I am still processing this news and will have more to say soon. In the meantime, kudos to Globe & Mail reporters David Ebner and Dawn Walton for digging this up.
Billionaire entrepreneur and Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz gave Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives nearly half a million dollars – almost one-third of the party’s total fundraising in a single donation – as Premier Alison Redford’s cash-strapped campaign was staring down defeat at the ballot box in the spring election.
Documents made public by Elections Alberta on Wednesday record $300,000 in donations from Mr. Katz, his company, his family and business associates.
But a source close to the campaign told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Katz provided a cheque for $430,000 to the PCs, a donation that was broken up into smaller pieces.
The maximum allowable donation to a political party in Alberta from an individual person or company during an election campaign is $30,000. Elections Alberta said splitting donations is allowed in some circumstances.
Many of Ms. Smith’s critics compared her ‘let them eat tainted beef’ attitude to former Premier Ralph Klein‘s unfortunate late night visit to a homeless shelter in 2001. While Ms. Smith’s comments were awkward and misinformed, I do not believe they were meant to be malicious. It is a shame that so much meat from the XL Foods plant was contaminated with E.coli and that it needs to be disposed of.
Danielle Smith
It did not take long for Ms. Smith to apologize for her comments, likely hoping the comments would not derail her caucus’ first opportunity to criticize government ministers in the fall Legislative session beginning today in Edmonton.
During this year’s provincial election campaign, Ms. Smith spent some time at Calgary’s Mustard Seed Shelter helping prepare supper, and now in her role as official opposition leader and self-appointed cities critic, she could benefit from exposing herself to Alberta’s less fortunate.
Last week, hundreds of Edmontonians (including myself) volunteered to enumerate our city’s homeless population in the biennial homeless count. Also held last weekend was the biannual Homeless Connect event at the Shaw Conference Centre, which helps provide free services to our city’s homeless population.
In 2010, the Homeless Count showed a decrease for the first time since the count began in 1999, dropping to 2421 from the 3079 counted in 2008. While the downward trend from 2008 to 2010 was positive news, the count also identified startling racial inequality in our cities, with 38% of Edmonton’s homeless population as being identified as having of Aboriginal heritage.
Since 2009, thousands of Albertans have been housed as a result of Housing First programs, coordinated by not-for-profit organizations in cities across the province, like Homeward Trust Edmonton and the Calgary Homeless Foundation in Alberta’s two largest cities. Housing First is a key strategy of provincial and municipal plans to end homelessness in Alberta.
Mike Lake
Looking beyond homelessness to the issue of poverty in Alberta, Premier Alison Redford announced the creation of a ten-year plan for poverty reduction that would also include a five-year plan to eliminate child poverty. While Alberta is an affluent province with a strong economy, a report published by the Edmonton Social Planning Council in 2011 showed the number of children living in poverty in Alberta grew dramatically from 53,000 to 73,000 between 2008 to 2009.
Any plan to end poverty is ambitious, but it is not unrealistic considering the positive steps already taken by the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
A frequent volunteer at Edmonton’s Homeless Connect is Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont Member of Parliament Mike Lake, who greets each and every guest who shows up to access the services provided at the day-long event. I cannot speak for Mr. Lake, but as a nice guy and a conservative politician, I am sure that he would he happy to show Ms. Smith the ropes at next Spring’s Homeless Connect if she would like to volunteer.
The Alberta Liberal Party is rebranding its image with plans to relaunch its website, adopt a new logo, change its official colours, and, according to Liberal sources, rename itself Liberalberta.
Last forming government following the 1917 election, Liberals are the constant underdogs of Alberta politics and being severely hampered by connections to unpopular Liberal governments in Ottawa.
Raj Sherman
After three years of internal turmoil following left-leaning leader Kevin Taft‘s resignation in 2008, the Liberals selected former Tory MLA Raj Sherman as their leader in 2011. During those intervening years, the Liberals lost their position as the default opposition to the Tories and were replaced by a reinvigorated Wildrose Party led by lobbyist and former newspaper columnist Danielle Smith.
