daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

I met Jim Dinning today.

For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Dinning is considered the frontrunner in the race to replace Alberta Progressive Conservative Premier Ralph Klein when he retires (in a Chrétienian move, Mr. Klein announced yesterday that he will be retiring in October of 2007, but won’t leave office until March 2008).

Though he seemed like a nice guy, I nearly drowned in the uninsipiringness of his presentation.

He talked a lot about “choices” and his vision for Alberta while staying fairly vague about most issues. It was really disappointing coming from someone with a Masters in Public Administration from Queen’s and former Deputy Minister. Hopefully we’ll see some more detailed plans from Mr. Dinning as the leadership campaign ensues. Though I suppose 20 years of political hackery will do that to someone. An unfortunate casualty?

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but he really reminds me of someone we are all very familiar with, though without the “isms.”

I’m not sure whether it was the uninsipiring attitude of the near-dead crowd of frat boys loaded with questions starting with “Jim, in your vision for Alberta…” that killed it for me, or the fact that the future Premier of Alberta was only able to attract around 10 people (including at least 3 Liberal/ND voters) to hear him speak.

I did enjoy a small swipe he made at Ted Morton though – I can’t remember what he exactly said, but it was a swipe at Dr. Morton’s “More Alberta, Less Ottawa” slogan from his 2004 provincial election campaign in Foothills-Rockyview.

So, in conclusion: meh.

…because he seriously has to be the lamest superhero ever.

Enough of that.

Well, as the most loyal of the daveberta readership must have noticed, over the past couple weeks, blog posting has become more and more sporatic. So, here’s an update…

Bill Clinton! – Last Thursday evening, I went and listened to former US President Bill Clinton speak at Rexall Place. Wow. The man is such an amazing speaker. Thoughout the entire talk (around an hour and a half or so) he referred to no notes and didn’t even take a sip of water!

Skiing! – Now that there is snow in the great City of Edmonton, I’ve finally taken my cross-country skis out of hiding! I’m hoping to hop down to the river valley this weekend and get some skiing done before the winter is completely over.

Used Book Sales! – Last week, the Anthropology Graduate Students had a used-book sale in the Tory/Business Atrium. For $5, I was able to grab Volumes One and Two of Peter C. Newman‘s “The Canadian Establishment” and a great book for nerds like me called “Urban Politics and Public Policy.“

Speech from the Throne…? – As much as I would really like to write about my visit to the Speech from the Throne at the Alberta Legislature three weeks ago, it would be extremely boring. Other than having nice conversations with people ranging from Graham Thomson, Ms. Katz, Laurie Blakeman, and Rob Lougheed, let’s just say that the cookies and juice were nice.

X-Men! – There is an ENTIRE Wikipedia Universe dedicated to the X-Men! Sweet!

Liberals, partisans, hacks? – While there are many many reasons why I am no longer a member of the Liberal Party of Canada (or any party for that matter), stuff like this makes it even easier to justify…

Work! – After a three week leave of absence, I’m back at work! Thank goodness. I missed my office. At least there will be some sense of normality over the next couple weeks.

Election? – oh, yeah. I won. thanks.

There is sooo much to post about – elections, Bill Clinton, Speech from the Throne review, Tory Leadership gossip, etc etc etc…. but that will have to wait as I have two major papers to get done…

In the meantime, I shall leave you with this:

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Well, other than a bit of a soar throat this morning, I’m feeling good.

Regular blogging will resume in the near future.

For those of you interested, I have decided to break my semi-blog of silence to inform you that Alberta PC Leadership candidate Mark Norris and his “Grassroots Leadership Group” have lauched his campaign website.

Mr. Norris was also at the Speech from the Throne on Wednesday this week (I had a nice chat his office manager).

If I have the chance this weekend, I’ll post a quick recap of the SFTT.

The Public Interest Alberta PSE conference is this weekend, so mixed with other stuff, I should be sufficiently busy this weekend.

