brokeback in alberta.

I hope we're not the only one getting a kick out of the Alberta Government's praise of Brokeback Mountain...

Made in Alberta productions net four Golden Globes

Brokeback Mountain to shine at Oscars

did the "west" really "want in?"

Some people would suggest that the "West" has more than one political ideology in some ridiculous attempt to paint the "West" as anything but a monolithic Conservative homogeny! :-P

Here's a short exert from the most excellent recent edition of Mark Lisac's Insight into Government publication:

"The Conservatives won the most seats in each of the four western provinces and picked up enough in Ontario and Quebec to give them the biggest representation in the House of Commons 124 seats out of 308.

Look closer and it isn’t so simple.

Albertans voted 65% Conservative and gave the party every seat in the province.

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Conservatives took the most seats but the popular vote was a saw-off; the Conservatives won a three-way split with less than half the popular vote. The split was even more pronounced in British Columbia, where the Conservatives won 17 of 36 seats with 37.3% of the popular vote.

Alberta is in. The rural Prairies and the B.C. Interior are in. The West as a whole is far too complex for simplistic characterization. Big parts of the region don’t look much different from the rest of the country.

The results in B.C. closely matched those in Ontario, where the Conservatives won 35.1% of the popular vote. Ontario is just as much Conservative country as B.C., and B.C. is just as much Liberal and NDP country as Ontario. In fact, the Conservatives picked up a bigger share of votes in Toronto (23.8%) than they did in Vancouver (22.1%).

All the people talking about the West have to define more closely what they think the West means. The arrival of westerners in government has one huge symbolic effect: Alberta and the Prairies can enjoy an emotional sense of recognition a feeling that they count. The election as whole delivered other, perhaps even stronger messages: the separatist cause in Quebec faltered, thanks to the Conservatives hard work; the divergence between rural and urban interests deepened; Canadians demonstrated once again a preference for balanced representation by at least five parties, a message the politicians may gradually and grudgingly have to accept."

Mark Lisac is also the author of Alberta Politics Uncovered: Taking Back our Province, which we highly recommend to anyone interested in Alberta politics.

clear ceiling ahead, captain.

Last Thursday, we attended a very interesting lecture sponsered by the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the University of Alberta titled "Back to the Future? Examining the Election."

The lecture included presentations by Gerald Baier of the University of British Columbia; Claude Denis of the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa; and Steve Patten from the University of Alberta.

All of the speakers had some very interesting insight on last week's election and the implecations and non-implications it may have on the near and far reaching future of Canadian politics.

Though they all had a number of interesing comments, there were two that stuck out for us:

- When you take a look at it, the Conservative victory was fairly unimpressive. Even with the Gomery Inquery, a mid-election announcement of an RCMP investigation, and the disaterous Liberal campaign, the Conservatives were only able to increase their popular vote by 6% (roughly half of this coming from Quebec) and increase their seat count by 26.

The fact that they weren't able to drastically increase their support under these circumstances would suggest that perhaps the Conservatives have reached a ceiling of support under their current leadership.

- Nationally and provincially in Alberta, Conservative support is still lower than the combined Reform/PC vote in 1997 and Alliance/PC vote in 2000.

Here's a spiffy little chart we've drawn up...

Interesting...

first john manley...

...now another potential Liberal leadership candidate drops out of the race...

No word yet if Mr. Raymaker will accept an ambassador post during the dying days of the Martin regime.

is ted morton the first victim of a harper government?

One of the things we've been pondering in the week since the Federal Election delivered us the election of a Conservative Government, is the effects it may have on the current Alberta PC Leadership Race.

Though the race to replace Ralph Klein as leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Association has been on for sometime, the election of a Calgary-based Conservative Prime Minister throws a new dynamic into the race.

For instance, Dr. Ted Morton, the MLA for Foothills-Rockyview, Alberta segregationist, and darkhorse in the race has used every opportunity to promote his leadership campaign through vehement and slobberingly rabid attacks on our Federal Liberal overlords in Ottawa.

Running on the slogan "More Alberta, Less Ottawa," Morton struck fear into Alberta's Tory elite by winning a hotly contested Tory nomination for the 2004 election. He was elected.

