Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying

Liberals + NDP + Greens = you still lost the election

I took this picture while stopped for a pee break on the way back from a recent trip to Lethbridge. It doesn't really have much to with this article, but it's, I think, a very stereotypically Albertan image, so it might be an appropriate accompaniment for the discussion of heady matters like those below. Most of all I just thought it was nice and wanted to put it up...

Everyone knew that this was bound to happen sooner or later: the parties defeated in the recent provincial election are "mulling radical options," according to the Edmonton Journal. Although we're a little late (each of Ken Chapman, Daveberta, and Calgary Grit have already offered opinions on this matter), in the day-late-dollar-short spirit of the opposition parties of Alberta, I thought I would contribute a substandard analysis after everyone has stopped caring.

First of all, I'm thrilled and overjoyed to see that these parties are finally doing what many opponents of the Alberta PCs have been wishing they'd do for years -- that is, recognize that what they're doing isn't working, and take an honest look at what can be done to change this. What they've come up with thus far isn't entirely impressive, but there is some definite potential and it's great to see people actually thinking about this.

The "radical options" that the Journal article refers to are:

1. An alliance of sorts where the Greens, NDP, and Liberals don't run candidates against one another in some or all of the province's ridings, and agree to a list of "core priorities to act upon if they are able to form a government after the next election." (h/t Daveberta).
2. Liberal MLA David Swann's investigation (which apparently includes a planned meeting with Preston Manning) into starting "a new party based on green politics, accountability and democratic reform."

As Calgary Grit very capably points out in his post on the subject, the first idea is destined for failure. The last election was not lost on vote-splitting. It was lost because none of the opposition parties came close to offering up a vision that would attract support from significant numbers of Tory voters and/or non-voters. My feeling is that to ever have a hope of unseating the Alberta PCs, the farthest to the left any opposition party could be is "centre, " and in Alberta I would say that the NDP, Liberal, and Green brands all carry connotations of "left." Although these perceptions, at least in the case of the Liberals and Greens, aren't entirely based on reality, they would nonetheless result in this alliance being perceived as resolutely "left-wing" -- which might actually result in them losing total votes. In this case, I think the whole would be less the sum of its parts, which is why I'm much warmer to idea number 2.

I think David Swann is one of the best of MLAs in the legislature, so to see this coming from him is great (and not entirely surprising.) However, although the Journal story is a little thin on details, it seems that the party that he is contemplating could best be summarized as Green Party 2. If I were to start an opposition party I'd want to focus on exactly the same three things that Swann mentions: green politics, accountability and democratic reform. However, if I wanted to get elected, I'd be sure to make smart spending and continued prosperity central planks of this party's platform.

The key, I think, is to not be perceived as an environmental party that embraces fiscal conservatism -- that's what the Green Party does, and it earned them 4.6% of the popular vote last election. The key is being seen as a fiscally conservative party that embraces environmentalism (and democratic reform and accountability). Hopefully Preston Manning mentions something along these lines when him and Swann are talking.

The Alberta PC party is perhaps the biggest tent in Canadian politics. Any opposition party that wants to form government in our province is going to have to lop off a pretty big chunk of it, and I think the the time is right for a movement like the one Swann is proposing to do just that, so long as it is grounded in the fiscal conservatism that I think is basically a prerequisite for forming government in Alberta. Such a party might not attract the support of very many NDP voters, but I would say the centre to centre-right spectrum is a lot more vote-rich than the left to far-left.

That may sound a little greasy, but perpetually being in the opposition -- or, more accurately, never having a snowball's chance in hell of forming government -- sucks. I'm willing accept a little bit of spend-thriftness if it means having a Premier who doesn't wholeheartedly believe that the environmental toll of the oilsands is a "myth."

Guest Post: An election postmortem from an outsider's perspective, pt. 2

As promised, here is part two of JR's guest post. Yesterday, I posted part one, which describes the problem plaguing the exercise of healthy democracy in Alberta - so make sure you check it out before you read this one. Today, for your reading pleasure, we bring you a possible solution to Alberta's democratic malaise.

As I mentioned yesterday, JR is from out of province, so feel free to let him know if he's on track or totally off base in the comments.

