Liberals and folks in Alberta–Haters gonna hate.
This post is about the cooperation policy that was past at the convention last Sunday in Edmonton. It is shown below. First off, though, I’d like to note that I was in opposition to it at first. I also was one of the ones who was quite shocked and made my opinion quite well heard when it passed, earning the quizzical look the the MLA sitting across from me (sorry, Kent). I overreacted, like a great many did. And, well, if we check out the media they have as well.
Swann, the Alberta Liberal Party leader, has written about the policy at his blog.
Now I’m going to tell you why I changed my opinion. Here’s the amended resolution that was passed first, however:
Cooperation with Other Political Parties [#18]
WHEREAS the democratic voices of progressive parties in Alberta are weakened by splitting the vote in provincial elections;
AND WHEREAS it is a principle enshrined in the heart of the Alberta Liberal Party to work to increase the chances for true democratic participation for all Albertans;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Alberta Liberal Party supports making every reasonable effort to persuade other progressive parties in Alberta to work together during elections.
Sponsoring Association(s): Edmonton-Glenora, Edmonton-Mill Woods
So now that you’ve read it you will be a thousand times more aware of it than most of the reporters and Albertans. And this is where the haters are going to pipe in–they wont quite understand what exactly is proposed by this resolution and will write it off as a NDP-focused trick against the Albertan electorate.
And, likely, anyone who doesn’t have a keen eye for politics and positioning will likely miss what has happened with this resolution. Listen to this: it is an extending of one’s hand to the people across the left-centre and right-centre of Alberta, and not the parties of Alberta’s far left and far right. Here it is again–it’s about Albertans, Albertans who happen to be in the parties of the left, and Albertans who are currently uninvited into politics. The parties in of themselves–especially the NDP and Progressive Conservatives–seem to have become regular stick-in-the-muds, being the same without a single change to their tactics or will.
Mason, the NDP leader, has already stated that he will not work with the Liberals. The NDP have refused two times to work with us Liberals. Their executive and 40-hour/week volunteers have their entire fibre against anything that has anything that has Liberal in it. Just check out their website and their battle cry of “Liberal, Tory, same old story.”
The NDP’s ties to Jack Layton and his federal NDP is also notable in their decisions on cooperation. The NDP in Alberta are too tied to the federal level, too dominated by Ontarian unions, and too dominated by their unbreakable links to the national party. (Luckily, the ALP doesn’t have that. We broke all ties after a little thing called the NEP.) The NDP constitution also reinforces this link–and this link will make sure any cooperation will not happen due to the controlling influences of the NDP in Ottawa.
Therefore the NDP party accepting Swann’s statemanship is a moot point. It will never happen. And pundits and Albertans should forget about it.
It’s about the NDP regular membership and those who are fed up with their choices that’ll flip to the Liberals.
First of all, the NDP, and their party stalwarts, will continue to say that the Liberals, Conservatives, and Wildrose are the same–that they’re for corporations running the country, same pro-privatisation of healthcare, and pro-poverty. The hardcore Wildrosers and the increasing right-wing Progressive Conservatives will be tossing out, in more and more quantities, that the Liberals are communists, socialists, and are bed-brothers with the NDP, Communists, and other left groups. They’re going to be haters. And…
Click to enlarge.
The ALP will be scorned by both sides, both bases, and both sides of the partisan divide. The party mouths will bash, bash, and bash some more. Haters gonna hate.
Let them hate, too. They’re not the ones we’re interested in. We will never earn the votes of any of the executives of each party so it is pointless to try. It’s better to earn Albertan votes. We want Albertans and regular folks to look at us. The bashing is free advertising, anyways.
This is why Swann isn’t worried about the resolution. This extended hand of his moves beyond artificial groupings such as parties to ask for the help of Albertans around the centre of the left-right divide. This is what some might call a double pitch–asking as a statesmen for cooperation and establishing a rapport with disillusioned Albertans.
