What is the Way Forward for Alberta's Politics?

There is a new guest blog posted today on Reboot Alberta by Dave King.  Dave is one of the founders and organizers on the gathering of Progressives that is happening in late November.  Dave says "We need to reject the politics of fear, confrontation and intimidation." 

With the current and coming budget pressures, many citizens, civil society organizations and community- based service provider agencies are feeling fearful.  They fear their funders and if they will have the resouces needed to do their jobs for some of the most vulnerable in our society.  There is significant anticipation of a confrontation attitude and personal intimidation from the provincial government as it promises to cut $2B next fiscal to deal with its expected budget shortfall of $7B. 

Part of that stated $7B budget anticipated shortfall seems to be made up of some smoke and mirrors.  It includes the paper losses from stock price declines in the Heritage Savings and Trust investment portfolio.  Those losses are not real or crystalized, as the Accountants like to say, unless the equities are sold out of the fund.  That is not happening or likely to happen any time soon.  Those capital devaluations not cash drains on the Alberta Treasury but they are made to appear that way in the messaging doming out of government.   It appears to be a tactic to enable the province to return to fiscal folly of the mid 90's of massive versus brutal cuts as Stelmach has decided to shift farther right fiscally in response to the Wildrose Alliance Party.

The market has recovered significantly since that last deficit calculation was done.  It will be interesting to see what the Third QTR numbers will show for Alberta's budget status as at the end of December.  We will know in January 2010 so pay attention Alberta to what the next deficit calculation is and how they arrive at it.
 
King also says "We are not well served by the politics of selfishness, exclusivity, immediate gratification and harsh judgement."  He calls for a new politics of "...hope, cooperation and respect...(based on) community and the public, incluson and diversity, the long term and affirmation." 

This made me think of the astonishing immorality of the Calgary Flames Hockey team jumping the H1N1 flu shot que. It was well known the flushot clinics were being shut down just as the players, teams executives all got private preference for flu shots.  They must have known of the vaccine supply shortages and the well publicized preferential needs of  pregnant women and young children who run the greatest H1N1 risk.  Where was the sense of community and cooperation by the team management and leadership when they showed such a misplaced sense of entitlement that they get to ignore the greater good?   How did this get past the provincial government and will we ever see some accountability for this deplorable behaviour?  There is lots of blame to go around and Albertans can't let it be swept under the political carpet.

There is so much more thoughtful commentary in Dave's blog post. I highly recommend you read it.  Here is the link.

The Right Call Column - Alberta Venture Magazine

I was so busy writing the Society's Child series on the contempt of court issues that I neglected to provide you with the link to the September version of The Right Call.  This is the column I do along with Fil Fraser and other contributors. 

This edition is on social media in the workplace.  A very timely issue for business http://www.albertaventure.com/the-right-call/time-waster-or-tool/?year=2009

Reboot Alberta is a Hit - and Hits a Nerve!

Reboot Alberta has touched a nerve.  In just under a week we are almost fully subscribed to the 72 participants we have room for at our venue in Red Deer.  We have had to shut down the online registration site so we do not get over booked on the weekend. 

There are a few spaces left and a number of outstanding invitations still open. If you have an invitation you best email bryna@cambridgestrategies.com right away with your name, email, who invited you, address and phone number.  She will reply on Monday for the remaining spaces.

It is obvious we will have to put on another Reboot Alberta event in the near future.  We have to respond to the enourmous interest and demand to rethink our democracy and governance culture in this province.  We will be posting updates and information here but also at http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/

Thanks for all those who responded and registered so quickly.  Be sure you have your rooms reserved at the Red Deer Lodge too.  They are also limited and only a few are left. Be sure to use our event code in your invitation to get the convention rate.  Have a great weekend.

Climate Leadership and Economic Prosperity has to be an Alberta Destiny

All Albertans and Canadians need to read the Pembina Institute and David Suzuki Foundation report "Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity" released today.  Congratulations to the authors and thank you Toronto-Dominion Bank for funding the report.

There needs to be an open citizens debate about climate change.  It looks like Copenhagen is going to be a failure because the Amereicans are not ready and our Canadian government is too disengaged in getting the issues in a serious way.

So if the world fails to come to grips with climate change in Copenhagen, then Harper's hosting of the G20 in Huntsville Ontario in July 2010.  That will be the nest best chance to get something serious solutions happening on the climate change agenda.  Is Harper up  to the task?  Does he want to deal with the issue?  Will he even be Prime Minister in July 2010?

Here is book review on Green Oil, a book that frames the opportunity for Alberta to show climate leadership and economic prosperity.  These issues are just some of the policy and political questions that need to be discussed by Albertans.  One venue for that conversation is at http://www.greenoilbook.com/.

Hope you visit and share your views on the next Alberta.

Reboot Alberta is About to Happen. What is it and Why Does it Matter to Albertans?

A small group of us, including myself, Dave King, Don Schurman and Michael Brechtel are organizing a gathering of progressive Albertans (beyond left-right politics) in Red Deer at the end of November. The weekend event is called Reboot Alberta. This is one of many citizens’ based initiatives, including the ChangeCamp movement that is happening across the country and now in Alberta too.

Reboot Alberta is not about starting another political party, although the thought has been crossing a number of progressive Alberta minds. Reboot Alberta is an opportunity for progressive thinking Albertans to come together to connect, share and explore their ideas on what they see as important concerns for our province as we stumble and grumble towards designing and developing the next Alberta. I expect Reboot Alberta will also to consider how the progressive Alberta voice gets heard, resonates and makes a difference within the political and governing culture of the province.

My current view of Alberta is that the political culture of the province is stalled. The dominant alternatives being offered citizens are stuck in a useless left versus right competitive paradigm of political gamesmanship. The current political culture is effectively offering us two distinct choices. There is a chance to return to traditional model of top down, command and control politics manipulated by a hierarchy of authority. This option prefers to exclude alternatives, destroys diversity and stifles efforts towards innovation. It fears difference tending to see the world in terms of distinct rights and wrongs and “us versus them.”

Alternatively we get a damn-the-torpedoes unremorseful economic growth attitude of the currently dominant modernist model of Alberta political culture. This offering, all too often, has little regard for the long term environmental and social consequences of its commitment to bigger and faster economic growth as being better merely by definition. This "He who dies with the most toys wins" attitude of the modernist Albertan is a politically approved Ponzi scheme that destroys the social and natural capital of Albertans, while producing the added benefit of beggaring any duty to future generations.

Our current political culture, political parties and other institutional offerings to Albertans are so “the-day-before yesterday” in their thinking and culture. They are run by the baffled burghers who are like frozen computers, unresponsive to inputs and unable to perform as expected or even as instructed. They become increasingly unable to process and produce what they promise and are unable to help any enable Alberta o Albertans to realize its/our integrated potential.

It is not all their fault. It is what we as citizens have allowed (encouraged?) to happen. Albertans have increasingly devalued the place of politics in our society. We seem all too quick make a sport out of belittling politicians and more often than naught, default to attending to the most trite and trivial of concerns while we let the big issues pass because we can' t be bothered to take time and effort to comprehend. Hardly an effective strategy to attract the best and brightest of our citizens into public service as a means to ensure good government.

