Tag: Gay-Straight Alliances

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s transgender youth policy isn’t really about parental rights

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)

“Parental rights” has a long history in Alberta and it’s not what it sounds like

When you write about politics for long enough you begin to notice certain themes and issues that pop up perennially year to year.

So when Premier Danielle Smith’s office released a 7-minute video last week laden with messages about parental rights, my mind immediately wandered back to the first time I heard that term in 2006.

Those were heady days to be a political writer in Alberta. The Ralph Klein era was coming to an end and there was a whiff of change in the air.

From the Progressive Conservative backbenches came a private members’ bill that, under the guise of parents rights, would force schools to notify parents anytime school material included a mention of same-sex marriage and that no student be required to attend or teacher be required to teach that part of the course. This was less than one year after same-sex marriage was legalized in Canada.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.

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Daveberta Podcast

Episode 39: Wet Hot Albertan Summer

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We’re taking a break from our summer vacations to record this special episode of the Daveberta Podcast.

In this episode, Dave Cournoyer and guest co-host Michael Janz discuss Bill 8, the contentious Education Act and its impact on Gay-Straight Alliances, and how the political battles over pipelines, climate change, and the conspiracy theories about foreign-funded interests are shaping the upcoming federal election. And we talk about the big issues facing Alberta’s future and why our politicians aren’t talking about them!

We also dive into the mailbag to answer some of the great questions our listeners sent us.

Thanks to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for helping us put the show together, and a huge thanks to the Alberta Podcast Network, powered by ATB, for supporting the show.

You can listen and subscribe to the Daveberta Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts online. We always love to feedback from our listeners, so let us know what you think of this episode and leave a review where you download.

Send us your feedback, or ask us any questions you have for our next episode. You can get us on Twitter, Instagram, the Daveberta Facebook page, or you can email us at podcast@daveberta.ca.

We’re going to be taking another bit of a break from the podcast as we continue our vacations with our families this summer. But we’ll be back at it with a regular schedule at the beginning of September. Until then, so long everyone, and thanks for listening!

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Alberta Politics

Wading into the Lake of Fire. Jason Kenney should fire Mark Smith for gross comments about ‘homosexual love’

Jason Kenney wants to talk about jobs, the economy, and pipelines, but there has not been one week so far during Alberta’s provincial election campaign where his message has not been overshadowed by United Conservative Party candidates making comments about the demographic replacement of white peoples, that transgender people using public bathrooms was “a perversion,” and today, some fairly offensive views about love, same-sex relationships, and women’s reproductive choices.

The last comment was made by UCP education critic Mark Smith, who is running for re-election in Drayton Valley-Devon. Smith made the remarks in a sermon from November 2013 that was posted on the website of the Calvary Baptist Church in Drayton Valley.

“You don’t have to watch any TV for any length of time today where you don’t see on the TV program them trying to tell you that homosexuality and homosexual love is good love,” Smith said in the sermon. “Heck, there are people out there, I could take you to places on the website I’m sure, where you can find out, where pedophilia is love.”

Smith also questioned how any woman who has an abortion could say that it is done out of love. His comments were made public today by the CJSR radio program GayWire.

Postmedia reports that Smith was also the author of a 2015 document circulated to his fellow Wildrose Party MLAs arguing that Christian public schools had a constitutional right to fire teachers who are gay.

It is notable that Smith’s comments were revealed on April 2, twenty-one years to the day that the Supreme Court of Canada released a unanimous ruling that proclaimed that gay and lesbian Canadians were entitled to equal protection under the law. The case had made its way to the Supreme Court after lab instructor Delwin Vriend was fired from his job at a private Christian college in Edmonton for being gay.

Edmonton-Glenora NDP candidate Sarah Hoffman was quick to criticize Smith’s comments, stating in a press release that his comments were “offensive, homophobic and completely neglect women’s rights.” She called on Kenney to fire Smith as a candidate.

Alberta Party leader Stephen Mandel tweeted that “By endorsing this candidate, Jason Kenney has shown he doesn’t understand Alberta in 2019. Albertans care about jobs and the economy, absolutely. But we also expect a fair, tolerant, pluralistic society where EVERYONE is equal.”

As mayor of Edmonton in 2012, Mandel played a big role in that year’s election when he publicly criticized the Wildrose Party after two of its candidates made the now infamous homophobic Lake of Fire and racist caucasian advantage remarks.

Even popular conservative radio host Charles Adler weighed in, tweeting that “No mainstream political leader who I have known, federal or provincial, aspiring to be the head of gov’t would be endorsing this candidacy. I hope Jason Kenney changes his mind.”

The two UCP candidates who made the other comments I mentioned at the beginning of this article quickly resigned their candidacies after their comments became public.

Eva Kiryakos released a video on Facebook a few days ago thanking her supporters and refusing to apologize for her statements. Kenney has been dodging questions this week about whether he plans to allow her to remain as a member of the UCP.