But will his supporters still be enthralled and mesmerized with attacks against a Calgary-based Conservative Ottawa? Can Morton shift the focus of his campaign against Ottawa or has Dr. Morton revealed himself to be a one-trick pony?

Does he actually have the substance to carry a "real" issues-based campaign? One only has to look at Dr. Morton's maiden speech to the Alberta Legislature to wonder if he has the ability to run a campaign based on "real issues" (ie: Health Care, Post-Secondary Education, the Environment, Agriculture, etc).

Though we're sure the change in government in Ottawa will have a major effect on the efforts of the ConnecTed group, we're undecided about its effect on the other leadership candidates: Paul Mar...er.. Jim Dinning, Ed Stelmach, Lyle Oberg, Dave Hancock, and Mark Norris.

The major question we're asking is: if the "West is in now" as Prime Minister-Elect Stephen Harper announced in the late hours of January 23, is Ted Morton now out?

edmonton voted: 2004 vs. 2006.

Compare and contrast...

Here are the City-wide results...





And here are the riding-by-riding results. Remember, only Edmonton Centre, Strathcona, East, and St. Albert are nearly all urban ridings. Edmonton Leduc, Beaumont-Mill Woods, Sherwood Park, and Spruce Grove include large rural population and are "rurban ridings."





This is the first time since 1984 that the Progressive Conservative / Reform / Alliance / Conservative have elected MP's in every Edmonton ridings.

Non-Progressive Conservative / Reform / Alliance / Conservative Edmonton MP's since then have included:

- Ross Harvey, NDP MP Edmonton East (1988-1993)

- David Kilgour, Liberal MP Edmonton Southeast (1990-2004), Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont (2004-05); Independent (2005-06)

- Judy Bethel, Liberal MP Edmonton East (1993-1997)

- John Loney, Liberal MP Edmonton North (1993-1997)

- Anne McLellan, Liberal MP Edmonton Northwest (1993-1997), Edmonton West (1997-2004), Edmonton Centre (2004-2006)

mckenna on his way home...

That was fast.

At least he's not dithering...

enlightened election commentary...

...but not ours.

Here are some enlightening Canadian election related comments from the BBC interactive website...

"I am not sure Canada has made the right choice, but for certain Canadians can be thankful for their proportional representation. Your system is much better suited than ours for keeping one party from dominating the political agenda, and ensuring that the voice of the minority gets a fair hearing. It's also easier to get rid of a bad PM than a bad president.

M G, Riverside, CA, United States"

"I'm quite surprised to see how many Americans see the result of this election as a wish of Canadians to 'relink' with the US. Some might see Harper mainly as a pro-American, but for many Canadians he's a change from the corrupted party and wants to give back power to the provinces. Many were fed up with the Liberals wanting to keep all the power and the money in Ottawa. Believe it or not, America is not the only thing we have on our mind when we vote.

V Page, Montreal, Qc, Canada"

"Kudos to alienated Westerners and ignorant hicks for electing a leader who campaigned with the same conservative rhetoric heard worldwide: lower taxes, smaller government, and, of course, get tough on crime. However, if anyone actually looked at his election 'promises' and the fiscal numbers Harper and his cronies throw around, it becomes evident that he desires to short-change the Canadian people by dramatically cutting services across the board, except the military of course.

Jeff Baylis, Ottawa"

"The razor-thin minority the Conservatives have garnered in Canada will not be enough to allow these Prairie Taliban to unleash their reactionary policies upon us. Harper is little more than a Bush stooge, albeit reigned in by the enlightened liberal factions that will keep things in check. This government will inevitably collapse in 10 to 18 months, as most minority governments do.

Andy Araujo, Toronto, Canada"

And from CNN...

"We are glad to see that Canadians have values-voters too," said Bob Morrison of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based group opposed to abortion and gay marriage. "We can be optimistic about the end of the social engineering as driven by the Martin government."

daveberta: reflections on the elections.

With the exception of recounts, Election 2006 has ended.

The results of this LONG election has left us with some thoughts and comments... here they are...

