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Alberta Politics

wildrose alliance draft policy proposals.

Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith at a January 2010 press conference.

In less than a year, the Wildrose Alliance Party has skyrocketed from the political fringes to having three MLAs in the Assembly and challenging the dominance of the 39-year governing Progressive Conservative Party in many polls. Since the selection of Danielle Smith as their leader in October 2009, many questions have been raised about where the new leader and her party stand on important policy issues. The party has slowly started to release some new policy positions and one of Ms. Smith’s most common responses is that her party would be reassessing many of their positions at their June 2010 policy convention.

Luckily for readers of this blog, a friendly political insider was kind enough to pass along a copy of the draft Proposed Policy Resolutions that will be debated at the 2010 Wildrose Alliance Annual General Meeting scheduled for June 25 and 26 in Red Deer.

The document includes some of what would be expected from a conservative political party in Alberta and has a slightly more moderate tone than expressed in that party’s fringe-right past. Here is a brief summary of a few of the proposals:

– Renegotiate federal equalization program.
– Create an Alberta Constitution.
– Former Reform Party Member of Parliament and current Senator-in-Waiting Cliff Breitkreuz proposes that party leaders should run in a province-wide election and that the leader who receives the most votes in a general provincial election will be sworn in as Premier of Alberta.
– Party member Randy Coombes proposes that his party ensure all law abiding and mentally fit Albertans enjoy the right to keep and bear arms in perpetuity.
– Member Peter Csillag proposes the stop of any and all public monies involved in the deliberate and intentional termination of pregnancies.
– There are a series of policies that could be dubbed the “Ezra Levant” section of the proposal which deal with freedom of speech and the Alberta Human Rights Act.
– Party Vice-President Jeff Callaway proposes the introduction of legislation to allow citizen-initiated referendums though a petition signed by at least 10% of the total voters of the last Provincial election in Alberta (which is quite a low number when you take into account the 40% voter turnout).
– The Medicine Hat and Cypress-Medicine Hat constituencies submitted policies calling for “a public consultative review with Albertans of the collective bargaining process in the public sector.”
– A proposal calls for the creation of a First Nations Forum to provide aboriginal citizens direct communication with government.

There are also policy proposals calling for the creation of “whistle-blower” legislation, educating Albertans in environmental stewardship, abolishing income-tax, supporting nuclear and hydroelectric power, and exempting seniors from paying a number of taxes.

Here is the full document.
Policy Resolutions 2010 Agm Preliminary

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31 replies on “wildrose alliance draft policy proposals.”

Thanks for posting this DAve. I am a former PC cardholder and I am ready to work hard to get Danielle Smith elected as Premier of Alberta.

The AGM is almost here!

The proposal to have a “Premier” election flies in the face of parliamentary democracy.

Say Danielle Smith wins the “Premier election” but the Wildrose Alliance only wins 20 seats and the Tories win 50? How can Smith be “Premier” of Alberta if she doesn’t control a majority of seats? Would she be “Premier” of a Tory cabinet? Would she sit in the Tory caucus?

Ridiculous. The Premier is not the President. This is the Wildrose wanting an American-style Republican system of government imposed on a British parliamentary democracy.

Thanks for the comments.
For those who don’t follow my Twitter account (http://Twitter.com/davecournoyer) I posted a link to this blog post suggesting the document was a “leaked document.” I may have been sensationalizing a bit because I did not realize the doc was already posted online, but it turns out the doc was posted on the WRA website (though I still can’t find where on the site, beyond the direct link). That said, if you don’t follow Twitter, you probably wouldn’t know about it and I don’t mention any kind of leak in this blog. 

Sorry if I mislead anybody with that tweet. It was my mistake and it was not my intention to mislead.

CBG: What about splitting the exec and legislative branches of govt? One of the biggest criticisms of our system of govt is the control thatthe exec has over the legislative branch (aka who do you know in the PMO?).

Government should evolve. Sounds like a sensible and reasonable change to me.

Thanks for posting this DAve. I am a former Wildrose cardholder and I am ready to work hard to keep the PC party governing this province and Danielle Smith out at all costs.

Ah yes… a male member of the WRA says we shouldn’t use public monies “involved in the deliberate and intentional termination of pregnancies.”

Firstly, dude… you’re never going to be pregnant, so don’t pretend to understand the plethora of reasons that women get them done.

Second, it’s so vaguley worded that it could include forcing women who need abortions for their own personal health and safety to have to fork out the funds from their own pocket (deliberate and intentional they still are, even if they are an emergency)

Thirdly, proposals like that always affect POOR people the most. So once again, the colours of this party is showing: we don’t give a shit about you if you live below the poverty line.

Fourth, abortion is a legal MEDICAL procedure, so I think policy development should take that into consideration before waving this stupid flag of “De-funding abortions for all the Albertan harlots who can’t use birth control or just plain can’t keep their slutty legs together”

Sorry, but fuck you.

(Frankly, champoining abortion rights and access should be a right-wing policy, as it’s a matter of privacy and autonomy, but that’s another rant altogether – Sorry to hi-jack, Dave).

I looked at these policy proposals – gag me with a spoon. Abortion, gun rights in perpetuity? Join the Republican party in the US. 😯

The links to proposed policy and constitutional changes were mailed and emailed to members 60 days prior to AGM.

Constitutional: http://www.wildrosealliance.ca/2010agm/constitution

Policy: http://www.wildrosealliance.ca/2010agm/draftpolicy

Of those policy proposals only about half of them will be heard at the AGM, there simply isn’t time.

You will notice in that last link there is also a “ranking” sheet. Constituencis and individuals were encouraged to complete the rankings in order to determine the more important ones that will be debated at the AGM.

