Author: Dave Cournoyer

According to figures released by the Edmonton Journal, former Edmonton McClung MLA and Economic Development Minister, Mark Norris, spent over $100,000 in his failed November 2004 re-election campaign. Norris, who is considered by some as a contender for the soon-to-be-vacated PC throne, was unseated by 533 votes at the hands of rookie Liberal Candidate Mo Elsalhy. Elsalhy spent less than $30,000 on his campaign.

Also released were figures showing that Tory-turned-Alliance MLA, Gary Masyk, spent near $40,000 on his bid to be elected in Edmonton Decore (the seat he was elected to in 2001, Edmonton Norwood, was dissolved after the 2003 boundary re-distributions). On election night, Masyk received a whopping fourth place 830 votes (9%). Liberal Bill Bonko was elected in that riding with 45% of the popular vote.

I thought this was funny. I guess money can’t buy you everything (Chuck Guite must have missed that lesson).

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Random Quote of the Day

“I’m very important. I have many leatherbound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany” – Ron Burgundy, Anchorman (2004)

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GREWAL UPDATE: Buckets of Grewal has set up an awesome slide show of the changes made to the Grewal/Dosanjh//Murphy Transcripts (props to Mark at Section 15 for the heads up!)

First, daveberta would like to formally welcome the Fiesty Republic of Holtopia to the great blog-o-sphere of nations. It is a great honour to have a link to this tiny republic on my side bar. Holtopia is currently preparing for a “Falkland Islands” style war after launching a massive policy review:

“After conducting a very thorough foreign policy review, The Republic of Holtopia has decided to forge a new era in Holtopian-Foreign relations! Whereas the fiesty republic once concerned itself with harvesting the orange crop, herding the wild beefalos, reading graphic novels, and taxing wicker goods– Holtopia now looks outward!”

Second, but not lastly, daveberta would like to send a BIG CANADIAN HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY to my very good friend, Miss Amika Schodie. Ms. Schodie, formerly of Edmonton, Alberta now resides in the mostly rainy central area of London, UK. I wish you a very happy day and will no doubt speak with you soon.

I thought this was fun. Posted 20 minutes ago on Canadian Press…

D : )

Air Canada confirms it is investigating airport incident involving
Grewal (Grewal-Airport)
Source: The Canadian Press
Jun 6, 2005 15:57

OTTAWA (CP) _ Air Canada is investigating an incident at Vancouver
airport involving a Tory MP embroiled in a taping scandal.

Gurmant Grewal was spotted in a waiting area Saturday trying to get
passengers to transport a package to Ottawa.

Airport sources won’t confirm if there was a tape in the envelope the
B.C. MP was trying to pass along.

Read the rest here!

UPDATE: Grewal on stress leave (ie: going into hiding)

Against better judgement and severe warnings, I rented Team America: World Police this weekend. After only watching about half of it, I would recommend that anyone interested in watching this film poke their eyes out with a pencil first. It would be more (but not much) entertaining that way. This movie has hands down beaten out The Village, and Troy as DAVEBERTA’S WORST MOVIES OF THE YEAR.

I also splurged and bought the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Back to the Future Trilogy on DVD this weekend : )

I could’nt sleep last night, so here you go…

– Name of the McGill Student Society Building: The William Shatner Student Centre

– Total value of Canada’s Barley industry in 1970: $144,700,000

– Total value of Canada’s Barley industry in 1995: $795,500,000

– Length of Mel Brook’s ‘Spaceballs‘: 1 hour 37 minutes.

– Number of BC Premiers since 1980: 8

– Number of Alberta Premiers since 1980: 3

– Kilometers of paved roadway in Ecuador: approx. 8,165km

– % of alcohol in a 330ml bottle of Corona: 4.6%

– % of alcohol in a 461ml bottle of Big Rock (Grasshopper): 5%

– 1964 Hart Trophy winner: Jean Béliveau (Montreal!)

Props to Peter for Wildrose Edition numero uno,

UPDATE (May 18, 2006) – Check out an updated Alberta PC leadership roster here.

**UPDATE (October 11, 2006) – Check out the entire list of MLA endorsements for the Alberta PC leadership race.**

Well, with yesterday’s prediction by Tory MLA Lloyd Snelgrove (Vermilion-Lloydminster) that Alberta‘s glorious and blessed leader, Premier Ralph Klein, is on his way out, I decided to take a look at some of the “would-be” Klein successors. Here are some of the old (mostly white) men stepping up to lead the 34 year-old Tory dynasty…

Jim Dinning – The ‘Paul Martin’ of the Alberta PC Leadership race. This former Provincial Treasurer (1992-97) has been bidding his time in the private sector since leaving electoral politics in 1997 (private sector, hmmm. Sounds more like the John Turner of this race). He’s looking to be the “everything-to-everyone” candidate. Under the “why Jim” category of his website, apparently one of his qualifiers for leader is: “He’s been an active Party member since the 1970’s.”

