Will recall remain a priority for a Wildrose government?

Democratic reform is a popular part of opposition party platforms, especially for populist parties who are trying to toss out a long standing party in power that is seen to have accountability issues. And so it goes for the 2012 Alberta general election. The Wildrose party is attempting to push aside the Progressive Conservatives whom have governed this province for over 41 years.

The Wildrose is sending the message that 40 years is enough and advancing rhetoric like, "The politics of entitlement and corruption must be replaced by a culture of accountability where doing what’s right is the rule, not the exception."

Quite often however, a party that runs on a platform of democratic reform is slow to bring in the reforms once they gain power. The Reform/Conservative party at the federal level is a good example of this. They too proposed ideas like citizen initiatied referenda, recall legislation, a triple-e senate and free votes. Yet after more than 6 years in office, Prime Minister Harper has made little substantial progress on any of these concepts.

These ideas make for good policies to run on in an effort to unseat a ruling party, but they have no value for the party that is in power. And so, when a party assumes office, they have little impetus to change the system that got them there.

 With many pundits predicting either a minority government or slim Wildrose majority, some real considerable action is likely to occur after the election. The website threehundredeight.com is predicting that the Wildrose party will form a majority government by two seats (winning 45/87 seats). I have come to the same conclusion based on independent analysis. This situation will leave the results from election day in a tenuous position. The speaker election and potential floor crossings mean that the seat count on election night won't necessarily represent the makeup of the legislature for too long.

Some important questions arise.

Would a Wildrose government in minority or slim majority position risk their potential tenuous hold on the legislature by carrying through with democratic reforms like free votes or recall? Could the Wildrose Accountability Act pledge be the first flip-flop for Danielle Smith? If Wildrose does carry through with the legislation, how long will it take for a "bozo eruption" to occur inspiring a recall effort against an MLA elected by a small margin to begin with?

Why I am eating my ballot.

With one week to go in the Alberta general election campaign, I’m wondering what you perceive the biggest issues to be. Perhaps it is F-35 fighter jets, maybe it is the abolition of the gun registry, the omnibus crime bill, perhaps it is public service cuts related to food safety inspectors or the CBC.

…So, I’m being told that those are not issues in the Alberta election… uh, huh… right, apparently, these are federal issues and not provincial issues… okay.

Well this makes sense, since we are contesting a provincial election, we should be discussing provincial issues like education, healthcare, energy and agriculture.

…what’s that… okay, but… No you just said this was a provincial election… WTF?... So apparently, I am now being told that there is a federal contest in this election.

At the same time there is a provincial general election (and a hotly contested one, at that) we are also selecting nominees-in-waiting forthe federal senate. Alberta is the only province in the country that partakes in this practice, and since confederation only three elected senators have ever been appointed to the senate. Otherwise, appointments are made by the Prime Minister without any democratic participation.

It is a little ridiculous that we are holding this federal contest in the middle of a provincial campaign. There has been absolutely no attention paid to the contest, the candidates or the issues. The purpose of a democratic campaign, in my mind, is that every 4 years (or so) we engage in a public conversation around issues of importance and then citizens decide on who they think will best represent those views. If there is no public discussion of the issues, then the outcome of the process fails to have legitimacy.

Another peculiarity of this exercise that questions the legitimacy of the practice is that the people who are being elected next week, could be left in waiting for up to 6 years or longer. Who is to say, that the candidates elected by Albertans in 2012 will still be supported in 2018 or for that matter decades later as they still sit in the chamber. Perhaps the opinion of the candidate on certain issues will have changed; perhaps the opinion of Albertans will have changed. In a legitimate democratic campaign, the candidates need to discuss publicly the relevant issues of the day that they will be deciding on - that is not what is happening in this process. This delay between when an election is made and when an appointment is made brings further questions to the legitimacy of the election.

Now, I understand why we are doing this. There is a genuine interest in reforming the senate and most Albertans have seemingly supported the concept of a triple-E senate as advanced by the Reform party in the 1990s. But the little exercise we are engaged in today is haphazard and only achieves a miniscule element of piecemeal reformation. All it does is add some little bit of credibility to a system that is completely broken without committing to the full set of reforms that are necessary.