Still, some parties can be asked to hop over to help the Alberta Liberals. But, err, what about the other progressive groups? The resolution isn’t only about that one party, the NDP–it’s about others, too. In all seriousness, when the media gets kicked up in this province they tend to forget a few other groups that are, for all intents and purposes, being left to the side. The just imploded Greens, the Alberta Party (and their big listen), and Reboot Alberta (although not a party, they’re still important) are also progressives. And they are also invited.
I know I want to know about what has been going on in the Alberta Party’s “Big Listen” project. I’m positive lots of good ideas are being created. Issue being with the Alberta Party (and others, too) is that they don’t know about organizing a province-wide campaign.. which the Liberals have done. There’s definitely cooperation that can happen here. There’s definitely an opening for ex-Greens, ex-Tories, and progressives to jump in.
This resolution isn’t about big executives and party coalitions. It isn’t about uniting the entirety of the left. Everyone knows the NDP partisans are never going to work with the Liberals. Who will, though, are not those radical few, not the half crazed, and not the extreme. Centrists, left-leaning people, centrist Tories (“Red Tories”?) given up on by their increasing right-wing Progressive Conservatives, and regular folks will take the hand extended by Swann. The ALP is building a big tent in Alberta around their centrist positions where those scorned by a increasing divisive form of politics have been created, where people are unhappy with the right wing parties are feasting upon each other, and who have been burned by the purely-partisan matyrdom-worship of the old guard in their parties.
So no matter if you are green, blue, red, purple, orange, or incandescent pink, the ALP has opened itself to you. The resolution is targeted not at parties but at the people within them and to Albertans everywhere.This resolution is less about parties and cooperation and more about opening our doors to any who are willing to come into the Liberal tent.
With Tony Sansotta (president of the ALP) and David Swann (leader of the ALP) there is a commitment to have everyone and anyone be included in this big tent. There is also a commitment to winning as Liberals and as Albertans.
Links:
The Clean Government Initiative (CGI)
21 Responses to “Liberals and folks in Alberta–Haters gonna hate.”
Leave a Reply
Nominated - Best Political Weblog
Nominated - Best Media & Journalism Weblog
Nominated - Best Political Blog
Nominated - Best Political Weblog
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dan Pagan and Dan Pagan, Vincent St Pierre. Vincent St Pierre said: New blog post: Liberals and folks in Alberta–Haters gonna hate. http://bit.ly/a6E3bg #ableg #ablib #cdnpoli [...]
now that is an interesting resolution as my dad, Jack Lowery was ousted from the Liberal party for such a suggestion. At the time Socreds had a few good things going that he felt the party should support – no one supported him on that thought. Funny how these things come around.
Great post and a neat perspective, thanks! Dr. Swann’s commitment to positive change in Alberta reminds me a little of Harry S. Truman’s “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”
The passage of the DRP motion at the ALP policy convention that asks progressive parties to collaborate in the next election, is a progressive step towards strengthening democracy in the Alberta legislature. While I recognize that many members of the NDP and ALP are strongly opposed to this initiative, I hope the DRP can persuade reasonable (but undecided) center and center-left leaning Albertans that the only way we can bring about political change is by suspending our own entrenched loyalties to party ideology. The larger ideology at stake here is the preservation and reinforcement of democracy. Given that political analysts have compared the Liberal and NDP policy platforms and found about a 95% overlap, surely we can provisionally put the 5% differences aside so that both parties can form a viable opposition in 2012 and put an end to the Conservative juggernaut. After that success, we can all return to our parties of choice. This is a temporary solution, without which Albertans will have an ongoing, long-term problem–one that might well move this province even further to the right.
A common argument against the DRP initiative is that it’s undemocratic. That is not how I understand the DRP initiative. The project intends to have level-headed, moderate members of the NDP and ALP democratically decide the form and process of cooperation. What unites NDs and Liberals in the DRP is their belief that by dogmatically adhering to the same strategy we ensure that the governance of this province remains undemocratic. To prevent that, the DRP is committed to building a path to proportionate representation, which can only come about through a strong, viable opposition or a new, centrist government. Toward that end, the DRP has some suggestions that can jump-start discussions on the process of cooperation and democratic renewal–a win-win process for each party, for the people, and for the province.
