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Alberta Electoral Boundary Review Alison Redford Brian Fjeldheim Lorne Gibson

alison redford’s big opportunity.

(Re)Enter Mister Fjeldheim.
There has been a certain amount of attention focused on Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer and his comments regarding his philosophy towards his newly re-inherited position. Brian Fjeldheim, who held the position from 1998 to 2005, was recently reappointed following the dismissal of his more activist successor-turned-predecessor Lorne Gibson. After re-assuming his role last week, Mr. Fjeldheim was a little more reserved when describing his role in advocating the importance of the vote to Albertans (60% of Albertans did not vote in the 2008 election). Dave Breakenridge offered some thoughts on Mr. Fjeldhiem’s comments in today’s Calgary Sun.

Open up the Elections Act.
In the next few weeks, Justice Minister Alison Redford is expected to introduce legislative amendments to Alberta’s aging Elections Act. Minister Redford has said that the amendments will include some of the 182 recommended changes submitted by Mr. Gibson before his departure (but will not include fixed election dates). Of course, the recommendations included in the Bill will have be carefully chosen and measured for political impact by Minister Redford and her PC cabinet colleagues. Minister Redford’s amendments will likely include changes to how Returning Officers are chosen. During the 2008 election, it was revealed that the PC Party had provided lists of candidates for Returning Officers to the Elections Office (over half of the appointed Returning Officers had partisan connections to the PC Party).

Elections procedures can be improved through legislation, but democratic participation can be strengthened through meaningful engagement. In September 2007, the Government of New Zealand tried something completely different. As an innovative way to capture the views of the public on what a new Policing Act should look like, the Ministry of Justice launched an online Wiki. This Wiki allowed citizens from across that country to contribute their ideas and collaborate in the creation of new legislation.

What better way to reinvigorate our Elections Act than by opening up the amendment process to allow Albertans to collaborate by contributing their ideas for changes and improvements? What better opportunity to do things differently in than by allowing Albertans to invest their own ideas into the development of the important piece of legislation that will decide how their elections are structured? Is there a more meaningful piece of legislation that could be opened up to public collaboration than the Elections Act? Would this kind of online collaboration succeed in Alberta? There is only one way to find out.

Prior to entering elected office in 2008, Minister Redford cultivated an international legal career helping build democracies in countries around the globe (including as one of four international election commissioners appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations to administer Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections in September 2005). Legislative amendments can improve structure, but opening up the Elections Act to real public collaboration could be Minister Redford’s big opportunity to create more meaningful democratic participation in Alberta.

Making it easier for students to vote.
I am sure that there would be no shortage of Albertans who would contribute their ideas to an open dialogue on improving our Elections Act. The Council of Alberta University Students submitted a handful of recommendations (pdf) to Minister Redford last year when they heard about the upcoming legislative amendments. Each of the five recommendations have been adopted by Elections officials in provinces across Canada (though no jurisdiction has adopted all five). The recommendations would improve access to a voting demographic that due to its geographic transience, are likely to face barriers and challenges to participating in elections.

These are good recommendation, most of which would require minor administrative changes that are not anything that a little Alberta ingenuity could not overcome. Decreasing barriers to voting for younger Albertans will create a positive culture of participating in elections and could help create life-long voters – a group that is increasingly becoming a minority in Alberta elections. I hope to see some of these positive improvements included among Minister Redford’s amendments.

Coming Soon: New Maps.
Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission is due to release its interim report by February 26, 2010.

Categories
Alison Redford Elections Alberta Hugh MacDonald Kent Hehr Kevin Taft Lorne Gibson

opposition grills alison redford on lorne gibson dismissal.

Opposition Liberal MLAs Kevin Taft, Kent Hehr, and Hugh MacDonald grill PC Justice Minister Alison Redford on the firing of Chief Returning Officer Lorne Gibson and the continuing Election 2008 fiasco in this video clip of Question Period in the Alberta Legislature.


AGRDT has a solid run down of the commentary on Gibson’s dismissal.

(h/t to MarvinMouse for the Youtube link)

Categories
Elections Alberta Lorne Gibson

being lorne gibson.

After a rough couple years as Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer, it remains to be seen whether Lorne Gibson‘s will continue to hold the position when his contract comes up for renewal in March 2009.

During the 2008 Provincial election, the impartiality of the electoral process came under question when it was discovered that a large number of local Returning Officers had strong links to the governing PC Party. In 2006, Gibson submitted a long list of recommendations to the Legislative Assembly to change how elections are organized by giving more authority to the non-partisan elections office and he recently called for a revamping of Alberta’s financial disclosure rules.

Word on the street is that Gibson will soon be inviting each of Alberta’s registered political parties to appoint two representatives to a committee that will be charged with comprehensively reviewing Alberta’s elections processes from their standpoint.

Categories
Afghanistan Alberta Oil Sands Alison Redford Archie McLean Ed Stelmach Kent Hehr Lorne Gibson

alberta politics this week.

1) With inspiration from Barack Obama and Malcolm Gladwell, Jason Morris at Gauntlet.ca has some thoughtful insights on Alberta’s political environment.

2) Oil Sands Smog. An Environment Canada study obtained under the Access to Information Act predicts that sulfur dioxide will rise by up to 34 per cent by 2017 and nitrous oxides will rise by up to 24 per cent. Are you ready for acid rain in Fort McMurray?

3) While Chief Electoral Officer Lorne Gibson has called for increased transparency and accountability in party leadership races, Kent Hehr is asking Minister Alison Redford why Alberta Justice isn’t investigating 16 violations of election finances rules uncovered between 2006 and 2007 (including at least one violation committed by his party).

4) How are Alberta’s financial and economic prospects, Premier Ed Stelmach? Good, really bad, not as bad as I told you 24 hours ago, and rosy depending on which day of the week it is.

5) Good luck and safe travels to Journal reporter Archie McLean on his trip to Afghanistan. You can follow Archie’s Afghan tour at Assignment Afghanistan.