A big thanks to reader Alan Hall for collecting the data and creating these maps from the Final Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission transposed with the poll-by-poll results from the 2008 election (in March, Alan created maps for the interim report). Read my previous post for more information and commentary on the Final Report.
Enilghtened Savage may have beat me to the punch with the link to the report, but posted below are the Alberta, Calgary, and Edmonton maps from the Final Report of Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission (pdf). It appears the sleuthing author of the aforementioned blog discovered the link to the report which had been loaded online before it has been officially posted on the Boundaries Commission website. You can download the full report here (pdf). Score 1 point for the citizen media.
UPDATE: The EBC appears to have removed the original link to the report, so I have replaced the above links with new ones provided by Enlightened Savage. You should be able to download the final report now.
COMMENTARY
Overall, I believe that the members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission have presented a fair report given the guidelines and political environment in which they were operating. I would have liked to see the commission merge some of the larger sparcely populated rural constituencies in the north of the province, but I understand the arguments for allowing exceptions in special circumstances.
Airdrie/Foothills-Chestermere: Large areas of Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson‘s former Airdrie-Chestermere constituency have been merged with Fiance Minister Ted Morton‘s Foothills-Rockyview riding to create Rockyview-Chestermere. It is unlikely that Mr. Anderson will challenge Minister Morton in the next election, so he may opt to run in the new Airdrie constituency.
North Calgary: There is a significant amount of shuffling in this area of Calgary. I’m not familiar enough with the area to say if it reflects communities of interest. I imagine that there will be an ample amount of confusion created when anyone talks about either Calgary-North Hill (singular) and Calgary-Northern Hills (plural). Anyone?
Edmonton-Centre: I was pleased to see that my riding remains intact. The boundaries make sense for Edmonton’s downtown constituency.
Edmonton-Glenora: Glenora has been shifted further west than was proposed in the interim report, moving more Tory polls into the constituency. They new boundaries also remove the NDP-voting polls north of downtown that were included in the interim boundaries report and cut out the Liberal-voting polls west of Mayfield road that were included in Glenora during the 2008 election. It could create a more favourable electoral situation for PC MLA Heather Klimchuk, who will face strong challenges from the Liberals and former NDP MLA David Eggen.
Edmonton-McClung: McClung has been split in two. I believe that the northern half is where former Liberal MLA Mo Elsalhy‘s stronger polls were located, so David Xiao might run for re-election in the new Edmonton-Southwest constituency in 2011. Elsalhy is planning on running again, so these changes could be good news for him.
Edmonton-Riverview: There was speculation that Liberal MLA Kevin Taft‘s constituency could be on the chopping block. It remains largely intact.
Fort McMurray-Conklin/Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo: Independent MLA Guy Boutilier will have the choice of running in one of these two constituencies in the next election. Mr. Boutilier is widely expected to join the Wildrose Alliance at this weekend’s policy convention in Red Deer. Mr. Boutilier was elected as the PC MLA for Fort McMurray in 1997, 2001, 2004, and 2008.
St. Albert/Sturgeon: I am surprised that St. Albert has not reached the size to have two constituencies of its own. I was not surprised to see that the towns of Morinville and Legal are still included in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock, though it would make much more sense for those communities to be included in a Sturgeon Valley riding that lumped in with a constituency that stretches all the way to Swan Hills.
Minority Report: Commissioner Allyson Jeffs wrote a minority report arguing for Edmonton and Calgary to receive more than the three additional constituencies awarded in this Final Report. The politically uncomfortable necessity of removing large numbers of rural seats in favor of new urban ones was solved when Justice Minister Alison Redford introduced legislation that increased the number of MLAs from 83 to 87. In 2003, Commissioner Bauni Mackay
penned a minority report opposing Edmonton’s loss of one-seat in that Final Report.
Political Responses:
Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman (media release):
“The Stelmach administration’s sticky fingerprints are all over this report,” Blakeman says. “There’s been major tinkering with boundaries in Edmonton to reflect personal requests from Tory MLAs. Edmonton-Southwest, for example, is a mess.”
Wildrose MLA Paul Hinman (media release):
“…once again they displayed their disrespect for democracy in Alberta and fear of losing the next election by pressuring the Commission to make the changes that they believe will favour the PC Party.”
NDP MLA Brian Mason (media release):
“Generally the boundaries make sense. The NDP has a solid chance in several Edmonton ridings, and we plan to run a full slate of candidates in the next election.”
