I joined Brock Harrison and Dónal O’Beirne to talk politics with Ryan Jespersen this morning on 630CHED.
For your listening pleasure, here is part one and part two of our hour long discussion about shirtless Justin Trudeau, twitter warrior Jason Kenney, spending limits in Alberta elections, and the ongoing saga of the Power Purchasing Agreements.
Calgary-Shaw NDP MLA Graham Sucha is proposing there be a limit to how much money provincial candidates and parties can spend on election campaigns.
At a recent meeting of the Special Select Ethics and Accountability Committee, Mr. Sucha proposed local candidate campaign spending be limited to $40,000 for most constituencies and $50,000 for larger northern constituencies and provincial campaigns limited to $1.6 million per party. There are currently no spending limits in Alberta and our province is currently the only province in Canada without spending limits.
Alberta voters swept out cash-flush Progressive Conservative candidates in favour of the cash-strapped New Democrats in 2015, but it has generally been the case in Alberta elections that the richest campaigns win on election day. The absence of spending limits has allowed PC candidates to wildly outspend their opposition during that party’s 44 years as government from 1971 to 2015.
In the 2015 election, a handful of PC candidates spent incredibly large sums of money on local campaigns – Edmonton-Whitemud candidate Stephen Mandel‘s campaign spent $132,991 and ended the campaign with a $135,974 surplus. Lowering the spending limits would prevent parties from using these large funds held in trust following the last election in that constituency in the next election (I would expect they would be transferred to other targeted constituencies).
Federal candidates in Alberta are limited to spending between $200,000 and $270,000 depending on the riding they are running for election in. As provincial constituencies in Alberta are considerably smaller than federal ridings, it is expected that any limits would be lower.
Back in February I proposed ten ways that the election process in Alberta could be improved, and spending limits was my third recommendation. While I do believe the spending limits Mr. Sucha has proposed may be too low, especially for the provincial parties, I do believe he is on the right track. There should be spending limits in Alberta elections.
The committee also debated a motion introduced by Edmonton-Decore NDP MLA Chris Nielsen and amended by Bonnyville-Cold Lake Wildrose MLA Scott Cyr that would lower financial contribution limits to $4,000 during election periods and $2,300 outside election periods. Albertans can currently donate $30,000 to political parties during election and by-election periods and $15,000 outside election and by-election periods.
Elections Alberta has released initial campaign finance disclosures from the March 22, 2016 by-election in the Calgary-Greenway constituency. The by-election was held following the death of PC MLA Manmeet Bhullar, who had represented the area in the Legislative Assembly since 2008.
Here is a brief description of what the initial submissions show us:
Mr. Gill was elected on March 22 with 27 percent of the vote, holding the seat for the PCs in a close four way race. A mere 625 votes separated Mr. Gill from Mr. Toor (23 percent), Mr. Karbani (22 percent) and Ms. Rai (20 percent). Turnout by eligible voters was estimated to be at 29 percent.
When the initial expenses are broken down, each candidate’s campaign spent the following amount of money per vote received:
In the eleven years since I started publishing this blog, I have almost entirely focused on Alberta politics. But while my writing focuses on provincial politics here at home, like many Canadians I pay close attention to what is happening south of the border.
It is an understatement to say that the current state of American politics is very concerning to most outside observers. The deep partisan divide in US politics and the rise of an egotistical demagogue like Donald Trump is frightening. His campaign has actively appealed to racist and xenophobic elements of that country and as the Republican presidential primary and public opinion polls show, there is a receptive audience to his message.
The rise of this new brand of fascist authoritarianism in American politics reminded me of a speech delivered by a United States Senator sixty-six years ago. On June 1, 1950, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith stood in the Senate chamber and delivered her Declaration of Conscience speech against McCarthyism. This excerpt from her speech feels just as relevant today as it did in 1950:
“…I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.
I doubt if the Republican Party could — simply because I don’t believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans aren’t that desperate for victory.
I don’t want to see the Republican Party win that way. While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican Party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican Party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one party system.”
I hope for the sake of our neighbours to the south that Ms. Chase Smith’s message is as true in 2016 as it was in 1950.
