Archive for September, 2009

The Liberal candidate for Calgary West, Jenifer Pollock, is attending four events over the next two months to talk to Calgarians in her riding. Each will be occasions where people can walk up to her and ask her questions, and likely get a a solid feel for her emphasis on putting a “New face on politics”.

(1) On September 22nd between 7:00pm and 9:00pm at Varsity Community Center for a meet and greet.

(2) On September 24th between 6:30pm and 8:30pm she’s at Signal Hill Library for a townhall.

(3) On October 19th between 4:00pm  and 6pm Pollock is attending Strathcona Community Centre for a townhall.

(4) On October 20th between 7:00pm and 9:00pm Pollock is attending Scenic Acres Community Hall for another townhall.

No, seriously, what happened?

I knew people were peeved at the provincial PCs for botching royalties, landing a deficit unseen in Alberta’s existence, and for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on trips around the USA for cabinet staff. The upset that happened seemed to be quite overboard, though. The intensity was just incredible to watch and the volunteers (especially the Wild Rose ones) truly carried the race when push came to shove.

A party that was shut out last election (cumulative vote of a little more than 8%) ousted a district that had been a Conservative bastion for almost forty years. The Conservative candidate was squashed down to a 25% of the vote (HALF of what the Cons won in 2008), and the Liberals were only two points shy of the Wild Rose Alliance’s winning 37%. Voter turn out in the election was only 40.5%, it isn’t too much off of it’s 2008 turn out (which was 41.2%), so my gut says that it’s the same block of 11,000-ish voters that voted again in this election–this time by changing their allegiances.

If the same block of voters remained, the Liberals increased a tad, while the Cons waned and the Wild Rose gained, I can only really assume as much. There’s been a flip in the power scheme, it seems, of Alberta.

This has, funnily enough, caused one of my Wild Rose friends to make fun of Conservatives. Wait for it–it’s hilarious–he tells Conservative-minded friends that they should continue splitting the left so that the WR can form government in the next election. As you can probably tell I was very much amused. Why, you ask? Well, as polls recently indicate, Alberta is about a third Liberal in their taste for political parties. As these two duke it out, it allows for some upsets later on from the centre–meaning Liberals will be snapping up seats all over Alberta. It was also funny.

The Wild Rose likely has another four years to prepare for an election fight across the province. Already, from its win in Calgary-Glenmore, it has drawn the attention of tens of thousands wanting to purchase memberships. Their leadership debate drew 400 people–quite a bit for a party with only a single seat.

Anyways, I’m still wondering what happened there. Something is still off. Obviously voters didn’t flock to the Liberals, the official opposition party, since they stayed at a rough third of the vote. It seemed to be a huge gain to the Wild Rose at the pain of the Conservatives–an obvious rebuke to their management. I suppose if you want to send a message to the Conservatives you’d have to send a “expletive-disturber” to the legislature, which is odd since from all the media I’ve been carousing over the Wild Rose MLA is very calm and mild-mannered.  It doesn’t quite seem to be the case that this guy can put the screws to the Cons in Edmonton–but he now has ample opportunity to prove me otherwise.

It might just be a few Conservatives flipping this vote over to a party they think will go nowhere, and this is just a small blip on the Conservative’s track record, rather than the start of a new political reality in Alberta. It’ll be fun to watch, anyways.

http://www.liberalalberta.blogspot.com/

Although it writes “For a Redder Alberta” at the top of its main page, it isn’t that red, is it? That small quibble aside, the Liberal Party is setting up another website for communicating to citizens–this time, it has heavy emphasis on Alberta. This newest one is among the numerous blogs/sites you can find by just playing around on liberal.ca.

The great thing about this new blog is that they’re actively searching for people to submit some articles to it. Just now I received a facebook message from Corina Ganton (who sent it to the entire facebook group belonging to the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta, not just me–I’m not that important)  about the new Liberal blog. So if you’re interested just jump in and send in some articles.

Here’s her message below:

Hello:

The Liberal Party in Alberta has developed a new blog site that we are going to use to promote the Liberal Vision in this province.

This blog site is a way for you to communicated your thoughts about being a Liberal, about the Liberal Party and about the specific issues and policies that you are passionate about.

You can check out the new site at http://www.liberalalberta.blogspot.com/
(Thank you to Caitlin Schulz for the first, and wonderfully written entry)

We are looking for entries that are short about 100-200 words about anything your heart desires.

If you need inspiration…. try to answer this question, Why are you a Liberal in Alberta? What makes Liberals in Alberta unique? Why are you proud to be an Albertan and why are you proud to be a Liberal, and how do the two characteristics meet?

If you would like to see your work posted please email you entry to me at cmganton@gmail.com

Thanks and I hope that you take this opportunity to make your voice heard!

Corina Ganton

So if you’re interested, feel free to contact the group. Their contact information should be up within a month when they’re prepared to start publishing people’s works online.