It is often said that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens in Edmonton City Hall, the Alberta Legislature, or on Parliament Hill in Ottawa is not confined to the walls of those powerful buildings, it has impacts in your lives in ways that you cannot imagine.
The decisions made in Edmonton City Hall determines if your church community will move to a new building from its basement hideout, or if your short term rental side hustle that you started to subsidize your dwindling income and pay your mortgage will continue, or if more of your hard earned income will end up in the control of the City through property taxes, or if like every other community, your community will be supported to celebrate its proud and beautiful culture, or take it out doors as an exciting festival come summer.
Many brothers and sisters have shared tragedies with job losses, increased insurance premiums, funding cuts, if not extinction of funding for their community groups, end of their movie career in Alberta, poor business sales and more. Many are still to experience reduced school time for their kids now having to deal with what to do with the kids on these new days off, or worst still, an end to the affordable childcare that enabled mama to work but now have to stay home to take care of the kids. These and many more not leaving out the new tourism levy imposed when you rent halls for your community events, or festivals, just some of the many impacts of decisions made in the Alberta Legislature that impact every aspect of your lives.
This is undoubtedly the reason why we can’t keep saying we don’t like politics because politics impact every part of our lives. The reality is that what impacts us are the laws and policies and we have to be involved and engaged. This is not about a political party but about being involved and engaged, be informed with what is happening.
With new changes such as new bus routes coming to Edmonton this August, for those of us who use public transport, you might realize that one day you go out to catch the bus to 118 Avenue Edmonton for grocery or beauty stuff, and the bus routes have changed without your knowledge due to decisions taken at Edmonton City Hall.
So what do you do?
The days of avoiding politics is long gone. The time has come for getting involved and engaged with what is happening in Edmonton City, Alberta Legislature, and Parliament Hill. Times has changed due to the impacts of decisions made in these buildings on our lives, our children, our communities, businesses, and our extended families back where we came from.
Being involved, engaged, and informed, gets your voices heard, your concerns taken, and your impact felt. Let’s address the elephant in the room here! You are not involved in the community engagements organized by the different levels of government because the messages that the three levels of government put out does not reach you – you do multiple jobs to survive, as such, you are too busy, you do not watch local TV, neither do you read the local newspaper, or are you connected on social media to the government sites or the non profits or consultants leading the process.
Well, you are connected to us daily on social media, weekly through Diversity Online, and every two months in print now distributed in selected locations in Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary. Please help us share more about what is happening in those government buildings, the discussions, join the conversations, share how to get more involved and engaged in the discussions that affect us such as now in Alberta, the new budget.
Black History Month has been a classic example of an issue that we placed a lot of emphasis on using all our platforms maxed to capacity, and today, everyone is doing something for Black History Month in cities that never had any Black celebration such as St. Albert. Sweet!
We shall now move our attention to another extremely important issue, the Women’s struggle, and after that we will focus on the summer cultural celebrations.
Before the summer cultural celebrations, Calgary will host Diversity Awards on May 15 – a yearly opportunity to move from our comfort zones and reach out to other communities that do not look like us from across Alberta, and build bridges, connect, network, and get to know others through this Diversity Awards event.
As always, please join us to share with family, and friends, get involved and engaged, keep inviting us to share what you are doing, what city you are based in, keep the connection and keep up the energy. Last weekend, we were in the great city of Calgary to join the Black History Month celebrations, and have some fantastic memories to share below. This weekend, we shall be in the lovely city of Red Deer. See ya!