It has been a long time since Alberta’s Social Credit Party played a central role in mainstream politics in our province. This could be why little attention was paid to the Socred’s annual general meeting in January 2016, where it appears that a group of anti-abortion activists staged a takeover the party leadership.
Len Skowronski, who served as leader from 2007 until the leadership change at the AGM, described it as an “invalid takeover” executed by a group of pro-lifers. “We true Socreds hope to rectify the situation at the next AGM,” Mr. Skowronski wrote in an email to this blogger.
According to Elections Alberta documents, Jeremy Fraser is now the party leader. He previously served as the party’s first vice-president and the party’s candidate in Highwood in the 2015 election, where he earned 187 votes.
Mr. Fraser posted the following message on his Facebook page days before the AGM:
Dear Pro-Life Social Credit Party Members and Supporters,
I want to thank you for all your support of the Social Credit Party over the past year! We have made great progress in building the Pro-Life political movement in Alberta. From recruiting many emerging Pro-Life leaders who have gained valuable knowledge and skills in political leadership on our provincial board to activating lifelong Pro-Life supporters at the grassroots level, helping them engage effectively in our last provincial election.
It hasn’t always been easy, but we have made great strides in promoting Pro-Life public policy and working for a Culture of Life! Thank you!
This Saturday is our Party’s Annual General Meeting. This is a very important opportunity to forward the Pro-Life cause politically in Alberta!
We will be voting to elect a strong team of Pro-Life leaders to the Provincial Executive and Board of Directors. Registration will take place from 1:00-1:30 PM at the Capitol Hill Community Hall, 1531 21 Ave NW, Calgary from 1-4. You can register at the door, $10/person 14yrs or older. Families are welcome to bring their younger children as there will be plenty of room.
This year’s AGM will be critical. We will be voting on the current leadership of the party which could result in the election of a new Leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party. It is vital that we ensure that we vote for a Leader who stands strongly for Pro-Life principles and shares our focus on promoting them openly.
Speaking to the High River Times in April 2015, Mr. Fraser was quoted as saying “I will emphasize the Pro-Life values of Albertans, making constituents and other candidates aware of the issues surrounding abortion and how they are directly relevant to provincial policy… We should de-fund abortion and fund the life affirming alternatives of crisis pregnancy support, parental support, and adoption.”
It just so happens that “Eliminate the funding of abortions” is now prominently included in the first section of the Social Credit Party 2019 election platform, which has been published on the party website.
Mr. Fraser was a volunteer for the publicity campaign to recall Highwood MLA Danielle Smith after the former Wildrose leader crossed the floor to the PCs in December 2014. Also volunteering for that campaign were conservative activists Amanda Achtman and Caitlyn Madlener, who are now contributors to Ezra Levant‘s Rebel Media website (Ms. Madlener stood behind Jason Kenney as he launched his campaign for the Progressive Conservative leadership).
Ironically for Mr. Fraser, Alberta’s only recall legislation was repealed by the Social Credit government in 1936.
The Social Credit Party formed government in Alberta from 1935 to 1971. The party last elected an MLA to the Legislature in 1979. Former Social Credit Party leader Randy Thorsteinson, who led the party to win 6.8 percent of the vote in the 1997 election and later formed the Alberta Alliance Party (now known as the Wildrose Party) recently became the leader of the newly formed Reform Party of Alberta.
A message sent to Mr. Fraser was not responded to at the time this post was published.
Elections Alberta released the results of this year’s second quarter of fundraising for provincial political parties this week. Following the release of the disclosures I took a closer look at last quarter’s results and what they could mean for the parties.
New Democratic Party
The Alberta NDP raised ten percent less than they did in the first quarter of 2016, which marks the third best full quarter fundraising results since the party formed government in May 2015. The NDP have never led party fundraising but they appear to have developed a healthy and significant base of individual donors. Note: The NDP do not register donations to individual constituency associations, so all funds raised are disclosed through the central party.
Wildrose Party
The Wildrose Party maintained its fundraising lead over the NDP by raising the most funds of any party the second quarter. This is a good sign for leader Brian Jean, who’s position as leader of Alberta’s conservatives is being challenged by federal Conservative Member of Parliament Jason Kenney through a hostile take-over bid of the PC Party. Not counted in the chart above is the funds raised by constituency associations in the second quarter, including Highwood which raised $17,545, Strathmore-Brooks which raised $8,350 and Calgary-Foothills which raised $8,100.
