As I said in an earlier post the political attention in Alberta will shift from the WAP Leadership of Danielle Smith to the PC AGM confidence vote on the Stelmach leadership.
I see the WAP overplaying their hand already claiming to being "ready to govern" in the next election, likely less than 3 years away. They have one MLA through winning a protest vote by election in Calgary. They have the underwhelming support of less than 8500 Albertans who could be bothering to even mail in a ballot. That hardly makes the WAP a "party of winners" as they are now claiming.
The grumpy old Reformer type social conservatives had to be embarrassed by the poor showing of their SoCon candidate in the WAP leadership results. One even more extreme WAP leadership candidate withdrew from the contest without explanation. His anti-homosexual and closet Alberta separatist leanings didn't help promote what the new gentler big-tent party the new leader is calling for the WAP to become.
Smith, once selected to lead the WAP, was recently quoted as saying:
“Wildrose Alliance was seen even a few months ago as another marginal protest party. Now we’re the government in waiting”
“We’ve been doing a lot of cringing and ducking to avoid being labeled extremist. We should now stop. It’s undignified.”
But it's true the newly merged Wildrose and Alliance parties are full of extremists. Nice to see the new leader admitting that they have been "cringing and ducking to avoid" the label. It is not a label. It is the truth. The WAP can expect Albertans to cringe as this traditionalist political party tries to duck and hide from its yester-year discriminatory social policies.
I see the old-boys club of certain disgruntled Calgarians elites, who used to get direct and personal political access to Premier Klein back in the day, are now taking their shots at Premier Stelmach...including the former Premier himself. Shabby! I take my shots on the government too but I try to keep my criticism on policy and politics - not personality.
I was recalling the Klein-Betkowski PC leadership contest back in 1992. There were some elements in the Klein support base who said about Betkowski that "They were not going to be lead by that uppity educated city woman." Some of those same elements are now supporting Smith. I figure there must be some progress being made.
The biggest mistake we made in the Betkowski leadership campaign was to beat Ralph by 1 vote on the first ballot. The Klein forces came out of their self-satisfied shell and kicked our butts on the second ballot, even after every other candidate came to the Betkowski side.
We will have to wait and see if the Stelmach forces respond to the WAP in the same way by energizing and engaging. The reality still is the PC Party and the Stelmach government can choose to lose and even by the time the next election rolls around. If that happens then they will have both collaborated to engineer their mutual demise. November 7 at the PC AGM should give us some early warning signs as to what will emerge.
Danielle Smith's leadership victory and the recent WAP election result will be merely a catalyst for creating or the consciousness for change. She and the WAP are not necessarily going to set the direction or the destination from such change. There are other political forces afoot that may come into play. There may be a push for rebooting Alberta and designing a political agenda and alternative towards a more progressive direction and destination.
As Ralph used to say, "Stay tuned."
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Odds, Sods and Green Oil Still #1 Best Seller
DANIEL PINK AT INSPIRING EDUCATION:
Really enjoyed Daniel Pink's lecture at Inspiring Education last night. His comments about the rising influence of Asia and especially India align well with our Cambridge Strategies Briefing Paper on Opportunity India.
VOLUNTEER SCREENING:
The Editorial in the Globe and Mail on Excessive Scrutiny of Volunteers misses the mark as far as I am concerned. We have done some work in the need to provide criminal background checks on volunteers, especialy those working iwth children, seniors, disabled and other vulnerable citizens. The costs to doing this in Alberta was estimated at about $1million per year and government resisted funding the checks. Stelmach recently agreed to centralize processing and to pay for the criminal background checks for the not-for-profit sector.
GREEN OIL:
For the second week in a row Satya Das' new book Green Oil is #1 in the Non-Fiction local market Best Sellers List in the Edmonton Journal. Learn more about the book and join the conversation about a clean energy future, especially for Alberta and buy the book online at http://www.greenoilbook.com/. It is also avalable at Audrey's and Greenwood's in Edmonton.
Really enjoyed Daniel Pink's lecture at Inspiring Education last night. His comments about the rising influence of Asia and especially India align well with our Cambridge Strategies Briefing Paper on Opportunity India.
VOLUNTEER SCREENING:
The Editorial in the Globe and Mail on Excessive Scrutiny of Volunteers misses the mark as far as I am concerned. We have done some work in the need to provide criminal background checks on volunteers, especialy those working iwth children, seniors, disabled and other vulnerable citizens. The costs to doing this in Alberta was estimated at about $1million per year and government resisted funding the checks. Stelmach recently agreed to centralize processing and to pay for the criminal background checks for the not-for-profit sector.
