daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

Check out this great Star Wars vid. Thanks to holtopia for the linkage.

In the spirit of keeping daveberta up to date and interesting, I have changed the poll.

The results of the first ‘unresponsible polling’ poll are:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a letter to Calgary Sun columnist Paul Jackson regarding one of his columns about newly elected Calgary MLA’s Dave Taylor, David Swann, and Harry Chase. I’ve posted my letter and a link to the column, so you can also read it.

First Letter

‘March 2, 2005

Dear Mr. Jackson,

Yesterday, I read your column “Taylor-made” published in the Calgary Sun.

Though I am very glad to see that you are impressed by Mr. Taylor, I take issue with your comments regarding Mr. Swann and Mr. Chase.

In the column, you stated that “[m]y preconceived ideas of David Swann and Harry Chase proved bang on, though. Simply put, on every issue whether Kyoto or health care, Swann and Chase are utterly out-of-touch with the average Alberta voter.”

Now, you may not agree with the type of politics or policies which Mr. Swann and Mr. Chase support, but to say that they “are utterly out-of-touch with the average Alberta voter” seems to be a pretty bold statement. Perhaps they are out-of-touch with the average Conservative voter (probably because they are Liberals), but considering that less than 50% of Albertans voted in the last election, it would seem to me that it would be very hard to clearly define what the opinions of the “Alberta voter” are. I highly doubt that the majority of Albertans have a monolithic unified stance on every issue. In fact, I would dare say that many Albertans have many different opinions on many different issues.

As the MLA’s for Calgary Mountain View and Varsity, it is not their mandate to be in touch “with the average Alberta voter,” but to be in touch with the average Mountain View and Varsity voter.

Also, your comment that “the provincial Liberals haven’t been a force in Alberta politics since the First World War” is just blatantly false. In the 1955 election, Harper Prowse led the Alberta Liberals to an astoundingly large opposition for the time against Ernest Manning’s Social Credit Government.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the Alberta Liberals were on the verge of forming government. You may remember the 1989 provincial election which saw Ralph Klein nearly defeated by Liberal Candidate Gib Clark in the Calgary Elbow riding. In 1993, the Alberta Liberals, led by Laurence Decore, received 39% of the popular vote across Alberta and elected 32 MLA’s (compared to 44% and 61 seats for the Klein Tories). So, the statement that “the provincial Liberals haven’t been a force in Alberta politics since the First World War” is just plain incorrect.

I hope that in further columns, you will not only take an objective journalistic look at your column, but also consult historical facts (All of the historical information I provided in this email can easily be found either on the internet or your local library).

Sincerely,

David ******
Edmonton, Alberta

cc: Mr. Rick Bell
Ms. Licia Corbella
Mr. Guy Huntingford’

Read the column here!

As of 12 days later, I’ve received no response from Mr. Jackson or the Calgary Sun.

(I’ve just written another letter to Mr. Jackson and will post it soon.)

well, what do you think about the overhaul?

New colours.
New header.
More funk?

Ignore the last post please… i’m back… i never really left…

I decided that I wanted to “funk” up my blog a bit, the funky ‘897’ above is the result… once I finally figure out HTML, then watch out…

Now… to politics…

Rich Vivone, the publisher of Insight into Government suggests that the PC Leadership race to replace Ralph Klein would be a little more interesting if 3 new people would join.

The names Vivone suggests are:

– Former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning.
– Current Finance Minister & Drumheller-Stettler MLA (since 1987) Shirley McClellan (awful, awful picture…).
– Calgary Southeast Conservative MP Jason Kenny.

I must say, I agree with Vivone. The current race, though it may have the potential to be nastily entertaining, looks pretty boring. Woo hoo. Jim Dinning… (insert extreme sarcasm here)

I get the feeling that Mr. Dinning is going to be the ‘Paul Martin’ of the Tory Leadership race – the former Finance Minister who ‘tamed the budget’ and ‘will reinvest in our province’ – the ‘it’s time to do politics differently’ establishment candidate. (Plus, a minority government would do Alberta good!)

The 26th Session of the Alberta Legislature continued this week with Premier Klein and Transport Minister Lyle Oberg ducking and dodging opposition questions about the Governments privately owned fleet of airplanes. According to Oberg, Ministers, who are all free to use the planes, operate on the honour system when filing in the flight logs…. no accountability, no transparency…only the honour system….

