daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

For those of you interested, the University of Alberta Students’ Union will be beginning their annual Revolutionary Speakers Series next week!

The first speaker of the 2005-06 series will be Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon (on October 18th!).

Dr. Homer-Dixon is the author of The Ingenuity Gap, and Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto.

His lecture, titled: The Ingenuity Challenge: Surviving the 21st Century, will epically cross the following terrain…

“Global warming. Emergent diseases. Energy shortages. Infoglut. International financial instability. Mega-terrorism. Are the problems we’re confronting as individuals, societies, and a species becoming more difficult? If so, can we solve them? Thomas Homer-Dixon will address these questions by looking at how societies adapt to complex change. The 21st century promises to be among the most perilous in humankind’s brief history, but it will also offer unprecedented opportunities for renewal and social creativity.”

This will be a great lecture, so make sure to come and check it out!

We just found out last night that next week we’ll be attending the Canada 2005 Conference as a guest of the Edmonton Journal. Though we may have many issues with the general declining quality of the CanWest newspaper chain, we thank the Journal for their generous payment of our delegate fee. 🙂

It should be an interesting event. You can check out the program here.

So, as you can see (after you check out the program), the political star-studdednes of this conference will make for some VERY interesting blogging. Be prepared for multi-day blog action next week.

The political nerd in us can’t wait to chat it up with the likes of Bob Rae, Lorne Calvert, Ralph Klein, Don Getty, Jeffery Simpson, Allan Blakeney, and Grant Devine… more soon.

This evening, we attended a reception/lecture care of the University of Alberta School of Business at the Westin Hotel. The evening, which hosted guest lecturer Dr. Mark Jaccard of the School of Resource and Environment Management at Simon Fraser University, was interesting.

Dr. Jaccard made a hour-long presentation titled “Sustainable Fossil Fuels: How Alberta’s fossil fuels can be this century’s cheapest source of clean energy.” As he flew through the hour-long lecture fairly fast, it was very clear that the entire evening was a sales pitch for his new book.

As we discussed with fellow attendees at the reception following the lecture (hosted by EPCOR), our definition of ‘sustainability’ and that of Dr. Jaccard were clearly two different entities (ours being a source of energy that will last potentially forever-hence, sustainable, and his being one which would last for about 100 years-maybe). Also, his seemingly pro-nuclear undertones were fairly alarming.

All things aside, we did have a nice conversation at the reception with Tory MP Ken Epp and Alberta Liberal MLA Bill Bonko, who were also around to check out the show.

Also, the free Chardonnay was nice.

People who take their blogs too seriously are knobs. We do it for entertainment. Once it isn’t fun anymore, we’re gonna shut this thingy down.

Luckily, it’s still providing us with ample entertainment.

Aside from floating the idea of a K-14 education system, it looks like Advanced Ed Minister Dave Hancock is setting up a leadership website here (it also has a better picture than this one).

Also, for those of you who haven’t yet checked it out, Nicole Martel is running for the Federal Liberal nomination in Edmonton East and has set up a website with a cool blog (some you may know of Nicole from her former blog: GoPolitical.ca – which is now automatically linked to her new site). Currently, Nicole is running unopposed for the nomination, but rumours are floating around that Dan McLennan, President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, and potentally former Edmonton Mayor Jan Reimer (Mayor from 1989 to 1995) may take a run for the Liberal nomination in Edmonton East.

So far in Edmonton East, the Tories have renominated the wanna-be President of Turks & Caicos, Peter Goldring, and the ND‘s have nominated former coordinator for the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters, Arlene Chapman.

We’ve known Nicole for a number of years and can definitely say with extreme confidence that she will make a great candidate come the next Federal election.

We’re currently sitting here in SUB looking at the paper that will not end. The sheer suckiness of it is sucking the life forces out of us. Literally!

We started it last Wednesday and don’t feel like it’s EVER going to end. It’s not a big paper by any stretch of the imagination. We planned for it to only be 7-8 pages. But, like a mole in a hole, we are approaching the eight pages with no end in sight. Arg! We really dislike these small paper types. All we want to do is write our little heart out, and they restrict us… anyway…

We’re sitting here in SUB and we can only be described as a refugee from our massive pot-headed housemate. We’re like the Palestinians of Garneau! (kidding…) We have nothing against mari-ju-an-a on its own, it’s the moron on the other side is the problem. 24/7 can be a little overwhelming. It’s like living with Cheech or Chong (the non-cool one-the one that wasn’t on Nash Bridges). Our friend thinks he’s a dealer. We don’t think he’s smart enough to pull that off.

