Archive for the ‘Policy’ Category

Rarely does one hear politeness, somber, and well versed folks speak in politics. This–this here–is a video of a talented person that encapsulates the need for change in the CRTC and the regulations that can make our information systems the best of the world. As someone who has spoken about the internet and the need for a fair policy before on the radio, I know it’s hard to stand up for yourself and stand up for your ideals. Andrew Moore does this perfectly with a grace rarely shown by people involved in our society.

Please view his excerpt below where he addresses the public hearing for the CRTC.

If you haven’t already heard, Ed Broadbent has stated he’ll be starting a think tank (named after himself, even) in the fall. It’s a smart move–a move that the conservatives amongst many different parties have been doing for almost thirty years. It’s smart because it builds their coalitions of support (see my previous blog post about icebergs and growing parties). It also does some other things which help their supported parties quite a lot.

Here are three quick and simple ways a Liberal think tank helps the Liberal Party of Canada.

(1) It offloads risk

In this day and age with rapid communication and even more rapid opposition response having smart, well thought out, and generally accept policy is key to being successful. What a think tank does is take the time to think through ideas, create arguments for and against them with accompanying responses, and then sends these ideas out into the world in such a way that they can be commonly accept across different aspects of society.

This rescues the party from creating policy that is (a) easily attackable, (b) not well thought out, and (c) from not having general acceptance by the wider public (and to partisans!).

(2) The money for it is there

Funding restrictions dropping from $5,000 to $1,100 for individual donations under Harper means that, on the whole, hundreds of members who were donating that maximum now have ‘freed up’ donatable capital to give to causes. This source of money could be effectively utilized to support a think tank and removes the one road block Mr. Rae highlighted in his recent interview with Susan Delacourt.

(3) Effective Leadership/Candidate Source

If you take a step back and examine the leaders in the Conservative party or in the NDP party a consistent trend is that they’ve come from organizations that have given them media training, organizational skills, and political savvy. The NDP this tends to be from some of the unions that are on their side. For the Conservatives we’ll take one example: Danielle Smith of the Wildrose Alliance. Ms. Smith has benefited from being a wonk at the Fraser Institute and director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which has trained her for presentations, handling the media, ideological discourse, and effective speech making. And this has helped her quite a bit in Alberta–taking a fourth rate fringe party into a popular fourth rate fringe party.

The benefits from this organizational backdrop is that we would have candidates coming out from an organization that would have some media capability, effective speech making skills, and ready access to a network of supporters. This is beneficial because with rapidly increased media sessions and harsher political climate the quicker Liberal politicians can be made ready for politics the better our results will be.

Frustration.

That’s a word that completely typifies the Alberta Liberal Party this year.

The frustration began earlier this year with the party’s AGM in Edmonton when a group from the Edmonton-Glenora and Edmonton-Mill Woods constituency associations put up and pushed through a policy during the convention’s debates on cooperation with other parties in elections. And the results? The Alberta New Democrats were shut down by their federal counterparts and the Alberta Party just politely said ‘maybe later’ which, in poli-speak, essentially meant a no. With every “reasonable” action taken–a set of $5,000 full page ads in the papers, many, many phone calls, and many more actions–none of the other leaders wanted to take hold of Dr. Swann’s extended hand.

It’s frustrating.

Then with the health documents detailing an attempt at bringing in private delivery that was leaked to the Liberals, a full night of filibuster to draw attention to Alberta’s ailing health system, the fall and excommunication of MLA Raj Sherman from the PCs over his call to arms over the ailing health system, and bitter media attention over a poor man who was just eating his cookie, you would expect attention to be given to the Alberta Liberals. And they did receive it, of course. If you look on google news for Alberta Health Services and the myriad of health debates over the last year you will find the Liberals mentioned in most, if not all, of them, with Dr. Swann taking a strong stance against consistent screw-ups by the governing party.

Well, the Liberals received the attention, the PCs adjusted their policies, Raj Sherman was asked to come back (but, of course, the PCs know how to burn bridges just as well as they know how to burn down hospitals), and accolades was given to Swann and his swaggering band of health-warriors that banged the drums of the health care crisis while Stelmach stayed home for almost the entirety of that one debate.

During the anti-Albertan campaign by RethinkAlberta.com and a vote-hungry Californian politician, the ALP leader David Swann went down to the USA to talk to American citizens and politicians to tell them the real story and to win them to Alberta’s side. In tandem with Swann’s fighting in the trenches, Mr. Stelmach covered the air war with letters and interviews with the Avatar director James Cameron. Ms. Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party, and Mr Mason, the leader of the New Democratic Party, stewed at home making a few announcements and showcasing public anger while really doing nothing.

And what happened, poll and popularity-wise? The Wildrose shot up in the middle of the year to only settle back down to the mid-20%s almost a full ten points ahead of the Liberals. Really, the past year has given the Wildrose a boost from PC negligence, while earning the Progressive Conservatives a swift downturn in the polls for their faults. And where are the Liberals in all of this? The Liberals have stayed at essentially the same point as it did almost a year ago.

Frustrating. At least the 2008 election debt is paid off now, though.

I could look past all this, though, except for one thing. There’s one dreadfully painful and poignant point that pains me: the Alberta Liberal Party has been saying all the right things. Just take a glance at their Contract with Alberta, their 12-step program to get Albertans the accountable government they deserve. Open government? Check. Put payment of MLAs in the hands of a separate, non-partisan committee in the spirit of accountability? Check. Clean up waste, cut the Premier’s ever expanding communications budget, and bring good debate back to the legislature for the good of democracy? Check. Safeguard the people’s money and be fiscally responsible? Check. Curtail the power of an unelected position (the premiership) and protect whistle blowers? Check, check.

There’s three problems with the program, though: it took me twenty minutes of my google-fu to find it, it had a $50 voter tax credit tacked on almost as an after thought thus creating a red herring to pull people away from debating the substance of it after it was released to the media, and it was simply ‘forgotten’ about after the negative press about “bribing” Albertans with their own money.There’s good policy, there’s a listening public, a slightly lukewarm media searching for stories to be written for them, and there are translation issues here.The policy is good but the delivery isn’t up to par.

And this is frustrating. This communication is the challenge to be overcome in 2011 for the Alberta Liberal Party. There is little doubt in my mind that if every person in Alberta read that 12-point program they’d probably disagree with some of it but it’d get them interested in at least giving the Alberta Liberals more than a decent chance for Swann to swoon them.

So.. how? That, I think, is where I, and the many Liberals in this province, come into play. It requires us to rethink two key things:

(1) Politics is no longer confined to periodic bursts and pauses, such as elections or the next scandal. Scandals don’t work any more; Consistent politicking, constant engagement, and concerted attention does. We can see this in the non-bump in the pools for the Alberta Liberals after Cookie-gate, and the sizable putsch the Wildrose is engaging in rural Alberta.

(2) Remind everyone that it takes everyone to create political change in this province. Politics cannot be, and never has been, a game solely in the hands of the paid political operatives hanging out in constituency offices or in capital cities. It’s me, it’s you, and it’s our neighbors sitting down around the table hammering out solutions for our neighbors, you, and I.

It’s knocking on doors and waving signs at people in mid-day traffic. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. But nothing that was ever worth getting doesn’t have an associated cost double its worth. In the new year it’s simply a matter of going out there and pushing. So let’s push (and get that 12-step Contract with Alberta on the front page of www.LiberalOpposition.com).

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.