Of note:
Progressive Conservative Party
Long gone are the days of secret trust funds and overflowing campaign war-chests. This was a dismal second quarter for the former governing Progressive Conservative Party, which raised only $27,376. This was the party’s second worst quarterly fundraising result in recent memory, which is not a good sign as the PCs are set to begin a leadership race on October 1, 2016. But the poor showing by the central party is somewhat deceiving as some local PC constituency associations raised a significant amount of funds in the second quarter: $11,090 in Calgary-Hays, $10,166 in Vermilion-Lloydminster, $10,100 in Calgary-West, $9,386 in Calgary-Northern Hills and $8,277 in Grande Prairie-Wapiti.
Liberal Party
For the Alberta Liberals, the good news is they increased the quarterly fundraising by 97 percent, the bad news is that they only raised $57,561.04, which is less than their highest quarter last year (they raised more than $110,000 in the first quarter of 2015). Worth noting is a fundraising reception the Liberals are holding on July 21 at the Mayfair Golf Club that will be hosted by Marc de La Bruyere, chairperson of MacLab Enterprises and a well-connected businessman (he also donated $5,000 to the PC Party during the 2015 election).
Alberta Party
After the election of their first elected MLA in 2015, the Alberta Party appears to still be struggling to develop a sustainable base of donors. Unlike the other parties, the newish party is without an already established fundraising network, which takes significant time and resources to develop.
Here is a list of the top donors for each of the five parties, including donations to constituency associations, in the first two quarters of 2016:
New Democratic Party
Harinder Rai: $15,000
Pavan Kumar Elapavuluri: $5,000
Tim Foster: $5,000
Jamie Kleinsteuber: $3,653.75
Jason Rockwell: $3,407.50
Trevor Horne: $3,051.25
Darshan Brar: $3,000
David Eggen: $2,773.75
Mary Williams: $2,730
Alayne Sinclair: $2,643.75
Wildrose Party
Arnell Gordon: $29,000
Tom Goodchild: $15,000
Maurice Swertz: $15,000
Arlene Goodchild: $7,000
Robert Such: $6,050.00
Iris Kirschner: $7,587.50
James Brown: $5,000
Ryan Crawford: $5,000
Alexander Soutzo: $5,000
Frances Jean: $3,962.33
Progressive Conservative Party
Marcel Van Hecke: $15,957.50
Dave Bissett: $15,000
Scott Burns: $15,000
Stanley Milner: $15,000
Bradley Shaw: $15,000
Celine Belanger: $5,000
Ric McIver: $2,940
Chris Warren: $1,020
Elizabeth Henuset: $1,000
Franklin Kernick: $1,000
Liberal Party
Grant Dunlop: $5,600
Karen Sevcik: $5,300
Ian Cartwright: $3,306
Peter Poole: $3,000
Raj Sherman: $2,000
Dan MacLennan: $1,520
Dan Hays: $1,500
Rowland Nichol: $1,500
Catherine Ryan: $1,260
David Swann: $1,000
There are 455 days until Edmontonians go to the polls to vote in the next municipal elections and some candidates are already starting to organize their campaigns.
I dropped by the Office of the City Clerk yesterday and discovered that ten candidates have officially registered their intent to run in Edmonton’s 2017 municipal election. Prospective candidates need to file their intentions to run in order to fundraise for their campaigns but they do not need to identify what position they plan to run for until they submit their papers to the City Clerk on the official nomination day.
Five incumbent city councillors Bev Esslinger, Dave Loken, Scott McKeen, Michael Walters and Mike Nickel have filed their papers. I suspect that the five incumbents will run for re-election in their respective Wards. It was suspected that Mr. Nickel could make a third attempt at running for mayor (he did in 1998 and 2001) but a rape joke published on his now-former online talk show’s Facebook page may have convinced him to focus on re-election in Ward 11.
The five challengers who have filed their intentions are:
The next Municipal Elections will be held on Monday, October 16, 2017.
What do you get when you put some of the Canadian Oil Sands fiercest critics in the same room with its most vocal supporters? The Alberta Government’s new 18-member Oil Sands Advisory Group.
