This week on the Daveberta Podcast, guest hosts Lianne Bell, Kyla Fisher and Janelle Morin discuss the #MeToo movement and how it has impacted them and the latest on Alberta’s political landscape, including Stephen Mandel’s win in the Alberta Party leadership race. They also answer some of the questions you submitted to us.
This week’s guest co-hosts.
And Lianne and Janelle lead the second entry of our new regular segment – So you want to be a candidate – where we try to share helpful tips and advice for aspiring politicians hoping to run in the 2019 election.
Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and wherever you find podcasts online. We’d love to hear what you think of this episode, so feel free to leave a comment on this blog, Facebook or Twitter or send us an email at podcast@daveberta.ca.
Also, it would be a big help if you could leave a review where you download this podcast and share this episode with a friend.
And once again, we are deeply thankful to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality.
Photo: Liberal Party leader Kevin Taft speaks to a rally of supporters on the weekend before the 2008 election. Taft, in my opinion, was one of the best premiers Alberta never had.
March 3, 2008 was an optimistic day to be a Liberal Party supporter, at least up until 8:22 p.m that night. The polls had only closed for 22 minutes when the news channels began declaring that the long in the tooth Progressive Conservatives would form another majority government in Alberta.
The front page of the Edmonton Journal on March 4, 2008 (Photo originally shared by Les Stelmach on Facebook).
It was a heartbreaking loss for those of us who were involved in the Alberta Liberal Party campaign that year.
I had been involved with the Liberal Party since the early 2000s and played a behind the scenes role in that year’s election campaign.
While I spent a considerable amount of time knocking on doors for candidates in Edmonton, I was also working with a group of MLAs, lawyers and former PC cabinet ministers on what would have been the plan to transition the Liberals into government if the party had won that election ten years ago today.
The whole project felt like a silly effort at 8:22 p.m. that night, but there were moments in the campaign where it did feel like Albertans were looking for a change.
After a divisive PC leadership race and a surprise win in the Calgary-Elbow by-election, it looked as if the Liberals led by Edmonton MLA Kevin Taft were about to build significant gains after their Calgary breakthrough in the 2004 election.
The Liberals did make gains in Calgary that night, electing five MLAs including rookies Kent Hehr and Darshan Kang, but the party suffered huge losses in its traditional base of Edmonton. Liberal MLAs were defeated in seats the party had held since the 1980s and 1990s and gains they had made in the city in the previous election were competely erased. When the dust settled, there were only 3 Liberal MLAs left in the capital city.
It was also bittersweet night for our opponents in the New Democratic Party campaign. Star candidate Rachel Notley was elected in Edmonton-Strathcona, retaining the seat held by former party leader Raj Pannu. But the party’s caucus was reduced to two after MLAs David Eggen and Ray Martin were swept away in the PC’s Edmonton wave.
It really felt like Edmonton that night.
The Progressive Conservative Party’s new leader, Ed Stelmach, had been underestimated by just about everybody inside and outside his party. Even as he led a party that had been in power for almost 40 years, his campaign tipped their hat to an energetic campaign south of the border by using the slogan “Change that works for Albertans.”
For those involved in the PC campaign, it was a remarkable landslide. And the last big landslide of the party’s more than four consecutive decades in office.
Stelmach ended up being a fairly decent premier, who I believe history will treat kindly, but landslide victories like these can be a doubled-edged sword. The large PC caucus of 72 MLAs, which included rookie MLAs Alison Redford and Raj Sherman, proved to be too unruly to manage. And the politics of a bitter conservative establishment festered as aspiring leadership contenders jockeyed for power. It was less than four years later that Stelmach resigned from the Premier’s Office.
The 2008 election was a real formative political period for me. Despite the disappointing and depressing outcome, I learned so much from my time working with the dedicated and passionate Albertans involved that campaign. It was a real honour.
To this day, I think Albertans were looking for change on March 3, 2008. It just took them another seven years to decide that the change they were looking for wouldn’t come from inside the PC Party.
But when talking about his decision to run in the new Taber-Warner district, rather than challenging his caucus colleague Dave Schneiderfor the UCP nomination in the new Cardston-Siksika district, he made another statement that caught my attention.
“…the NDP have put us in a bad position in this southern part here, in that when the boundaries were redrawn, they split Cardston-Taber-Warner into two different ridings.”
