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And the closed-door wage hike fiasco continues… keeping in line with the laws of god, Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock Tory MLA Ken Kowalski isn’t going to let no laws of man get in the way of his political career…

The provincial government’s contentious new wage hikes for MLAs have Premier Ed Stelmach and Speaker Ken Kowalski in line to each reap at least $250,000 more in severance pay, with both on pace to top the $1-million mark when they leave office.

…

Kowalski, 62, also will pull the rip cord on a second golden parachute when he retires, as he’ll receive hefty annual payments through an MLA pension plan that was axed by former premier Ralph Klein in 1993.

At the time the plan was killed, Kowalski was in line to receive about $61,500 a year in pension, but that number may have increased substantially over the years. Government officials, however, wouldn’t provide detailed information.

A defiant Kowalski insisted Wednesday the pay increases weren’t large enough and suggested he has no plans to leave politics for decades.

…

He suggested he plans to run for re-election four more times. “I’ll never collect it,” he quipped. “I’ll die in office.”

I’m pretty excited to be volunteering for nextfest 2008 this and next week. From June 5 to 15, Edmonton’s up and coming artists will be showcased at shows, exhibits, and genuine good times at venues across the city.

All Shows are $10, Day Passes are $18, and Festival Passes are $40. For tickets and information call the Roxy Theatre at 453-2440.

Check it out if you can, it’s going to be fun!

A group of Liberals from Calgary launched a website and manifesto-like document yesterday calling for changes that they want to see in the Alberta Liberal Party.

I’ve written quite a bit about this topic in the past couple months, so I’m not going to repeat a lot of what is already posted on this blog. In short, I’m not convinced that any of Alberta’s current political parties have enough public credibility to “re-engage” with Albertans in any meaningful way. Vision documents like this one make things feel all warm and hopeful about the future, but until voters start to feel like politics are relevant to their lives, it’s probably not going to make much of a difference. That is why I am more interested in what David Swann is doing.

For more, Calgary Grit has given his take on it.

Still bitter with Ward 5 voters for turfing Edmonton Sun love-child Mike Nickel in the 2007 election, pundit Kerry Diotte has taken aim at Ward 5 Councillor Don Iveson for being concerned with issues like “global warming,” rather than only just the same old tax issue.

Following the 2007 municipal election, Diotte accused Iveson of being part of a well-financed left-wing conspiracy to defeat right-winger Mike Nickel. According to public records (available at the City Clerk’s Office), Iveson’s well-financed left-wing conspiracy of a volunteer-run election campaign cost just $22,546.63 compared to Nickel’s $62,453 ($50,400 of donations to Nickel’s clearly under-financed campaign were in sums larger than $300, compared to the massive sum of $12,766.40 for Iveson*).

Having only had to spend one-third of what Nickel did on his campaign, maybe Diotte should give Iveson (and Ward 5 voters) a little credit for being creative and fiscally responsible with what he had and what the ideas he brings to the Council (like Smart Growth initiatives) can do to build Edmonton into a better place.

*Sarcasm.

Two members of Ed Stelmach’s Cabinet have won the prize for trying to justify giving themselves an +30% pay hike in a closed-door meeting last week.

1) Health Minister Ron Liepert (MLA Calgary-West):

Albertans have made it clear they want decisive action from their government and that determining their own wage saves time and keeps voters happy.

“We will inevitably come to the conclusion it’s deserved, so if . . . it makes sense, then we just do it,” Liepert said.

Translation: Albertans re-elected the Stelmach Tories with the specific intent of allowing Ministers to vote themselves a +30% pay hike in a closed-door meeting. This keeps voters happy.

2) Tourism, Parks, and Recreation Minister Cindy Ady (MLA Calgary-Shaw):

“Every time we go to an independent body, people always say to triple our salaries.“

Translation: An independent review would have given Cabinet Ministers a 200% pay-hike, instead of the 30% pay-hike that they gave themselves. Therefore, the closed-door pay hikes save Albertans money!

I don’t have a problem with Cabinet Ministers being paid well, I would just prefer it if their increases were determined in an open and transparent way (apparently, they disagree).

An very abbreviated look at recent closed-door decision making in Alberta. With only 11 opposition MLAs in the 83 member Legislative Assembly, one has to wonder why the 37-year governing Alberta Tories are so afraid of being open and transparent with these decisions.

March 2007 – Premier Ed Stelmach introduces new conflict-of-interest legislation into the Alberta Legislature.

February 4, 2008 – In a closed-door cabinet meeting hours before calling an election, Ed Stelmach and his cabinet amend conflict-of-interest rules so that they won’t apply to retiring or defeated Progressive Conservative Ministers and MLAs.