The Alberta government announced the formation of the group yesterday along with its three co-chairs: Dave Collyer, the former president and CEO of the the oil industry’s top lobby group the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Tzeporah Berman, an environmental advocate and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, and Melody Lepine, a member and Director of Government and Industry relations with the Mikisew Cree First Nation.
The group of 18 includes representatives from municipal governments, First Nations, Metis communities, the energy industry, and environmental groups who will “advise government on the oil sands aspects of the Climate Leadership Plan and ensure that its initiatives are effective and widely supported.”
Almost immediately after the advisory group was announced, the Wildrose Party attacked Ms. Berman’s appointment, claiming she was a radical by citing her comments that the Oil Sands reminded her of “Mordor” from the fictional Lord of the Rings books. A vocal critic of the oil industry in the past, Ms. Berman posted a response on her Facebook page yesterday afternoon, saying she regretted the comments.
Ms. Berman wrote: “Though I have been a vocal critic of “business as usual” in the oil sands, I recognize that change doesn’t happen over night. It is a tremendous step forward that the Alberta government has decided to extend our earlier industry-environment work and enlist the help of more industry participants and the wisdom of non-Indigenous and Indigenous community leaders. I am committed to working in good faith with the rest of the advisory group to develop advice that ensures a strong economy and a leadership position for Alberta on environmental issues.”
She also provided a link to a video of her joint presentation with Suncor CEO Steve Williams at the recent Business and Climate Summit in London, UK, where they spoke articulately about the work being done in Alberta.
The NDP have put forward the most comprehensive plan to fight Climate Change that Alberta has ever seen, something that the Progressive Conservatives were unable to do in the final decade of their 44 years in government and the Wildrose Party has been unable to do in its four years as official opposition.
But with critics and climate change deniers ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, it is clear that the NDP government needs to do a better job clearly communicating why their much-lauded Climate Leadership Plan is important. Anticipating opposition criticisms and preparing to actively counter them is a critically important element for the success of the Climate Change plan.
If you only listened to Alberta’s loudest and most-outraged conservative voices, from Brian Jean and George Clark to Jason Kenney and Ezra Levant, you would believe that Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party government had launched a holy crusade to destroy Canada’s oil industry. This isn’t true, of course.
The irony of the criticism in response to Ms. Berman’s appointment is that, only a few years ago, opposition NDP MLAs would have roasted the old PC government for appointing a former CEO of CAPP to co-chair an advisory group like this one. In fact, they did.
In 2013, the NDP called on the PCs to reverse their appointment of Gerry Protti as the chair of Alberta’s energy regulator. Mr. Protti is the founding President of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and at that time was a registered lobbyist for the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, an energy industry lobby group.
The then-NDP opposition Environment critic Rachel Notley said in a press release that “the Redford government isn’t doing itself any favours with this embarrassing post—it unravels the entire yarn they’ve been trying to sell the world about their commitment to responsible resource development and environmental protection. If we continue to act like a banana republic, we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re treated like one by the international community.”
Three years later, the NDP has appointed a former CAPP President and CEO to co-chair a group that will advise the implementation of the government’s flagship Climate Change policy. Partnering Mr. Collyer, Ms. Berman and Ms. Lepine as co-chairs was a bold move that reinforces the government’s message that the NDP are able and willing to work with a broad group of Oil Sands stakeholders.
One of the most admirable strengths of Ms. Notley’s government has been its ability to build broad and pragmatic coalitions that include champions from outside of the NDP’s traditional sphere.
Unlike the previous government, the NDP has intentionally sought to bring together a group of people with diverse and differing political views and expertise to advise on the implementation of Alberta’s Climate Change plans. This was very evident when Ms. Notley released the government’s Climate Leadership Plan in December 2015 surrounded by energy and environmental leaders, when Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips tabled the Carbon Levy legislation in May 2016 and yesterday when this Oil Sands Advisory group was announced.
Here is list of the other members of the Alberta Oil Sands Advisory Group:
Jason Kenney said last week that he will resign as the Member of Parliament for Calgary-Midnapore when the Progressive Conservative Party leadership campaign officially starts on October 1, 2016. He is expected to spend the summer months campaigning for the party leadership while presumably continuing to have access to MP resources and collecting his Ottawa salary and pension.