Produced by Jeremy Hunka and Mike Waterhouse from CHAT TV, this documentary gives an interesting view of Alberta energy issues from Medicine Hat.
Transportation Minister Luke Ouellette is scheduled to announce details and funding for the provincial Green Trip Fund at 10am this morning at Government House in Edmonton. Minister Ouellette is expected to be joined by Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier and Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel.
This announcement will come days after Airdrie Mayor Linda Bruce told the Calgary Herald that “[n]obody has heard anything” about when or if the funds would be distributed. The fund was originally announced two years ago and was meant to support local, regional and intermunicipal public transit, but the criteria for municipalities to apply for funding was never announced. It is expect that Minister Ouellette may announce the criteria today.
Update: Here is a link to the media release. The fund will provide a one-time capital expenditure of $800 million in funding will be available to the Capital region; $800 million to Calgary and surrounding area; and $400 million to other municipalities throughout Alberta.
The program is available to owner/operators of public transit services, which may include municipalities, regional entities, non-profit organizations, Metis settlements and the private sector. Submissions for GreenTRIP funding must include a business case that describes the sustainability of the project. GreenTRIP will provide only capital funding assistance for public transit infrastructure and technology, not operating funding for transit service.
The Alberta PCs are struggling to shake off the emerging political narrative that they are next Social Credit dynasty. After 36 years in office, Social Credit collapsed under the weight of its own Byzantine-antiquity when its era came to an end in 1971. The apparent rise of the Wildrose Alliance since last Fall has become a dominant theme in the media and there has been continuous speculation that the current political establishment may be facing its strongest challenge in decades.
It will take more than just a change of characters to change politics in Alberta. Supporters of the current political establishment will praise the government for holding traveling consultation meetings and online surveys, but a top-down style of governance is engrained in the current political culture.
Transportation Minister Luke Ouellette told Alberta’s municipalities two years ago that a $2 billion Green Trip fund would be created to support urban public transportation projects. Two years later, Minister Ouellette told the municipalities that they will still not get access to the Green Trip funds until they come up with something “innovative.” City of Airdrie Mayor Linda Bruce told the Calgary Herald that “[n]obody has heard anything” about when or if the funds will be distributed. Alberta’s cities need build the kind of transportation infrastructure necessary to deal with the realities of urban growth.
In June 2008, then-Infrastructure Minister Jack Hayden announced the construction of a 650-car parkade near the Alberta Legislature (along with around $200 million to renovate the long-empty federal building). Instead of encouraging more single-occupant vehicle traffic into the already congested downtown core, it would have been much more “innovative” for the province to have worked closer with the City of Edmonton to develop of better strategy in fitting the Government Centre buildings into the city-wide public transportation plans.
Edmonton-Rutherford PC MLA Fred Horne has spent the past few weeks traveling across Alberta promoting the proposed Alberta Health Act. The value of these “stakeholder consultations meetings” is being questioned by participants, including Town of Redwater Mayor Mel Smith:
He came away confused, saying the workshop heard from such differing points of view that the discussion became meaningless, suffering from such a “lack of substance” that it didn’t address anything. “To be honest, I’m just not sure how much I did get out of it,” said Smith who considers himself a Progressive Conservative supporter but who for a moment sounded a tad skeptical if not downright cynical: “I’m not sure this wasn’t one of their steps to say that we’ve had consultations and then they’ll do what they like.”
As the Tory ‘Political Minister for Edmonton‘, Education Minister Dave Hancock is playing defence on teacher layoffs in Calgary and Edmonton. In a recent blog post, Minister Hancock called on the Public School Boards in the province’s two largest cities to stop the layoffs, claiming that they do not need to happen. This is a symptom of the dysfunctional relationship that has evolved between the Provincial Government and the elected School Boards. Every three years, School Board Trustees are elected under a more specific mandate than a provincial government, which has its own political agenda (and controls the purse-strings). Crying “tough economic times,” as Minister Hancock did in his blog post, is a tired argument for a Cabinet that can afford to easily drop $200,000 on an oilsands public relations campaign.
It is one thing to send Cabinet Ministers across the province to meet with pre-selected groups, but it is something completely different to change the culture of politics and prove that these meetings were more than just political lip-service. It is likely not intentional or malicious. It just might not be reasonable to expect actual open governance from political leaders who have become accustomed to wielding their large majority in the Assembly like a giant stick.
