daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

I’ll be at a conference for most of the weekend, so I will leave you with that.

If you live in Edmonton, there’s a good chance you may have heard about this.

On August 13, 2006 Robert Barrington Leigh went missing while riding his bike to the Edmonton Folk Festival. If you know anything about his whereabouts, please contact the Edmonton Police Service at 423-4567 or the FindRobert HQ at 904-4837. There is also a website set up for the search.

UPDATE: Sad news.

As someone who has spent the past two years employed and immersed in the post-secondary education policy and advocacy sector, I was quite surprised to see that Human Resources and Social Development Canada is holding consultations on post-secondary education.

Now, because I don’t have a ton of official business in Ottawa it might not seem very surprising that I wasn’t the first to find out, but it wasn’t through the regular channels that I discovered the consultation – I found out on Paul Wells’ blog.

And as CFSR has pointed out, there were also no press releases informing the public or the media about the existance of the consultation which has a submission deadline of September 8.

Wells’ also noted that an acquaintance of his in the PSE sector noted to him that:

“to my knowledge no groups were notified about this consultation and no efforts have been made to publicize it.”

So, now that Wells has blown the cover of this secret public consultations, I encourage everyone to go to the consultation website, fill out the form, and tell the Government of Canada about the importance of post-secondary education.

I get the feeling that this could be a interesting topic of discussion at an upcoming post-secondary education conference I’m attending next weekend.

I give Paul Wells 100% props for bringing this public consultation to the attention of the public.

Kudos, Mr. Wells!

I was a little surprised at when I heard that Innovation & Science Minister and Red Deer South MLA Victor Doerksen had resigned from the Tory cabinet yesterday and may run in the Alberta PC leadership race.

Though I had heard rumblings that Doerksen, a very social conservative MLA since 1993, was thinking about running, I was nearly convinced that he would be the first Tory MLA to endorse Ted Morton (which he also still might do).

I wonder what affect this will have on the social conservative vote that Morton seemed to have a near monopoly on? (As an MLA, Doerksen has advocated for the ban of liturature such as “Of Mice and Men” from schools).

Will this split Ted Morton’s presumed support on the first ballot? Does Doerksen have what it takes to draw enough of the disgruntled right to his side?

The 1992 PC leadership race saw three main social conservative Christian candidates – then-Edmonton Parkallen MLA Doug Main, then-Red Deer South MLA John Oldring, and former Social Credit candidate Lloyd Quantz.

So, not only is Doerksen the second outed social conservative candidate of the race – but it is also at least the second time an Alberta PC leadership candidate has also been the MLA for Red Deer South. Interesting…

I was quite excited to see that Back to the Future II was on last night. Though the first Back to the Future film is clearly superior to the second film, I really enjoyed watching it on TBS (and yes, I do own the trilogy on DVD…).

Feel free to check out this Back to the Future related postI wrote up in June of 2005. The post outlines some of the positives and negatives of the film, along with the plot holes in Back to the Future II. Ilearly had too much time on my hands on the evening of June 10, 2005.

On another note, I spent most of my weekend at the Edmonton Folk Festival and it was a lot of fun to spend the day sitting out in the sun on a tarp and enjoying the great tunes.

In no particular order (because they were all great), I took in the tunes of Bruce Cockburn, Sarah Harmer, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Feist, Chumbawamba, The McDades, Oscar Lopez, Hawksley Workman, James Keelghan, Rachelle van Zanten, Jenny Allen, The Wailin’ Jennys, David Gray, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt, Salif Keita, and many many more…

I thought this was interesting – University Presidents from eleven of Canada’s major Universities have signed a letter announcing their intention to boycott of the annual Maclean’s Magazine University Rankings…

Happy Saturday! A couple of random notes…

– Check out these great video’s from YouTube – The Vader Sessions, George Galloway on Sky News, and Appalachian State University is HOT HOT HOT…

– New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord has announced that he will ask the Lt. Gov. Herménégilde Chiasson to drop the writ for a September 18 election. Current standings in the New Brunswick Legislature have Lord’s PC‘s at 28, Shawn Graham’s Liberals at 26, and one Independent MLA. Allison Brewer’s NDP do not hold any seats in the Assembly.

