Category: Alberta Politics
With the end of the fall Legislative sitting comes the perennial calls for a more civil discourse by the members of the Assembly. This year’s call for decorum comes after a particularly nasty sitting that will undoubtedly make many Albertans wonder why we elect these people in the first place. There are many reasons for the lack of civility by MLAs, including lack of enforcement by the Speaker and low expectations from the party leaders.
This recent article by Samara Canada co-founder Alison Loat on creating a more purposeful parliament in Ottawa may also include some truths about the Legislative Assembly in Alberta:
It may be time to ask whether we can do better for our Parliamentarians, and by extension, for the citizens they serve.
When our organization, Samara, conducted exit interviews with 65 former Members of Parliament, many of them long-time veterans of federal politics, we found most ex-MPs recalled feeling very unprepared for their new careers. We were surprised by the intensity of these descriptions, even years after they first took their seats in the House of Commons.
On one hand, this was only logical. For many, politics was a career change. On average, the MPs came to Ottawa in their late forties, having spent most of their life pursuing other careers and interests outside national public life. They arrived on the Hill with a desire to create a different politics from that which was on offer. They were determined to better represent their communities, and felt pride in the privilege to serve in such an important role in an important institution.
But on the other hand, it was a surprise to learn that when the MPs arrived on the Hill, they were given almost no orientation to Parliament or training on how to effectively advance that which brought them to politics in the first place.
“You learn by the seat of your pants,” one MP recalled. “There is no training … nothing on how to be effective,” said another.
While preparation is, in part, the role of each individual MP, Parliament is an institution with complex rules and traditions. We should look to systematically improve on the way in which newly-elected Parliamentarians are prepared for their positions.
Don Martin goes to Ottawa
After 32-years writing for the Calgary Herald, Don Martin wrote his final column last week titled “ My last words on Alberta politics.” Mr. Martin will soon take over as the host of CTV’s Ottawa-based Power Play.
Budget
The City of Edmonton approved their 2011 budget with a 3.85% tax increase. Read Councillor Don Iveson‘s blog post on the budget debates and results. The City of Calgary also recently passed their 2011 budget with a 5% tax increase.
Urban municipalities conference
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association held their annual general meeting at the end of November where they debated and adopted a series of new policies. Conference delegates also acclaimed Village of Breton Councillor Darren Aldous as their President for a second-term.
Lethbridge By-Election
The sudden death of Alderman-elect Bob Babki in October has triggered a by-election for Lethbridge City Council scheduled for February 1, 2011. Jeff Coffman, Kevin Layton, George McCrea, Wade Galloway are standing in the by-election.
Canadian Wheat Board elections
Allen Oberg of Forrestburg, Alberta, Stewart Wells of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Kyle Korneychuk of Pelly, Saskatchewan, John Sandborn of Benito, Manitoba, and Henry Vos of Fairview, Alberta were elected or re-elected to the Canadian Wheat Board. All Board Members with the exception of Mr. Vos are supporters of a single desk seller. Just over 41 per cent of the eligible 28,481 eligible farmers returned their mail-in ballots.
Alberta Party releases MLA Guidelines
The Alberta Party has released a series of guidelines for MLAs and a process for sitting MLAs who want to join that party, which has generated some interesting debate on Facebook. The Edmonton Journal’s Sheila Pratt has wrote about a recent chat with the Alberta Party’s Acting-Leader Sue Huff, as did Angela Brunschot in SEE Magazine.
New Alberta Liberal Executive
The Alberta Liberals elected a new President at their recent annual general meeting. Erick Ambtman was acclaimed to the position as were VP Policy Debbie Cavaliere and Secretary Nancy Cavanaugh. Two other board positions appear to be vacant as VP Communications Jody MacPherson resigned for personal reasons at the AGM and the VP Fundraising position is listed as vacant on the party website.
Mar blocked Maryland global warming Bill
Alberta’s representative in Washington DC Gary Mar helped stop a piece of global warming legislation in the State of Maryland in 2009. According to The Tyee, Mr. Mar travelled to Maryland to speak against the Oil Sands Responsibility Act introduced by Representative Roger Manno. The Bill would have prohibited State agencies from purchasing high-carbon fuel, including fuel derived from Alberta’s oil sands.