The Liberals dropped to 9% province-wide support in the 2012 election, electing only 5 MLA’s and losing Official Opposition status for the first time since the party’s high-watermark in the 1993 election.
In August 2012, the Liberals hired a new executive director, Gerald McEachern, a New Brunswick-based writer and consultant. The major rebranding, an idea that in the past has been rejected by the more orthodox Liberal crowd, is likely an attempt for the party to gain back the ground it lost – which just may require a drastic move (and perhaps they drew some inspiration from the name of a popular political blog).
As well as rebranding, the Liberal Party’s board of directors is said to have rescinded its offer to cooperate with other “progressive” political parties – namely the New Democratic Party and the Alberta Party – to prevent vote splitting.
Unfortunately for all three of these parties, the shifted political narrative in the 2012 election led many progressive and moderate Albertans to support Premier Alison Redford‘s Progressive Conservatives in order to block Ms. Smith’s Wildrose Party from forming government.
Update (October 19, 2012): I posted a question on Twitter to Liberal Party strategist Alex Macdonald asking whether the new “Liberalberta” wordmark logo had been focus group tested. Mr. Macdonald’s response was that the “Liberalberta” wordmark had been approved by the Liberal Party executive and executive board, and not a impartial focus group.
The fall sitting of Alberta’s Legislative Assembly begins on October 23 and indications suggest that it will be a different than recent sittings. Aside from the brief sitting held in the spring with the almost sole purpose of ejecting retired MLA Ken Kowalski from his long-held spot in Speaker’s Chair, the newly elected Wildrose Official Opposition has had little opportunity to spar with government ministers in a formal setting.
Danielle Smith
The Wildrose Party’s gains in the April 23, 2012 election marked the first time since before the 1975 election that Alberta’s official opposition composed of mostly MLAs representing rural Alberta constituencies. Between 1986 and 2008, most opposition MLAs were elected to represent constituencies within Edmonton city limits. Due to floor crossings and a by-election, more opposition MLAs resided in Calgary between the 2008 and 2012 elections.
Over the course of the summer, Premier Alison Redford‘s PCs stumbled over issues in rural Alberta which in previous years would have been solved in a closed-door Tory caucus meeting. The closure of the fully-functional Little Bow Continuing Care Centre in Carmangay made the Tories look vengeful towards voters who abandoned their party and the cancellation of funding for the Fort Macleod police training centre made the Tories look foolish for ever approving the porkbarrel project in the first place.
Due to a lack of traditional organized conservative political opposition outside the PC Party, it has been an odd and sometimes humorous sight to watch rookie Wildrose MLA’s stand side-by-side with New Democratic Party MLAs at protest rallies over the course of the summer. While some of Wildrose MLAs first appeared awkward and uncomfortable gripping a megaphone, some of them looked like they were getting the hang of it by summer’s end. In the past, the Liberal and NDP opposition have leaned on groups like the Friends of Medicare and Public Interest Alberta to rally supporters outside the Assembly, but the main conservative voices, like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, have tended to rely on press conferences and media releases rather than rallies on the steps of the Legislature Building.
Doug Horner
The legislative agenda presented by the government during this fall sitting will also give Premier Redford an opportunity to shape her defining narrative, which has been absent since she was elected Premier earlier this year. The government will return to its only bill introduced in the short spring sitting, the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act, to provide additional support to police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and peace officers dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths is expected to introduce amendments to the Local Authorities Elections Act, which would extend terms for municipal elected officials from three years to four years. Eduction Minister Jeff Johnson could introduce an Education Act, which would mark the third time the Tories have attempted to introduce a consolidated piece of education legislation in the past few years.
The decision to not release detailed documents could signal a desire for the government to shift away from the public quarterly budget updates, which are meaningless in terms of fiscal planning due to the province’s dependence on fluctuating natural resource commodity prices and have become little more than public relations exercises for the government over the past two decades.
