Is Ralph Klein Calling for an Unrestricted North American Continental Energy Strategy - in the Middle of an Election?

The Fraser Institute has just released a report on a North American continental energy strategy, authoured in part by former Premier Ralph Klein.

It calls for a “long-term continental strategic framework which would support further integration of North American energy markets.” Seek a potential for “convergence of energy commodity markets” that would result in lower consumer prices and easier switching between energy commodities. Klein and Co. argue that more convergence of the North American energy market would be a “signal to international investors” that we are already “…a stable policy environment with less risk than competing world regions….” Policy certainty in the energy sector is said to be a key for project investors who have to plan out in terms of decades.

They see the framework for going forward is NAFTA and the report acknowledges this. However every US Presidential candidate still in the race form both parties are pretty protectionist and some are seemingly downright hostile to NAFTA, including Obama. The Fraser Institute paper says it will “…offer policy recommendations that could facilitate change to the Agreement (NAFTA) in a manner that is compatible with the objectives of a continental energy strategy.”

This language makes me nervous as a Canadian and an Albertan - and a free trader. This report at first blush is a manifesto to use the Security and Prosperity Partnership of March 2005 as a vehicle to sell out our raw bitumen to the US markets and not to require the upgrading benefits to come to Albertans.

Here is a paraphrase of a very interesting and somewhat disturbing quote from the report:

"Since the signing of NAFTA in December 1992, the North American energy sector has developed, in general, under the assumption of open and free markets in the three countries, and the energy sector has been shaped by the existing regulatory framework with respect to intra-continental trade, investment, and manufacturing. As the times have changed, the need for new legislation concerning North America's energy framework has increased. NAFTA's open-ended position on the the regulatory frameworks affecting energy, which essentially allows each country to do what it will, leaves much to be desired with respect to increasing the integration of North American energy policy, markets and transportation systems. [emphasis added] For example, North America needs an implementation plan for streamlining regulations pertaining to cross-boarder energy flows. Also, energy policies in Mexico, Canada and the United States must be reviewed in relation to the changes being made in environmental policy and in other related policies, and the three countries need ot strive for cohesive approaches to market, pricing, and environmental issuses."

I have to finish reading this Fraser Institute Report and I hope I have cause for more optimism for Alberta and Canada’s independent energy resource future than what I have digested so far. I can't understand what Canada, and ALberta, should be in a mad dash to an unrestricted integration of North American based energy markets with a limited role of government to protect the interests of Albertans, the owners of the resources.

I think we need to assure the Americans of continental energy supply but on terms and conditions and at a pace of development Alberta can absorb. A secure continental energy supply makes sense but not on an exclusive access basis to the oil sands. We need to attract more foreign investment and markest for synthetic crude outside of North America. And the upgrading has to happen in Alberta.

The value added aspects of oil sands development have to benefit future generations. It is not progress for Alberta and Canada to continue to be drawers of water, hewers of wood and now also add in "merely miners of bitumen." So far this report makes me nervous but I have not read it all yet. I think every Albertan better study and understand what is being proposed here.

Special Interest Groups Are Busy About "Surveying" the Candidates.

The special interest groups surveys are coming in hot and heavy to the candidates in the past few days. These are techniques used to inform candidates of the issues of interest to various special interests and to illicit responses form candidates.

The campaign war rooms in the past have often tightly controlled the messages in such survey responses. The Ed Stelmach war room has not been prescriptive to candidates on what they say and which surveys they may wish to reply to. There are suggestions being made as to responses but PC candidates are free to speak their own minds in survey replies.

The surveys themselves cover a wide range of topics. Some are very good, others are set ups and very biased and others are plain ugly in their attempts to get meaningful candidate responses on issues of “import.” The latter two survey models usually ask leading questions and accept only yes or no answers. If the issues were that simple they would not need leading questions and the answers would be obvious.

Here is a sampling of surveys I have seen and applaud, scratch my head ofver or just plain want to “dis’ them – and for good reason.

The CAANA group is all about commuter air service in Alberta and want to know if candidates support “Open Sky’s Policy” passenger air service in Alberta but the real agenda is passenger air service into the Edmonton Muni Airport. This matter of the Edmonton Muni passenger service is outside the provincial jurisdiction and candidates can try an influence the issue but they can’t decide it. Best to pass on this one…there are more key issues, especially for Edmonton candidates to deal with.

The Citizens Advocating the Use of Sustainable Energy (CAUSE – cute eh?) are a Calgary group who oppose the development of nuclear energy in northern Alberta. Some “context setting” language is in the survey that is prescriptive and the expected response to a complex set of issues is again yes or no. Naïve to say the least but it helps bring the nuclear question to candidate consciousness – if they take the group seriously.

The Gay Calgary and Edmonton Magazine has a survey they have out is unfocused and on everything from privatized healthcare to rent controls and low cost hosing to the Civil Marriage ct and environmental issues. The kicker, they will publish replies in their March edition. The election is March 3, what good will a March publication date do any candidates?

HealthVision 2020 is a group promoting a dedicated funding of a health promotion fund focused on improving the quality of life of Albertans and they provide helpful context behind their questions. The Pembina Institute survey on oil sands development gives rationales for the questions they ask as well. They still all design in yes and no answers but they at least the issues are conceptual and not just totally self-serving for the sponsor's cause.

It will be interesting to see how survey sponsors use the results and if anyone beyond their own circles of friends actually will care about these surveys in the end. Can a special interst group actually create a ballot question for its members using such survey techniques? Or will people just use the survey information as more background in deciding how to vote. That is an interesting research question for some political scientist to study some day. My guess is that such surveys are just white noise in the real world of how voters make choices.