Alberta Election Postmortem: An Outsider’s Perspective

Part Two: The Solution

There remains, however, a solution to Alberta’s democratic deficiency and a hope for progressive-minded Albertans.  As the First Law of Petropolitics dictates, the lower the price of oil the more a political culture becomes sensitive to opposition voices.  What I propose is for Alberta to implement a regulatory regime that caps oil prices and limits the amount of production in the tar sands annually. 

Though some of the more hard-headed readers of this blog may deride my prescription as an exercise of neo-Marxism I believe it would be in Alberta’s interest to regulate the price and production of oil.  Oil is not a renewable resource and thus there is a finite amount that can be produced (if you don’t believe me I suggest you check out the documentary A Crude Awakening). Such a policy will help Albertans create a more transparent political process that lets the people, rather than the oil companies and the governments that enable them, to have a stake in their own future. 

When the oil runs out, I doubt Alberta’s reputable knowledge-based economy will ensure the continued stability, viability and influence provided by an oil economy.  By controlling oil’s price and production through public-private partnerships between government and the oil sector, Alberta can ensure its continued influence in the federation and practice a responsible policy that saves its natural resources for future generations while limiting environmental damage today.

Stelmach backs off on allegations of job losses, well sort of... UPDATE.

Ed Stelmach has finally revealed where he got his statistic about the 300 000 plus jobs that would be lost if the Alberta Liberal's GHG plan was implemented. This comes via Scott Dippel at the CBC's Reporter's Notebook.

Speaking of Stelmach, it's day 25 of 28 day campaign. He still can't source his claim that a Liberal government's environment plan will kill 345,000 jobs in Alberta... or as we found out at a campaign stop this week, he meant to say Canada.

When asked to name which organization produced this statistic, he tells reporters: "I forget the name of the board." The PC campaign team can't name a website, document or author.

Hmmmm....maybe because you're blatantly lying. You made it up, there's not stats and no report. Obviously this behaviour makes my blood boil. Why must the Alberta's government persist (to the point of fabricating evidence) with such dated, backwards logic that environment=recession, when every one else in the developed world is moving on. It's just embarrassing.

Anyhow, Dippel's post cites more examples of why the Conservatives have had a bad campaign (which, you will discover is the understatement of the year for describing these gems) so I encourage you to go check it out. For now, here's one more particularly pathetic (and oh so depressing) example:

Two members of a Conservative candidate's team in rural Alberta storm into a local newspaper office. The candidate wants the editor's head on a plate. His crime: the paper dared to print a picture of Liberal Leader Kevin Taft on its front page.

The editor agrees to tell this story to CBC News but stops at the last minute. That's because the paper's publisher tells the editor that "if he values his job," he won't speak about the incident.

Sense of entitlement, much?

Sooooo Shady Part...too many to count.

Un-f**king-believable! Sorry, but only an expletive will adequately express the anger and dismay I feel towards the Alberta government. The Edmonton Sun reported today that the returning officer for Edmonton-Castle Downs is none other than the incumbent, Tory MLA Thomas Lukaszuk's former executive assistant, Linda Brown! Allie Wojtaszek move over! A new poster-person for PC patronage has been crowned.

In case you don't remember, back in the 2004 election Lukaszuk was declared a winner only after 3 recounts and a margin of 3 votes over the Liberal candidate Chris Kibermanis. Now these two are going head-to-head again with Lukasuik's former EA personally overseeing the possible recount. That is, she will have the power to declare ballets spoiled and in the occasion of a tie, she will cast a ballot to declare a winner. If ever impartiality was needed in an election riding THIS WOULD BE THE CASE. As such the Alberta Libs are calling for the chief electoral officer to oversee this counts himself. However, I don't think even this will salvage the reputation of Elections Alberta and the Stelmach government. Post-democratic state, indeed.

Soooooo Shady, Part. 2.75

Update on the ongoing returning officer saga. If these (suspiciously well-timed) allegations are true, this is really disturbing. What is a PC MLA doing visiting a polling station anyways?

In our wildest dreams...

Four Strong Winds has recently issued a challenge to other Alberta politics bloggers to declare their opinions regarding the state of Alberta's democracy. It should come as no surprise that we at AGRDT have been known to refer to this province as a post-democratic state. Indeed, we have long lamented the current state of democracy in Alberta and as such we have several recommendations to help foster a vibrant, inclusive democratic process that all Albertans can get behind.