At the New Kids on the Politics Block event earlier this month, I had the chance to speak with Danielle Smith for about half-an-hour. I am not sure if she has what it takes to change Alberta’s political culture, but I was thoroughly impressed with how engaged and interested she was during our conversation. In a political discussion she can speak confidently and in full sentences.
It is impossible to predict the results of the next election or when Albertans will elect a new party to office. It is becoming more evident that a growing number of Albertans are becoming cynical of the same old-style political culture. It might be in 2011, or maybe in 2015, but it is only a matter of time before a big meteor smashes through. Who knows what will survive when the dust settles?
The theme of this post was inspired by Jurassic Forest, which is currently under construction near Gibbons, Alberta.
Despite what Culture & Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett may have said at the recent Banff World Television Festival, it is hard to dispute the quality of the classic Canadian-filmed televison like Viper (filmed in Calgary and Vancouver from 1996 to 1999).
In all seriousness, I do not necessarily disagree with Minister Blackett’s comments when taken in context. There are some good Canadian television programs that have been produced and there are many of less than stellar productions. I expect that we will soon hear the protectors of haute-cutur poo-poo Minister Blackett’s comments as un-Canadian or those of a backwards Albertan, but as rude as it may have been at the time, the comments might be what Canadians needed to hear. And the sentiment is probably shared by a wide swath of Canadians.
I love the CBC (and listen to CBC Radio each day), but as a western Canadian, I have a gag reflex each time I hear about another cheesy CBC television program about life in Prince Edward Island in the 1890s or a characterization of what a person in Toronto thinks life in the West is like. Other than the occasional episode of Mantracker and the clever and quirky jPod (which is now cancelled), Canadian television has not given me much to get hooked on.
Five backbench Tory MLAs voted today to deny the Wildrose Alliance increased funding for their now three MLA caucus. As the third largest party in the Assembly, the Wildroses receive $395,000, which is much less than the $561,000 received by the two MLA NDP Opposition and $1,537,000 received by the eight MLA Liberal Opposition. The Liberals and NDP supported the motion to increase funding for the Wildroses.
Until Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith is elected, an all-party committee of provincial politicians has decided her party’s caucus will not receive all potential funding.
“Until she steps up to the plate and runs for a position in the next election, we stay where we’re at,” Government Whip Robin Campbell said Monday afternoon.
The argument presented by Mr. Campbell is the continuation of the on-going political games that have been happening on the committee level at Alberta’s Legislative Assembly. While PC MLAs on this committee argued that the presence of a party leader should determine funding levels, at another MLA committee last week Tory MLAs argued that the Assembly had no business regulating donations to party leadership elections that would select these leaders.
Beyond the partisan rhetoric, there appears to be little basis to determining funds for offices internal to the Assembly based on the leadership of an external party. Albertans do not directly elect party leaders in General Elections, so why should their public funds be tied to the presence of party leaders in the Assembly? If past examples are taken into account, I do not believe that any special “leaders funding” was denied between the time that Nancy MacBeth was selected as Liberal leader and her victory in the 1998 Edmonton-McClung by-election. Of course, precedents and logical arguments are not always surefire ways to win arguments at Legislature committees.
Another argument in favour of denying the funding is because two of the three Wildrose MLAs (Rob Anderson and Heather Forsyth) were elected under a different banner in the 2008 election. Supporters of this argument claim that funding should be denied until they run in a by-election to prove that their constituents support the floor-crossing.
There are still a lot of Tory loyalists who feel their blood boiling when they think of the rookie MLA and Klein-era cabinet minister turning their backs on the governing party. Of course, this same argument was not applied to a handful of Liberal MLAs crossed the floor to the Klein Tories in the 1990s, including current Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky.
Under the same logic, why should an MLA who leaves a party to sit as an Independent MLA not be held to the same standard? Should funding be denied to former Liberal MLA Dave Taylor until a by-election is held to confirm his status as an Independent MLA? Would there be an exemption for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Guy Boutilier, who was ejected from the PC caucus in protest?
This political problem for the PCs began in 1997, when MLAs voted to grant the two MLA NDP caucus official party status even though they did not meet the the official four MLA status. The decision at the time was just as political, though it was aimed to weaken a then-stronger and larger Liberal opposition. The NDP also continue to pose a very minor electoral threat to the PCs. The Tories are having a difficult time applying the same standards to the three MLA Wildrose opposition. The reason why the Wildroses were denied increased funding was because they are seen as a political threat.