Ted Morton running against Danielle Smith?
Probably not, but that has not stopped the speculation that the PCs would take advantage of changes in the electoral boundaries to put their top fiscal mallard Ted Morton on the ballot against Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith.
Social Credit AGM
The elusive Social Credit Party held its annual general meeting on November 20, 2010 in in Innisfail where its members reaffirmed the leadership of Len Skowronski and heard what I am sure was a fascinating a speech from Paul Kennett, President and CEO of the Alberta Credit Union Deposit Corporation. The party also elected a new board of directors, consisting of President Gordon Barrett, Vice-Presidents Helge Nome and Garnet Medicraft, Area Directors Myrna Kissick, Gordon Musgrove, Tom Stad, Raj Sinha, Charles Relland, and Bob Whyte. Both Mr. Relland and Mr. Whyte are former members of the Alberta Party, which they both left after the party’s renewal attracted in an influx of new members over the past year.
Election earlier than 2012?
Liberal leader David Swann and Wildrose Alliance leader Ms. Smith are predicting an election in early 2011. Although I have heard similar rumours as they have, I still believe that as long as Premier Ed Stelmach is the leader of his party the next election will be in March 2012, as he has consistently said.
Read more in the Alberta Politics Notes archive.
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bring your snow shovels to work.
Civil servants and public encouraged to shovel their own path to government services
Alberta is in the midst of some serious tough economic times. Sacrifices have had to be made. Public servants are facing a wage freeze. Finance Minister Ted Morton expects to table a $5 billion budget deficit next year. Some MLAs have had to face painful salary increases and cabinet ministers are living the tough times as they travel to Washington DC, New Mexico, Alaska, Korea, Japan, and Cancun.
Continuing from the success of its summer-time memorandum limiting the number of days in a week which buildings would be air-conditioned, the provincial government has released its latest austerity measure. The amount of snow shoveled will now be limited to “Modified Snow Clearing Specification.” This measure is expected to encourage civil servants and public visitors to bring their own shovels if they want to park near the Legislature or a government building in Northern Alberta anytime in the next five months.
Loretta Bieneck Memo December 1, 2010-2
(Thanks to a reader for passing along this memo).
As an attempt to gauge the voting intentions of the readers of this blog, I posted the a poll on the sidebar on the evening of Tuesday, December 6. The poll was open to voters until 9:00pm on December 8, 2010 and attracted 592 votes. As I mentioned, the intention of this poll was to take a snapshot of where the readers of this blog were sitting politically (thank you to everyone who voted).
I was at first surprised at how many Progressive Conservative supporters read this blog and I was soon informed that the PC Party had sent a message to the members of their online forum encouraging them to vote in this online poll. I do not have a problem with this. While I am first flattered that the PC Party thinks I am “popular” it also shows how seriously they are beginning to understand the importance of the Internet in the run up to the next election (which is a significant change from two years ago). As far as I am aware, the support for the Alberta Party and Wildrose Alliance was not prompted from the parties, so I was surprised that they placed so much higher than the Liberal and NDP among readers of this blog. It is not scientific or even statistically accurate, but might be one indicator of which parties have the most active champions online.
I have been surprised at how quickly many political watchers have begun to write the political obituary for the long-governing PC Party. At its weakest state in decades, the PC Party is still the best organized and most well-funded political machine in the province and should not be underestimated by its challengers. Even if future history books show that the PC Party entered its decline in 2010, I imagine that we are still far off from hearing the loudest “thump” of this political institution.
(Thanks to @BrockWHarrison for the screenshot of the PC email)
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raj sherman. where to from here?
There may have been eighty three men and women (mostly men) sitting on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, but none made as much impact on the direction of the fall sitting than Dr. Raj Sherman. The medical doctor, first term MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark, and now-former Parliamentary Assistant for Health was ejected from the Progressive Conservative caucus after criticizing Premier Ed Stelmach and former Minister of Health Ron Liepert and became an overnight hero to Albertans frustrated with the healthcare system. Dr. Sherman became a one-man wrecking crew and probably inflicted more damage to the PC Party in a month than any of the opposition MLAs have done in the past five years.