1. Edmonton Strathcona - A strong second for NDP candidate Linda Duncan. She did amazingly well for a federal NDP candidate in Alberta and her 17,142 were only eclipsed by Conservative Rahim Jaffer's 21,956.

Here are the results...

Rahim Jaffer, Conservative - 21,956
Linda Duncan, NDP - 17,142
Andy Hladyshevsky, Liberal - 9385
Cameron Wakefield, Green - 3,128
Mike Fedeyko, PC – 604
Dave Dowling, MP – 455
Kevan Hunter, ML - 106

Mr. Jaffer has accomplished what seemed nearly impossible for an incumbent Conservative candidate in Alberta during this election; he received less than 50% of the popular vote. Congratulations on bumping the trend, Mr. Jaffer.

2. Edmonton Centre - Well, we're disappointed that Anne McLellan was defeated, though we're not at all surprised (we wouldn't have been surprised either way).

As we've mentioned before we don't think it's in the best interests of Albertans to send 28 Tory MP's to Ottawa, just as we believed it wasn't in the best interests of Ontarians to send 100 Liberal MP's to Ottawa throughout the 1990's.

It was interesting to see that as the Liberal vote across the province collapsed, Anne McLellan was able to hold nearly the same 22,000 votes she received in 2004. But alas, more voters turned out and voted for Conservative Laurie Hawn.

We must say that after watching the victory and concession speeches of both McLellan and Hawn, that they were both very classy and gracious. We'll miss you, Anne.

Congrats to the hard working campaign teams on both sides of this battle royal. You've both proved that a thing called "electoral competition" can really exist in Alberta.

3. Peace River - Independent candidate Bill Given garnerd over 20% of the vote against rookie Tory candidate Chris Warkentin.

4. Minority Government - As we mentioned in our previous post, we are pleased with the set up of the next parliament. Though the possible coalition combinations are interesting, we're hoping that this Parliament won't end up being a bickerfest like the previous one.

Plus, it will do the Liberal Party of Canada wonders to spend some time in opposition.

5. Stephen Harper - The first thing we think of when we look at him is "cold oatmeal."

Prime Minister Oatmeal.

6. Surprises to us... - 10 Tory MP's from Quebec!?! What? Liberal MP Reg Alcock losing his seat? Peggy Nash in Parkdale-High Park? Keith Martin re-elected? Jean Lapierre re-elected? The Tories getting spanked in BC? Tony Clement actually winning?!?! what?

7. Liberal Leadership - Paul Martin's resignation... wow, we were giving him until Friday to do it, but geez... we're not really impressed with the list of potential candidates. So far, it looks like a group of "has-beens:" Joe Volpe, Maurizo Bevilacqua, John Manley, Frank McKenna... Michael Ignatieff looks interesting, but the jury is still out.

Though lately we've heard a rumour of an awesome Alberta candidate...

At the Liberal caucus is meeting this week, will they decide to appoint an Interim Leader? If so, who? We like Stephane Dion. :-)

8. Us. Uh, yes, us. It's been an interesting election to comment on and we had some interesting oppurtunities to do so... whether it was arguing/debating with c-lo every morning at work, commenting on the CityTV political panel, or writing commentary on the BBC website, it was fun. Hopefully they'll be another one of these in 18 months...

This is all we have now, but we'll post more thoughts as they pop into our collective minds...

finally, it's over...

...and we can't say we're not pleased with the results.

We will have more indepth commentary this evening, but for now we can say that seat wise, this is probably one of the best senarios we were hoping for:

- a small Conservative minority = change in government.
- a large Liberal official opposition = time for the Liberals to rejuvenate themselves and get some perspective outside of governing.
- a larger NDP caucus = more seats, but could also equal less influence in the House of Commons is now divided.
- a smaller Bloc caucus = from what we hear, the Bloc dropped in popular support as well. This is good (though we're surprised the Tories picked up 10 seats in Quebec. wow).

We should have more time this evening to write up a summary of our thoughts. See you then.

Cheers,

dave

vote vote vote!!!!

GET OFF 'UR ARSE AND VOTE!!!!!!!


If you don't know where to vote, you can check here! Also, you can find a list of Edmonton ridings and candidates here!