If Mr. Kenney does go on to win the leadership of the PC Party in March 2017, he may look for an opportunity to quickly become an MLA. If interim party leader Ric McIver were to resign as MLA for Calgary-Hays, he would create an opening for Mr. Kenney to enter the Legislature.
In return, Mr. McIver could potentially seek the federal Conservative nomination to run in the by-election to replace Mr. Kenney in Calgary-Midnapore. The Calgary-Hays constituency is inside the boundaries of the Calgary-Sheperd federal riding but was until 2015 partially in Calgary-Southeast, a federal riding represented by Mr. Kenney from 1997 until 2015.
Mr. McIver represented southeast Calgary as an Alderman from 2000 to 2012 and as an MLA since 2012. A jump into federal politics would be a natural fit. He would become one of the few Canadian politicians to have been elected at three orders of government and it would also give Mr. McIver an honourable path to bow out of provincial politics without seeking the party leadership for a second time.
Of note, Calgary-Hawkwood NDP MLA Michael Connolly was briefly nominated as the federal NDP candidate in Calgary-Midnapore before he decided to instead throw his hat into provincial politics before the 2015 election, which turned out to be a good choice. Mr. Connolly was elected as MLA in May 2015 and Mr. Kenney was re-elected in October 2015 with 70 percent of the vote.
A federal by-eleciton is expected to be called soon in the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner federal riding and another will be held in the Calgary-Heritage riding after former Prime Minister Stephen Harper resigns as MP, which he is expected to do this summer.
In anticipation of the three by-elections, I am maintaining a special page to keep track of the three potential federal by-elections in Alberta.
August 31, 1993 marked the first time the words “Alberta Advantage” were uttered on the floor of Alberta’s Legislative Assembly.
“Unlike some others, my government will not try to buy prosperity through higher taxes. Instead, it will build on Alberta’s existing advantage of low taxes and its free enterprise spirit to develop the most competitive economy in North America. The government will strengthen the Alberta Advantage and sell it aggressively around the globe.” – Speech from the Throne, August 31, 1993.
“Promoting the Alberta Advantage” was the theme of the Speech from the Throne read by Lieutenant Governor Gordon Towers following Ralph Klein’s victory in the 1993 provincial election, dubbed by Tories as the ‘miracle on the Prairies.’ The Progressive Conservatives had narrowly defeated an insurgent Liberal campaign led by former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore. Both party leaders campaigned on deep funding cuts and deficit reduction.
The one element, probably the most important element, of the Alberta Advantage that was not mentioned in that year’s throne speech was that the reality of the provincial advantage was based almost entirely on the government receiving royalties from high-priced natural resources, mainly natural gas and oil.
For two decades, PC governments were able to subsidize their tax cuts with royalty revenues from natural gas, and then oil. This unfortunately led to government then using those undependable royalties to fund the province’s operations budget. What this meant was that large portions of royalty revenues that should have been saved for future generations, or for a rainy day – like now – were spent on day-to-day operations.
The PC government was once so flush with cash that it sent out $1.4 billion worth of Prosperity Bonuses – known as Ralph Bucks – to every Albertan. It was an embarrassment of riches and a hallmark of PC financial mismanagement.
The Alberta Advantage of low taxes and quality public services stopped being so easy when the international price of natural gas, and later of oil, dropped through the floor. When the PCs began running deficit budgets in the mid-2000s due in part to the drop in natural gas prices, they refused to restore the modest levels of personal income and corporate taxation that had existed before the ‘Alberta Advantage’ became their motto.
The most recent economic decline had many Albertans asking themselves “where did all the money go?” In an off the cuff moment, former premier Jim Prentice told Albertans to “look in the mirror.” But Mr. Prentice’s ‘Hail Mary’ budget of early 2015, which raised some taxes, was not enough to persuade Albertans that the Tories had learned a lesson.
Instead, having despaired of changing the Tories, they opted to change the government and elected the New Democratic Party led by Rachel Notley.
After announcing his candidacy for the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party, Calgary Member of Parliament Jason Kenney laid out his five (or six) step plan to unite Alberta’s conservative partisans under one party banner.
There remain many unanswered questions about his plan, first being whether PC Party members agree with it, second, whether Wildrose Party members are even interested in joining with the PCs, and third, whether they can get organized in time to challenge Rachel Notley‘s New Democratic Party before the 2019 provincial election.