I wish the DRP much success; spread your message far and wide. Hopefully progressive Albertans will visit the DRP website and become part of this dynamic team.
Judy J. Johnson
Calgary, AB
Well done to ALP for the courageous initiative. Hopefully, we will see the consolidation of progressive forces in Alberta with the Liberals leading the way.
Hopeful citizen
I absolutely agree that, as long as undue pressure from the federal NDP continues, the leadership of the Alberta NDP will never agree to substantively cooperate with the Alberta Liberals.
Back in the spring of 2008, when I and other members of the NDP Environment Caucus put forward a motion to “explore the possibility” of cooperating with the “Alberta Liberals and/or Greens”, I, and other members of the Envirocaucus, were called into a meeting with Jack Layton, Brian Mason, Linda Duncan, and provincial and federal party staffers. At this meeting, we were introduced to the litany of excuses as to why cooperation with the Alberta Liberals would backfire with unintended consequences:
-”We need the Liberals to split the Conservative vote.” (Just about any Liberal that I know what rather roast on a spit than vote for a Conservative!)
-”There’s no guarantee that Liberals,when they don’t have a Liberal to vote for, will vote for the NDP. (There’s never a guarantee in a democracy! Presumably, for the best results,the Alberta NDP and Liberals will benefit from putting together a substantive accord that will earn the trust and the vote of a majority of Albertans.)
-Jack: “We will gladly consider cooperating with other parties AFTER an election but not before.” (How true that became after the unsuccessful coalition attempt later that year.)
I was basically urged to withdraw the motion. I choose not to.
I fault Brian Mason less than Jack Layton for the misguided resistance of the provincial NDP to negotiate a substantive cooperation agreement with the Alberta Liberals.
And, beyond that, I fault Federal NDP staffers more than Jack Layton. At our meeting in May of 2008, Jack Layton seemed to believe that the NDEnvirocaucus motion was about merging the Alberta NDP and Liberals. For some reason, Jack was misinformed. The NDEnvirocaucus motion did not call for a merger.
Indeed the Democratic Renewal Project has never called for a merger. The DRP has always maintained that the better tactic is to advocate a temporary, tactical alliance between the Alberta Liberals and the NDP. An alliance that is to last just long enough to secure political victory and to enact an agreed upon legislative agenda, including not least of all, electoral reform such as the institution of proportional representation or some other effective electoral reform.
Sadly though, I agree with you that this is simply not going to happen as the federal NDP continues to operate under the assumption that any substantive act of pre-electoral cooperation between the Alberta NDP and the Alberta Liberals will somehow de-legitimize and/or otherwise fatally weaken the federal NDP. At this point in time, especially provincially, precisely the opposite is true!
Democracy is well served by a diversity of voices and the NDP has an important role to play. I look forward to the day that the NDP can
fulfill that role in an electoral system of Proportional Representation. Until that day, creative problem solving is needed.
Ms. Johnson, you are mistaken. The DRP is not dynamic, is not forward thinking, and not any where near appropriate for this province.
They are academically inadequate, intellectually lazy, and old coots. There wasn’t a single young person among them–all of them were at least over the age of 55. And all of them wanted to rekindle a “new left” creation that united an entire half of the spectrum. This is an old idea. It is blatantly idiotic as well. The DRP is old. The DRP is, also, is a inadequate endeavour.
What the DRP is trying to do is bring together a coalition of partners to form a party under the people of the NDP. Almost every single person there with the DRP sign was, in fact, ex-NDP members and volunters. They’re tired and old socialists trying to remain somewhat involved in today’s politics where there is no room for them. They want to be included in a system that has left socialism, communism, and the revolutions of the 60s/70s behind.
I’m sorry, Ms. Johnson, but they’re not dynamic.