At the end of the day, we should talk about real senate reform instead of piecemeal ad hoc revisions and perhaps we should even talk about abolishing the senate. The Senate is Canada’s version of the British House of Lords. The House of Lords was the first version of parliament in the English monarchy. In the 11^th century, this house included religious leaders and key advisors to the king, appointed by the king. It wasn’t until the 14^th century that cities and boroughs demanded representation that the house of commons (representing commoners) was created. For centuries the house of lords included those who held particular church positions, those appointed by the king and those who inherited their seat from their parents. In fact, up until 1999 a chunk of seats in the house of lords were still being passed down within aristocratic families. (This page outlines how seats are given out in Britain today). The house of lords maintained power over the house of commons for many centuries and the struggle of prominence is an important piece of British history. Ultimately, the house of lords is about maintaining power in the hands of the wealthy and elite and those who have become accustomed to holding power. It serves well to maintain the class lines that are so prominent in Britain throughout history and even into today.

In today’s Canada, we have no need for a house of lords or a senate – elected or not. That is why I plan to spoil my senate ballot on April 23^rd and I hope you will too.

180 degrees.

180 degrees. About face.

Alison Redford may have been called a flip flopper before, but this time it was a complete polar turn around. To be fair, I see nothing wrong with flip flopping. We all make mistakes and we all make decisions without necessarily considering the complete information. Reversing a decision simply means that a person has given an issue further consideration and deemed that a different decision would be more appropriate. Policy development should be about getting things right and it shouldn't matter if someone thought wrong before and has since changed their mind - as long as they get it right.

Redford has now gotten it right (sort of). I am talking of course about the announcement made on Thursday that PC MLAs will return their no-meet-committee pay. Clearly, this issue was being heard on the doorsteps as MLAs were canvassing for votes. This issue, it was deemed, was driving down PC poll numbers. A flip was necessary.

And the PCs messaged this one perfectly - in a way very few politicians have had the courage to do so before.

"Growing up I was always taught that the only thing worse than making a mistake was not admitting it and fixing it. I made a mistake on these issues and now I am fixing them," she said. "Leadership is about making decisions; sometimes difficult decisions and sometimes, admitting you were wrong."

So, how did they get it so wrong? How did PC MLAs - smart, politically savvy people, with their ear to the ground - not know that Albertans would be so upset about this? I suspect they knew that there  would be backlash, but they felt that the issue had been managed appropriately. Maybe they have a point.

First off, MLA compensation is broken. There is a dominant narrative that suggests politicians are a bunch of pigs at a trough and we pay them too much money. This narrative is particularly strong in Alberta. So, for the past two decades, MLAs have attempted to hide the real amount of compensation that they get. They got rid of the pension plan and replaced it with severance packages. They slashed base pay and implemented tax free allowances. They implemented pay for committee and portfolio work and boosted it by 30 per cent. All of this is done in an effort to make MLA remuneration appear lower than it actually is. Ultimately, it is dishonest and unfair to both MLAs and taxpayers.

MLAs saw the committee pay, not as pay specifically for the work of the committee, but rather just as a part of their actual total compensation. I think that is why Ray Prins was so insulted by this being phrased as an integrity question. For MLAs, being named to a committee meant they were being recognized for good work and the compensation that came with that was part and parcel of MLA pay. That concept that committee pay is about boosting total compensation for backbenchers as opposed to pay for extra work is echoed in statements made by former MLA Richard Marz.

The real problem is that MLA base compensation is too low. A number of MLAs are doctors, or lawyers or business executives and in many cases they now work harder and longer, under closer scrutiny and for less pay than they did before. Our premier, chairman of the board for an organization that manages a $40 billion per year operation - takes in a bit over $200,000 per year. I wonder how that would compare to the chairman of a similar sized organization in the private sector? The average MLA pay depending on the source you ask, is between $125,000 and $160,000. I'm not going to suggest that that is a small amount of money, but if we want the best decisions made, then we need to attract the best and brightest to public office. We have to give them an incentive for taking the risk, making the sacrifices and managing the time and stress associated with the role.

At the end of the day, a review is necessary and Redford has appropriately appointed former Supreme Court justice John Major to lead that review. Policy-wise it was the right decision to make - unfortunately it didn't work out well for her politically. Hopefully this honest reversal will.

