Archive for the ‘Alberta’ Category

I was reading one comment made over on Calgarygrit’s blog made by a fellow by the name of “Frank.” I felt this sinking, sickening feeling as I read it. Every single time I hear someone saying we shouldn’t attempt to bring in a group of people into our camp I am sickened. Every time I hear someone saying “x group will take us over if we try” I feel a sinking feeling in my gut, as if I had just been sucker-punched. In this comment Frank trashes a leadership candidate and says Albertan Liberals should curl up in a ball and give up on attracting new people into the party, like people involved in unions or in their faith communities. I am just sickened by this attitude.

I think it’s a weakness to write off groups of people and never even attempt to ask them to join the Alberta Liberals. I think it’s wrong to say people of faith shouldn’t be asked to join the Liberals. I think it’s stupid to throw up our hands and say union members are all Dippers (because they’re not!). I think it’s ignorant to assume every group or amalgam of people are a threat to “take us over.” The attitude that Frank holds is holding the party back from reaching out and becoming a party worthy of governing Alberta. It’s also holding us back.

I can understand folks like Frank, though. We’ve just payed off a debt that has come about from Ms. MacBeth’s leadership but we have also inherited another debt–a debt that Frank still carries with him. It’s the debt to a way of thinking. After Laurence Decore passed away there was a vacuum that has since remained empty. Except, of course, to be filled with a cloistered way of thinking chained to past Edmontonian glories of ’88 and ’93. The bitterness of partisans who have been beaten down, again and again, into a dwindling group of angry Albertans who just are not sure about what to be angry about anymore filled that container too. This tenacity is great for just surviving but the Liberals ought to reach above and beyond just surviving.

So we should exchange this debt for a promise. A promise of openness and inclusion.

We’ve already thrown aside the barriers structurally in our party twowards including people. We are the most open party in all of Alberta and we’ve stared into the very eyes of every Albertan to say to them that they may come, from any part of this province and any group, to join us in making Alberta a better place. We’ve made the commitment–and the party has grown by a thousand supporters in the first week since that convention. Two weeks later another thousand had joined us. And we’re still growing, still including, and still bringing in new people.

We have room for fiscal conservatives. We have room for ex-pastors, businessmen, teachers, leaders, and carpenters. We have room for the LGBT community and parliamentary procedural whizzes. And of course we have room for traditional Liberals–and traditional Tories!–in this party.

I’ve signed up more than a dozen supporters of the Alberta Liberals in the last week alone. I have a small packet that I carry around and, when I meet up with a friend who I know who wants to be involved or be heard… I sign them up. Giving people a voice–and an outlet for inclusion–is powerful and rolls forward to be self-empowering. When I talk about the different candidates for leadership they are interested, want to know more, and, of course, proceed to press me for answers about them that I don’t know (it’s why I wrote up the leadership survey, actually). People are interested in joining and participating: just ask. Our best days are ahead of us.

So let’s go. There’s a better way–the sunny way.

This is the second ad in a set of three. The first ad was on education and this one is on the minimum wage (which is pertinent because of it being in the news recently).

Again, as I’ve written before on the set of ads, it’s a set that is now for the most part useless. With Stelmach going other leaders can take his place, reverse his bad decisions, and then make it seem like they’re running against the party in some form of renewal. More than anything else it’s a historical footnote on what could have been released and showcase (and never was). What draws my attention to the ads, though, is that they attempt to portray, quite astutely, the fringe character of both the Wildrose and their leader, Ms. Smith. She is a lady who doesn’t believe in the minimum wage and that ought to scare a lot of people. I feel it’s quite effective to draw attention to this fact.

The Wildrose don’t have a chance in hell in breaking into Edmonton so this ad isn’t in anticipation of any competition there. If we were to look at the situation strategically the Liberals and the Wildrose should be cooperating together to bite into the Progressive Conservative supporters seeing that (a) their supporters don’t overlap (much) and (b) the growth areas are in a shared target: the PCs. So any attack on the Wildrose would almost seem pointless at the juncture this ad was created (some six to twelve months ago) and quite definitely now. So it’s obvious why it wasn’t released.