While his party has not had much to celebrate over the past year, Liberal leader Raj Sherman earned a small victory this week. Health Minister Fred Horne announced that the anti-smoking bill introduced by Dr. Sherman and passed before the last election will be proclaimed into law by the Lieutenant Governor Donald Ethell. Dr. Sherman’s bill would ban adults from smoking in vehicles where children under the age of 18 are present.
Until its licence was temporarily suspended on September 27, more than one-third of Canadian beef was processed in the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta. The plant processed 4000 cows a day and produces 3000 steaks each minute. The sheer size of this plant raises serious questions about the centralization of the packing industry in Canada and the implications for food security after E.coli contamination in beef produced at the plant has poisoned 10 Canadians. Meanwhile, new E.coli cases in British Columbia and Hong Kong are reported to be linked to XL Foods.
XL Foods and their parent company Nilsson Brothers Inc. have done an incredible job sowing confusion among Canadians by refusing to speak with the media, only releasing a pre-recorded audio statement late last week.
In 2005, Brian Nilsson and Lee Nilsson, co-CEOs of Nilsson Brothers Inc., XL Foods parent company, were selected as Alberta Venture Magazine’s Top 50 Most Influential Albertans for their role as “major players in Alberta’s beleaguered beef industry.” In 2012, it appears that they have reassumed this role, though not as the champions of the beef industry that they were eight years ago.
As Globe & Mail health columnist Andre Picard wrote this week, “transparency is the hallmark of good crisis communication,” and in the case of this E.coli contamination, this is a textbook case of failing to communicate. As Mr. Picard’s wrote in his column, the communications failure is a result of foot-dragging and inappropriate beef boosterism from XL Foods, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Minister Ritz.
“When you’re poisoning people, even unintentionally, a voice message three weeks into the outbreak doesn’t cut it, nor do ministerial blandishments, nor do CFIA press releases whining that “investigations into outbreaks of food-borne illness can be complex.” – Andre Picard (Globe & Mail, October 7, 2012).
Danielle Smith
Also ignoring the opportunity to discuss food safety issues in the beef industry is Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, who will be hosting a lunch-hour 100% Alberta beef barbecue on the Legislative Assembly grounds. Ms. Smith, Little Bow MLA Ian Donovan and Strathmore-Brooks MLA Jason Hale will play the role of champions of Alberta’s beef industry while serving beef burgers at the October 10 lunch (hopefully they will be thoroughly cooked).
Some might point to Mr. Mason’s comments as a partisan response, which would not be incorrect, but his is a position not limited to the political left. As was pointed out by Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, Saskatchewan’s conservative Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart has not shied away from demanding answers from the federal government since the E.coli outbreak was first detected.
Premier Redford and Alberta’s legislators should be standing up for the beef industry not by retreating to old populist tendencies, but by demanding answers from XL Foods, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Minister Ritz to ensure that this does not happen again.
Former cabinet minister Ray Danyluk dropped out of race for the presidency of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party this week, prompting a few political insiders to ask the question “why was he running in the first place?”
The recently defeated three-term Tory MLA from Lac La Biche-St. Pauljoined the race to replace outgoing president Bill Smith less than a month ago. After throwing his considerable political weight behind Doug Horner‘s PC leadership campaign in 2011, he was appointed to Premier Alison Redford‘s first cabinet and was unseated by Wildrose candidate Shayne Saskiw in the 2012 election.
The race to replace the outgoing PC Party president is now narrowed between Calgary Tory Jim McCormick and Lac Ste. Anne County Councillor Lorne Olsvik. The vote will take place at the Alberta PC’s annual meeting on November 9 and 10, 2012 at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary.
Mr. Millan’s online biography lists him as “born in Montreal” and having “witnessed the FLQ crisis first hand and experienced the “War Measures Act.“” I am unclear what this actually means and with no contact information made available on the PC Party website, I was unable to clarify this.