The organizers of Reboot Alberta believe we are a time where a policy and political reboot is the only practical way to get a fresh start. What is a progressive political and institutional reboot and what would it actually look like? Good question and the truth is we don't know. We will not know until we actually get progressive Albertans together to generate their answers. But rest assured we will share the answers, even though they are likely to be nothing less than proto-truths.

The thinking behind Reboot Alberta is that it is just a metaphor. But like any metaphor, according to "A Whole New Mind" author, Daniel Pink, it is only worth "a thousand pictures." Sharing the picture of the next Alberta, and focusing on how we see it, determining what is important to pay attention to and how do we come to best understand its meaning and propose on how to achieve its potential is all part of the metaphorical purpose behind Reboot Alberta. Reboot Alberta is not about moving more to the left or right, which is the shallow choice of the current thinking about our political culture. It is about moving forward. The real challenge is figuring out what forward looks like for the next Alberta and how do we achieve it.

A metaphor is only an invitation to use your imagination, challenge and change your perceptions and adapt your consciousness, and, in the bargain, to make some serious effort towards defining new meanings. Metaphorically rebooting the Alberta political culture is a chance to burst some perception bubbles that have taken over and isolated the powerful from the people in this province. Those leaders who are in the political and economic power bubbles are increasingly resistant real change. They do not risk encouraging new ideas until they are already proven. They are not prepared to be truly enabling of a better understanding or empowering people. They do not want to move citizens toward more political capacity unless and until they are assured, in advance, that those same citizens will still comply to the old power structures, even if only out of fear the power of the state and the pettiness of politicians.

This fear of the state is becoming more prevalent in the province of Alberta. Fear of our government is especially evident and growing amongst those in the public service, small business and community based not-for profit agencies that do government's work or work for government. This is perhaps one of the unhealthiest and disturbing trends in our political culture these days.

The political and economically powerful are so obviously more concerned about manipulating and massaging the message and their intent is to retain personal political power. The default political purpose has become managing issues for power retention, not the politically risky service of muddling through for the greater good. The politics of the place increasingly don't even try to define and design serious and significant new policies nor embrace new ideas that drive Albertans towards a better definition and destination we like to call progress.

The traditional media approach al; too often likes to focus on conflict and a superficial characterizations of politics as being about winners and losers. That merely adds to the citizen cynicism and confirms for folks that either indifference or subjugation and compliance is a preferred citizenship survival practice. The simple-minded KISS principle gets get preferential political application to complex public policy concerns. It inevitably makes matters even worse as good ideas as clarifying insights and commentary get discounted as politically impractical. Risks of punishment and retribution come from the politically powerful for merely being perceived as non-compliant or resistant and therefore becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy in a vicious downward spiral for our participatory democracy.

Like any operating system a reboot is a combination of actions that are about taking control, creating alternatives and determining deletions. Reboot questions are about what do citizens have to do to regain control of the political, governance and political processes in the province? What alternatives and new institutions do we need to design and develop to meet our better goals and aspirations as a province? What destructive elements do we need to dispose of and delete from the current political and governance culture to achieve the potential of the next Alberta?

Being a progressive citizen in Alberta today means you need to be ready willing and able to take some risks. You need to start thinking seriously and consider deeply the nature of the future of Alberta and what you want it to be. To merely wait for natural gas prices to recover as the game plan for the province is at best perfecting yesterday and at worst, forfeiting the current and real opportunity for transformative change.

We need to look at our entire political culture, not just the government. We need to consider what needs to be controlled, what alternatives do we need to create and what can we dispose of and delete in order to deliver us from the current frozen state of ineffective politics and governance.

That political reboot, if it happens, will have to come from citizens who have become complacent and disengaged in the politics and governance of their province. I expect progressives are the largest block of citizens who make up this passive and indifferent group. We need progressive citizens to reactivate their citizenship rights and take on a personal sense of political responsibility. We need to be personally ready, willing and able to re-engage in the politics of our times.

There will be lots of questions about what Reboot Alberta is all about. More details on Reboot Alberta will be provided at a new blog for that purpose at http://www.rebootalberta.wordpress.com/. Reboot Alberta welcomes your contribution to the conversation about these and other questions. Be aware, Reboot Alberta will not accept anonymous comments or contributors. Re-activated citizenship is not about hiding behind curtains. If you have a post to contribute, please send it to me at ken@cambridgestrategies.com and as long as it relevant, not legally challenging and presented in your own name, we will be pleased to post it.

As a progressive I think our challenge and opportunity it is not about making Alberta the best place IN the world but rather making Alberta the best place FOR the world. We have all the right ingredients to do this but do we have the guts and the gumption, yes and even the gall for the undertaking? We will be in touch, if you are...

Ambassador Doer Is Doing the Right Thing

Gary Doer, the new Canadian Ambassador to the United States, recently came out with a very helpful comment about the importance of the Alberta oilsands.  He also noted that we all need to do a better job in how we develop them, especially environmentally.  Albertans, as owners of this non-renewable strategically important resource, have to be very engaged in its development.

Satya Das has written a blog post on the http://www.greenoilbook.com/ website where he explores the Ambassador's comments. 

Satya is speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Centre Cross-Border Energy Forum in Washington DC next week.  He will be speaking about the themes in his new book Green Oil.  He will also be meeting with Ambassador Doer to explore the implications and opportunities available for more responsible and sustainable oilsands development.

Do you have any questions or comments you would like Satya to pass on at these meetings?  Put them in the comments on this blog or the Green Oil blog!  Looking forward to your responses.

Is Danielle Smith A Game Changer in Alberta Politics?

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."

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. 

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.

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.

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.

Harper Cons Put Party Logo on a "Ceremonial" Federal Government Grant Cheque

This is not governing - it is just cheap political gamesmanship.  Harper government putting a PC logo on a federal government cheque is not proper.  Can we ever come to trust these guys to do what is best for Canada and not just politrical power.  Sure it was a "ceremonial" grant cheque because the real thing would never be allowed by the administration.

Come Mr. Prime Minister, these are tough times.  Think about us as a country as you go about the nation spending borrowed money that future generations will have to repay for years.  This is not just your public relations stunt platform, it is about the viability and ability of the country to survive the worst recession in 70 years. 

Who in their right minds can trust this bunch when they constantly pull such stupid and insipid pranks?

Obama and the Problematic Prize

My friend David Kilgour published this piece in the Washington Post last week.  I picked it up on The Mark News site, where I contribute a thought or two on occasion.

David does a short and precise analysis of the context surrounding President Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize.  He questions the the wisdom of the award and even more so, its acceptance. 

Obama has done a great job of undoing much of the hate and harm inherent in the former Bush administration.  His commitment to a bi-partisan solution to issues like healthcare reform have mistakenly assumed a rational Republican response.  Criticism of Obama's policy accomplishments after only 9 months in office are premature at best. 

Repubicans are stuck in the adversarial model of politics.  The don't want the best policy or even a good policy, they only want to win the political argument about the policy.  The power Obama holds in control of the White House, the Senate and the House. This will soon result in President Obama exerting some pure political muscle to make things happen.

Coddling conservatives for consensus is past. President Obama can silence his critics by flexing his political power to serve the purposes for which he was elected in the first place.

Today the WAP is Far From a Serious Threat to Stelmach, but Tomorrow?