1. Electoral reform: I think the most fundamental means to reform Alberta's democracy is to make the number of seats alloted to one party more closely proportional to their share of the popular vote. A post I wrote a couple of weeks ago included graphs that show the seat distribution under our current first-past-the-post system, and the projected seat distribution had we used one system of proportional representation. The graphs illustrate the marked divide between seat distribution and popular vote. For example, in the 2004 election 46% of eligible voters cast ballots for the PCs, which resulted in that party taking 73% of  seats in the legislative assembly. Meanwhile, the Alberta Alliance Party received almost 9% of the popular vote and 1% of the LA's seats. We have already outlined some of the benefits of and concerns with MMP and STV (two systems of PR) in another post, so I will not include a detailed discussion here. However, I do think it is important to mention that any change in our electoral system must be decided via a Citizen's Assembly and then a referendum on the matter.
2. FOIP (aka F**k Off It's Private) legislation: I think another important means to improve Alberta's democratic process is to have the Legislative Assembly repeal Bill 20. It's truly ridiculous that internal government audits and cabinet briefings are protected for 15 years and 5 years, respectively. Albertans have a right to know what is going on with their government, and whether taxpayer funds are being spent appropriately and efficiently. Moreover, it shouldn't take 6 months and $900 to get documents obtainable at the federal level in 2 weeks for a whopping $12 (photocopying fees).
3. Abolish the Public Affairs Bureau: Turf the Premier's Office-controlled, Soviet-style information centralization spin machine and have the individual ministries and departments be responsible for their own press releases and media interactions.
4. Malapportionment of electoral boundaries: Pierre Trudeau is my Homeboy has a good breakdown of this issue in his response to Four Strong Winds. Suffice to say, there is an obvious problem when 1/3 of Alberta's population holds 1/2 of the seats in the Legislative assembly -- particularly when this is a result of manipulation of the ruling party that counts on bedrock rural support for its continued dominance. The CBC's Kim Trynacity points out that the electoral boundaries will have to be redrawn after this election, as mandated by provincial law. It will be interesting to see if Stelmach tries to pull a Klein and use an all-party legislative committee (and accept the recommendations of said committee even if all of its opposition members quit in protest, as Klein did) to redraw Alberta's electoral boundaries, as opposed to an independent electoral boundary commission as is used at the federal level.
5. Civil society: The Alberta government should increase grants to community-based organizations for both service provision and advocacy. Civil society groups not only provide needed services to the public at large, but also serve as an alternative means for citizen representation. That is, Albertans who feel they are not adequately represented via political institutions may find their voice in civil institutions instead. The Alberta government should foster this form of democratic dialogue (which should be a natural outcome of Stelmach's assertions of the importance of public consultations on important issues).  Civil society groups provide the necessary means to represent segments of the public, thus it is time to give them the tools needed to fulfill this important responsibility.
6. Electoral finance laws: In previous years, there has been a trend towards citizen disengagement in political parties. As a result, political parties are relying more and more heavily on corporate and union donations. This presents a conflict of interest for politicians who are mandated to represent their regional districts, while feeling indebted to their big campaign contributors. A solution to this problem is to ban corporate and union donations and implement a system of electoral financing similar to that at the federal level (where parties receive funding based on their share of the popular vote).  For a good discussion of the inadequacy of current campaign finance laws, see PTHB's post.
7. Accountability for Stelmach's buds: Finally, a good place to start for improving democracy in this province is to make Stelmach's accountability legislation apply to this year's exodus of Tory insiders. As mentioned in one of our earlier posts: traditionally, the PCs and other political parties see an outflow of politicians and bureaucrats after each election. However, due to an order in council sneakily passed by Stelmach and Co. the day before the election, the Conflict of Interests Amendment Act will only apply to those Tory insiders leaving office a month after the election (thus ensuring Stelmach's buds don't have to follow the new rules). This is a shrewd move on the part of the Premier and one that didn't get nearly enough attention in the media. If we want to promote democracy in this province, making accountability rules apply to the Premier's closest associates would be a good place to start.

And there you have it, a democracy wish list from your Alberta: Get Rich or Die Trying Team. Kudos to Four Strong Winds for stimulating this discussion.