April 2008 – All MLA salaries are increased by 4.5% through a publicly indexed formula.

May 2008 – In a closed-door cabinet meeting, Ed Stelmach and his cabinet voted to give themselves nearly one million dollars worth of raises. payraise. Stelmach gives himself a 34% boost, increasing his salary by 54,000, to $213,450 from $159,450. Tory Ministers will now make $184,000, up from $142,050.

Kevin Liben described the salary increase issue well on his National Post blog:

Mr. Stelmach told reporters yesterday that the salary raise was justified to attract talented people to politics. “It’s something that we had to do and will continue doing in terms of attracting good people,” he said. But voters will be left to wonder why the current salary grid didn’t stop hundreds of Albertans from fighting tooth and nail first for a nomination and then a seat in the legislature just months ago, including some pretty impressive talents such as Allison Redford, the rookie attorney general, a renowned human rights lawyer who helped administer Afghanistan’s elections for the UN, and Arthur Kent, the former NBC celebrity reporter (he lost). Salaries never surfaced as an issue during the election among candidates, or voters.

Which is why many Albertans are probably more than a little skeptical of the Premier’s version of things, and are more likely to see this as just a convenient and juicy perk that he and his cabinet decided to award themselves after winning a landslide vote and demolishing the opposition. And judging by the size of the hike and way that it was snuck in, without the inconvenience of independent assessment or public consultation, they’re probably right.

City of Grande Prairie Alderman and blogger Bill Given is joining municipal leaders from across Canada (including Don Iveson) at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Quebec City this week. Luckily for us, Bill is blogging his FCM adventures. He’s already written three posts on the conference, but be sure to check out his updates.

After a decade of unsustainable growth (aka: urban sprawl) and artificially low-tax increases, the usual suspects are up in arms over proposed tax increases in Edmonton. Average tax increases in some Edmonton neighbourhoods are expected to range above 20% in 2009 (these neighbourhoods include Beacon Heights (21.4%), Bellevue (22.2%), Bergman (23.8 %), Beverly Heights (20.3%), Central McDougall (20.1%), Cromdale (20.2%), Highlands (20.5%), Montrose (23.5%), Newton (22%), Rossdale (24.2%), Rundle Heights (25. 6%)).

Yes, having to pay increased taxes really sucks. But anyone who is interested in improving the City of Edmonton – repairing delapetated roads, fixing transit systems that are a decade behind in expansion, improving Edmonton’s quality of life through service backlogged expansion improving services, and compensating for a lack of a regional cost sharing formula for the capital region – will understand why this type of increase in the case (even if they don’t agree with it). After Edmonton kept an illogically tight-lid on spending during Bill Smith‘s reign as Mayor, City Council is now facing the challenge of catching up with the growth that Edmonton experienced in those years, and property taxes are one of the only sources of income that a municipality has to turn to.

According to a 2004 Canada West Foundation report on spending in Edmonton:

Total operating spending in 2003 (measured in per capita terms and adjusted for inflation) was 9.8% lower than in 1990, and under-investment in capital has also unleashed a sizeable infrastructure backlog, which could be as high as $3.2 billion over the next ten years.

The report also states that property taxes in Canada only make up a small portion of the total taxes. Across Canada, all forms of property tax comprise less than 9¢ out of every tax dollar paid. Also interesting is a February 2007 Edmonton Journal editorial titled ‘Low taxes, low quality of life‘ highlighted a study by Michael Petit for the U.S.-based Every Child Matters Education Fund:

…forms of social spending also tend to get cut when governments buy into the “gospel of wealth” and begin slashing taxes, the very kinds of programs that were targeted in Alberta budgets during the Klein era. Petit said child care, foster care, social workers, preschool programs and physical activity for young children are also critical in creating healthy, productive children. And where these programs have been cut by government, private and not-for-profit sectors have not been able to fill the gap.

“(The study) dispels ideologically driven myths that government-supported programs are ineffectual and that taxes are evil,” Petit said. “It shows that some states do much better for children than others.”

I don’t see taxes as the demonic socialist wealth transfer scheme that some more less forward-minded political watchers do, but I do recognize that if Edmonton is to become the smart world-class city that it should be, turning to the outdated ideology of Ronald Reagan won’t cut it.

Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft returned to Alberta yesterday and dispelled rumours that he will be resigning from his Edmonton-Riverview seat. The prospect of a by-election led former Edmonton-Riverview PC candidate Wendy Andrews to marshal of her supporters into a pre-by-election tizzy. In response, Taft told Andrews to take a Valium.