Liberals release poll, continue with bold moves

The Alberta Liberals carried on day two of the provincial election campaign with another bold move. After suggesting that they had the best day one of the parties, I risk coming across as partisan when I suggest that they take the cake again for day two. The big bang came from releasing internal poll results on public opinion of their policy platform. This move wasn't a complete win for the Liberals but it was the boldest move of the day.

(Honourable mention goes to the Conservative "Compare" press releases, but I am sure I will be able to write about those on a future day.)

It is common for parties to engage in all sorts of public polling (and even push polling, if you are Stephen Carter) but it is most uncommon for those parties to release the results publicly. Furthermore, the Alberta Liberals need to be given full points for releasing the entire results - warts and all.

The poll results show that the public might be comfortable with adopting some of the Liberal positions, perhaps even more so if they don't come from the Liberals:

• 57% of Albertans support doubling the seniors home care budget,
• 50% support elimination school fees,
• 53% support post secondary debt forgiveness for grads who stay in Alberta,
• 50% support tuition elimination,
• 64% support free votes in the legislature,
• 54% support income tax hikes on the wealthy, and
• 66% support higher corporate taxes.

 I should mention that all of the poll questions were phrased in the positive and people are more likely to poll in favour of things as opposed to being against things and that may speak to some of the support. But what is interesting is question C3: Having heard these ideas from the Alberta Liberal Party platform do they make you more or less likely to vote for them?

Almost as many people said they were less likely to vote for the Liberals as said they were more likely to vote for them (around a third of respondents each). 28% of people said they wouldn't change their voting intention at all. And given that only 13% of respondents expressed support for the Liberals, this result should not be completely comforting for the grits. The question not asked was would you be more likely to vote for the NDP or Wildrose party after hearing their policy.

Unfortunately, ideas matter less in elections than how effective you are at messaging them or how popular your leader is.  The Liberals have a big branding issue in Alberta that probably can't be solved by simply expressing good ideas.

Two days of bold announcements might help fix the brand, but they must have some big tricks left to pull out later in the campaign too.

Hotel stunt wins day one for Sherman

An election campaign is upon us and that means that each day will be filled with announcements, attacks, ideas, stunts and mistakes. It makes for an interesting time as Albertans spend 4 weeks discussing a wide variety of public policy issues (in theory). With so little surprise as to the day the campaign would start each party had a good opportunity to plan for it and ensure that they started with their best foot forward. For me, the strategies and the tactics are the most compelling thing to watch. There were no flubs, but which party and which happening was most notable on Day One?

My vote has to go to the Alberta Liberal party.

While the other parties held news conferences from the legislature with their leader surrounded by candidates attempting to set a narrative in motion, it was Raj Sherman who decided to do things a little differently. He launched his campaign from the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald of all places.

Dr Sherman started out with a stunt that reinforced the issue on which he is most knowledgeable and for which most Albertans describe as their top priority: healthcare. The message being delivered: a night in acute care is more costly than a night in the most expensive hotel in Edmonton. Point well delivered and well punctuated.

Albertans are finally starting to realise and accept generally that the biggest problem with our healthcare system is the waiting times for extended care beds for seniors. Unfortunately, these people who do not require acute care treatment (what most of us consider to be a general hospital bed), are stuck in acute care beds until the longterm care spaces open up. The log jam here is clogging the hallways down to and out the emergency room doors.

Emergency wards are full of people who are ready to be moved to acute care, but have to wait and the waiting rooms are full of people waiting to see a doctor in the emergency ward. Unfortunately, a good number of the people waiting to be seen in Emergency are being attended to by paramedics and the stress gets passed on to our ambulatory system.

Dr Sherman delivered a solid blow on day one by effectively showing that a little bit of money spent on seniors long term care will save money in all other parts of the system while simultaneously fixing some of the biggest problems.

Election 2012 Begins - A real race is expected.

As expected Premier Alison Redford visited the Lieutenant-Governor's office today and started Alberta's 2012 general election. She waited until the Alberta legislature passed the budget to get the campaign started in an effort to reinforce the party image as stable competent managers. The strategy seemed sound: pass a fair and prudent budget, move forward on key legislation and keep Danielle Smith on the sidelines. The risk, of course, is that you provide a forum for the opposition parties to air their grievances on a daily basis. If a narrative emerges and gains traction, then you are stuck in the house responding to an agenda advanced by the opposition parties. Unfortunately a narrative emerged: the Tories are bullies and have abused the reins of power for too long. This narrative was largely advanced by the Liberals and will serve the Wildrose party well.

