality offers a different mix of services and those choices come with different price tags. Consider three nearby municipalities: in 2023, Rockyview County spent $3,419 per person, Calgary spent $3,144 and Airdrie spent $2,187. These differences reflect real trade-offs in the scope, quality and cost of local services. Albertans should decide for themselves which mix of local services best suits their needs—but they can’t do that without clear data on what those services actually cost.

A big municipal tax bill isn’t an inevitable consequence of rural living. How much gets spent in each Alberta municipality depends greatly on the choices made by the mayors, reeves and councillors Albertans will elect next week. And for Albertans to determine whether or not they get good value for their local tax dollars, they must know how much their municipality is spending.

Business

Major Projects Office Another Case Of Liberal Political Theatre

Published on October 16, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Ottawa’s Major Projects Office is a fix for a mess the Liberals created—where approval now hinges on politics, not merit.

They are repeating their same old tricks, dressing up political favouritism as progress instead of cutting barriers for everyone

On Sept. 11, the Prime Minister’s Office announced five projects being examined by its Major Projects Office, all with the potential to be fast-tracked for approval and to get financial help. However, no one should get too excited. This is only a bad effort at fixing what government wrecked.

During the Trudeau years, and since, the Liberals have created a regulatory environment so daunting that companies need a trump card to get anything done. That’s why the Major Projects Office (MPO) exists.

“The MPO will work to fast-track nation-building projects by streamlining regulatory assessment and approvals and helping to structure financing, in close partnership with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples and private investors,” explains a government press release.

Canadians must not be fooled. A better solution would be to create a regulatory and tax environment where these projects can meet market demand through private investment. We don’t have that in Canada, which is why money has fled the country and our GDP growth per capita is near zero.

Instead of this less politicized and more even-handed approach, the Liberals have found a way to make their cabinet the only gatekeepers able to usher someone past the impossible process they created. Then, having done so, they can brag about what “they” got done.

The Fraser Institute has called out this system for its potential to incentivize bribes and kickbacks. The Liberals have such a track record of handing out projects and even judicial positions to their friends that such scenarios become easier to believe. Innumerable business groups will be kissing up to the Liberals just to get anything major done.

The government has created the need for more of itself, and it is following up in every way it can. Already, the federal government has set up offices across Canada for people to apply for such projects. Really? Anyone with enough dollars to pursue a major project can fly to Ottawa to make their pitch.

No, this is as much about the show as it is about results—and probably much more. It is all too reminiscent of another big-sounding, mostly ineffective program the Liberal government rolled out in 2017. They announced a $950-million Innovation Superclusters Initiative “designed to help strengthen Canada’s most promising clusters … while positioning Canadian firms for global leadership.”

That program allowed any company in the world to participate, with winners getting matching dollars from taxpayers for their proposals. (But all for the good of Canada, we were told.) More than 50 applications were made for these sweepstakes, which included more than 1,000 businesses and 350 other participants. In Trudeau Liberal fashion, every applicant had to articulate how their proposal would increase female jobs and leadership and encourage diversity in the long term.

The entire process was like one big Dragon’s Den series. The Liberals trotted out a list of contestants full of nice-sounding possibilities, with maximum hype and minimal reality. Late in the process, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains picked the nine finalists himself (all based in cities with a Liberal MP), from which five would be chosen.

The alleged premise was to leverage local and regional commercial clusters, but that soon proved ridiculous. The “Clean, Low-energy, Effective and Remediated Supercluster” purported to power clean growth in mining in Ontario, Quebec and Vancouver. Not to be outdone, the “Mobility Systems and Technologies for the 21st Century Supercluster” included all three of these locations, plus Atlantic Canada. They were only clustered by their tendency to vote Liberal.

Today, the MPO repeats this virtue-signalling, politicking, drawn-out, tax-dollar-spending drama. The Red Chris Mine expansion in northwest British Columbia is one of the proposals under consideration. It would be done in conjunction with the Indigenous Tahltan Nation and is supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent. That’s right up the Liberal alley.

Meanwhile, the project is somehow part of a proposed Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor that would cordon off an area the size of Greece from development. Is this economic growth or economic prohibition? This approach is more like the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 than it is nation-building. And it is more like the World Economic Forum’s “stakeholder capitalism” approach than it is free enterprise.

At least there are two gems among the five proposals. One is to expand capacity at the Port of Montreal, and another is to expand the Canada LNG facility in Kitimat, B.C. Both have a market case and clear economic benefits.

Even here, Canadians must ask themselves, why must the government use a bulldozer to get past the red tape it created? Why not cut the tape for everyone? The Liberals deserve little credit for knocking down a door they barred themselves.

Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.