– Here’s an article from the Edmonton Journal about the power a small band of hard-nosed and dedicated Liberals from rural Alberta will wield at the Federal Liberal leadership convention… (props to libnews.ca for the linkage).

– There are a couple of interesting posts going back and forth between Ken Chapman and fromthemountains at the One Party State blog.

– The second round of Calgary Grit‘s Best PM Never is on and only three of “the daveberta eight” made it to the second round. So, here are the official daveberta SECOND ROUND endorsements, aka “the daveberta four“…

Matchup 1 – Peter Lougheed
Matchup 2 – Sir George-Étienne Cartier
Matchup 3 – Roy Romanow
Matchup 4 – Ed Broadbent

So… VOTE!

– Finally, the Folk Fest Blog is up and running for the weekend…

“He better be careful or he’ll be the first Prime Minister to die of a buckshot sandwich.” – Anon

According to recent polling released by the Pembina Institute, 84% of Albertans think the Provincial government isn’t collecting enough royalties from our non-renewable resources.

Yesterday, Alberta PC leadership hopeful Dave Hancock joined the ever-growing chorus of Alberta political leaders calling for a review of Alberta’s oil royalties. Among those Hancock is joining are Alberta Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald and NDP leader Brian Mason, who have been calling on the province to review it’s share of oil royalties and the structure under which they are collected for some time.

In July, Energy Minister Greg Melchin announced that the government had conducted and A-OKed the current royalty structure through a secret non-public internal review. This came as quite a surprise to almost everyone in Alberta, including Tory MLA’s and PC leadership candidates Ed Stelmach and Ted Morton, who remember the review being shelved… … Mark Norris wants the royalties reviewed… Jim Dinning was vague, but wants royalty information to be made more public…

Was there actually a review of Alberta’s oil royalty structure?

And on another bizarre note, Premier Klein doesn’t think that Alberta needs a long-term oil sands strategy, something that his government announced it would do back in October of 2005… only about 33 years after original Syncrude oil sands site was built…

Are Albertans going to have an oil sands development strategy?

Maybe they should hire Ian Urquhart and Larry Pratt to do it…

I thought this was pretty cool. The actual Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, is now available online care of the British National Archives.

For those of you not completely familiar with said book, here is what the all-knowing Wikipedia has to say…

Domesday Book (also known as Domesday, or Book of Winchester), was the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William the Conqueror. The survey was similar to a census by a government of today. William needed information about the country he had just conquered so he could administer it. Whilst spending the Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William “had deep speech with his counsellors and sent men all over England to each shire … to find out … what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth.” One of the main purposes of the survey was to find out who owned what so they could be taxed on it, and the judgment of the assessors was final — whatever the book said about who owned the property, or what it was worth, was the law, and there was no appeal.

So, unfortunately for the people of Britain in 1086, there was no Department of Constitutional Affairs or booklet such as the Tax Appeals: A guide to appealing against decisions of the Inland Revenue on tax and other matters to help them out.

As an Albertan not of the conservative variety, it may seem weird that I spend a decent part of my time blogging about the relatively uneventful Alberta PC leadership race. So, in a quest for a more diverse blogging repertoire, I shall attempt to branch out to other interesting areas of political combustibles.

Take the Federal Liberal and Green Party leadership races, which are also currently ongoing…

In the race for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada (and Stornoway), we find a number of candidates from different backgrounds and political experiences (or non-experiences). This past week, Elections Canada released the breakdown for Liberal leadership candidates fundraising up until June 1. Care of DemocraticSPACE (and libnews), here is the total fundraising breakdown from Liberal leadership candidates in the Province of Alberta:

Now, take into account that fundraising numbers don’t mean much when a leadership election depends on memberships sold and showing up to vote (which as Will and Blake point out is something the media seems to be missing when covering the Alberta PC leadership race…), but it does seem interesting to see the percentage breakdowns.

It will be more interesting to see how the delegate selection numbers breakdown across the country in September. I’d be willing to think that some of the current candidates won’t make it to the convention and I’m willing to be the frontrunners range somewhere around Michael Ignatieff, Gerard Kennedy, Bob Rae, and Stephane Dion.