Everytime someone doesn't vote, baby Jesus cries. You really don't want to make baby Jesus cry, do you?

january 23rd is here at last!

Just a reminder for those of you interested in seeing what the real daveberta looks like (we're not quite as cool as the real slim shady, but oh well...), we'll be on CityTV's election night panel tonight commenting on the live results coming in from across the country (if you need a blogging fix, were very sure that CalgaryGrit will be doing some sort of live updates).

As well, the Univerity of Alberta Political Science Undergraduate Association will be having an election night party at the Powerplant on the U of A Campus. Here's the skinny...

When - Anytime after 7:00 PM on Monday January 23
Where - The Powerplant, U of A Campus
What - Watch Election returns and enjoy drink specials
Election Night Specials? Corona, $3.75 Coronita, $2.50 Highballs, $3.00
Added extras? And what promises to be an interesting night at the polls. Your chance to cheer and drink beer to the winners [and losers!] of the election.

We'll probably be heading to the Powerplant for some much needed drinks following the panel...

Other than that, we we'll be jetting around the city for most of the day, so we won't be doing much blogging - but we'll be back commenting on the aftermath and ensuing chaos tomorrow!!!

edmonton strathcona predictions...

Well, we don't have any data to base this on, but it should be fun to see if we're even close when the results are tallied at the end of the night...

Rahim Jaffer, Conservative - 18,000ish
Linda Ducan, NDP - 14,000ish
Andy Hladyshevsky, Liberal - 12,000ish
Cameron Wakefield, Green - 5,000ish
Mike Fedeyko, Progressive Canadian - 500ish
Dave Dowling, Marijuana Party - 300ish
Kevan Hunter, Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) - 100ish

(rounded off of course)

"like a university text book, costs 50 to 70 $Billion$"

Holy smokes! Not only is this guy sketchy, but he's got a sense of humour... (we think...) too bad he didn't show up to any of the candidates forums...

From VoteDave.net, the website of Edmonton Strathcona Marijuana Party candidate Dave Dowling...

Reasons to Vote Dave Dowling:

Fiscal integrity: Dave Dowling spent under $200 as a sign of fiscal integrity:
Auditor for Dave Dowling: Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton
audited the Bank of Canada!
Did the others hire their friend or relative??

Platform: Dave Dowling's is simple, two words and it saves billions:
The others : like a university text book, costs 50 to 70 $Billion$

Party Record: Dave Dowling's wants more rights and freedoms for everyone.
The others: all of them, the record of pirates! Scandal, corruption, abuse of the tax payer.

Environmental respect: Dave used less than 500 sheets of paper, less than one branch of one tree:
The others: Who knows how many forests they killed for spam?

Web sites Dave Dowling's: relevant content, lots of it!
The others: one page or a couple of pages. . . at most!

who's going down?

For those of you interested, the Election Prediction Project has published it's predictions of which candidates will survive and be defeated in tomorrow's election (props to Scott Tribe).

Their predictions are...

Conservative - 118
Liberal - 104
Bloc Quebecois - 56
NDP - 29
Independent - 1

As well, their individual seats predictions predict that a number of Paul Martin's Cabinet Ministers will be going down in the blazing glory of defeat come 7:30 pm tomorrow.

Some high profile defeat predictions include...

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan (Edmonton Centre)
Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell (Parry Sound-Muskoka)
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew (Papineau)
Human Resources and Employment Minister Belinda Stronach (Newmarket-Aurora)
Government House Leader Tony Valeri (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek)

It should be interesting to see how accurate these predictions are come tomorrow night.

As well, taracool has posted a link to the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy's election predictions.

decision day tomorrow and daveberta's thoughts on election 2006

This federal election has been a weird one for us. It's the first election campaign in quite a long time that we haven't been knee deep in (in 2004, we campaigned during the federal, provincial, and municipal elections). Though weren't completely uninvolved in the campaign (we spent a day at the beginning of January delivering campaign pamphlets for Anne McLellan in the Queen Mary Park area with former Liberal MLA Lance White. We've also been doing a certain amount of non-partisan elections stuff - punditry, etc).

