daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

Omer is, that is.

I thought this was pretty crazy…

Well, I’m still here in Toronto for a conference.

Though the conference began with a pretty rough start in the first plenary session yesterday, I think things are slowly getting slightly smoother as the conference progresses.

Though I haven’t really found the sessions all that useful, I’ve found it extremely positive for me to be able to meet with my peers from around Canada and engage them in conversation and idea sharing. That has been beneficial.

I went to a party on a boat on Lake Ontario last night – though it may sound Über-lame, two bottles of wine and four pints of beer later it wasn’t that bad…

Daveberta in Toronto and a conference update…

– Omer is very displeased.
– It cost me $60 to get a cab from Union Station to the conference centre.
– Ikea overload.
– Drinking in Ottawa is fun. The trainride the next morning was not so much fun.
– It rains in Toronto.

More updates soon…

As mentioned in my previous post, I visited Parliament Hill and took in today’s Question Period from the Members Gallery.

There’s nothing like actually visiting QP in person to reaffirm the beleif that the entire exercise is pointless.

Random Liberal MP: Mr. Speaker, four months of Conservative arrogance is costing taxpayers billions of dollars in [insert issue here]. Conservative arrogance is tearing this country apart!

[insert jeers, rude remarks, standing ovation, etc]

Random Tory Minister: Mr. Speaker, thirteen years of Liberal corruption is forcing us to cost taxpayers billions of dollars in [insert issue here]. Liberal corruption almost tore this country apart.

[insert jeers, rude remarks, standing ovation, etc]

Random Liberal MP: Mr. Speaker, David Emerson, David Emerson, David Emerson, Tory arrogance, Kyoto accord…

[insert jeers, rude remarks, standing ovation, etc]

Random Tory Minister: Mr. Speaker, Liberal corruption, Liberal corruption, Liberal corruption, Joe Volpe recruiting kindergarteners…

But seriously folks, it’s a really beautiful room. It’s just unfortuante that it’s always filled with politicians… 😉

Yep. I’m here.

Went to QP at the HOC today (lingo…)

More comments soon.

Oh yeah, it’s freaking hot here.

I thought today’s announcement by the Harper Governmement to fix House of Commons election dates and limit Senators terms to eight years was interesting.

Like everyone and the kitchen sink, I have some opinions on Senate reform. There is no doubt that it badly needs to be refromed, but I’m just not convinced of the whole Triple-E idea. In my opinion, it lacks imagination and is too simplistic an unimaginative. I much more rather like to see a form of Proportional Representation or Party list based on HOC popular vote by province for Senate elections. I believe this would allow Canadians to keep the type of good people in the Senate who would never run in an election – people like Tommy Banks, Frank Maholvlich, Romeo Dallaire, and Thelma Chalifoux – I think Canadian politics would lose a lot of character if that happened. The last thing Ottawa needs is more politicians (maybe Senate by lottery would be a fun idea…? Senate duty?).

Now, keeping this in mind, I agree that term limits are a small step in the right direction for Canada’s Upper House.

Also, I’ll be gone eastward for the next week and a half and am looking forward to some time in Ottawa and Toronto. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning and sporatically blogging live and on location in central Canada.

Any suggestions on things I should do in my spare time?

I think I’m going to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Oh yeah, GO OILERS! 🙂

It looks like former Tory Minister Mark Norris will be making an announcement today.

In 2001, Mark Norris was called a “giant-killer” for unseating then-Alberta Liberal leader Nancy MacBeth in Edmonton McClung. In 2004, Norris was “giant-killed” himself by Liberal Mo Elsalhy (sources tell me that Mr. Norris took a week off during the campaign to go on a golfing vacation).

Currently with no seat, Norris faces an uphill battle to prove his legitimacy as a candidate for the Alberta PC leadership.

In March, Norris shocked and confused many political watchers with his comment “Separation if necessary, but not necessarily separation” in regards to Alberta’s place in Confederation. While he who wasn’t exactly a beacon of political savvy during his time as Minister of Economic Development from 2001 to 2004, Norris was most likely trying to draw attention to himself, as he has no longer has a Ministerial PR budget to throw around.

(Props to the ONE PARTY STATE for the heads-up)

If you have yet to see X-Men III: The Last Stand and are planning to see it DON’T READ THE REST OF THIS POST…

I’m a fairly huge X-Men fan, having collected about 300ish X-Men related comic books when I was a kid and having watched X-Men and X2 films close to eighty-seven times.