Anyway… for the record, the wireless connection here in SUB sucks in a major way. So far, we’ve been sitting here for over 3 hours and have had to reconnect over 20 times. We’re willing to accept that it could be our lame PC laptop, but we’re not ruling out that it’s the fault of that shady organization known as the ‘Students’ Union.’ Shady bunch, indeed. 😉 Maybe we’ll write an epic story for this blog soon. We’ll see… Anyway, back to the paper mill…

ADDENUM 1.1: We see that the scoundrel of Calgary himself, Mr. C. Grit has linked us up in a post again. Props for the linkage, Mr. Grit. You are a lady and a gentleman.

ADDENUM 1.2: For those of you interested in heckling, Mr. Peter Mackay will be on the U of A campus on Thursday speaking about how he gave up the chance to be Nova Scotia’s Premier or something.

arg. papers. mindshattering of late.

At least an hour of wasted time here.

Also, there’s a new Strongbad email.

We meant to post this a while ago…

For those of you who haven’t seen last month’s edition of Alberta Venture Magazine, odds have been placed on successors to King Ralph’s throne*…

Here they are…

Jim Dinning (former MLA Calgary-Lougheed): 2-1
Dave Hancock (MLA Edmonton-Whitemud): 5-1
Iris Evans (MLA Sherwood Park): 16-1
Ted Morton (MLA Foothills-Rockyview): 8-1
Mark Norris (defeated MLA Edmonton-McClung): 9-1
Lyle Oberg (MLA Strathmore-Brooks): 8-1
Ed Stelmach (MLA Ft. Saskatchewan-Vegreville): 4-1

Obviously, many of the rumours being flushed through the grapevine come our way and trying to filter through them is a definite challenge.

But, if the rumours have a trend, the trend is:

1. Klein will be gone sooner than later (emphasis on *sooner*). Many of the rumours hint of recent and past health problems coming to roost. This shouldn’t be surprising when speaking of a career politician in his mid-60s (stress, age, history of drinking problems, etc).

2. Though it’s very early in the race, it’s looking to be a Dinning/Stelmach race. If Dinning can take it on the first ballot, then he’s got it. If not, look for Stelmach to be a force to be reckoned with on the second ballot. We’ve also heard rumours that the Godfather of Alberta Conservative politics, Speaker Ken Kowalski, has endorsed Mr. Stelmach’s campaign… this is huge when it comes to pulling the rural PC vote.

3. Don’t underestimate the darkhorse of the race: Dr. Ted Morton. Our sources deep in the Calgary Tory establishment tell us of a right-wing insugency with hundreds of pro-Morton PC memberships being sold. This is a scary thought.

4. Don’t forget that in many ways, this leadership race is a battle between the rural and urban factions within the Alberta Tory caucus. There are some pretty deep divisions. Look for them to manifest into some fairly entertaining firework shows in the coming months as the urban and rural leadership candidates begin to seriously position themselves publicly.

*The odds were produced by an anonymous panel of seven Albertans drawn from business, labour, academia, and journalism.

(Opening scene: two beautiful maiden’s bathing in pristine pools of Alberta crude)

Maiden #1: “ahh. To be an advertizing firm in oil-rich Alberta.”

Maiden #2: “Indeed.”

(End scene)

Watch out Paul. Stephen. Jack.

There’s a new political force to be reckoned with.

Read the rest here.

Lawyer, n. One skilled in the circumvention of the law.

Theories are always very thin and insubstantial, experience only is tangible.

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.

To save time is to lengthen life.

Opportunity knocked. My doorman threw him out.

A full cup must be carried steadily.

well, we’re glad we don’t have to write an entire new post about this.

To see our opinion, click here, and replace ‘provincial’ with ‘federal,’ ‘$400’ with ‘$133,’ and ‘Ralph Klein’s Tories’ with ‘Paul Martin’s Liberals,’ etc, etc, etc…

Just in case any of you missed the news from last week, it turns out that Alberta’s glorious and beloved leader, Premier Ralph Klein, is planning on missing most of the upcoming session of the Alberta Legislature to continue his 2005 Lame-Duck Farwell Tour.

While Klein spent quite a bit of time traveling through the US, Europe, and Africa this summer, he’ll be continuing his tour in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia when the Legislature is expected to resume for a 2-3 week fall session in November. Though we’re not quite sure what exactly the purpose of Glorious Leader’s trip is, we can bet that it’ll have something to do with the reason the Harper Conservative’s will lose the next election.

Though it’s no secret that our dearest Premier holds not much more than arrogant contempt for the role of the elected assembly, he must think that by divvying up $400 rebate cheques to every Albertan, he somehow doesn’t have to show up. Wow.

From drunkenly kicking homeless people to verbally attacking women MLA’s, to now skipping out on session, this Premier continues to give Albertans no shortage of reasons to be embarrassed about him.

But, if anything, it should be entertaining to watch the candidates for the 2006 Tory Leadership Race kick the bejesus out of each other in their scramble for the spotlight when Klein’s skip’s town this fall.