Alberta's Election is Half Over - Not Much Has Happened - Yet!

The Alberta election exits Week 2 and it moves lethargically into week three. The missteps by the mainstream parties of the opening day are done and nothing can be done about them. The "big" stories last week were very weak to say the least. The PCs seem to be always on defence punching from their back foot. The Liberals are showing lots fancy footwork and jumping around a lot but not punching a lot. The NDs are pretty much out of the ring but they running around the outside apron trying to stir up the crowd. The Wildrose Alliance candidates are busy in their livingrooms crafting home made lawn signs. Midweek, the Greens were just 4 seats short of mounting a full slate of candidates...impressive.

The last week saw the headlines preoccupied with stories about partisan appointments of Deputy Returning Officers. The media coverage and the attention getting machinery of the various political parties obligingly “engaged” on the "issue." Bottom line – this is something that should have and could have been fixed before the election. FIXING THIS IS A NO BRAINER.

Political parties should be far removed from the suggestion and selection of DROs. There is a need for absolute - not relative - independence of those who run the election machinery on the ground. That choice of DRO staffers must be the sole and absolute discretion of the Chief Returning Officer. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is not a good enough response to say that there has not been a problem in the past so why is this an issue because there is no problem now.

Doing the right thing, in the right way, all the time...even when no one is looking...is what citizens ought to reasonably expect from political parties and their election procedures. Whose election is it anyway? Elections belong to citizens, not the political parties.

The current “recommendation” model for DROs is old style arcane power/patronage politics that is unacceptable and must go. We PCs have been way to slow to catch up to this issue and put it to bed. I can’t figure out why we are so far behind on it and so slow on getting past it. There are some really big ticket issues of long term significance that deserve attention in this election.

Why are we getting knocked off the puck and appering to be trying to sustain this past stupidity? Stelmach's move to establish all party legislative policy committees last year was a democratic reform that hard to do - and he did it. To cease and desist on appearances of political interference in the election procedures is an easy democratic reform. Get it done Ed!

This past week saw the union sponsored attack ads, under the pseudonym “Albertans for Change, get a big boost in the bucks. AUPE, the GOA staff union, ponies up a cool $300K to keep the campaign alive. I hear lots of grumbling in some labour circles that their unions have been pretty useless at representing the membership’s interests as of late. I wonder if the motivation behind this TV advertising spending against the PCs is as much about showing the union membership that their unions are actually doing something “for them.” Do the boys running the Alberta Building Trades Council think that playing politics with membership dues at election time is going to appease their membership for what many see as a lack of their union's effective performance? Not all union members vote against the PC Party so I can imagine this use of union dues for political attack ads will not be receiving unanimous membership support. At the polls nor in the union halls.

Can you imagine what the union friendly NDP and Brian Mason could have done with all that money being spent on an Ontario advertising agency and for the cost of the TV time too? It would have at least paid out the NDP debt, if nothing else. Brian Mason would likely have had to refuse it anyway because it would have been BIG money running politics again. That is something he has been on about last week in criticizing the big corporate money behind the PCs and the Alberta Liberals.

Week three is coming and I wonder what we will see. There are lots of surveys being circulated to candidates. I have seen those sent to PC candidates so far and I presume all parties are getting them. My post tomorrow will be on the good, the bad and the ugly about survey’s that have come in to date. I will comment on examples in each category. The source of the bad one so far is a surprise.

Yes We Can

This is a video that will grab your spirit...and lift it - enjoy!

Stelmach Gets Tough on Crime and in an Enlightened Way.

I like the PC platform on Crime. I have been involved for awhile in the revitalization of “Alberta Avenue” (118 Ave in Edmonton) and have seen first hand the positive impact on a community that results from sustained, concentrated and effective police work. Thanks to Chief Boyd, the members Edmonton Police Service and the Edmonton Police Commission for their terrific work on 118 Ave. This is a perfect example of what can be done - if the necessary resources were made available for the police to do their job.

This 118 Ave area was mostly about drug deals and prostitution. It was where many of the mortgaged frauds took place and where great police work resulted in guilty pleas by the perpetrators of the frauds. Expanding powers of municipalities to tackle crime like shutting down drug houses will provide an enormous payback towards safer communities all over Alberta.

Now 118 Ave is emerging as a revitalized neighbourhood full of artists, festivals and new businesses. New facilities are in progress in the area, there are new neighbours restoring and rebuilding properties. There are new accessible housing developments that are on the verge of becoming reality. Saying you are tough on crime and having the necessary sustained resources to actually be tough on crime is a big difference. Tough action on crime in 118 Ave area has made a big difference to the renewal of life and has added to quality of living on 118 Ave.

I am told that there are chronic criminals who commit the majority of the crimes in Edmonton. This fact is recognized in the Stelmach plan for getting tough on crime as he commits to target repeat offenders. Good idea.