Delegates to the PC Party annual meeting will also debate changes to their party constitution that could change the system used to select its leader. The current system, which includes a run-off second ballot vote, has been criticized for allowing second place candidates from the first ballot to win on the second-ballot (as Premier Redford did in 2011).
Meanwhile, the official opposition Wildrose Party is holding their own annual meeting on November 23 and 24, 2012, in Edmonton at the Mayfield Inn. While leader Danielle Smith had probably hoped she would be addressing this convention as her party’s first Premier, she will instead rise to the podium as leader of a 17-MLA official opposition party.
The BC NDP oppose the Northern Gateway Pipeline now, but will their position change if they form government? (Image from the BC NDP website)
“Frosty” was the word used to describe the meeting between Alberta Premier Alison Redford and British Columbia Premier Christy Clark in Calgary this week. The two provincial Premiers have spent the summer months clashing over the proposed construction of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Premier Redford supports the pipeline, Premier Clark opposes it.
I have two thoughts this week about Premier Clark’s visit to Calgary and the continued debate around the pipeline:
1)Reacting to the BC Liberals drop in the polls, Premier Clark was speaking to British Columbians as she visited Calgary. She is standing up to those oil-thirsty Albertans by waving the BC flag in Calgary. If she is re-elected, I would not be surprised to see Premier Clark return to her free-market principles and support the pipeline.
2) The BC New Democrats have already firmly claimed the anti-pipeline territory that Premier Clark is now trying to claim. This does not necessarily mean a future government led by NDP leader Adrian Dix will not be open to negotiating a better deal or alternative route for the Northern Gateway Pipeline in the future.
While I am an outside observer to BC politics, I would not be shocked to see an NDP government support a future deal for the Northern Gateway Pipeline that they could trumpet as a job creator and celebrate as better deal than the previous BC Liberal government could negotiate.
It would appear that the both the BC NDP and the energy industry, which have significant investments in Alberta’s oil sands, are interested in improving their working relationship in the event Mr. Dix becomes Premier of BC after next year’s election.
As I wrote earlier this week, Premier Redford may have to wait for an NDP Premier to be elected in BC before a more pragmatic discussion around the Northern Gateway Pipeline can occur.
“The Redford government spent more than half a million dollars on its trip to the London Olympics earlier this year, including about $113,000 in hotel rooms that were not used…” – Edmonton Journal reporter Keith Gerein
According to the Journal, the $518,280 trip sent 29 Albertans to London including Tory Premier Alison Redford, Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk, Tourism, Parks and Recreation Minister Christine Cusanelli, government officials, artists and performers including Corb Lund and Donovan Workun.
I understand the value of sending cabinet ministers on these trips to promote our province abroad and I generally believe it is in our best interest, but there reaches a certain point when return on investment needs to be demonstrated.
Over the past eleven months, Premier Redford, cabinet ministers, and backbench Tory MLAs have traveled extensively on government business. The trips have taken Alberta Government officials to five continents and more than twelve countries, including numerous trips to Washington DC, New York, and Hong Kong.
Under past Premiers Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach, and Gordon Campbell, the conservative governments of Canada’s two western-most provinces enjoyed very friendly relationships. Vocal opposition to the pipeline, largely based around concerns about environmental impact and the transit of large oil tankers through the narrow Douglas Straight, has pushed the normally free-market loving BC Liberals away from the project. Premier Clark is also facing a strong NDP opposition. According to the latest poll, Adrian Dix‘s NDP sits 17% ahead of the BC Liberals.
As some political observers have mentioned, Premier Clark may use her time shaking some fundraising money from corporate Calgary in advance of next year’s provincial election.
With the next BC provincial election set for May 14, 2013, Premier Redford may want to start outreaching to Mr. Dix in hopes that his party might take a pragmatic approach and soften its stance on the Northern Gateway Pipeline if it forms government.