Mr. Kenney has not shied away from embracing views outside of the mainstream, but he is likely one of the most skilled political organizers and networkers in Canada’s conservative movement. He will charm conservatives in every corner of this province, from Cardston to Mill Woods to Fort McMurray, and many of them will purchase PC memberships to support his leadership bid.
While he is expected to face a number of potential challengers, it is unclear whether any of them have the appeal and organization to mount a serious province-wide challenge to Mr. Kenney and his network of Wildrose and federal Conservative supporters. By announcing his candidacy early, he could intimidate some potential rivals and have the advantage of an entire summer of town festivals and rodeos to campaign.
Announcing his candidacy before the PC leadership race has actually begun also gives Mr. Kenney a serious fundraising advantage. Because the leadership race has not officially started and the PC Party has not sent notice to Elections Alberta, which it will on October 1, 2016, there are currently no limits to the size of corporate and individual donations Mr. Kenney’s campaign can accept. There is also no obligation for his organization to disclose the names or amounts of donations received before the campaign period officially begins. There are no rules.
Conservative Member of Parliament Jason Kenney is expected to announce his candidacy for the leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta tomorrow, July 6, in Calgary, deliver a speech in Grande Prairie that evening and then travel to Edmonton on July 7 for another speech. He was widely expected to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada and only just recently began positioning himself as candidate to unite Alberta’s conservative partisans under one banner.
He would be the first candidate to officially enter the PC leadership contest, which is scheduled to be held on March 18, 2017.
It is unclear whether Mr. Kenney would resign as the MP for Calgary-Midnapore immediately or if he would keep one foot in federal politics until he secures a leadership position in a provincial party. Under provincial elections law, he does not need to resign his federal seat until he is a registered candidate in a provincial election.
Because of his track-record as a social conservative and Wildrose supporter, Mr. Kenney might not find a great deal of support among existing PC Party members, including the 1,001 who attended the party’s annual general meeting earlier this year. But two unite-the-right groups could provide him with a base with which to organize his PC leadership bid.
Mr. Kenney appears to have the support of two unite-the-right groups. The Alberta Can’t Wait group, backed by former Reform Party stalwarts Preston Manning and Cliff Fryers, lobbyist Hal Danchilla and 1980s Tory cabinet minister Rick Orman, and the Alberta Prosperity Fund, backed by former right-wing talk radio host Dave Rutherford, former MLAs Heather Forsyth and Shiraz Shariff, and former PC Party president Jim McCormick. The Alberta Prosperity Fund issued a formal endorsement of Mr. Kenney on July 5, 2016.
The Alberta Can’t Wait group was reportedly planning to hijack the Alberta Party later this summer and Prosperity Fund founder and director Barry McNamar, formerly of the Fraser Institute and Manning Centre, is reportedly suing the Wildrose Party.
The two groups are part of a burgeoning cottage industry of anti-NDP groups, including the infamous and less polished Kudatah, that have popped up since the May 2015 election. Both the Wildrose and PC Parties have publicly rejected their overtures.
Alberta’s elections laws bar political parties from merging financial assets, meaning any actual merger between conservative parties is highly unlikely. Making things more complicated was the formation of a sixth conservative party last month – the Reform Party of Alberta. It may be a more likely scenario that a PC Party led by Mr. Kenney would apply to Elections Alberta to change its name to the Conservative Party of Alberta and urge Wildrose MLAs to run under its banner in the 2019 general election.
Cast into the opposition for the first time in 44 years, Conservatives in Alberta will need to define what their vision is for the future of our province. After decades of fiscal mismanagement, much of Alberta’s current economic situation is a result of decisions made by PC Party governments. Conservatives cannot simply expect that Albertans will forgive, forget and restore the natural governing party in 2019. Those days are gone.
Aside from his politically charged rhetoric about “free enterprise” and the bogeyman ‘bohemian Marxism‘ it remains completely unclear what Mr. Kenney’s vision for Alberta would be, besides just returning Conservatives to power. I expect we will find out more in the next few days.