Lyle Oberg, MLA Strathmore-Brooks – Currently the Transport Minister, Oberg was affectionately known as “Lyle, Lyle, pants on fire” by teachers, parents, students, and trustees from across Alberta during his time as Learning Minister from 2001 to 2004. His arrogant style will no doubt help him fit in with many of the other candidates in this race.

Ed Stelmach, MLA Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville – Elected in 1993, after unseating two-term ND MLA Derek Fox, Stelmach quietly toiled as Transport Minister for years until being appointed Intergovernmental Affairs Minister last winter. He seems like a nice guy, but I really can’t name anything he’s done in his past 12 years.

Gary Mar, MLA Calgary Mackay – Once considered a serious contender in the race to replace Ralph, Mar had a wrench thrown in the wheels of his machine after it was discovered that this former Health Minister paid almost $400,000 in an untendered contracts to his former Executive Assistant. Now toiling as the lowly Community Development Minister, Mar is cutting ribbons instead of talking Health Care-reform.

Dave Hancock, MLA Edmonton Whitemud – Currently the Advanced Education Minister, Hancock was only one of two Tories elected in Edmonton in 1997 and is now 1 of 3 Tory MLA’s in Edmonton. Probably the most decent Tory MLA in Alberta, unfortunately he’s from Liberal Edmonton and I’m sure this will have a negative effect on his leadership chances.

Mark Norris – In 2001, Mark Norris was called a “giant-killer” for unseating then Liberal leader Nancy MacBeth in Edmonton McClung. In 2004, Norris was “giant-killed” himself by Liberal Mo Elsalhy (sources tell me that Mr. Norris took a week off during the campaign to go on a golfing vacation). Currently with no seat, I really don’t consider him a serious candidate. But things got a lot more interesting last month when Mr. Norris joined Klein and his mafia on a trip to Klein’s BC Fishing lodge. Is Norris Klein’s padwan?? Hmmm. Sounds like a kiss of death to me.

Ted Morton, MLA Foothills-Rockyview – Ah yes, the dark horse of this race. Not terribly charismatic, Dr. Morton is a hard-line right-wing ideologue. The former “Senator-in-Waiting” was elected last November under the slogan of “More Alberta, Less Ottawa.” Though he is shunned by many in the Tory establishment, he may draw the support of the hard right-wingers that the other candidates cannot. If he wins, look for a lot of Tories to jump to the Liberals. One of the rumours going around is that if he looses the leadership, he’ll jump to the floundering Alberta Alliance Party.

So, there we have it. Pretty homogeneous, eh

Well, it’s begun, and it’s coming from Tory MLA Lloyd Snelgrove…

MLA predicts Klein gone by fall

Last updated Jun 3 2005 10:50 AM MDT
CBC News

EDMONTON – One of Premier Ralph Klein’s MLAs is speculating on when his boss will step down, predicting a fall departure.

He was elected the mayor of Calgary in 1980.

The gates are open. The “tirekickers” are banging at the gates, and the King is a lame, lame duck.

Retire Ralph, you’re way past your best-before-date.

I’ve been tagged by Aaron at Grandinite into some sort of name-that-book game which is quickly spreading across the blog-o-sphere. I guess I’ll play along. Game On!

As of late, about 99% of my reading tends to lean towards policy reports of the “PSE” flavour and are usually work related. But, when I do read on my own, this is where I lean…

# of Books that I own

I’m gonna wing it and say about 300. I have this really neat set of original classroom textbooks published in 1917 titled “True Stories of the Great War.” They’re such propaganda peices, but a fun read. A lot of text University text books too.

Last book I bought (not including text books):

*Alberta Politics Uncovered: Taking back our Province by Marc Lisac – great book on Alberta politics.

Last books I read:

*Harry Potter and Philosopher Stone by J.K.Rowling – Such a fun book!

*Digital Fortress by Dan Brown – I borrowed it from my former roommate and forgot to give it back to her. Picture: DaVinci Code at the NSA.

Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas

Five Books that mean a lot to me.

1.The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin. This is a great book for history buffs. It was a gift from a good friend.

2.History on the Run: The “Trenchcoat” Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent by Knowlton Nash – One of the best reads I have ever experienced. I picked up the book for $1.50 at a used book store in St. John’s, Newfoundland last summer and read it in 2 days.

3.The Winter Years by James H. Gray – A great book about the depression on the Prairies.

4.The Chronicle’s of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – These were the first series of books I ever read on my own (outside of school). I still think they’re great.

5.Shredding the Public Interest by Kevin Taft – this may seem politically hackish of me, but this book was one of the reasons I began to get involved in politics (way back in good ol’e 1999).

So, at this point, I’m supposed to “tag” other bloggers as “it” 🙂

I tag:

c-lo
Five of Five
Gauntlet
Rempelia Prime
Senator Catalyst
Zita

hmm. Gurmant Grewal. Tapes. Editing. Pizza. Ujjal Dosanjh. Ambassadorships. Tim Murphy.

Sounds like a made-for-TV Movie.

I thought about posting on the Grewal tapes, but there seems to be a huge saturation of Grewal-gate related blogging out there. I would recommend Buckets of Grewal (one of the better and entertaining Grewal resources), Calgary Grit, Section 15, Mr. Cherniak, and Rational Reasons.