It got even more interesting this week when Liberal Opposition Leader Kevin Taft questioned whether the Government was using the planes to jet corporate lobbyists around the province.

According to Taft’s Press Release:

“information obtained from the government’s flight manifests which details one R. Love flying from Calgary to Edmonton and Edmonton to Fort MacMurray on March 29, 2004. These flights were taken the same day as a press conference about the Fort MacMurray oilsands railway service in Fort MacMurray.

Rod Love was working as a consultant at the time for the Athabasca Oilsands Transportation Corporation. His primary role was lobbying the government to invest over $300 million into the project.”

Of course, this is referring to Premier Klein’s longtime political advisor and current Chief of Staff, Rod Love.

Wow, who knew that being Premier of Alberta meant you could fly your buddies around in taxpayer funded planes?!?!

taking a break from posting for a bit, hope to post more soon.

D : )

Thanks to Holly for the link!

I thought that some of you may appreciate this.

wow, does this suprise anyone???

Today, at the risk being showed up by another wonderful blog (click here), I’ve added some new features to daveberta (consider it my centennial gift to you!).

One of the new features I’ve added is what I call ‘unresponsible polling’ (on the sidebar). I plan to change the topic every couple of weeks. If you have any good ideas for new polls, feel free to email me and let me know! Vote early and vote often!

Also, I’ve added a new ‘counter’ to my website. So, I know that you’re watching! (or not watching :P)

For those of you interested in hearing about last weekend’s Federal Liberal Policy Convention in Ottawa:
Nic at GoPolitical, and CalgaryGrit both have some great stories. Enjoy!

D 🙂

okay… some of you may disagree with this…

You are 9% geek

OK, so maybe you ain’t a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you’re probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

The first session of the 26th Alberta Legislature began last week with a showing of the deep split within the Rural and Urban MLA’s in the Tory Caucus.

March 1 – MLA’s from all parties acclaimed rural Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Ken Kowalski as the Speaker. But suprise came when the majority Tories dumped incumbent Deputy Speaker and urban Calgary McCall MLA Shiraz Shariff in favour of rural Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Richard Marz.

March 3 – The majority rural Tory Caucus denied the lone Alliance MLA, Paul Hinman, the permission to make a statment in the Assembly (All MLA’s who are not members of the governing party or the Official Opposition require the unanimous concent of the Legislature in order to make statements, which is usually agreed to). The Liberal and ND Caucuses along with some members of the Tory caucus voted in favour of allowing Mr. Hinman to speak, but the loud shouts of “nay” from the majority rural Tory drowned out any “yea” sayers. It seems they are pretty committed to keep him from speaking in the House – to the detrement of the voters of Cardston-Taber-Warner, who elected him.

The strength of the rural Tories was bolstered following last November’s provincial election, when Kevin Taft‘s Alberta Liberals routed the Urban Tories in Edmonton, Lethbridge, and 3 downtown Calgary ridings.

Tory Urban/Rural Split

Pre-2004 Election (73 Tory MLA’s)
Rural MLA’s – 36
Urban MLA’s – 37

Post-2004 Election (62 Tory MLA’s)
Rural MLA’s – 32
Urban MLA’s – 28

It seems like this could just be the begining of a nasty show-down between the ‘city tories’ and ‘country tories’ leading up to the expected leadership race to replace 13-year leader Premier Ralph Klein. Two of the rumoured front-runners in the race include the very urban former Calgary MLA and current Transalta Power Executive Jim Dinning; and the right-wing former ‘Senator-in-waiting’ and current MLA for Foothills-Rocky View Ted Morton (Morton ran on the slogan ‘More Alberta, Less Ottawa).

Final Note – I attended the first Question Period of the new Legislature last Thursday and I’d like to thank Edmonton Rutherford MLA & Liberal Finance Critic Rick Miller for the kind introduction. Thanks Rick!

for all you U of A students out there – Student Union Elections are on Wednesday, March 9 & Thursday, March 10 – POLLING STATIONS ALL OVER CAMPUS! VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!!!!!

Check out info on ALL the candidates and the Health Plan Referendum HERE!!!!

well, this is looking like it’s gonna be my 3rd ‘all nighter’ in a row this week…. can’t…wait…until…saturday…when….i…can….sleep….in…..

and the winner of the ‘most bizarre thing I saw this week award’ is…

Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day by the Young Conservatives of Texas….

i had to post this – it’s from NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division website – very cool interactive map! found it during my research on eastern european security issues.