The Honourable David Thomas King | |
---|---|
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Edmonton-Highlands | |
In office August 30, 1971 – May 7, 1986 | |
Preceded by | Riding established |
Succeeded by | Pam Barrett |
Minister of Education | |
In office March 23, 1979 – February 5, 1986 | |
Minister of Technology, Research and Telecommunications | |
In office February 6, 1986 – May 25, 1986 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Perth, Ontario | June 22, 1946
Political party | Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta |
Spouse | Married |
Alma mater | University of Alberta |
David Thomas King ECA (born June 22, 1946) is a retired Canadian politician and public education policy activist. He was a Progressive Conservative Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from August 1971 until April 1986, during which time he served as Legislative Secretary to then Premier Peter Lougheed (1971–1976), Minister of Education (1979–1986), and Minister of Technology, Research, and Telecommunications (1986). As a Member of the Legislative Assembly, King introduced a Bill to repeal the Sexual Sterilization Act stating that the "Act violates fundamental human rights".[1]
While serving as Minister of Education, King chaired the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada in 1984–85. King was also responsible for the Ministry of Education during the termination of James Keegstra (1934–2014), a public high school teacher in Eckville, Alberta, who taught anti-Jewish views and believed in a Jewish conspiracy bent on world domination and annihilating Christianity. Keegstra was eventually convicted of promoting hatred under the Criminal Code in the case R v Keegstra.
In the 1986 general election, he lost his seat to future Alberta New Democratic Party leader Pam Barrett. In 1992, King ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta. The winner of the contest would have become premier without a general election. He came in last place out of nine candidates on the first ballot and was eliminated. From February 1990 until July 2010, he served as executive director of the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta. In 2010 King was recognized by the Alberta Teachers' Association and the Canadian Teachers' Federation for his years of service to education, noting that as minister of education, he was responsible for major initiatives, including the computer technology in schools program, the teacher internship program and the designated community schools program.[2]
In 2016, the Edmonton Public School District named a new K–8 school after David Thomas King, in recognition of King's advocacy on behalf of public education.
David is now active with the Green Party of British Columbia, having served on the Provincial Council.[3] He served as one of the BC Greens' two provincial campaign co-chairs for the 2013 BC provincial election.[4]
YouTube Encyclopedic
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Mon cheri c'est trop cher: Daniel Schnitzer at TEDxPittsburgh
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2014 IBM Global Telecommunication Consumer Survey: Australian Findings
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18 October Thomas Alva Edisonथॉमस अल्वा एडीसन_આજનો દિનમહિમા-માનવપુષ્પોની મહેક@vasant teraiya
Transcription
So, without romanticizing this too much, imagine that you light your home with kerosene and candles every night and that you do all of your cooking with charcoal. This is how the world's 2 billion poorest people cook and light their homes every day. This isn't just inconvenient, this is inefficient, it's expensive, it's harmful to human health, to the environment, and it's unproductive. And that's energy poverty. So let me give you a couple of examples: I worked in Haiti where about 80% of the population lives in energy poverty. The average household spends 10% of its income on kerosene for lighting – that's an order of magnitude greater than what the average US household spends on electricity to light their homes. The 2008 hurricane season in Haiti caused about 1 billion dollars in damage, that was a sixth of their GDP. The damage was so severe because the primary energy fuel in Haiti is charcoal, which is made from trees, which is made from trees, and it's left the country almost completely deforested. Without trees, the country can't absorb heavy rains and massive flooding, as a result. So in the industrialized world, we build walls to protect us from the externalities of our energy use, we can afford to clean up acute environmental disasters and we can also afford to adapt to chronic conditions like climate change. That's not the case for Haiti, they can't afford this. The only way that they're going to let themselves out of energy poverty is by adopting fuels that are more efficient, that are less expensive, that are better for human health, that are better for the environment, and that are more productive. So it turns out that those fuels and technologies exist, and this is an example of that: this is a solar