The Cardston-Taber-Warner district Hunter currently represents will see significant changes when the next election is called. While he may have legitimate concerns about the redistribution of the electoral boundaries in southern Alberta, it is misleading to blame the NDP for putting him “…in a bad position…”
The new district boundaries for the 2019 election were drawn by a commission composed of an independent chairperson (Justice Myra Bielby), two NDP Caucus appointees (Bruce McLeod of Acme and Jean Munn of Calgary) and two Wildrose Caucus appointees (Laurie Livingstone of Calgary and Gwen Day of Carstairs). The commission was appointed in October 2016 and held public hearings and received hundreds of submissions from Albertans throughout 2017.
Of the Wildrose appointees, Livingstone supported the final report recommending the new electoral map, including the changes to Hunter’s district, and Day submitted a minority report opposing changes to rural district boundaries.
The process used to redraw Alberta’s electoral boundaries certainly has its flaws (I will write more about this soon), but with Hunter’s own party’s handpicked appointees deeply involved in the process it is misleading for him to blame the party in power for changes he might not like.
Ed Stelmach, Danielle Smith, Kevin Taft, and Alison Redford.
Photo: Ed Stelmach (elected leader of the PC Party in 2006), Danielle Smith (elected leader of the Wildrose Alliance in 2009), Kevin Taft (elected leader of the Liberal Party in 2004), and Alison Redford (elected leader of the PC Party leader in 2011).
Following the announcement this week of the results of the Alberta Party leadership race, I thought it would be interesting to look at the voter participation in party leadership races in Alberta over the past twenty years.
The largest participation in a party leadership race in the past two decades, and in Alberta’s history, took place during the Progressive Conservative leadership race in 2006. More than 144,000 members voted in the race and it is believed that more than 200,000 memberships were sold. The party had a very open membership sales policy, which allowed any Albertan to purchase a membership at their local voting station on the day of the vote. This vote chose Ed Stelmach to replace Ralph Klein as PC Party leader and Premier of Alberta.
The 2011Liberal Party leadership vote, which selected Raj Sherman as party leader, used an open membership system. This allowed any Albertan to participate in the vote without having to actually purchase a party membership.
The 2014New Democratic Party leadership vote that selected Rachel Notley to replace Brian Mason used a hybrid one-member one-vote system which allocated 25 percent of the total vote to affiliate organizations. The lack of clarity around how many organizations took part in the vote and who they may have supported makes it unclear how many individual votes were actually cast in that leadership election.
The 2017United Conservative Party leadership vote was conducted by delegates who were elected by party members in each district. The party membership consisted of new UCP members, as well as individuals who had been members of the Wildrose Party and Progressive Conservative Party until that point.
Acclamations occurred in the 2000 and 2004 NDP leadership contests, the 2001 Liberal Party leadership contest, and the 2003 Alberta Alliance leadership contest.
Mandel was elected on the first ballot with 66 percent of the vote, defeating Calgary lawyer Kara Levis, who placed second with 18 percent, and Calgary-South East MLA Rick Fraser, who placed third with 16 percent. 4,613 of the party’s 6,443 members participated in the vote.
Mandel served as mayor of Edmonton from 2004 to 2013 and as a city councillor from 2001 to 2004. He represented the Edmonton-Whitemud district as a Progressive Conservative MLA from 2014 to 2015 and was Minister of Health until his defeat in 2015 to New Democrat Dr. Bob Turner.
He has said he will run in the next election in the Edmonton-McClung district, currently represented by New Democratic Party MLA Lorne Dach.
The Alberta Party currently has three Calgary MLAs in the 87 MLA Legislative Assembly. It is widely rumoured that lone-PC MLA Richard Starke could cross the floor to join the Alberta Party caucus this spring. Starke was endorsed by Mandel in last year’s PC Party leadership race.
While the Alberta Party has framed itself as a “centrist” alternative to the two main political parties in the province – the NDP and the UCP – the party’s policies reveal it to be a conservative party in a similar vein as the old PC Party.
Alberta Advantage Party acclaims leader
Marilyn Burns
Meanwhile, much further to the fringe populist right, Edmonton lawyer Marilyn Burns has been acclaimed as leader of the anti-UCP Alberta Advantage Party.
A co-founder of the Wildrose Party and vocal critic of the UCP, Burns was the only candidate in the race. She was a candidate for the leadership of the Alberta Alliance Party in 2005 and was a candidate for that party in Stony Plain in the 2004 election.
The party is in the process of registering but is not yet recognized as an official party by Elections Alberta.