They want to practice old politics by bringing together old ideas and strewing together factions together in hopes that combined resources will invigorate Albertans. They expect that it will engender some form of awakening amongst the Albertan people. It wont. And I will tell you why: the DRP and whomever alongside them are not advocating change, either in democracy or in Alberta. They want the old tired parties and politics of the left from four decades ago when they were young. They are not change. They’re more of the same.
And Albertans are tired of that. They’re tired of the same prattling old folks from the 60s talking about a social revolution. They’re tired of the cry of “democracy” being the sole aim of a party. You will not attract any person, young or old, outside of the DRP’s little fragment of a group that are interested in revolution or such an ambivalent concept such as “democracy”.
The DRP seeks to displace the centre-right in the ALP. They do not want to work with Red Tories, the group that has been disenfranchised by the PCs in the last ten years. I find the DRP both a academically lazy and intellectually faulty movement, and they sicken me.
The ALP needs to provide leadership, through Swann and Sansotta, and capture the imaginations of Albertans. That’s how we will attain power in Edmonton. It will not be through electoral tricks or through giving up that which we believe in.
Leadership is dashed when we give up what makes us believe in politics. Leadership is destroyed when we give up on our own beliefs. It’s more than that 5% that divide us, Ms. Johnson. The ALP is rooted as a centrist party, where we can stand firm with balance and understanding of all sides to benefit as many Albertans as possible. The NDP are transfixed on equality and the support of the working class, and not so much with a balanced approach that is key to the Liberals. I’m sorry, Ms. Johnson, I’m willing to go to reasonable efforts to work with other people, wherever they come from, but I, and a great many others, will never surrender our beliefs. It is much more than 5% that divides the ALP and the NDP.
And it is undemocratic to destroy Albertan’s ability to chose who they want to vote for. While you might think that having Progressive Conservative wins every election distasteful to your political leanings, the people of Alberta make that choice every election. Albertans make that choice to vote for the Progressive Conservatives. If we remove the leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party then that harms Albertans making their choice to select a candidate of their choosing. You cannot undermine the basis of democracy through electoral parlor tricks. If we remove my ability to vote for the candidate and party I want then you are destroying democracy not saving it.
If we follow the DRP and fall prey to their idiocy then we will end up with another PC government. It will happen again, and again, and again, because the DRP doesn’t represent any meaningful change. It’s just more of the same. What is needed now is not, and I emphasize this, not caving in to the left but setting out with leadership and drive to win the hearts of Albertans.
Also, finally, the cooperation resolution was not the DRP’s resolution. It was Edmonton-Glenora. The DRP has no sway in the ALP and is simply an arrogant little organization that huddled in a corner.
So can the arguments supporting the DRP. Support the extending of Swann’s hand and try to welcome as many people into the tent as possible. Support him, not the infantile DRP.
I can barely read the “admin on May 20th” title above this post. Perhaps it should be a lighter shade of grey, just as your thinking around the DRP issue should be less black-and-white. Your comments imply that everyone who supported the DRP motion is unintelligent and ready for the scrap heap. You write, “I’m willing to go to reasonable efforts to work with other people, wherever they come from, but I, and a great many others, will never surrender our beliefs. This is a caricature of the motion, which simply reads that Liberals will do what is so characteristic of David Swann–cooperate with other progressive thinkers to defeat the Conservative and Wild Rose.
May I inform you that the people who founded the DRP have written books that are published by reputable publishing houses, and peer-reviewed journal articles; many have post-secondary degrees. They are not socialists on the rampage, nor are they “infantile.” They are political activists who have thoughtfully examined the statistical probability of winning in the next election. Their long-term goal is to at least get a minority government that has some chance of implementing electoral reform. Many DRP members have written at length about the current political scene; they’ve concluded that Alberta’s right-wing juggernaut of power is as hostile to centrist and center-left ideas as you are to political cooperation. I am a huge supporter of the ALP and have worked hard on David Swann’s leadership campaign and several candidates bid for election. I sincerely hope the ALP gets a majority in the next election, and will work hard to make that possible. I believe that all liberals should be open to entertaining reasonable, viable ideas that increase our chances of winning.