With the deadline for being placed on the ballot having passed last Friday, Kenney cannot remove Smith from the ballot. Kenney can send a strong message that these comments are unacceptable in the UCP by telling Smith that he will not be welcome to sit in the UCP caucus if he re-elected on April 16.

But it appears that Kenney will continue to support him.

In a written statement released online this afternoon through Kenney’s @UniteAlberta twitter account, Smith said he did not recall making the comments and apologized if his words offended anyone. It was a classic non-apology apology.

In statements from Smith and Livingstone-Macleod candidate Roger Reid, who was also facing criticism for comments he made during a sermon in 2012, the UCP candidates said that “Albertans are tired of revisiting old, divisive debates from many years prior.” I think many Albertans are tired of UCP candidates revisiting these old, divisive debates.

With Smith’s comments in mind, it is less surprising that the UCP education platform released last week would remove privacy protections for students participating in Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at schools in Alberta. That announcement sparked pro-GSA rallies in Calgary and Edmonton that attracted hundreds of Albertans.

While the UCP tries to focus on its economic message, the constant stream of bozo-eruptions shows that on social issues and human rights, some members of Team Kenney continue to be way out of step with mainstream 21st century Alberta.

Ryan Jespersen calls out Mark Smith, homophobia and hate in Jason Kenney’s UCP like only he can:

Conservative radio host Charles Adler interviews Jason Kenny about his views on gay rights and UCP candidate Mark Smith:

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Episode 32: GSAs, GSAs, GSAs. Week 2 of Alberta’s Election.

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Alberta’s provincial election is 16 days away and for the duration of the campaign, we are going to be recording a new episode of the Daveberta Podcast each week.

In this episode Dave and Ryan talk about the United Conservative Party reopening the Gay-Straight Alliance debate, the transphobic comments that led to the departure of Calgary-South East UCP candidate Eva Kiryakos, Rachel Notley’s plan to expand Alberta’s $25/day childcare program and the Liberal Party‘s proposal to introduce a Harmonized Sales Tax and reform the electoral system. We also look ahead to this week’s televised leaders’ debate and whether Freedom Conservative Party leader Derek Fildebrandt should be allowed to join in the fun.

We also spend some time focusing on a few races we are watching. This week we look at Lethbridge-East and Lethbridge-West.

The Daveberta Podcast is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network powered by ATB Financial. The Network includes more than 30 made-in-Alberta podcasts, including the excellent Modern Manhood Podcast and Overdue Finds.

You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts online.

We always love to feedback from our listeners, so let us know what you think of this episode and leave a review where you download. You can also comment on the blog, Facebook or Twitter or send us an email at podcast@daveberta.ca.

And a big thanks to our excellent guest producer, Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, who kept us on track and made this episode sound so great.

Thank you for listening!

Recommended reading/listening:

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Alberta Politics

UCP loses Eva Kiryakos, Kenney reignites GSA issue, Notley promises big expansion to affordable childcare

Photo: Eva Kiryakos and Jason Kenney (source: Twitter)

United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney began the second week of the election like he did the first week of the campaign, responding to the loss of another nominated candidate because of controversial online statements.

Eva Kiryakos announced in a Facebook video last night that she was resigning as the UCP candidate in Calgary-South East because she was being “bullied” by someone who was threatening to “smear” her. It turned out that Kiryakos’ had made homophobic, transphobic, and Islamophobic comments on social media that somehow were not discovered when she was vetted as a UCP nomination candidate.

Kenney thanked Kiryakos for her “selfless” decision to step aside, but did not respond to the comments that led to her resignation.

Kiryakos was acclaimed as the UCP candidate in this district in November 2018 after two other competitors, including Cameron Davies, withdrew from the contest. Until her resignation, Kiryakos was running against Alberta Party MLA Rick Fraser, New Democrat Heather Eddy, Liberal candidate Leila Keith, and Alberta Independence Party candidate Richard Fontaine.

Until Kiryakos’ resignation, it appeared that the UCP had filled its slate of 87 candidates with the nomination of Sanjay Patel in Edmonton-Ellerslie and Heather Sworin in Edmonton-Mill Woods. The UCP is expected to appoint a new candidate to replace Kiryakos before the March 29, 2019 candidate nomination deadline.

Trustees call out leaders on education funding, Kenney reignites the GSA issue

Trustee Bridget Stirling speaks at a press conference in Edmonton.
Trustee Bridget Stirling speaks at a press conference in Edmonton (source: Twitter).

Trustees from Public and Catholic school boards across Alberta gathered in Calgary and Edmonton today to call on provincial political party leaders to explain how they plan to fund expected growth in student population in the public education system.

“Politicians who will not commit to more funding at a time when 15,000 new students will join our classrooms next year need to come clean that they really are planning to cut to Education” Edmonton Public School trustee Bridget Stirling said in a press release.

“We have not recovered from the Klein cuts of the 1990s. More students and fewer dollars is a recipe for a crisis in our classrooms. At the very bare minimum, all parties must commit to funding new student enrollment growth for the next year,” Stirling said.