I have been following the media on the class project poll on Albertan's voter intentions now, over two years in advance of a practical reality of an actual election.  Some perspective needs to be put on all this.  First, the results are meaningless in any practical sense of measuing voter intention when voters don't intend to vote when the question is asked.  What the polls does say, is the obvious, Albertans are tiring of what they are seeing as the ineptness of the Stelmach governance approach.

So what!  The media coverage of the Glenmore by election, the pending Wildrose leadership vote and speculation on the outcome add a publicity presence that amplifies voter attention.  But that is a far cry from settling voter intention when there is no election in the offing.  Take the results of such polls as good gossip fodder but not much more. 

This poll, and its results, could use a bit more scrutiny than the MSM has had the time, space or inclination to give it.  I found the results very interesting, especially if you go beyond the sound bite level of analysis.  The methodology in the study says they  took the sample of 1,201.  The admittedly deemed some sample numbers by "statistically weighted where necessary to even better reflect the demographic distribuion of the Alberta population."  This means where the sample size for gender, for example, was not reflective of the population in a region the researchers took the small unrepresentative sample size they had and apparently boosted its relative impact to make it look like it was reflective of the actual gender distribution of 50/50.  Why not do the job right and stay sampling in the region until you got a real gender balance outcome?

Here is what I mean.  If in the north region they had 200 participants but 150 of them were male, they would take the data from the 50 females and enhance the impact of that number say 3 times to equal the male data.  Hardly an accurate take on what may be happening in hte minds of females in the region.   They also don't tell us exactly where they did the weighting, how much they "weight in" and what was the base data results they artificially amplified.  Nor to they tell us the sample size in all the regional results nor the margin or error to be attributed to those results.

I would also like to know  the wording of all the questions, and the order they asked them in and how many people were called but refused to answers.  If they had to make 10,000 calls to get 1200 to participate we have a very high degree of self-selection happening and the randomness is weaker.

I don't offer this criticism only on this poll but on all polls.  The professionals make the same mistakes and the results are misleading and meaningless in the same ways.

Now lets look at those results.   The media reports are focused on "decided voters" but you have to wonder how one becomes a "decided voter" when there is no practical possibility of a pending election. Also the results said 957 of 1115 participants had already made up their minds about the next election.  A stretch at best.  With 14% saying they were "Undecided" and we know 60% of Albertan did not even vote last time it is hard to reconcile the high percentage of "decided" voters to these realities.

Therefore I think the more interesting and reliable numbers are in the All Respondents findings.  The second most popular option there is a combination of Undecideds (14.2%) and Other Parties (7.3), which is larger than the Wildrose support.  The "decided" results show that, for now, the WAP is a parking lot for disgruntled PC supporters.

The regional breakdown is even more interesting, but I have suspicions about its reliability for reasons already stated and it is not clear if the results reported are on All Participants or just "Decided" voters.  I think it is only on the "Decided" voter because the overall bar graph is based on the "Decided" voters but it is far from clear. I also wonder where the "statistacal weighting" was applied, why, how much and on what base data. 

That aside the rural north and south PC support is holding rather well in the 45% range.  WAP is the "threat" but it is not much of a threat at the 24% level.  Stelmach has not much to worry about in his country support if these results are accurate.  But the mainly rural caucus tht leads the Stelmach inner circle are spooked by these results for sure.

The real political story from this poll is in the big cities. We are told constantly in the media and in conversations that Calgary does not like Premier Stelmach. Well compared to Edmonton, they sure do.  He has 38% support in Calgary but only 31% support in Edmonton.  Calgary has decided the political threat to Stelmach should be the WAP at 27%.  In Edmonton disgruntled citizens feel the Liberals should be the threat at 27.5%.  The PCs and Liberals are essentially tied in Edmonton with these numbers being within the margin of error.  The WAP trails the NDP in Edmonton and that is the place in Alberta where change and flux of political fortunes are being played out.  Edmonton, not Calgary, is the political caldrun of a yearning for change based on these numbers.

The WAP is a political force but this poll is precious little proof of its power.  Premier Stelmach is in trouble with Albertans but the drama has just begun and the story is far from being told.  Read these opinion polls like you would poetry.  It is more about the imgination and imagery they induce than the facts they prove.   

Reprehensible Greenwash on CO2 Emissions!

I am on a holiday in Hawaii but all of my surfing has been on the Net.  I could not let this extreme example of greenwash go by without sharing.  http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/10/09/plants_need_co2/index.html?source=newsletter

And now out of Bangkok we hear Saudi Arabia complaining that they need economic support if climate change legislation passes?  Spare me!  Quit using oil profits to fund terrorists is a place to start revising your economy.

Albertans Want to be Proud of Their Oilsands Development

Here is the link to RebootAlberta where I posted the text of the Commentary I wrote and taped for CBC Radio earlier last week.  It will be broadcast on CBC Radio One Edmonton AM program at 8:15 a.m.  Give it a listen if you have your radio ears on at that time and place.

PM Harper Sings at the National Arts Centre Gala

OMG Prime Minister Harper singing and playing piano at the National Arts Centre Gala last night. He does a great job of the Beatle hit "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends." He sounds at least as good as Ringo on the original version.

I thought the PM was opposed to these taxpayer subsidized limousine liberal artys-fartys galas. Now he cavorts with the socialites and the separatists and sings at galas. Good for him!

http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media_gallery.asp?media_category_id=20&media_id=3796

There is an election coming and this is much better than the pastel sweater image makeover of Mr. Harper in the last election. This performance rings true even if it is somewhat surprising given his well known negative attitude towards arts and culture generally.

Bottom line - I really appreciate this glimpse at the humanity of Stephen Harper. This is much better than the past tactics of slagging his opponents in nasty and negative television advertising campaigns.

H/T to AllieW on Twitter for the link

A Sermon on Saving the Planet by Father George Carlin

This morning's repast with my newspaper (aka tangible media) was full of Greenpeace Photo-Op Protestations and Premier Stelmach calling them "tourists" and offering them guided tours of our world famous judicial system. Then we have new reports of old ice on polar caps melting at unprecedented rates to a comprehensive analysis by Graham Thomson of the big engineering Carbon Capture and Sequestration projects to save the planet projects. Then I had the most counter-intuitive piece of all, Lorne Gunther writing about and delights of "whole food" in an environmental context and segueing to health care.

Then a new twitter Follower had a link to an old George Carlin piece on saving the planet. I love George Carlin for so many reasons and at so many levels. This piece is a perfect example of his acerbic and nimble mind. His bottom line is the planet is fine and will do quite well without our species as part of its future. He says humans, like most species before us are on our way to extinction and we are self inducing our demise.



Carlin is always profane, funny, profound and perhaps prophetic. Gandhi had the prescription for the disease we humans are inflicting on our habitat and other creatures with whom we share the biosphere "You must be the change you want to see in the world." All else is detail and discipline.

Design Thinking+Integrated Thinking= New Politics for Alberta?

Here is a TED Talk by Tim Brown that is a helpful provocation to consider in reactivating citizenship in Alberta. He says "The human need is the place to start." We seem to be lead by a Modernist model that says getting rich and having a job is the human place to start. Not good enough any more.