GREEN OIL:
For the second week in a row Satya Das' new book Green Oil is #1 in the Non-Fiction local market Best Sellers List in the Edmonton Journal. Learn more about the book and join the conversation about a clean energy future, especially for Alberta and buy the book online at http://www.greenoilbook.com/. It is also avalable at Audrey's and Greenwood's in Edmonton.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Daveberta's Thoughtful Post on Alberta Politics is Worth a Reflective Read
Daveberta and the Enlightened Savage have political insight and wisdom way beyond their young age.
This latest post by Daveberta on the Wildrose Alliance Party implications for politics and governance in Alberta is a quintessential example of what I mean.
http://daveberta.blogspot.com/2009/10/wake-up-call-for-alberta.html
Thanks for the great post Dave.
This latest post by Daveberta on the Wildrose Alliance Party implications for politics and governance in Alberta is a quintessential example of what I mean.
http://daveberta.blogspot.com/2009/10/wake-up-call-for-alberta.html
Thanks for the great post Dave.
Alberta's Political Eyes Now Turn to PC Leadership Confidence Vote
I had a great conversation with Katherine O'Neill of the Globe and Mail yesterday on the Wildrose Alliance Party leadership and the pending Alberta Progressive Conservative Party Annual General Meeting leadership confidence vote for Premier Stelmach coming up November 7th. Here is the link to the story in today's Globe and Mail.
I think the Alberta political media attention will shift now to the PC AGM leadership confidence vote but with the Danielle Smith WAP leadership lurking in the background. The speculation will be rampant but pointless. What is on the minds of the delegates and what do they see and the confidence vote "ballot question" is the real issue.
There is a growing amount of grumbling in the PC rank and file these days. It may be that I attract the griping because I speak out about political and governance concerns on this blog. The big tent for fiscal conservatives and social progressives is wearing thin on both counts. Walking away for $2B in royalties for no good reason other than to appease the Calgary based energy executive suites and at the same time to be calling for the same $2B in program cuts in the coming fiscal year captures the essence of why both elements in the PC Party are dissatisfied.
The Premier's political response to the embarrassing third place finish in the Calgary Glenmore by election was restricted to blaming the results on the bad economy and the rapidly expanded government program spending. That presumption that the Stelmach government is not fiscally right-wing enough ignores the growing lack of confidence in the governance and leadership capacity of the current regime. It also ignores the revenue problem caused by politically motivated giveaways and concessions to the energy sector with no positive economic upside for the provincial treasury and the Premier painting himself in a corner with a hasty announcement about not increasing taxes on his watch.
Now the cost-cutting strategy is to give token claw backs of the massive recent Cabinet pay increases as if that would provide some moral high ground to go to public sector workers to induce them to walk away from legally binding mutually agreed to collective bargaining agreements. The not-for-profit community based service sector agencies doing the government's work in the volatile and vulnerable areas like seniors, children's service and the developmentally disabled are being penalized even more than the union based public sector workers.
Passing up non-renewable resource revenues in the face of market based commodity prices and putting the burden for that giveaway on the middle class and most vulnerable in our society is not good politics and even poorer governance.
Will this message come through loud and clear at the pending confidence vote at the November PC AGM? My betting is not at all. Even with all this crashing down on the shoulders of the provincial government and the downloading of the burden on municipalities, schools, hospitals, universities, community based not-for profit social service agencies, it will all be stifled and not talked about openly at the AGM.
The first rule of old-school politics is to get re-elected and the next election is a long way off in political time. There is a lot of water to go under the political bridge before Premier Stelmach has to face the people. The "people" in the PC party know this. The only thing that could cause Stelmach to face the citizens of Alberta earlier would be a low confidence vote in the party leader and Premier by the party faithful. That would trigger a PC leadership contest and with the party policy of one-membership one-vote process Albertans could destabilize the entire PC party tradition and structure.
The PC party faithful will stay "faithful" on November 7th if not to the leader at least to the PC brand. To do anything else will only hurt the party, the province and destabilize provincial politics by unnecessarily increasing the already considerable instability and uncertainty of being Albertan.
I think the Alberta political media attention will shift now to the PC AGM leadership confidence vote but with the Danielle Smith WAP leadership lurking in the background. The speculation will be rampant but pointless. What is on the minds of the delegates and what do they see and the confidence vote "ballot question" is the real issue.
There is a growing amount of grumbling in the PC rank and file these days. It may be that I attract the griping because I speak out about political and governance concerns on this blog. The big tent for fiscal conservatives and social progressives is wearing thin on both counts. Walking away for $2B in royalties for no good reason other than to appease the Calgary based energy executive suites and at the same time to be calling for the same $2B in program cuts in the coming fiscal year captures the essence of why both elements in the PC Party are dissatisfied.