Or perhaps the re-election of President Barack Obama in November’s American elections will once again shift focus to the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta to Texas? Wildrose opposition leader Danielle Smith might have some insight to share on this topic. Ms. Smith is currently in the middle of a three-week trip of the United States to meet with political and policy leaders.
Mr. Boessenkool, who has strong-ties to Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s office and was a signatory of the infamous “Alberta Firewall” letter, briefly managed Premier Clark’s leadership campaign in 2011 before a decree from the Conservative Party of Canada forbid its officials from participating in the contest.
Earlier this year, Mr. Boessenkool left his job at the public relations and lobbyist company Hill & Knowlton and his position with the newly formed ‘Alberta Blue Committee‘ to run the Premier’s Office in Victoria.
Members of Alberta’s eternally optimistic political party, the Alberta Party, met in Calgary for their annual general meeting this past weekend.
Dave Taylor
At the meeting, members debated and decided to remain a political party. After the party’s less than stellar debut in the May 2012 provincial election, the party’s only ever MLA, Dave Taylor, penned a blog post suggesting the party fold or become a think-tank. In the spring election, with 38 candidates province-wide, the party earned 1.3% of the vote.
Having elected no MLAs in the last election and being leaderless since the resignation of Glenn Taylor this summer, the Alberta Party could have easily folded and moved on into the sunset.
On May 25, 2012, in response to Dave Taylor’s comments, I wrote:
The focus on the “Big Listen” process gave that party an opportunity to demonstrate what it was doing differently than the other parties, but it did not successfully articulate to the general public why this made them an alternative to the long-governing Tories. By simply defining itself as a moderate party, the Alberta Party deprived itself of any natural electoral base and positioned itself in an already highly competitive area on the political spectrum. Their message became even more difficult to articulate once the media narrative dominated by the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose Party was solidified.
This year was a bad time for moderate or progressive opposition parties in Alberta. With the Tories selecting a moderate leader in Alison Redford, many traditional Liberal voters and potential Alberta Party voters flocked to or remained with the PC Party.
If I were the leader of a political party which has failed to form government for more than 80 years, I would be eyeing the Alberta Party’s biggest asset, its name. In a land where the Liberal brand is dirt, most diehard Liberals would still likely oppose any merger that included a name-change.
The Alberta Party faces an incredible challenge if it seriously wants to build a functional political organization before the next election, and just having a great name will not be enough.
Surrounded by dozens of Tory MLAs at a late-afternoon press conference, Premier Alison Redford announced plans to make the expense claims of all cabinet ministers, MLAs, and government officials publicly available on the internet.
The new rules place limits on the purchase of business class airline tickets and a ban on expensing alcohol. What format the expense disclosures will be made available online is still unknown. As I wrote about last month, not all online transparency is created equally (or accessibly). As has also been pointed out by political reporters online, the new rules are unclear if there will be sanctions for employees who break the new expense rules. It is also unclear if the rationale behind any special exemptions, made by the Treasury Board, will be made public.
Perhaps trying to create a positive defining narrative for Premier Redford’s government, which has been largely absent since the April 2012 election, Ontario-based public relations and issues management expert Stefan Baranski has been tapped to work with the Premier. A Principal with Counsel Public Affairs, Mr. Baranski founded ontarionewswatch.com and served as senior advisor to PC leaders Tim Hudak and John Tory, and Premier Ernie Eves. In 2010, he served a Director of Communications and chief spokesperson for Toronto mayoral candidate George Smitherman.
Earlier this year, Calgary-Centre Conservative Member of Parliament Lee Richardson left Ottawa to join Premier Redford’s staff as her Principal Secretary. I am told that long-time Tory and Volunteer Alberta executive director Karen Lynch recently joined Premier Redford’s staff as her director of tours and schedules.