The problem is that the Wildrose is a threat against every Albertan if it gets into government. If you watch the ad you’ll clearly see that while the Stelmach Tories were only incompetent the Wildrosers will invite a period of anti-unionism and anti-worker legislation unlike ever seen before in the province. If anyone watching what is going on in Wisconsin and the United States right now people who like having atleast a minimum wage or public healthcare have a lot to fear. And these issues have been skated around by Smith and the Wildrose, with a complacent and complicit Albertan media.

Media scan:

• David Suzuki - Alberta’s biggest oil spill in 30 years is a call to action for Canadians
• BBC - Oil spill in Canada’s Alberta ‘biggest in 35 years’
• Sun – Spill making kids sick
• Market Wire - Lubicon Lake Nation Still Standing in Face of Environmental Crisis: Oil Spill Has Leaked 4.5 Million Litres Onto Their Lands
• iNews 880 AM - The murky politics that could dampen oil spill clean-up
• Montreal Gazette - Probe demanded after worst Alberta oil spill in four decades
• CBC – Alberta premier criticizes oil spill cleanup

Firstly, I’d like to note that the Alberta Liberal Party has dramatically improved their communication strategy in the last three months. The news releases have been more punchier, more clear, and have been pushing the agenda in the public debate. I’m loving the feisty-ness of the press releases and the adoption of humor in them.

Case and point? “Leave it to the beavers” is the title of the press release that was sent to me a few days ago. It strikes a chord at three different issues at once: that the Stelmach government is incompetent, that the government isn’t doing their job, and that it’s being left to people and defenseless beavers to handle the spill. I’m impressed and I’m positive that part of resonance this issue is getting is because of this framing of the issue.

Problem being.. is that the local media, like the Calgary Herald or the Edmonton Journal, have been inconceivably slow with regards to the oil spill. It has taken a little less than a week for them to report on it. I’m both flabbergasted and annoyed by this.

Anyways, the beavers actually do environmental protection much better than the Stelmach government. There’s no humour in this fact. We have decades old pipe lines (the spill coming out from a pipeline from fifty years ago) and very little regulations. Just last week the “Kinder Morgan Energy Partners had to close its 300,000 bpd Trans Mountain line when a small leak was spotted on the line’s right-of-way, 150 km (93 miles) west of Edmonton.“ With beavers there’s constant attention to levies and dams, never mind that their immediate families live in those watersheds and structures; With Stelmach and the Progressive Conservatives there is no such care, no effort, and no attention.

This is an absolute failure in regulation by the province. This is more than frustrating as an Albertan. More care needs to be given to environmental and health protection of those near oil pipelines. One might ask why even a pipeline is even going through a watershed! As the days go by more information will be coming out I have very little doubt the health and environmental costs of the spill will reach even higher. The Lubicon Lake nation, who relies on this area, will be forever maligned and harmed by this spill, with both their childrens’ health faring much worse and their general way of life burdened forever.

• CBC on Dr. Swann resigning as the leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta Legislature
• CalgaryGrit gives his piece
• Maurice Tougas gives his thoughts
• CTV on Dr. Swann resigning
• CalgaryHerald on Dr. Swann resigning
• Writer Earl J Woods gives a good word for Dr. Swann
• Daveberta gives his regular anti-Liberal rant
• Of all people, AlbertaTory defends the Liberals

I had known of Swann’s impending resignation since January 25th. I was at once sad and frustrated that he was leaving as leader, and quite suspicious of the person who told me (it was because polling the source said and then I noted that rarely had Swann reacted to polling). On Sunday it was confirmed that a rather large caucus meeting was happening on Tuesday and last night the story broke to the Globe and onto Twitter. At 9:42 am this morning it was confirmed by one of my most trusted insiders in the Alberta Liberal Caucus. At 11:30 am Swann presented his resignation speech in a media conference.