During his address to the Canadian Parliament on June 29, 2016, United States President Barack Obama singled out Alberta as a leader in the fight against climate change. Here is the excerpt from his speech where he spoke about climate change:
There is one threat, however, that we cannot solve militarily, nor can we solve alone — and that is the threat of climate change. Now, climate change is no longer an abstraction. It’s not an issue we can put off for the future. It is happening now. It is happening here, in our own countries. The United States and Canada are both Arctic nations, and last year, when I became the first U.S. President to visit the Arctic, I could see the effects myself. Glaciers — like Canada’s Athabasca Glacier — are melting at alarming rates. Tundra is burning. Permafrost is thawing. This is not a conspiracy. It’s happening. Within a generation, Arctic sea ice may all but disappear in the summer.
And so skeptics and cynics can insist on denying what’s right in front of our eyes. But the Alaska Natives that I met, whose ancestral villages are sliding into the sea — they don’t have that luxury. They know climate change is real. They know it is not a hoax. And from Bangladesh to the Pacific islands, rising seas are swallowing land and forcing people from their homes. Around the world, stronger storms and more intense droughts will create humanitarian crises and risk more conflict. This is not just a moral issue, not just a economic issue, it is also an urgent matter of our national security.
And for too long, we’ve heard that confronting climate change means destroying our own economies. But let me just say, carbon emissions in the United States are back to where they were two decades ago, even as we’ve grown our economy dramatically over the same period. Alberta, the oil country of Canada, is working hard to reduce emissions while still promoting growth.
So if Canada can do it, and the United States can do it, the whole world can unleash economic growth and protect our planet. We can do this. We can do it. We can do this. We can help lead the world to meet this threat.
Already, together in Paris, we achieved the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change. Now let’s bring it into force this year. With our agreement with Mexico that we announced today, let’s generate half the electricity on this continent from clean energy sources within a decade. That’s achievable. Let’s partner in the Arctic to help give its people the opportunity they deserve, while conserving the only home they know. And building on the idea that began in Montreal three decades ago, let’s finally phase down dangerous HFC greenhouse gases. This is the only planet we’ve got. And this may be the last shot we’ve got to save it. And America and Canada are going to need to lead the way. We’re going to have to lead the way.
Mr. Obama’s mention certainly qualifies as high praise for Premier Rachel Notley and Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips, as they spearhead Alberta’s ambitious Climate Leadership Plan. The President’s speech and its affirmation of the Alberta’s government’s climate change policies is likely the type of ‘social license‘ that Ms. Notley hopes will lead to more oil pipeline construction approvals in the future.
As an Albertan, it was difficult not to feel a sense of pride when the President of the United States singled out my home province. For years, Alberta was seen as a laggard on environmental issues, but our province appears to have turned a corner. This may have increased Alberta’s cache in Ottawa and some circles in the American Capitol but it is unclear what impact the Presidential praise will have on public opinion in Alberta. Despite the government’s leap forward, our opposition politicians are still questioning the existence of climate change and environmental issues are frequently framed by the mainstream media in the context of building new oil pipelines out of the province.
On the final night of second quarter fundraising period for Alberta’s political parties, I thought it would be useful to take a look back at the past year in political party fundraising. There has been a seismic shift in our politics in this province since last year when the Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the general election and Albertans elected their first new government in 44 years.
Immediately after their election, the New Democratic Party government implemented one of their key election promises to ban corporations and unions from donating money to political parties. This change had a significant immediate impact on the PC Party, which had relied heavily on large donations from corporations to sustain its operations and fill its large campaign war-chest. The shock of the election loss and severing of its access to corporate donors led the PC Party to raise only $15,575.50 in the third quarter of 2015, it’s lowest fundraising period in decades.
The PC Party appeared to have somewhat recovered by the fourth quarter of 2015, when it raised $221,959.50.
The NDP and Wildrose Party faired better and adapted much quicker to the changes due to their already substantial base of individual donors. Both parties rely heavily on individual donors contributing amounts under the $250 reporting threshold.
All the major political parties have been soliciting donations in advance of tonight’s deadline. The NDP and Wildrose Party in particular have been flooding their supporters and past donors inboxes with email appeals for donations over the past week.
Here is a sample of what has hit my inbox over the past few weeks:
“Help us defeat the NDP in Q2!” was the subject line of one email from Wildrose executive director Jeremy Nixon on June 24, 2016.
