Elections Alberta has quietly launched the new online electoral finance website.
Though the website only contains political financial contribution records dating back to 2004, it is quite an interesting read and it will save you from having to go down to the Elections Alberta office and sort through the paper copies…
I have a pretty good idea what would happen to me if I spent $29,000 in on a personal trip to Las Vegas on my work credit card…
Alberta’s Finance Department has confirmed an aide to a former MLA has paid back $29,000 in personal expenses he charged to a government credit card, including a Las Vegas hotel bill and luggage.
Sasha Angus worked at the legislature for 3½ years as an executive assistant to former MLA and economic development minister Mark Norris.
According to a 2004 memo leaked to CBC News, when Angus left government he owed $29,000 in personal expenses he had charged to his government credit card. The memo was addressed to then Finance Minister Shirley McClellan.
And it gets even more scandalously mysterious…
CBC News has asked to see the credit card records and correspondence related to the case, but the province refused.
Alberta’s Privacy Commission investigated the government’s refusal and has sided with CBC News.
“All of the records should be released in the … public interest of promoting government being open and transparent in its dealing with tax dollars,” said Privacy Commission spokesman Wayne Wood.
However, the Alberta government continues to block the release and has appealed the commission’s stand.
The office of Alberta’s auditor general also wants to see the records and wants to know why it wasn’t informed about the problem.
And from the Chair of Alberta’s Public Accounts Committee…
“This is an ideal opportunity for Mr Stelmach to keep his promise of transparency and release all government expenses,” said [Edmonton Gold Bar Liberal MLA] Hugh MacDonald, who is chair of the Public Accounts Committee. “The fact that the government refused to release the aide’s expense records to CBC throws their claim of openness and transparency right out the window.”
“It’s obvious this government is not learning from their mistakes – this is yet another example of lavish Tory spending,” added MacDonald. “What kind of control have we got on our spending? None!”
Other than this being a ridiculously outragous and irresponsible use of a public credit card, it got nearly no media attention. Had an Executive Assistant to a Minister in Ottawa benn caught spending $29,000 in Las Vegas, you can bet it would be all over the Alberta media…
This great editorial from today’s Calgary Herald touches on some of the same points surrounding the myths of Alberta’s “new political forces” that I’ve talked about for some time now…
Shake up party from inside out
Brent Johner, For The Calgary Herald
Published: Wednesday, January 03, 2007Alberta’s new premier may be know affectionately as Steady Eddie in small town coffee shops, but his cabinet selections — chosen more for their loyalty than for their brilliance — are seen by many here in Calgary as the Special Eds.
And despite this city’s willingness to give the new guy a chance, many find it hard to believe that a white, middle-aged, male and mostly rural group of conservative cabinet ministers will ever feel comfortable with urban Alberta’s growth-and-change agenda.
So what’s to be done?
What are the alternatives should Steady Eddie and the Special Eds turn out to be Harry Strom and the Socreds reincarnated?
At least one Calgary columnist is predicting the imminent collapse of the Alberta PCs and is calling on Ted Morton and Jim Dinning to flee with their supporters to the Alberta Alliance Party — Alberta’s newest protest party.
He’s not alone. Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail is also wondering aloud if it isn’t time for a new political alignment in Alberta.
Like many pundits, Simpson disdains the current opposition and looks to the formation of a new party in the event that Steady Eddie proves “too steady,” boring and old-fashioned for Albertans focused on a growth-and-change agenda.
“The name ‘Liberal’ is just too toxic in Alberta,” writes Simpson. “The desire for political change in Alberta runs not through an established political alternative but some new political force.”
He’s wrong, of course. But he can be forgiven for being so. Many people, professional historians included, have looked at Alberta’s history and have come to exactly the same utterly incorrect conclusion.
The brilliant success of two protest parties — the United Farmers of Alberta (1921-1935) and the Social Credit Party (1935-1971) — blinds people to the fact that more than 20 other “new” parties have failed to gain any traction whatsoever in Alberta.
In fact, only a tiny fraction of Alberta’s “new” parties have been able to elect any members to the provincial assembly and with the exception of the two just mentioned, none were able to garner enough support to form a government.
It is nearly three generations now since a new political party in Alberta has gained sufficient momentum to seize the reins of government.
Witness the spectacular lack of success now enjoyed by new parties such as the Alberta Alliance and the Alberta Greens.
A single MLA between them doesn’t give much credence to the arguments put forth by new party proponents.
Even the federal Reform Party (what a monumental waste of time and energy that proved to be) has now slipped below Alberta’s political horizon after failing to achieve anything more than forming the Official Opposition for a few brief years.
So much for the Manning model. So much for Simpson’s “new political forces.”
A much better idea, if history is to be accepted as our best instructor on this subject, is to take an existing party and remake it. That’s what Peter Lougheed did. Or at least, that is what Lougheed is often credited with accomplishing.
In 1965, Lougheed inherited a failed party and a “toxic” brand. Two years later, his Progressive Conservatives formed the Official Opposition. Four years after that, they formed the government.
How did Lougheed do it? He didn’t. At least, not really.
Albertans did it. Specifically, voters in Edmonton and Calgary who had been voting for Social Credit candidates for decades, brought about the government’s sudden collapse.
In 1971, they decided that the Socreds were too steady, boring and old-fashioned. They looked at the dim lights and rural faces perched on the cabinet benches and decided that enough was enough.
After 36 years of one-party rule, the time had come to make a change.
So they switched to a different party — not a new party, but an established party.
It was an enormously practical decision. Not a minute was wasted trying the reinvent the wheel.
Change came in an instant. Without warning, Albertans put a new government formed from an old party on track toward a growth-and-change agenda valued by a new generation of urban voters.
And in doing so, they permanently changed the political landscape.