Overall, I enjoyed the film – and there were some really cool parts. The Golden Gate Bridge/Alcatraz Island battle scene was really cool – as was the Xavier/Jean Grey showdown. Colossus was cool, and Iceman taking on Pyro was a great follow up from Pyro’s defection to Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants in X2. Mystique losing her mutant powers was a cool scene. 😉

Hugh Jackman was still great as Wolverine, and Halle Berry as Storm was actually able to show off her powers more in this film.

As well, I thought Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy/Beast was a good casting.

One the things I enjoy the most about the X-Men storylines are the political, ethical, and moral issues. X3’s premise that a “cure” could be found for mutants causes a moral dilemma for many of the mutants in the film. As societal outcasts, they would now have the chance to become a normal human – but they would also be abandoning their natural selves to satisfy an intolerant society. What to do? Abandon who you are or prevail in the face of adversity?

Though I did enjoy X-Men III, there are some aspects of the film that bothered me – like the part when nearly all the main characters died. Cyclops dying wasn’t even a big deal as it’s implied and not even shown. Jean Grey dying played a bit into the Pheonix story, though it largely differed from the comic book storyline, but Professor Xavier’s death was a little unexpected.

As well, Magneto losing his powers and then regaining them at the end in the lame “after-credit” sequence left a lot to be desired.

Overall, I blame Brett Ratner, who clearly did a sub-par job in directing compared to X-Men I and X2 which were directed by Bryan Singer. Ratner’s directorship was clearly salvaged by the fact that it was an X-Men film, and the X-Men rock.

But, criticisms aside, it was a fun film and I would recommend it be seen far and wide.

The Federal Liberal leadership race is on. Some people I know are excited.

Me? I’ve been having a really hard time getting excited about it.

Some of my blog friends have already thrown their support behind the candidates of their choice. Nicole and Bart are going for Gerard Kennedy, c-lo and Jason are going for Michael Ignatieff, and Mr. Cherniak going for Stephane Dion (You can check out other blogger endorsements here).

Having not fully decided who I will be supporting, here are some of my thoughts on some of the “top-tier” candidates…

Stephane Dion, St. Laurent-Cartierville – An intellectual heavyweight. He’s smart, a great debater, and would probably be a decent leader. He could easily take on Prime Minister Harper toe-to-toe in the House of Commons.

Michael Ignatieff, Etobicoke-Lakeshore – Unfairly treated in the Federal Election, no academic should be forced to defend their academic writings in 10 second news clips.

Though many people don’t seem to have an issue with this (c-lo), I do have trouble thinking that the next Prime Minister-in-waiting has only lived the last 6 months of the past 25 years in Canada. He’s untested, has very little political experience, and as far as I can tell hasn’t yet to even speak in the House of Commons (care to correct me?).

I would not dare to challenge his intellectual capacity, but I’m still undecided if he could sucessfully lead the Federal Liberals through the next couple years.

Bob Rae – The worst thing that ever happened to Bob Rae happened in 1990 when he became Premier of Ontario. Erase Ontario’s Rae-led NDP government from 1990 to 1995 and Rae doesn’t look so bad. Extremely intelligent, articulate, and educated, if he weren’t unelectable, he probably wouldn’t do such a bad job.

Gerard Kennedy – Though I hear he can get a little flakey at times, I think I like what I see in Gerard Kennedy. Born in Manitoba, studied at the U of A, founded the Edmonton Food Bank, ran a major Food Bank in Toronto. It seems like he actually has real-world experience compared to the privileged lives of his competitors. He’s young, supposedly bilingual, has experience in government (and is still popular), and isn’t connected to the Martin-Chretien divide.

Though I have yet to throw my support behind any candidate, I think I like most what I see in Mr. Kennedy.

I didn’t have many thoughts about the other candidates at the moment, but if you’d like to check out their websites, here they are…

Joe Volpe, Ken Dryden, Hedy Fry, Martha Hall Findlay, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Scott Brison, & Carolyn Bennett.

Just in case you missed it, check out this great editorial about Equalization from the Edmonton Journal.

(Props to iBrett for the linkage)

From Inside Higher Education on May 24th.

