Alberta Liberal Caucus Communications just posted a new video featuring Laurie Blakeman.  In the video she’s encouraging Albertans to speak up about how they want to see the land used in the Lower Athabasca region.  Its’ a direct response to the recommendations about the Lower Athabasca Land Use framework.

Ms. Smith earlier on Tuesday wrote a letter to the Calgary Herald extolling the benefits of saving the Health Resource Centre.

Two doctors wrote letters to the editor calling her out on her twisted viewpoint and twisting of the truth. They are posted below with links to their original pages on www.CalgaryHerald.com.

Letter #1

Ask the experts

Re: “Province must intervene to save HRC,” Danielle Smith, Opinion, Aug. 24.

I think Steve Miller and his orthopedic and anesthesia colleagues do a very good job of the hip and knee arthroplasties they perform at the HRC. So I agree with that sentiment in Danielle Smith’s piece. What she did not state, however, is that arthroplasty at the HRC is confined to the healthiest patients. The higher-risk patients are all done at the AHS hospital sites. It is typical for private facilities to provide care only to the healthiest patients who have the fewest complications and the lowest hospital costs. If Smith wishes to use superlatives to describe care in private facilities, she needs to compare similar populations of patients. Perhaps if Steve had limited the size of his new facility, and done a better job of managing his investors, without biting off more than he could chew, then AHS would not have had to intervene legally to protect the patients who were committed to HRC. Smith might start to educate herself on this topic by reading the account by Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of

Medicine (Google: Marcia Angell, Privatizing health care is not the answer: lessons from the United States. Canadian Medical Association Journal, Oct. 21, 2008.) What Angell may have forgotten about this topic is more than Smith will ever know. I encourage Albertans to listen to people who know what they are talking about.

Charles MacAdams, MD, Calgary

Read more

And letter #2:

One Sided

Re: “Province must intervene to save HRC,” Danielle Smith, Opinion, Aug. 24.

I have not made up my mind whether private surgical clinics such as the HRC are good for Albertans or not. However, I find Danielle Smith’s column interesting. To me, it is most telling that Smith seems to throw her support completely behind the HRC while condemning the Alberta government when she states: “The facts of this case are yet to be determined in court, however, HRC’s version of events is as follows . . . . ” So it seems like she has made up her mind after only hearing one side of the story. One must ask if Albertans would want the leader of a political party, much less someone who aspires to be the leader of the province, to lack such basic skills as fact gathering and the patience to hear both sides of the story before making up her mind on an issue.

Ken Cheung, MD, Calgary

Read more

I’ll be going. You should too. Information is below:

Date- Sunday Aug 29

Time- 1:00pm – 4:00pm

Meet and Greet – 12 noon – 1:00pm

Location-
Croatian Canadian Cultural Center
3010 12 St NE
Calgary, AB

FEEL FREE BRING A GUEST, AND TO FORWARD THIS INVITATION TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY.

The Calgary Leadership Forum is a 1400 member non-partisan think tank, dedicated to improving the quality of life for the citizens of Calgary, for this and future generations.

For more information visit www.calgaryleadershipforum.com or call Brian Lee CSP, President, 4036077444 or email empowerpeople@hotmail.com
…
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81404767871#!/event.php?eid=136727559700944&ref=ts <http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136727559700944&ref=ts>

Kent Hehr gets it on accountability. It’s not about promises; it’s not saying what you’ll do and who you’ll do it with; and it’s not vast schemes or machinations.

It is in being accountable that you are accountable. It is within the actions that you partake in that show that you are a candidate for accountability. Mr. Hehr has chosen two days ago to act to prove that he is a candidate for accountability by releasing the names and the amounts donated to his campaign. In an election where no candidate or group is mandated to show their funders until months, and if they play their cards right it can be years, after an election, and in an area considered a ‘wild west’ for campaign laws, Kent Hehr has shown remarkable courage and personal strength.

Nenshi has already backtracked on accountability, McIver is silent, Higgins seems to be stuck on platitude mode (she’s a fiscal conservative with a big heart, whatever that means): and Hehr is the only man for mayor trumpeting the cause. Mr. Seskus, writer for the Calgary Herald, is right: it’s time for mayoral candidates to show the money and the people influencing them. Mr. Hehr has provided the leadership and the guts to do this and now the rest of the candidates need to follow in his footsteps.