If you are part of the ALP administration (as your message suggests), I do not support your employment. Your mind is closed, your views are laden with emotion, and your language is hostile. Moreover, if you’re so certain of your argument, why don’t you at least have enough courage behind your convictions to sign your name?
I am “Ms. Johnson.” I have a PhD in clinical psychology, am over 55, and am a card-carrying Liberal who also belongs to the DRP. I might add that I’m the author of “What’s So Wrong With Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief (published by Prometheus Books of New York, 2009). Perhaps you’d like a complimentary copy.
Judy J. Johnson
Associate Professor, Mount Royal University
Everyone take a deep breath….there, isn’t that better?
I don’t sign my name as I don’t want to pull the old, I got 2 degrees in this and I know better than you, stuff. I acknowledge education, but the entire financial system has a lot of educated people in it and they are not doing so well right now.
Please consider a merger.
In truth,NDPers Rod Olstead and Alvin Finkel initiated the co-operation resolution presented to the AGM by Edmonton Liberal ridings. Those two have been working within the DRP since a similar resolution was rejected by the Alberta NDP. Many,like myself,abandoned the NDP to support David Swann as he was not overtly opposed to cooperation. Swann abstained from voting on the co operation resolution as amended by Darryl Raymaker while some delegates voted against resolution for being too weak. Stiffest opposition came from Alberta Liberal Party president, Tony Sansota, same guy who slipped in a resolution to privatize health care services (talk about controversial!)
Now that cooperation is law, it will not bring a flood of members to our tent. Last election half of Albertans stayed home, thereby allowing a lopsided Tory win. Next time Albertans might vote if offered a progressive candidate with a chance of defeating the right wing. This could result in more progressive MLAs and a government that will enact proportional representation. After that we progressives can resume fighting over our small differences.
“Admin,” have you read the Alberta Liberal policies? With which ones do you disagree? I’m quite happy with all of them and I really don’t care whether they are labelled left, centre, centre-left, or centre-right.
In your McCarthyite and agist rant, you seem solely interested in labels and images. You don’t discuss at all what the Liberals offer to Albertans. Nor do you identify yourself.
You owe it to Liberals to indicate which “centre-right” policies the Liberals should adopt that somehow the Liberal members of the DRP shut down. My impression on Saturday, when Tony Sansota moved his resolution to tolerate private delivery of health care, was that he had absolutely zero support. Many of those who spoke most eloquently against his proposal were opposed to the Glenora-Mill Woods resolution for cooperation with other parties, sometimes vociferously. The people who were carrying the “public funds, public delivery” placards are long-time and progressive Liberals.
Whether the issue was taxes, the environment, health, education, or electoral reform, there simply was NO DRP-rest of the Liberals divide. Except for the strategic issue of working with other parties, the Liberal party is a virtually united party with only a small group wanting to introduce more Tory-lite policies. Or did I miss some important policy debate, admin, in which there was a substantial “centre-right” which got shot down by a mythical DRP left?
It’s not the DRP that has created an overlap between Liberal policies and the policies of NDPers, Greens, and former Lougheed Tories. This preceded our existence and in fact is the CAUSE of our existence. I don’t agree with hgdreams’ proposal for a merger, because I recognize that the parties don’t agree about everything and that they have different histories and different visions for the far future. But I do believe, based on their policies, that they could, if they had the interests of Albertans at heart, agree to a minimum common platform with the wording coming straight from the Liberal policy book. Now you may disagree with this strategy, and have every right to say so. But when you go beyond that and claim that current Liberal policies have no concern for equality, I think that you mean the Campbell Liberals of BC not the Swann Liberals of Alberta.
Correction: I implied that Alvin Finkel and Rod Olstead wrote the co operation resolution as presented by 2 ALP ridings to the AGM. I should have explained these 2 guys began a movement within the ANDP that lead to the DRP which encouraged this resolution. Its has been a long road so far and the battle has not yet begun.
