In December 2007, at the height of Calgary’s housing crunch, a report emerged from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation that confirmed what many had long suspected -- the cost of renting a two bedroom apartment in Calgary eclipsed that of all major Canadian cities, marking the first time since the CMHC started tracking the data that Calgary tenants paid more than their counterparts in Toronto and Vancouver.

What’s more, the cost of that two bedroom apartment had grown by 83 per cent over the span of a decade, from the $595 paid on average in 1996, to the $1, 089 required to rent an equivalent unit in 2007.

It's known as one of the top ten public health achievements of the 20th century; a "classic example of clinical observation leading to epidemiological investigation and community-based public health intervention;" Remaining "the most equitable and cost-effective method of delivering [health benefits] to all members of most communities, regardless of age, educational attainment, or income level."

It's a service that has benefitted Calgarians for two decades, backed by peer reviewed research and conclusive scientific data demonstrating the undeniable role it plays in the field of preventive medicine.

Speaking here as someone who has endured a dozen or so years of hard labour in the Cowtown media, Calgary's worst literary enemies are not "smarmy twerps" from the eastern press. They are the paranoid and belligerent twerps in the Calgary media.

Let me explain.