Premier Rachel Notley met with steel workers during a tour of the Tenaris Prudential welded pipe mill in Calgary on Feb. 8, 2018. (photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)
Did Alberta win the pipeline war against British Columbia? No, but the great BC wine boycott of 2018 appears to be over.
The pipeline issue has allowed Notley to drape herself in the Alberta flag while highlighting her government’s action on climate change, most notably the phase-out of dirty coal-fired power plants that were generating a significant amount of Alberta’s carbon emissions.
The Alberta-BC dispute was also the first time United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney filled the role traditionally reserved for official opposition leaders in our province: Irrelevance. As Notley led the defence of Alberta’s oil industry, Kenney was left on the sidelines, jumping up and down and waving his hands, while pleading ‘pay attention to me!’
This has been a good issue for Notley. She has been able to solidify herself as a champion of an issue that has near unanimous support in Alberta. While it may not be her New Democratic Party‘s golden ticket to re-election in 2019, it certainly won’t hurt her chances (as slim as they might look).
While public support is divided, opposition to the pipeline in BC remains strong and opponents of the pipeline are planning to converge on Burnaby Mountain for a rally on March 10, 2018, the location of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Burnaby Terminal.
It is still unclear how this will end, but at least we can enjoy an honest glass of BC wine on both sides of the provincial boundary again.
“Hosting the 2018 Cities and Climate Change Science conference gives us the opportunity to share knowledge with other municipalities, while learning, advancing ideas and forming partnerships that will help the world’s cities make progress on climate change,” Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said in a statement when the conference was announced in 2017.
We’re back! After a brief hiatus because Ryan was down south helping Make America Great Again, we are back with a new episode of The Daveberta Podcast.
And Ryan leads our new regular segment – So you want to be a candidate – where we share some helpful tips and advice for aspiring politicians looking to run in the 2019 provincial election.
We’d love to hear what you think of the podcast, so feel free to leave a review where you download it and share the podcast with a friend. And feel free to leave a comment on this blog, Facebook or Twitter or send us an email at podcast@daveberta.ca.
We’d also like to send a huge thanks to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality.
Adam Rozenhart and Dave Cournoyer presenting David Eggen with the Best Cabinet Minister of 2017 Award.
With more than 1,200 votes cast in the Best of Alberta Politics survey, Minister of Education David Eggen came up on top in the Best Cabinet Minister of 2017 category. Adam Rozenhart and I were delighted to visit David Eggen at the Legislative Assembly this month to present him with his award.
Eggen was appointed Minister of Education in May 2015 and has since been a champion for investment in public education infrastructure and creating safe learning environments for all students, including protecting the rights of students to form Gay-Straight Alliances.
According to rdnewsNow.com, Dreeshen is being endorsed by former Progressive Conservative MLA and cabinet minister Luke Ouellette, who represented the district from 2001 to 2012.
The elder Dreeshen’s federal district includes most of the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake provincial district (excluding the town of Sylvan Lake, which is located in the Red Deer-Lacombe federal district). He has represented the district since 2008.
Penhold town councillor Mike Walsh was already planning to challenge MacIntyre for the UCP nomination ahead of the next provincial election. He is now running for UCP nomination to stand in the by-election.
Elsewhere in Alberta, three other candidates have put their names forward for UCP nominations in other districts:
Janice Sarich
Calgary-Fish Creek Cindy Ross is seeking the United Conservative Party nomination in Calgary-Fish Creek. Ross is a math teacher with the Calgary Catholic School District. She will likely be challenging incumbent UCP MLA Richard Gotfried, who was first elected as a PC candidate in 2015.
Calgary-Varsity
John Volponi is seeking the UCP nomination. Volponi is the general manager of West Air CCM. The district is currently represented by cabinet minister and New Democratic Party MLA Stephanie McLean, who has announced her plans to seek re-election in 2019.
This district was represented by Liberal MLA Harry Chase from 2004 to 2012.
Edmonton-Decore
Former PC MLA Janice Sarich is seeking the UCP nomination in this north Edmonton district which she represented from 2008 until she was defeated by New Democrat Chris Neilsen in 2015. Sarich briefly considered running for the federal Conservative nomination in Edmonton-Griesbach until Jan. 2014.
This district is named after former Edmonton mayor and Liberal Party leader Laurence Decore. He represented the district under its former name, Edmonton-Glengarry, from 1989 to 1997.
If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them to the list.
