Thank You Linda Keen and Sheila Fraser For Protecting Us From our Government.

Canada’s Auditor General Ms. Sheila Fraser is one of my heroes. I now have another hero. She is Linda Keen, the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that is responsible for the safety of the nuclear industry in Canada. Those decisions should not be made by elected partisan political operatives no matter how “accountable” they see themselves.

We see the Harper Cons interfering politically and inappropriately once again as the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resource, thought it was his place to threaten Ms. Keen with termination for not toeing his partisan line.

The Cons should know better that to take such heavy handed approach and if they don’t know better, they are not ready for prime time governance. Sure the issue around the safety of the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Chalk River facility and the need for the production of the medical by product of radioactive isotopes is a political decision.

There should be no trade-off between these values and they should not have to compete. Good competent effective government provides both nuclear safety and necessary medical services. We did not have good competent and effective government in this situation and that is now obvious.

To resort to bullying Ms Keen because she was a “Liberal appointee” as a consequence of Harper’s personal and his governance incompetence is beyond the pale. To threaten an independent commission, which we all rely on to be political independent and to make sound decisions about nuclear safety, because she did not follow the directives of her political masters is dangerously irresponsible.

Character is a quality often overlooked when we reflect on those who govern us and who act on our behalf in governing agencies, boards and commissions. Thankfully we have people of exemplary character like Ms. Keen and Ms. Fraser to protect us from our governors. They both did their jobs on OUR behalf, especially when it counts and the stakes are high.

If anyone should give reasons why they should not be fired, it is Mr. Lunn. As for Mr. Harper, we know, given his patrician controlling leadership style Mr. Lunn was not acting alone but merely as the PM’s emissary. Before you can respect someone, you have to trust them. Before you can trust them you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mr. Harper’s has proven time and time again he is a flawed leader. It is time for him and his government” to go. Bring on the election so we can put the Cons out of our misery.

Daveberta Punk's Premier Ed. I Love it!

Register a Domain name - $14.00
Google Ad revenue - $20.00 per month
Punkin’ Premier Ed – Priceless.

My hat goes off to my friend daveberta (http://www.daveberta.com/) for a very clever political prank and effective practical joke around edstelmach.ca. It works at so many levels. Playing the poor debt ridden student victim card is even richer. This is a pure and politically powerful university student prank. I love it.

The magnificent mischief in registering the domain name is likely all Dave and not the Alberta Liberals. They are as old school as my Progressive Conservative Party. It shows the digital divide is not only able access but about application of the power of the Internet. So many people in power today don’t get it.

Sure there are legalities and issues – if that is how you see the world. This stunt by Dave is pure prank and while it may be technically “offensive” such a breach is at the level of a petty trespass and not an identity theft. This is the 21st century equivalent of renting the billboard right above you competitions campaign office at election time.

The legalistic over reaction and the delayed in catching on by the powers that be in the PC Party is classic old school. Klein did this delayed over reaction thing once too when he read one of Kevin Taft’s policy books and called him a Communist thereby catapulting Taft into the spotlight and turning the book into an Alberta best seller. Duh!

Dave is no political amateur and he knows exactly what he is doing. He has had this site for almost a year and presumably linking it to the Harry Strom Wikipedia entry for all that time. Delaying the “release” of the letter from the lawyers until the slower news time after Christmas and playing the media so adeptly shows Dave’s sophistication about such things.

The classic response of a cease and desist legal letter has put the prank into the MSM and all over the Blogoshpere in spades. The resulting media coverage is ensuring Dave’s goal of framing the PCs as “so yesterday” politically is now accomplished – as of this morning 79 comments are on Dave’s blog post. Even Craig Chandler is commenting on Dave’s blog offering to buy the domain name hoping Ed Stelmach would still pursue him he was in control of the site.

Premier Stelmach, it is time to back off. If you want to get out of a hole the first thing to do is stop digging. Acknowledge the prank and that it has served its purpose and move on. The take away learning from this is for the mainstream political parties to get some young hip people into the key communications positions in their campaign organization. Quit criticizing Cournoyer and clone him.