With the fall sitting ended and assuming he will not resign as an MLA, the big question is: where does this now Independent MLA go from here?
Stay Independent: One of Dr. Sherman’s biggest strengths is that he is not interested in being a politician. He has gained an incredible amount of media attention since becoming an Independent and his shedding of partisan ties has helped solidify his credibility as a voice for the public healthcare system in the Assembly. The challenge for any Independent MLA is the lack of financial resources available to non-party MLAs. Dr. Sherman has ridden a wave of support while being publicly backed by all of the opposition parties and his medical colleagues, but how long will this last?
Rejoin the Progressive Conservatives: After being indefinitely suspended form the PC caucus, Energy Minister Liepert said that he would refuse to support Dr. Sherman’s return to the PC caucus unless he completely withdrew the criticisms he expressed in a November interview with the Edmonton Journal. Making it even less likely he will return to the PC caucus was the alleged whisper campaign begun by Edmonton-Rutherford PC MLA Fred Horne, who has taken over Dr. Sherman’s former role as Parliamentary Assistant for Health.
Sit with the Liberals: Previous to his election as a PC MLA, Dr. Sherman had supported former Ontario Education Minister Gerard Kennedy in his bid to lead the Liberal Party of Canada in 2006 and was courted to run for the Liberals before the 2008 election. As a moderate, Dr. Sherman would probably be comfortable sitting in Official Opposition Liberal caucus, and while I am sure that David Swann would be ecstatic to have him join their ranks recent polling showing that party falling to 19% support might make it a less than appealing jump.
Become the first Alberta Party MLA: As the first MLA for the Alberta Party, Dr. Sherman would have the opportunity to help shape and provide a voice for a new and growing political party that has attracted many political activists across the province (including many key organizers from Naheed Nenshi‘s Mayoral campaign in Calgary). Dr. Sherman would likely be blocked by Speaker Ken Kowalski from accessing many additional financial resources, a challenge that the Wildrose Alliance caucus has been forced to deal with.
Join the Wildrose Alliance MLA: If door is closed to rejoining the PC caucus, joining the four MLA Wildrose Alliance caucus might look like the best opportunity that Dr. Sherman has to becoming Minister of Health after the next election. The question would is could support the negative tone that Danielle Smith and her MLAs have taken towards the public healthcare system?
Make the New Democratic Party a trio: Dr. Sherman appeared with NDP MLA Brian Mason at a recent rally for public healthcare at the Legislature, but I would be very surprised if his politics lined up with the two MLA social democratic caucus. Next to rejoining the PCs, this might be the most least likely scenario.
h/t Mike Soron
A new survey reported by the Calgary Herald:
The survey by Environics Research Group, provided exclusively to the Calgary Herald, indicates 34 per cent of decided voters would support Ed Stelmach’s Tory party if an election were held today.
Thirty-two per cent would cast a ballot for Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Alliance, meaning the figures are within the survey’s margin of error. The poll of 1,011 Albertans, conducted between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2, shows the Liberals under David Swann have seen their support slip slightly to 19 per cent, while Brian Mason’s NDP sit at 13 per cent.
The number of undecided voters is 17 per cent.
After a very rough month of fumbling the healthcare file, the Progressive Conservatives have dropped to 34%, down six points from an internal PC Party poll taken in October 2010 and released at that party’s recent policy conference. This is a far cry from March 2008, when the PCs swept 53% of the province-wide vote. Another recent survey showed that only 21% of Albertans approved of Premier Ed Stelmach‘s performance, possibly hurting his party’s support as reflected in this survey.
The Wildrose Alliance should be pleased with these numbers, which show them growing their support back above 30% and putting some distance between themselves and the third place Liberals. These survey numbers will likely help boost the spirits of the 26 already nominated Wildrose candidates as they campaign door to door in an increasingly cold winter. The survey continues a year-long trend showing that the Wildrose have been able to solidify their position as an Official Opposition-in-waiting among Alberta voters.
The article also says that the Wildrose are tied with the Liberals for second place in Edmonton, which should be troubling for the Liberals, who are hoping for that conservative party to grab enough votes away from the PCs in Edmonton to regain some constituencies they lost in the last election. Since December 2009, the Liberals have been unable to break away from their third place position after at least fifteen years of second place polling.
