Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
SDA Editorial Board, December 11th, 2011 – Let this serve as a warning to conservative parties everywhere: that which the left cannot defeat, they will infiltrate.
National Post Editorial Board, February 10th, 2012 – Alberta’s first NDP budget
phil’s still trying to recover from his brain transplant- it rejected him!
Blame Crash…I don’t need to ‘toughen up’. I became enlightened to this game of smoke and mirrors that passes as goverance in this country, province… quite awhile ago.
While I like to believe that ‘the people’ know best, I doubt that the majority of the ignorant masses will wake up to reality any time soon. It doesn’t matter who ‘we’ elect. The political arm of goverance is nothing more than a PR department for the beauracrats and the system that THEY run with help of civil service unions providing the muscle. And that CANNOT change as long as politics operate a party system that treats representatives (and the people they represent) as window dressing instead of the drivers of democracy. I take care of myself and my own first, rely on a very small but reliable group for support and selectively help those that show the same attitude.
But this ideal is quickly going the way of the dodo. People prefer entitlements, freebies and outright bribes these days…..as long as they can point the finger and lay the blame elsewhere when the sh!t hits the fan later.
Go Alberta Reform!! Show us how it’s done…Please!!
And when Wild Rose wins, don’t try to unite with the PCs. Defeat them and kick them to the curb.
Maybe our Ontario “progressive conservative party” will learn that the way to win an election is to stand for conservative principles and not NDP or Liberal lite.
Maybe. But I doubt it.
What else could you expect. REDford is a pup outa old Joe Clark and served 6 years with the UN. Hopefully Danielle claws her eyes out….
For the doom and gloomers let me say I have never joined a party but yesterday I bought a wild rose membership I reserved a sign and have volunteered to go campaigning for them. That is how bad it is in Alberta.
Jason @11:09
I am just like you.
Fiddle I can’t wait send these red Tories packing. I know a bunch of people in my church who are voting wild rose …I know a lot of young people who are voting wild rose.
The last election was March 3, 2008. We could have over a year to go unless some shorter time limit was passed sometime.
Geezez , it didn’t start with Redford , has everybody forgotted Stelmach already ?All that god damned money flushed away and the only thing to show is the unions , teachers and nurses got an enourmous wage as a reward or getting them elected as leader of the sorry ass pretend conservative party.
I don’t trust Redford . I would not be surprised if she didn’t try an Alberta made gun registry along with Quebec . These nanny state Alberta “conservatives ” are further leftwing than Manitoba NDP .We don’t need the damned provincial government wiping our ass .
The last time Albertan’s were apparently “pissed off “, Red Eddie and the PC’s gained seats and left 4 to the opposition.
~Knacker
Last time, Red Ed called a snap election and caught the newly created Wild Rose Alliance, unprepared and unknown, without candidates in many ridings.
This time will be very different.
This, for me, is ‘deja vu’ all over again but on a provincial level. The Reform party started because of politicians like Brian Mulroney and the unfortunate Joe Clark (who hung in for the PC’s until the bitter end).
Preston Manning came out swinging and basically wiped out the PCs in his second major attempt but that just cleared the path for Chretien’s 3 totally undeserved majorities due to the vote split on the right. A lot of PC voters will not change their ballot – at least initially.
It’s taken about 20 years to get from the Reform party to the CPC (and the death of the federal PCs). I think you have the right idea but the electorate does not turn on a dime.
“Last time, Red Ed called a snap election”
That is true OZ and a lot of conservatives couldn’t vote for any one of the three leftist parties and so simply stayed home. I know I did.
Has there ever been a government that has actually shrunk in size? Everyone talks about it but I’ve never seen a simple servant higher than doorman eliminate their position.
Just sayin’
OZ @ 4:18
You’re correct, I at least had a Wildrose candidate to vote for that year.
turtle at 2:57 pm: “…right now, the ‘Edmonton Journal’ is treating Alison Redford and the left wing PC party as the second coming. I imagine the ‘Calgary Herald’ is in lock-step as well.”
The competing newspapers are called the “Edmonton Sun” and “Calgary Sun”.
I live in Red-monton too, ‘cept in Strathcona. Who should I vote for to stop Rachel Notley?
Know a guy who ran for the Alberta Alliance a few elections back and he will not back the WP (Wildrose Party) Candidate. The Alberta Alliance ran on provincial level Reform Party policies of smaller government, social conservativism and democratic reform. He says his local WP Candidate is a Mulroney loving Progressive Conservative who bows down to the alter of Don Mazankowski and in a leadeship role for the Federal Con. Assn. lobbied hard for largesse to paid out to his definition of the party faithful when the Fed Cons. won government. He only quit the provincial PCs when he lost the candidacy to run in his riding. No one he knows doubts the WP Candidate is only in it for himself. Oddly enough the PCs just nominated a candidate with great personal popularity and character who in his nomination acceptance bowed down to the alter of Don Mazankowski. (Mazankowski, for those who may have forgotten, was Finance Minister when the Feds brought in their largest ever, in real terms, budget deficit.) Just the kind of contrast they needed to set up against the WP. A lot of people that would like to vote for the WP won’t. They will vote for the PCs because of they cannot bring themselves to vote for the local WP candidate and the WP has gutted the reform-minded policies from its platform. The WP have hired left wing Red Tory hacks to advise the leader and the leader is too left wing. Even the WP’s old time reform-types have given up the fight against the HR Tribunals, SSM etc.