NDP leader Rachel Notley stated that an NDP government would provide funds to help with the enrolment increases.

It is not clear to me if Kenney responded to the trustees’ challenge, but he did release his party’s education platform today, promising to reinforce standardized tests and lift the cap on the number of charter schools in Alberta and allow charter schools to own property. He also reopened the Gay-Straight Alliance debate by announcing plans to repeal protections implemented by the NDP that bars school administrators from notifying parents if their kids join one of the clubs (potentially outing gay kids to their parents).

The GSA issue created much grief for the UCP over the past two years, so it is surprising to see Kenney reignite the issue during this election.

Notley announces big expansion of affordable childcare program

Notley announced her party’s plan to expand the pilot project $25/day childcare program to cover all childcare across Alberta. Notley said at an event at Calgary’s SPARK Centre that the plan would include adding 13,000 daycare spaces to the current 62,000 spaces in the province. With the youngest population in Canada, the cost and availability of childcare is a particularly important issue for many Albertans.

While I would have preferred the NDP be a little more ambitious, by subsidizing the entire cost of childcare, even at $25/day this kind of program would make a big difference in the lives of many Alberta families.

The Alberta Party released their plans for a child care voucher system last week.

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Alberta Politics

NDP launch “The Truth About Jason Kenney” campaign. Kenney reuses Wildrose Party democratic reform promises

NDP MLA Brian Mason launches the NDP campaign TheTruthAboutJasonKenney.ca
NDP MLA Brian Mason launches the NDP campaign TheTruthAboutJasonKenney.ca

Former New Democratic Party leader Brian Mason took centre stage today to launch his party’s new attack campaign directed at United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney’s more controversial views on social issues like LGBTQ rights, Gay-Straight Alliances and abortion, how his plans to balance the budget could impact funding to health care and education, and the substantial political baggage he carries after serving 19 years in Ottawa.

The campaign features a video of Albertans reacting to some of Kenney’s more outlandish statements and views on social issues.

That the NDP is focused on the Kenney is no surprise. The UCP behemoth has a significant lead over the NDP in the polls, in fundraising, and party membership, but Kenney’s popularity is much lower that his party’s and his past as a social conservative activist against issues like women’s reproductive rights and gay rights, are issues that will mobilize the NDP’s base of support.

The anti-abortion group the Wilberforce Project recently bragged on their website about the influence it had exerted on the UCP candidate nomination process. It is unclear how much influence the social conservative group has actually exerted but it brought the divisive issue back to the forefront last week.

Rachel Notley Alberta Premier NDP
Rachel Notley

As party leader, Mason was a warhorse of opposition politics in Alberta, so it is not surprising that the NDP decided to employ the retiring MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood to launch this part of the campaign. This also allows the party to distance the negative side of its campaign from its leader, Rachel Notley, and its incumbent MLA who are running for re-election.

Ask any Alberta voter on the street if the like negative advertising in elections and the response will be unanimously negative. But that political parties of all persuasions consistently use them speaks to their effectiveness. Also, we kind of expect parties to act this way now.

The negative focus on Kenney and his unpopular views on social issues is a central part of the NDP’s campaign, but it is overshadowing the positive message the NDP is trying to promote – that Notley and her party are the best choice for Alberta families.

The party’s strongest asset, Notley has been touring the province making a flurry of pre-election announcements over the past month, including promises to upgrade the Red Deer Regional Hospital , build a new interchange in Leduc, expand the Telus World of Science in Edmonton, and invest in Calgary’s tech sector. But the positive side of Notley’s campaign feels almost like a side-show to her party’s constant attacks against Kenney.

Whether a strong focus on Kenney’s more controversial views will be enough to turn around the NDP’s electoral fortunes – and ‘enough’ could be a relative term at this point – remains unclear.

Kenney pledges MLA recall, MLA free votes and floor-crossing ban

Jason Kenney
Jason Kenney

UCP leader Jason Kenney announced his party would introduce reforms to Alberta’s elections laws, including MLA recall, free votes, a fixed-election day, and banning floor crossing in the Legislature, mirroring many of the promises made in the Wildrose Party‘s 2015 election platform.

MLA recall is a perennial issue that opposition MLAs, most recently Wildrose MLAs, have frequently called for over the past 25 years. At least 7 attempts have been made by opposition MLAs to introduce MLA recall legislation through private members’ bills since 1993, all of which have failed.

Leela Aheer Wildrose MLA Chestermere Rockyview
Leela Aheer

UCP MLA Leela Aheer, then a member of the Wildrose Caucus, introduced a private members’ bill in December 2015 calling for an MLA recall process that would have allowed 20 percent of voters overturn the results of a free and fair democratic election. The bill died on the order paper.

When Alberta briefly had MLA recall laws, from 1936 to 1937, signatures were required from 66.6 percent of voters to trigger a by-election. The law was repealed by the Social Credit government after a group of disgruntled Albertans was thought to have collected enough signatures to recall Premier William Aberhart in his Okotoks-High River district.