The plan is big on catching bad guys but there is so much more to it. It is very progressive too in that it acknowledges and sets out to deal with some of the major root causes of crime like drugs and mental health issues. More funds for treatment and revised specialized courts are part of the PC plan to better deal with these kinds of “criminals.” These are a meaningful and enlightened approaches to making our communities safer and more liveable – for everyone!

The focus on exploitation of children is already in process but it needs more resources to be effective. The Stelmach plan on crime is on to addressing that concern too. A continued focus on family violence and Fetal Alcohol consequences are examples of more progressive steps in the right direction.

The challenge is proper allocation of resources and that means more money has to be dedicated to properly pay the people who work on these concerns in our communities. We need to show how much we value those community based staffers. They are the folks who deal with these problems involving children, spouses, elders, addicts and the developmentally disabled day in and day out. They are the real keys to any successful outcomes in these policy areas.

Good job Ed and Co. This is the kind of policy announcement I have been waiting for. I think it is a great move in the right direction for all of Alberta.

Stelmach Is Dealing With the Alberta Social Infrastrucutre Deficit

I like most Albertans I strongly supported the Klein plan on our debt and deficit. I have become very concerned about the social infrastructure deficit that was created by the single minded fast-track focus on debt and deficit elimination. I don’t just blame the politicians for the social consequences of this concentrated fiscal effort. We citizens cheered them on as they squeezed every nickel out of the system and paid down debt with breakneck speed and efficiency.

I have been working professionally with many of the social damage consequences of ignoring the social infrastructure deficit we have created in the wake of our debt and deficit over-success.

One of the social deficit consequences I have been working on professionally was resolved on Valentine’s Day by Premier Stelmach under his “Building Our Quality of Life” platform plan. He agreed that his government would pick up the costs of Police Information Checks on volunteers. These volunteers are citizens who take time to work with not-for-profit community-based social service agencies. who together, are helping vulnerable Albertans.

The Alberta voluntary sector has wanted an enhanced and effective Police Information Checks system to be provided and paid for by the province for quite a while. The cost of doing police checks on volunteers has become a serious drain on the not-for-profit and voluntary sector program funds. These PICs are a vital part of providing the social service sector with a responsible volunteer recruitment and retention program.

Congratulations to Ed Stelmach for picking up the ball and the cost of PICs for volunteer screening for vulnerable Albertans. This key political promise will go a long way to easing some the unfair operational fiscal burden on community based social agencies.

These not-for-profit communities based social service agencies are the on-the-ground front-line people who are building better communities all over Alberta every day. These community-based social service groups are the backbone of a province wide system that is in crisis. Picking up the costs of PICs is a big step forward for those agencies that use community-minded volunteer citizen to help meet the needs of vulnerable Albertans like at-risk children, the elderly and those who are developmentally disabled.

Congratulations must go to Volunteer Alberta too for bring this issue to the provincial policy forefront and for quarterbacking it to this successful result.

All Candidates Will be Polled on Important Oil Sands Issues

I know that political candidates dislike the surveys that special interest groups send to them during election campaigns. The questions are often amateurish and leading. They are designed to limit the ability of a candidate to respond fully or to weasel out of addressing the issues posed. There will be the usual plethora of such candidate surveys in this election. If the various surveys also gives a sense of a candidates values that are behind the opinions expressed then they provide a real valuable service to voters.

One of the more vital surveys this election,that will be of interest to many Albertans, is being promulgated to candidates by The Pembina Institute. It deals with the challenges and opportunities surrounding the development of Alberta’s oil sands.

I know from the results of the Cambridge Strategies Inc. and Policy Channel survey that there are serious concerns about the rate and scale of oil sands development. The economic benefits have to also be balanced by the environmental and social consequences.

The Pembina Institute has commissioned a professional pollster and will approach all candidates in all 83 ridings to take their online survey. They will be asking candidates for opinions about the pace of oil sands development and if it ought to be controlled other than by the marketplace. They ask if oil sands companies must be able to demonstrate that they can reclaim the lands they mine. Candidates will be asked what standards they think should be used for GHG emission controls, hard caps or intensity targets. They are even allowing the candidates to refuse to answer.

It will be interesting to see the results on a Party-to-Party basis as well as regionally. I would be curious how many of the candidates align with the values of Albertans on the same issues, and which party has the most candidates with the best alignment. It will also be interesting to see which candidates from which political parties actually participate the most in this non-partisan survey.

Pretty safe bet the Greens will be the big participation players percentage wise. The candidates from the mainline parties will need to play too and I expect most candidates will want to let their personal views to be known. I still wonder, however, if the candidates will be directed by the various party campaign War Rooms on exactly how to answer – if thay are allowed to answer at all. Both approaches would be very wrong in a democracy. Either party approach would also be very telling on just how such a political party would actually govern us.

We have seen that top down and message controlling domineering approach with Mr. Harper for the past 2 years. It does not make for good government.