Author: Dave Cournoyer

Come the end of December/beginning of January (when we have time), we plan to put on our policy analysis hats and dissect some of the federal election promises.One policy area close to our hearts (and résumé), post-secondary education policy, was the highlight of today’s NDP campaign.

Jack Layton announced today that his party plans to “restore what he estimates was $4-billion in cuts to post-secondary education made by the Liberals in the 1990s” by “scrapping the corporate tax cuts the Liberals announced in this fall’s fiscal update.“

This call by Mr. Layton, not surprisingly, jives with the Canadian Federation of Students’ “Restore the Four” campaign… imagine that… what a coincidence…

Mr. Layton wasn’t clear on where in the system the $4 billion investment would be directed: Federal-Provincial Transfer, student debt relief, scholarships, grants, research, etc?

Though it’s not as nice as the $7 to $8 Billion PSE transfer promised by Prime Minister Paul Martin during the 2004 Great Canadian Job Interview in St. John’s, it seems a positive commitment to post-secondary education in Canada.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Edmonton East Tory MP Peter Goldring, above (with the gun), launched an attack yesterday against Etobicoke-Lakeshore Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff. Mr. Goldring accused Ignatieff of being “arrogant and ill-informed” for comments he wrote in his book Blood and Belonging. The comments were regarding the Ukraine.

Mr. Goldring was quoted as saying “I know how sensitive Ukrainians are to those who would support in any way the behaviours and attitudes of their former Russian oppressors.“

According to the Toronto Star, Dr. Ignatieff believes he has been wrongly maligned by a group of Ukrainian-Canadians seeking to derail his federal election campaign in a west Toronto riding.

Now, we haven’t read the book, so we really can’t defend or denounce Dr. Ignatieff either way, but we remain quite skeptical. Perhaps if the attack had been launched by another Tory, say… James Rajotte, Rona Ambrose, Jim Prentice, or just about any other Tory MP maybe we wouldn’t roll our eyes. But for those of you don’t know, Mr. Goldring, an ardent advocate of Canadian expansion in the Caribbean, has been known to sit on the silly side of the Conservative caucus (here’s our favorite).

Mr. Goldring forgot to mention that Edmonton East Liberal candidate, Nicole Martel, is from a Ukrainian family. How long will it be before Mr. Goldring accuses Ms. Martel of collaborating with the Russians? 😛

100% props to Ainge from Lotusland for this.

Well, it’s snowing in Calgary, Vancouver, and Edmonton – that must mean that Paul Martin wasn’t the only one who didn’t want an election. Looks like God and Mother Nature didn’t want an election either. 😉

Anyway… back to more serious business… it was announced this morning that the election has been set for January 23, 2006.

– Anne McLellan has her campaign office up and running today in the Edmonton Centre riding. It’s located downtown in the old McDonald’s building on 117th Street and Jasper Avenue. Anne’s in for a tough fight with Tory challenger Laurie Hawn, but her campaign team is more than definately up for the challenge.

– It looks like the Federal Liberals are having some difficulty finding candidates to nominate in Alberta. Last we heard, among others, they still hadn’t nominated a candidate in the Edmonton Leduc riding. It wouldn’t surprise us if the NDP placed second to the Tories in some of the ridings the Liberals have yet to nominate candidates in. Also, the NDP and Green parties seems to be in a bit of a scramble to nominate or appoint candidates in some Alberta ridings. If one is to believe the party website, one would think that the NDP has actually lost candidates in some rural ridings (ie: Westlock-St. Paul).

– The CBC has their CanadaVotes2006 site up and the Globe & Mail also has their Decision 2006 election site up.

*UPDATE*: More candidate updates for our 2006 Edmonton candidates list.

– George Hodgson has withdrawn from the Liberal nomination race in Edmonton Strathcona. This leaves Ellen Schoeck and Andy Hladyshevsky to duke it out in the Dec 5 nomination meeting.

– It seems that Paul Wallace is no longer the Green candidate in Edmonton East.

A little bit of pre-writ day fun.

Enjoy.

Take the quiz: “Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are You?”

Donatello
You’ve been described as ‘the brains’ of your family or group of friends. You’re the natural born, ‘Mr. Fixit’. You’re also considered the most reserved, preoccupied with your own little thoughts and ideas. But that doesn’t mean you don’t hang with your family and friends! But, you still find it easy to get lost in your own thoughts…daydreaming often. You’d rather talk things out than fight. You long for a day when there’s nothing but peace in the world, and when you can finally rest with your own thoughts. Violence is something the world could completely live without. One of your labels may be, ‘true to blue friend’. You’re strong at heart and powerful at mind.