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_urges_designers_to_think_big.html

Reading the Auditor General's Report and I Feel Screwed by my Government

GOVERNMENT SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE PROTESTS COMING A DECADE AGO:

Cambridge Strategies Inc. was doing research for the Alberta Forest Products Association in 2004-5 on the risks to the forest industry's social license to operate. We met with the major environmental non-governmental organizations as part of the work. They told us then that they were shifting their activist focus from forestry to the oil and gas industry, oilsands specifically.

We advised the provincial government at the political and administrative levels and some key energy industry people we worked with. Industry took it seriously but did not know what to do or to expect. The government shrugged it off.

Well now we have "dirty oil" as the Alberta brand around the world and a government indifferent to the aspirations of Albertans who want to be proud of the development of their oilsands resources. Now, according to the Auditor General, we have a government that is indifferent and inept and husbanding and accounting for the rents the energy industry owe to Albertans for for royalties.

WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT NOT COLLECTING ROYALTIES OWED TO ALBERTANS AND THEN CUTTING SERVICES TO CITIZENS?

The government of Alberta attitude seems to be that most clearly expressed by former Premier Ralph Klein who refused to review royalties when his bureaucracy recommended it. He said, " We get our pound of flesh" referring to the collection and accountability of public revenues from the natural assets and heritage of every Albertan, our natural resources.

Well that is far from the case according to the recent Royalty Review Panel and the Auditor General. The Government of Alberta and the energy industry has some pretty serious explaining to do to Albertans. And they now need to prove there is not corruption either. It is a serious question to ask about a government not doing its job to steward the revenues owed to Albertans.

Premier Stelmach, do not shut down a single hospital bed, cut off services to another autistic kid, or cut back on teachers, service to developmentally disabled or long term care needs of Albertans. Hold off on all of this until you can prove to Albertans that the cash needed to pay for these vulnerable Albertan has not be forgotten in the bank accounts of the energy sector.

Oilsands Project Protesters Are International

The Alberta oilsands are an international concern. The 500 dead ducks started the ball rolling, and the fact the truth was over 1600 dead ducks did not help. Now we see Greenpeace activists from a number of countries coming to demonstrate against the oilsands development.

That shows the level of international awareness and concern. It is a complex matter but one thing for sure, our Alberta government better have its act together by the time COP15 happens in Copenhagen in early December. The Alberta oilsands will be a target for sure.

Green Oil Book is Launched - AG Says Albertans Getting Screwed on Royalty Collection

The launch of Satya Das' Green Oil on Thursday was terrific. The books signing at Audrey's Books last night drew a good crowd. Interesting mix of people, politicians and journalists, not that the latter are not people too. We sold a bunch of books too. Go figure!

Last night we had Raj Sherman from the Alberta PC party, Edmonton Strathcona NDP MP Linda Duncan and Edmonton Centre Liberal Candidate Mary McDonald drop in for a glass of wine and a chat. Doug Roche, a true Canadian statesman, was in attendance too.

Traffic on the Green Oil website www.greenoilbook.com is starting and will grow over the coming weeks as we see Albertans start to take control of the oilsands agenda and express their concerns on the site.

I think the message in the book it resonating. Albertans need to get informed and engaged as owners in the oilsands to ensure it is developed on a responsible and sustainable basis and with a long term view. The conversation amongst Albertans has to start and get serious. The consequences of continuing to get the oilsands wrong are devastating as to many levels.

For one way we are getting it wrong according to the Auditor General is Albertans are out hundreds of millions of dollars in uncollected and unaccounted for royalty payments. The recent Royalty Review said the same thing but the government gave more industry even concessions instead of beefing up collection and accounting capacity on royalties. We are getting screwed according to the AG. Too bad he is leaving.

Put that sense of political and industry entitlement of big bonuses and "gold plated" gifts to departing government agency officials in health as we cut social services and hospital beds, Albertans better get more insistent on better governance of our assets and provincial natural resources too.

Lousy Report on Broadband in Canada

The evidence is overwhelming that Canadians are getting screwed by the industry providers of Broadband and Internet services. This is especially true of rural service. The cartel that controls Canadian broadband services is acting like OPEC more and more every day. And the CRTC has forsaken its duty to protect the public interest.

How independent is the staffing and management of the CRTC? Has the industry infiltrated it? I would like to see an independent study about the independence of the CRTC and who's interests they are really serving in some instances. People are starting to wonder.

Google Knows If Your Kids Have the Flu

Google Flu Trends is an interesting initiative that will be worth watching. The Social Media transformation of culture, society and everything related to it is gaining speed, as if it was not already a warp speed.

This Fast Company piece on the subject is worth a read. Anticipation is a big part of effective prevention. Governments and health officials need to become a whole lot more creative and nimble about what is going on out there and how to use the new realities...and not just in health care, critical as that it

(h/t to Sharon Matthias for bring it to my attention)

Green Oil Interview on CBC Radio "Wildrose" is About Citizen Engagement

The CBC interview with Satya Das on the Wildrose program was really good yesterday. Here is a link to the interview. http://www.cbc.ca/wildrose Click on the September 30 program and Satya is the first interview.

Rick Mercer Makes Me Laugh - Then Think!

I love Rick Mercer for so many reasons. Here is only one of them.
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Rick_Mercer_Report/ID=1280530740

Hat Tip for the link to Alheli Picazo. Follow her on Twitter @a_picazo. The follow me @kenchapman46

Why "Green Oil" the Book!

Every now and then you get an idea that just won't go away. That is what happened to Satya Das, my business partner in Cambridge Strategies Inc. The idea for a book by an Albertan about the world's addiction to fossil fuels, how to get off the addiction when in the face of climate change kept rolling around in his mind.

So he wrote a book based on this thoughts and explorations around this conflict of values and he called it "Green Oil: Clean Energy for the 21st Century?" The goal of the book is to change the Question Mark to an Exclamation Mark..

The changing dynamics of the big engineering model that is used to overcome the limits of nature versus the natural capital model of working within natural resources and limits and as stewards for future generations is the overarching question behind the book.

We at Cambridge Strategies are proud of this project and Satya explains it so much better in this link to the book's website. It is an eBook so you can buy online at http://www.greenoilbook.com/ starting October 1, 2009.

You can also buy it in paperback at independent bookstores. In the spirit of green, the print copies are Rainforest Alliance Certified and Forest Stewardship Council Certified.

We are encouraging feedback on the book and the issues it raises at http://www.greenoilbook.com/ as well. So go there and join the conversation.

IS KLEIN STILL BITTER-OR JUST STATING FACTS?

Former Premier Klein is on record with a Canadian Press story today saying if Premier Stelmach gets less than 70% support at the November 7 Progressive Conservative Party Leadership confidence review he should resign as Party Leader and therefor Premier.

If Premier Stelmach lacks the confidence of the PC Party delegates, Alberta could be into another leadership race early in the new year. I have commented on this in other posts that you can read here and here.

Mr. Klein was summarily dismissed by the PC Party in April 2006 when he lingered too long and the party faithful decided for him it was time for a change. That was after he he served leader of the party and the Province for 13 years. Klein may still be bitter but that is beside the point.

There are no laws or rules that dictate this situation but there are past experiences that set conventions. The conventional wisdom was set by Prime Minister Joe Clark in 1980. He was Prime Minister of Canada, leading a minority government that lost the confidence of the House on a Budget vote.

