What is next for Alberta? What is the next Alberta going to be all about? The choice of leader/Premier has a profound influence on the answers and outcomes to those key questions. Candidates are vying for attention but who has the right stuff. Who has earned and deserves our respect? Who is most capable to govern not just able to "win" the leadership contest? And ultimately, who is worthy of our individual support and our grant of collective consent to govern us?
You can have a chance to provide your answers and influence the emerging political and policy agenda of the next Premier if you participate in the "Send 'Em A Message" survey. So today, as you "waste" time on-line, no doubt in part to avoid doing the household chores, go to the survey site. Relax and reflect as you do the survey on what you think are the most important priorities and issues for the next Premier.
You will be asked to rate how well our politicians have been performing in key policy areas. Finally you will get to do some personal evaluating of the PC candidates. Not who are you going to vote for or who you think will win, but rather how prepared are you to recommend each candidate to your friends and family.
Who is worthy of your support and what would you say about each of them if asked about their characters, capabilities, experiences and values. Policy is important but the candidates values and character concerns are the real criteria for evaluation for leadership.
Tomorrow I will be posting on the results of the “Send ‘Em a Message” survey on Policy Channel. The activity level on the survey has increased as more people are wanting to get their opinions into the mix.
The survey takes about 5 minutes. Stick with it even though it frustrates you a bit. You will be required to make some hard value choices…the same kind of thing you will expect of your next Premier. So give that new guy the benefit of your input and “Send ’Em a Message.”
Come back here tomorrow afternoon and see the results, trends and shifts from the first 2 weeks of reporting.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Oberg Should Be Toast - Just Butter Him - Don't Vote For Him
Omigod - Dr. Oberg...pack it in! When the Calgary Sun turns on a right wing conservative candidate it is over. I watched the late September duet on CPAC you did at Link Byfield's Conservative Congress in Calgary with Drs. Oberg and Morton. Morton is the inheritor of the Stockwell Day evangelical political machine that took Preston Manning out of politics.
Ipsos Reid recent poll results ironically shows slightly more Alberta Alliance support for Oberg than for Morton - but the total number of AA types in the poll is small. Dr.Morton passes it all off as a tempest in a teapot. Some tempest! Some teapot!
The Oberg base is not gone just his mentors like Jon Havelock, Lorne Taylor and his advertising agency. they have left him! One would hope he would not have any new support growth and his appeal appears to be diminishing according to the new Ipsos Reid poll.
The "influence and leverage" he had - and used to garner "support" as Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation is eroding rapidly too. The classic case of how he operates and would govern is shown in the demise of the Legislative Grounds project review as reported by Paula Simons today.
Oberg has a news conference in February for the renewal of the legislature precinct. He does this with no budget or or agenda and priority approvals. He does without following any of the safeguarding procedures and policies. He just announces this - just as he has done for pet political projects in other parts of the province. Then he dares the Caucus, Cabinet and Premier to challenge him. Sounds to me like a recipe for an Alberta made Adscam situation.
Caucus tired of covering for Oberg and in March they kicked his butt out of Caucus and out of Cabinet too as a result. He is not the agent of change in this campaign. He is just a guy who prefers doing things in a kind of freelance self-serving way...not the stuff of leadership or the way to be a positive contributor to party politics.
Perhaps it is time for Dr. Oberg to polish up the resume and dust off the Stethoscope.
I wonder if there is a citizens based "skeleton crew" starting up to uncover some facts about Dr. Oberg's past political conduct. It is being done by the far right on Jim Dinning...I would not be surprised if it happened to Oberg too.
Ipsos Reid recent poll results ironically shows slightly more Alberta Alliance support for Oberg than for Morton - but the total number of AA types in the poll is small. Dr.Morton passes it all off as a tempest in a teapot. Some tempest! Some teapot!
The Oberg base is not gone just his mentors like Jon Havelock, Lorne Taylor and his advertising agency. they have left him! One would hope he would not have any new support growth and his appeal appears to be diminishing according to the new Ipsos Reid poll.
The "influence and leverage" he had - and used to garner "support" as Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation is eroding rapidly too. The classic case of how he operates and would govern is shown in the demise of the Legislative Grounds project review as reported by Paula Simons today.
Oberg has a news conference in February for the renewal of the legislature precinct. He does this with no budget or or agenda and priority approvals. He does without following any of the safeguarding procedures and policies. He just announces this - just as he has done for pet political projects in other parts of the province. Then he dares the Caucus, Cabinet and Premier to challenge him. Sounds to me like a recipe for an Alberta made Adscam situation.
Caucus tired of covering for Oberg and in March they kicked his butt out of Caucus and out of Cabinet too as a result. He is not the agent of change in this campaign. He is just a guy who prefers doing things in a kind of freelance self-serving way...not the stuff of leadership or the way to be a positive contributor to party politics.