1. We find it very unfortunate that there is a large chance that Edmonton and Alberta may be sending 28 Conservative MP's to Ottawa on Monday.

This is unfortunate mainly because of the dumb first-past-the-post system (the same system that kept the Reform/PC/Alliance from winning any large amount of seats in Ontario from 1993 to 2004). A contingent of such partisan homogeny does not accurately represent the choice of Albertans and will continue to perpetuate the stereotypical image of Alberta as the Conservative motherland.











2. Michael Ignatieff – The entire fiasco surrounding Dr. Ignatieff and his academic writings highlight one of the major flaws in Canadian politics. Academic papers are not meant to be defended in 15-second media clips against people who haven't read them in the first place.

Now, to be clear, we’re not defending this issues Dr. Ignatieff has written about (we haven't read any of his work). Our concern is that this incident may, with the prospect of having every academic paper you've written taken out of context and trashed, serve to discourage other academics and intelligent people from running for parliament. Now it may just be us, but we would think that it’s people like Dr. Ignatieff who would be the type of parliamentarians who could raise the level of debate in the House of Commons, something which is desperately needed.

3. Though we enjoyed Jack Layton’s performance at the Bonnie Doon Community Hall last week (see pic), we weren't overly impressed with any of the party leaders. Paul Martin is past his best before date, Harper is too shifty (and has a creepy smile), and Layton is too happy.

Yes, there’s just no pleasing us…

4. Just as we felt unable to connect with any of the party leaders, we had an equally hard time identifying with any of the parties. We usually float somewhere in between the Liberals and NDP, but when deciding who we would support, it had to come down to the individual candidate.

5. One of the issues we raised on the BBC website and on the CityTV election panel was that none of the parties talked about the real issues. Whoop-tee-doo, a 2% reduction in GST, tax-cuts, negative ads. NONE OF THIS STUFF REALLY MATTERS! NONE OF IT!

None of the parties successfully brought forward issues that really matter: the Environment, Healthcare, Canada’s place in the Global knowledge economy, and post-secondary education! (to name a few).

6. Negative ads. We still don't like them.

7. Fun. Though we found this election low on substance, we did enjoy some of the comic relief provided by some of the parties. Special props go out to Scott "Blog Boy" Feschuk, the NDP Bingo Cards, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), and the CPC Energy dog (wtf, mate?). You left us with tones of great memories.

8. And finally... our predictions... well, we entered both Steve's and Janet's election prediction contests and here is the result of our clairvoyance...

Conservative - 139
Liberal - 84
Bloc - 60
NDP - 24
Independent - 1

(note: we won't be surprised if our predictions are off)

Speaking of predictons, interlocutor has some before-and-almost-after snapshots of his predictions for tomorrow's election and the ensuing chaos.

we saw it coming...

NBC cancels The West Wing

By DAVID BAUDER
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Associated Press

Pasadena, California — The new president on The West Wing will be a real short-timer: NBC announced Sunday it was pulling the plug on the Emmy-winning political drama after seven seasons in May.

NBC, struggling to regain its footing after the worst season in its history, also outlined several midseason schedule changes - including the moves of popular dramas Law & Order and Las Vegas (Read the rest here).

pre-election weekend!!!!! the fun begins to wrap up...

Well, it's a little under T-minus 2 days until Election Day on Monday.

Here are a couple of things...

- We went to our last regular election panel on CityTV last night. It was fun. We were particularly energetic and aggressive, so they let us talk a lot longer than the other panelists. :-P

For those of you who missed us last night, you still have a chance to catch us on CityTV's election night panel starting around 10pm on Monday evening. The panel will be commenting on results as they come in. U of A Political Science Professor Gurston Dacks will also be there.

It should be fun, though we're quite sure we'll need a few stiff drinks after the results come in...

-For those of you interested, we're featured on the BBC News website along with fellow Canadian bloggers Bart Ramson, Jason Cherniak, Colby Cosh, Kate McMillan, and Steve Janke.

- We went out partying at Halo last night. It was mod night. It was sssooooo radtacular.

- The people at Make Poverty History have released a list of candidates who support the Make Poverty History Goals.

