Vitor Marciano – daveberta.ca – Alberta Politics and Elections

turnover at the alberta ndp office.

Word on the street is that Alberta NDP Executive Director Sandra Houston is resigning to pursue an job in Islamabad, Pakistan involving women and democracy. Ms. Houston has held the position for a couple of years and is considered a close ally of leader Brian Mason, something that has frustrated many reform-minded New Democrats that I have spoken with.

The Wildrose Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party have also had recent turnover in their offices leading to the hirings of new Executive Directors Vitor Marciano and Patricia Godkin. In September 2009, Corey Hogan became Executive Director of the Liberal Party after filling a vacancy left after the resignation of long-time Executive Director Kieran Leblanc in 2008.

alberta politics notes 3/15/2010

– New polls from Angus-Reid (Wildrose: 42%, PC: 27%, Liberal: 19%, NDP 9%, Other 3%) and Environics (PC: 34%, Wildrose: 30%, Liberal: 23%, NDP 10%). Calgary Grit has more on these polls.
– According to the PC Party website, Patricia Godkin has replaced Jim Campbell as Executive Director (Mr. Campbell recently joined Cenovus Energy as their Vice-President Government Relations and Corporate Accountability). Ms. Godkin previously served as Director of Finance and was the acting Executive Director in 2007 after the resignation of Peter Elzinga. While holding the interim position in 2007, Ms. Godkin faced a challenge from outgoing PC Youth President David McColl, who published an op-ed in the Calgary Herald predicting that “PC Alberta will continue its slow death march, to the beat of a rural drum and tired, stale policies.”
– Vitor Marciano is expected to become the new Executive Director of the Wildrose Alliance. Mr. Marciano recently stepped down from his position on the National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada and served as Campaign Manager for Edmonton-Centre MP Laurie Hawn in 2004 and 2006, and for Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq in 2008. In 2006, he supported former Edmonton-McClung PC MLA Mark Norris‘ bid for the PC leadership. This is the second prominent Edmonton conservative to join Danielle Smith‘s staff in recent months. In February, former PC Party VP Outreach and 2004 Edmonton-Strathcona candidate Shannon Stubbs became Executive Assistant to Ms. Smith.
– Former Edmonton-Meadowlark Liberal MLA Maurice Tougas has written a piece in this month’s Alberta Views Magazine that focuses on Danielle Smith’s time on the Calgary Board of Education from 1998 to 1999. Mr. Tougas’ reliance on comments from former Trustee Jennifer Pollock provided a fairly one-sided perspective of the issue. You can read my four part series Smith v. Board of Education part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
– The Alberta Party has posted an update on The Big Listen.
– Tyler Shandro has raised some interesting questions about the interim report of Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission.
– Three years after the a committee of top-tier economic experts recommended increasing the royalty rates collected by the provincial government, Premier Ed Stelmach has cut back the amount of resource royalties that are collected. The Pembina Institute responded by pointing out that “Albertans, the owners of the province’s oil and gas resources, were completely left out of the process of reviewing Alberta’s royalty rates.”