from the op/ed pages of today's paper

Occupy Calgary 'meeting' one of the funniest things I've witnessed in months

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald

The contrast couldn’t be more stark between the Famous 5 celebrants and Occupy Calgary protesters meeting just steps apart Tuesday.
At around noon, about 40 women in hats gathered at the Famous 5 statue at Olympic Plaza to celebrate the 82nd anniversary of women being declared “persons” in Canada, on Oct. 18, 1929. Those five women are proof of the incredible power a few determined, focused people can make when they have a clear plan to achieve a clear goal.
Just steps away, 18 Occupy Calgary protesters are gathering for their daily meeting at noon, called by Sheehan Herlein, next to the pretty pond the City of Calgary’s taxpayers pay for in the square, along with the clean and functioning washroom facilities and pretty flowers.
“The first thing we want to bring up is . . . we need to get something concrete. It’s time to take action on that concrete something so hopefully we can get a big turnout,” says Herlein in
apparent seriousness.
(Keep reading if you want a good giggle.)
“What I’m suggesting is that we have a meeting today with other working groups to get our thoughts correct,” declares Herlein.
Brent Talbot, 41, the author of the unpublished book, The Addict’s Guide to Spiritual Therapy, asks Herlein to repeat his proposal as he has been distracted by a bee. Phill Vernon, 29, is ringing his Tibetan singing bowl, something he does anytime he feels tension.
Then Talbot makes a proposal that those “who are actually camping here” in Olympic Plaza in any of the 28 tents on site, “hold a meeting because nothing seems to be getting done because no one is accountable and if you’re not accountable, nothing will get done,” he says. He suggests a 3 p.m. meeting. The assembled flutter their fingers, which means the crowd agrees. One young man disagrees. He’s too busy. He’s camping at St. Patrick’s Island. He has a tight schedule to keep, presumably walking between the two camps. Vernon rings his bowl. Inertia sets in.
So another person stands up to make a proposal: “We need more bodies doing stuff,” he says. “We have a lot of people in a lot of working groups that don’t know where to be and at what time.”
It’s one of the most humorous things I’ve witnessed in months and I still watch Seinfeld.
Finally, James Louden, 38, stands up and says he’s been taking notes for the past 15 minutes and so far all that’s happened is three different people have suggested three different meetings. “We are holding a meeting and all we’ve done is proposed three new meetings,” he points out to flurry of fluttering fingers.
At last, I think to myself, I’m going to hear an important point of action. This is what Louden says: “I propose that we set up a cork board or white board so that we can write down what time we’re holding all of these meetings,” Louden says. There is a fluttering of fingers again. But no one is tasked with getting the white board. The meeting is adjourned. Absolutely nothing is accomplished. The assembled, looking oddly proud of themselves, disperse into fake busyness. You can cut the phoniness with a knife. It is palpable.
Back at the Famous 5 monument, Carolyn Harley is singing the song she wrote: The Ballad of the Famous 5. “Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung ... they rallied the nation for all generations and fought ‘til the battle was won,” she sang along with the other women. Then Nancy Millar, the author of the book: The Famous 5, spoke about each of the larger-than-life women — portrayed in the statue and also on the $50 Canadian bill — pointing out that Emily Murphy of Edmonton became not just the first woman magistrate in Canada in 1916, but in the entire British Empire. Real action. Real results. Five non-persons changed the world.
Back at the Occupy Calgary camp, the protesters’ signs are displayed proudly on the neat grass maintained by the taxpayers of Calgary.
“Drop acid not bomb (sic).”
“Are you the person their (sic) pretending to be?” reads another barely literate, nonsensical sign.
“Tax the rich,” says another.
“I have no face/I have no voice/ I am the 99%.”
Ah, the 99 per cent. Many of the protesters declare that they speak for the 99 per cent of Canadians who, depending on which protester you speak to, “wants to overthrow the one per cent of corporate pigs enslaving the 99 per cent,” or who “wants to replace the capitalist system,” or who is determined to usher in a “time for the rising of the divine feminine” etc. etc.
There is no agenda, no plan, no solutions. Just a lot of bellyaching about the rich not paying enough taxes. One woman complained that she would like to work five hours a week, instead of five days a week. Who doesn’t? I ask. But this is what they’re “fighting for.” They want the fictional one per cent to pay for their laziness.
The problem is that no one at Occupy Calgary can articulate much at all. Their inarticulateness is spectacular, shocking and, frankly, sad.
Gregory Thomas, the federal and Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the kind of income disparity that Canadian protesters are parroting from their U.S. counterparts who are occupying Wall Street just doesn’t exist.
“About 4.4 million Canadians who filed taxes in 2009 each paid less than $100 in income taxes. In the same year, 173,000 Canadians — which is about the size of two Red Deers — paid $28 billion in tax, or $164,000 on average per filer,” points out Thomas.
According to the Canada Revenue Agency’s Income Statistics for 2009, only 0.7 per cent of Canadians earned more than $250,000 per year but paid 19.7 per cent of the income tax tab. In fact, the 5.7 per cent of Canadians who make $100,000 or more per year pay 44 per cent of the income taxes in Canada.
In the U.S., some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters make some valid points. It’s wrong for huge banks to make Main Street own their debt when the profits remain private. Most reasonable people would agree with that?
Phill Vernon is still holding his Tibetan singing bowl. He has been camping at the Plaza since Saturday. “I had to go to work on Sunday, sadly for an Internet banking company,” he admits.
When he’s not working for an evil bank, he’s an artist — a photo illustrator — who just graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design.
He runs to his tent to fetch his leather-wrapped iPad to show me two June 2011 magazine covers. One is for Oil Week and the other is for Oil and Gas Inquirer. (My jaw drops. I am agog and not because this man/child clearly has some talent.)
“I’m opposed to oil,” he says, reading my shock. He does not ring his singing bowl, despite my desperate need as a result of his violent hypocrisy. “I don’t want to support oil, but I need to build up my portfolio to build up my name. I think we should use electric cars and stop using gasoline,” he says.
Does he know that most of Alberta’s electricity comes from coal-fired plants? He doesn’t.
“We should use tidal power or hydro instead,” he suggests.
We’re landlocked and have a couple of lazy rivers, I point out. His suggestions are akin to saying we should use stardust and unicorn sweat to run those factories that manufacture his iPad.
Back at the monument, Nancy Millar explains that she came downtown because she believes everyone could benefit by learning more about the Famous 5. Ain’t that the truth. None more so than the Occupy Calgary protesters. But they were all too busy spouting their nonsense and holding their meetings to plan more meetings to hear or learn anything at all.

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