A Delightful Moment of Alberta Politicians Being Human-ish

The Legislative Press Gallery Annual Christmas Party features videos by the Alberta political parties.  This year the NDP and Wildrose Alliance joined forces and did a video worthy of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Give it a look and enjoy the giggle.

Support the Edmonton Christmas Bureau

I have been asked by the Edmonton Christmas Bureau to help them with the final push over the top for donations in this years goal of $1.8million.

The Christmas bureau aims to help 73,000 Edmonton community families this year with your generous support.

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Thank you gentle readers for your support for this great cause.

Is Pension Scheme Good for Us or for Mutual Fund Managers?

There is a need to get Canadians saving for their retirement.  No argument there.  The need to expand access to pensions is critical too. No argument there.  There is a role for the private and the public sector in this effort as well.  RRSPs are the model for the private sector play and the CPP is the public part in the process.

So now we have a scheme proposed that will enable people to set up private pension arrangements that don't get them from employers or the self-employed.  The theory is good but the execution and regulation of the program  is the concern.  This is on the face of it a Christmas gift to the financial institutions who will get enormous fees, the ability to leverage pooled funds and do not have to worry about investment performance as they play with the hopes and aspirations of possibly millions of individual Canadians.

I am told by pension fund managers that Canadians pay some of the highest, if not the highest, fund management fees in the world.  Will that change in this pooled pension scheme?  Will there be competition - I mean real competition - not price fixing collusion amongst fund managers for fees and investment performance?  Will the average Canadian even know how to monitor and evaluate the management service and fund performance they are getting?  Will contributors be fragmented individuals  no consumer or political clout who give their retirement nest eggs to fund managers with minimal accountability, transparency and responsibility?

This "solution" seems to be potentially more disastrous than the problem it is trying to solve...unless there is serious government regulation and over site...not lax enforcement and political over sights that is characteristic of the Harper political style to date.  Is there any reason for citizens to trust the political motives and in public interest integrity behind this scheme?

I am a free enterprise kind of guy and think capitalism is a great tool for economic growth.  But these are man- made concepts that only work if there is confidence and trust by the public who must feel assured that the public interest is the goal, not private greed.  We saw what happens when big fees and private greed takes over brokers and fund dealers.  Just look at the U.S. Sub-prime mortgage disaster that almost put the world into a depression "saved" by trillions of taxpayer dollars paid to bail out the "too big to fail" banks who were the "masters-of-the-universe types" who were ripping off everyone...or the Bernie Madoff example...just to name a few.

Free market capitalism only works with real competition and that only happens with the assurance of appropriate government regulations.  Market based competition is not  the solution to all the social, economic and environmental challenges we face - there is a fundamental role for good government.  We need both for a happy, wealthy and wise society.

I need to know a great deal more about this scheme and how it will be regulated and controlled by my government before I will buy in.  I need to know why the expansion and extension of the CPP was not an accepted Canadian-way alternative?  I need to be convinced this approach is about sound fiscal policy and not hard core Harper Conservative dogma wagging a poorly thought out public policy agendas.

Feeling an Uneasy Redux of the '60s

The Beatles Revolution #1 was of its time but those times may be returning to become our times.   What with Climate Change, Democratic Deficits, Economic Meltdowns, enormous personal debt levels, recessions, changing political power structures, tribal wars instead of state conflicts....the list goes on...and on...and on.  Are we ready for a revolution and transformation in how we live - like within natural limits?

Is this Beatles tune an anthem to hope...or cynicism?  It was ringing true then but is it also ringing true for today?  What is your anticipation of what the next year will bring?  Are you making a New Years Resolution or a Revolution?  Are you adaptable enough?  Is Alberta adaptable enough?  Are we wise enough to do what is right and required without a crisis.  Are we thinking for a change?

"When an old culture is dying the new culture is born from a few people who are not afraid to feel insecure." - Rudolph Bahro

What is our responsibility?

What choices do we make?

Do we choose to be awake?

Do we choose to practice the future now?

We should not be seduced by hope or fear.

(VIA MEG WHEATLEY)

Are You Alberta Party Curious?

There is an interesting piece in the Sunday Reader section of the Edmonton Journal on the Alberta Party written by Sheila Pratt. It shows that the Alberta Party is drawing attention and capturing the imagination of progressive thinking Albertans.  The article shows that there is a significant yearning for a different way of doing politics in our province.

The recent municipal elections have shown dramatic evidence of that thirst for change all over the province.  Many incumbent  candidates were rejected by the electorate in cities, towns. municipal districts and counties.  Edmonton is the exception but we made that shift in consciousness two elections ago.  We liked the direction and destination of our city and it continues to move forward with a progressive council and mayor.  So all incumbents in Edmonton were all re-elected.  The exception that proves the rule.

CHANGE IS WANTED BUT A CHANGE TO WHAT?
The problem about a change is what is the alternative to the traditional left versus right tedious model of politics as usual.  That old-style thinking about ideological and manipulative politics is very distrusted by most Albertans.  The majority of us respond apathetically by simply not voting.  The consciousness is changing now and people realize if they don't participate politically as informed  citizens, there are negative consequences. Disillusioned apathetic citizens can give away their political power to an alternative that is not reflective of their values and not aligned with their aspirations for Alberta.  Apathy is not just boring - it is dangerous.

