daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

That was fast.

Even faster than crossing the floor two weeks after your constituents re-elected you… silly David Emerson… even sillier Stephen Harper…

Leave it to the blogosphere to give disgruntled people a soapbox…

For interests sake, here are some of the Vancouver Kingsway facts we posted on Mr. Smith‘s blog…

Election results in Vancouver Kingsway on January 23rd:

Liberal – 20,064
NDP – 15,570
CPC – 8,699
Grn – 1,301
LTN – 277
COM – 162
CAP – 143
M-L – 69

History of electoral representation in Vancouver Kingsway:

1953-58 – CCF
1958-62 – PC (Dief sweep)
1962-74 – NDP
1974-79 – Liberal
1979-88 – NDP
(dissolved from 1988-1997)
1997-2006 – Liberal

Well, that was interesting…

– David Emerson crossing the floor this soon after the election has to set some sort of record. He’s like Belinda Stronach, except with integrity and substance. (UPDATE: Sorry to clarify: HAD integrity).

– No Deputy Prime Minister.

– Peter Mackay in Foreign Affairs.

– Other than Stockwell Day in Public Safety and unelected Michel Fortier in Public Works, it seems like afairly moderate and predictable cabinet. Harper had to stick Day somewhere, but we still haven’t figured out the logic in appoint Fortier.

– Alberta’s picks are Rona Ambrose for Environment, Jim Prentice for Indian Affairs, and Monte Solberg for Citizenship and Immigration.

– As far as we can tell, they haven’t announced any of the Parliamentary Secretaries, which we would assume means that they will not be members of the Privy Council (as was the case in the previous Liberal Government).

We’re kind of busy right now, so we’ll comment more soon… but the entire list can be found here.

We have to admit we’re amazed at the destruction that has occurred after the widespread publication of the now infamous cartoons Muhammad cartoons – originally posted in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten depicting Muhammad (click here to see the cartoons) and were republished in newspapers across Europe and in New Zealand.

Last week, Syrian protesters set fire to the Danish Embassy in Damascus and then proceeded to march 4 miles to the Norwegian Embassy (what did Norway have to do with it?). As well, the Danish Embassy in Beruit, Lebanon was burnt down by angry protesters (see more pictures here). In Jakarta, Indonesia, the Danish Embassy was stormed by angry protesters. As well, the German cultural centre and the European Union offices in the Gaza Strip were also attacked.

Though we obviously don’t share the anger of the protesters (we’re not finding any Embassies to burn), we agree that the cartoons did lack a certain amount of taste.

We find it very very curious that spontaneous protests of any kind could happen in strong dictatorships such as Syria. Not only does the lack of security provided by the Syrian government around the Embassies suggest silent support for the protesters actions, but it also sends a strong message to the international community about Syria‘s committment to protecting foreign diplomats in their country.

Is this surprising? Not really.

As well, as was mentioned by a guest caller on the CBC Radio program Cross Country Checkup this afternoon, the outrage towards the Danish people signals a huge double standard among leaders in the Muslim world – many whom called upon calm following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and that the western world should not blame all Arabs for the attack. Why should the Danish Embassies be attacked for the work of an individual cartoon drawer? They shouldn’t.

We’re not sure if any of our ramblings actually makes sense, but we would like prescribe a huge dose of “chill out” to all those angered enough to go and burn down foreign Embassies in their area.

Hopefully things will “chill out” and not let this international controversy effect the beginning of next week’s Olympic Games in Torino, Italy.

Props to our good friend Howard for passing along this interesting article written by Tom Kent of Policy Options Magazine and the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

The article, titled The Pearson Decade: How Defeat Fortold Victory, tells the story of how a previous Liberal dynasty fell and how it was rebuilt under the politically chaotic but productive years of Lester Pearson.

You should read it. It’s quite interesting.

This is what happens when internet search engines conspire with the Chinese government for profit…

(Since google owns blogger, we’re really hoping this blog doesn’t get deleted…)

(100% props to Anonymotron for passing this on to us – if we go down, we’re bringing him down with us!)

New news on the “other leadership race!”

Yes folks, the inevitable Alberta PC Leadership race which has been unofficially “on” for over a year.

Sources close to the Alberta Legislature have informed us that the Tory establishment has struck an “ad hoc” committee to decide the rules of the race once Premier Ralph Klein retires (it is unknown if this “ad hoc” committee will resemble an “ad hoc rainbow coalition”).