Depending on the margin of error, the NDP have either held or mildly grown their province-wide support.
Early in its organizing phase, the new Alberta Party has yet to register on any major survey, which may be a result of it not being an option or that it is just not yet registering among Albertans. Regardless, it shows how much hard work still needs to be done by that new party’s organizers to reach out beyond the people they have already engaged. That party is in the process of establishing Constituency Associations and will have thirty founded by the end of this month.
If anything, this survey shows how fluid political support in Alberta has become as we approach the next provincial election in either 2011 or 2012. Here are this month’s survey results along with others released over the past two Decembers:
December 2010 (Environics)
PC: 34%
WA: 32%
Liberal: 19%
NDP: 13%
Other: 2% (assumed)
December 2009 (Angus Reid)
WA: 39%
PC: 25%
Liberal: 25%
NDP: 9%
Other: 2%
December 2008 (Environics)
PC: 62%
Liberal: 16%
Other: 14%
NDP: 6%
WA: 3%
I joined hundreds of fellow Edmontonians today for an afternoon rally for public healthcare at the Alberta Legislative Assembly building. Speakers included MLA Raj Sherman and his lawyer, Brian Beresh, who announced that he was starting an investigation into the whisper campaign to discredit Dr. Sherman.
After a month of political turmoil in healthcare, rally speakers piled on the governing PCs, who despite nearly forty years in office appear incapable of providing stability within the healthcare system. Those speakers included David Eggen from the Friends of Medicare, MLAs Hugh MacDonald and Brian Mason, Vancouver-South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, United Nurses of Alberta President Heather Smith, AUPE President Guy Smith, and Elaine Fleming from the Whitemud Citizens for Public Health.
I snapped the below photos in the cold and you can view more on Flickr.
I sure picked an interesting time to leave the province for a few days. After a short absence, it has been exhausting catching up on all the political games and intrigue that happened over the weekend and earlier this week.
Leaked Private Health Care Agenda
The Liberals released an internal government document (pdf) showing a drive towards increased privatization of health care in Alberta through private insurance. The document was presented to the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health and also reported that the months-long province-wide consultation spearheaded by Edmonton-Rutherford PC MLA Fred Horne encountered a “high level of skepticism.” This skepticism was widely reported in the media and was not reflected in the committee’s final report released in September 2010.
I was surprised to read Liberal leader David Swann‘s quote that this was the first time he had seen any evidence that the government was even considering a more private approach to health care, especially since he spoke at a rally in front of the now bankrupt private-for-profit Health Resource Centre only a few months ago (HRC sits across the street from his constituency office in Calgary-Mountain View). I am willing to believe that Dr. Swann may have been misquoted, but if not he should have a chat with his caucus colleague Kevin Taft, who co-authored the book “Clear Answers: The Economics and Politics of For-Profit Medicine” in 2000.
Earlier this year, former Premier Ralph Klein admitted that he had tried and failed to privatize Alberta’s health care system:
“I tried it twice — the Third Way and the Mazankowski report — and I failed.”
– Former Premier Ralph Klein (Source: “Klein urges two-tired health system,” Edmonton Journal, January 26, 2010)
Emergency Room wait-times amendment fails
Now Independent Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Dr. Raj Sherman‘s amendment to enshrine emergency room wait times in Bill 17: The Alberta Health Act has failed. After a long debate that started last Wednesday, continued overnight until Thursday, and resumed this week Dr. Sherman, members of the three opposition parties, Independent MLA Dave Taylor, and St. Albert PC MLA Ken Allred voted in favor of the amendment (it failed). I understand the intention of Dr. Sherman’s motion and his good intentions in general, but I have to agree with the Tories that enshrining wait-times may create more problems than solutions (or more lawsuits).
After the amendment failed, the Alberta Health Act quickly passed third reading by the PC MLA majority in the Assembly. This new law concentrates a concerning amount of authority over our health care system into the hands of the Minister of Health & Wellness, instead of the elected Assembly.