There are some Albertans with hardcore social conservative and libertarian values that believe the Wildrose Alliance is the change answer for our political culture.  Their approach is to essentially eliminate government then privatize public policy on the presumption that the marketplace is the answer to all the social, environmental, economic and political problems we face, including health care.  That is not consistent with the dominant values of most Albertans.  But most of us don't vote so we could end up there by default...with nobody to blame but ourselves.

There are many who are nominally supportive of the Wildrose Alliance because they see it as a "place to park your vote and frown sternly at the PCs"  as University of Lethbridge political scientist Peter McCormick says in the Journal article.  But given another viable balanced, moderate and progressive political alternative like the Alberta Party, one has to question the real level of committed public support for the fundamentalist hardcore conservative politics of the Wildrose Alliance.

No doubt the Alberta Party has a long way to go and very little time to get ready for the next election - which is expected within a year.  It is making progress, getting traction and picking up speed.  I am told membership has doubled to over 900 in the 6 weeks since the end of October Policy Conference.  More Albertans are buying memberships and engaging the start of constituency associations, looking a leadership campaigns and considering being a candidate....but still more is needed for the Alberta Party to be a contender in the next election.

It will have over 40 constituency associations formed by the end of January and the rest of the province will be organized right afterwards.  The party leadership campaign begin in the new year.  The leadership campaigns will bring mainstream media attention to the Alberta Party and that will attract the attention of everyday Albertans to this new fresh political movement.  Albertans will become more Alberta Party curious as they hear about how we can do politics differently and move forward to a progressive future.

In the last Alberta election 60% of eligible voters could not be bothered to get informed about the candidates, the leaders, the party platforms or ever show up to vote.  The Alberta Party will be fishing in that large pond of citizen disenchantment.  It will offer a viable alternative to politics-as-usual and will attract soft and swing support from all the traditional political parties who are fed up with the old-style politics.

There are reasons for the Alberta Party to be cautiously optimistic about gaining greater voter support.  The citizen disaffection for all of the current political offerings and the longing for change is obvious.  There are some of us who were there in 1971 when Lougheed led the dramatic change from the tired, tedious and out of touch Social Credit government to a new modern, youthful forward thinking and energized kind of government.

There are signs that we are back to the future.  There is the emergence of a revitalized voter who showed up in the recent local elections in larger numbers and with a message to politicians.  This is another reason to believe things can change quickly and dramatically in the political culture of our Alberta.  The rejection of so many conformist incumbent candidates is another encouraging sign of the coming of real political change.  The election of so many younger, imaginative and progressive thinking candidates to local governments and school boards also adds to the sense of a sea change shift that is emerging in the political culture of the province.      

ALBERTANS ARE MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN CONSERVATIVE
On top of all that is some interesting research results we have discerned from the work of Reboot Alberta on the degree of shared values of progressive thinking Albertans compared to a random sampling the everyday average Albertan. The results are enormously encouraging for the progressive and fresh thinking of the Alberta Party.  We studied 22 value attributes of 644 self-selecting Alberta progressives within the Reboot Alberta citizens movement.  We wanted to find out what were the most vital values for progressive Albertans and what they wanted to see guide and drive politics and policy decisions of their government.

We did the same study with a statistically valid random sample of 568 Albertans so it is accurate at the +/-4% level.  We then compared the random results to the Reboot progressive citizens movement results.  We wanted to get a sense of how many progressive thinking people there are in Alberta.  We looked at the degree of alignment of the random results and compared them to the top quartile of the Roboot results.  This top quartile alignment of the two surveys is an indication of an excellent fit of the Alberta population with the progressive values of Reboot Alberta Influentials.  What we found is that 28% of Albertans are profoundly aligned with the Progressive values. 

When we compared the random results to the top two quartiles of the Reboot survey we found that 63% of everyday Albertans shared the same set of values as Reboot Alberta Progressives.  What is just as important is there was no difference between ages, genders or between rural and urban progressive thinking Albertan when you look at the random sample results.  Rural and urban Albertans share the same values, maybe not the same priority about issues but we Albertans are fundamentally the same kind of people...regardless of where we live.

If this extrapolation of the alignment of random sample of regular Albertan and the Reboot community is accurate that means the red-neck social conservative image of Alberta so "popular" in the rest of Canada is a myth.  It is a myth that needs to be debunked.   It also means there is a large untapped group of progressive thinking Albertans looking and longing for a political home and a political party they can believe in.  Could the Alberta Party be the answer to the quest for change for the 63% of us who want a real progressive government that reflects our values?

LOOK AT THE ALBERTA PARTY AS A PROGRESSIVE ALTERNATIVE
If you are Alberta Party curious, take a chance and go to the website, read the policy document and other items.  If you are curious about what is a Progressive go to that link on the Reboot Alberta  and read the commentaries. Then take a minute and look at the mix of young-old, male-female on the Alberta Party Board and ask yourself if this mix makes sense in how a new political party should look.  Can you see that the Alberta Party is on to something and serious about doing politics differently?  Is this new political movement something worthy of your support and involvement as a citizen? If you want real change we all know it is basically about taking personal responsibility.  We have to be the change we want to see.

So overcome your reluctance about political participation.  Take the leap and buy a membership in the Alberta Party.  Become active in the forthcoming party leadership selection process.  Share your engagement and enthusiasm with your family, friends, co-workers and your community.  Encourage them to revitalize their sense of empowerment as a citizen.  Ask them to consider joining the Alberta Party too.  After all it is still a free country and province...for now but that could change if you choose to stay disinterested in the future of our Alberta.