Parties without partisans: are political party members a dying breed?

The Edmonton Journal (and consequently, the Calgary Herald) has an interesting story up on youth voter turnout in Alberta.  Stories such as this one are becoming a perennial feature of election coverage, as the pattern of declining voter turnout becomes more pronounced. Diminishing levels of young voters are often-cited as the most important factor leading to overall turnout decline, and by now many people are familiar with the oft-cited statistic that less than 1 in 4 people between the ages of 18 and 25 voted in the last federal election.

Does this matter?

Unfortunately, the CanWest article does not really delve into the significance of declining voter turnout. Instead it focuses mainly on providing anecdotal evidence (i.e. interviews with three young people) to prove that young Albertans do not care about elections or voting, adds in a bit of an explanation from "an expert",  and then goes on to ask the political parties what they are doing about it.

The problem has created a huge untapped source of potential voters, with many politicians and pundits trying to figure out how to get young adults on their side.

"Clearly, political parties are not meeting the needs of young people," says Chaldeans Mensah, a MacEwan College political scientist.

"There's a great deal of disengagement from the political process ... The system doesn't encourage participation and politicians aren't speaking to (young people's) needs. They're almost talking over their heads."

But it's something Wildrose Alliance Leader Paul Hinman won't lose sleep over.

"If you go back 60, 100 years, it's always been the same dilemma," he says. "The youth have never been actively engaged."

However, he adds they have lots of youth support, although he doesn't know if that will translate into vote.

Although Hinman is pretty dismissive of the Mensah's concerns, today's pattern of declining youth voter turnout is a big problem for our political system for several reasons:

1. While Hinman is partially correct to suggest that there is a life-cycle effect on voting patterns, and that      young people have always voted at lower rates than older people, the divide has never been this large or fast growing. While before the life-cycle effect would disappear once a cohort moved into the next age group, we are now starting to see declining rates in the 25-30 and 30-35 ranges as well.

2. This is because lifelong voting habits are established at a young age. If a person votes in the first three elections they are eligible to vote for, they will likely vote in every election for the rest of their lives. While  before a young person might have missed their first or second election and then become engaged, we're now seeing entire generations just simply not starting to vote.

3. Less young voters means less young party members. As it stands right now,  less than 3% of     Canadians under the age of 25 are party members. Moreover, less than one in twenty people under the age of 30 report ever having been a party member, this compares with one out of three people over 60. As the median party member age creeps upward (right now it's in the mid-50s I believe), parties need to be concerned about how they are going to maintain even their current low levels of membership.

The combination of these trends, low party membership and decreasing voter turnout is a significant challenge to the health of Canada's democracy. The Canadian Westminster system is above all premised on the importance of party government. We cannot have a government without parties. So when so many people are turning away from party politics, the entire legitimacy of the system is called into question. Do we really have government by the people if only 55, 40, or 30 per cent of citizens vote? While others may be inclined to disagree, I for one think this a significant social challenge that needs to be addressed.

Apparently so does Stephen Harper and the federal conservatives, who have been funneling resources into publicity and funding for their campus clubs. Nefarious plot to convert them while they're young, or altruistic attempt to socialize young people back into party politics? I know where I stand, but at least, I'll give him kudos for diverting some resources and attention towards this problem. Hopefully, the other parties won't be left behind.

A comment with a life of its own...

Alright, so this post actually started as a comment in response to Scott Penny on the "1/2 of Alberta Votes 2008: A glimpse into another world" stream. However, since I obviously have a lot to say about PR and geographic representation I've decided to make it into a full blown post. Here goes....

Comment:

PR is a great system for urban centers. In Edmonton and Calgary, even Red Deer it doesn't make sense to fragment the city. At the provincial level there aren't too many distinct issues from one side of this or that avenue.

However much to your shock I am sure, Alberta does not consist solely of Calgary, Edmonton and sometimes Red Deer. There are vastly different issues in Ft. McMurray, Brooks, Peace River, Banff, Whitecourt or Drayton Valley.

To have PR work in sparsely populated areas you either need to have huge ridings or far more MLA's. To either I say no thank-you.

If something was proposed where urban area ridings were combined into some sort of PR system, I might be in favor of that depending on the details.