Banning floor-crossing by requiring that MLAs resign and seek a by-election before they can change parties was a promise made by the Brian Jean-led Wildrose Party in the 2015 election. This promise plays to the resentment many conservatives felt when Danielle Smith and 11 of the party’s MLAs crosses the floor to Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives in 2014, and, more recently, when Sandra Jansen crossed the floor to the NDP.

Kenney also pledged make it illegal for governments to advertise in the run up to an election, similar to a private members’ bill introduced by then-Wildrose MLA Rick Strankman in 2015.

The UCP would also reinstate the Alberta Senatorial Selection Act, with a pledge to hold Senate Nominee elections in 2021, and ban groups affiliated with a political party to register as third party election advertisers, a direct shot at the Alberta Federation of Labour, which is running its Next Alberta campaign.

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Alberta Politics

Pride, Prejudice and Swastikas: UCP bozo-eruptions continue to dog Jason Kenney

Jason Kenney
Jason Kenney

The latest bozo-eruption to burst from the United Conservative Party membership continues to hound party leader Jason Kenney. 

Last weekend, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms president John Carpay told a crowd at a gathering of conservative activists in Calgary: “How do we defeat today’s totalitarianism? Again, you’ve got to think about the common characteristics. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hammer and sickle for communism, or whether it’s the swastika for Nazi Germany or whether it’s a rainbow flag, the underlying thing is a hostility towards individual freedoms.”

Carpay quickly apologized for the comments, but drawing the connection between the rainbow pride flag, a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride and LGBTQ social movements, and the hammer and sickle and swastika flags, symbols of oppressive and totalitarian regimes, was a step too far.

Postmedia columnist Don Braid wrote in the Calgary Herald that Carpay’s comments were “disgusting, demeaning and dangerous.”

This is not the first bozo-eruption to dog the UCP leader, but it appears to be the first made by someone with strong political ties to Kenney. The UCP leader spoke at a JCCF event in 2017 where he is reported to have compared Carpay’s work to that of civil-rights activist Rosa Parks.

Carpay and Kenney are social conservative activists from Calgary and have been in the same political circles for decades. Carpay is known for staking out controversial positions popular among social conservatives, whether it be in opposition to abortion or gay rights or, more recently, to student-led anti-bullying clubs known as Gay-Straight Alliances in Alberta schools.

As a delegate at the UCP’s policy conference earlier this year he spoke in support of a policy that would allow teachers to inform parents when students participate in GSAs, a policy that would out some students to their parents. “This is about parental rights. The only societies and governments that trample on parental rights are totalitarian ones,” Carpay was reported to have said at the May 2018 UCP policy meeting.

This most recent bozo-eruption comes on the heels of Kenney announcing that the UCP will build a database to track and purge political extremists from the party’s membership. Kenney announced the creation of the extremists database after spending a week dodging questions about former campaign worker Adam Strashok, who is alleged to have ties to white nationalist and anti-Semitic groups online.

Kenney was quick to pounce on Strashok, declaring that he had ordered party officials to cancel his membership. But Kenney appears to be less eager to dish out a similar fate to Carpay.

The UCP leader’s soft-peddling in response to Carpay is puzzling to many UCP supporters, including some who attended today’s sold-out Edmonton Chamber of Commerce luncheon, where Kenney spoke to a packed ballroom. Speaking to attendees before and after Kenney’s speech, I have the impression that while the UCP’s economic message resonated with the crowd there was an unease and discomfort with Kenney’s social conservative baggage.

Attendees to today’s luncheon may not be alone in their unease. A recent survey released by Abacus Data shows Kenney’s approval ratings are far below support for the party he leads, suggesting that many Albertans like the idea of a UCP government much more than they like the idea of Premier Jason Kenney.

Kenney’s slow response to the most recent bozo-eruption is likely because social conservative activists, like those who support anti-abortion groups Right Now and the Wilberforce Project, anti-GSA Parents for Choice in Education, and Carpay’s JCCF, are key players in the political coalition that Kenney has built during his almost three decades in politics.

Kenney has never hesitated to take hard-line stances against opponents like Premier Rachel Notley, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, environmentalists Tzeporah Berman and David Suzuki, and even actor Jane Fonda. It is now time for Kenney to prove to Albertans that he can also take an equally hard-line against the social conservative forces that are embarrassing his own party.

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Friday Night Candidate Nomination Update

Karen Principe Janis Irwin Michaela Glasgo Deepak Sharma Alberta Election 2019
Karen Principe Janis Irwin Michaela Glasgo Deepak Sharma Alberta Election 2019

Photo: Karen Principe, Janis Irwin, Michaela Glasgo, and Deepak Sharma.

Here are some of the latest updates to the list of candidates running for party nominations ahead of the 2019 Alberta provincial general election:

Brooks-Medicine Hat – Michaela Glasgo defeated Dinah Hiebert to win the United Conservative Party nomination following the disqualification of S. Todd Beasley the day before the nomination vote began.