Following former leader Greg Clark’s resignation in Nov. 2017, the race flew largely under the radar of most Alberta politics watchers until former PC cabinet minister and three-term Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel threw his name into the contest. Calgary lawyer and federal Liberal official Kara Levis was the first candidate to join the race in late 2017.
By all accounts the race has been civil and the interactions between the three leadership campaigns have been friendly and cordial.
Membership sales for the leadership vote were cut off yesterday at noon. Voting will take place online from Feb. 25 to 27, 2018.
It has been one week since the Alberta Government began its great BC wine boycott and supplies of Okanagan wine are closer to running dry in Alberta’s privately owned liquor stores.
While Premier Rachel Notley has succeeded in draping herself Alberta’s blue and gold flag, the Kinder Morgan corporation’s Trans Mountain Pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby looks to be no closer to expansion than it was before we began to deprive ourselves of BC wine.
Wine was an easy industry for the Alberta government to boycott, as there is no shortage of wines from other destinations on liquor store shelves, and Notley had to be seen to take some sort of action in retaliation. But with our integrated and interdependent economies there might not be much more the Alberta Government could boycott to convince the BC government of Premier John Horgan to stop their environmental study and stalling of transport of dilluted bitumen through BC.
Both politicians are in need of a big political wins and both sides of this debate have continued to dig in their heels.
Premier Rachel Notley met with steel workers during a tour of the Tenaris Prudential welded pipe mill in Calgary on Feb. 8, 2018. (photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)
Notley announced the appointment of a high-profile task force of former politicians (including former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna and former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan), government bureaucrats and economists to help determine Alberta’s next actions. She also reiterated this week that the federal government should help resolve the situation.
Alberta’s Premier has found herself allied with Chambers of Commerce, federal Conservative MPs and United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney in demanding that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau take decisive action to force the BC government to not stall the expansion of the oil pipeline, but it remains unclear what “decisive action” actually means.
Kenney called for an emergency session of the Legislature, which under the current circumstances would be not much more than four pro-pipeline parties professing their undying devotion and love for the oil pipeline to Burnaby (just in time for Valentine’s Day). Mixed with a large serving of BC-bashing, it would be unlikely to help warm relations with our neighbours to the west.
While the sabre rattling and economic boycotts are very visible actions, behind the scenes discussions between cooler heads will likely be what leads to a politically palitable resolution, if that is even possible at this point.
Notley will not be attending this weekend’s federal NDP convention in Ottawa, which will likely save federal leader Jagmeet Singh from being forced to join the dispute between the only two NDP governments in Canada. It has not been announced whether Horgan will be attending either.
With the Alberta flag firmly draped over her shoulders and not a bottle of BC wine to be found, Notley should take the political fight out of Edmonton’s government district. Notley should take her pipeline sales pitch on the road and tour Alberta.
She should speak out against the climate change denial rampant in opposition circles and talk about the benefits of the carbon tax, the transition to renewable energy and her government’s investments in public services and infrastructure. She can help empower Albertans with the tools they need to be active citizens and engage British Columbians and other Canadians in the pipeline debate.
Holding town hall meetings, talking one-on-one with Albertans in coffee shops, spending more time on radio call-in shows – and maybe while Notley is doing this, her actions might remind Albertans what inspired them to vote for her party in 2015.
He is the Chair of the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Legislative Offices and the Select Special Auditor General Search Committee. He is also a member of the Standing Committee on Families and Communities.
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If you are an Albertan who enjoys British Columbia wines, now is the time to rush to your privately-owned and operated liquor store to purchase your favourites before it is too late.
This wine ban is a response to the BC Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman’s announcement that his province would effectively block the expansion of the Kinder Morgan corporation’s Trans Mountain Pipeline by limiting “the increase of diluted bitumen transportation until the behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood and there is certainty regarding the ability to adequately mitigate spills.”
In their first salvo, the Alberta Government withdrew from talks to purchase electricity from B.C.’s new Site C Dam near Fort St. John. But the B.C. wine ban has turned the war of words into the beginnings of a trade war.
Alberta purchases of BC wine account for around $70 million a year and the ban is meant to put pressure on the BC government of NDP Premier John Horgan (who’s party holds no seats in the Okanagan region) to back down and the government of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa to intervene.
Horgan responded by pointing out that the pipeline dispute has, until now, been not much more than a war of words, admitting that the consultation process proposed by Heyman has not even begun.
It is also unclear what an intervention by the federal government would actually look like.