The Premier's political response to the embarrassing third place finish in the Calgary Glenmore by election was restricted to blaming the results on the bad economy and the rapidly expanded government program spending. That presumption that the Stelmach government is not fiscally right-wing enough ignores the growing lack of confidence in the governance and leadership capacity of the current regime. It also ignores the revenue problem caused by politically motivated giveaways and concessions to the energy sector with no positive economic upside for the provincial treasury and the Premier painting himself in a corner with a hasty announcement about not increasing taxes on his watch.
Now the cost-cutting strategy is to give token claw backs of the massive recent Cabinet pay increases as if that would provide some moral high ground to go to public sector workers to induce them to walk away from legally binding mutually agreed to collective bargaining agreements. The not-for-profit community based service sector agencies doing the government's work in the volatile and vulnerable areas like seniors, children's service and the developmentally disabled are being penalized even more than the union based public sector workers.
Passing up non-renewable resource revenues in the face of market based commodity prices and putting the burden for that giveaway on the middle class and most vulnerable in our society is not good politics and even poorer governance.
Will this message come through loud and clear at the pending confidence vote at the November PC AGM? My betting is not at all. Even with all this crashing down on the shoulders of the provincial government and the downloading of the burden on municipalities, schools, hospitals, universities, community based not-for profit social service agencies, it will all be stifled and not talked about openly at the AGM.
The first rule of old-school politics is to get re-elected and the next election is a long way off in political time. There is a lot of water to go under the political bridge before Premier Stelmach has to face the people. The "people" in the PC party know this. The only thing that could cause Stelmach to face the citizens of Alberta earlier would be a low confidence vote in the party leader and Premier by the party faithful. That would trigger a PC leadership contest and with the party policy of one-membership one-vote process Albertans could destabilize the entire PC party tradition and structure.
The PC party faithful will stay "faithful" on November 7th if not to the leader at least to the PC brand. To do anything else will only hurt the party, the province and destabilize provincial politics by unnecessarily increasing the already considerable instability and uncertainty of being Albertan.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Smith Wins Wildrose Leadership: Now What?
I had the opportunity to meet and talk with over 100 Wildrose Alliance Party members yesterday at their Leadership Convention in Edmonton. I was asked by the WAP Executive Director to do a presentation on social media, a subject that stirs my political passions. As an unrepentant Red Tory I wondered if the WAP (and I) knew what we were getting into but it was a very enjoyable event for me and the feedback on Twitter and face-to-face makes me believe the feeling was mutual.
The leadership campaign of Danielle Smith took over 75% of the membership support, a very conclusive result for sure. Congratulations are in order and I have to admire any citizen, regardless of stripe, who offers their time and talent as a political candidate in the service of the greater public good. The media was all over this party leadership, partly because of the strong showing in the Calgary Glenmore by election and the dismal third place shellacking the Stelmach PC’s endured.
The December 2008 Alberta Liberal leadership got minimal media coverage by comparison but the times were very different then. The melting Alberta economy was in full flight as the recession cum depression and commodity price collapse dominated the headlines. The WAP did not have the same media headline competition and in fact became the political story for a month or so before the leadership convention.
The leadership campaign voter and party membership numbers from both of these contests are underwhelming. In both the Liberal and WAP contest only about 71% of the members bothered to show up to vote. Does that mean 30% of those Albertans who paid for the party membership did so just to get the party membership seller off their back? Likely!
The Liberals only sold 6258 party membership for their leadership contest and 4599 of them bothered to vote. The WAP sold just over 11,600 party memberships and 8296 of them bothered to vote. The new leader of the WAP, Danielle Smith took over 75% of the voter turnout with 6295 ballots. One needs to put 6300 party supporters in perspective. Consider that in the 2008 Alberta election 37 winners in individual constituencies had more supporters than Smith did based on the entire province.
The WAP today is a long way from any reality as an alternative to the power of the Progressive Conservative support. The WAP knows that but the next election is 3 years away, coincidentally the same time Premier Stelmach recently predicted in his TV fireside speech that provincial surpluses would return.
One other very interesting implication from the WAP leadership was the party’s reluctance and tactical maneuvering to avoid disclosing the vote results. The pre-count concession by the very socially conservative candidate Mark Dyrholm was used as an excuse to avoid disclosing the vote results. They eventually unenthusiastically released the count. In fact as I write this, almost 24 hours later, the vote count is still not on the WAP website, just linked to the blog post of the Executive Director.
For the record, Smith got 6295 votes and Dyrholm got 1905 votes. This is a dramatic rejection of the anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, patriarchal, family-values political agenda of the far right base of the party mergers that became the Wildrose Alliance. Interestingly Dyrholm in a province-wide leadership campaign got fewer votes than Craig Chandler did in his third place finish the 2008 election in Calgary Egmont. OUCH!