PC MLAs can try their hardest to bleed the Wildroses dry inside the Assembly, but it will not stop their larger political problem – the growing crowds of Albertans that Ms. Smith is continuing to attract as she travels across the province.
I was not surprised to hear rumours that Edmonton-Riverview might be on the chopping block when the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is released in July (the interim report had kept Riverview largely intact). The Tories have been trying and have been incredibly unsuccessful in capturing enough support to elect an MLA in Riverview since it was created in 1997. With decisive margins, Liberal MLAs Linda Sloan and Kevin Taft have been successful in holding off Tory challengers including Gwen Harris, City Councillor Wendy Kinsella, Fred Horne, and local president Wendy Andrews. I have read and heard many arguments in favour of disassembling Riverview, the largest being that it does not make sense for a riding to span across the North Saskatchewan River, which should act as a natural boundary (under the current boundaries, three Edmonton ridings cross the River). It is silly to argue that an urban MLA cannot represent a riding divided by a river when many rural MLAs represent ridings that span across the province.
With three appointees on the five-member Electoral Boundaries Commission, the PCs may finally get their chance to put Riverview on the chopping block.
Large-scale changes to Riverview were not included in the Commission’s interim report, but there were large changes to other opposition held ridings. Much of Edmonton-Cadler may merge with Edmonton-Glenora, a change that could pit former Calder NDP MLA David Eggen against Glenora PC MLA Heather Klimchuk in a riding that also has a tradition of electing Liberal MLAs.
In Edmonton-Gold Bar, proposed changes in the interim report would give four-term Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald an 8-vote margin, compared to a 1,018 margin of victory under the current boundaries in 2008. While sometimes overly-eccentric, Mr. MacDonald is one of the hardest working Opposition MLAs in the Assembly. It should not be surprising that the PCs have their eyes on Gold Bar, a riding that has elected Liberal MLAs since 1986.
The changes proposed in the interim report are not entirely unkind to the opposition when looking at the 2008 election results. The interim boundaries reduce PC MLA Tony Vandermeer‘s margin of victory in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview from 337 votes to 101 votes. Nominated New Democrat Deron Bilous is already gunning for Mr. Vandermeer’s job. The interim boundaries would have also helped Calgary-Elbow Liberal MLA Craig Cheffins defeat now-Justice Minister Alison Redford by 272 votes (instead, Mr. Cheffins was unseated by 419 votes in the current boundaries).
They are the most politically organized force province-wide, but it is understated how much of an advantage their 2006 leadership selection gave the PCs in 2008. Just over a year after their intensely competitive leadership race, large and fresh membership lists have the PCs a large advantage over their opponents, who had not developed these kind of large-scale lists.
The next election will present Albertans with new electoral boundaries and also a new political environment. The PC Party’s popularity has significantly dropped in the polls since the last election and its caucus has shrunk by a by-election defeat and MLA floor-crossings. David Swann is the first Liberal leader from Calgary since the 1970s and his party is nearly debt-free. The Wildrose Alliance is on its way to becoming well-organized and well-funded under the leadership of the politically-savvy Danielle Smith. The existence of the new Alberta Party is drawing support from many centrist and progressive political organizers. There is a general unhappiness and unease among Albertans with how the politics of governance is being operated in Alberta.
Even if some opposition-held ridings do get chopped and diced, the shifts in the political environment since the last election could make the could make any gerrymandering near irrelevant.
– The Edmonton Journal’s Sheila Pratt attended and wrote an article about an Alberta Party Big Listen meeting that she attended.
– Liberal leader David Swann had an op-ed published in the Calgary Herald outlining his party’s ‘12-step plan to clean up government.’ Dr. Swann may need a plan to mend some fences mended inside his party as some long-time Liberal organizers in Edmonton are very unhappy about a motion passed at their recent policy convention.
– Alberta’s two NDP MLAs have been spending a lot of time in northwestern Alberta. Brian Mason recently spoke to the Hinton Chamber of Commerce and joined his colleague Rachel Notley in touring the Peace Country.
– Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith is drawing the crowds. Ms. Smith had over 150 people welcome her at a recent visit to Lacombe, a big increase from eight months ago when another event only drew 25 people.
– The Federal Conservatives will nominate their candidate in Lethbridge on June 19. Nomination candidates include Mark Switzer, Jim Hillyer, Kent Prestage, and Lorna Peacock.