Recent polls bear witness to this critical mistake on election timing. Prior to the spring session the PCs had a comfortable 10-15 point lead, but two polls released on the day the election started show the race is much closer.

A CTV-Forum research poll puts the PCs ahead only three points over the Wildrose province wide (36-33) amongst decided voters. Even worse, a Global-Ipsos poll puts the parties in a complete tie (38-38). With a strong Tory lead in Edmonton, both polls demonstrate that Wildrose is ahead in Calgary and rural Alberta.

Now I am watching the polls closely and have developed a little seat projection tool that I hope will serve me well throughout the campaign. According to my projections, a vote held today would yield 51 seats for the PCs, 27 for the Wildrose, 6 seats for the NDP and 3 seats for the Liberals. (My pre-session projections were 65-12-5-5, and a few commentators said I was giving too much credit to the opposition).

Polls aside, 28 days can be an eternity in politics and a vigorous campaign will undoubtedly emerge. Redford strategist Stephen Carter is known to use the full length of the campaign period quite effectively, so the story on April 22nd will be quite different from the story today. I hope to write to you dear reader on a daily basis until then. I hope you will enjoy it and share your thoughts.

PC Leadership: first ballot predictions

I pride myself on having made some pretty accurate predictions in the 2006 Progressive Conservative Party leadership contest and so on this, the eve of the first ballot of the 2011 edition I feel it is necessary to register my thoughts.

Environics has provided a little bit of help for prognosticators, but I don't put a ton of weight into their polling results. Nearly 100,000 people voted in the first ballot in 2006 and the Environics poll was based on a membership list of 22,000 members. The origins of the list is under investigation, but I suspect it came from one of the campaigns. This is important because it may mean that campaigns that turned in their lists prior to the poll being conducted would be overrepresented while campaigns that didn't want to release their lists to the other candidates would be underrepresented. Similarly, a large number of voters will be registered at the polls.

With that in mind, I think the two front-runners have been clear and consistent all the way along and they are Gary Mar and Ted Morton. Similarly, both Rick Orman and Doug Griffiths faced uphill battles and will be a long way off from making the cut of top three for the second ballot. The only real questions remaining for me are who will be number three and how far ahead will Gary Mar be?

This is where I will take guidance from Environics. Alison Redford's support in that poll is well ahead of where I thought she would be. She is also perceived as a bit of a game changer and has been pretty much at the center of any of the big news-worthy controversial issues in the campaign. She also has a cracking campaign manager in Stephen Carter. Doug Horner has run a strong campaign, but in a contest that was initiated on desire for change, I worry he will be perceived too strongly as the status quo candidate.

So here is my predicted order of candidate placements on the first ballot. And heck, just for fun, I will put some numbers in for possible results.

1. Gary Mar (30-35%)
2. Ted Morton (25-30%)
3. Alison Redford (15-20%)
4. Doug Horner (10-15%)
5. Doug Griffiths (around 5%)
6. Rick Orman (around 5%)

Of course, endorsements should be interesting and will have a big impact on how the second ballot turns out - as will, the ability of any of the campaigns to sell memberships and get votes out on October 1.

The Hamilton Oilers? I highly doubt it!

The biggest thing that irks me about the Edmonton arena debate is how the Katz group is using Oiler fandom to separate reasonable consideration from the debate over public funding. Typically, the arguments are based on one big fallacy – that the Oilers will leave Edmonton if public funds are not spent on a new downtown arena.

The fallacy was created when Katz delivered a veiled threat by stating that the Oilers would not play in the Northlands Coliseum (a name I will use for Rexall Place in order to separate the building from the Rexall brand of companies, which owns the naming rights) after 2014. I wrote twice earlier on this issue. Ultimately the argument is based on the misconception that professional hockey in Edmonton is not viable in the long term.

First, I find it hard to believe that the Oilers franchise is not profitable year-over-year. They currently have a sweetheart $1 per year lease on the Coliseum. All of the rinkboard and ice advertising is consistently sold out. All luxury boxes and season ticket seats are sold out with waiting lists for any vacancies. Nearly all of the individual seats for every home game is sold by game time. The team also owns a WHL team and an NAL baseball team, used to help market the Oilers brand. Merchandise sales are strong and lucrative broadcast deals are in place. Furthermore, the much desired salary cap is in place and the Oilers are operating well underneath it. If NHL is not profitable in Oil Country then I do not know where it would be profitable.