Clark put his party leadership on the line at a convention and got just under 70% support. He said that was not good enough and he resigned a party leader triggering a leadership review - which he lost to Brian Mulroney. Mulroney had been meeting secretly with supporters for months planning a coupe and a run at the party leadership just in such an event.

Conventional wisdom says anything under 70% support from party delegates and Premier Stelmach will need to resign and test his leadership with the entire PC Party and the people of Alberta with the one person - one vote leadership system the PC Party uses. Between 70 and 80% he will be seen as the walking wounded and can survive but with difficulty. Over 80% and he is safe.

The anxiety level is high going into the November 7th AGM confidence vote that some supporting MLAs to Premier Stelmach even suggested a show of hands confidence vote and not a secret ballot. Not a smart thing to do and it was quickly kiboshed.

The PC AGM vote is only one event creating growing uncertainty in the politics of the province. The first was the recent and devastating results of the Calgary Glenmore by-election. the next significant event will be the October 17th results of the Wildrose Alliance leadership. It will be important for three reasons, who wins, by what margin and what is the total voter turnout.

Then we have the PC AGM Leadership confidence vote on November 7th. The next serious leadership issue facing Premier Stelmach will be the Alberta consequences to the Copenhagen meetings on the world's reaction to climate change stating December 7th. The Alberta oilsands will be in the cross hairs of those global discussions and the consequences to Alberta will be a significant test of Premier Stelmach's leadership.

I have no prediction or insight as to what will happen in any of these pending events but Albertans better be aware of them because there is an incredible uncertainty about being Albertan these days.

New RebootAlberta Blog Post.

I have a new blog post over at RebootAlberta of the transcript of a radio commentary I just taped for CBC Radio One on the shifitng attitudes amongst Albertans about the oilsands. Please visit and give me your feedback on the thoughts in the post.

The Web as Random Acts of Kindness & Spudstock

This blog post of Edward Monton chronicles something that I think is pretty profound. The Great Potato Give Away last weekend in Edmonton was a "success" beyond expectations. And that was part of the problem - the response overwhelmed the planning.

OK what is the big deal of thousands of people driving out to a farm to dig up and pick up some free spuds? That is not the whole story. The rest of the story is the community response to such a simple idea of local food and keeping quality farmland for growing - not for paving.

The evolving event took on a Woodstock kind of consciousness. Remember when so many people showed up as Yasgers Farm for the concert that weekend that they closed roads, tapped the resources of the small surrounding communities and then formed its own unique culture and society - at least for a while.

I did not go to Norbert's Farm on Saturday, had to work, but I followed it on Twitter. The overwhelming response to the event, promoted in MSM but also, and most significantly, through the power of engagement via social media. It was kind of a mini-Woodstock..."and was like a happening man!" ( pardon the 60's speak, just could not help myself.). In my Tweets back to folks on the farm, stuck in cars, walking to the event or on their way to the event I dubbed the day "Spudstock." Edward liked it and said he would use it in this Blog post.

The changing nature of society due to connectivity and the quickness of a community coming together as a horde or a mob or a happening (there I go again) to do something or experience something because of social media - do what ever they do and then dissipate to reform with other folks around another event or issue. It is fascinating.

I first experienced this phenomenon at the Second Reading of Bill 44 in the Alberta Legislature.
A whole Twitter based on-line community came to the issue, found each other and started to form its own little culture and society that night. It grew and grew, got more and more interesting and many of stayed connected and commenting until the bitter end of the debate which finally wrapped up at 4:30 am the next day.

There were some grumpy people who came out spudless from Spudstock but as the video in Edwards blog showed, they were prepared to stay the course and put in the time to be part of something interesting and different.

This TED Talk entitled "The Web as Random Acts of Kindness" by Jonathan Zittrain captures some more of what I am talking about, I hope you enjoy that too.

Is Harper Hiding From the House to Deliver the Quarterly Economic Report Card Tomorrow?

Prime Minister Harper will announce the next Quarterly Economic Report Card from New Brunswick tomorrow morning...not the House of Commons. This way he avoids the national media asking questions. There will be no news conference of scrum of the Prime Minister by the Ottawa media who follow the federal political scene day afer day. hard to conclude anything else that Prime Minister Harper is trying to bury the story tomorrow.

Here is a link to the CTV Question Period show with an interview of the Honourable John Baird, the Minister responsible for the stimulus program. Judge for yourself if he answers straight forward questions with the truth or just something that is "plausible."

This way our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Harper does not have to respond to questions from the Opposition in QUESTION PERIOD. The economy of the country is in crisis but Leader of our country will not show up in an accountable, available and transparent way to advise the nation about the state of the nation.

Our Prime Minister Harper also avoided the Climate Change discussions at the UN and the General Assembly last week. Prime Minister Harper visited a Tim Horton's Donut place instead. We have hard issues to deal with in this country and we need a governing leadership that will show up and be accountable...and be capable of telling us the facts and in dealing with the facts.

I wonder if we can trust the truth of comments Prime Minister Harper will make tomorrow about the Canadian economy? Will he only give us "plausible" pronouncement and will he release documents that prove his claims about the economy in his presentation in St John New Brunswick tomorrow morning?

So far Mr. Harper has been consistently and chronically very wrong about telling Canadians what the Federal deficit really is and why. So there is reason for us to be suspicious of what he says. He has squandered any right to the benefit of the doubt from Canadians. What are the chances he will redeem himself and be truthful and forthright tomorrow?

There are also serious accusations about preferential stimulus program payments being made to Conservative ridings (are you thinking Conservative Adscam?). Prime Minister Harper has yet to counter those criticisms with any facts or other proof that they are wrong or inaccurate. He claims 80% of the stimulus money is already in the field so surely he can tells us where the funds are being spent on a constituency by constituency basis and how he arrives at that calculation.

Harper is clearly ducking the House tomorrow. Why? Is it beause he will also be ducking the facts and avoiding accountability and scrutiny of Parliament tomorrow. I hope his is not hiding and hedging the truth again. Canada needs the straight goods from its Prime Minister. The consequences are too serious for political gamesmanship form our Prime Minister. We need a Prime Minister who is capable of statesmanship. Which will we see from our Prime Minister tomorrow? I will be tuning in, that is for sure.

New RebootAlberta Posts are About Recession Recovery and Greenness!

New posts on RebootAlberta all about green. New NYT Op-eds by Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman about a green China and how easy (and necessary?) it is for the economy to get green.

Another RebootAlberta post about the Alphabet Recession recovery. Only one vowel. The real economic change is consonant. Sorry about that. Couldn't resist.

Looking forward to your comments on the new public policy blog. It has a ranking function too. Interested in that response too.

Is Plausible Truthiness From Our Prime Minister Acceptable to Canadians?

I have been thinking about doing a blog post on this approach to political messaging used by the Harper Conservatives ever since I read it. Susan Riley has done it very well in this column.


Mr. Tom Flanagan, part of the Harper Team brain trust, is quoted as says that any edict, announcement or partisan attack does not have to truthful, merely plausible to be acceptable to align with the Harper governing philosophy. This has to be very disturbing to citizens of Canada. Is this a satisfactory value set for someone to be holding the highest office in the land? I sure don't think so.