Glasgo is a Constituency Assistant for Cypress-Medicine Hat UCP MLA Drew Barnes and is a contributor to the Story of a Tory blog. Her nomination campaign featured two events with Donna Trimble, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, a group that campaigned against the NDP government’s Gay-Straight Alliance legislation.

Calgary-Buffalo – UCP members in this downtown Calgary district will select their candidate for the next election on July 21, 2018. The two candidates vying for the nomination are Megan McCaffrey and Tom Olsen.

McCaffrey is the former executive director of Common Sense Calgary, a conservative municipal political group with strong ties to Preston Manning’s Manning Centre. She ran as the Wildrose Party candidate in Calgary-Elbow in the 2015 election. McCaffery has been endorsed by 9 UCP MLAs,MP Stephanie Kusie, former PC cabinet minister Ted Morton, and Quebecois libertarian icon Maxime Bernier.

Olsen is a former Calgary Herald reporter and columnist, a former Press Secretary for premier Ed Stelmach, and lead singer of Tom Olsen and the Wreckage.

Calgary-Falconridge – Deepak Sharma has been nominated as the Liberal Party candidate in this northeast Calgary district, becoming his party’s second candidate nominated to run in the next election.

Calgary-Foothills – Jennifer Wyness is seeking the Alberta Party nomination. She placed second in the Ward 2 contest in Calgary’s 2017 municipal election, finishing with 36 percent to incumbent councillor Joe Magliocca‘s 49 percent. 

Calgary-Mountain View – Dean Brawn has withdrawn from the UCP nomination contest.  Brawn was a candidate for Calgary City Council in Ward 7 in the 2017 municipal election.

Calgary-North – Melanie Wen is seeking the Alberta Party nomination.

Calgary-Shaw – Bronson Ha has been nominated as the Alberta Party candidate.

Edmonton-Castle Downs – Mohamad Rahall has been nominated as the Alberta Party candidate.

Edmonton-City Centre – Taras Zakordonski is seeking the UCP nomination.

Edmonton-Decore – Karen Principe is seeking the UCP nomination. Principe placed a very close third in Ward 3 in Edmonton’s 2017 municipal election. 

Edmonton-Glenora – Carla Stolte has withdrawn her nomination as the Alberta Party candidate in this district. She had been nominated as the party’s candidate on June 25, 2018.

Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood – Janis Irwin is seeking the New Democratic Party nomination in this long-time NDP-held district. Irwin was the federal NDP candidate in Edmonton-Griesbach in the 2015 election, where she placed a strong-second behind Conservative candidate Kerry Diotte.

Another frequently named potential candidate, Bill Moore-Kilgannon, announced in a note on Facebook that he will not be seeking the nomination. He will continue his role as president of the local NDP association instead.

NDP MLA Brian Mason, who has represented the area since he was first elected in a 2000 by-election, announced earlier this month that he would retire from politics when the next election is called.

Edmonton-North West – Ali Eltayeb was acclaimed as the UCP candidate in this new northwest Edmonton district. He is the owner and manager of Liberty Tax franchises in Edmonton.

Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland – Don McCargar is seeking the Alberta Party nomination. McCargar made headlines in 2016 when he put his $7.5 million Parkland County mansion for sale. The palatial home included a sauna, wet bar, six-vehicle garage, and a car wash, as well as herringbone marble tiles covering the floors and hand-painted dome murals adorning the ceilings.

Leduc-Beaumont – MLA Shaye Anderson was acclaimed as the NDP candidate in his district. Anderson was first elected in 2015 and currently serves as Minister of Municipal Affairs. Taurus Pawluk is seeking the Alberta Party nomination in this district.

Lethbridge-East – Angela Zuba is seeking the UCP nomination. Zuba is a development manager with Lethbridge College and the former CEO of the Canadian Home Builders Association in the Lethbridge region.

Lesser Slave Lake -Judy Kim-Meneen has been nominated as the Alberta Party candidate.

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. Thank you!

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New Democrats party and Kenney cringes. It’s Pride Week in Edmonton.

Photo: Jen Kish and Premier Rachel Notley

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley was dancing up a storm in front of thousands of Edmontonians at the capital city’s Pride Festival Parade on Saturday. The annual march travels down Whyte Avenue in the heart of Notley’s Edmonton-Strathcona district.

Notley was joined by dozens of Alberta NDP MLAs and Olypmian Jen Kish. Kish was captain of Canada’s Women’s Sevens Team at Rio 2016 where they won bronze in the inaugural Olympic rugby sevens tournament.

The United Conservative Party held its own event a few blocks away. After being declined a spot to march in the parade, UCP leader Jason Kenney announced that instead of attending the parade or other pride events, his party would hold its own event. The event featured speaker Lorne Mayencourt, an openly gay politician who represented downtown Vancouver in the BC Legislature from 2001 and 2009 and was a federal Conservative candidate in 2008.

