Here is some Sunday night silliness for you amusement and perhaps chagrin...I suffered from both feelings after taking the quiz because my score was embarassingly low. I will not chastise any comments that are Ananymous regarding this post or the quiz - honestly... really...I mean that! Because I will not tell you my score - I can hardly complain if you tell me how you did and do not what your identity known.
Thanks to the Globe and Mail for this - it is almost enough to make up for my conspiracy theory when they published the Hancock Platform story in the rest of Canada but not in the Alberta edition.
Ken
ReplyDeleteAlthough 18 months into retirement and living in Kingston, I am watching the Conservative leadership race in Alberta. A few thoughts from an old political hack that your readers might appreciate.
First, political perspective changes when beyond Alberta's borders. Not a word here about the leadership race. Astonishingly, we learn in southeastern Ontario that no one is plotting to steal the Heritage Fund. In fact, few know about it. Despite Klein's frequent rants, no one is secretly planning another National Energy Program to steal Alberta's oil - no need to steal it when Klein is already giving it away.
Second, I haven't met anyone over 30 who intends to move to Alberta. We're finding the reverse - people who have left Alberta because of the high cost of living and the lack of reasonably priced accommodation.
Third, I met a restaurant owner in Kingston last night who just sold two of his properties in Edmonton. Said he couldn't get anyone to work in them and that university students in Alberta are "too wealthy" to work at part-time jobs. Said he will know better next time than to invest in a booming economy.
Fourth, all the policy puff kicked around in the Conservative leadership race is cute but beside the point: in my view, the gut questions that so far haven't been considered: first, who can handle a caucus that hasn't had a single interesting thought in at least five years and is satisfied with that; second, which leadership candidate has the balls to make the changes that must be made, especially in opening government up (i.e. the democratic deficit). Certainly not Dinning who, it is apparent, thinks the way to win is to talk of nothing but mush. It seems that he wants to win so bad that he has forgotten why he wants the job or what he will do with it if he wins. Besides, Dinning has too many people around him - Love, Danchilla, Hallman - who are mired in the past and motivated purely by self interest. From what I have read and what I know from so many years of covering politics in the province, Lyle Oberg has the balls but unfortunately he, like Stephen Harper, thinks he is the smartest guy in the room and has all the answers. Doctors tend to dictate solutions rather than discuss issues. Tell me that my old friend David Hancock has found a new political life, that he has what it takes to do what is necessary to take the province's political system to where it should be. Because if Hancock won't bring a fresh approach, the time for change the governing party has come. From what I have seen so far, Liberal leader Kevin Taft has had more original thoughts in the last six months than all the Conservative leadership candidates put together in the last five years.
The Conservative leadership race isn't a game; Albertans have too much at stake to confine the future to a bunch of guys without cojones.
Rich:
ReplyDeleteNice to hear things are going well for you in Kingston. I am a long-time reader and subscriber of Insight into Government from the late 1980s and always valued your tremendous insight into the issues and loved your Talk in the Corridors piece, which was usually very accurate. Mark's going an excellent job with Insight, but he's just not the original.
I want you to expand on your views on Dinning in particular. I always admired Dinning during his days as Provincial Treasuer, he had to make some tough calls, but he made them despite all the heat he got from interst groups and the vested interests. But his 2006 campaign greatly disappoints me.
As you say, he comes out with this speech on ethics and comes down hard of lobbyists, yet he has some of the biggest lobbyists in Alberta working for him, Rod Love, Hal Danchilla, Alan Halman, Hill and Knowlton and Ken Boessenkool, and I suspect academics such as Paul Boothe and Boothe Consulting. Dinning's a walking contradiction on just that point alone.
But what distresses me even more, is all the uncosted promises he is making. With Oberg doing an independent economic verfication of his platform at 1.9% real GDP, $42 per barrel oil and $6.25 per mcf. on natural gas, Dinning can't come in any higher. So he's risking a structural deficit again, deja vu early 1990's. Why the media isn't pressing him on this is beyond me?
Any comments on this would be appreciated.