What will it take to reassure Albertan’ that their government policy agenda is on the right track and focused on what is important? That is the big question facing the Stelmach government and anyone who looks to replace it come the spring of 2008 and a much anticipated provincial election.
I did a conjoint study on 15 key issues on the minds of some 350 influential Albertans last fall during the PC leadership. By influential, I mean people who are involved in their communities and whose opinions matter to other people. We did not just involve the rich, famous and powerful and we did not just reach out to Tories.
The findings are fascinating. We knew at the end of September, long before the traditional pollsters and mainstream media, that managing the environment issues of water, land and air quality had replaced health care as the #1 issue on the minds of Albertans. Not only was environmental management the most important factor it was well over twice as important as health care quality and access. Equally as fascinating was the need to reduce poverty coming in at #3, topping concerns over education quality, which was in fourth place. Managing growth and providing open and transparent government rounded out the top 6 issues.
The remaining 9 issues were of little importance, relatively speaking, with managing oil and gas royalties (12th) lowering taxes (13th) dealing with resource revenue surpluses (14th). The least important issue on the minds of Albertans was resolving problems facing Aboriginal Albertans.
This study shows the environmental and social agendas facing Alberta today are trumping the economic issues. These top six issues are the key drivers determining what is important to Albertans, and while it represented only 40% of the issues we studied it accounted for 70% of the overall relative importance ranking of concerns on the minds of Albertans.
So Premier Stelmach, there you have it. If you are seen by Albertans as the authoritative, authentic, informed and knowledgeable leader on those six issues you can expect to win with a landslide.
So Premier Stelmach, there you have it. If you are seen by Albertans as the authoritative, authentic, informed and knowledgeable leader on those six issues you can expect to win with a landslide.
Later in the week I will do another posting on this research and show how Albertans thought their government was actually performing in each issue area. More fascinating results to come.
Ken – nice blog, it was very interesting. The concern I always have, however, with these sorts of polls, is the idea of a government being led by polls as opposed to “leading”. In other words, one of my complaints of government is that they see their job as getting elected – not as providing a service to their constituents.
ReplyDeleteIf you asked me for my two cents, the typical Canadian voter is poorly informed, and makes their decision based upon emotional rhetoric of politicians and the media. As a result, going out to the public and saying, “what do you think”.. and then acting on that is perhaps the blind leading the blind – and this is no disrespect to our constituents – the problems is that if we don’t help educate them, and we go along with the “flavor of the day”, we are no longer leaders, we are the led. I would like, for once, for a politician to say, “this is what I think is important, and this is what I would like to do”.. and if I don’t get elected, well, que sera.
In this regard – while I know the environment is the “hot button” issue right now – the reality is that even if we suddenly adopted the Kyoto restrictions tomorrow, we would bring our economy to a crashing halt, and then, unfortunately, we would not make one dent in the climate. So.. if we know that, do we then devote our time and money to a hopeless task – or, do we go back to the electorate, and say, uh, “you are a little misguided.” The reality is that our health care system is crumbling daily, and, we had best start dealing with that.. not by a suggestion of some amorphous, “third way”, but by devoting massive attention and study into finding a better way – a very open and obvious and inclusive process which would include all major parties, academics, the public.. and say, this is where we are leading.. you can give us a mandate or don’t.
Something else to think about.. we are, allegedly, a “conservative” party, yet, leading into the last election, we were anything but “conservative”. We imposed significant changes on everyone’s lives, by instituting injury caps, seeking to control the insurance industry, privatizing utilities, proposing an undefined “third way” health care system – all in the year or two preceding an election.
I read an interesting article in Rolling Stone about a year ago, asking why the Democrats lost the blue collar vote.. and one of the things that they mentioned is that, fundamentally, people do not trust the government to make their lives better. Especially the blue collar. They feel that other interest groups have taken precedence over them, and all along they feel their lives are getting worse. Their pay cheque is worth less, their expenses have increased – and they identify government as having been complicit in that change. As a result, they don’t trust the government to make their lives better - they just don’t want the government to make their lives worse. So – when the Republicans took the tact of leaving social engineering alone and basically took a “stand pat” philosophy regarding politics, the blue collar responded to that – being fearful that the Democrats would continue to lead special interest groups farther ahead of the struggling middle class.