“We’re publicly measured against our opponents, and we’ve got just five days to match the Wildrose dollar for dollar.” was the lede of one email from NDP Provincial Secretary Roari Richardson on June 25, 2016.
“The NDP are now charging you $5.1 million to advertise their carbon tax plan that is putting 15,000 jobs at risk and taking $1,000 a year out of the typical Alberta household.” was the start of one appeal from Wildrose environment critic Todd Loewen on June 21, 2016. (The Wildrose Party paid Ezra Levant‘s Rebel Media to send this letter to its list of supporters).
“It’s 2016 – yet the opposition seems to be stuck in the stone age. Countries around the world are working to address climate change. Yet Wildrose leaders continue to deny basic science.” was the lede of an email from NDP Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman on June 28, 2016.
“We need to send a strong message to the NDP, and to all Albertans, that Wildrose is the only party ready to govern in 2019.” wrote Wildrose House Leader Nathan Cooper on June 30, 2016.
“We ended 44 years of Conservative rule, reversed devastating cuts to education. We’re leading Alberta’s future with our forward-thinking Climate Leadership Plan. We can’t go back to the days of tax giveaways for the wealthiest and less support for hard working families.” was the end of an email appeal from Premier Rachel Notley on June 30, 2016.
The results of the second quarter fundraising will be released in July 2016.
Glen Motz will be the Conservative Party of Canada candidate in the upcoming federal by-election in the riding of Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. Mr. Motz defeated five other men, including former Wildrose Party leader and Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Paul Hinman, in a contest that drew more than 3,100 party members to vote. The candidate was chosen on a fourth round of voting using a preferential ballot system.
Mr. Motz is a long-time community volunteer in Medicine Hat who served in the local police service for 35 years before retiring as an Inspector in December 2015. According to his online bio, in 2013, Governor General David Johnston presented him with The Order of Merit of Police Forces.
He also has some social conservative views that are probably closer to the mainstream in this sprawling rural south east Alberta riding than they are in most of Canada.
“I’m pro-life, there’s no question. Unfortunately it’s the law of the land in this country,” Mr. Motz is reported to have told a crowd of supporters at a candidate’s forum in June 2016. “I will continue to fight that the rights of the unborn are not eroded further. I believe in the sanctity of life.”
Women’s reproductive rights and gay rights were some of the top issues debated by a field of white male candidates in the last nomination contest held in this riding in 2014.
The Liberals, New Democrats and Greens have not yet nominated a candidate.
Following the death of Conservative Member of Parliament Jim Hillyer on March 23, 2016, Elections Canada has announced that a by-election must be called in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner before September 26, 2016. The earliest a by-election could have been held was May 16, 2016.
This is one of the most reliably Conservative voting ridings in Canada, so it is almost a certainty that Mr. Motz will be the next Member of Parliament. Mr. Hillyer earned 68.8 percent of the vote when he was re-elected in October 2015.
Another federal by-election is expected to be held in the Calgary-Heritage riding if former Prime Minister Stephen Harper resigns as an MP later this summer as predicted. The names of a handful of potential nominees for the Conservative nomination have been rumoured, including Calgary-Hays Progressive Conservative MLA Ric McIver.
While it is expected that the Conservatives will easily hold on to this riding, the Liberals did see their share of the vote skyrocket from 7 percent in the 2011 election to 26 percent in the 2015 election (the Conservative vote in this riding dropped from 74.3 percent in 2011 to 63.7 percent in 2015).
The Liberals also saw their vote share increase significantly in four federal by-elections held in Alberta before the 2015 election, including in Calgary-Centre in 2012. Without the appeal of an incumbent Conservative MP or a sitting Prime Minister, the Liberals could see their vote increase in this by-election as well.
He does not appear to have officially declared his intentions to run for the Liberal Party nomination, but past candidate Brendan Miles has been knocking on doors in the riding for months and the local Liberal association is holding a pancake breakfast during the Calgary Stampede.
And of course, if Jason Kenney does indeed decide to make a jump into provincial politics, there would also be a by-election held in the federal riding of Calgary-Midnapore.
Perhaps in anticipation of a surprise by-election, the local Liberals in this riding have scheduled an organization and training session for July 20, 2016.