Since it was created in 1997, Edmonton-Riverview has elected two Liberal MLAs. In 1997, Linda Sloan defeated Tory Gwen Harris by over 900 votes. In 2001, Taft defeated City Councillor turned Tory candidate Wendy Kinsella by over 1,500 votes. In 2004, Taft garnered the largest margin of victory in that election after defeated Tory Fred Horne (now Edmonton-Rutherford’s MLA) by over 6,700 votes.

Calgary-Mountain View MLA David Swann is continuing to hold meetings to discuss the creation of a new political movement in Alberta. Notable attendees to the meetings include former Lacombe-Ponoka Green candidate Joe Anglin. After leading central Alberta landowners to a number of EUB hearings, Anglin received over 20% of the vote in Lacombe-Ponoka in the March 3, 2008 election. Gauntlet has some suggestions on how to start from scratch.

Ward 5 City Councillor Don Iveson has made SEE Magazine’s Best of Edmonton in two categories.

Best Local Politician
1. Steven Mandel
2. Don Iveson
3. Rachel Notley

Most Creative Edmontonian
1. Cadence Weapon
2. Ashley Andel / Don Iveson / Nick Kozub / Stewart Lemoine

I was encouraged to hear this week that St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, the chair of a new sub-committee of the Capital Region Integrated Growth Management Planning Board tasked with creating a public transit plan for the capital region, that this could be the beginnings of a unified regional transit system.

As I’ve written in the past, I think a regional public transit service replacing the three current municipal transit services – Edmonton Transit Services, St. Albert Transit, and Strathcona County Transit – would be a great first step in fostering cooperation, eliminating expensive duplication in services, and could bode well for creating a more efficient transit service for the entire region. With Edmonton, St. Albert, and Strathcona County already proving that they can work together on important issues such as the Universal Bus Pass (U-Pass) for University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan College students, a future regional transit service doesn’t seem that unlikely.

This is just quick note to let you know that daveberta.ca is no longer a member of liblogs.ca.

It has been some time since I withdrew my support for the Liberal Party of Canada, so requesting to leave liblogs.ca was a pretty obvious move on my part. For all of you out there who previously read this blog’s posts through liblogs, you can still find them on the Progressive Bloggers aggregator and of course, through RSS.

With Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft pondering his future abroad and expected to announce his future political intentions in the coming months, those interested in running for the subversive job of Leader of the Official Opposition are starting to gear up (for a potential November 2008 leadership selection). Sources in Calgary have informed me that Calgary-Currie MLA Dave Taylor is rallying his key supporters to prepare for a run. Taylor was first elected in 2004 after unseating high-profile Tory backbencher Jon Lord and was re-elected in 2008 by defeating Tory star candidate Arthur Kent. Before entering elected politics, Taylor was the host of a popular QR77 Radio call-in show.

Among Taylor’s rumoured supporters is longtime Liberal organizer Donn Lovett. Lovett has been involved in Liberal campaigns since the 1980s (including campaigns of Sheldon Chumir, Joe Clark, Dave Taylor, Jennifer Pollock, and Craig Cheffins) but more recently, Lovett caused a bit of a stir after penning a memo to key Liberal organizers on the future of the party, including critiques on post-election MLA critic portfolios and party operations.

As Calgary-Mountain View MLA David Swann is publicly talking about forming a new political party in Alberta, I’ve had many Liberal supporters tell me that they would be more than happy to support a Swann leadership campaign (to also prevent a Taylor coronation). Also rumoured to be interested in a run is former Edmonton-McClung MLA Mo Elsalhy. Elsalhy was elected in 2004 by defeating Ralph Klein-era Economic Development Minister Mark Norris, but was unseated by Tory David Xiao in the 2008 election. Though I haven’t heard any stirrings on the front, I wouldn’t be disappointed if veteran Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman threw her hat into the ring.

With the March 3, 2008 election results fresh in memory, the next leader of the Alberta Liberals will take on the arguably thankless job inheriting a 9-member caucus facing a massive 72-seat 37-year old Tory majority, a party with a massive financial debt, and nearly no support outside the cities of Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge regions. The leadership race will also take place in a new geo-political dynamic in the Liberal caucus now that the majority of the 9-MLA caucus are from southern Alberta (five MLAs from Calgary & one from Lethbridge), rather than the traditional Edmonton base (which now has three MLAs).

Facing these challenges, I think I tend to agree with Swann. With none of Alberta’s political parties successfully engaging Albertans, I would argue that it’s time start from scratch.

Just in case you missed it, David Climenhaga had a pretty insightful column in last week’s Saint City News (from St. Albert) on the new super mega health board centralization that went on last week across Alberta. You can read the column on his blog.