daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

Yesterday, Kevin Taft’s Alberta Liberals released their plan for Alberta’s future:

Edmonton – A Heritage Fund of $120 billion is the centrepiece of a fiscal strategy released by the Alberta Liberals today, titled Alberta’s Opportunity: Funding Alberta’s Future.

The strategy provides a solution for turning Alberta’s non-renewable resources into a sustainable source of prosperity that will support world-class public services, an outstanding post-secondary education system and permanently competitive taxes.

“This plan will convert Alberta’s non-renewable oil and gas wealth into permanent prosperity,” said Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft. “Right now the province is booming, but we desperately need a plan to secure our future, or the boom will go bust.” Read the rest.

The announcement included a new document outlining the plan titled “Funding Alberta’s Future.“

UPDATE: Here are some news stories on the Alberta Liberals plan:
Liberals want $120B Heritage Fund by 2021
Boost Heritage fund for future: Grit leader

According to the good folks at Public Eye Online, two Alberta Tory leadership candidates are and have been making fundraising pitches due west of Alberta. Ted Morton and Jim Dinning have been spotted pitching for cash in British Columbia.

Ted Morton is holding a $1,500 a table fundraiser at the posh Hyatt Regency on Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver on September 22.

Morton’s event is being promoted by Byng Giraud of Earnscliffe Strategy Group Inc. The Earnscliffe group shared very close political connections with former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and formerly employed Liberal campaign strategists Scott Reid and David Herle.

Jim Dinning was reported to have been “schmoozing at a pricey $250 per ticket fundraiser for his campaign at Gotham Steakhouse and Cocktail Bar. The event was apparently attended by “a who’s who from the downtown Tory crowd.” Public Eye Online also points out the appearance of Jim Dinning’s strong corporate BC backers which include Finning Canada.

A new poll released last week by Ipsos places Jim Dinning in the lead in the Alberta PC leadership race…

Jim Dinning (54%) The Frontrunner In Favourability Ratings – Lyle Oberg (48%) In Second Place With Dave Hancock (44%) Gaining Momentum

One-Quarter (26%) Of Albertans Think Dinning Would Do The Best Job As The Next Premier, But Oberg (21%) Hot On His Trail

It’s no surprise that Dinning is in the lead, but I find it very surprising that Lyle Oberg is placing second. As well, I found Dave Hancock’s third place finish and the suggestion that he is “gaining momentum” to also be interesting. I wonder if this polling actually reflects the candidate’s membership sales…

The first leadership debate for this race will take place tomorrow night in St. Albert. This is the first official Alberta PC leadership debate, which will occur before Premier Ralph Klein tenders his resignation letter next Saturday…

The contenders in this race now include Jim Dinning, Dave Hancock, Lyle Oberg, Ed Stelmach, Mark Norris, Ted Morton, Victor Doerksen, Alana DeLong, and Greg McPherson.

I’ll write more on the other contenders soon, but since the entry of social conservative Red Deer South MLA Victor Doerksen, the rumour mill has been spinning… there seem to be three main rumours surrounding Doerksen’s intentions…

1) Doerksen is running a legitimate campaign to be leader of the Alberta PC’s.
2) Doerksen is really supporting Jim Dinning, but is running in an attempt to split the social conservative vote with Ted Morton.
3) Doerksen is really supporting Ted Morton, but is running in an attempt to energize the social conservative vote so that Doerksen can drop out and endorse Morton before the selection process – making it an endorsement of another leadership candidate, rather than just an MLA.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this???

Woot. I’m going to the Bedouin Soundclash and Radio Vacana show tonight. Should be fun!

More wonderful blogging coming soon.

UPDATE: Radio Vacana and Bedouin were great. It was a fun concert 🙂

A bit of an update for the first full week of September…

– The Tyee has an interesting article on the real effects of Ralph Klein’s legacy.