Members of this “ad hoc” committee include such Tory stalwarts as PC Party President Doug Graham, PC Executive Director, former MLA and MP, and former Chief of Staff to Klein, Peter Elzinga, Provincial Campaign Chair and former MLA Marvin Moore, PC VP Finance (North) Gary Campbell, PC Budget Director Harold Milavsky, and long-time party insiders Skip MacDonald, Dave Williams, Dave Cameron, and Emmanuel (Sonny) Mirth.

It is yet to be revealed what terms of reference this shady backroom group will be operating under.

In the spirit of our Letters to Paul Jackson (Part 1 & Part 2) at the Calgary Sun, here is an email we wrote to Tom Olsen of the Calgary Herald this morning…

Dear Mr. Olsen,

I would like to thank you for your interesting and insightful commentary on the heath care debate currently raging in this province.

It is your columns that continue to strengthen my belief that the need for a change in government in Alberta is needed now more than ever.

It’s not easy having a “different opinion” or a “non-Tory opinion” in Alberta (i’m assuming you’ve never had to face this problem), but columns like yours continue to strengthen my resolve. It also increases my fondness for our Opposition MLA’s, who have to put up daily with attack columns like yours.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers and Salutations,

UPDATE! We’re very pleased to announce that Mr. Olsen has responded to us!

From his response, we’ve discovered that either: 1. He didn’t read the email, or 2. he shares our sense of sarcasm.

Either way, here it is…

David!
I will!!
Thanks for your note!
Tom

It’s been a busy week here in the land of daveberta!

First, we’re still intrigued by Gerard Kennedy and have sent him an email urging him to think about running for the Federal Liberal leadership (it may force us to renew our lapsed membership).

Second, on Monday afternoon, we joined a couple hundered other Univeristy of Albertans in listening to a lecture by the always articulate and wonderful Stephen Lewis. This was the third time we’ve seen Mr. Lewis speak and he did not disappoint. He was just as moving and powerful as the first two times.

Third, we recieved our “Ralphbucks”/rebate/prosperity/screw-you-Canada cheque yesterday. Woopie! $400. Though we still think it’s a pretty irresponsible way of using tax-payers dollars, we will gladly take it (we’re planning to donate at least half to charity).

Fourth, yesterday, we met with the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and current Swedish Ambassador to Brazil, Margareta Winberg. She was on campus speaking in the Arts building to a group of about 12 people. She was speaking Swedish at least 90% of the time, so we didn’t understand most of what she had to say.

Fifth, we’re now addicted to the wonderful Aqua Teen Hunger Force. We blame Henderson.

That is all. You may now continue your day.

Though there has been much talk about potential Liberal leadership candidates since Paul Martin’s abdication on January 23rd, there has been one name that has intrigued us: Gerard Kennedy.

Though we’d never heard of Kennedy before our good friend Bart wrote about him, we must admit that so far we like what we hear.

Being a strong centre-left Ontario MPP (for Parkdale-High Park) and Provincial Minister of Education, Kennedy could off an interesting alternative to the centre-right business Liberal leadership candidates (Stronach, Brison, etc).

Here are some of the things we find appealing about him…

– He’s young (mid-40’s – not a senior citizen) and bilingual.

– He was born in Manitoba, attended the Universities of Trent and Alberta.

– He founded the Edmonton Food Bank before moving on to join the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. He was the Executive Director of this Food Bank for ten years.

– He placed a strong second to Dalton McGuinty in the last Ontario Liberal Leadership race.

– He could add fresh blood and energy into the leadership race.

– He was not attached to the former Martin or Chrétien regimes.

This race needs strong candidates with liberal credentials. Mr. Kennedy may just be the person to offer those credentials.

We hope he strongly considers putting his hat in to the ring.

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I hope we’re not the only one getting a kick out of the Alberta Government’s praise of Brokeback Mountain…

Made in Alberta productions net four Golden Globes

Brokeback Mountain to shine at Oscars

Some people would suggest that the “West” has more than one political ideology in some ridiculous attempt to paint the “West” as anything but a monolithic Conservative homogeny! 😛

Here’s a short exert from the most excellent recent edition of Mark Lisac‘s Insight into Government publication:

“The Conservatives won the most seats in each of the four western provinces and picked up enough in Ontario and Quebec to give them the biggest representation in the House of Commons 124 seats out of 308.

