{"id":2218,"date":"2009-04-03T08:31:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T12:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2218"},"modified":"2009-04-03T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-03T12:31:00","slug":"this-week-in-alberta-the-march-to-formal-one-party-statehood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2218","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Alberta – The March To Formal One-Party Statehood!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated at the bottom with a new poll…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As if 40 years of one-party rules wasn’t bad enough, the opposition parties appear to be crumbling at a time when (in theory) the PCs should be vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A is the Alberta Liberal Party, which will lay off its final two staff members on April 30th<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>.
Exhibit B is the Alberta Green Party, who now face deregistration<\/span><\/span><\/span> from Elections Alberta<\/a>. In a comment<\/a> on Gauntlet’s blog post<\/a> on the topic, party leader Joe Anglin<\/span><\/span><\/span> admits “The financial problems with the Green Party are significant and they go far deeper than just failing to file a year-end financial statement<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

It’s one thing for the PCs to keep winning – maybe they deserve it. But even Conservatives have to agree that a democracy can’t function properly if there’s not a functional opposition to keep the government’s feet to the fire.<\/p>\n

In Other News…<\/em><\/strong>
\"\"Ted Morton’s <\/a>fourth annual golf ‘n gun fundraiser<\/a> is coming up!<\/p>\n

And Enlightened Savage<\/a> gives his assessment<\/span> of the Calgary West AGM<\/span><\/span><\/a> fall-out.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/em><\/strong>: Via TPB<\/span><\/a>, comes news of a new Angus Reid poll:<\/p>\n

Conservatives: 56%
Liberals: 19%
NDP<\/span>: 11%
Alliance: 7%
Green: 7%<\/p>\n

I’d say that pretty much confirms that there’s no real opposition left in Alberta. Even if the NDP<\/span> and Alliance are healthier financially than the other aforementioned parties, they’re still not in a position to win more than half a dozen seats between them – and that’s being wildly optimistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Updated at the bottom with a new poll… As if 40 years of one-party rules wasn’t bad enough, the opposition parties appear to be crumbling at a time when (in theory) the PCs should be vulnerable. Exhibit A is the Alberta Liberal Party, which will lay off its final two staff members on April 30th.Exhibit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}