– Maclean’s magazine seems to be continuing it’s right-wing slide with last week’s online poll that asks if parents should pay for their adult children’s post-secondary education. I’ve never been able to understand why the parents of an adult student should be even remotely responsible and expected to pay for their education costs. This is one of the greatest flaws in Canada’s student finance system.

Maclean’s used to be a good magazine, but now holds only one consistantly good contributor, of who’s best work can be found online for free.

– This seems like quite the blow to Jack Layton’s NDP. The defection of Paul Summerville to the Bob Rae leadership campaigns…

– Alberta PC leadership candidate Ted Morton has launched his new website. Campaign colours? Black.

– Also, props to the Calgary Grit for posting this one before I did…

I don’t pay attention to international politics for a week and all of a sudden…

WE SHOULD NUKE IRAN
By: MICHAEL COREN

It is surely obvious now to anybody with even a basic understanding of history, politics and the nature of fascism that something revolutionary has to be done within months — if not weeks — if we are to preserve world peace.

Put boldly and simply, we have to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.

and then…

Ahmadinejad calls for university purge
POSTED: 2341 GMT (0741 HKT), September 5, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s hard-line president urged students Tuesday to push for a purge of liberal and secular university teachers, another sign of his determination to strengthen Islamic fundamentalism in the country.

I think it’s safe to say that both these men are crazy.

This week, federal Liberal leadership candidate Ken Dryden unleashed his vision for “A Big Canada.” I didn’t read most of the document, but I skipped forward to the education portion.

I was shocked to see this included:

(a) We will establish a national income-contingent student loan repayment program (ICLR) to help individual youth and mature students finance their post-secondary education.

Income-contingent loan repayment (ICLR) is a bad bad idea, Mr. Dryden. These types of systems serve as methods of shifting the cost of post-secondary education away from the government (who should be properly funding the post-secondary education system in the first place) and on to students.

As well, income-contingent loan repayment schemes result in those with lower incomes paying substantially more for the cost of their education due to lengthy payment periods mixed with increasing interest payments.

Mr. Dryden needs to take a look at jurisdictions such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom that have income-contingent loan repayment schemes and have seen a corresponding and dramatic increase in tuition fees and other education costs since the implementation of this regressive system.

Instead of implementing an income-contingent loan repayment scheme, I would suggest that Mr. Dryden look at creating and implementing a dedicated post-secondary transfer payment from the Federal Government to the Provinces that will deal specifically with tuition levels – which leads to high debt and is the most direct cost that governments can affect. Proper investment in PSE will make regressive schemes like ICLR even more useless than they already are.

Time to step up to the plate, Mr. Dryden.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The more involved I get in partisan politics, the more I dislike political parties.

I’ve thought about going to the Federal Liberal leadership convention in Montreal in November, but I just can’t find the interest (and the money of course, how ridiculous is it that it will cost over $1000 to attend as a party delegate). Though I like Gerard Kennedy, and think he would be a better leader for the fedlibs than most of the other options, I’m just not really excited about Federal politics in Canada. Harper is boring (and a Conservative). Layton has a talented caucus, but he seems like a flash-in-the-pan. The only real excitement seems to be coming from Elizabeth May’s election as leader of the Greens.

I still enjoy provincial politics in Alberta and municipal politics in Edmonton though.

I’m just not to hot on the partisaness anymore.

Maybe something will change.

On another note, this is fun.

I have a feeling that posting shall be a bit far and few over the next couple weeks, so I’ll leave you with this, this, and this, this, and this…

– There are a lot of Albertans who can feel a little vindicated today…

On his last day in the legislature chamber before retiring later this year, Klein did something he has rarely done in 14 years as premier: admit his Liberal and NDP critics were right when they argued his Conservative government did not properly prepare for the boom and the pressures it has caused.

“The opposition was right in their criticism, but as I said, no one could anticipate the phenomenal growth that took place, or the quickness of that growth,” Klein told reporters.

Monday night, I swore I heard an animal growl outside my house.