– Long-time municipal councillor and two-time Liberal candidate John Vyboh is running for Mayor of Wood Buffalo. Mr. Vyboh ran against Fort McMurray MLA Guy Boutilier in 1997 and 2001 (Mr. Boutilier was booted from the PC caucus in 2009 and now sits as an Independent MLA). Current Mayor Melissa Blake has not announced whether she will seek a third-term in office.
– Environment Minister Rob Renner and Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Broyce Jacobs are being dispatched to trade and energy meetings in the United States.
– Boycotts in Bellingham. Nude protesters at Lush. Slate Magazine critics. Even the 2010 Marxism conference featured a seminar titled “Tar sands: the case against the world’s most destructive development.”
– The Alberta Chambers of Commerce has released a swath of new advocacy policies.
– After public pressure to open up their invite-only meetings, consultation meetings for the new Alberta Health Act are now open to the public.
– The Public Safety and Services committee met to discuss the issue of transparency in leadership races and have decided that most Albertans are not interested in such matters. PC MLAs on the committee decided to compile a list of groups to invite to consult and not to publicly advertise the meeting. The PCs ran into trouble earlier this year when backbench MLAs supported Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA Verlyn Olson‘s motion to remove powers of the Public Accounts Committee Chairman (who is Edmonton-Gold Bar Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald). Mr. Olson later withdrew his motion after significant public pressure.
Read more in the Alberta Politics Notes archive.
Is a Provincial Sales Tax far off in Alberta?
Despite our political leader’s pledge to ‘never raise taxes‘ (which was made only months after taxes were raised), I have noticed an increasing amount of talk about the merits of implementing a Provincial Sales Tax in Alberta. After the recent drop in the price of oil and natural gas over the past few years, I have encountered many Albertans who have started to talk about where our provincial government gets its revenue and how that revenue source is largely at the mercy of international commodity markets.
How would Albertans react to the introduction of a PST? In 1993, the introduction of the GST was one of the many reasons voters in this province did not support the province’s Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament (including Edmonton MP Murray Dorin, who vice-chaired the parliamentary committee responsible for the creation of the GST). In 2010, it would be fair to say that most Albertans are comfortable with and have accepted the existence of the GST.
While it is a different form of tax, for years Albertans paid Health Care Premiums that were branded as contributions to the health care system (though they were funnelled into general revenue). When the premiums were cancelled in 2008, it was largely seen as a positive move until people started to realize the billion dollar shortfall that was created.
Tax increases are considered an anathema in politics, but I would bet that a large number of Albertans would be willing to support the introduction of a PST if it meant that our province would have a more secure source of stable revenue to support public programs and infrastructure development.
Update: Alain Saffel also discussed this topic on his blog today. Alain points out that the issue of a PST in Alberta was discussed this morning by Calgary Herald columnist Deborah Yedlin and Alberta Venture editor Paul Marck on CBC’s Edmonton AM program.
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
– The Inspiring Education report was released by Education Minister Dave Hancock yesterday. I wrote about it earlier and the Public School Board Association of Alberta has a list of links to related articles on their Legislature Watch Blog.
– Calgary Herald editorialist Licia Corbella reflects on Finance Minister Ted Morton‘s new role as the default-Premier of Alberta.
– The Edmonton Journal’s Graham Thomson has written an interesting column on the synergizing happening at the Competitiveness Review.
– Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mel Knight has declared Grizzly Bears as a threatened species in Alberta. This decision follows a public campaign calling for increased protection for Grizzly Bears in Alberta.
– Armed guards will be removed from public hearings being held by the Energy Resources Conservation Board northeast of Edmonton.
– An abundance of witnesses may further delay the trial involving Greenpeace‘s oil sands protest at a Fort Saskatchewan upgraded last summer.
– The Friends of Medicare have begun their province-wide public consultations on the proposed Alberta Health Act, including recent meetings in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
– Trustee Sue Huff has blogged about her experience at a Big Listen hosted by the Alberta Party.
– Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff will in Edmonton on June 19 to hold a policy discussion meeting at the University of Alberta.
– Former Liberal MLA Mo Elsalhy is already gearing up for the next election and has launched a website promoting his nomination campaign. Mr. Elsalhy served as the MLA for Edmonton-McClung from 2004 to 2008 and ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 2008. I have been told that he is likely to seek the nomination in the new Edmonton-Collingwood pending the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission expected to be released this summer.