In five years time we could be walking round a zoo…
Only a week after he was appointed as Acting-CEO of AHS, Dr. Chris Eagle and Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky released a 5-year plan for health care. If you are questioning how a newly appointed Acting-CEO could come up with a five-year plan so quickly, you win the prize. According to Gordon Bontje, one of four recently resigned members of the AHS Superboard, the “new” plan is really a re-marketed version of an old plan.
The plan sets out some goals for emergency room targets and continuing care spaces, but does not address some of the key capacity issues that are creating the problems in the health care system. With this government’s habit of constantly tinkering and re-announcing projects and plans, Albertans should not be blamed for being skeptical about politically convenient re-announcements and health care policy created on the fly.
Stand by your man…
Terri Jackson, wife of now former AHS President and CEO Stephen Duckett, has written a letter to the Edmonton Journal defending her husband and criticizing the government for how it has handled health care.
Was Fred Horne just being “Fred friendly”?
Rumours began to emerge late last week questioning Dr. Sherman’s mental health. The whispering began after MLA Mr. Horne placed a phone call to the head of the Alberta Medical Association, Dr. Patrick White, concerning the state of Dr. Sherman’s mental health. A self-described friend of Dr. Sherman’s, Mr. Horne held a media conference last Friday clarifying that he did make the call, but it was not to discredit the Doctor.
It might just be me, but am pretty sure that calling up the head of your friend’s professional association to question the state of his mental health and then talking to the media about it does not make you a good friend (especially when this friend is an MLA and medical doctor who has just been suspended from your party’s caucus for being highly critical of their health care policies).
December 4 Rally for Public Healthcare
In response to the months-long political frenzy around health care, the Friends of Medicare are organizing a rally at the Legislature on Saturday, December 4 at 1:00pm. Speakers include Dr. Sherman, United Nurses of Alberta President President Heather Smith, the Whitemud Citizens for Public Health‘s Elaine Fleming, and the Friends of Medicare’s David Eggen.
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visit to ottawa.
A big thanks to Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont Member of Parliament Mike Lake for taking some time yesterday to show me around the Centre Block on Parliament Hill. It was very interesting to learn about how the Parliament building works from someone who has actually been elected to work there.
While there, I also had the opportunity to be introduced to a number of other MPs, including Edmonton-Sherwood Park MP Tim Uppall and Crowfoot MP Kevin Sorenson, Carleton-Mississippi Mills MP Gordon O’Connor, and Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP John Rafferty (who were, of course, hard at work).
As someone who spends most of his political watching at the provincial and municipal level, it was fascinating to see some of the differences and many similarities about politics in Ottawa.
By William Munsey
I was reading a blog the other day by a young guy named Justin who just couldn’t see the Alberta Party as something worth supporting… was holding onto the idea that the Alberta Liberal Party is the natural home to the progressive vote in Alberta. He described himself as “the kind of person you’d expect to be in the Alberta Party.” He continued on to describe himself as a young person who lives in a downtown condo with a job in the ‘creative economy’ and a strong supporter of human rights and a proponent of a mostly free market economy.
Young Justin’s blog was pretty good, but I think he’s missing a couple of things.
See, I don’t live in a downtown condo. I’m not young and my grey hairs far outnumber my brown ones. I don’t have a cool job in the “creative economy” nor am I ever likely to. I live in a drafty old farmhouse. We grow flowers and saskatoon berries, which bring in little money but require lots of physical work. I spend most of my days in dirty coveralls. We don’t have extra money to go to the theatre or take vacations. In fact the only theatre I get to attend offers two girls fighting over one bathroom in the morning.
I can’t afford either the time or money to sit in Starbucks. I make my coffee at home and carry it to work in a thermos and look for abandoned newspapers to catch up on the day’s happenings. I have to budget just to buy new socks and long underwear for the coming cold. The other night, while most people were snug in bed, I was working the job that supports my farm…. lying in the snow, between the rails, under a freight train, strapping up dragging equipment. Two days ago I was up to my elbows butchering a deer that will help keep us through the winter.
If Justin’s analysis was correct, I’m hardly the sort of guy you would expect to have any interest in the Alberta Party. My world is so distant from the condo dwelling urbanites Justin describes as likely candidates to support the Alberta Party, I sometimes think there’s a time warp between us and I suspect if Justin met me… filthy from head to toe, deer blood on my coat, he might dismiss me completely for someone so foreign to his values we couldn’t even communicate.