I was frustrated because Swann is a good man in a time of politics that the exiting Progressive Conservative leader has foretold to be more fraught with savage “American” attack politics. I was sad he was resigning because he had done so well on many fronts.

He’s a good man. Nobody can say many bad things about him. The sole issues surrounding his leadership of the Liberals in Alberta had been that he hadn’t been a figure that caused ruckuses and had not followed a path that was partisan or angry. He told his caucus to be polite to the Progressive Conservatives. He had the party respect the other parties. He worked with the Wildrose and the NDP on the fracus over healthcare in 2010 as a leader ought, and took little credit for his endeavors. Swann was humble, was a statesman, and is a good man. And it’s a shame to see him go.

Under his term as leader he has demolished the party’s debt, showcased to all of Alberta that coalition politics were simply not in the cards, as it were, for anyone on any part of the spectrum, and under his leadership the Alberta Liberals purged the negative naysayers that have plagued them since Ms. MacBeth in the 1990s. He has, in a way, cleared the way quite readily for another person to take the role of leader in the Alberta Liberal Party.

The debt has been paid off, the Liberals have the most members in the legislature outside of the Progressive Conservatives, there is a constituency in every riding, and there are people with political experience in most of the positions in the party. There is a  young group of people in the lead and there’s a marked willingness for change.

If you add together the ages of the Executive Director and the President of the Alberta Liberals you’ll find that they don’t go above ex-Finance minister Morton’s age. The party is young, dynamic, and growing every day.

Taking a look at the challenges over the Alberta Liberals over the last year, specifically of trying the tools of the Democratic Renewal Project and of electoral cooperation, while an idealistic voice was given it has been denounced by Albertans. This chance, and this exploration, has pushed naysayers and several background old guard players out, leaving a void for new players to enter into the Liberal ranks. There are opportunities for the non-aligned and the ambitious, at the same time as the idealistic and chivalrous, to take a leading role in the Alberta Liberals.

While I am sad that Dr. Swann has opted to resign from being leader of the official opposition this has opened up a tremendous opportunity. This opportunity to harness a group that is across Alberta and can be mobilized effectively (probably more effectively judging on the right leader) than before. There is a substantial opportunity for someone to take the reigns and fight for the leadership of the Alberta Liberals.

Take, for a moment, a glance at the other people in the caucus of the Alberta Liberals. All of them are capable, all of them are intelligent, and all of them of well-spoken. Swann, if given a teleprompter and a shock collar, has kept on track and given exemplary speeches. Kent Hehr was a king maker in the 2010 election for Calgary’s mayor. Darshan Kang is a force of nature. MacDonald can tub thump like the best of them. Laurie Blakemen is a capable leader and showcases her constant will to try / help people on a daily basis earning her adoration and respect by even hardcore Tories. Bridget Pastoor has been silently plugging away in the background making efforts to represent not only her constituents but bringing in the needs of farmers and non-urban peoples to the fore. Chase and Taft are powers upon themselves, with histories and legacies in their communities and in the legislature that will likely long outlive them as they retire from politics.

All of these people can give their efforts to a leader who knows how to use them. All of these people have followers and all of them can call upon people in their community. All of these people have the skills and effectiveness to make a foundation for something larger, something bigger, to grow from. Sadly, none of them are capable of taking the decisive leadership role for the party and lead them into the next election. They need someone from outside to take advantage of their skills, the human capital, and the infrastructure in place. Without debt, in possession of a province-wide brand, and holding political people on the ready to fight for them, a leader could step up to take advantage the schisms of politics of today and make a clean break with the forty years of one-party rule by the Progressive Conservatives.

It’s possible. We just need to find the right leader. And it has to come from the outside.