This was not the first year Kenney has avoided attending Pride. As the newly elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Kenney declined to attend the Edmonton Pride Festival in 2017. He also declined to attend Calgary’s Pride Festival in 2016, claiming his schedule was too full, and in 2017, claiming he was wasn’t invited, despite being invited by internationally known Alberta artist kd lang).

The now-defunct PC Party participated in Edmonton Pride-related festivities in the past. Premier Alison Redford spoke at the parade in 2012 and Premier Dave Hancock rode in the parade in 2014. Even Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith showed up at Edmonton’s Pride events in 2012.

The obsession some Wildrose-turned-UCP MLAs and UCP party activists have about gay-straight alliances has certainly contributed to the party believing its representatives might feel less than welcome at Edmonton’s Pride celebrations.

As a professional politician Kenney is a master at schmoozing his way into all kinds of events, so it is unlikely he did not show up just because he was not allowed to march in the parade. Kenney is a social conservative who has spent much of his 21-year long career in elected office opposing LGBTQ rights in Canada and he appealed to social conservatives in order to win the leadership of the UCP last year.

Perhaps not surprisingly, even though he did not attend the event, Kenney has strong opinions about the Pride Festival Committee deciding not to include police and military in future parades.

With an election coming up in early 2019, and Kenney’s UCP holding a solid lead in the polls, it might be unlikely we’ll see another Premier dancing in the streets anytime soon.

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Alberta Politics

UCP draws huge crowds, huge controversy to its first policy convention

(Photo credit: @Alberta_UCP on Twitter)

With more than 2,500 party members in attendance, this weekend’s United Conservative Party founding convention was one of the biggest political events in Alberta’s recent memory. It was a big show of force for the official opposition party, which continues to dominate in the polls and fundraising.

Ric McIver
Ric McIver

The convention should have been a victory lap for Jason Kenney after forcing the merger of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties and winning the new party’s leadership. Instead, the big story of the convention is how it was derailed by a membership base weirdly obsessed with Gay-Straight Alliances.

Fifty-seven percent of convention delegates voted in favour of a policy that would out students who join Gay-Straight Alliances. Supporters of the policy claimed it was about parental rights, but that did not stop three MLAs from going to mic to plead with UCP members to end the madness.

“This is about outing gay kids,” said Calgary-Hays UCP MLA Ric McIver as he pleaded with party members not to pass the policy. “Don’t be called the Lake of Fire party, I’m begging you. This will really severely hurt our chances at winning. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“When we’re talking about freedoms, that means all people’s freedoms. That means making sure that children have safe spaces in schools,” urged Chestermere-Rockyview UCP MLA Leela Aheer.

But the pleas from the MLAs were not enough to change the minds of members, including a well organized contingent of social conservatives, at the convention.

The debate over this motion came only days after Edmonton’s Pride Festival Society rejected the UCP’s application to march in this year’s pride parade. A similar application was rejected by Calgary’s Pride festival in August 2017.

Even though it was Kenney’s comments about Gay-Straight Alliances that reignited this issue back in March 2017, he now says he won’t implement the policy if he becomes premier.

It could, and probably will, be argued that Kenney’s denouncement of this policy contradicted his “Grassroots Guarantee” that the party membership will determine the party’s policies. Kenney used the “guarantee” as a way of circumventing any substantive policy debates during the 2017 UCP leadership contest.

It is not clear what other member-endorsed policies Kenney will choose to ignore if and when he becomes Alberta’s next premier.

UCP members also adopted policies to eliminate the carbon tax, reintroduce a flat tax, increase privatization in health care and education, and require parental consent for invasive medical procedures on a minor (this motion was cheered by anti-abortion groups).

All things considered, it is hard to imagine that Rachel Notley‘s New Democrats could have hoped for a better outcome this weekend.

One Big Conservative Family

An underreported story of this weekend’s convention is the very close relationship between the UCP and the Conservative Party of Canada.

The presence of a federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer as a keynote speaker would have been unheard of at any provincial party convention in recent years. Scheer was joined at the convention by a number of Conservative MPs, and former leader Rona Ambrose, who spoke at the convention on a panel about women in politics.

The relationship between the federal and provincial conservative parties has always been complex, but it has been exceptionally complicated over the past three decades. The rise of the Reform Party and collapse of the federal PC Party in the early 1990s meant there was no formal alliance between the dominant federal and provincial conservative parties in Alberta for many years.

Almost as soon as the Conservative Party of Canada was formed in 2003, the Alberta Alliance, and later the Wildrose Alliance and Wildrose Party split the provincial conservative movement, leaving federal Conservative MPs divided in their loyalties for the PC and Wildrose parties.

While most of the focus has been on the Wildrose-PC merger, Kenney’s “unity” extends to the federal party as well.