But Justin (and a ton of other urban progressives) would be surprised by what we rural rubes know about our province… and for the worry we are saddled with for the future and for what is happening to this province. Dismissing the Alberta Party as a party for urban Albertans is a mistake. It’s a mistake Liberal Party of Alberta and the New Democrats traditionally make (even though they say they don’t). The truth is, there is as much dissatisfaction in rural Alberta these days as there is anywhere else in this province and considerably more common ground than people like Justin can imagine.
My rural neighbours may never think of themselves as progressives. In fact, I would say that a majority of rural Albertans strongly self-identify as small ‘c’ conservatives. We might never see ourselves as strong supporters of human rights, but you will never get a fairer shake than in the hundreds of little communities dotted around this province. We might not be able to tell the difference between modern Twitter and a old-fashioned twit, but we know first-hand the tenuous nature of landowners’ rights in this province. We may eat wild meat occasionally, but we also understand the vital importance of fresh water, the value of healthy food, the nature of true conservation and the value of our natural heritage. And more, I suspect, than urban Albertans we can see by the crumbling infrastructure in our small towns that life in rural Alberta is not thriving.
Rural Albertans are looking for a change in government. To date, the only party who seem to be courting us is the Wildrose Alliance. I’ve been to their meetings and almost without exception I am the youngest person in the room (at 49). I have heard the cozy words about “taking back the province” and “bringing accountability back to government.” Yet there is something stale in the Wildrose Alliance. They just don’t strike me as an option for a better future for this province… and their cozy relationship with the petrochemical industry frightens me.
So what do we have? The PCs? Nope… unless they bring back Peter Lougheed and his band of young thinkers. The WRA? Not unless I see some distance from the monied old interests and a lot more youth at local gatherings. The Liberals? You’re kidding right? I want a chance to be on the winning side of an election and the ALP hasn’t had a chance in nearly a hundred years. The NDP? (see Liberal… only way more so).
People talk about a party that can capture the imagination of Albertans. That’s the problem. Albertans’ imagination and dreams were captured 40 years ago… and they are still being held captive. I’m looking for a party that sets those dreams and aspirations free again… a party that encourages dreaming and imagination… that will reward and support new ideas that diversify our economy without devaluing our environment… or dismissing elements of our society. What I am looking for is a party that takes good ideas from wherever they come… the left… the right… the centre… the north… the south… wherever. I’m looking for a party that offers Albertans the chance to dream again.
I want to counter the perception that the Alberta Party is for young, progressive urbanites only. What attracted me was the coming together of people from diverse backgrounds. We may not always speak the same language. We may not always see the world in the same light. We may sometimes differ about the best options for Alberta. That’s all ahead for us. However, it is the spirit of working together, being respectful of good ideas wherever they come from… and above all the chance to build an Alberta we can be proud of again.
I’d like to tell young Justin, “we can all meet in the Alberta Party.” If he brings the latte… I’ll bring the jerky and saskatoon wine.
—-
This post can also be read on William Munsey’s blog, The Berry Patch Perspective.
A little bit of the bloom came off the Wildrose this week as the entire executive committee of that party’s Little Bow Constituency Association resigned in protest central party interference of their recent nomination contest. The resignations come as local members nominated Vulcan County Councillor Ian Donovan, who defeated 2008 candidate Kevin Kinahan (a comment on Mr. Kinahan’s Facebook Page indicated that the vote was 209 to 204).
Wildrose Alliance support in Little Bow jumped from 857 votes (9.4%) in 2004 to 2,051 votes (23.1%) in 2008, making this one of that party’s best showings in the last election.
Leader Danielle Smith was quick to declare on Twitter that “I stay neutral in these contests” and provided a link to a statement by Party President Hal Walker.
UPDATE: The former Little Bow Constituency Association executive have responded to Mr. Walker’s statement.
The internal turmoil was not limited to Little Bow. Earlier this week, Bobbie Dearborn, the Secretary of the Medicine Hat Wildrose Constituency Association resigned after a heated board meeting. According to the Medicine Hat News, some local members are apparently unhappy about a dispute over local finances and the quick nomination process that selected candidate Milva Bauman earlier this year.