Look closer and it isn’t so simple.

Albertans voted 65% Conservative and gave the party every seat in the province.

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Conservatives took the most seats but the popular vote was a saw-off; the Conservatives won a three-way split with less than half the popular vote. The split was even more pronounced in British Columbia, where the Conservatives won 17 of 36 seats with 37.3% of the popular vote.

Alberta is in. The rural Prairies and the B.C. Interior are in. The West as a whole is far too complex for simplistic characterization. Big parts of the region don’t look much different from the rest of the country.

The results in B.C. closely matched those in Ontario, where the Conservatives won 35.1% of the popular vote. Ontario is just as much Conservative country as B.C., and B.C. is just as much Liberal and NDP country as Ontario. In fact, the Conservatives picked up a bigger share of votes in Toronto (23.8%) than they did in Vancouver (22.1%).

All the people talking about the West have to define more closely what they think the West means. The arrival of westerners in government has one huge symbolic effect: Alberta and the Prairies can enjoy an emotional sense of recognition a feeling that they count. The election as whole delivered other, perhaps even stronger messages: the separatist cause in Quebec faltered, thanks to the Conservatives hard work; the divergence between rural and urban interests deepened; Canadians demonstrated once again a preference for balanced representation by at least five parties, a message the politicians may gradually and grudgingly have to accept.”

Mark Lisac is also the author of Alberta Politics Uncovered: Taking Back our Province, which we highly recommend to anyone interested in Alberta politics.

Last Thursday, we attended a very interesting lecture sponsered by the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the University of Alberta titled “Back to the Future? Examining the Election.”

The lecture included presentations by Gerald Baier of the University of British Columbia; Claude Denis of the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa; and Steve Patten from the University of Alberta.

All of the speakers had some very interesting insight on last week’s election and the implecations and non-implications it may have on the near and far reaching future of Canadian politics.

Though they all had a number of interesing comments, there were two that stuck out for us:

– When you take a look at it, the Conservative victory was fairly unimpressive. Even with the Gomery Inquery, a mid-election announcement of an RCMP investigation, and the disaterous Liberal campaign, the Conservatives were only able to increase their popular vote by 6% (roughly half of this coming from Quebec) and increase their seat count by 26.

The fact that they weren’t able to drastically increase their support under these circumstances would suggest that perhaps the Conservatives have reached a ceiling of support under their current leadership.

– Nationally and provincially in Alberta, Conservative support is still lower than the combined Reform/PC vote in 1997 and Alliance/PC vote in 2000.

Here’s a spiffy little chart we’ve drawn up…

Interesting…

…now another potential Liberal leadership candidate drops out of the race…

No word yet if Mr. Raymaker will accept an ambassador post during the dying days of the Martin regime.

One of the things we’ve been pondering in the week since the Federal Election delivered us the election of a Conservative Government, is the effects it may have on the current Alberta PC Leadership Race.

Though the race to replace Ralph Klein as leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Association has been on for sometime, the election of a Calgary-based Conservative Prime Minister throws a new dynamic into the race.

For instance, Dr. Ted Morton, the MLA for Foothills-Rockyview, Alberta segregationist, and darkhorse in the race has used every opportunity to promote his leadership campaign through vehement and slobberingly rabid attacks on our Federal Liberal overlords in Ottawa.

Running on the slogan “More Alberta, Less Ottawa,” Morton struck fear into Alberta‘s Tory elite by winning a hotly contested Tory nomination for the 2004 election. He was elected.

But will his supporters still be enthralled and mesmerized with attacks against a Calgary-based Conservative Ottawa? Can Morton shift the focus of his campaign against Ottawa or has Dr. Morton revealed himself to be a one-trick pony?

Does he actually have the substance to carry a “real” issues-based campaign? One only has to look at Dr. Morton’s maiden speech to the Alberta Legislature to wonder if he has the ability to run a campaign based on “real issues” (ie: Health Care, Post-Secondary Education, the Environment, Agriculture, etc).

Though we’re sure the change in government in Ottawa will have a major effect on the efforts of the ConnecTed group, we’re undecided about its effect on the other leadership candidates: Paul Mar…er.. Jim Dinning, Ed Stelmach, Lyle Oberg, Dave Hancock, and Mark Norris.

The major question we’re asking is: if the “West is in now” as Prime Minister-Elect Stephen Harper announced in the late hours of January 23, is Ted Morton now out?