Lessons From A New Hampshire Primary

So another New Hampshire Primary is history. Lots of back stories here and many of them are worth noting. The main story is the turnout again. Record numbers of Democrats once again dramatically eclipse the total Republican vote. That foreshadows the real election in November and augurs well for a return of a Democratic White House and Congress…but that is way too early to presume.

The rising turnout of the independents, women and youth is once again very noteworthy. Voting is sexy again and judging by the outcomes tonight, it has become more meaningful again. My view is that the independents split more tonight than they did in Iowa. They may have believed the polls showing Obama was riding a double-digit lead. That would have delivered and outcome that would have devastated Clinton so many of the returning women voters rallied to her cause. That polling strength for Obama meant that some Independents could now also show up and ensure that McCain did well, and they - and he did too.

Women still showed up with impressive support for Obama but more of them were engaged by the human moment when Clinton dropped the media-trained mask. The instantly famous “tear-up” where Clinton showed her humanity and briefly succumbed to the stress of the campaign let us see the real Hillary as a person with some authentic emotion. Cynics called it staged managed but nobody believed that. Better yet nobody played the hoary old weak and emotional female candidate gender card. They didn't dare!

Independents came to McCain's aid and they gave him a victory. They also gave him new optimism and renewed energy going into the tough Michigan pure Republican Primary race where Romney has the home field advantage.

Obama was not beaten tonight. Voters decided they wanted to keep his momentum but to also ensure Clinton and McCain continued to be strong. They knew Obama could show a strong second and still thrive. He did not need to win to sustain significance but that was not true for Clinton and McCain. New Hampshire did their nation a favour tonight by bolstering the fortunes and fortitude of those two winning candidates.

Next is South Carolina, which is 51% black and a very different ball game than anything we have seen so far. At the end of Obama’s speech tonight he did his pre-game warm up by invoking the spirits of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Blackness becomes relevant in the South Carolina Primary.

Governor Huckabee, finishing third, had one of the best lines of the night. He referred to a friend who alleged he had never failed at anything he attempted, but he also admitted the game sometimes ended before he was finished playing. I think that image will become the sine qua non for his campaign from here on in.

I still think, even after tonight, that the Democratic and Republican nomination results are still pretty much a forgone conclusion but the game - well that is far from over.

Deconstructing Licia Corbella on Ed Stelmach

There are times when you want to tear your hair out – especially when you read stuff that is mistaken, misdirected and so filled with error. Such is the case in this Calgary Herald signed piece done by the former Calgary Sun columnists Licia Corbella.

For the record I am a card carrying Alberta Progressive Conservative. I supported Ed Stelmach on the second ballot in the 2007 PC Leadership so I have opinions and biases…but I also have accurate information and facts too…because I was there!

Lets deconstruct this “opinion piece” by Ms. Corbella, who is entitled to her own opinions but not her own facts. Talk about "a lot of gall but no mandate!" First she admits she does not know Ed Stelmach but she is admittedly prepared to accept the prejudgement of “colleagues” as fact in forming her opinion. Such is the pack culture of too much MSM these days.

She spends an hour with Stelmach and apparently gleans only one insight relating to a “lame promise to match all charitable donations…” saying “he really didn’t have any concrete ideas. She obviously did not visit his campaign website or refresh her memory with a recent visit to the Premier’s current website. If she did she would have seen just how ambitions a leadership and public policy agenda was and how much he has accomplished in the first year of office.

She says Honest Ed was everybody’s second choice on December 2. That has some “truthiness” to it because Stelmach was the third place candidate on the first ballot on Nov 26. But in first place on the Dec 2 ballot and with the second place choices in the Dec 2 preferential ballot he became the leader with about 60% total preferential votes cast . You needed 50%+1 to win and Stelmach ended up with significant breadth and depth of support throughout Alberta in a distinctively three-way race.

The so-called leading contenders of Dinning and Morton were found to be wanting in some way and an alternative was found. That may have been a compromise for some but not most party members. It was very reminiscent of what we see happening today with Hilary Clinton and Mitt Romney. Nothing in these final results justifies framing Stelmach as a compromise. He was seen as the better alternative and the preferential choices were made by the overwhelming majority of voters.