This leadership rejection result will not sit well with the traditionalist base of the new WAP and I can’t see them going away quietly. Appeasement of socially conservative political agenda will be one of Smith’s first and toughest challenges as the WAP goes about the Province the hammer out a policy platform. There is already a WAP platform on their website that induced over 11000 Albertans to join up. What does Smith want to see changed, why and to what?
So now the WAP is a new party, with a new seat and a new leader. I think we need some hardnosed political perspective on the implications of this new party. I encourage every Albertan who is concerned about the future of this province to read the WAP policy platform and to reflect upon how it aligns with their values. If you agree, get on board with the WAP. If you disagree, you have a more complex set of political participation questions to consider.
What if the PC's send Premier Stelmach a harsh political message at the November 7th party leadership review? That will that trigger more dramatic consequences for Alberta than what happened at the WAP leadership tussle yesterday. Time for Albertans to get ready for any one of a range of possible scenarios coming out of that crucial vote. What the PC party says to Premier Stelmach then will promise to have a serious impact on all of us right now. That political conversation will be happening mostly on Twitter at #PCAGM so sign up and tune in.
The leadership campaign of Danielle Smith took over 75% of the membership support, a very conclusive result for sure. Congratulations are in order and I have to admire any citizen, regardless of stripe, who offers their time and talent as a political candidate in the service of the greater public good. The media was all over this party leadership, partly because of the strong showing in the Calgary Glenmore by election and the dismal third place shellacking the Stelmach PC’s endured.
The December 2008 Alberta Liberal leadership got minimal media coverage by comparison but the times were very different then. The melting Alberta economy was in full flight as the recession cum depression and commodity price collapse dominated the headlines. The WAP did not have the same media headline competition and in fact became the political story for a month or so before the leadership convention.
The leadership campaign voter and party membership numbers from both of these contests are underwhelming. In both the Liberal and WAP contest only about 71% of the members bothered to show up to vote. Does that mean 30% of those Albertans who paid for the party membership did so just to get the party membership seller off their back? Likely!
The Liberals only sold 6258 party membership for their leadership contest and 4599 of them bothered to vote. The WAP sold just over 11,600 party memberships and 8296 of them bothered to vote. The new leader of the WAP, Danielle Smith took over 75% of the voter turnout with 6295 ballots. One needs to put 6300 party supporters in perspective. Consider that in the 2008 Alberta election 37 winners in individual constituencies had more supporters than Smith did based on the entire province.
The WAP today is a long way from any reality as an alternative to the power of the Progressive Conservative support. The WAP knows that but the next election is 3 years away, coincidentally the same time Premier Stelmach recently predicted in his TV fireside speech that provincial surpluses would return.
One other very interesting implication from the WAP leadership was the party’s reluctance and tactical maneuvering to avoid disclosing the vote results. The pre-count concession by the very socially conservative candidate Mark Dyrholm was used as an excuse to avoid disclosing the vote results. They eventually unenthusiastically released the count. In fact as I write this, almost 24 hours later, the vote count is still not on the WAP website, just linked to the blog post of the Executive Director.
For the record, Smith got 6295 votes and Dyrholm got 1905 votes. This is a dramatic rejection of the anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, patriarchal, family-values political agenda of the far right base of the party mergers that became the Wildrose Alliance. Interestingly Dyrholm in a province-wide leadership campaign got fewer votes than Craig Chandler did in his third place finish the 2008 election in Calgary Egmont. OUCH!
This leadership rejection result will not sit well with the traditionalist base of the new WAP and I can’t see them going away quietly. Appeasement of socially conservative political agenda will be one of Smith’s first and toughest challenges as the WAP goes about the Province the hammer out a policy platform. There is already a WAP platform on their website that induced over 11000 Albertans to join up. What does Smith want to see changed, why and to what?
So now the WAP is a new party, with a new seat and a new leader. I think we need some hardnosed political perspective on the implications of this new party. I encourage every Albertan who is concerned about the future of this province to read the WAP policy platform and to reflect upon how it aligns with their values. If you agree, get on board with the WAP. If you disagree, you have a more complex set of political participation questions to consider.
What if the PC's send Premier Stelmach a harsh political message at the November 7th party leadership review? That will that trigger more dramatic consequences for Alberta than what happened at the WAP leadership tussle yesterday. Time for Albertans to get ready for any one of a range of possible scenarios coming out of that crucial vote. What the PC party says to Premier Stelmach then will promise to have a serious impact on all of us right now. That political conversation will be happening mostly on Twitter at #PCAGM so sign up and tune in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)