I went to your Lemmy profile, nothing there.
Thanks for providing the link - but I think that you should have posted it here instead of responding with derision.
I'm assuming you meant to include an image here?
I live through the smoke every year, and have had to retrofit a ton of of air filters into my home. Believe me, I know - I live and play in the areas that are burning. But someone asking for a reference is a GOOD thing and responding dismissively doesn't sway people to better understand, it turns them off of your message.
My partner and I foster a lot of cats. Some of the sweetest cats take forever to get adopted just because they aren't kittens anymore. One of our fosters has been with us for almost three years now - just because he isn't a kitten and needs some inexpensive meds sprinkled on his food once a day. 
We just took in a rescue litter from the shelter. Everyone has colds, and mom is pretty battle-worn (limping, lost a chunk of her ear to frostbite over the winter). Everyone is getting medical support and once they are old enough, we'll find these teeny terrors forever homes!
Right now, despite being 'ferral', Mom likes to curl up next to me while she nurses - it's pretty heart melting.
Fines clearly don't work. We need criminal penalties.
The willingness to try and legislate away strikes is really problematic...
So this is actually happening about 100m from my house, my partner is currently staying with a friend so she can watch their kid because that friend works for the Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) and is working night shift doing analysis and mapping. I also used to work as a pipeline integrity engineer (but being a dirty hippy I took a catastrophic pay cut to move into sustainability consulting a few years ago). What I'm trying to say is that I am up close and personal with this in a way few people are.
Calgary and Edmonton are less conservative than you think - the cities mostly vote NDP and the UCP gets elected by the farmers and oil field workers. The mayors of both cities are at constant war with the provincial government who just introduced new rules to keep the cities from being able to work with the feds without permission. Alberta is still way more conservative than I like, but so are a lot of provinces.
Now - the break. This is the largest section of the main artery of the municipal water system. It's made from rebar reinforced concrete, is 2m in diameter, and was built in 1975. With steel pipe there's lots of very cool and sophisticated tools you can use for inspection. You can run 'Smart Pigs' down steel pipe which can use ultrasonic sensors to check for internal and external pitting and you can use magnetic flux leakage to inspect for cracks. Concrete is brutal to inspect. The city recently installed acoustic monitoring in this area; these are basically microphones that are trying to listen for cracking or debonding of the concrete from the rebar. This pipe is next to/under the Trans Canada Highway. So you are trying to listen for micro-cracking in the middle of a speed-metal concert and most of the damage that caused this would have accumulated over decades - there'd be little to no warning.
Integrity engineering is about risk and risk is a combination of how likely an outcome is and the consequences of that outcome. With potable water, the consequence is normally pretty low. Water distribution systems normally leak like crazy because the money required to make them perfectly water tight is way better spent on social services. This particular site was always going to be catastrophic if it failed, and the city was doing everything they could to try and manage the risk. Simultaneously, they are trying to manage it without shutting down one of the key road arteries, without spending millions of dollars unnecessarily, and without the risk to people and infrastructure that come with major earthworks in congested areas (look at what's happening with UBCO's construction in Kelowna).
Calgary actually has a lower loss rate in our water distribution system than the majority of major cities.
I would love to call the water department incompetent since I currently have a lake next to my house, haven't had a shower, done laundry, or washed dishes in three days - but having gone to technical presentations by the city's water system integrity team, and having some expertise in the field, I have mad respect for the people who manage our water system.
Ahhhh nuts... I didn't notice the stickers...
Please let it not be horrible, please let it not be horrible, please let it not be horrible....
I would rather let people, supported by the medical system, make their own decisions about what is right for them. There's zilch information about what this person is dealing with (as is their right to privacy), but two doctors believe that it is sufficient that a request for MAID is justified. It's pretty hard for me to believe that we, as armchair experts, know what is best for this person - which is basically the ruling of the judge. It doesn't matter what we, or the person's dad think, it's none of our business.
The number of PSAs about not getting mowed down during Halloween was absurd. 'Wear reflective vests', 'only cross the street in groups' - and not a single 'hey, it's Halloween and there's going to be excited kids everywhere - please avoid driving and if you have to, be super extra careful'.
My partner's idea, which I thought was brilliant, was that the speed limit on all residential streets should be dropped to 20km/h for the day.
There's a difference between defending oneself and engaging in collective punishment and genocide. I am Jewish and the descendent of holocaust survivors. Not in my name.