This was in my inbox this morning…

On (Thursday) Aug 31, 2006 at 2 am, the Edmonton Police Service advised that there was an unconfirmed sighting of a cougar in the area of Stadium Car park and R.C.M.S (116 Street-89/91 Ave). Again, this information is unconfirmed however we feel that the community should be informed. In the event that a cougar is sighted on campus contact Campus Security Services immediately at 492-5050 or the EPS at 423-4567.

That’s 4 blocks away…

– Elizabeth May is the new Leader of the Green Party of Canada. The former Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada should shake things up on the Canadian federal scene. Should be interesting to see which direction she takes the Green’s in toward the next Federal Election.

I really think the Greens are the ones to watch at both the Federal and Alberta political level (as I mentioned here).

– This is an interesting campaign by Lakehead University. Though I was very surprised that an institution would try something this risqe, it is certainly generating the attention it was meant to.

– Federal Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy is calling for national educational standards.

– Now you can buy “A whale of a day at Marineland with Albina and John!” woot?

I didn’t think so.

– “truthliness” and “wikiality” are the new “TV Words of the Year.”

The Alberta Liberal and NDP caucus’ were sucessful in filibustering Ted Morton‘s Bill 208 yesterday afternoon in the Alberta Legislature.

In response to the still-death of his bill, Dr. Morton had these words to offer:

“The Liberals not only were irresponsible in blocking debate today, they were stupid, too.”

Liberal House Leader Laurie Blakeman responded with:

“I’m not going to accept arguments from Dr. Morton that he deserves special treatment to get his bill up and I’m frankly not going to accept that from the Speaker either.”

ADDENUM – I would just like to send a shout out to all those folks who felt inclined to send me emails filled with lots of nasty names and accusations. Glad to know that you’re reading my blog!

Hey guess what? A non-political post!!!!

– I saw Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby last weekend. It was pretty funny. It was a typical Will Ferrell movie filled with oneliners. Ali G was good too. Speaking of Ali G, the trailers for Borat are out. I’m really looking forward to this one. It looks pretty ridiculous, but should be somewhat entertaining.

– I registered for the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute Conference this upcoming November. The theme is “Power for the People: Determining Our Energy Future” and the speakers list includes John Raulston Saul, Marc Lisac, Gillian Steward, Larry Pratt, Lindsay Telfer, Gordon Laxer, and Oystein Noreng. It should be interesting.

– This is a cool music video.

– And finally, Chuck Norris is still pretty cool.

Ted Morton’s Bill 208 is now posted on the Assembly website. It’s very important that this sort of mean spirited and discriminatory legislation be stopped before it can become law in Alberta.

If passed, Bill 208 will amend the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, the Schools Act, and the Marriage Act to propose that:
1. educational information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgendered rights will will be optional in public schools.
2. public marriage commissionaires could opt out of performing same-sex marriages.
3. that a person expressing their opinion/ideas about homosexuality could not have a claim of discrimination brought against them.

Here is what you can do to STOP BILL 208!

– Phone, Fax, or Email Ted Morton and tell him why you oppose Bill 208 (cc the email to your MLA):
Email: foothills.rockyview@assembly.ab.ca
Constituency Phone: 1-866-843-4314 (toll-free)
Constituency Fax: (403) 216-2225
Legislature Phone: (780) 422-2768
Legislature Fax: (780) 422-1671

– Phone, Fax, or Email your MLA and let them know why you oppose Bill 208. Find your MLA here. Ask your MLA to table your email in the Assembly.

– Come and show your opposition to Bill 208 at the Alberta Legislature on Monday August 28. To get passes to the visitors gallery and be introduced in the Assembly, please call the Liberals (Contact Jill Roszell at (780) 422-0013 or jill.roszell@assembly.ab.ca) or the NDP (Contact Anand Sharma at (780) 415-1803).

Monday’s session will run from 1:30pm to around 5:30pm. You must register before 11am on Monday August 28 as they need to send the list of people to the Speaker’s Office so you can be introduced.

(Updated with amendments)