“For some reason it took Tories more than six hours to count up a measly 144,289 votes.” Give me a break. The PC Party ran polls in all constituencies all over Alberta all day on voting day, manned by volunteers and done on a preferential ballot. The turnout was about 50% higher than the previous leadership in 1992 and it takes time to do democracy properly and accurately so people can have confidence in the results. This is Alberta, not Kenya.

Stelmach’s win was not shocking to people who were engaged in the campaigns, just as Obama is not shocking to highly engaged people in the current American presidential race either. If more MSM knew how to talk to real people instead of the usual suspects and each other, and not to just presume money and name recognition wins campaigns, they could have seen this coming too.

The Mandate question is valid, but only to a degree. The PC Party threw out Ralph Klein and gave any Albertan who was eligible to vote and had $5 to spare a chance to participate in choosing the next leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative political party. Over 140,000 Albertan’s availed themselves of the opportunity.

The leadership campaign platforms were very clear and Stelmach campaigned on the platform that he would conduct a royalty review if elected. To say he had “…no right to alter the royalty structure on non-renewable resources that has served this province so well for so long” is so wrong at so many levels as to be breath taking. There was an independent expert review panel and public consultation with 5 weeks of open public debate and dialogue on the issues before the government made a final decision on behalf of the citizens who own the resource. To further suggest the royalty structure was breaching contacts with energy companies is absurd and inaccurate. Royalties are public policy arrangements, not private contractual relationships and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous or ignorant.

To suggest the existing royalty structure “…had served this province so well for so long” ignores, without offering any rebuttal evidence the contrary, the findings of the Royalty Review Expert Panel and the Auditor General. Documents are now coming surfacing showing that billions of dollars of royalties were not being paid or collected as owed. That is hardly evidence of a royalty structure that has been serving the public interest "...so well for so long."

Finally let’s deal with the facts around the “big lesson” the PC leadership participation numbers are supposed to teach us. Noting that there are 3.48 million Albertans and since “…just 51,764 of the - or about 1.5%” of those 3.48 million Alberta participated is a meaningful statement that is at best laughable. Firstly this was not an election but a political event for party members only. You had to be a party member to participate and that was easy to do, be eligible to vote in Alberta and invest $5 and voila you can help choose the next Premier. Second, not all 3.48 million Albertans are eligible to vote in any event, even if it were an election, which it was not. This “analysis” reminds me about the old aphorism “lies, damn lies and statistics” demonstrated at its best.

There is more misinformation and other faulty facts in this opinion piece but this post is too long already. The Blogosphere is rife with such fuzzy headed fatuous content and usually written by anonymous zealots and trolls. To find the same thing in the editorial pages of a competent respected and quality mainstream newspaper is very surprising.

Is CNN's Political Coverage Changing for the Better - Or Is It Just Me?

I have been watching the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary campaign coverage and have noticed CNN is changing how it covers things political. The full (or almost full) presentation of stump speeches of candidates in town halls and private living rooms is a refreshing new format. Fewer stand ups by vacuous "reporters" repeating the obvious and trite to fill the 24 hour news cycle is diminished...not gone but they are fewer and farther between.

The New Hampshire debates on Saturday (I saw a Sunday rerun) was full, fun and well formatted for both Democrats and Republicans. The “post-game” pundit armchair quarterbacking that I saw on Sunday was informed and focused and relatively professional…meaning it was not about personality quirks and quips of candidates but about substance and process, content and character.

I think the kind of content and interactivity of the Internet and perhaps even Blogs, if that is not too much of a conceit, is having a real impact on the style, substance and formatting of MSM political coverage – at least at CNN. Is the sound bite and celebrity reporter model so typical of traditional electronic journalism fading – perchance, disappearing?

There is an obvious start in a new and preferred direction, at least from the serious side of the CNN political coverage I have been seeing recently. Soundbite and superficial "journalism" is still the staple in the so-called “news” and also Larry King Live programming. They are still providing facile infotainment rather than effective knowledgeable and insightful political journalism.

Maybe I am way to optimistic but I hope not. This trend along with the return of the indifference and disillusioned voter to the process in these Presidential campaigns can only be good for democracy in America. Maybe some of that intelligent and in depth electronic media approach will spill over into Alberta's and Canada's pending election coverage. Here’s hoping!!!