– Elections Alberta has started the search for 87 Returning Officers and Election Clerks for the next provincial election expected in 2011 or 2012. This is a very early start compared to the 2008 election, where a last minute scramble to hire elections officials and organize riding offices put Elections Alberta in the embarrassing position of having hired an estimated over 50 staff who had direct connections to the PC Party (including candidate nominees and constituency organizers).
– Today in Alberta Politics History on June 3, 1920 a by-election was held in Athabasca following the death of the Honourable Alexander Grant MacKay. Mr. MacKay served as Leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario from 1907 to 1911 and as an Alberta MLA from 1913 to 1920. Mr. MacKay died of pneumonia in the Edmonton General Hospital in 1920 while serving as the provincial Minister of Health. The by-election was contested by Liberal G. Mills and Independent J.K. Cornwall. Mr. Mills was elected 640 votes to Mr. Cornwall’s 286 votes.
Read more in the Alberta Politics Notes archive.
Webcast across Alberta, Education Minister Dave Hancock proudly released the long awaited Inspiring Education report yesterday. The report was the result of an 18 months process of consultations and study by the process’ steering committee. There are some very good recommendations in this report for the future of Alberta’s education system. Hopefully it will not join the litany of other government reports that quietly get shelved or watered down after the shine wears off.
Will School Boards survive?
The Inspiring Education process raised concerns about the role of School Boards in our education system. It is fairly obvious that for a number of reasons, school boards have become increasingly irrelevant in local and provincial politics. It would be easy to lay the blame solely on the provincial government, who have spent years meddling and restructuring the authority of the boards, but responsibility also lays with the elected trustees. Many districts have lost their connection to the larger community and have become dominated by retired school administrators, who continue to do what they have done in their previous careers – administer – rather than provide leadership and vision. In order for school boards to survive, they need to be relevant to the population beyond just parents, teachers, and administrators. The future of Alberta’s education system will effect our entire population and school boards need to reflect this. School boards need to change.
I would not blame anyone for being weary of the provincial government restructuring how school boards govern. The PC government does not exactly have a friendly track record of respecting local authorities and governance. A trend of centralizing power extends from the dissolution of the regional planning commissions in the 1990s, the dissolution of community lottery boards and the cancellation of elected health boards in the early 2000s, and the forced merger and creation of the appointed Alberta Health Services Superboard in 2008.
Only Hancock could do it.
After observing the Inspiring Alberta process from afar, I question whether another Minister in the current cabinet could have actually see through a process such as this.
With politics within Minister Hancock’s party focusing to match the Wildrose Alliance at what seems like every policy point, it must be increasingly difficult to be the lone Red Tory in the Alberta cabinet. Even for a hardworking MLA and the “Political Minister for Edmonton,” a position which I imagine has much to do with seniority in a competitive political environment such as Edmonton, this process must have cost significant political capital from his more conservative colleagues in cabinet, now apparently led by Premier-in-waiting Ted Morton. After Bill 44: Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Amendment Act tarnished his reputation among many centre-left Albertans (especially educators) as the leader of the moderate Tories, Minister Hancock could probably use this kind of positive attention.
The entire process of Inspiring Education is very reminiscent of a previous project. As Minister of Advanced Education in 2005, Hancock began a process that was very similar to Inspiring Education. The A Learning Alberta process had a similar tone and spirit. Switch keynote speakers Daniel Pink with Richard Florida and School Administrators with University Administrators (and add Twitter) and you effectively have duplicated the process.
The A Learning Alberta process was derailed before it was completed. In 2006, A Learning Alberta was handed off to Minister Denis Herard, whose deepities of building “wisdom bridges” and marshalling “armies of mentors” pummelled the final recommendations document into virtual irrelevance. The final report was a shell of what had been promised after a thorough year long consultation process.
It was obvious that Minister Hancock needed to spend quite a bit of political capital in the closing days of Premier Ralph Klein‘s reign in order to initiate this process and secure much of the major funding increases that the post-secondary education system saw in the last decade. I would argue that A Learning Alberta failed to present a large vision in large part because Minister Hancock’s predecessor did not have the political will or capital. Now that this new process focusing on the Department of Education has reached a milestone, it will be interesting to see if Minister Hancock is able to see the rest of it through.
Legislative Election Agenda
With the new Alberta Health Act expected to be introduced in Fall 2010 and changes to the School Act expected in early 2011, look for Inspiring Education to play a role in the increasingly obvious election cycle that we appear to have already entered.