A Commencement Turns Ugly
When people cry at graduation, it’s supposed to be the happy kind of tears.

That wasn’t the case Saturday at the University of St. Thomas, when the student speaker at the Saint Paul, Minn., institution’s graduation ceremony used his address to denounce as “selfish” those women who use the birth control pill. St. Thomas has been divided this semester by a debate over whether the Roman Catholic institution was correct to ban unmarried employees traveling together with students from sharing a room, so issues of sexual morality have been front and center at the institution. The student speaker also denounced as selfish those unmarried couples covered by the policy who had wanted to share a room with a partner.

Students and family members were shocked by the speech — and some left their own graduation in tears. Others booed or shouted. Still others are angry that the university administrator who followed the student speaker appeared to many to endorse his views. Read the rest here…

The best part about it is that the entire speech was captured on video and posted on YouTube. You can check it out here…

I got a new MacBook laptop yesterday and I am very very pleased with my purchase.

One of the many fun features of the MacBook is the cool camera at the top of the screen… hence my vainess being exposed through the ten minute self-photo session in my office… the only picture not being deleted ending up in this post.

It’s also really light – so it will be great to bring around when I’m in Ottawa and Toronto next week. Oh yeah, btw, I’m going to Ottawa and Toronto next week…

I was invited to Environment Minister Rona Ambrose‘s Clean Air Day Celebration of Love in the Rain today. As you can imagine, it was pouring rain the entire time. Ambrose rode up in the train to Health Sciences Station and sped through a ribbon. I’m still not sure what the event was even for… maybe they were offering tax credits or something useless like that…

There were lots of RCMP everywhere. Ambrose jumped off the LRT, scrumed for 2 minutes, and then was swept off in a MiniVan to the Jubilee Auditorium as to not be lowered to the level of having to walk through the 100 or so environmental activists who gathered outside the station.

The most ironic part is that the Jubilee Auditorium was only a block away. Yes, Canada’s Environment Minister needed a MiniVan to travel one city block on Clear Air Day… uh huh…

UPDATE: The Edmonton Journal covered Ambrose’s minivan adventure… Fleeing Minister Takes Van over LRT.

For those of you keeping score, Ontario recently launched its Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform (which I imagine is similar to the British Columbia Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform).

Ontario’s Citizen’s Assembly is made up of 103 randomly-selected Ontarians. In order for the Assembly properly reflect Ontarian society, 51 of the members of the Assembly will be men, and 52 will be women, as well as at least one member will be Aboriginal.

Members of the Assembly are randomly selected by Elections Ontario and every registered Ontario voter was eligible to chosen (with the exception of elected officials).

Beginning in September 2006, members of the Assembly will meet about twice a month for eight months with public meetings to be held across Ontario. Following these public meetings, the Assembly will recommend either keeping the same out-of-date first-past-the-post electoral system, or recommend that a new one be put forward to a referendum

Together, they’ll examine our current electoral system and learn about other systems. They’ll meet with people at public meetings to be held across the province. And then, depending on what they learn and hear, they’ll recommend either keeping our current electoral system or adopting a new one following approval through a province-wide referendum. The final report of the Assembly is due by May 15, 2007.

Wouldn’t a Citizen’s Assembly be a great idea for the Province of Alberta?

It’s something the Alberta Liberals have been pushing for and it would be even better if a Tory leadership candidate got behind the idea.

Imagine that, TRUE CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT IN ALBERTA POLITICS. Wow.

It’s tough to imagine.

For those of you who find yourselves as election-nerd induced as myself – I’ve found some interesting links about Nova Scotia’s provincial election on June 13…

Here you go…

Party Leaders
Rodney MacDonald – Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives
Darrell Dexter – Nova Scotia New Democrats
Francis Mackenzie – Nova Scotia Liberals
Nick Wright – Nova Scotia Greens

Results of the August 11, 2003 Election
PC – 25 (36.33%)
NDP – 15 (31.01%)
Liberal – 12 (31.44%)
Other – 0 (1.22%)

Legislature at disolution
PC – 25
NDP – 15
Liberal – 10
Independent – 1
Vacant – 1

Election Links
– Nova Scotia Election Blog
– CBC Nova Scotia Votes 2006
– CBC Nova Scotia Votes 2003
– NS Elections Constituency Maps
– Interactive MLA Profiles
– Halifax Chronicle Herald