Earlier this month, when I asked what an empowered Alberta would look like, it became clear to me that the majority of Albertans do not see value in participating in the traditional liturgy of our established democratic institutions. I also made two reflections that have stuck with me since:
1) As our society has changed in monumental ways, we have seen very little change in our democratic institutions. 2) Creating value in citizen participation is key to re-engaging the millions of Albertans who have disengaged from our democratic institutions and the process governing them.
Because of these two reflections, I am excited to be attendingReboot Alberta in Red Deer this weekend. I have no clue what ideas the discussions at this weekend’s event will produce, but I am excitedly anticipating meeting, debating, and sharing stories and ideas with other Albertans who are passionate about the future of our province. Bloggers Alex Abboud, Chris LaBossiere, Alexander Muir, the Unknown Studio, and Ken Chapman (among others) have written passionately about why they are attending this weekend. You can follow Reboot Alberta on Twitter at #rebootab.
As I have written before, it is only a matter of time before we witness a big political shift in our province, but it will be up to Albertans to decide what this change will embody. I love Alberta and I am eager to continue participating in the debates that will shape this change.
…the Stop the Cuts campaign is greatly exaggerating the impact to education.
I think all of you know how disappointed I was by this campaign.
In recent months, we have had many honest, informed discussions about what we must accomplish to improve learning in the future. Stop the Cuts has not contributed a single idea to this process.
Don’t get me wrong — I truly value and appreciate advocacy. I certainly appreciate Albertans engaging in a discussion about education, its value to our community and society, and our current issues and concerns.
But Stop the Cuts is not aimed at constructive discussion — it really amounts to a digital march on the Legislature, and we’re well beyond that.
Public appreciation for education can never be built on fear. Fear is no way to embrace our students’ optimism, passion, curiosity and talents — especially when there are so many great learning experiences taking place around our province.
We build public appreciation for education by sharing these learning experiences with Albertans.
So I look forward to the ASBA, ATA and the ASCA putting at least as many resources into a positive campaign about how we are preparing Alberta’s students for their future.
The motive behind this speech was likely an attempt to drive a wedge between the traditionally timid group elected school trustees and their coalition partners in the Alberta Teachers Association and the Alberta School Councils’ Association, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the effectiveness of the Stop the Cuts message in eliciting this reaction.
Recent comments from Premier Ed Stelmach and other cabinet ministers about “tough economic times” have reminded many Albertans of the devastating cuts made by the PC government in the 1990s. In August 2009, Minister Hancock announced that $80 million would be cut from the education budget, including over $50 million from school boards. He is in a tough position, Minister Hancock is the most important ally that the education sector may have inside the PC Cabinet, but it is questionable how much political clout the urban Red Tory-esq Edmonton-Whitemud MLA has in a Cabinet dominated by rural heavyweights like Lloyd Snelgrove, Luke Ouellette, and Ray Danyluk. It is not hard to imagine that many of his PC MLA colleagues are not pleased that the three education groups put aside many of their traditional differences to jointly warn Albertans about the cuts.
During the 2006 PC leadership race, Minister Hancock branded himself as the education friendly candidate and reached out to educators, but his recent party solidarity-influenced defence of the controversial Bill 44 raises the question of how much political capital he still has at the Cabinet table. While Premier Ed Stelmachcontinues to pushbillions of taxpayers dollars into the unproven science behind the Carbon Capture Scheme and pro-budget cut backbenchers try to make a name for themselves, Albertans should be asking how many of the 70 PC MLAs are standing up against budget cuts for essential public sector services?
In his speech, Minister Hancock criticized the Stop the Cuts campaign for not offering solutions. This is not a completely unfair comment, but Minister Hancock has hardly given the education groups any reason to believe that another round of budget cuts are the real solution to the PC Government’s fiscal problem. Minister Hancock is easily one of the brightest members of the provincial cabinet, so instead of scolding school trustees, he should step up and challenge his Cabinet colleagues to debate a critical question:
After years of record-breaking surpluses and unheard of wealth, why is Alberta still dependent on cyclically-priced natural resource commodities?
With the end of the first decade of the 21st century fast approaching, now is the perfect time to reflect on the past ten years in the politics of our province.