Well, in a moment of thought, we found ourselves thinking about the day we decided that it might be interested to write in the first person plural (or whatever Steve Smith called it after he threatened to punch us in the throat).

Fortunately for Mr. Smith (and our throat), we’ve decided it was once again time that “we” blogged as an “I.”

So, I am back blogging tonight for the first and the last time in a bit. The upcoming forecast of daily events looks like it should be getting a little busier in the next few weeks, so the blog posts will most likely be sparce and few, if any.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be attending the opening of the Alberta Legislature which is highlighted by the Speech from the Throne. I didn’t get a chance to watch Premier Klein’s Address to the Province this evening, but I hear that for the first time since about 1987, the Government of Alberta will be investing new funds into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

I will also be facilitating two discussion sessions at this weekend’s Public Interest Alberta Post-Secondary Education Conference here in Edmonton. The sessions I will be facilitating are the Student Finance session with the lovely Clare Ard and the Rural PSE Access session with Dr. Roger Epp, Dean of the U of A Augustana Campus.

I’ve done quite a bit of research on student financing and rural PSE issues over the past year, so I’m very interested to hear what people have to say about the subject.

As well, the guest speakers for the weekend include Globe & Mail columnist Jeffery Simpson and Peter MacMenamin, the Deputy Secretary General of the Teacher’s Union of Ireland. It looks to be an interesting weekend.

Well, it looks like the temperature has risen to a balmy -10C here on the prairies…

We watched the Canada-Switzerland game this morning and all we can say is wow. Canada got wooped by SWITZERLAND! SWITZERLAND?

We didn’t even know they even had an Olympic Hockey team… oh well, good for them…

It looks like the glorious summer of January and February 2006 is bidding us farewell…

Current forecast from the Weather Network:

Right now: -24C
With windchill: -35C

It was +8C last week. So, that’s a 43C temperature change in a week.

Lord we love Alberta…

Here is part of an editorial that was in the Calgary Herald this weekend. It pretty much sums up what we’ve been talking about for the past couple years…

Alberta has been given a vast array of gifts — of natural resources, of hard-working people with entrepreneurial spirit, of markets eager to do business. It has been wise enough to steward these riches well to this point. It now faces a greater challenge: to build a better future, not just for Albertans, but for Canada and the world.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Start saving. In the past 30 years, only 8.6 per cent of royalties have been set aside and more than 90 per cent spent. The Heritage Fund is worth $2,500 per capita, compared with $6,000 per capita in 1991.

Now that its debt is paid off, Alberta must start a serious savings plan. Canada West suggests half of all resource revenue go to an endowment fund; whatever the percentage, it needs to be substantial.

2. Manage spending. Alberta needs to invest in a strong health-care system, education and infrastructure for cities. The cuts that were necessary to bury the debt in the 1990s are no longer needed and Albertans have said they favour reinvestment.

So do we, but with a measure of stability. The greatest obstacle these sectors face is the roller-coaster of funding they’ve had to contend with as the provincial government lurches between surpluses.

These areas should be funded properly over the long term; the wild and wacky splurges of the past year have to stop.

3. Think big. If Alberta spends wisely and saves for the future, there will be still be ample opportunities to leave a proud legacy. Forget prosperity cheques and vanity projects — let’s aim higher.

The Canada West Foundation thinks Alberta could lead the world in research and development in alternate forms of energy, rival Harvard with a post-secondary endowment fund, or fund a national centre of excellence in wellness.

Albertans will have other ideas, if they are challenged to be visionary.

There was a bumper sticker popular in Alberta in the 1980s that read: “Please God, let there be another oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.”

Albertans have been given that second chance with riches and potential that are the envy of many. It must not be wasted.

As far as university endowments are mentioned in the article, we are in the midst of writing a policy brief on North American university endowments – Harvard is the largest up around $25 Billion and Yale is second with around $15 Billion (the University of Alberta‘s endowment is currently sitting around half a billion – according to 2005 figures).