The 2011/2012 election cycle in Alberta has begun and it does not only include cabinet roadshows, policy announcements, and party conventions by the traditional parties.
Since their merger with Renew Alberta early this year, the new Alberta Party has become a target of significant attention from traditional party insiders and supporters. Since the National Post wrote an article about the party’s Big Listen strategy, that attention appears to be intensifying.
Frequent rabble.ca contributor and St. Albert blogger David Climenhaga was early out of the start-gate and has continuously criticized the new Alberta Party’s Big Listen for the worst of political crimes, having extended conversations with Albertans on policy issues (read an account of this horrid crime from a Big Listen accomplice).
In yesterday’s Edmonton Journal, communications consultant and former NDP staffer Tina Faiz penned some fair comments, coated with partisan jabs, at the Alberta Party:
If you are a centre-left progressive in Alberta who is unhappy with the existing political options of the Liberals and the NDP, and you don’t know where to put your efforts until the 2012 election, you might be excited about the Alberta Party — a “new” party billing itself as “a viable, moderate political option.”
Sadly, I will have to crush that glimmer of hope you may have for a progressive challenger, because the party is not new and certainly not progressive, and it is as calculating as the other parties.
One of the most common criticisms I have heard is that the new Alberta Party is really just another conservative party.
First, for most Albertans, conservative is not a dirty word. As a young “progressive,” I have no problem with a new party for Albertans of all political stripes, including conservatives. For myself, politics is less about the traditional left or right ideologies or institutions, and more about the tone of politics and vibrancy of democracy.
Second, the people involved in the new Alberta Party come from many political backgrounds – conservatives, liberals, greens, social democrats – and they are working together (which sounds pretty progressive to me). It is my experience that while their beliefs are diverse, the people involved with the new Alberta Party share a unifying progressive idea, a passion to find a better path toward creating a better Alberta that transcends their past political affiliations.
The creation of a national securities regulator has created an interesting split in Alberta’s conservative movements. The national regulator, championed by the Ottawa Conservatives is strongly opposed on the provincial-level in Alberta by the Wildrose Alliance and governing Progressive Conservative parties.
Wildrose leader Danielle Smith in a May 26, 2010 media release:
“As I have travelled the province and met with business leaders, many have talked about the importance of choice in terms of where they raise money and have their affairs regulated.”
“If the federal government plans to take away this choice from Alberta’s entrepreneurs, we hope that the Government of Alberta will aggressively pursue its intervention against this intrusive law.”
Finance Minister Ted Morton in a May 26, 2010 media release:
“Alberta is not opposed to improving on the system we have, but we are opposed to the federal government acting unilaterally in an area that is provincial jurisdiction.”
“A federal regulator headquartered in Toronto could make it harder for these and other Alberta businesses to raise funds for growth and development.”
“If we open the door to federal intrusion in this area, we will be potentially inviting intrusion into other areas of provincial jurisdiction governing finance, such as insurance, pensions and financial institutions. Most Albertans don’t want this, and this is why we have joined forces with Québec to challenge the legality of this unprecedented federal power grab.”
Airdrie-Chestermere Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson in a May 26, 2010 media release:
“If businesses want to participate in a nationally-regulated system, they should be free to opt-in to that kind of arrangement. If businesses want to participate in a provincially-regulated system, then they should be free to continue.”
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the Globe & Mail:
“Today we have 13 regulators, 13 sets of rules and 13 sets of fees. We need to lower barriers, not multiply them.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Toronto Star:
“As an Albertan, I have no interest in seeing this sector centralized in Toronto.”
What happens if Alberta decides to opt out of the national securities regulator? Heather Zordel, a securities lawyer with Cassels Brock, told the Hamilton Spectator:
“If Alberta is not participating, where does that leave you? Well, that leaves you with an unfortunate situation where the co-ordination effort is going to have to be dealt with through the offices of the people that do participate.”
History shows that Albertans should be cautious of ceding autonomy to central Canadian institutions – especially in relation to our natural resources – but this appears to be more complex than a typical Ottawa versus Alberta struggle. Alberta’s New West Partnership allies, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, suspicious silence on the issue begs the question of how much this really has to do with the state of the conservative movement in Alberta? Perhaps Minister Morton’s beating the war drums against Ottawa has more to do with the Wildrose Alliance than a national regulator.