My buddy thinks it may be time for Independent Conservatives to run in ridings like his and try to take a few seats to be used as leverage in what may well be a minority government situation where the WP takes a lot of rural seats and the PCs push the Liberals out of the cities.
Border Boy:
Your observations are spot on and similar to mine.
Local WRA MLA candidate stopped by a while back and when pressed about his political stance glibly agreed with my Libertarian values. Several subsequent emails to him have not even been acknowledged, never mind answered.
Sadly, we don’t have a write-in vote or a NOTA (None Of The Above) option in Alberta. Our politicians have neither the courage or conviction to adopt this.
What are they afraid of?
I guess Border Boy and Paul must live in the same riding to have such similar bad experiences with their “not-to-be-named” WP candidate.
Or maybe they just work for the same boss but live in different ridings.
Hard to tell.
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Old Letter From My MLA
Dear Gary & Heather,
What an incredibly exciting and important time in Alberta politics!
This past week, the PC Party stunned the province and country by electing the most left-leaning Premier in Alberta history. As was widely reported, roughly half the number of people who voted in the 2006 PC leadership bothered to vote in 2011 (a stunning drop in support). But most troubling was the way Ms. Redford appealed directly to supporters of the Liberal and NDP parties to temporarily join the PC Party and deliver her the votes necessary for her victory.
Although I congratulate Ms. Redford on her hard fought win, let me be clear – I find her vision for Alberta to be alarming and misguided.
She has advocated for a national daycare program for all pre-schoolers and criticized Stephen Harper’s Choice in Childcare Allowance for families. She believes we should significantly raise the salaries of public sector workers despite the province being mired in record deficits and falling oil prices. She has made hundreds of millions in new spending commitments while refusing to cut wasteful projects like the $2 billion carbon capture program, the $340 million museum upgrade and the $275 million for new MLA offices to name just a few. She also refuses to roll back the 30% increase in Cabinet salary she voted for under Ed Stelmach.
On her first day on the job, she flip flopped on her promise (made just a week before the vote) to set a fixed election date, cancelled the fall session of the Legislature (which she has since backtracked on), and announced a $107 million unbudgeted expenditure without consulting her Caucus or the Legislature. And this is just the first few days!
This is not the Alberta I want to see my children and grandchildren grow up in. I believe in an Alberta that is fiscally responsible, lets families choose what’s best for their children, upholds democracy and respects the small-c conservative values that the majority of Albertans hold. We must decentralize and reform our health, education and social programs into the best the world has to offer – not continue with the failed and tired policies that have our health system in crisis, our children in overcrowded classrooms, and funding for social programs wasted in a mountain of government bureaucracy.
The next election (which will be called anytime during the next 9 months) starts now as far as I’m concerned; and I will do everything I can to ensure Alberta has a small-c conservative government led by Wildrose leader Danielle Smith the next time Albertans go to the polls.
Thanks for your time, and all the best to you, your family and our wonderful province.
Your friend,
Rob Anderson – MLA Airdrie-Chestermer
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I like my Wildrose Party candidate.
He was principled enough to turn his back on all the FUNDING he got as an incumbent MLA of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta and become a Wildrose Party MLA because the Progressives no longer had the -conservative- Alberta values that made them the trusted western political Dynasty they take for granted today.
Notice Rob Anderson didn’t jump to the Liberals or the NDP who would have loved to have had him if he had Leftist values.
Went to the local candidate meeting the Wildrose Thursday night, immediately east of Calgary.
Danielle Smith got there directly from Edmonton and the media and political locomotion that the budget usually causes.
As it happens at these events, Smith had something to say. She speaks well and fast.
You may have thought that about many other politicians, hell, many here thought that Layton was a neat guy, maybe because he never tasted power. He did have lust for it though.
It just so happens that once they get in the position of power something either clicks or gets loose, the bureaucracy sets them straight and they start to behave as any other idiot in power.
Anyway, a high school student that presented himself as a president of the high school parliament or something to that effect, asked a question.
This is bloody unbelievable, he asked: what is she (rhetorically) going to do to help the high school students for the future. Of course the translation is, show me the money.
Smith said that there are ways for the students to come to some cold hard cash and that there is a possibility to forgive loans and such.
Why is there no bloody politician that would ask the students, that have never done a thing to help themselves, to ask, what the hell have you done, are doing and will you do for your country.