But, we won’t know much about the profitability of the Oilers because the Katz group is not willing to share their financial information – even though they want taxpayer money to subsidize the future operation. And really, profitability doesn’t matter so much. Just ask the Edmonton Investors Group. The EIG owned the Oilers from 1998 – 2008 and while the team consistently lost money over the years, it didn’t bother the members of the EIG too much. You see, they bought the team for $70 million in 1998 and sold it to Katz for $200 million in 2008. What matters more than profitability for businesspeople is Return on Investment (ROI). The ROI for EIG's investment was 285% for a very generous growth of 11% per year – a number that would make every Dragon in the den sign on.

The final piece of the moneymaking puzzle for Katz comes back to his intricate understanding of how to leverage sports fandom and loyalty to make money. The business case for the Rexall group of companies is very strong. Tie the brand to the Edmonton Oilers and to hockey in every way possible, including using Blue and Orange as your brand colours, ensure that the brand owner is reinforced consistently as a true Edmontonian and watch as the brand overtakes market share in Northern Alberta. There is nothing wrong with this strategy, by the way, but it needs to be reiterated that building the Oilers brand also creates revenue for the Rexall companies, which I’m sure are much larger and more profitable then the Oilers brand.

Now, add together these three models of moneymaking for the Katz group and ask yourself the following questions. Why would Darryl Katz even consider moving the Oilers out of Edmonton? Why should any money that rightfully belongs to all taxpayers be going to subsidize the lucrative business operations of a billionaire? Should taxpayer money be more appropriately spent to hire more police officers, paramedics, doctors, nurses or teachers? And, is there a better way to spend $225 million of taxpayer money to revitalize downtown?

Federal Election Prediction

With the 41st Canadian General Election Day arriving tomorrow, it seems that it is time for me to get my election prediction on the record.

I am predicting a Conservative minority government with the New Democratic Party holding the balance of power. At this point, those two predictions are not ground breakers, so I want to add that I see the NDP and Liberals being placed in a position where their combined seats will challenge the number of seats that the Conservatives hold - meaning that a coalition government formed by those parties would not necessarily require the formal support of the Bloc Quebecois. I am also going to predict that Elizabeth May will win her seat for the Green Parties.

Here are my predictions, by the numbers:

	Bloc	Conservative	Green	Liberal	NDP
Total Seats	30	140	1	41	96
Popular Vote	6%	36%	6%	19%	32%
Regional breakdowns
BC	--	18	1	3	14
Alberta	--	26	0	0	2
Sask/Man	--	20	0	2	6
Ontario	--	56	0	24	26
Quebec	30	9	0	3	33
Atlantic	--	10	0	9	13
Territories	--	1	0	0	2

A special thanks to this page for supplying such a great summary of the poll numbers.

BKACPP - Marijuana Party

Party Name: Marijuana Party


Leader (Location):

• Blair T. Longley (Hochelaga, PQ)

Date of Registration:

• November 6, 2000

2008 election:

• 8 candidates
• 2,298 total votes
• 13th of 19 parties

Notable History:

• Between 2000 and 2004, 90% of contributions to the marijuana party were made under a legal scheme known as "Longley's Loophole." Under the scheme, the contributor could define how the contributions were to be used, even in a way that was of direct benefit to the contributor.

Biggest Issues:

• Two policy statements are written on the website: Legalize marijuana. Legalize revolution.

Intriguing statement on website:

• "People who are Members of the Party, or people who are Officers or Agents of this Party, have NO obligations to endorse nor vote for its Candidates. They have an independent right to vote, and to vote strategically, as they decide. Candidates are not obliged to agree with other Candidates or the Leader. We make no efforts to collectivize. We operate in decentralized ways."

Extraordinary statements on website:
It is interesting to note that the Marijuana Party website can be edited by any candidate, official agent or ‘regular marijuana party activist.’

• The world is controlled by huge lies, backed up with lots of violence, and that is automatically getting worse! It is a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut ... Since the world is controlled by the people who are the "best" at dishonesty, backed up with violence, we actually are living in a Bizarro Mirror World!