It might be too soon to call them a wilting rose, but these are certainly the largest round of internal resignations to hit the Wildrose Alliance since Ms. Smith became party leader in late 2009.
NDP and Liberal nominations
The other parties had more smooth experiences with recent candidate nominations. The NDP nominated former MLA David Eggen in Edmonton-Calder. Mr. Eggen represented Calder from 2004 to 2008, when he was narrowly defeated by PC candidate Doug Elniski. The NDP also recently nominated Ali Haymour in Edmonton-Decore. Mr. Haymour stood for election in neighbouring Edmonton-Castle Downs in 2008, placing third with 13% of the vote.
The Liberals nominated former MLA Rick Miller in Edmonton-Rutherford. Mr. Miller served as the MLA for Rutherford and Official Opposition Finance critic from 2004 and 2008. He was narrowly defeated by PC candidate Fred Horne in 2008 and has since served as the Chief of Staff at the Official Opposition Caucus. The next election will be Mr. Miller’s fourth time standing as a Liberal candidate in that constituency (he stood against former Reform Party MP and PC candidate Ian McClelland in 2001 and defeated him in 2004). Other candidates already nominated in Rutherford are the NDPs Melanie Samaroden and the Wildroses Kyle Macleod.
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everybody loves raj.
Like the belle at the ball, newly Independent MLA Raj Sherman is being courted by the Wildrose Alliance and the Liberal Party as MLAs continue an all-night debate on Emergency Room wait times (see the below messages sent out by the two parties on Twitter this morning).
Of course, this love is not extended by the PCs, who indefinitely suspended Dr. Sherman from their caucus earlier this week after he went public with his concerns about Emergency Room wait times and criticized former Health Minister Ron Liepert. Dr. Sherman apologized to Minister Liepert, but the Minister refused to accept anything less than a complete retraction of the comments.
By: Justin Archer
Dave Cournoyer and I have known each other since 2005, when I got my first real job working in a junior staff position with the Alberta Liberals. Dave started working there shortly after I did, and the two of us became friends. He’s mentioned to me before that I could do a guest post at some point if there is a topic that seems to fit, but I’ve never asked to take him up on that offer until now.
Let me just explain first that I am the kind of person you’d probably expect to be in the Alberta Party. I live in a condo downtown and have a pretty good job in what is thought of as the “creative economy”. I’m politically active. I still like to think I’m young (though I did find my first grey hair the other day, which needless to say was traumatic.) I am a strong supporter of human rights, and a proponent of mostly free markets with some government intervention in the economy to protect the common good. I also know quite a few people involved in the Alberta Party, and I like them and respect them. I agree with them in a broad sense on how this province should be governed, because their values are my values.
I think they might be making a Big Mistake though, and that’s what I want to talk about here.
The first part of my argument is that there are a couple of no-such-things:
1. There is no such thing as a post-partisan political party.
2. There is no such thing as a political party that falls outside of the traditional left/right spectrum.
No-such-thing 1 is essentially self-evident. The word partisan basically means “someone who supports a cause and works to achieve some end associated with that cause” . If an organization is trying to get people elected and maybe even form a government, it’s a partisan group. It’s not even really open to interpretation, that’s just what “partisan” means. It has been suggested to me that perhaps the Alberta Party intends to introduce a less partisan style of politics to the debate. I don’t really understand what this means, but if it means something along the lines of “no talking bad about the other guys”, I would be shocked if that sentiment sticks around the nascent organization for long, if it is even there now. Which it probably isn’t. No-such-thing 2 is also quite simple: When you get down to it, what a government does is take in the money and then figure out how to spend it. If you look at how each government philosophically approaches this job, you can figure out where it sits on the spectrum.
It’s like this: Some people think that the government should take in lots of the money and make sure that everyone gets a nice amount. Those people often think that the government should be involved in lots of things and intervene in many economic transactions. Those people are on the left.
There are other people who think that the government should take in some of the money, and make sure that everyone gets at least a least a little bit. These people also usually think that the government should allow economic activity to take place free of government interference except where there is a real problem that needs fixing. Those people are in the centre.