Alberta Greens Nominate More Candidates Than Wildrose Alliance But Are Cut Out of the TV Debate! What a Dumb Move!

Congratulations to George Read and the Alberta Greens for nominating 79 candidates this election. That exceeds significantly the Wildrose Alliance Party 61 candidate nominations. The WAP would have had access to a larger and better oiled political machine, plus, I presume, assiatance from federal Conservatives who are sympathetic to them. Good for the Alberta Greens. Talk about grassroots.

GREENS COULD DO WELL THIS ELECTION:

I am on the verge of predicting that the Alberta Greens will be the most successful party this election based on increased popular vote. I see a number of trends happening that benefit the Greens. I will wait for a week or so before I actually stick my neck out on this prediction - but I see a trend forming.

The world is run by those who show up and as a result nobody ever wasted a vote. Only no shows on Election Day are a waste. So the disenchanted and disgruntled Albertan who are not happy with any main line party can have a choice. If they want to show up they can either spoil their ballot – but that does no good because they don’t realy get counted. Or they can park their ballot with the Greens.

Disenchanted supporters of the Tories, Liberals and NDP, who don’t think staying home on Election Day is very effective at sending a message have a choice. Those who are not so ticked off with their party as to abandon ship and switch to another party may decide to park their votes with the Greens as a means to show their own party they are not happy.

Previously disengaged non-partisan citizens, and those who are engaged but undecided, and a big chunk of them are women and youth, can comfortable park ballot or even chose the Greens as a preference.

I think the Green popular vote is about to blossom this election and could be 10 -12% of total votes cast if voters get ticked enough to get actively engaged and not just sit back and be quietly enraged. Will the Alberta Greens elect anyone? Not likely because their resources and support is too thinly spread out to make an concentrated impact at the polls.

I do think there are a few Green candidates to watch on election night. One is Joe Anglin in Lacombe Ponoka who rose to prominence in the EUB spy scandal incidents and was very effective for Alberta farmers in thier plight. The other Green with a chance, I am told, is Edwin Erickson in Drayton Valley Calmar who came in second last time. He has a much more formidable PC candidate this time in Dianne McQueen, the popular Mayor of Drayton Valley. Dianne defeated the incumbent PC candidate in a nomination fight and is a formidible campaigner.

GREENS CUT OUT OF THE TV DEBATE - NOT GOOD!

The Alberta Greens have been cut out of the TV Debate this Thursday by the MSM television people. That decision is presumably based on the fact they don’t have any seats. That is a bad and wrong-headed decision. Pam Barrett as NDP leader got to debate in the 1997 when they were shut out of seats. There is precedent.

There is a danger here for the television people due to this desision. Content control of the election campains is no longer absolute perview of televisoin networks and print media. Albertans now have the internet as an alternative interactive information source - and boy are they are using it. The power and reach of the internet strikes at the very heart of traditional institutionalized one-way message control of the MSM.

GREENS USE THE INTERNET TO GET DEBATE ANSWERS OUT - A BETTER SOLUTION:

George Read, the Alberta Green leader, is going to use the internet to respond to all the televised debate questions on YouTube and get the Alberta Green message out that way. Read’s on-line debate answers will be there on-line for the rest of the campaign and beyond. His content will be available long after the MSM televised debate content is gone and forgotten. Anyone who wants to see and hear his comments can do so when, where and how ever they wish, and as often as they wish. His audience will also be able to link, post and redistribute the Read YouTube videos to further expand his reach.

Cutting the Alberta Greens out of the television debate may be one of the biggest blunders the Alberta television networks ever did. Because this decision to cut the Greens is unfair and unjustified, it will drive more and more citizen away from conventional media and on to the Web for political content.

Election Campaigns are changing and so is the media coverage changing because of new media and Web 2.0 techniques. There are now real alternatives to get content and real conversations going about politics and public policy. Too bad our traditional television stations are out of touch with the new realities.

What Question Do You Want to Ask Alberta's Party Leaders in the Debate?

Kim Trynacity of the CBC will be one of the media panellists for the Alberta Election Debates to be televised on all networks this Thursday at 6:30 pm. On the CBC website she asked Albertans to suggest questions she should ask the leaders in the debate. The suggestions started rolling in on the Comments part of her Reporter’s Notebook on the CBC site.

Daveberta, Aaron Braaten and I will be blogging on the debate for the CBC website on Thursday night. I will be doing some commentary for the CBC on the debate and on-line commentary for the CBC on election night as well.

Reading the submitted questions on Kim's Notebook, I as struck by the range, complexity and context of the question suggestions in 2 days show me just how tough the life as a politician can be. We need to attract our best and brightest into public life. We need to quit degrading and debasing all politicians in gratuitous ways…but hold them strictly accountable and insist on performance. I know my cynical readers will be rolling their eyes by now. They will take the same stance towards politicians as the old lawyer joke that said it was 99% of lawyers that gave the rest a bad name.

If we continue devalue democracy by not participating in the political life of our province, and if we continue to debase our political representatives by cheap personal affronts we all suffer in the end.

For the most part this campaign has been more on issues than personalities. The critics who liken politics to a hardball blood sport are suggesting the issues are getting attention because of the “uninspiring personalities” of the political leaders in Alberta. I am OK with that because I think charisma-based populists politics is over rated. And before you ask, no Obama is not a charisma-based populist politician. He is much more than that – he is a transformative force of nature.

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.