For those of you interested, here’s a video lecture of Etobicoke-Lakeshore Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff.

Only 35 minutes left for Jack Layton to try to make another deal with the Liberals. 😉

Tune in! 3 pm Edmonton time is when live coverage of “non-confidence vote: part 2” is to take place. It should be a fun showdown! We’ve never seen a federal government fall! (THUMP!)

Good luck to all those involved in campaigns across the country. Play nice and have fun! 🙂

We plan to have mostly Edmonton related campaign updates/gossip (for national coverage, we’re sure CG will have his share of insight).

btw, we were in a cab last night with a driver who couldn’t stop telling us some of the more offensive racist jokes we’ve heard in a long time. Slightly more disturbing that he was telling us them in the first place…

And finally, thanks to the half-dozen daveberta readers who emailed us commenting on the new template! We’re glad you like it (and we love fan mail! [insert inflated ego here]) 😛

*AN UPDATED CANDIDATES LIST CAN BE FOUND HERE!*

In preparation for Tuesday’s expected federal election call, we’ve decided to make up a list of Edmonton ridings and their candidates so far… (let us know if we’ve missed anyone!)

We’ll keep updating the list as more candidates are declared, nominated, appointed, or turfed.

ELECTION 2006 MANIA!

EDMONTON CENTRE (2004 results & map)
Laurie Hawn – Conservative
Lyle Kenny – Marjuana Party
Donna Martyn – NDP
Anne McLellan – Liberal
David Parker – Green

EDMONTON EAST (2004 results & map)
Trey Capernhurst – Green
Arlene Chapman – NDP
Peter Goldring – Conservative
Ken Kirk – Marijuana
Nicole Martel – Liberal
David Vanzella – CAP
(*UPDATE* Nov 29 – According to the Green Party website, Paul Wallace is no longer their candidate)

EDMONTON LEDUC (2004 results & map)
Jim Jacuta – Liberal
Ben Pettit – Green
James Rajotte – Conservative
Marty Rybiak – NDP

EDMONTON MILLWOODS BEAUMONT (2004 results & map)
Kate Harrington – Green
Neal Gray – NDP
Amarjit Grewal – Liberal
Mike Lake – Conservative

EDMONTON SHERWOOD PARK (2004 results & map)
Ken Epp – Conservative
Laurie Lang – NDP
Lynn Lau – Green
Ron Symic – Liberal

EDMONTON SPRUCE GROVE (2004 results & map)
Rona Ambrose – Conservative
Brad Enge – Liberal
John Lackey – Green
Jason Rockwell – NDP

EDMONTON ST. ALBERT (2004 results & map)
Stanley Haroun – Liberal
Peter Johnston – Green
Mike Melymick – NDP
John Williams – Conservative

EDMONTON STRATHCONA (2004 results & map)
Linda Duncan – NDP
Dave Dowling – Marijuana
Andy Hladyshevsky – Liberal
Rahim Jaffer – Conservative
Cameron Wakefield – Green

This past wednesday, we visited the Alberta Legislature and watch some Question Perioding. Here’s a quick recap of our observations from the visitors gallery… (though they’re definately not as exciting as some of our previous Legislature experiences)

(OPENING SCENE: Beautiful +14C day in the City of Edmonton)

1:00 pm – Leave work at the University, catch the train to Grandin station.

1:10 pm – Get off the train at Grandin station.

1:15 pm – Meet up with our friend Ms. Jane on the front steps of the Leg.

1:19 pm – Bump into Rick Miller in the elevator. We have a quick chat.

1:23 pm – Stand in line to get our QP pass… there are about 5000 school kids in the rotunda. crazy. Donna Martyn and Mr. Sharma are in line ahead of us. Dan McLennan is also in line.

1:30 pm – QP starts. Mr. Sharma crosses party lines and sits beside a Liberal (us). Way to go, Anand! 😉

1:40ish pm – Laurie Blakeman introduces us. Very nice.

1:41 pm – Premier Klein is on his cross-Canada “Torpedo Stephen Harper” Tour, so Finance Minister Shirley McClellan is running the show… man does she have a boring voice…

1:42 pm – Liberal leader Kevin Taft asks the first question.