Elections Alberta has released the financial disclosure forms submitted by candidates who ran in the April 2012 provincial election and some of the disclosure forms reveal some interesting information about how much money was fundraised and spent during the campaign. The money spent by candidates and political parties in Alberta elections are nowhere near the truckloads being spent south of the border in advance of November’s presidential and senate elections, but some of these numbers demonstrate how pitched some electoral battles were in the recent provincial election. Although money cannot replace hard-working candidates and dedicated volunteers, it makes available resources that can, in many cases, make a big difference in pushing a candidate to electoral success.
Premier Alison Redford
It appears that the most expensive race between two candidates was in Calgary-Elbow, where Premier Alison Redford faced Wildrose Party challenger James Cole. While Premier Redford’s campaign spent a massive $154,345.53, Mr. Cole’s campaign was not far behind, spending $123,647 during the election period.
South of Calgary in the Highwood constituency, the campaign of Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith (named Marlaina Danielle Smith by Elections Alberta) spent only $55,010.97 compared to the $90,706.19 spent by the campaign of Tory challenger John Barlow.
In the hotly-contested constituency of Calgary-Acadia, Wildrose challenger Richard Jones spent 69,335.39 on his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Justice Minister Jonathan Denis, whose campaign spent $71,246.45. Airdrie MLA Rob Anderson, who crossed the floor to the Wildrose Party in 2010, saw his campaign spend $77,295.20, which dwarfed the $32,411 spent by the campaign of his main challenger Kelly Hegg.
Danielle Smith
In the long-time Liberal-held Edmonton-Gold Bar constituency, Tory David Dorward‘s campaign spent $77,732.39, NDP Marlin Schmidt‘s spent $38,400.73, and Liberal Josipa Petrunic‘s spent $33,079.39. The contest was won by Mr. Dorward, who was elected with 33% of the vote. In Calgary-McCall, Liberal MLA Darshan Kang‘s campaign spent $82,629.80 to ward off challengers Tory Muhammad Rasheed and Wildroser Grant Galpin, whose campaigns spent $87,327.25 and $27,695.12.
In Edmonton-Rutherford, Tory Health Minister Fred Horne‘s $108,327.30 campaign easily outspent a wide field of challengers. Former Liberal MLA Rick Miller‘s campaign spent $41,117.36, the campaign of Alberta Party candidate Michael Walters spent $30,085.18, and Wildrose challenger Kyle Mcleod‘s campaign spent $23,477.51.
In many cases, the Tory MLA’s vastly outspent their main challengers (which in most cases, was the local Wildrose candidate). In Calgary-Greenway, Tory Manmeet Bhullar‘s campaign spent $133,294 against challenger Ron Leech‘s $14,078.05 campaign. In Fort McMurray-Conklin, the campaign of first-time Tory candidate Don Scott spent $110,955.44 to Wildroser Doug Faulkner‘s $21,011.41. In Edmonton-Whitemud, Tory cabinet minister Dave Hancock‘s campaign spent $121,233.35 to Wildrose challenger Ian Crawford‘s $11,598.73. In Calgary-West, Tory candidate Ken Hughes‘ campaign spent $111,796.33 compared to $31,781.49 from Wildrose challenger Andrew Constantinidis.
Ted Morton: the $159,618.90 man.
In some cases, outspending a challenge made little difference for incumbent Tory MLAs. In Chestermere-Rockyview, Energy Minister Ted Morton‘s campaign spent $159,618.90 compared to Wildrose challenger Bruce McAllister‘s $48,062.69. Mr. McAllister defeated Minister Morton on election night.
There were some other surprising finds as well. In Lethbridge-West, the campaign of NDP candidate Shannon Phillips spent $48,852.88 compared to PC MLA Greg Weadick‘s $39,394.54. This was also the NDP’s best showing outside of Edmonton.