What I would like from you are nominees for the top Albertan political moment of the decade. I will leave the category fairly broad, but similar to Calgary Grit’s top Canadian political moment of the decade contest, the point is to find a good balance between what was exciting at the time and what would make it into a Alberta Social Studies textbooks 30 years from now (when the next change in government is due to happen).
You will have a few weeks to suggest nominees in the comments section or via e-mail before I put it to a vote. Nominees could include: – Elections and by-elections (federal, provincial, and municipal) – Important policies (i.e. royalty review, Bill 44, no debt, LRT expansion) – Scandals and missteps (Ralph Air, Lyle Oberg being kicked out of the PC caucus, Ward 10 scandal) – Moments that made Albertans pay attention (ie: Ralph Klein‘s late night visit to the Men’s shelter, Ed Stelmach defeating Jim Dinning)
“That said, [Premier Ed Stelmach] never resorts to the personal and is never pleased when others do.”
There are numerousexamples of Premier Stelmach and members of his cabinet taking personal shots at Opposition MLAs and groups (and deceased Prime Ministers) outside of the Legislature.
In most circumstances, actually taking the high road is the best way to claim it.
I attended the third of three evenings with Jim Diers – former Director of the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods – hosted by the City of Edmonton. Over the course of the evening, Diers shared some really interesting ideas about successful community building and power of neighbourhoods. I am planning to write about some of these ideas in future posts on this blog.
Advanced Education Minister Doug Horner has said that he will accept and review requests from Alberta’s Post-Secondary Institutions to increase their base tuition rates beyond what is currently allowed under Alberta’s tuition policy. Whatever your thoughts on the cost of tuition – whether you believe in the strength of communities or individual investment (or a mixture of the two) – it is important to understand some of the context in which this posturing is occurring. This is not simply a result of tough economic times, the Government and Institutions have both attempted to and successfully tinkered with the tuition policy a number of times in recent years.
In the letter, the presidents warn Alberta is falling behind. “Alberta lags behind the national average in post-secondary spaces, a serious problem as we seek to provide the workforce needed for an expanding economy.”
Students are also frustrated the presidents drafted a proposal without consulting them, saying they were under the impression a joint bid would be submitted to Hancock.
“We were all going to put forward one letter, with one profound and powerful voice,” said West who sits on the steering committee with the presidents and other stakeholders. “We feel really hurt by this and wonder if they were playing us all along.”
Introduced during the (thankfully) short-lived tenure of Minister Denis Herard, Bill 40 removed Alberta’s tuition policy from the Post-Secondary Learning Act, thus removing the insurance that Albertans had that any changes to the policy governing the cost of post-secondary education would need to be debated in a public forum.
“We’re prepared to wait until the next time the legislature meets to have a new policy implemented, so that the policy is embedded in an act of the legislature,” said David Cournoyer, chair of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and University of Alberta Students’ Union Vice President External. “If the tuition policy is not in legislation, it is no good to us.”
Universities and colleges in Alberta are currently limited to increasing tuition by CPI inflation (at a maximum), but because the tuition policy is now under regulation it can be changed in the privacy of a closed door Cabinet meeting. No public debate required.
I have always been fascinated by the debate over the proper name for the “bituminoussand” that spans across and beneath large tracks of Northern Alberta (I like to call them Alberta’s Energy Beach). In an elongated public relations war, environmental groups have labelled them as ‘tarsands,’ while the energy sector and the Government of Alberta have remained strident in describing them as the more friendly-sounding ‘oilsands.’
First they were tar sands. Then they were oil sands. Now? Enhanced oil projects. At least according to En-Cana Corp. and its oil-sands spinoff, Cenovus Energy
The pair want to distinguish their oil-sands operations, which employ the underground and more carbon-intensive steam-assisted gravity (SAGD) drainage method, from the more aesthetically offensive open-pit mining efforts that are accompanied by deadly tailings ponds. As a result, the two firms have ditched the term “oil sands” from their lexicon and replaced it with “enhanced oil projects” or just “oil projects.”
As some of you know, until September I had the pleasure of working with a great team in the Corporate Communications department at Covenant Health. During my time with Alberta’s Catholic health board, I developed an online communications strategy for the organization and hosted a series workshops on communications and social media with employees of Covenant Health, Alberta Health Services, and the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton.
