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.
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.
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.
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.
And we introduce a new regular segment – So you want to be a candidate – where Ryan and Dave share some helpful tips and advice for aspiring politicians looking to run for public office in 2019.
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. Also 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.
The Alberta Party leadership race (it’s finally a race!), the United Conservative Party’s leaked policy document, predictions for 2018, and hot gossip from the Alberta Legislature are just some of the topics covered in the latest episode of The Daveberta Podcast with Dave Cournoyer and Ryan Hastman (recorded in the Harry Strom Memorial Studios on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018).
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. Also 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.
Photo: Former Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel when he announced his plans to retire from municipal politics in 2013.
The rumours have been circulating for weeks, and they now appear to be confirmed.
Dr. Bob Turner
Stephen Mandel is jumping back into provincial politics by launching a campaign for the leadership of the Alberta Party. The 72-year old former Edmonton mayor and provincial cabinet minister is expected to officially join the race on Jan. 10, 2018 at an “announcement about Alberta’s future” at the Boyle Street Community Hall.
Mandel was a popular mayor from 2004 to 2013 and briefly served as the Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Whitemud and Minister of Health from 2014 to 2015. Despite his largely successful three-terms as mayor, his short and unremarkable time in the provincial cabinet was ended when New Democratic Party candidate and Cross Cancer Institute oncologist Bob Turner unseated Mandel in the 2015 election.
He was rumoured to have considered a run for the PC Party leadership in 2017, but instead made a last-minute endorsement of Richard Starke. Since then, Mandel has been seen as a driving force behind Alberta Together, the political action committee led by former PC Party president Katherine O’Neill. AT is believed to have been influential in pushing former leader Greg Clark to step down as leader ahead of the party’s annual general meeting in November 2017.
Both Mandel and O’Neill were seen as star candidates for the PC Party in the 2015 election and were featured in online and television ads produced for the campaign.
Fraser was elected as MLA for Calgary-South East in 2012 and 2015 as a Progressive Conservative and left the United Conservative Party Caucus in July 2017 citing concerns about the party’s positions on climate change and social issues.
He served as Associate Minister of Recovery and Reconstruction of High River following the floods that devastated southern Alberta in 2013. And he is the former president of CUPE Local 3421, which until April 2009 represented two-thirds of the province’s paramedics.
Kara Levis was the first candidate in the race
The two men joined the contest almost one month after Kara Levis, a Calgary-based commercial lawyer and President of the National Women’s Liberal Commission, became the first candidate to enter the leadership race. Levis is a co-founder of Ask Her, an organization dedicated to encouraging more women candidates to run in the 2017 Calgary Municipal Election.
His top campaign promises include returning “Redford supporters to positions of power and influence” and stimulating “economic growth by building the greatest Sky Place ever.”
It is unclear if the Alberta Party is prepared to allow such bold ideas in their leadership race.
The Alberta Party leadership race will take place on Feb. 27, 2018. The deadline for candidates to join the race is January 15, 2018.
The bill pulls ‘Political Action Committees’ under the Election Finances and Contribution Disclosure Act by expanding the activities covered in the Third Party Advertisers section beyond just advertising. If passed, the law would now cover typical PAC activities, such as selling memberships, fundraising, collecting or compiling information about voters, and other administrative activity for a party, candidate, leadership contestant or nomination contestant.
The bill would limit individual PAC spending to $150,000 on political activities in the three months ahead of Alberta’s fixed election period and to $150,000 during the election period. Only $3,000 of the $150,000 would be able to be used to promote or oppose the election of one or more candidates in any one electoral district.
The bill would also prevent collusion between PACs, preventing groups of PACs from pooling their funds and resources. The bill would create an independent Election Commissioner who would be responsible for “investigating complaints and recommending prosecutions.”
The bill falls short of limiting annual donations to PACs and banning corporate, union and out-of-province donations, which a private members’ bill introduced by Liberal MLA David Swann and championed by leader David Khan proposed to do.
Rick Strankman
“Simply put, our bill is a better bill and will do a better job of getting dark money out of politics,” Khan said in a press release responding to Bill 32.
As an expanded list of PAC-type activities now fall under the province’s election finance laws governing third party advertisers, it is my understanding that all donations to registered PACs will be disclosed to Elections Alberta, eliminating the ‘dark money‘ element of PACs in Alberta.
Bill 32 also makes a number of amendments to the Election Act, including the ability of Elections Alberta to collect information of 16 and 17-year-olds in order to automatically register them to vote when they turn 18, extend advance voting by one day, and improve mobile voting stations.
Gray’s Bill 32 also incorporates some changes around government advertising during election periods that were included in a private members’ bill introduced by Drumheller-Stettler UCP MLA Rick Strankman in 2015.
With only three days remaining in the Legislative session, it is expected this bill will pass third-reading before MLA’s break for the holiday season on Thursday, December 7, 2017.
Alberta Party leadership race extended
Greg Clark
We have heard a lot of talk but have not seen much activity in the Alberta Party leadership race since current leader Greg Clark announced he would step down 25 days ago. The party released the rules of its leadership race on December 4 and, perhaps realizing the clock is ticking, moved the date of the leadership vote from February 7 to February 27.
The Calgary-Lougheed by-election, the Alberta Party leadership race, a new ThinkHQ poll, Rachel Notley as Canada’s Pipeline Paladin, and changing electoral boundaries are just some of the topics covered in the latest episode of The Daveberta Podcast with Dave Cournoyer and Ryan Hastman (recorded on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017).
We’d love to hear what you think of the podcast, so feel free to leave a review where you download it, 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 special thanks to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality (and making us sound so good!).