Make that the starting point, the beginning of conversation.
Sheesh.
Sometimes one can shake head in disgust.
@Lev
The media would go nuts if Danielle Smith responded to a high school student’s question about what the government is going to do for high school students with, “what the hell have you done, are doing and will you do for your country?”
The Wildrose will most likely not win the election and it is probably for the best.
I remember vividly Elwin Hermanson leading the Saskatchewan Party, and as much as I wanted a 2011 result in 2003, I realized that the group running was not quite ready for prime time.
(Ideologically they were great, but the nuts and bolts quality and ability was just not there.)
This is the same problem with the Wildrose. The party is built around the likeablilty of Danielle Smith and her mysterious backers networking abilities.
Many of the candidates are fine, but you hear stories like some of the above posted that sound a little below board.
This can be found in all parties and I will still be voting Wildrose, but I don’t think sites should be set too high.
A PC minority is very possible and most likely…ideal. (In the long run. Give Wildrose some government experience and filter out the unelected candidates from this election)
If they can pull Redford back from her liberal insanity it will be worth it.
(And remember…Redford is in the Redford business. If selling out liberalism means she keeps her job, she’ll do it.)
can’t see the wildrose party doing any worse than the liberal ndp coalition we have now . the fearmongering is starting to look like the last election . time for a change .
The only way to defeat them is to constantly and loudly fight against and point out each and every surcharge, extra and hidden tax, mandatory policies and regulations. There will be many more coming now than Alberta could ever imagine.
Guessing the NDP will make it mandatory, and charge a fee of course, for anyone coming from another province to “validate” their trade certification so they can work in Alberta, even if they have an Interprovincial Red Seal. They will probably charge between $200 -$300 for a piece of paper w/o any further training paid for by the trades-person for absolutely nothing. They will make it mandatory that employeers only higher workers with the validation or see their WCB and other insurances go up. That’s what they did in BC. Other occupations took the same kind of hit, others were forced to take additional training that was exactly what they already had and were charged big bucks. Get this, then the NDP will brag on how skilled Alberta makes its workers and how training institution enrollments have increased.
Vital statistic documents, and card or license issuance’s and/or replacement costs will go through the roof.
They will 5 and dime every Albertan into poverty. Seriously, there will be a new charge for anything you can possibly think of, along with a ton of new mandatory policies and regulations.
Man, I feel sorry for you guys in Alberta.
Jeff @ 3:16
Waiting for the perfect line-up of candidates?
I haven’t the time… my kids are already 3 & 5.
There are times when all options should be explored prior to a decision being made. Alternatively, sometimes you just need to DO.
$&%# or get off the pot.
Unelected, back room dealing, sour faced left-wing hag. All i ask is that this ‘conservative’ imposter be kicked out on her fat butt pronto.
I dearly hope Danielle gets the chance to help Alberta. But i have this nagging doubt that the average Albertan may really be so catastrophically stupid as to vote for Redford….
Why are so many conservatives so hopelessly naive? Stupid? No match for feral and cunning leftists.
And now Hudak has been confirmed as Ontario PC “leader”. Appalling.
My goodness. It must be tough to be a conservative in Canada. Even Alberta (ALBERTA!!!) taken over by those pinko commies. Goddamned gubbermint spending all that money that basically sprang out of the ground belonging to gubbermint! Bastards! A small deficit after having costs covered by a fund set up to offset the swings of the energy market working just like it was thought out and intended from the get go. THE BASTARDS!!!!
And the place is still essentially debt free on a balance sheet basis.
Goddmanit! Providing services that the public demands (namely health and education and helping the worst off in society (like those damned AISH recipients)) and counting on higher energy prices (which seem utterly unreasonable especially in the face of $100 a barrel oil with the world still in recession, or just tepidly coming out of recession).
The NERVE!!!
God knows we must elect someone with greater “conservative” rhetoric who will do exactly the same thing because they want to get re-elected too.
A proper conservative who wants to drown the beast in the bath water might think it reasonable to just give up on the West and simply go where the government is gone altogether. Say Somalia or Afghanistan (outside of the capital)….
Prattle on my conservative friends. You did manage to get Harper a majority government. Maybe one day, the vast horde of the electorate who actually makes the decision (however poorly) will hear your calls. To date, ummm… Not so much.
But the fiery rheotoric warms the cockles of my heart all the same!
Cheers!
And the place is still essentially debt free on a balance sheet basis.
Alberta continues as the only province in Canada with total financial assets that exceeds total liabilities, true.
Borrowing against Alberta’s assets, as the Progressives have done, to finance deficit spending in order to fill the pockets of public sector unions is unacceptable.
Especially after the decade of ‘belt tightning’ all Albertans did under the Klein regime to arrive at a debt free state, which notably passed a law against deficit spending.
The change in direction from conservative to Progressive dominance in the Alberta PC party since Ralph Klein retired is ever so clear.