At the end of the day… it is only the ones that “pass” that have any bearing on “what” the party stands for. And they will be added to the ones already in place.

Cheers,
Jane

It’ll be interesting to see which ones the members choose to support. Right now, we don’t even have an indication which ones have enough support to reach the convention floor — there clearly isn’t enough time to debate all of them!

My guess is that 80% are doomed to fade into obscurity.

Worthwhile commentary, Dave, but these policy points have been on-line – at http://www.wildrosealliance.ca/2010agm/draftpolicy – since at least mid-May. However, you are right that no link was provided by the WRAP. Maybe they think we Albertans are just too dumb to find their “secret” stuff? On the other hand, maybe we just missed the link. Your readers can read my commentary at: http://www.albertadiary.ca/2010/05/shape-of-wildrose-alliance-policies.html

Seriously dude, women will never know the reasons the Michael Whites of this world have to kill their wives.

Blacks never knew the burdens of owning a cotton plantation.

If we are going to restrict abortion decisions only to one group of legislators and voters, then we must be ready to restrict other decisions to other voters. Maybe only gun owners can decide whether to use public monies to restrict gun control.

Thinking of policies for a right wing party in Alberta. How about these:

a) full investor rights – presently, if you are an investor in Alberta you have to wonder if your rights are taken as a priority in this province given the chummy relationship between government and business. So about an Investor Bill of Rights?

B) How about a commission struck to study how the electricity industry works for business in this province, for individuals as well? Promise a revamp if needed, you will make equitable for everyone.

C) Say that a province has to be strategically smart as well as ideological: do some things to take the sting out of criticism of provincial Green policies. Have some policy toward Smart meters to save electricity, fix the electrical grid to allow alternative energy, promise to be more active on the Green file to help Alberta’s reputation outside the province.

Actually championing the right to life of the unborn should be a left wing issue. What about the lives of the unborn terminated every year? I’m voting Wildrose because no other party has the guts to talk about this.

In fairness, John above has a good point. EVERY party has individuals and constituencies that bring forward gawdawful, unimplementable policy to the AGM. Some of it gets debated and defeated, some never even makes it to the floor.

We can’t judge the WAP on the policy ideas of its wingnuts – because we’ve ALL got wingnuts in our parties. We can only judge them on the policies their membership PASSES – which we won’t know until after their AGM. But once the vote counting is done, the policies that remain won’t be able to be dismissed as fringe nonsense – they’ll be the policies passed by the majority of the party’s members.

THEN Albertans will have to judge what kind of party this is.

Haven’t read the proposal yet, but holding a separate election for the Premier strikes me as not the sort of thing you can do by itself.

Yes, there is a problem with the centralization of power in the hands of the executive. But I fail to see how making the executive entirely unaccountable to the legislature is going to help that problem. Seems to me like it would have the opposite effect.

How scary. Abortion, gun rights, referenda, anti-public sector unions. The agenda isn’t hidden anymore. Albertans are smart enough to recognize the Tea Party when they see it. My Alberta is not northern Montana.

More: I like Danielle Smith. She is a million times better than Stelmach. If this is the best her party can do then I’m sticking with the PC Party. The devil I know.

Breitkreuz was a Progressive Conservative for the Senate election in ’04. Did slick Eddie’s cancaling the senate elections make him jump into Danielle Smiths arms? What about Betty Unger?

Good policies btw. Lolz.

Dean Althouse, these are policies that will be voted on at the AGM this month. I will be going and will vote against those policies to which I do not subscribe, i.e. I am not sure about your reference to abortion but I will vote against de-listing it. Not sure what you mean by gun rights but don’t current gun owners already have to register to get a gun license, referenda, would you not like the opportunity to provide your input on those items that would impact your life and I do not see a problem with public sector unions. And when you think about it I know for a fact that there are current Alberta PC Ministers that subscribe to all of the above. So basically, this is what Enlightened Savage has said, so before we condemn the Wildrose Party let’s see what comes out of the AGM.

I expect that many of these proposals may not see the light of day–at least, I hope not–but in that case what will be the point of the WRA for many (most?) of its supporters? I think they want to belong to a right-wing party, not a glorified lobby group for big oil.

Hmm..how about getting out Canada Pension Plan? Was there anything about that there? Truth be told, considering the drawdowns of the Heritage Fund the PC-s have shown they are not conservatives AT ALL.

Abortion, gun rights, referenda, anti-public sector unions. All of these issues have reared its head at either a PC AGM or PC Policy Conference before. I suggest you wait and see if the Wildrose Party actually adopts the proposals as party policy before you start raising the hidden agenda flag

I just wish they had a policy coming forward that ensured the Wild Rose would take better care of their members private personal info. As I mentioned on Twitter, a local Wild Roser revealed all the Mill Woods and Ellerslie members email addresses in a goofy email mixup. Between their attempts at “organizing” and these horrific policies, it’s clear that the Wild Rose has not yet metamorphed into the new centre-right challenger the media had all proclaimed. They are still a chaotic group of extremists, and I’m sure they’ll ignore Danielle Smith’s advice and pass a plethora of these embarassing policies at their upcoming AGM. The media will have a field day with it and that will be the end of the Representative Party version 2.0. However their presence may help the Tories oust Deadwood Ed before the election proves the Wild Rose to be a sham. It’d be a good move for the PCs anyways, at least now they have an excuse.

Don’t worry lefties, ideologically promiscuous people such as Bob McInnis aka WildroseBob and Stephen Carter among others will ruin any rightwingyness the Wildrose Alliance has, they will infect the party like people of the same mindset have done to the PC’s.

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