While the Alberta Government may have a stronger constitutional case, it is important to not completely dismiss concerns that British Columbians might have, including concerns about increased oil tanker traffic on the Pacific Coast. ‘Bringing British Columbia to their knees,’ as some Conservative partisans have suggested, will not create a welcoming environment for any future oil pipeline development.
It is unclear to me whether the wine ban will work or whether we will see the Notley Government escalate the trade war, by perhaps encouraging Albertans to spend their summer vacations east of the Rockies.
Disclaimer: As he wrote this post, the author enjoyed a glass of the 2012 Pinot Noir from Serendipity Winery. In the event this trade war is not over by Christmas, he has a healthy supply of BC wine stockpiled in a safe and undisclosed location.
Photo: Dave Schneider, Cameron Westhead, Morgan Nagel, and Todd Loewen
With only about 13 months left until a potential provincial election call, the number of candidates stepping forward to run for party nominations is growing (this is the second time this week that I have written an update on candidate nominations).
Here is today’s candidate nomination update:
Airdrie-Cochrane: Cochrane town councillor Morgan Nagelis seeking the United Conservative Party nomination in this newly redrawn district. Nagel has worked as a organizer for Jason Kenney’s leadership campaign and as the youth director for the Manning Centre.
Banff-Kananaskis: New Democratic Party MLA Cameron Westhead confirmed with the Cochrane Eagle that he will seek re-election in the new Banff-Kananaskis district. Westhead was first elected in 2015 in the Banff-Cochrane district, defeating Progressive Conservative MLA Ron Casey by 2,894 votes.
Cardston-Siksika: Little Bow UCP MLA Dave Schneider told the Vauxhall Advance that he will seek re-election as the UCP candidate in the new Cardston-Siksika district. Schneider recently apologized for a statement in which he said ‘these people don’t traditionally vote‘ in reference to his Indigenous constituents. The new district includes the Siksika Nation, the Blood Tribe and the Pikani Nation, which have a combined population of more than 20,000.
The redistribution of electoral boundaries in southern Alberta could lead to incumbent UCP MLAs facing off in nomination contests. Current Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter, whose official residence is listed as Cardston, could also seek re-election in this new district.
Central Peace-Notley: UCP MLA Todd Loewen is seeking re-election in this sprawling redrawn northwestern Alberta district. Loewen was first elected in 2015 as the Wildrose MLA for Grande Prairie-Smoky. Energy Minister and NDP MLA Marg McCuaig-Boyd currently represents the Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley district and would presumably run in the same district if she seeks re-election.
Edmonton-Whitemud: According to Elections Alberta, Tunde Obasan has withdrawn his intention to seek the UCP nomination.
If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them to the list.
Schweitzer goes for federal nomination instead?
Doug Schweitzer
According to a report by Postmedia’s James Wood, past UCP leadership candidate and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer could forgo running in the 2019 provincial election in favour of running for the federal Conservatives in Calgary-Centre in the 2019 federal election. Also considering bids for the Conservative nomination in that district are Dustin Franks and Rick Billington.
Construction of the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline is expected to start in 2017.
Fresh from the Alberta NDP’s victory over Saskatchewan in the Fake Trade War on the Prairies, the ongoing political fight over the expansion of the existing Kinder Morgan TransMountain Pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby is heating up.
Rachel Notley
In the British Columbia NDP government’s most recent move to block the oil pipeline, Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heymanannounced new rules today that would limit “the increase of diluted bitumen transportation until the behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood and there is certainty regarding the ability to adequately mitigate spills.”
A key section of the Confidence and Supply Agreement between the NDP and 3-MLA Green caucus that props up BC Premier John Horgan‘s minority government states: Immediately employ every tool available to the new government to stop the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the seven-fold increase in tanker traffic on our coast, and the transportation of raw bitumen through our province.
“Having run out of tools in the toolbox, the Government of British Columbia is now grasping at straws,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley read in a statement.
While the pipeline was always going to be politically challenging, with unflinching support in Alberta and unwavering opposition in British Columbia, the Notley government has poured a considerable amount of political capital into the success of pipelines. In a gamble, they even used their much lauded Climate Leadership Plan and carbon levy program as a key part of their sales pitch for oil pipeline expansion.
George Heyman
But opposition in BC remains strong.
“The B.C. government has every right to consult on whatever it pleases with its citizens,” Notley said. “It does not have the right to rewrite our Constitution and assume powers for itself that it does not have. If it did, our Confederation would be meaningless.”