Perhaps it is time for Dr. Oberg to polish up the resume and dust off the Stethoscope.
I wonder if there is a citizens based "skeleton crew" starting up to uncover some facts about Dr. Oberg's past political conduct. It is being done by the far right on Jim Dinning...I would not be surprised if it happened to Oberg too.
Quality and Character Always Rises to the Top
Even the National Post is finally "getting" the essence of Stephane Dion as the class of the field in the Liberal leadership. With the Environment taking over Health care as the #1 priority issues for Canadians speaks well for the changing fortunes of Dion. He owns the environment issue and is trusted by citizens on the environment as well.
Here is what the National Post said about Dion today...worth a read.
Here is what the National Post said about Dion today...worth a read.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Remembering Fred Chapman on November 11th
Fred Chapman died in August 2003 a few weeks before his 85th birthday. Never one to burden the system he went for a regular check up tested positive for bladder cancer and died peacefully three months later.
He was a quiet gentle man and a WWII vet. His feelings about his service years were kept close and inside in a quiet but deeply profound and personal way. Like so many of his era and ilk he never spoke much of the war except for yarns about the good times on leave in London or wandering about the English countryside. He rarely mentioned the loss of his brother at Dieppe.
As a result the war to me was more of a social studies subject area and that was my mind set until he died and I started to read his letters home and spent time with his old pictures and memorabilia...stuff I had never seen before.
A few days before he passed he told me what he want me to do with his “things” like favourite pictures, personal mementos and the rest of the “stuff” that clutters our closets, basements and our lives. For the most part it was to go to the Salvation Army the organization he respected the most “because they were the most truly supportive organization of the service man during the war” he used to say.
Before his passing he wanted “everything to go” except for one thing and that thing had to be the subject of a solemn son to father promise. I was to be sure to keep his RCAF uniform as long as I lived. When I died the uniform would be free to go to a museum or some other place where it would be displayed and help other people to remember. It was not that that he wanted to be remembered. What he wanted to be remembered was what the uniform stood for, first by me, and then by others.
So tonight I will spend some time reflecting with that uniform and immersing myself in the memory of the man who wore it. Tomorrow I will be at the Cenotaph, wearing my Poppy, standing silently and remembering. My remembering will be at so many levels with many others, all coming together, paying respects and giving thanks to the many men and women both past and present to whom we all owe so much.
He was a quiet gentle man and a WWII vet. His feelings about his service years were kept close and inside in a quiet but deeply profound and personal way. Like so many of his era and ilk he never spoke much of the war except for yarns about the good times on leave in London or wandering about the English countryside. He rarely mentioned the loss of his brother at Dieppe.
As a result the war to me was more of a social studies subject area and that was my mind set until he died and I started to read his letters home and spent time with his old pictures and memorabilia...stuff I had never seen before.
A few days before he passed he told me what he want me to do with his “things” like favourite pictures, personal mementos and the rest of the “stuff” that clutters our closets, basements and our lives. For the most part it was to go to the Salvation Army the organization he respected the most “because they were the most truly supportive organization of the service man during the war” he used to say.
Before his passing he wanted “everything to go” except for one thing and that thing had to be the subject of a solemn son to father promise. I was to be sure to keep his RCAF uniform as long as I lived. When I died the uniform would be free to go to a museum or some other place where it would be displayed and help other people to remember. It was not that that he wanted to be remembered. What he wanted to be remembered was what the uniform stood for, first by me, and then by others.
So tonight I will spend some time reflecting with that uniform and immersing myself in the memory of the man who wore it. Tomorrow I will be at the Cenotaph, wearing my Poppy, standing silently and remembering. My remembering will be at so many levels with many others, all coming together, paying respects and giving thanks to the many men and women both past and present to whom we all owe so much.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Les Brost is Alberta's Answer to Stuart McLean
Les Brost is a great writer and avid fan of rural Alberta - all of rural Alberta. His wit, wisdom and insight are collected together and displayed in a piece he has done on the PC Leadership Candidates and published in Sharon MacLean's Edmontonians
His comments are so right at so many levels that the facts and fictions merge to give you a different sense of who the candidates are - and in a context you will enjoy. I was LOLing all over the place.
Smarter than Dr Suess and more insightful than Chairman Mao - do your self a favour and visit the very inviting mind of Les Brost.
Here is the link: http://www.edmontonians.com/Best%20In%20Show.htm
His comments are so right at so many levels that the facts and fictions merge to give you a different sense of who the candidates are - and in a context you will enjoy. I was LOLing all over the place.
Smarter than Dr Suess and more insightful than Chairman Mao - do your self a favour and visit the very inviting mind of Les Brost.
Here is the link: http://www.edmontonians.com/Best%20In%20Show.htm
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