Think about this.. and then consider that when a “conservative government” starts instituting or proposing all sorts of fundamental changes to societal structures, we are simply creating more instability in the minds of a general public which is already fearful of the future. Meanwhile, what are the Liberals doing? Well, they’re being conservative of course – no changes to health care, why should we mess with utilities.. you get my point.
What I would like to see, personally, is a simple strong message that can be grasped by the electorate and which would signify a change from “business as usual”. My suggestion would be a campaign based upon “Accountability”, which concept can be made a fundamental aspect of every issue we need to address.
Government – accountable to the people – ministers who are shown to have committed errors of ethics or significant errors of judgment should be terminated – no more double-speak. Government should be able to account for the spending of the tax-payer’s money. The things that government spends money on should be open and obvious to the populace. Concrete examples should be given to the public on a constant basis and we should compare that regularly to how we stack up against other provinces.
i.e. We spend $X million on education. That accounts for $ from every working Albertan. This ranks Xth in overall education spending in the Country. That is broken down in a pie-chart to the electorate (teacher salary, infrastructure, etc.);
Business – should be accountable to the environment, accountable for their profit at our expense, accountable for the safety of their employees. In general, we should get out of the way of business – let them do with they do – provided that we assure that we create an economic climate that encourages investment and development in our economy, we could do a lot more to hold business accountable where they fall outside of what is considered fair and ethical capitalist endeavors. We should open business up to greater civil liability to affected landowners or groups for failure to follow clear and unambiguous environmental guidelines. We should do more to police against Enron-type fraud and Conrad Black style theft of shareholder profits. This will not discourage investment – to the contrary, it should make investment more attractive. We should assure that we are in no-way subsidizing business profit at the expense of the taxpayer. Royalty revenues should be addressed not by oil insiders, but by an independent, multi-party revue process. Urban sprawl – the ability of developers to increase their profit immediately, while being completely unaccountable for the cost of sprawl, should be examined. Possibly, we should increase cost of development proportionate to the distance from municipal cores. Provide incentives for development of multi-family and family-friendly development within city cores.
The People – should be held more accountable for their own welfare. People who can take care of themselves should. People who cheat should be penalized. People who don’t raise their children should be taken to task. People who waste resources, especially, abuse of the medical system, should be penalized. I do not believe we should be afraid of looking back at the electorate and say, “be accountable for your own well-being”… I never cease to be amazed by the number of medical reports I see which say, “the patient could benefit from regular exercise and improved diet”, which is then ignored by the patient, who prefers to continue with their affliction, seeking a quick fix by more medication.. and basically, get onto the government AISH program through doctors who are “overly pessimistic to help their patient obtain AISH” – (direct quote from a family law trial). The number of people I see on AISH who allege “fibromyalgia” “chronic fatigue syndrome” or “depression” is staggering. I have a serious concern that, as these conditions are not either objectively verifiable, or better yet, subject to objective challenge – doctors, frustrated or unmotivated in helping their patients actually get better, throw these diagnosis’s out like confetti.. at massive expense to our medical system and our social welfare system. While door-knocking last year, I came across a family whose adult child was afflicted with serious debilitating arthritis – and when I asked them what concerns they had with the AISH program – their response was the number of people getting it who had no business getting it, taking away resources and assistance for those who truly were in need.
So.. I think listening to the public is a wonderful idea – however in some ways it’s like planning a weekly family menu by simple asking our children “what do you want to eat?” Perhaps we should change our perspective and not ask, “what do we need to say to get re-elected” and instead ask, “what does the public need us to do?”.
R. Harvie
I bet everyone puts environment as a top priority, but I doubt they put their money where their mouth is. Take a look at the vehicles people are driving in Edmonton and you get an idea that they just pay lip service to the environment. Citizens, and not governments, should be primarily responsible for the environment. I'd rather our government spend $1 billion on homelessness or health care than carbon capture.
ReplyDeleteI agree with pretty much everything R. Harvie said above.
ReplyDeleteAnd nothing about education or infrastructure? That right there indicates to me your study is still a bit narrow. Any teachers, students, recent grads, or single moms asked anything other than upper-middle class folks who can afford to pay taxes?
I think the Alberta PCs will be fine on the environment front. After all, most people associate the provincial liberals with the federal liberals. As such, they notice that the LPC did nothing on the environment for over 13 years and, as a result, emissions drastically increased during those years. It is unfortunate that Kevin Taft has to pay the price for Dion's ineptitude on the environment file.
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