Endowment funds are where-it-is-at, dawg.

heh heh.

– Buzz Hargrove got the boot from the NDP (we can see the ads now… “this February, give Buzz the boot…”).

We don’t find this surprising seeing how the rift between Hargrove and the NDP has substantially grown in the past few years (we remember listening to an argument between Hargrove and then-NDP leader Alexa McDonough on CBC Radio One‘s As It Happens following her stepping down as leader – wow, she kept calling him “Basil” – you could have cut the tension between them with a knife).

Though were sure that his endorsing the Liberals in the last election (and his kind of endorsement of the Bloc…) had more to do with it than anything else.

If anything, we think this is a good move. Distancing the NDP from twits like Hargove and the grip of big labour (even symbolically) could help them expand their base of support.

– Second, United States Vice-President Dick Cheney shot someone with a shotgun!

Was Dick Cheney hunting people? No.

But it is slightly funny in a sick sort of way.

(Props to Anonymotron for “establishing [his] conservative credentials” by emailing us the story and gun links…)

UPDATE! Tomorrow’s headlines: “Cheney caused friendly fire incident“

Spruce Grove mogul skier Jennifer Heil has won the Gold Medal in her Olympic competition just moments ago in Turino, Italy!! Congrats!

WOO HOO! Canada rocks!

For interests sake, here are the books we are in the midst of reading at the moment…

– What’s the Matter with Kansas ? by Thomas Frank
– War by Gwyn Dyer
– Alberta Politics Uncovered: Taking Back our Province by Marc Lisac
– The Return of the Trojan Horse: Alberta and the New World (Dis)Order edited by Trevor W. Harrison
– Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State by Alan C. Cairns
– Whose North: Political Change, Political Development, and Self-Government in the Northwest Territories by Mark Dickerson
– Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amoury Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins.
– Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
– Excuse Us! Herr Schicklgruber by Clifford Chadderton.

If you haven’t checked out this video, you should. It’s fun!

For those of you interested in democratic reform in the great province of Alberta, we are pleased to inform you that the Alberta Liberal Opposition is taking the bull by the horns and hosting a forum on this topic on Monday (February 13 from 7-9pm at the Stanley Milner Library in Edmonton).

Speakers will include Liberal leader Kevin Taft, and Craig Henschel and Shoni Field from the B.C.’s Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.

The forum will be moderated by Edmonton McClung MLA Mo Elsalhy and attended by MLA’s Hugh MacDonald, Bridget Pastoor, and Maurice Tougas.

We will be attending, so if you want to talk about democratic reform AND get a glimpse of the original daveberta…

Well, there are many people who will testify that Alberta’s Health & Wellness Minister Iris Evans is “waaaay out there,” but now, she is officially out of the Alberta PC leadership race.

To give daveberta readers an example of the “way outness” of the Sherwood Park Progressive Conservative MLA, the first time we met her, she was clinging to a plastic SIDS baby doll. Now, as weird as it was for her to be clinging to a plastic SIDS baby doll in the first place, it was at a conference dealing with international development – why she was there we still do not know (she was Minister of Children’s Services at the time) – but she spoke on behalf of the Alberta Government following an terrific speech by then-Senator Doug Roche. The topic which she spoke of was just as bizarre… you guessed it… she spent her 5 minutes at a conference on international development and the third world talking about SIDS… it was really bizarre.

Not to mention the weirdness of the Tory Caucus video at the most recent Alberta Legislature Press Gallery dinner which had had Minister Evans making reference to “sausages.” This is made even weirder when you understand that she typically raises (at some very inappropriate times) that she is single and looking for a man…

Not that she was a “real” contender anyway, but it looks like the Tories may have an “all-white all-penis” leadership race on their hands once Premier Ralph Klein decides to go to pasture.