guest post: 'i've never felt more inspired to start a political movement in alberta.'

This past weekend, I had the privilege in taking part in the Liberal Party of Canada's Convention in Vancouver. It was a fantastic new experience for me, one which I will never forget, and it was my first foray into real politics. And I wasn’t disappointed.

There were the highs and lows expected from politics. Surprisingly, most of the lows I witnessed were within the Young Liberals of Canada. There’s nothing like extremely ambitious young Canadians vying for coveted positions to put politics in perspective. Everyone is striving to make themselves a name strong enough to grab the attention of party insiders and political superstars like Bob Rae, Alfred Apps, and Michael Ignatieff. Of the three contested races, I followed the race for VP Policy the closest. Timothy Smith and Pierre-Luc Lacoste both ran admirable campaigns, but Lacoste’s French connection won out in the end.

Besides some shameful and money wasting efforts on behalf of youth candidates to get elected, it was the lack of young women involved that caught my attention. Of the 10 positions filled, only two are held by women, and neither of them ran in contested races. The party is trying to focus on re-growth and renewal with an emphasis on gender parity and with youth often being the most progressive members of a party, parity should be high on the list of things to-do for the Young Liberals of Canada.

After this weekend thought, I’m feeling more positive about being a Liberal in Alberta. I’ve often felt ostracized and many have attempted to make me feel ashamed of my membership, but I’ve never backed down, and now, I have a reason not to. The Liberal Party is starting to focus on Alberta instead of ignoring it and chalking it up as a lost cause. The new election strategy is shaping up to be a “308 riding strategy” in which each riding, no matter how hopeless, should receive help from the central party to win an election. It will be an uphill battle in rural Alberta, regardless of how much money and how many "big name Liberals" the party throws at it. Even Alberta Liberals know this. I didn't meet one Albertan who felt that their rural riding could be won easily, let alone at all.

However, I've never felt more inspired to start a political movement in Alberta. If the convention did nothing else, it certainly inspired some questioning Liberals to believe in the party again. Ignatieff seems to be the inspiration and the kick-start the party needs regain power. Earlier today I heard that the Liberals are up in the polls, ahead of the Conservatives, but that does not mean we are ready for an election. Major fundraising needs to be done before the party is ready to run a successful campaign. For the “308 riding strategy” to be effective, the party needs some disposable income, which it does not have.

All in all, it was an exciting weekend, and regardless of your party, everyone should get involved. The convention inspired me to get actively involved, and hopefully others will follow suit.

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Caitlin Schulz was the only youth delegate from the Wetaskiwin riding south of Edmonton for the 2009 Liberal Convention in Vancouver. She is in her fourth year of studies at the University of Alberta, majoring in Political Science.

severely normal nova scotians.

Meet Linda and Tom Risk. The maritime couple are the key characters of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party's attack website against the NDP and come with their very own Facebook profiles (Linda and Tom). The couple appears to represent severely normal Nova Scotians and are very likely related to Rimbey, Alberta residents Martha and Henry.

The Nova Scotia General Election has been called for June 9, 2009 and is becoming a face-off between the PCs - led by Premier Rodney MacDonald - and the Nova Scotia NDP - led by Darrell Dexter. The Liberals are being led in this election by Stephen McNeil.

(h/t to @glenkruger)

bill 44 to end with charter private schools?

With Premier Ed Stelmach spending the week in Switzerland, it appears that Education Minister Dave Hancock and Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett have been left in charge of defending the controversial recent amendments to Bill 44: Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, 2009.

Someone much smarter than I recent suggested a scenario that could end the current controversy over Bill 44. This scenario would see the PC caucus pull the evolution clause from the Bill and implement either education tax opt-outs for parents sending their kids to Charter Private Schools or provide government funding for Charter Private Schools as a 'compromise.'

Thoughts?

setting the stage for an electoral boundary battle.

"Representation is not all about equal representation, it's about equitable representation. - Minister Ray Danyluk

This afternoon, Justice Minister Alison Redford announced the introduction of amendments to the Alberta's elections laws in Bill 45: Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2009 that will allow a commission to begin the process of redrawing Alberta's electoral boundaries earlier than scheduled. The amendments include increasing the number of electoral districts from 83 to 87. While my immediate reaction is to oppose an increase in the number of politicians in Alberta (I actually believe that we should decrease the number of MLAs in the Legislature), I am more concerned with equal representation in the Legislative Assembly.