We have seen so many examples of how this governing philosophy of the Harper government has played out in the 4 years he has been in power. Just search Harper in this blog for examples. Thank goodness Mr. Harper has never had the absolute power of a majority government.


Mr. Harper used this "truthiness" trick in his now infamous November Fiscal Update when he promised a surplus budget in this fiscal year. He also denied we were in recession. He knew both statements to be untruthful but "plausible." And that was enough of a "defensible position" for him to justify his intentional misleading of the Canadian public?


He had to come clean and he finally tells us we have the largest deficit in the history of the country, but his numbers are still being disputed by the government's own Budget Office. He still asserts that he is the best guy to manage the economy. He tells us 80% of the billions of stimulus dollars are into projects around the country. Maybe, but he offers no evidence and the plausibility of this assertion is under suspicion. Can we trust him to tell us the truth on this file? Mr. Harper makes assertions but he offers no proof. Without proof are we Canadians going to continue to accept his spin as plausible and therefore give it validity?


One of his own candidate is saying the stimulus money is being directed mostly to Conservative constituencies for political purposes. Mr. Harper has been silent on that issue. Perhaps the truth is so strong in support of that representation that anything else that may be said can't even reach the level of merely plausible. Is it just too far a stretch of credulity to say the stimulus finds are being fairly distributed that the issue just gets ignored by the Prime Minister?


Isn't that a sad state of affairs as we are trying as a nation to help those who lost and are still losing jobs, lost their businesses and are still loosing them, as we all commit enormous amounts of borrowed money that we need to get through this recession. The times call for statesmanship not partisanship Mr. Prime Minister.


Tomorrow morning Mr. Harper has to deliver his second Economic Report Card, a condition imposed on him in exchange for Liberal support of the Con budget (sic). Will he tell us the truth or will we merely has to settle for a plausible yarn? Is a plausible yarn acceptable in a time where we are struggling with the worst recession since the Great depression and a fiscal crisis that is the most serious we have faced in 80 years? I urge every Canadian who cares about the stability, sustainability and future of this country to watch and read Mr. Harper as he delivers his Economic Report Card. As yourself if he is telling the truth or merely spinning a plausible political yarn!


Canadians need the truth so we can plan and adapt to the new realities. What if all we get tomorrow is a plausible yarn to push a partisan political position of Prime Minister Harper? If that happens we citizens have to conclude and say that our Prime Minister has breathed our trust, breached our faith and that his conduct is unacceptable, inconsistent with, and unbecoming anyone who is worthy to be entrusted with the highest office in the country.


Time to come clean Mr. Harper. The verifiable evidence based truth is the only acceptable response from our Prime Minister. we all need to know what is really going on in the economic, social and environmental state of our nation. Only by changing and start telling us the truth, instead of pushing a plausible untruth, will Canadian citizens continue consider it plausible and appropriate for you to be re-elected to lead our nation.

Rick Mercer on Election "Fever"

What is the world coming to when only our satirists make sense anymore? Rick Mercer proves that point in this perceptive piece in the Globe and Mail today.

The EKOS poll of Sept 24 has some interesting results. I think the increase of the Cons support and the decrease of the NDP support revolves around the fact Canadians do not want an election now. The flat Liberal support in the face of the declaration that they will no longer prop up the Harper government means that they will now be acting like a true opposition. No longer will the Liberals be saying how insufficient and ineffective the government is and then voting for their policies to avoid an election.

The Cons level of commitment to their party is based on the sense that this next election is the last great hope for Harper to get a majority. If he fails to do that, the long knives will be out amongst the party elites and the base will stay home. The push to redistribute the House of Commons seats this fall will add seats in Alberta, BC and Ontario. Harper will pander to people there this election. It will not be as much as he pandered to Quebec last election but he has to bolster his base in BC and Alberta and grow in Ontario to get a majority.

The real and seriously under reported story of this poll is the level of uncommitted, and soft commitment levels. The hype on the Cons level of commitment is part of the total of 7% of all Canadians who are strongly committed to a party at this time. The Con supporters who are committed true believers are no more committed than Liberals, NDP or Greens, there are just slightly more of them in the 7% total for the country. That is no reason to leap to calling an election result.

The facts are that 27% are not committed, and 67% are moderately or loosely committed. That means 2/3 of Canadians are swing voters. This means the voter is volatile and in a vile mood. Call an early and unnecessary election at your peril Mr. Layton. Pander to regionalism and prefer stimulus funds to your pals in Conservative ridings at your peril Mr. Harper. Be passive aggressive and vaguely defined at your peril Mr. Ignatieff. As for Ms. May, just get into the House of Commons next election and you win.

Alberta Will Develop Land for Housing in Fort McMurray - Finally!

Government of Alberta announces release of Crown lands to establish two new residential communities in Fort McMurray. This has been such a long time coming. A large part of the reason Fort McMurray is the most expensive place to live in Alberta is the slow response to expanding and servicing additional land for housing.


We at Cambridge Strategies Inc. worked with all three orders of government and industry in 2004 in a very effective collaborative model that developed an update of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Business Case published in 2005. A very long time ago.


We had the municipality and the Federal government ready to sign off and invest money in their various areas of jurisdiction. Alberta made promises at the time but failed to deliver. One key Alberta Minister seemed determined to not facilitate this development for reasons that only seemed politically motivated from the "outside."


The Radke Report marked the change in the attitude of the Alberta government about getting the growth issues in the RMWB resolved. That former Minister is no longer an obstacle. This announcement of land development for housing is tangible evidence that the social and public services infrastructure deficits in Fort McMurray are finally getting the government attention it deserves.


With the Land Use Planning initiatives being undertaken in the Lower Athabasca Region that is contiguous with the boundaries of the RMB, we can expect more enlightened momentum to address the environmental and growth pressures the oilsands are creating.


I get pretty hard on the Stelmach government from time to time. This time I only have kudos for them on this announcement.

Who Can You Trust & Believe About Power Transmission Issues?

I did an interview today for CBC radio programWildrose on Bill 50 and electrical transmission and distribution issues. WHO can you believe, WHO can you trust and what are the facts?



There seems to be more heat than light in the discussions so far. Such a serious issue that the public interest has to trump the corporate posturing that seems to be emerging.



Here the interview on this link. It starts at 7:49 on the Friday September 25 program.

Alberta Lobbyist Act Goes Live Sept 28, 2009

I will be on Edmonton AM the CBC Radio 1 show on Monday at 7:15 am talking about the Proclamation of the Lobbyist Act, the Regulations and the Registry system going live on September 28, 2009.

I am setting up some workshops and sessions to explain the impact and implications of this legislation to business and others. It catches a lot of activity, exempts a bunch and requires some knowledge about what people have to do now to obey this law.

Consultant Lobbyists have 30 days to comply, Organizational Lobbyists have 60 days.

Send me an email if you want to know more. ken@cambridgestrategies.com

Listing of All Alberta Government Supplies & Services Contracts Released

So if you want to know who works for the Government of Alberta this link is to the Blue Book issued from Alberta Treasury. It details all the contractual relations the province has for the last year. You can search the site and find out specific details.

Save you the time, and in interests for full disclosure, my company Cambridge Strategies Inc., did $30,500 of business with the province in that fiscal. Not surprising to anyone who reads this blog I guess.