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Alberta Politics

Read the nearly 800 policy proposals from United Conservative Party members

United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney
United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney (Photo source: Facebook)

You might have read about them in Don Braid’s Postmedia column today, but if you want to take a deeper look, here are the full list of draft policy proposals submitted by United Conservative Party members for debate at the party’s founding convention on May 4, 5 and 6, 2018 in Red Deer.

The documents mostly include generic and predictable partisan conservative policy proposals with a focus on repealing many of the laws and policies implemented by Rachel Notley‘s New Democratic Party government since 2015. But not surprisingly, a number of policies submitted from the right-wing fringe of the UCP make it into this list.

Introduction of more private schools and increased parental control in education (code for undermining student-led Gay-Straight Alliances), removing funding for abortion services, cutting the size of the public service and public sector employee pay, allowing MLA recall votes, and defining family as the union of a man, a woman and their offspring are among the controversial proposals included in the list submitted by UCP members.

While many of the policies included in this document will not actually become official party policy, the list of proposed policies provides a glimpse into the priorities of the UCP membership in 2018. As noted in Braid’s column, a “final list of resolutions, about 250, won’t be disclosed until members and journalists get their convention packages on Friday.” Those policies will be debated by members at this weekend’s UCP meeting.

UCP member proposed policies:

United Conservative Party Constitutional Document 2 – Member Policy Declaration – V2.0 (Member Proposal Con… by davecournoyer on Scribd

UCP member proposed amendments to the party’s Statement of Principles

United Conservative Party Constitutional Document 1 – Statement of Principles – V2.0 (Member Proposal Conso… by davecournoyer on Scribd

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Alberta Politics

Best of Alberta Politics 2017: David Eggen, Minister of Education

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.

He was re-elected as the New Democratic Party MLA for Edmonton-Calder in 2015, a district which he had previously been elected in 2004 and 2012. He ran for the leadership of the Alberta NDP in 2014, placing second to Rachel Notley.

Listen and subscribe to the Daveberta Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you find podcasts online.

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Alberta Politics Daveberta Podcast

Episode 3: Best of Alberta Politics 2017

Winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey: David Eggen, David Shepherd, Rachel Notley and Greg Clark.
Winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey: David Eggen, David Shepherd, Rachel Notley and Greg Clark.

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In the latest episode of The Daveberta Podcast, Ryan and I discuss Kara Levis‘ entry into the Alberta Party leadership race, the results of the Calgary-Lougheed by-election, Conservative MPs being challenged for their nominations, and we reveal the winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey.

With more than 1,200 votes cast in two rounds of voting, we were proud to announce and discuss the results of the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey on this episode:

  • Biggest Issue of 2017: The economy and jobs
  • Best political play of 2017: The formation of the United Conservative Party
  • Best Opposition MLA of 2017: Greg Clark, Alberta Party MLA for Calgary-Elbow
  • Best Cabinet Minister of 2017: David Eggen, Minister of Education
  • Up and comer to watch in 2018: David Shepherd, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Centre
  • Best Alberta MLA of 2017: Rachel Notley, Premier of Alberta and NDP MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and wherever you find podcasts online.

We’d love to hear what you think of the podcast, so feel free to leave a positive review and share the podcast with your friends and family. 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 big thanks to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality.

We will be back in January 2018!

Merry Christmas!

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Alberta Politics

Vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey (Round 2!)

Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey Photo: Jessica Littlewood, Greg Clark, Shannon Phillips, Nathan Cooper, and Sarah Hoffman.
Photo: Jessica Littlewood, Greg Clark, Shannon Phillips, Nathan Cooper, and Sarah Hoffman.

In our most recent episode of The Daveberta Podcast, Ryan and I asked you to help us shape our final episode of 2017 by voting in the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey.

More than 300 of you responded to the survey last week with your choices for the biggest political players and defining political issues of 2017. We tallied all the responses from that survey and we are now asking you to vote on the top 3 choices in each category.

Voting will be open until 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 21, 2017 and we will reveal and discuss the results in the final podcast episode of 2017, which we will be recording on the same day.

Here are the top 3 contenders who you can vote for in Round 2 of the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey:

Who was the best Alberta MLA of 2017? – Vote

  • Premier Rachel Notley, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona
  • Greg Clark, Alberta Party MLA for Calgary-Elbow
  • David Shepherd, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Centre

An honourable mention to Sandra Jansen, the NDP MLA for Calgary-North West, who placed a strong fourth in the first round of voting.

What was the biggest political issue in 2017 in Alberta politics? – Vote

  • Gay-Straight Alliances
  • The Economy and Jobs
  • Oil Pipelines

Who was the best Alberta cabinet minister of 2017? – Vote

  • Sarah Hoffman, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health and Seniors
  • David Eggen, Minister of Education
  • Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks

Honourable mentions to Danielle Larivee, Minister of Children’s Services, and Deron Bilous, Minister of Trade and Economic Development, who placed a strong fourth and fifth in the first round of voting.