1:43 pm – Alliance MLA Paul Hinman is here. Sitting all by himself. The ND’s are there too. Brian Mason is quieter than his usual “QP bull dog” self. But he does make some good heckles.

1:45 pm – It looks like Ted Morton is playing paddy cake… wha? either that, or he has a Juba song stuck in his head…. crazy right-winger…

1:47 pm – We notice that Dave Hancock is still in his “grey hair period” (as opposed to his
previous brown and black periods).

1:49 pm – Aboriginal Affairs Minister Pearl Calahasen is reading the Hill Times.

1:50 pm – Education Minister Gene Zwozdesky scoffs at an opposition question about hot lunch programs in schools. St. Albert Liberal MLA Jack Flaherty yells at Zwoz and looks like he’s going to get up and deck him. For a 74-year old, Flaherty sure has alot of energy.

2:00 pm – Banff-Cochrane Tory MLA Janis Tarchuk is signing Christmas cards. Lucky for her, her seatmate Rob Lougheed is MIA. So she uses his chair to pile her cards.

2:05 pm – QP continues. The opposition asks decent questions, but the Tories give boring answers. They know the media isn’t paying attention to QP while Klein is on tour. We’re bored. Time to bounce. Adios.

2:10 pm – On our way out, we bump into Agriculture Minister Doug Horner. Have a nice chat with him in the rotunda.

(END SCENE)

Can someone explain to us a couple things about Buy Nothing Day?

1. Why does it fall on a Friday?
2. Does beer count? Because… it’s Friday… and it’s been a long long week.

We’re sitting in SUB finishing off a book review and 5 guys dressed in drag just walked by…

Also, this weekend, we will have the full report of our exciting adventure to the Alberta Legislature this week…

Highlights include…
… MLA’s signing Christmas cards.
… an update on Dave Hancock‘s hair colour.
… a certain leadership candidate playing paddy-cake.
… and much much more.

A friend email this cool election projector to us. It’s fun for political nerds!

Finally! Our suspicions have been confirmed… and we can’t help but think it’s kind of cool…

“Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada are building a Death Star. Hidden behind the moon and almost complete, the Conservative Death Star will allow us to finally achieve our fondest desires.“

After a quick MSN chat with a friend of official importance, we were reminded that this blog (the one you’re reading now), has been nominated for some fairly hefty non-monetary awards. Those being that of the Canadian Blog Awards.

As much as we’d like to mock them as the “Canadian Nerd Awards” or the “Get a Life Awards,” it would be unfair to judge everyone based on a couple of blogs.

We’ve been nominated in the Best Blog and Best Personal Blog categories.

Here are the voting instructions as posted by Robert at MyBlahg.

“Tentative Timetable
Thursday November 24th – Wednesday November 30th: Round One voting.
Friday December 2nd, 12pm EST: Round One results will be announced.
Saturday December 3rd – Friday December 9th: Round Two voting.
Sunday December 11th, 9pm EST: Round Two results will be announced.

Voting Instructions
You may vote once per day. To vote, click on a category header to open it and then make your selection. Repeat with each category until you’ve made all your selections and then submit your vote.

Note: It’s not required that you vote in each category, but you must make all your selections before you submit your vote.”

So, as you can see, voting begins tomorrow, so if you likey what you see, *go here* and vote early and often.

(We shall post our endorsements later this week)

Doesn’t it look like Warren K has a tiny crush on our good friend CG?

“November 21, 2005 – The Calgary Grit is one of the best bloggers in Canada, and not simply because we usually agree with each other. He’s one of the best because he’s smart, he’s funny, and he’s a terrific writer. And when you meet him – as I did, at the March 2005 Ottawa Liberal convention I attended as a delegate, no less – you will be depressed by how young he is. He made me feel 100 years old, in fact.”

“November 23, 2005 – Once again, I cannot improve upon what is being written by Calgary Grit – a young guy who, I hasten to point out, is doing better research/commentary, for free, than what we see out of a lot of the MSM based in Ottawa these days. Amazing.”

That’s cute. 🙂

Slightly dated, but entertaining none the less…

Reform Party Rag…

“If you were Indian before, you’re not like that anymore…”

Politicans Halloween Party…

“…Chretien and Mulroney did the tango with each other, and Joe Clark was a flirting with someone elses mother.”

The Best Summer Job I Ever Had…

“…the best summer job I ever had was as the Yukon PC leader!”