Are the White Supremacists Upset?

I see the recent decision by the PC Party of Alberta to reject a Calgary nominee for has made the "big time" with the White Supremacists. This link came to my Inbox today. The story entitled “Christians, They’re Coming for You!” is the specific reference on this site Stormfront.org. If this connection is any indication of who the PC Party would be associated with, I have to say the Party sure made the right decision on Saturday. For the record and to be fair, there is no indication that Mr. Chandler is in anyway associated with Stormfront.

The posting facts are quite accurate – only one quibble in that while the Executive Committee meeting went on for 4 hours, not all of that time was dedicated to dealing with the nomination decision as implied. But that is a quibble. The tone of the story is an entirely different matter.

There is some "good news." I checked out the Threads on the site. At the time of writing this post Mr. Fromm’s piece has not generated much interest, Zero Replies and 57 visits, including me I expect. A piece on Calgary Tattoo Shops posted 3 hours earlier had 21 replies and 604 visits. Not sure what that means or says about the readership of this site but it is an interesting comparison.

The website invites you to download the weekly radio show of Dr. David Duke. Suspecting he is the same David Duke of Ku Klux Klan fame, I resisted.

PC Party Should Learn From the Chandler Experience and Fix Its Nomination and Leadership Process

The right decision was made by the PC Party Executive Committee on Mr. Chandler’s suitability for candidacy in the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. The matter is not over. Beyond Mr. Chandler’s indications he may sue the Party for his nomination costs which he says are $127,000.00, the PC Party needs to revisit its nomination and leadership selection processes.

The PC Party, and other political parties too I expect, need to review their nomination process in the light of expectations of accountability, transparency and fairness. Premier Stelmach promised the Party would review and fix the leadership process. Let’s kill two birds and deal with the nomination process at the same time.

Let’s learn from the Chandler experience and do some Constitutional updating. First fairness. If the Leader or the Party Executive has reservations about a candidate pursuing nomination perhaps we need to take a page from the federal CPCs and have a questionnaire and statutory declaration completed by each candidate before they are eligible to run. We can confidentially get a sense of their background and skeletons, if any, and judge their suitability up front. We should not have to rely on Dr. Oberg for this information on skeletons. A suitability test and a decision could be made without embarrassing anyone.

Second, we need full disclosure of donors and perhaps limits on nomination campaign spending to level the playing field and for transparency. If Mr. Chandler spent $127,000.00 for about 950 votes, how did he spend it? Did he buy every supporter dinner in a nice restaurant? For that money? He could have.

Who ponied up $127,000 in the first place? Spending that kind of money at this level of the political process shows that Mr. Chandler is clearly only a social conservative...he is no fiscal conservative, that is for sure. Can you imagine how he might spend of our tax money if he were in government? We need to clean this matter up in the leadership process too. We have been waiting about a year and still don't know who supported Do. Oberg's leadership despite his promise to disclose donors. Dr. Morton said he will not disclose his leadership campaign donors and under the current Party rules - he is entitled to that entitlement. Not good enough.

We have some fixin’ to do in the PC Party around our nomination and leadership processes. This is up to the Party not the leader to undertake this job. Let’s get at it.

Kudos to Pengrowth Corporation

I have been very critical of some energy industry players and the tactics they used during the time between the “Our Fair Share” royalty review report release and the government’s decision on the review's recommendations.

It appears that some politically targetted hyperbole is still emanating from some companies who are still claiming that the increased royalties are the critical cause of decline in conventional exploration. The corporate capital and exploration spending announcements for 2008 are usually the catalyst and the platform they for the misdirection and somewhat slight of hand presentation. Royalties are a factor but hardly the only or the major factor impacting the conventional oil and gas business in Alberta theses days.

Well I have found a very significant and noteworthy exception to that political gamesmanship and I want to complement Pengrowth Energy Trust (TSX: PGF.UN) (NYSE: PGH), in how it handled its capital spending announcement.

They present a clear, comprehensive and detailed estimate of the impact of increased royalties on its costs, asset evalutration implications and capital spending plans for 2008. No hype or political posturing – just sound and clear analysis.

This is kind of corporate reporting is refreshing, reassuring and timely. It sets a good example. Kudos to Mr. James Kinnear, the Chair, President, CEO and the rest of the Pengrowth Corporation Board and management.

How the Subprime Market "Works"

This video is a very factual and funny explanation of how the market "works." It is over 8 minutes but worth every minute of it.

Stelmach's First Year as Alberta's Premier

Premier Stelmach has had a busy first year as Premier. He had a shaky start. He seems to be getting his legs firmly underneath him now and is well on his way to delivering on most of his Leadership campaign initiatives. Some accuse him of being a ditherer but the events and actions over the last year and the recent accelerating pace of politics in Alberta proves otherwise.

Lots more in the hopper too as this session winds down and the new budget get finalized and the platform planks for the forthcoming election get framed. There are only 4 candidates yet to be nominated for the PC Party and that has gone well too…especially in terms of the recent rejection of Mr. Chandler.

It is nice to see the positive bounce for him in the recent poll in the post royalty review period. It is worth noting the Taft Liberals also got a positive bounce in the same poll.

Now Stelmach has to get Oberg to take speech lessons from Marcel Marceau and get him to stop talking and sabotaging the policy development and deployent process on royalties.

Any meetings with Energy and the industry better be in public or held off until the Lobbyists Act is proclaimed with the regulations so we can be assured there is no closed door dealings between government official, politicians and the energy sector.

Albertans as the Owners of the resource will want to know every thing that is being said and to understand the significance of all of the discussions and the implications.