As noted before in another posting of mine, Kent Hehr’s actions on accountability is making him a very high quality candidate for mayor. I can only hope that the mass media (as DJ Kelly has noted) doesn’t sink Hehr’s campaign out of a self-induced trance of idiocy and dumbing down of politics as media outlets are want to do every election cycle.

Nenshi says:

I will be immediately disclosing every week all donors on my website. [1:01]

But, uhh, there’s nothing.

Dr. Grogan points it out on twitter:

And they’re not there, anywhere, on his website:

Check for more at www.Nenshi.ca and see for yourself. It’s been two and a half months and there has been no action by Nenshi to actually fulfill a promise that he promised to do immediately.

The Nenshi campaign then goes on to be a tad bit rude to Dr. Grogan:

Again, again, and again candidates give the same spiel about accountability, experience, and transparency. So much so that, for a constant listener, those buzzwords lose their original meaning. Then, when a mayoral candidate actually comes out with a solution to back door deals and what is currently tantamount to corruption in other areas of the country I myself cannot help but listen and pay attention.

Kent Hehr (website), the anti-crime, pro-police, and smart-growth candidate, has promised to set up a lobbyist registry and push the details of who is meeting who at city hall online.

And why should Calgarians pay attention?

Remember rhat “Peace” Bridge? Back room dealing all the way and council attempting to spend “free” cash from the province that they hadn’t thought of where to spend it yet. As Rick Bell has a lot of poignant points about this bridge here.

Or, perhaps, the $30 million purchase of a $10 million golf course for housing… that cannot be developed for housing because of zoning issues? Almost twenty million is riding on the changing of zoning of the Shawnee Slopes Golf Course and the unwatched and hidden lobbying going on behind the scenes right now is enough to make a mafia boss blush.

Kent Hehr today has come out pledging to set up a lobbyist registry so that Calgarians know who is influencing who. Hehr notes that Ric McIver’s 2007 campaign was halfway covered by the development lobby and that Calgary’s growth has been mismanaged to the extreme. Personally, I’d like to make the connection between mismanaged growth and the zilch transparency, with the relations between public officials and companies be just one instance of such inadequacy, seeing that if there isn’t accountability for decisions, accountability for politicians who have been bought and sold, and accountability that’s just at citizens’ finger tips in an online database.

“That’s why, if elected, I’ll immediately take steps to set up a lobbyist registry, post information online and introduce a more open, honest and accountable government to the citizens of Calgary.”

• The Hehr For Mayor Campaign’s Press Release [PDF]

If Mr. Hehr keeps on going this route I’ll likely end up voting for him. Nobody else seems to really be offering real solutions in this mayoral race–except, of course, for sweet nothings like “fiscally conservative with a big heart.”

There is a serious problem in Ottawa.

• Canada.com posted a story two years ago about a hallway completely dedicated to portraits of Harper.
• Kim Leaman writes of an image-infatuated Harper.

I thought it was all satire for a moment. It’s the kind of stuff you would expect from, say, a site like The Onion News Network. But it isn’t. Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green party of Canada, has seen this hall. So has Kady O’Malley.

There is an entire gallery dedicated to the Hon. Stephen Harper. According to the Canada.com article all you need to see it is a Commons Pass and a Conservative Party of Canada membership card.

I missed this article in 2008, though. And now that I’ve seen it… I just don’t know what’s going on in Ottawa and in Harper’s head. It’s just mind-numbing even thinking about the amount of ego required to establish an entire gallery for oneself. Tell me what you think below in the comments.

Someone is trying to pull my chain. This twitter feed has gone up and down for the last few days and seems to be the twitter feed for Harley Shouldice, the campaign manager for Low campaign in ward 4. At least allegedly it is.

Personally, I think someone is trying to pull my chain with this account.

See below for a picture:

Click to enlarge.

Someone yanking my chain, in two parts:

• Part I
• Part II

On Thursday I interviewed Andrew Rodych, Ward 13 candidate in this year’s municipal election. The interview is bel0w. It goes on for 28 minutes.

Click if audio does not work | Download

If you or your campaign would like to be interviewed please drop me a line at vincent@calgaryliberal.com. As shown above, I even interview fiscal conservatives so please don’t be shy.

Links:

• His website
• His forum