Who was the Best Opposition MLA for 2017? – Vote

  • Greg Clark, Alberta Party MLA for Calgary-Elbow
  • Nathan Cooper, UCP MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills
  • David Swann, Liberal MLA for Calgary-Mountain View

Honourable mentions to Richard Starke, the Independent PC MLA for Vermilion-Lloydminster, and Brian Jean, the UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin, who placed a strong fourth and fifth in the first round of voting.

Who is the up and comer for 2018? – Vote

  • Jessica Littlewood, NDP MLA for Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville
  • Jason Kenney, UPC MLA for Calgary-Lougheed and Leader of the Official Opposition
  • David Shepherd, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Centre

An honourable mention to Brian Malkinson, the NDP MLA for Calgary-Currie, who placed a strong fourth in the first round of voting.

What was the biggest political play of 2017 in Alberta politics? – Voting Closed

In the first round of voting, 59 percent of you chose the creation of the United Conservative Party as the biggest political play of 2017. Because of this was the choice of a clear majority, we have declared this result as the winner in this category. Congrats, UCP.

Other notable choices in his category were Premier Rachel Notley’s pipeline tour, Greg Clark’s being forced out of the Alberta Party leadership and the NDP government’s Bill 24: An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances in Schools.

Photo: Jessica Littlewood, Greg Clark, Shannon Phillips, Nathan Cooper, and Sarah Hoffman.

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Alberta Politics

NDP should recalibrate their line of attack after Kenney’s crushing landslide in Calgary-Lougheed

Jason Kenney Calgary-Lougheed by-election

Attempts by Jason Kenney’s opponents to paint him as an extremist social conservative failed to stop the United Conservative Party leader from winning a crushing landslide victory today in Calgary-Lougheed.

Phillip van der Merwe NDP Calgary Lougheed
Phillip van der Merwe

With 22 of 22 polls reporting, Kenney had earned 7,760 votes, 71.51 percent of the total votes cast in the by-election. The UCP had a strong candidate, a strong organization and solid base of voter support in the district. And like the previous two by-elections held since the last election, this district avoided the New Democratic Party’s Orange Wave when voters re-elected Progressive Conservative Dave Rodney in 2015.

NDP candidate Phillip van der Merwe placed second with 1,822 votes, 16.79 percent of the votes cast. van der Merwe was a high quality candidate for the party in Calgary, but his chances of upsetting Kenney were always slim to none.

The NDP were spared the embarrassment of placing third, a spot that fell to newly elected Liberal Party leader David Khan, who earned 1,009 votes, 9.3 percent of the total vote. Khan’s showing was only a small improvement on the party’s showing in 2015, but it should be enough to concern the NDP that even a Liberal Party on life-support can eat into their vote share.

Despite support on the campaign trail from Premier Rachel Notley and a handful of high-profile cabinet ministers, NDP support was cut in half from the 2015 election, which is not a good sign for the governing party.

David Khan Alberta Liberal Party Leader
David Khan

The NDP should use the Calgary-Lougheed by-election as an opportunity to recalibrate their line of attack against the UCP leader. Kenney is a professional political networker unlike we have ever seen in Alberta politics, and he should not be underestimated.

While the NDP have been racking up easy wins against fumbling and confused UCP MLAs on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, Kenney has been activating a network of conservative political activists and supporters he has built over the past twenty-five years.

Two months ago, I wrote that the NDP were betting Albertans would forgive their more unpopular policies when reminded of the Kenney’s more bizarre social conservative views. On the flip-side, Kenney was betting Albertans would forgive his social conservative views when reminded of the NDP’s more unpopular policies.

The NDP painted Kenney as an extremist during the recent debate over Gay-Straight Alliances, and while his social views are probably out of step with most Albertans in 2017, that does not appear to have had an impact on him or the UCP in this by-election. Kenney’s relentless attacks on the NDP’s fiscal and economic agenda appear to be resonating in Calgary, where NDP MLAs are expected to face a very steep uphill battle in their bids for re-election.

While I am sure the NDP’s strategists in Edmonton are hard at work preparing for the next election, it may be time to rethink how they approach the UCP leader as he enters the Assembly.

This may have only been one by-election in a district already held by the UCP, but it should be a wake-up call for the NDP. The next general election is only a short 14 months away.

Results of the Calgary-Lougheed by-election (December 14, 2017)

Jason Kenney, UCP – 7,760 (71.51%)
Phillip van der Merwe, NDP – 1,822 (16.79%)
David Khan, Liberal – 1,009 (9.3%)
Lauren Thorsteinson, Reform – 137 (1.26%)
Romy Tittel, Green – 60 (0.55%)
Wayne Leslie, Independent – 42 (0.39%)
Larry Heather, Independent 22 (0.22%)

Vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey

Make sure to vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2017 Survey. The first round of voting will close at 11:59pm on Friday, December 15, 2017. Voting for the top 3 results in each category will begin on Sunday, December 17, 2017. We will reveal the results of the survey on the next episode of the Daveberta Podcast, which you can listen and subscribe to on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and wherever you find podcasts online.

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