(H/T Trish Audette at the Edmonton Journal for the link)

What Messages Did Premier Ed Get From the Calgary Glenmore By Election?

It has been over a week since Premier Stelmach executed his much rumoured and much anticipated Cabinet shuffle. It was not much of a shuffle, more of a minor, one portfolio expansion of the Cabinet.

When former Deputy Premier Ron Stevens left politics for the Bench Premier Stelmach wisely assumed the International and Intergovernmental Affairs portfolio in his own office. Stelmach used to serve in that Ministry and knows the files. He also knows the IIA function is become essentially a glorified Parliamentary Assistant to the Premier's office. So it only makes sense governance wise and for fiscal prudence to reduce his cabinet by one and for the Premier to be the International and Intergovernmental face for the province.

So it is interesting that we saw the appointment of Len Webber as the new Minister. Len Webber is a good guy and I am sure he is capable of fulfilling the Parliamentary Assistant to the Premier function of this Ministry. This appointment had nothing to do with good governance of fiscal prudence. It was pure regional appeasement politics that pushed this appointment. It is more Calgary appeasement by the Stelmach PCs who looking for love in all the wrong places.

WHAT WAS THE MESSAGE SENT FROM CALGARY GLENMORE?

The key messages gleaned from the PCs enormous loss of the Calgary Glenmore by election is the recession is hurting and Albertans are grumpy with the spending plans of the province. It had nothing to do with the perceptions of the leadership capacities of the Premier or his office whatsoever. It was the good folks of Calgary Glenmore send a fiscal message only.

I don't think the Stelmach government is reading all the signs. They are practicing and perfecting selective listening. We have experiences a relatively light recession in Alberta compared to Canada and the planet. We have cash to cover the deficit. We have the "luxury" of not having to raise taxes for at last 2 years. We have unemployment at about 7.2%. In "normal" times 6% unemployment is considered full employment by economists. So Alberta is in a recession but it is not a dire as many of the past.

We have a natural gas revenue hit caused by low commodity prices between $4 and $5B but that is not enough to account for the almost $15B swing from last years estimate of $8B surplus and a $7B deficit one year later. We Albertans have not been shown how that math really works. I hope it is not more political messaging to manipulate expectations instead of actual accountability and authentic transparency.

So what. The "official government" key message and speaking points response to the wildly successful Wildrose Alliance campaign slogan of "Send Ed a Message is the recession and there is too much government spending. So the question for the Premier and his brain trust is what to do? The answer is clear. Shift to the right, fiscally and socially. Spend less and a lot less, right now.

Go ahead a break trusts by clawing back prior social infrastructure promises, especially in the vulnerable social service sector. They don't vote and if they did, they don't vote Tory anyway. One thing for sure, in a perpetual appeasement to Calgary elites we can't risk alienating the energy industry millionaire masters of the universe types, especially in times of recession.

WHAT WAS THE MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM CALGARY GLENMORE?

The real evidence of a fundamental (sic) social policy shift is in the other appointments made concurrently with Len Webber's ascending into Cabinet. Look at the rewards given to the social conservative gang that promoted and won the battle to pass their beloved Bill 44. This is even more disturbing and profound evidence of the social repositioning of the Stelmach government to the right. I suggest the far right. This is an exercise in social conservative appeasement but there is some overtones of more Calgary Appeasement as a beneficial by-election by product.

The elevation of rookie MLA Jonathan Denis to Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy puts a socially conservative Calgary face on the portfolio. Jono and I are Facebook Friends and follow each other on Twitter. [We are @JonoMLA and @KenChapman46 on Twitter if you want to follow us.] I find him to be an intelligent and civil debater as we arm wrestle in the social media. He may prove to be a very capable guy and deserves the benefit of the doubt. But there is not doubt of is social conservative credentials as one of the front men on Bill 44.

Side note: Jono beat the ultra social conservative Craig Chandler who ran as an Independent in the 2008 election after winning the PC nomination but Stelmach refused to sign his paper. Mr. Chandler is now the power and behind Mark Dynholm's bid to lead the Wildrose Alliance Party.

Next is Broyce Jacobs as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister Agriculture and Rural Development. Mr. Jacobs is and was the MLA from Cardston. He lost to Paul Hinman in 2004 but beat him in 2008. Remember it was Hinman who parachuted into Calgary Glenmore and trounced the local high profile PC candidate in the by election this month. Elevating him also sends a message to Albertans with a strong fundamentalist faith base that they have a voice right into the provincial political power structure.

Next we have the evidence of the social and fiscal shift to the right in the new appointments to key Cabinet committees. Adding Lindsay Blackett to Agenda and Priorities is a reward for a job well done on pushing through Bill 44 in the face of serious, vocal and broadly based public opposition.

There seems to be soap-opera around the selection of rookie Rob Anderson to the all powerful Treasury Board. Rob is apparently a fiscal hawk and was the face of Bill 44 to the social conservative element in the caucus and in the PC party. His appointment is clearly a reward for his Bill 44 efforts and success.

The soap opera element is the apparent political punishment of Kyle Fawcett, another social conservative Bill 44 caucus promoter. Kyle, a Calgary rookie MLA, had the temerity to say the equivalent of Premier had no clothes in his analysis of the messages coming out of the Calgary Glenmore by election. See the blog post of Don Braid, provincial affairs columnists for the Calgary Herald for details.

All of this is a symbolic sign to those former PC supporters who abandoned the party and voted Wildrose Alliance in Calgary Glenmore. The Premier is showing off his social conservative bench strength and trying to convince So-con swing voters that their concerns will be dealt with from now on by his government. He is trying to show those folks that he got that message. I think that message has come through loud and clear since the last election.

That puts the progressives in the PC party on notice that they are marginalized. I think it may prove that the progressives int eh PC party will be even more marginalized than in the darkest days of the Klein regime. Time will tell.

The Great Potato Give Away!

Here is a great example of community coming together to resolve problems and learn from each other and make a difference. It is "The Great Potato Give Away" happening this Saturday September 26, 2009. It is a cooperative effort of the Edmonton Potato Growers Limited, the Greater Edmonton Alliance and Norbest Farms in association with Khulmans Greenhouses.

People can come to Norbest Farms between 9 and 4 and dig up 50 pounds of potatoes per person for their own use AND FOR FREE! Tools to dig and sacks will be provided. Folks can then stop at Khulman's Greenhouses on the way home and pick up the rest of their veggies. All veggie sale proceeds will be donated by Khulman's Greenhouses for that day to the Greater Edmonton Alliance.

You can attend Growing Potatoes 101 and learn how to grow your own potatoes on you own city lot from 10- 11 a.m.

This is all about raising awareness of the amount of local food produced in the farmlands around Edmonton. You can learn more about this in a session from 12 noon -1 p.m. to become more informed input into the Edmonton Municipal Plan and why high yielding farmlands need to be preserved within urban development and to create a strong local economy.

You know your lawyer, doctor and accountant. Do you know your farmer? This is a chance to introduce yourself. Here are some links to the Greater Edmonton Alliance and the Edmonton Potato Growers for more information.

Directions: Take the Manning Freeway to 195th Avenue turn right and follow the signs.