LED light bulb that we sell for a retail price of about 10 dollars in rural Haiti. That's a payback period of less than 3 months for the average Haitian household. The prescriptions to solve energy poverty seems pretty straightforward -- you develop these technologies, that have a great return on investment, and people should be snatching them up. But that's not the case. The first time I ever went down to Haiti was in August 2008, sort of on a whim, and I was fielding surveys in the rural south of the country to assess the extent of energy poverty. And at night I would go around sometimes and I would speak with the street vendors and see if they were interested in buying these solar LED lamps. And so one woman who I encountered turned down my offer, and she said, “Mon chéri, c'est trop cher.” Which basically means, “My dear, it's too expensive.” But I tried to explain to her, you know: “Look, this is going to save you a lot of money, and it's going to give you even better light than what you're using now with the kerosene.” So I didn't make the sale, but I did learn a really important lesson which is that technology, products were not going to end energy poverty. Instead access was going to, and specifically there are 2 types of access that are going to end energy poverty: there's physical access, and there is financial access. So, physical access -- what does that mean? It's very expensive for low-income households in developing countries to reach major centers of commerce, and it's basically impossible for them to order something off amazon.com “the last mile” is a phrase that is normally associated with the telecommunications industry, it means that last bit of wire that's necessary to connect the customer to the provider. What we need for ending energy poverty are “last mile retailers” that bring these clean energy products to the people. The kerosene and charcoal value chains already figured this out: those fuels are ubiquitous across the entire country. You can go to the most remote village in Haiti and you will find somebody selling kerosene and charcoal. So the other type of access: financial. We all know that clean energy products, technologies, tend to be characterized by a higher upfront costs, but very low operating costs. And so in the industrialized world, we have very generous subsidies that are specifically designed to bring down those upfront costs. Those subsidies don't exist in Haiti. What they do have is micro-finance, but you're going to severely diminish the value proposition of your clean energy product if you expect somebody in Haiti to go out, get a micro-loan, go back to the retailer, and then buy the clean energy product. So the prescription to end energy poverty is much more complicated than simply products. We need to integrate financial access directly into new, innovative, distribution models. What does that mean? That means bundling consumer credit with the retailer. This is really easy for Bloomingdale’s to do, but it's not so easy for a rural sales-agent in Haiti to do. We need to redirect cash flows that are going now from the diaspora in the US to Western Union wire transfers in cash directly into clean energy products that can be delivered to, or picked up, by their friends or family in Haiti. So the next time you hear about a technology or product that's going to change the world, be a little bit skeptical. The inventor Dean Kamen, the guy who invented the Segway, a genius by any standards, once said that his job is easy, inventing things is easy, the hard part is technology dissemination -- it's getting those technologies and products to the people who need it most. Thank you. (Applause)
References
- ^ Alberta Legislature, Hansard, v. 4, n. 58 (1972), 37 (58–37).
- ^ Alberta Teachers' Association. http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20News/Volume%2044%202009-10/Number17/Pages/DavidKingPubEdAwardwinner.aspx Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Green Party of British Columbia. Provincial Council. http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/provincial_council
- ^ David King: BC voters need a 'third choice', interview uploaded to Vimeo on March 29, 2013 by Craig Spence.
External links
- David Thomas King – Legislative Assembly of Alberta Member Profile
- "History of the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta" By the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta mentions king as first Executive Director.
- "The Controversial Eighties" by the Alberta Teachers' Association. Article discusses (from the ATA's point of view) some changes brought about by King, while he was Minister of Education.
- "A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COUNCIL ON ALBERTA TEACHING STANDARDS" by the Council on Alberta Teaching Standards. In 1985 King, as Minister of Education, eliminated the Board of Teacher Education and Certification (BTEC) and set-up the Council on Alberta Teaching Standards in its place.
- "Play Dough's Res Publica: Democracy, Community and Public School Education" - By David King