When I first read admin’s angry, abusive and quite incorrect rant (who are you, anyway? I’m signing my name to this), my first impulse was to ignore it. But seeing patient and eloquent people like Finkel and Johnson reply moves me to write.
First, who are we to dump on sincere, engaged members of any party? They may be deeply mistaken, as I see Wildrose and Conservative policies to be, but are we not all engaged in an honorable, peaceful process of choosing our governors? Most people in the world would bleed for the chance to have a chance for rational, free dialogue on this subject. Why then sully it with cheap abuse and exaggerations?
I grew up a Progressive Conservative, even led them in a university’s model parliament, then became a Liberal when hired as a special and executive assistant of some federal ministers, including P. M. Trudeau. Later, due to my concern about environmental and social justice issues, I migrated to the NDP for 30 years, even running provincially for them under Grant Notley. So I have respected friends across the political spectrum.
That’s why I’m so saddened by the tone of admin’s contribution.
Now for my two cents’ worth on the Liberals’ electoral cooperation resolution. I applaud it and the DRP’s efforts. Divide and conquer has been a recipe for continued Conservative domination of Alberta, in spite of their gaining a much lower percentage of votes than seats. We need “democratic renewal” of various sorts in this province – uniting progressives to oust the Tories, some form of electoral reform to bring vote and seat percentage into sync, senate reform (abolition, for me) and so on.
It’s time for everyone concerned about these questions to find common cause. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good! Politics is the art of compromise, not a forum for baying across the abyss at imaginary enemies, who, on inspection, are well-intentioned Albertans, just like us.
Admin’s contribution is quite interesting. Response is full of rant, Cliche, ephitets, generalisations and singularly devoid of any constructive suggestions or thought.
Well Mister Admin, will so carefully chooses to hide behind is anonymity, I can surmise you must be one of those who feel that the ALP is your exclusive domain and anyone who has an alternative point of view is the “enemy”. You probably are one of those who had an almighty “babies dummy spit” when the motion was passed, fulminated and frothed and felt need to poke fingers into people’s chests, abuse them face to face, swear and carry on like a petulant child.
But I ask again, where are your constructive suggestions or thought. The Liberal party is an inclusive party of all ages and not just a party of 20+ persons. I am 70 and a proud Liberal and can table thump as passionately as any 20+ year old. But if you are a young turk, Mr. Anonymous, I would remind you that it is generally the middle-aged and geezers like myself in the party will regularly dip into our wallets and give money to the Liberal party. It is the middle aged and geezers like myself will bring a life time of experience and judgement to the table and have long since learned that if you have something to contribute, then get your facts right and switch on both lobes of your brain. And it will be the middle-aged geezers like myself that will probably turn “on” the switch of your obviously closed brain. You with your scattergun approach, have nothing positive to contribute and indicates that the testosterone, instead of flowing into your brain, is flowing south.
I will tell you where I stand. The prize from me is “electoral reform”. And no matter how much I think about it, the only way to achieve it is to get a majority of “bums on seats” in the legislature and I offer a temporary cooperative approach, I repeat, a temporary co-operative approach and not a merger of any political parties until we can get a referendum on electoral voting reform. If you have a better approach, then enlighten me but please spare me more of the same old tired crap, namely, we need better candidates, we need better and more riveting policy, better communications, and better leadership to capture the imaginationof Albertans. No one is asking anybody to suspend their beliefs. But even an idealist can learn to be a pragmatist if there is a greater goal in sight. All of these have been proposed and tried before, probably by intellectual midgets like yourself, and we seem to be disappearing into the drain hole at an ever increasing rate.
Doctor Swann, who displayed great leadership at the convention specifically spoke to this issue and my recollection was that he, Grant Mitchell and Warren Kinsella all expressed various degrees of approval for this different approach. In addition, Dr. Swann again reiterated that the ALP is inclusive of all its members, irrespective of age or background and we all are the ALP’s future.
