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.
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And once again, we are deeply thankful to our producer, Adam Rozenhart, for his help in making this podcast a reality.
Despite a record number of women being elected to the Alberta Legislature in May 2015, including nearly a majority in the governing New Democratic Party caucus, and the majority of provincial cabinet ministers being women, the number of women elected to municipal office remains low.
According to the Alberta government website that promotes the tour and includes an online campaign toolkit, women hold an average of 26% of elected seats in municipal politics and Albertans elected 490 women out of a possible 1,874 municipal positions during the 2013 municipal elections.
At the Edmonton event on October 18, the only woman elected to our City Council, Bev Esslinger, will join Ms. McLean and Métis Nation of Alberta President Audrey Poitras for a discussion about how women can launch campaigns for municipal office. The discussion will be moderated by Edmonton Journal reporter Elise Stolte.
The Lethbridge event will feature Maryanne Sandberg, Councillor from the Municipal District of Willowcreek. The Medicine Hat discussion will include past mayoral candidate Milvia Bauman, Newell County Reeve and past provincial election candidate Molly Douglass and moderator Christy Pick from Shaw TV Channel 10.
The Calgary event discussion will include Piikani Nation Councillor Angela Grier former Calgary City councillor Gael MacLeod and will be moderated by radio host and former Wildrose and PC MLA Danielle Smith.
2016 marks 100 years of women’s suffrage in Alberta. As we can see in the current American presidential race, women candidates face many challenges when it comes to seeking office, least of all still having to campaign hard against an opponent who is grossly under qualified. I have heard it said that women have to be asked five times to run for office before accepting, while it usually only takes men one ask. It is my hope that more women will seek election, and will be elected throughout the province. After all, it is 2016.
On the topic of women running in municipal elections, Miranda Jimmylaunched her campaign for Edmonton City Council in the southwest Ward 5. She will be facing incumbent Michael Oshry, should he choose to run again.
Alberta PC Party leadership candidates Thomas Luksazuk, Ric McIver and Jim Prentice.
As the deadline for candidates to enter their names (and $50,000 fee) in the contest to become the next leader of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Association came to a close yesterday, three politicians have put forward their names – bank vice-president and former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice and former provincial cabinet ministers Ric McIver and Thomas Lukaszuk.
A quick glance at the names of the three candidates confirms that no women or visible minorities have entered the race to fill the position vacated by Alberta’s first woman premier, Alison Redford, who was pushed out of office only a few short months ago. A few woman candidates were rumoured to be interested, but the most high profile of those rumoured, Energy minister Diana McQueen, declined to run, choosing instead to endorse Mr. Prentice.
While Canada reached a high-water mark in recent years, with women occupying the premiers office in six provinces and territories, the number has plummeted after recent elections. Today, only British Columbia and Ontario have women premiers (and Ontario voters will decide the fate of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals on June 12, 2014).
Alberta could once again enter this category if Official Opposition leader Danielle Smith leads her Wildrose Party to win the next election. Edmonton MLA Rachel Notley is said to be considering a run for the Alberta NDP leadership and some say she would become an instant front-runner if she enters the race.
All three PC leadership candidates have cut their political teeth in Alberta’s largest cities. Mr. Prentice was the Member of Parliament for Calgary-Centre North from 2004 to 2010, Mr. McIver as a Calgary MLA, former Alderman and mayoral candidate, and Mr. Lukaszuk as the MLA for Edmonton-Castle Downs since 2001.
The presence of three urban candidates signals both the growing political importance of the province’s two largest cities (and the urban agenda’s put forward by popular mayors Don Iveson and Naheed Nenshi) and the PC Party’s weakness in rural Alberta.
Not having a candidate from rural Alberta is embarrassing for the 43-year governing party. Once almost universally dominated by PC MLAs, the Tories have seen their support plummet in rural and small-town Alberta over the past four years. In the last election, many PC MLAs, including a some senior cabinet ministers, were handily defeated by Wildrose candidates in rural constituencies that had voted enmasse for the PC Party for more than three decades.
This is also the smallest number of candidates to participate in a PC leadership race since the party chose Don Getty as leader in 1985. In 1992, there were 9 candidates; in 2006 there were 8 and the 2011 leadership race attracted 6 candidates.
The small-number of candidates is a testament of the internal turmoil in the PC Party following the coup d’etat that caused Ms. Redford’s departure and the strength of Mr. Prentice’s campaign. Whether it is perceived or real, the ‘Team Prentice’ brand quickly drew the support of more than twenty PC MLAs and an army of party insiders and political consultants.
Unlike the deflated front-runners in previous PC leadership campaigns – Jim Dinning and Gary Mar – Mr. Prentice has succeeded in scaring away most of his credible potential challengers. Whether he suffers the same fate as these former ‘front-runners’, who were later defeated by underdogs, is yet to be seen.
The challenge for the three candidates will be to generate interest in a campaign that already feels like it is a forgone conclusion (a victory by Mr. Prentice). A big question is whether the any of the candidates in this race will be compelling enough to convince those thousands of ‘two-minute Tories‘ to lend them their votes.