This morning, I was excited to have started a new adventure as Communications Officer (New Media) with the United Nurses of Alberta. I am looking forward to the challenges ahead and to help guide the UNA to fully participate in the evolving world of social media. While this new position will likely not afford me the time to pump out two or three posts a day on this blog (as I have over the past couple of months), I am looking forward to publishing some interesting new multi-part series following in the footsteps of Smith v. Board of Education.
I laid out my thoughts on Bill 50: Electrical Statues Amendment Act and upgrades to provincial transmission infrastructure late last month, but theissuecontinuestodominate much of the debate during the fall session of Alberta’s Legislative Assembly. The Lavesta Area Group have been extremely effective at agitating their opposition to Bill 50 into the media spotlight and their leader, Joe Anglin, has been travelling across Alberta showcasing the group’s opposition to Bill 50. Anglin’s presentation is now on YouTube:
Earlier this week, Danielle Smith announced that a task force co-chaired by David Yager and David Gray would develop an energy platform for the Wildrose Alliance. In April 2009, Yager and a group of oil and gas sector executives penned a fundraising letter for the Wildrose Alliance which lamented the plight of Alberta’s oil and gas sector under the oppression of the new resource royalty framework. In the letter, the executives pledged their allegiance to the Wildrose Alliance. (PDF of the Fundraising Letter)
Watching the direction Alberta has taken since Stelmach became leader of the Tory party leaves us to conclude that the ultimate success of our industry is now political. Only when the government of Alberta supports and trusts its most important industry – oil and gas – will Alberta’s future be truly secure.
Therefor, we have joined a group of like-minded oilfield service and junior oil and gas executives in supporting the Wildrose Alliance Party of Alberta to help it become the future government of this province.
The Progressive Conservative Party saw a decrease in the amount of donations they were receiving from the oil and gas sector after the introduction of the new resource royalty framework, and it is well known that many of these companies began throwing their financial support to other parties.
In her acceptance speech, the newly selected Wildrose Alliance leader declared that:
“People are looking for a party to step up and represent their interests, not the backroom lobbyists and political cronies”
It would not make sense to criticize a party leader for appointing supporters to internal policy advisor positions, but Yager’s appointment brings Smith’s statement into question. While this would not be a big issue if the party had not experienced significant gains in support, I am curious about how much money Yager and the group of executives listed on the April 2009 fundraising letter invested in Smith’s leadership campaign? With Smith refusing to publicly release the list of donors who financed her campaign it is unlikely that Albertans will find out.
It is probable that many of these donors will contribute to the Wildrose Alliance now that Smith is the leader, but it will be another four or five months before the Albertans will be privy to the names of those of donors. According to the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act, annual financial statements from political parties must be filed with Elections Alberta on or before March 31.
“…imagine for a moment it was your job to create the guidelines that will help public servants engage online. Although you have the examples from other organisations, you are given the rare luxury to start with a blank sheet of paper (at least for this exercise). What would you write? What issues would you include? Where would you start? Who would you talk to?”
This question made me think about many of the issues facing Albertans and the challenges facing our provincial government in engaging and interacting with citizens. The Government of Alberta holds frequent traditional style consultations on many issues, but are they generating the kind of discussions that our system of governance needs in order to create value for citizen participation? I would encourage all the readers of this blog who work in Alberta’s public service to take a look at someof theinnovative ideas for citizen engagement that are being implemented in other jurisdictions. I believe that creating value in citizen participation is key to re-engaging the millions of Albertans who have disengaged from our democratic institutions and the process governing them.
I have had conversations with many friends, family, and associates who have expressed a general feeling of disempowerment and distance from their elected officials and the decisions they make on our behalf. We elect our fellow Albertans to represent us in our democratic institutions, but as our society has changed in monumental ways, we have seen very little change in our democratic institutions.
Premier Peter Lougheed understood the need for our democratic institutions to evolve with mainstream society when in the early 1970s he created Alberta’s Hansard and allowed for the televised recording of Assembly debates. Both Hansard and Video of the Assembly are now available online, but nearly forty years later, do our provincial democratic institutions reflect the needs our society? Is it important to preserve the current form of parliamentary democracy where the Executive Branch (the Premier and Cabinet) holds sway over the Legislative Branch (the elected Assembly) or is it time to rethink how we allow ourselves to be governed? Why? Is it possible bring the backrooms of the political establishment to the living rooms of Albertans?