The ‘Maurice Tougas Award for Electoral Victory on a Shoestring Budget’ goes to Wildrose MLA Jeff Wilson, who was elected in Calgary-Shaw for the first time in April 2012. Mr. Wilson was one of the last Wildrose Party candidates to be nominated and defeated Tory star candidate Farouk Adatia, who outspent the Wildrose challenger $78,347 to $15,358. Less extreme cases took place across central and southern Alberta, where Wildrose candidates were elected in long-time Tory voting constituencies.
The award is named after writer Maurice Tougas, who served as the Liberal MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark from 2004 to 2008. Mr. Tougas’ campaign spent $5,366.55 in his last minute campaign against Tory MLA Bob Maskell, whose campaign spent $46,957.00. Mr. Tougas unseated Mr. Maskell on election night.
Note: I had hoped that I would be able to provide a more comprehensive list of numbers from the financial disclosure. Unfortunately, the unfriendly interfaced used by Elections Alberta on their website did not allow me the time to complete this. Rather than transferring the data into easily searchable and useable formats on their website, Elections Alberta provides PDFs of scanned paper forms which were completed in handwriting by the candidate’s Chief Financial Officers (the writing ranges from chicken-scratch to cursive). It is my hope that in the near future, Elections Alberta is able to build a more user-friendly website that allows Albertans to more easily access these important records.
Learning how to be an effective opposition MLA in Alberta includes a very steep learning curve and the constant challenge of facing a governing party that despises opposition. As any observer of Alberta politics can point out, the Progressive Conservatives have not sustained 41 uninterrupted years in government by being “nice.”
Their veteran Liberal and NDP colleagues, like Laurie Blakeman or Brian Mason, already know, but the 15 rookie MLAs in the Wildrose caucus are only beginning to discover what it is like to occupy the opposition benches.
Ian Donovan
The appointment of defeated cabinet minister Evan Berger to a plum senior public service position has raised eyebrows and questions about how far the Tories will go to punish Wildrose MLA’s elected in central and southern Alberta constituencies in the April 2012 election.
The cancellation of the yet to be opened Fort Macleod police training school, which was a perfect example of Tory rural pork barrelling, is being shut down (which is probably the right decision made for the wrong reasons). On the other hand, the closure of the Little Bow Continuing Care Centre has enraged community members in the small village of Carmangay, leaving many to publicly speculate that their votes for local Wildrose MLA Ian Donovan may have contributed to the closure.
Kerry Towle
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Kerry Towle, a member of the Wildrose caucus, has become involved in a war ofwords with Sylvan Lake town council over town hall meetings the MLA held on the topic of the controversial intersection of Highway 11 and 781.
The main question of concern appears to be the issue of who is appropriate advocate for residents of Sylvan Lake on transportation issues? Ms. Towle is the first opposition MLA elected in this constituency in more than 35 years, which puts the town council in the situation of having to work with a local opposition MLA and advocate to the Transportation Minister, Ric McIver. While most urban political watchers will scoff, it is important to understand what an incredible shift this is central and southern Alberta, who are used to being represented by senior cabinet ministers and their drinking buddies. I am sure similar scenarios are being played out in counties, towns, and villages across central and southern Alberta.
Greg Weadick, Bridget Pastoor, and Steve Young (photo from @SteveYoungMLA)
Meanwhile, Tory MLAs have been touring central and southern Alberta constituencies holding health care consultations with local leaders, bypassing the locally elected opposition Wildrose MLAs. Edmonton-Riverview Tory MLA Steve Young joined Banff-Cochrane Tory MLA Ron Casey, and Lethbridge Tory MLAs Bridget Pastoor and Greg Weadick at meetings in the Livingstone-Macleod, Little Bow, Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, Cardston-Taber-Warner constituencies – all areas where voters elected Wildrose MLAs.
Ready for the cameras, Premier Alison Redford was on hand with Education Minister Jeff Johnson at the opening of a new school in the town of Okotoks, south of Calgary. No word if local Wildrose MLA, Danielle Smith, was invited to participate in the opening event.
Note: The Wildrose Party official colours are green and pink.