Then there are people who think that the government should take in only a little bit of the money, and it’s up to individuals to get things for themselves. These people also usually think that the government should keep its damn nose out of pretty much everything (unless their rich friends are in trouble, in which case those rules no longer apply). These people are on the right.
I’ve heard it said by people in the Alberta Party that this party is not possible to pin down on the spectrum I’ve described above. It would be fun and exciting to think this, but it would be wrong. I haven’t seen the policy that the Alberta Party passed at its recent convention, but I would very surprised if an analysis of that policy wouldn’t reveal that the party is in the centre. In fact I’d almost guarantee it. I think if you follow Alberta politics closely and you know the people in that party and the sorts of things that those people tend to think, you’d have to agree with me.
So if the Alberta Party is in the centre, and it is partisan, it is basically the Alberta Liberal Party only cooler and better looking. What I mean is that the values are very similar, the policies are likely quite similar, but it’s a newer and more exciting organization. It has an ambitious and fun culture, lots of wonderful and smart people, and a great attitude about how to engage people in the political process. It has also embarked on a great citizen engagement process and done a great job of getting ink for its work. But the actual values, the guts of the party, are not very different from those of the Liberals.
I also think that the Alberta Party will take many votes from the Liberals. I do not buy the argument that the 60% of people who didn’t vote last time will be the deciders in the next election. I think that for the most part, people who didn’t vote last time won’t vote next time. From the inside of a political party it is easy to start to believe that there is something big happening out there, and people are getting turned on. Largely though, political activity in Alberta takes place outside of the notice of the majority of the population and people who don’t follow politics are not getting turned on. In my view the pool of votes might be a little bigger next time, but not much.
Now this is the part where it’s easy to say, “sure, well if the Liberals are so great, why aren’t all these engaged young difference makers joining up with them?” The truth is that the Liberals haven’t done a good job of answering that question. But I actually don’t know that it’s the right question to be asking.
You see, I think that we are on the cusp of one of those generational shifts in Alberta politics where a new government will come to power. If you are reading this blog you don’t need a primer in Alberta politics – we can all agree that historically there has been a one-party culture here, and when a change in government comes, it is fast and total. Many people, and particularly many rural constituencies, want to be on the side of the winning team, so support tends to move quickly to the party who looks like it may form government. I think that because of this, in the next election, small “c” conservative support will begin to drift from the PC Party to the Wildrose Alliance Party. In the election after that, that conservative support will firmly coalesce around the Wildrose Alliance Party, and that party could easily form a government at that time.
There is a strong parallel to federal politics here. Let’s be honest, the Chretien/Martin government years were made possible in large part by the split in the conservative family over much of that time period. Now that the federal conservatives are re-united under one banner, it’s not so easy for those in the centre to form a government, as we’ve continually seen. I think that this is probably one of the only times where we’ll have a similar political situation here provincially, and as moderates in this province it looks like we’re about to waste it by grouping in factions instead of realizing that we all pretty much agree on things. If centrist political organizers and voters are divided during the next five or six years between the Alberta Party, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Alberta Liberal Party, the moderates in this province will probably lose the opportunity to form a government for the next generation.
In summary my argument is this: We’re about to miss an opportunity while the conservative house is divided because of things like process and personality. I believe that process and personality are important in politics, but when you peel it all back, the values underneath are what really matter. And in the absence of a divergence on values, is it not foolish to have competing organizations?
I don’t know how to solve this. I’m not saying the Alberta Party should stop doing what they’re doing. I’m not saying the Liberals should fold up the tent. But I do think this is a real discussion that needs to take place on this side of the coming electoral opportunity, rather than a lament on the other side of it.
Anyway, thanks to Dave for letting me air this here. Please chime in in the comments.
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Justin Archer is a young guy in Edmonton who is involved in this and that around town. He grew up in Calgary but moved here about five years ago to take his first big kid job as a Liberal staffer. After a 2008 election night filled with tears and despair (but I thought we were gonna be the governm…….*sob* *sniffle*), he went to work for a Edmonton-based PR firm, where he is now a consultant. He believes that Alberta is a great place and most of the whole redneck thing is exaggerated. Follow him on Twitter @justin_archer.