With the Alberta Liberals leaving their debt in the dust (their last event in Calgary a week ago, a $250/ticket dinner attended by more than 500 people, and other events like it in Lethbridge, Edmonton, et al) they’re starting to hit back at Stelmach and the other conservatives in the province. Seeing that the Liberals are still cash strapped the option of using web ads, and using low cost techniques in a low cost medium, seems the like best method to talk to Albertans.

Taking a step back, the more than the Liberals use the internet and its resources the more people it will get a hold of to listen to them. It’s just a natural piece of social media wisdom–the longer something is around, and is updated, the more grass roots attention it will receive. A couple ads from now and a few more months this web-based advertising might just begin to take root in the province and begin to get headway into a conservative-leaning media that so dominates Alberta.

Circumvent the reporter and hit directly at the voters that politicians need to talk to… and cheaply, too, which will help rocket the Liberals in Alberta back into financial shape and help set them up for a stronger campaign later on. Alberta politics are about to take a more interesting turn.

More at LiberalTV.

If you like the A-Team and like to watch Alta. politics, you’ll love this.

I really have to thank Dave Cournoyer for posting this. It’s so apt, too. “Nobody messes with Ms. D” finishing subtitle still causes me to chuckle, especially with her accompanying picture.

If Stelmach received less than 70%, or had lost the confidence of a third of his party, he’d probably had been forced to leave his position as premier. That’d create a year long struggle for who would become the next premier and all the fun that it entails. If he received above 80%, well, we’d know as Albertans that the Progressive Conservatives were out of their bloody minds. As it turns out, however, Stelmach landed is a safe middle ground between these where he can say he has lost a bit of the confidence of his party while at the same time holding onto the fact that his party still remains behind him.

Issue being, however, is that the vote last night at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) wasn’t quite the most democratic possible. Rather, several constituency associations hand picked delegates to go off to Red Deer for the convention while other places just passed out delegate cards to whomever asked for them. That’s not quite a representative, elected delegation to explore the merits of Stelmach’s leadership so far.

If such a thing were to be fixed my guess would be that Stelmach would have been hit harder and pushed into the lower 60s rather than where he ended up. If he’d have had all of Alberta sneak into the convention he’d have received 30%. Definitely an issue to be hashed out here, seeing that there is a split between the popular will and what has been shown to Stelmach.

Although he has that sweet spot between 70% and 80% in his party, there is definitely a larger segment of society that is pitted against Stelmach. However, this too has to be balanced against another fact: last election the PC’s numbers were also very bad coming up to E-Day. There is also a lot of time (maybe two years?) before another provincial election is called, so there’s plenty of time for Stelmach to fix this debacle.

So Stelmach dodged a bullet at the convention by squeezing into that sweet spot; However, he still has a sizable problem to deal with–the voting populace. Perhaps if he’d actually have a plan for long term prosperity rather than just a four point one for the next few months Albertans would have a more favourable outlook on the guy. Oh well.

Might I suggest checking out…:

http://www.davidswann.ca/

http://www.daniellesmith.ca/

Conservative Industry Minister Tony Clement might have some issues to resolve. It seems there is a tinge of favouritism for his very own riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka.

Note the following facts:

His riding received the highest amount of infrastructure funding at $35.8 million. His riding has therefore received the highest amount of all northern Ontario ridings, double the average.

The riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka has the second highest number of arena and community centres projects in Ontario at $2.4million).

Parry Sound—Muskoka has the third highest amount of Building Canada Fund community component funding at $25.9million.

Tony Clement nabbed his riding the highest amount of Community Adjustment Funds in Northern Ontario, and 39 million in funding through the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund.

Seeing that he is in charge of such funding, and there is a larger portion of the funding is being pushed to his riding, there seems to be an emphasis on supporting this single Conservative riding.

It isn’t like his riding is in more trouble than the rest of the country. His riding’s unemployment is 6.8%, which is almost on par with the rest of the nation. So it is not like the money is directly needed there more than anywhere else in the country.

The first thought in my mind is that the Conservative government is playing political games with the public penny. Seeing that the Tories are not giving a full disclosure of spending there cannot be anything more than just speculation by the citizenry of Canada.