As mentioned previous, my choice for Liberal leader is Gerard Kennedy.

In another race, the Green Party of Canada is looking to grow its roots under the leadership of three potential candidates – Elizabeth May, David Chernushenko, and Jim Fannon.

I think this race is a lot more interesting than the lack of attention it’s receiving would suggest. The Greens have enormous growth potential – especially if Canadians are getting comfortable with the idea of minority Parliaments in Ottawa. With environmental issues gaining more attention in mainstream debates, I would predict that the environment will become an even larger issue coming elections. Along with having a natural advantage in this realm, the Greens also have the advantage of not having to haul around the same amout of the political baggage (luggage?) that the mainstream establishment Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats do on a daily basis.

The Greens also have been gaining support and creating support bases in regions that might seem unlikely at first glance. In Calgary for example, the Federal Greens and Alberta Greens received more votes than the NDP in the past Federal and Provincial elections and have also receiving relatively strong support in many rural Alberta ridings.

Along with a strong base of support in British Columbia, it should be interesting to see if the Greens new leader can lead that party to create the momentum to draw strong candidates and the Big Mo’ needed to gain a presence in the House of Commons.

The first round of Calgary Grit‘s Best PM Never ends tomorrow at 12 noon – so remember to VOTE!

Here are the daveberta Official Endorsements in the race…

Matchup 1 – D’Arcy McGee
Matchup 3 – Ed Broadbent
Matchup 4 – Sir George-Étienne Cartier
Matchup 5 – Louise Arbour
Matchup 6 – Lloyd Axworthy
Matchup 7 – Stephen Lewis
Matchup 8 – Peter Lougheed

On another note, James Laxer has a copy of an article on his blog about the political tactics of the Federal NDP in the 2004 & 2006 elections. I read the article in The Walrus a couple of months ago.

I also read Laxer’s book “The Border: Canada, the U.S. and Dispatches from the 49th Parallel” last month, there are some pretty good sections in it. Maybe I’ll post a review if I find the time.

I’m not sure how long this video has been floating around, but it’s great… and Sam Jackson rocks…

I’m enjoying a relaxing August long-weekend! Spent a large part of yesterday soaking up the sun and a plethora of different cultures (and foods) at Heritage Days in Harwelak Park. I hadn’t been there since I was a young daveberta and I had a great time. If you go, make sure to check out the Sri Lankan tent – the Beef Roti was great. Also, the Turkish Belly Dancers were worth it.

I was able to score some passes to Edmonton’s Folk Fest on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday next week – which is great. Performers include Bruce Cockburn, Linda Ronstadt, Hawksley Workman, and tonnes of others… make sure to check out the “This Tarp Kills Fascists” Folk Fest Blog for all sorts of wonderful Folk Fest 2006 updates…

Last week, I attended the annual Edmonton Rutherford & Whitemud Liberals Salmon BBQ at SnowValley. It was a great event for Edmonton Rutherford MLA Rick Miller and the Edmonton Whitemud group. I counted around 200 people there and I’m guessing they were able to raise quite a bit of funds the next election campaign. Liberal leader Kevin Taft was there along with MLA’s Laurie Blakeman, Bharat Agnihotri, Bruce Miller, Jack Flaherty, and Weslyn Mather.

And finally, make sure you get out there and VOTE for the Best PM Never! Anyone can vote in this race and it’s clearly the most democratic opportunty out there – EVER! (You don’t even have to pay $5!)

After unsucessfully running the unofficial grassroots “Henry Herbert Stevens for Best PM Never” Campaign, I’ve decided to throw my figurative weight around and announce the Official daveberta endorsements in Round 1 of Calgary Grit’s Best PM Never Poll/Competition/Election!

After much deliberation and controversy, here they are…

Matchup 1 – D’Arcy McGee
Matchup 3 – Ed Broadbent
Matchup 4 – Sir George-Étienne Cartier
Matchup 5 – Louise Arbour
Matchup 6 – Lloyd Axworthy
Matchup 7 – Stephen Lewis
Matchup 8 – Peter Lougheed

So, get out there and VOTE!