- The radtacular Bart Ramson has endorsed Bruce Benson, Liberal candidate in Selkirk-Interlake.

- For those of you near the University of Alberta Campus on Monday, the Political Science Undergraduate Association will be hosting an Election Night party at the Powerplant.

- John Bowman from CBC's "blog report" has an interesting post about how Section 329 pf the Canada Elections Act may have an issues with bloggers posting election results as they come in...

- The always wonderful Janet has set up an election prediction contest - you can check it out and join the fun here! "The deadline is Monday, January 23, 2006 at 12pm EST (that's 10am for you Edmonton folks). So enter early!"

ADDENUM - Steve Smith is also conducting an election prediction contest!

happy b-day M!

Happy B-Day to our always wonderful sister, Madeleine! :-)

Hope you have a great year!

daveberta endorses linda duncan in edmonton strathcona.

Deciding who we will cast our ballot for in this election has been a tough decision for us.

We have always voted Liberal. We consider ourself a small-L liberal type, but have felt in recent years that the Federal Liberal Party has strayed from the liberal values which we hold as our own.

Whether it be pushing large tax cuts for corporations, the increasing arrogance of some Liberal Cabinet Ministers, or the scandal surrounding ad-scam in Quebec, it is clear to us that this is not what Canadian liberalism stands for. It has become clear to us for sometime that the Federal Liberals need to spend some time in the opposition benches.

In our riding in particular, it has been a hard decision. Though Edmonton Strathcona is a diverse riding which rides the south bank of the North Saskatchewan river. It includes communities such as Bonnie Doon, Windsor Park, Garneau, Windsor Park, Strathcona, along with the University of Alberta campus. The area represented provincially largely by numerous Alberta Liberal (including Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft and Alberta Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald) and an NDP MLA (Raj Pannu), has consistently re-elected Reform/Alliance/Conservative candidate, Rahim Jaffer, since 1997.

We will not be supporting Mr. Jaffer for a number of reasons. First, we really couldn't name one initiative he's spearheaded since his election in 1997. Second, we couldn't support his party in its current incarnation (for policy reasons). As we could not in good conscience support Mr. Jaffer, we looked to the other parties.

The Liberal candidate in Edmonton Strathcona is a good candidate. Andy Hladyshevsky holds a solid track record of community involvement and seems like a really bright guy. But as stated above, we just cannot support the Liberal Party in this election.

The Green Party candidate, Cameron Wakefield, is a really nice guy and we appreciated what he had to say at the various forums in the riding. We hope the Green Party grows and gains a larger presence on the national stage. Unfortunately, the Green Party post-secondary education policies are less than incredible.

The Progressive Canadian candidate, Mike Fedeyko, also impressed us. He spoke very well at all the forum, and presented a moderate and sensible standpoint in the Edmonton Strathcona race. We wish Mr. Fedeyko good luck on election day!

The Marxist-Leninist candidate, Kevan Hunter, was defiantly the most entertaining candidate at all the forums. Unfortunately for Comrade Hardinal Baines, we will be taking a pass on the revolution this time around...

The Marijuana Party candidate, Dave Dowling, didn't show up to any of the forums and has a crazy website. He's the Marijuana Party candidate, and he never showed up. He does have a pretty crazy website though...

Then there's New Democratic Party candidate Linda Duncan. Ms. Duncan has been campaigning hard in Edmonton Strathcona since last spring. She has a surprisingly incredible amount of real world experience for any new candidate in this election.

Linda Duncan's experience includes serving as the former Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environment for the Yukon, Vice-President of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, Vice-President of the Lake Wabamun Enhancement and Protection Association, Board Member of Alberta's Clean Air Strategic Alliance, Active member of the Alberta Environmental Network's energy caucus, and a Board Member of the Environmental Careers Organization. As you can see, she has a solid record on environmental issues.

Though we haven't been incredibly impressed with her performance at the various candidates forums, we believe she is the alternative to another four years of Rahim Jaffer in Edmonton Strathcona.

On January 23rd, as a proud Canadian liberal, we will be casting our ballot for Linda Duncan. We hope you do as well.