New Blog "Reboot Alberta"

I have started a new blog on the Wordpress platform called RebootAlberta . So I have another learning curve. Such is life. My second post is up and is about a rescent speech and conversation with John Ibbitson, the new Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Globe and Mail.

John and I were both guests of the Alberta Teachers' Association's Fall Planning Session in Banff last week. I enjoyed his company and his comparisons of American and Canadian politics. He was especially interesting when he talked about the differences in how the two countries choose leaders and the impact of the Internet on politics.

This new blog will be more of a public policy perspective and focused on the future of Alberta. It will not be partisan or political per se. That stuff will stay on this blog. I hope you have the time and curiosity to visit both blogs. I hope you subscribe to both so you can be notified when new material is posted.

I really enjoy the comments and the conversation on this blog and look forward to the same if not more participation on RebootAlberta. I called it RebootAlberta because it is pretty obvious to most political observers that for the future prosperity of Alberta we have to Reboot and get a fresh start. That means Albertans have to take Control of some things, Alter others and not be afraid to Delete some other outdated approaches and ideas.

Hope to see you here and at RebootAlberta as well.

Day 7 Society's Child - Where Do We Go From Here?

This is likely to be the seventh and final episode of the Society's Child blog series unless there are further vital developments on the issues and events. Because of the court records we have had a unique inside look at one dramatic instance about how not to serve the best interests of a child at risk. We have see what happens when indifference and process predominates to override mandated public policy principles and purposes.

The public would never get this kind of access to detailed information and background about the government's conduct of a child welfare file. That is because it deals with the rights of a minor child in care and the overarching privacy issues will keep the facts from the public eye. But with a series of court appearances all the way up to the Appeal Court, we have seen a window of hard evidence open up to Albertans and we got to see into some of the inner workings of department of CYSA.

THANKS OWED TO THE COURAGE OF A FOSTER MOTHER:

We have seen an anonymous foster mother show enormous and admirable determination and courage in the face of a very powerful and determined state system. She has been the reason we have had this unique opportunity to see what can happen when a system goes arrogant and even a bit indifferent to public accountability. We have seen the state exercise its enormous power and influence in this matter. They have the means and resources to thwart, frustrate, intimidate and break the spirit and bank account of a citizen in such circumstances. I think the system used all of those powers in this case against the foster mother but she persevered and prevailed. Well done foster mother. And thank you also to her legal counsel. She also stayed the course and showed the best qualities and capabilities of the legal profession in her conduct of this matter.

I also feel sorry for the child at the centre of all this wrangling. He was not well served by the system and those in government authority who are entrusted to ensure his best interests. I also have some sympathy for Richard Ouellet, the departmental Director who personally took the hit for the departmental ineptness. His personal actions and inactions contributed significantly to his fate and are not excused or absolved from responsibility. But he is not likely the only one who was directly involved in the file who is a possible contemptuous contributor to this fiasco. The court noted that and I hope the Ministers involved are seriously looking into this as well.

So let me end on a positive note. I have been provided some links to other high profile child welfare cases. One that is worth noting is the famous Klassen case out of Saskatchewan. There the politically correct presumption in these complex and high-risk situations that "children never lie" was seriously tested. In this case the Alberta child welfare staff are praised by the Saskatchewan courts for how they handled their portion of a a file that was seriously bungled by Saskatchewan authorities. Go to page 59 to read some complimentary commentary about some of Alberta's child welfare officials doing a great job.

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION:

Finally, I see hopeful signs that concerns raised in this blog series that reviewed in the court action and the concerns of the court are being addressed. Following is copy of a copy of the September 18, 2009 edition of the GOA "Connector" publication to provincial government staff. In it Fay Orr, the Deputy Minister of CYSA obviously starts an internal education process. She outlines the duties, role, relationships and background of Statutory Directors, like Mr. Ouellet, in the department.

This is a step in the right direction and one that I think readers of this blog will appreciate. I think this is a genuine effort to deal with the accountability (and cultural?) problems in the department that this court case uncovered. It is but one of many steps that need to be taken to fix some fundamental problems that seem to pervade too much of the systems in this department - and others in the social services sector including Seniors and Health. I have outlined in blue the most salient part of this commentary that I think shows some hopeful signs of positive change. This clarity of accountability in management relationships was clearly missing as evidenced in the court documents around this case.

Here is the Connector piece that is hopefully some evidence of a new day in Children and Youth Services Alberta:

Statutory Directors
ACYS has three statutory directors – one under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act; one under the Family Support for Children with Disabilities Act; and one under the Child Care Licensing Act.

These directors entrust or delegate the authorities they are given under their respective pieces of legislation to fellow staff, so these staff can do their day-to-day work for children, youth and families. However, the directors do not and can not delegate the legal responsibility they have under legislation. That means these directors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the activities taken under the legislation.

Here’s an example of how this works within child intervention: When a caseworker is delegated by the director with the authority to seek a temporary guardianship order from the court, the caseworker is responsible for implementing the court order and ensuring the well-being of the child. The director is responsible for ensuring there are mechanisms in place by which he or she can be assured that the caseworker is exercising appropriately the delegated authority they have been given.

Approximately 9,000 children and youth are involved in our child intervention system, hundreds of families receive support for raising their child with a disability, and many families count on us to ensure quality and affordable child care. Having mechanisms to monitor the proper use of delegated authority and ensure clear, timely communication between and among the frontlines, support staff and management is crucial to improving outcomes for kids and fulfilling our legislated duties. That’s one of the reasons why we, as a ministry, are always looking at ways to enhance our processes and practices. Recently completed reviews in Foster Care and Child and Youth Advocacy and the current Child Intervention review are prime examples.

With more than 3,100 employees, ours is one of the largest ministries in the provincial government. Whether we work directly with children and families or support those who do, each one of us has an important role to play ensuring that our policies, procedures and legislative responsibilities are followed and that Albertans receive quality services that make a lasting and positive difference in their lives. We are in this together, and continue to rely on and support one another in our daily work for children, youth and families.

THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT:

The department has a lot going on and will face even more severe pressures with the new fiscal realities of the province. The problems will not go away, in fact there will likely be more at risk kids with worsening situations given the stresses of the recession. I hope the political leadership, departmental management and staff will take this case to heart and learn from it. We need them to become even more effective and capable at fulfilling one of societies most difficult function, taking care of kids at risk. That means serious commitment to sustained and substantial change and with the expectation of fewer resources. Not an easy row to hoe but it can't just be measured by merely tracking and cutting the amount of tax dollars dedicated to the area. That does not reflect the values and obligations we as a society owe to these children.

THANKS FOR READING & CARING:

As for this blog series, Society's Child, I think it is time to move on. I am very much into giving the benefit of the doubt to all those in this department who are mandated to serve the best interests of our society's at risk children. The essential reality is these are our kids. Albertans are also responsible for their well being, not just "the government." We are the government in a democracy.

I will continue to watch for positive and negative trends and will comment as best I can and post on them from time to time. Thank you for your dedicated regular reading this blog series. You came out in record numbers and I hope you come back and become regular readers. I will be continuing the regular blog posts on matters that continue to capture my attention and imagination. I will also be doing a new series on something completely different issues that are also critical to the best interests of the citizens of Alberta. Stay tuned for that.