So Mister anonymous admin (wearing your coward’s ballcap) please offer us something more constructive instead of your rant. If you can’t, then the prospects for the Liberal party are indeed bleak, and the future ALP will still need to listen to all points of view and suggestions. So take leave of your cliché riddeen and generalisation world, and proffer something that can lead to a majority in the Legislature.
Hey guys, just going to point out that “Admin” isn’t an administrator on the site. I was asked my a reader via email earlier today if she was, seeing that her name is the short form of “administrator”. She isn’t one.
Also, don’t be too quick to bash her over her choice to remain anonymous. Anonymity, and the freedom to espouse one’s beliefs without fear of personal/social harm, is a core facet of democracy so it shouldn’t be used as an argument against either her or her arguments.
Hello: I would simply like to add that the ALP and its young people have nothing to fear from the work of the DRP, quite the contrary. Not only are we a fairly competent and diverse group of people, but a good number of us are members of the ALP too, and have supported David Swaan, before he was elected as its Leader, and right up to now. In fact, we met with him in more than one occasion to brief him as to our doings and to seek his advise as to how we can make ourselves useful. He has been supportive of our endeavours – there’s no reason why he shouldn’t.
We consider him a friend and have the utmost respect for him both as an MLA and as a person. He represents the best our values. I would invite young ALP members, or sympathizers, or anyone who cares about the estate of politics/democracy in our province, to visit our website at: http://www.drproject.ca and check for themselves what we stand for. Collaboration, cooperation, strategic electoral agreements, in short, a fairly pragmatic world view, which incidentally is not our invention; it happens all the time in many places around the world, and for a good reason; no one party can make a credible claim of representing everyone. On our site you’ll find plenty of good information that could assist anyone with an open mind, to better understand where we are coming from. Together we’re stronger.
Kind regards,
Leo Campos Aldunez, Co-Chair
Alberta Democratic Renewal Project
I appreciate the original article’s idea that the cooperation resolution is, in part, an indication that the big-tent Liberal party is extending a hand across partisan lines to the voting public – in particular the disillusioned public. I get the sense now that the ALP caucus & executive can and will lead this province into a new era where our votes might actually translate into more progressive MLAs. I still hold out some hope that the progressive parties will eventually be able to work out some sort of pre-election agreement, not unlike so many other world democracies. This resolution, however, is a meaningful first step towards this province achieving some sort of electoral reform and better government. I am impressed with the dedication of the ALP staff & executive, and with the high caliber of current & past Liberal MLA’s. Thank you for your hard work. I’m ready to volunteer.
I echo S.B. remarks – at the very least, it offers the possibility of bringing a more mature/civil conversation on these important matters. In the best case scenarion, centre/centre left progressive forming government in our lifetime; at minimum, getting some baddly needed electoral reforms into our arcane electoral system – that would be a good thing, yes? :) LCA
Dear S.B. volunteer,
If you beleive in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and bad things only happen to bad people, then I guess you can beleive in the Executive of the Liberals, I am not quite so confident.
If you examine the Liberal Policy regarding who can make policy, and how they make policy, you may come to understand how the liberal energy policy was devised. I don’t know if the recent policy convention passed the policy construction resolution but it was a humdinger.
65% of the executive voting in favor of a policy creates policy.
Only 2 of three priority policies from the last policy convention MUST be included in the next election platform.
The executive can recind any policy adopted by the convention after 6 months by voting 65% against maintaining it as policy.
The MLAs can create liberal policy (the energy policy) at any time as a function of their status in the party.
At the next policy convention, any policies adopted by the MLAs will be brought forward in an omnibus resolution, and adopted or rejected en masse.
If the members do not police the liberal executive, do not expect to find any money under your pillow, Christmas presents under the tree, or bad people suffering from justice.
hgdreams, the Policy Framework was not passed at the convention. It is being studied and reapplied at the moment.
[...] were two articles about the Alberta Liberals (one about the open-party, big tent “cooperation” resolution passed at the last conventio…) and three about the Liberal Party of Canada (about the possibility of merger/coalition [...]