{"id":47114,"date":"2015-03-19T13:49:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T17:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=47114"},"modified":"2015-03-19T13:49:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T17:49:28","slug":"a-beginners-guide-to-alberta-politics-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=47114","title":{"rendered":"A Beginner’s Guide to Alberta Politics II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nixonprentice\"<\/a>
\nBlogging has been sporadic of late, but with Alberta barrelling towards an election, now is likely a good time for another Alberta Politics FAQ<\/a>.
\n
<\/code>
\nWhen will the next Alberta election be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alberta’s fixed-ish election date legislation calls for a vote between March 1st and May 31st, 2016. Prentice, being a true reformer at heart, has said he will respect this.
\n
<\/code>
\nReally?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ha ha. No, of course not. Most expect an election call to immediately follow the March 26th budget. <\/p>\n

Alberta’s fixed election date law has proven to be about as binding as Alberta’s balanced budget law.
\n
<\/code>
\nSo who’s going to win the election?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The PCs.
\n
<\/code>
\nWell, yeah, that seems likely<\/em>, but isn’t there a chance…<\/strong><\/p>\n

No.
\n
<\/code>
\nBut surely if there are a few more “blame Alberta” moments, and…<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Not one of the opposition parties is even pretending <\/em>they’re fighting for anything but second place.<\/p>\n

This election was over the moment Danielle Smith decided the election wasn’t worth fighting.
\n
<\/code>
\nSo why did <\/em>Danielle Smith cross the floor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A year ago, Alison Redford was under fire for spending $45,000 of taxpayer funds for a charter flight back from Nelson Mandela’s funeral (plus $3 for headphones). And <\/em>because she spent thousands to fly her daughter and friend on government planes. And <\/em>because she wanted to spend government funds on a private penthouse suite for herself in Edmonton. And <\/em>because she had her staff create “ghost flyers” so that she wouldn’t have to sit next to the proles on her flights. <\/p>\n

It just proves the old saying that governments tend to grow out of touch during their 13th consecutive term in power. <\/p>\n

Exit Redford. Enter Prentice.<\/p>\n

Prentice quickly announced two popular policies:<\/p>\n

1. Scrapping an unpopular plan to redesign Alberta license plates<\/a>. <\/p>\n

2. Not being Alison Redford.<\/p>\n

While this gave the PCs a jolt of life, there were still storm clouds on the horizon:<\/p>\n

1. Prentice was leading a 43-year old government which had barely <\/em>escaped defeat two years earlier.<\/p>\n

2. With oil prices tanking, he would need to raise taxes or cut services in his first budget.<\/p>\n

3. In one of his first leadership tests, he completely bungled the issue of Gay-Straight Alliances in schools. His compromise would have forced teenagers to go to court if a school board said no. His cold “rights are never absolute” response left many irate. “Maybe that should be on the license plate<\/em>” tweeted Rick Mercer.<\/p>\n

By showing a deft ear, Prentice had effectively torn up the “Wildrose are bigots” card he no doubt intended to play during the next election.<\/p>\n

But hey, Prentice had an insurmountable 6-point<\/a><\/em> lead in the polls. And he managed to hold<\/em> 4 PC seats in by-elections. I mean, really, what chance did Danielle Smith have? <\/p>\n

So, down by 1 goal in the second period, Danielle Smith concluded the situation was hopeless<\/em>, and she gave up.
\n
<\/code>
\nWhat now for the Wildrose Party?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wildrosers will select a new leader on March 28th, at which point they’ll have a day or two to print the signs, draft a platform, record commercials, round out their candidate slate, and find a bus that doesn’t cause us all to giggle<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Three candidates are contesting the leadership:<\/p>\n

You may know Drew Barnes<\/a> as one of the “Wildrose 5” who did not <\/em>defect.<\/p>\n

You may know Brian Jean<\/a> as the former backbench CPC MP who sent crossword puzzles about himself to his constituents (what’s a 9-letter word for excessive preoccupation with ones self<\/em>?).<\/p>\n

You may know Linda Osinchuk<\/a> if you are related to Linda Osinchuk.<\/p>\n

Still, even though they are now little more than a fringe group of angry right wingers, the Wildrose Party still said “we’re too good for you, Rob Anders<\/em><\/a>“. Which shows they have higher standards than the federal Conservatives, if nothing else.
\n
<\/code>
\nAnd the Liberals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They’re also leaderless, after Raj Sherman abruptly resigned last month. They won’t be selecting a permanent leader until after <\/em>the election, but it’s not like they’ve had much success with <\/em>leaders lately, so why not?
\n
<\/code>
\nSo the opposition parties are all leaderless heading into the election?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You’re forgetting about the NDP, which is understandable. But Rachel Notley is an impressive politician. <\/p>\n

Still, the NDP are non-factors outside Edmonton – they failed to crack 4% of the vote in any of the three Calgary by-elections last fall. Those were the same by-elections that caused Danielle Smith to thrown in the towel, and she got 9 times<\/em> as many votes as the NDP.<\/p>\n

And with the divided vote on the left, it’s hard to imagine the NDP taking more than 6 or 7 seats in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

Still, that will likely be enough to make Notley leader of the opposition.
\n
<\/code>
\nYeah, vote splitting…it doesn’t really make sense for Alberta to have 2 parties to the left of the PCs does it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, you are not going to like what I have to tell you next.<\/p>\n

The divided left has been a problem in Alberta for years. So progressives looked at the situation and reached the only logical conclusion as to what was needed: A third <\/em>progressive party.<\/p>\n

Enter the Alberta Party. After a lot of listening and a lot of tweeting, the Alberta Party earned just 17,172 votes province-wide last election. <\/p>\n

So, at least those vote splitting concerns proved unfounded.
\n
<\/code>
\nWell then, what’s this about Laurie Blakeman working to unite the left?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week, Blakeman announced she had been nominated <\/a>by the Liberals, Alberta Party, and Alberta Greens (yeah, there’s a fourth <\/em>party on the left) as their candidate in Edmonton Centre. <\/p>\n

While I applaud Ms. Blakeman for this step towards uniting the left, this is about as small a step as one could possibly take. Step <\/em>is likely too strong a word. Maybe inching<\/em>? It’s barely a new development, as neither the Alberta Party nor the Greens ran against Blakeman last election. In 2008, the two parties earned a combined 514 votes in Edmonton Centre. I guess having their logos on her lit makes for nice symbolism, but this isn’t exactly the Wayne Gretzky endorsement.
\n
<\/code>
\nSo basically you’re saying that with a long time, scandal-plagued government battling an economic collapse, the opposition is leaderless, infective, and divided. <\/p>\n

Is Jim Prentice the luckiest guy in the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. Yes, he is.<\/p>\n


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Blogging has been sporadic of late, but with Alberta barrelling towards an election, now is likely a good time for another Alberta Politics FAQ. When will the next Alberta election be? Alberta’s fixed-ish election date legislation calls for a vote between March 1st and May 31st, 2016. Prentice, being a true reformer at heart, has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1030,1031,1108,1107,1134,1467],"class_list":["post-47114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alberta-politics","tag-alberta-liberal-party","tag-alberta-ndp","tag-david-swann","tag-jim-prentice","tag-laurie-blakeman","tag-rachel-notley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=47114"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47570,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47114\/revisions\/47570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}