My take: the ENTIRE thing looks shady. If the tapes were edited (as it looks they may have been) then it gets even more shady. What do you think the chances of the Grewal’s being booted from the CPC Caucus are?

Also, props to the good senator for the following. I enjoyed it quite a bit!

Policy

In the beginning was the Plan.

Then came the Assumptions.

But the Assumptions were without form,

And the plan was completely without substance.

And the darkness was upon the faces of the workers.
So they spoke unto their group heads, saying: “It is a crock of shit, and it stinketh!”

And the group heads went unto their section heads, and sayeth: “It is a pail of dung, such that none can stand it!”

And the section heads went unto their managers, and sayeth unto them: “It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none here may abide the odour therof.”

And the managers went unto their Director, and sayeth unto him: “It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength.”

And the Director went unto the Director-General, and sayeth uto him: “It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.”

And the Director-General went unto the Assistant Deputy Minister, and sayeth unto him: “It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful.”

And the Assistant Deputy Minister went unto the Deputy Minister, and sayeth unto him: “This powerful new plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of the department, and this area in particular!”

And the Deputy Minister looked upon the plan, And saw that the plan was good.

And the plan became policy…

Well, you might have noticed the new template. New and cleaned up for the summer. Goodbye blocky blue template and hello minty white and blue! Enjoy.

I thought I would briefly touch on the interesting evening I had last night. As a staff member at the U of A Students’ Union, I thought it would be a good gesture and an interesting expeditionary adventure to attend a Student’s Council Meeting at the good ol’e University Hall.

So, the evening was progressing as one would expect a Student’s Council meeting to progress when all of a sudden, things began to get slightly (only slightly) more entertaining. All of a sudden, without a moments notice the Speaker of Student’s Council, the Honorable Gregory Harlow, threw down the procedural gauntlet and flexed his bulging parliamentary muscles by having an observer thrown out of the Council Chambers.

Fortunately, this observer just happened to be me. Apparently, whispering when the Speaker demands silence is a parliamentary “no-no.”

I beg your forgiveness oh benevolent Speaker of the Council. 😛

D 🙂

TINY, BUT PERSISTANT REPUBLIC LAUNCHES “FALKLAND ISLANDS” STYLE WAR AGAINST COMMUNIST CHINA
Daveberta Daily Star
By: Maxwell T. Ferdinand, Holtopia Bureau Chief

On May 31 at approximately 10:45p.m. (Holtopian standard time), armed commando forces of the Republic of Holtopia launched a tactical assault on the People’s Republic of China, securing 3 acres of rice patties. The Holtopian commando’s outfitted in silver tennis shoes and green alien costumes, moved swiftly across the Chinese county-side causing much confusion in the local population as to who these green and silver costumed folks were. This hilarious confusion seems to be the strength of the small Holtopian army, and has led to the creation of their motto, “Laughter, Stealth, Strike.”

The President of Holtopia declared May 31 to be a great day in the life of the tiny republic. “Today, we conquer China. Tomorrow, the world!”

A Chinese Government spokesperson described the invasion as a “simple domestic disturbance, which will be dealt with in due time.”

*PRESS RELEASE*

DAVEBERTA SUPPORTS HOLTOPIAN INVASION
Office of the Ministry of Social Revolution

“It is my duty to announce that the greatest of the tiny little republics, Holtopia, has launched a “Falkland Islands” style war against the People’s Republic of China” the President of Daveberta said at a press conference late last night. The President subsequently announced that the Grand Republic of Daveberta will offer financial aid, “tactical advice,” and replacement tennis shoes to the glorious and blessed leader of Holtopia.

The President also described the war as a great economic opportunity for the growing tennis shoe industry that has boomed since the beginning of the NHL Hockey Strike.

Well, it seems that the Liberals have held their ground against Stephen Harper’s army of darkness in the sprawling riding of Labrador.

Here’s how the results of yesterday’s by-election played out:

Todd Russell, Liberal – 5,438 (51.5%)
Graham Letto, Tory – 3,415 (32.3%)
Frances Fry, NDP – 1,045 (9.9%)
Ern Condon, Ind – 598 (5.7%)
Jason Crummey, Green – 68 (0.6%)
Total Valid Votes – 10,564 (54.1% voter turnout)

So, the Tories gained as expected but didn’t win (also as expected).

Watching this by-election gave me the urge to look at the results of past by-elections. It turns out that since the Liberals formed government in 1993, there have been 33 by-elections. The Liberals have won 21, the Bloc Quebecois 4, the NDP 2, the former Progressive Conservatives 4, and the former Canadian Alliance 2 (Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper).

An eye-jump down to the sidebar to your right will reveal that I have signed my blog up with the coolest new batch of affliated bloggers out there: the new alberta blogs group.

It seems like an interesting mix of Alberta bloggers from left to right to right to wrong and everything in between and senile. Check it out. If you’re from Alberta or just blogging in Alberta, you should join up. Only then will we rule the blogosphere forever!!! mwahahaha…

yes…

Anyway, thanks to Aaron for setting this group up

Cheers.

D : )