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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

candidatatorial websites

Aside from floating the idea of a K-14 education system, it looks like Advanced Ed Minister Dave Hancock is setting up a leadership website here (it also has a better picture than this one).

Also, for those of you who haven't yet checked it out, Nicole Martel is running for the Federal Liberal nomination in Edmonton East and has set up a website with a cool blog (some you may know of Nicole from her former blog: GoPolitical.ca - which is now automatically linked to her new site). Currently, Nicole is running unopposed for the nomination, but rumours are floating around that Dan McLennan, President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, and potentally former Edmonton Mayor Jan Reimer (Mayor from 1989 to 1995) may take a run for the Liberal nomination in Edmonton East.

So far in Edmonton East, the Tories have renominated the wanna-be President of Turks & Caicos, Peter Goldring, and the ND's have nominated former coordinator for the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, Arlene Chapman.

We've known Nicole for a number of years and can definitely say with extreme confidence that she will make a great candidate come the next Federal election.

7 comments:

Nastyboy said...

Reimer would be great in opposition.I'd hate to see her in any governmnet portfolio. just remember how many businesses she drove to Calgary when she was mayor.

AWGB said...

Hey Dave.

How does it feel knowing that you paid 20 grand in tuition and that everyone graduating after you is going to pay half that if Hancock gets his way?

Feels good, eh?

Gee, I bet all those parents who are sending kids to school in the next couple of years will reciprocate with votes!

daveberta said...

"How does it feel knowing that you paid 20 grand in tuition and that everyone graduating after you is going to pay half that if Hancock gets his way?"

Though we do like the idea of K-14, it doesn't do anything to stop the uni from jacking up the last two years to $10,000 a peice to make up the shortfall. The Devil is in the Details.

AWGB said...

Good point.

I guess the devilish details would have to be worked out, because as you said, it's still just in the ideas phase. Hopefully there is a way to add public input into this rather than just going along for the ride as is often the case.

daveberta said...

Very interesting, GG (and thanks for the complements... we try :-P ).

It's quite obvious that the student debt situation is very much out of control in Alberta and across Canada. We also find it quite disturbing that Hancock was quoted as saying that a $20,000 student debt wasn't unreasonable...

and yes, we are very very familiar with the A Learning Alberta committee. Unfortunately, we're going to plead the fifth on that one... but, anyone interested in seeing some more ideas on PSE on an ALA submission should check out this document.

daveberta said...

"What about those of us who didn't need to take out a student loan? If student loan relief is part of the equation (just saying speculatively here), can I get some kind of a rebate for being a "fiscally responsible" student?"

We'll just have to see if Hancock comes up with some idea about student loan relief. The problem with dealing with public student loans in Alberta is that it's split 60/40 between the Canada STudent Loan Program and Alberta Student Loan Program. So realistically, and deal that would have and effect on more than 40% of someone's student loan would have to include some sort of agreement with the feds. But the 40% is still a huge chunk.

To be fair, we don't think 'fiscal responsibility' has much to do with it. We for example have had to pay for our PSE on our own, while living on our own. We don't make a huge amount of money, so we've had to depend on student loans to pay our tuition fees. It's not that we're not fiscally responsible, it's just that we forgot to plant that money tree in our back yard. ;-)

daveberta said...

no prob, dude. we need to chill sometimes as well. :-P