One of the largest flaws in last Electoral Boundary Commission Review is that from the beginning, a process that should have been impartial and non-partisan quickly became politically-charged. The process inevitably became framed in rural versus urban or Conservative versus Liberal contexts due to the composition of the Commission. The membership of the 2002/2003 Electoral Boundary Commission included five political appointees - two appointed by the Premier (former MLA Glen Clegg and PC Party President-to-be Doug Graham), two nominated by the Leader of the Official Opposition (former Claresholm Mayor Ernie Patterson and former ATA President Bauni Mackay – both former Liberal candidates), and a chairperson appointed by the Cabinet* (former Social Credit MLA Bob Clark).

I have more thoughts on this topic, so you can be sure I will write more in the near future.

*The Cabinet is chaired by the Premier.

UPDATE: Duncan at Phendrana.ca has written a great post on this topic.

fifteen-minutes extended.

The wikipedia entry for Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach (not to be confused with Harry Strom) occupies the featured article spot on the main English Wikipedia page.

Thanks to the good folks at Wikipedia, it looks like my fifteen-minutes of fame may have been narrowly extended a couple seconds (milliseconds?).

bill 44, evolution, & hyper-partisanship in alberta.

When the controversy over Bill 44 and evolution erupted earlier this week, I wasn’t sure whether it was just a continuation of NDP leader Brian Mason’s weekly outrage, the result of a clumsy communications strategy, or actually a real issue. Turns out, it's all of the above.

Although I have a hard time believing that Education Minister Dave Hancock has an agenda to undermine Alberta's science curriculum, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that certain MLAs in the governing caucus do. In March 2008, Albertans re-elected the Progressive Conservatives with a large 72-MLA caucus, with a number of socially conservative ideologues in their ranks.

While it's likely that the outrage over Bill 44 is largely the result of a poor communications strategy (including Premier Ed Stelmach bringing up the evolution example himself), the genesis of the controversial amendments are politically suspect. Are the controversial sections of Bill 44 simply concessions that Hancock needed to make in order to appease his social conservative caucus-mates? The governing PC caucus consists of nearly all the MLAs in the Legislature, and because of this many legislative concessions and debates occur in closed-door Caucus meetings, rather than in public debate on the floor elected Assembly. This isn't the first time in recent memory that social conservative politics made headlines by influencing government policy (earlier this month, the PC caucus decided to de-list transgendered medical operations).

Three years ago, now-Sustainable Resource Development Minister Ted Morton introduced a Private Member's Bill that would have banned any mention of homosexuality from Alberta's educational curriculum. The longest-serving PC MLA, Speaker Ken Kowalski proudly placed "While human beings can create laws, the laws of God must take precedence” as the first bullet point in a campaign advertisement during the March 2008 election.

When an apology isn’t enough.

Liberal MLA Dave Taylor used some pretty tasteless language in the Legislature this week. While it was only a matter of time before a heckler like Taylor said something that he would regret, he accepted responsibility for his comments and publicly apologized on the Assembly floor the next day. However, it appears that Taylor’s public apology wasn’t enough for some members of the Legislature.

Seconds after Taylor's public apology, Premier Stelmach presented a letter to the Legislature shaming the opposition MLA and Liberal leader David Swann. The letter was posted on the Premier's official website shortly after that. It appears that Stelmach saw Taylor's screw-up as an opportunity to make an example of the vocal critic, but no MLA, including Stelmach, has a track record to boast moral superiority in the Legislature. While it may have been posted during a fit of hyper-partisanship, there is no reason that this letter needed to be posted on the Premier’s official website after Taylor apologized.

Once again, we see more of the same old politics, and more of the same old games.

A couple weeks ago, a Calgary journalist suggested to me that 'at some point, we're going to have to start treating political ideologues like religious nutcases.' Maybe we have reached that point.

linda blade enters edmonton-strathcona conservative contest.

Ryan Hastman, Cathay Wagantall, and former MP Rahim Jaffer have been joined by another candidate in the race for the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona.

Ottewell resident Linda Blade is the newest contender to enter the contest. Blade is currently the Sports Performance Manager at the Royal Glenora Club, has a PhD in Kinesiology, and was the Conditioning Coach to 2002 Canadian Olympic Gold Medalists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. Her nomination campaign manager is Brad Fournier, who also managed Rona Ambrose's 2008 re-election campaign in Edmonton-Spruce Grove.

NDP MP Linda Duncan has represented Edmonton-Strathcona since defeating Jaffer in October 2008.