With the New Zealand example in mind, I wonder what the outcomes would have been had citizens been empowered to play a real role in shaping legislation like Bill 44, Bill 19, or Bill 50. How different would our province be in twenty or fifty years if regular Albertans were allowed to play a sincere role in helping shape the future of our resource royalty structure, our health care system, or how our abundance of natural resources are developed?
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. — Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)
“There’s a group of people in caucus who are genuinely concerned about the state of our province’s finances,” said Anderson, MLA for Airdrie-Chestermere. “The basic consensus (of the group) is we need to get our spending under control and have a savings strategy. The general direction is that we need to have a strong fiscal framework, and right now that doesn’t exist.”
The group will use question period and members’ statements– as well as their own caucus meetings–to drive home the message. “There are others in caucus who feel as we do,” he added.
It is not difficult to imagine that a significant element of the ‘Fiscal Four’ production is a staged exercise in PC Party myth-building as public criticism from MLAs is not normally welcomed (as former Cabinet Ministers Heather Forsyth and Guy Boutilier discovered). In September 2009, Fawcett publicly apologized and was quietly penalized for pointing out the obvious after his party’s high-profile candidate was thumped in a Calgaryby-election. I do not doubt that these four PC MLAs picture themselves as the very models of modern fiscal conservatives, but until now they have either remained largely silent or have risen in the Assembly to praise their party’s fiscal leadership. I have been told that a similar tactic of external criticism only after internal permission was adopted by the Deep-Six, of which Premier Ed Stelmach was a member.
With the internal resources available to them, the ‘Fiscal Four’ have the potential to protect Premier Stelmach by shifting media headlines away from criticism by the opposition parties and his more vocalexternalcritics.
The Premier’s Office should seriously consider hiring Jeremy to produce their next pre-taped televised address. Less b-roll helicopter footage and more A-Team could go a long way to improving their public image.
Ah, the morning after. As Progressive Conservative convention delegates in Red Deer begin to experience the after-effects of last night’s hospitality suites, a lot of people are probably wondering what the results of Premier Ed Stelmach‘s leadership review means for Alberta politics? Well, other than being lower than I had anticipated, Premier Stelmach had the support of the majority of delegates at this weekend’s convention.
Boasting over 1,000 delegates, the PC Party unquestionably remains the largest partisan force in Alberta, but it also remains to be seen just how disgruntled the 22.6% of delegates who did not support Premier Stelmach are and if they will remain in the PC Party. Recent polls have shown the near 40-year governing PCs significantly dropping in public support with the Wildrose Alliance as its greatest beneficiary.
On Friday night, when answering a question from a convention delegate, Premier Stelmach told delegates that his biggest challenge isn’t the economy, health care, crime, or the oilsands, but the media
“I really do feel that the policies we have are the right ones for Alberta, but it’s difficult to get it through the present media that’s available to us.”
This follows the trend that began after the third place finish by PC candidate Diane Colley-Urquhart in the recent Calgary-Glenmore by-election – the belief by Premier Stelmach’s administration that they have the right message and if Albertans aren’t buying it, then they just need to say it louder. It seems to me that this was a challenge that was supposed to be addressed when Premier Stelmach hired four former reporters (Paul Stanway, Tom Olsen, Mike Jenkinsen, and David Heyman) to run his communications offices in Edmonton and Calgary as he stepped into office in December 2006.
Liberals: Leader David Swann hosted his first major fundraising dinner in Calgary on Friday night. The event drew over 530 attendees, the largest number at a Calgary Liberal fundraiser in recent memory. While the ticket prices were lower than in previous years (down to $250.00 from $350.00), the Liberals have fallen into third place in recent polls and it is critical for them to rally their troops to prove that they are a relevant force in Alberta politics.
The outcome of tonight’s vote was exactly what we expected, but it goes against what I am hearing across the province. Albertans are upset with this government… Tonight’s decision by the Alberta PC’s doesn’t change a single thing that the Wildrose Party will do in the coming months. We will work hard to show Albertans that we are the alternative to the PC’s and that we will give Albertans the kind of government they expect and deserve.”