Evan Berger being sworn in as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development on October 12, 2011. Premier Alison Redford in the background. (Photo from @PremierofAlberta on Flickr)
By Jerry MacDonald
As we observe the farce of a defeated former MLA & Agriculture Minister, Evan Berger, being hired by the Deputy Minister of his former department, we must take a long and serious look at the politicization of the Alberta public service caused by over 40 years of one-party rule, and how it poisons the well for any other party that might get elected in future.
It is a tradition of Westminster-style parliamentary government, which is the model in Canada both at the federal and the provincial level, that the professional public service can and does support policy developed by an government of any political stripe, from right-wing to centrist to left-wing, with equanimity and professionalism. The result of this is that a change of government in this country does not trigger the kind of wholesale purging of senior government posts that we see in Washington every time a new Administration takes office. There is a reason a new President needs two full months of “transition” before taking office, whereas in Canada a new Prime Minister or provincial Premier is usually in place a week or two after an election.
However, in Alberta, the Progressive Conservative Party and the public service are so intertwined, like mating octopi, that if the current government is ever defeated at the polls, we will need a US-style purge of the entire upper levels of the public services. Every Deputy Minister, Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) and direct report to ADMs will need to be fired & replaced, or the new government will inevitably be undermined by the public service’s senior management.
————
Jerry MacDonald has been a Registered Nurse for 25 years and was educated in Halifax. Moved to Fort Vermilion, Alberta in 1985, and to Grande Prairie in 1988. Former UNA activist and local president at QEII Hospital (2003-2006).NDP candidate in 2004 provincial election (Grande Prairie-Wapiti); also worked on several other campaigns at both provincial and federal levels. Married to Nancy; three adult children. BSc in Nursing, post-RN (U of A 2010).
Little Bow Wildrose MLA Ian Donovan and Edmonton-Calder NDP MLA David Eggen at a rally in front of Premier Alison Redford’s constituency office in Calgary on August 14, 2012.
Confusion about the closure of the Little Bow Continuing Care Centre in the tiny southern Alberta village of Carmangay has triggered a backlash by local residents against the Progressive Conservative government.
Fred Horne
The closure of the facility, which houses local residents and is the main employer in the community, has also united politicians from across the political spectrum.
At a rally in front of Premier Alison Redford‘s constituency office in Calgary-Elbow, Edmonton-Calder NDP MLA David Eggen, Little BowWildrose MLA Ian Donovan, Innisfail-Sylvan Lake Wildrose MLA Kerry Towle, and Calgary-Shaw Wildrose MLA Jeff Wilson stood with more than 80 people in opposition to the facility’s closure. At a previous rally, Highwood MLA and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith stood with local mayor Kym Nichols, who works at the facility.
While the decision to close the Little Bow facility would have made by Alberta Health Services, the final approval for the closure must be made by Health Minister Fred Horne. This is because, as an Approved Hospital, Section 28 of the Operation of Approved Hospitals Regulation states:
28 Every hospital shall require prior approval of the Minister for
(a) any proposed major change or termination of an existing service provided by the hospital, or
(b) the introduction of a new service.
Since the Wildrose Party swept rural southern and central Alberta, electing 17 MLA’s across the province in the May 2012 election, the long-governing Progressive Conservatives have faced the first rural MLA dominated official opposition since the early 1970s. Minister Horne has visited the community and apologized for the confusion, but the apology appears to have only confirmed the feelings held by some people that the big city Tories do not understand the needs of small rural communities.
The confusion around the closure of the facility has led more than a few members of the community wonder if a recent change in their voting patterns have affected their political influence on this issue. In the recent election, residents of the community voted overwhelmingly for Wildrose candidate and now-MLA Mr. Donovan over PC candidate John Kolk. Previous to that election, Carmangay had been a reliably Tory voting area.
If the Tories are trying to win back the hearts and minds of voters in the rural south, their grand strategy is beginning with a rough start.
