A federal Conservative election promise has reignited the debate over income splitting as a way of helping families.  Income splitting is based on a false premise, namely that a family can trade in two $50,000 per year jobs for one $100,000 per year job. If this were possible many more families would likely choose to have one parent stay at home at least in the early years. A better way to help all families with children would be to invest in enhancing child tax benefits.

Mayor Stephen Mandel is pushing City Council for a decision on the financing of the Downtown Arena as early as next month. It's really hard to see how an informed decision can be made given the lack of basic information on arena design, who the partners are that will provide the tax lift to help pay for the arena, and whether Rexall Place will be closed or remain open.

On Friday March 4, 2011 Edmonton NextGen hosted its 9th Pecha Kucha (PKN9) at the Royal Alberta Museum Theatre. Drawing from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit-chat", Pecha Kucha's presentation format is based on 20 images on for 20 seconds each, for a total talk length of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  The Edmonton Social Planning Council's Jennifer Hoyer and Joseph Ahorro were both invited to give a talk at  PKN9.

The Chinatown and Little Italy Business Association want to create a museum and community garden in Mary Burlie Park on 97th Street.   On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 several speakers took issue to the suggested changes during a City Council meeting suggested that the proposed changes would push the current “transient street people” who mainly use the park out of the area.

The 6th Annual Memorial for Homeless Persons was held on January 22, 2011 at Boyle Street Community Services.  It was a solemn event that honoured the lives of 57 individuals who passed away as a direct or indirect result of homelessness in the Edmonton area.  The event not only highlighted the tragic circumstances that had befallen on those without a home, but also reminded us that there is more we share in common with each other than we tend to think.

We’ve all heard about information overload.  Nicholas Carr’s famous 2008 article in Atlantic Magazine got all of us wondering if Google is making us stupid.  The BBC has just asked again if more information means we know less.  The idea behind these opinions is that a glut of information has destroyed our attention spans and our ability to absorb and remember important information.

Does information still matter?  How do we distinguish the good from the bad?  How do we protect ourselves from overload?  Among my colleagues across the nonprofit sector, the issue of information overload is heightened by restricted budgets and heavy workloads.  We need to make well-informed decisions while juggling multiple projects on a tight schedule.