Response:

Scott Penny:

Allow me to address your arguments in a few points...

1. PR inhibits representation of unique geographical interests

There are actually several forms of proportional representation (PR). Among them: two types of list PR (open and closed), mixed member proportional (MMP), and single transferable vote (STV). It may come as a shock to you, but two of these systems (MMP and STV) are actually designed to maintain or maximize geographical representation. Under MMP, anywhere from 1/2 - 2/3 of seats would continue to be elected under FPTP, while the remaining 1/2 - 1/3 would be elected under PR. This makes constituencies slightly larger, however overall vote totals are still fairly proportional.

If you can't deal with the minor increase in the size of electorates, STV is your answer. STV electoral systems actually maintain the same ratio of constituents to representatives. This means that if one MLA represents 50 constituent under FPTP they will continue to represent 50 constituents under STV. By contrast under MMP, one MLA would see the size of her constituency grow to include up to double the number of voters (and more MLAs).

The Irish political system is considered to be a textbook case of STV in practice, and Irish members of the Dáil are well-known for their emphasis on local issues. In fact, strengthening the geographical links between voters and their representatives was one of the most important reasons why the BC Citizen's Assembly selected STV as it's prefered system.

In summary, the argument that PR necessarily inhibits geographical representation is incorrect.

2. That more MLAs is necessarily bad.

Why are you opposed to having more members elected to Alberta's legislature? I can only imagine that you come from the same neo-con camp that saw the passing of the 1996 "Fewer Politicans Act" in Ontario under Mike Harris. If you can get past the narrow ideological predisposition that more government=bad, there are really quite a few desirable results that stem from having larger legislative assemblies.

Canada's Westminister system is the least democratic of all the Westminister systems because it has the highest levels of party discipline/cohesion and the least experienced MPs. Both of these realities reinforce the concentration of power within the hands of party leaders (incidentally Canada's prime minister is regarded by observers as having the most relative power of all democratic first ministers/heads of state).

This derives in large part from the size of our legislatures. When there are more MLAs, politicians are forced to accept the fact that there is a good chance they will never become a cabinet minister (the ultimate goal for most Canadian representatives, currently). This awareness reduces the incentive for extreme loyalty to the party leader and in turn, facilitates a reduction of party discipline/cohesion. If geographic representation is your main concern, than this would be ideal for you.

Second, were most MLAs to realize that the backbench was the end of the line, we would see the establishment of so-called 'career MLAs.' These are people who invest a lot of time and effort into their roles on committees, in caucus, and above all in their constituencies. These MLAs are then in turn rewarded by their constituents for their hard work and build safe seats for themselves. This is a positive development for legislatures because it leads to much more experienced elected members.

By comparative standards, Canada has very small legislatures. For example, the UK (the mother of all Westministers) has 646 members. It's so many that not all of them can fit into the actual assembly at the same time. While New Zealand only has 120 members, they serve a population of only 4.2 million.

1/2 Alberta Votes 2008: A glimpse at another world

The graphs below illustrate what the Alberta political landscape would look like if we had a system of proportional representation, and what it actually looks like under the current first-past-the-post system.

(These graphs are based on results from the 2004 general election. They are from Fair Vote Canada's Alberta chapter, they have an excellent website on electoral reform in Alberta, you can find it here.)

If Alberta had a system of proportional representation (PR), politics in this province would look a lot different. The PCs would have had a minority government, and there would actually be a tangible opposition in the LA. Just think of all the vibrant debate, stimulation of ideas, and zeal to represent the needs of constituents this political picture would bring. Instead we have a culture of entitlement, where legislation drafted by the government is guaranteed to pass, no matter how much it contradicts the interests of ordinary Albertans (i.e. Bill 46). Where MLAs use the public purse like their own and where it costs thousands of dollars and months of trying to get basic information from the provincial government (information that you could have gotten from the federal government for $5 and a couple of weeks).

While electoral reform may seem far off, there is reason to have hope. In the past, Alberta actually had a system of proportional representation. In fact it wasn't until 1959 that our current system (first-past-the-post) was implemented. This change was pushed through by the Socreds without public debate and it was largely viewed as an act of self-interest.

Finally, in relation to electoral systems, the province will be redrawing the electoral boundaries after this election (as mandated by provincial law). Will this shift the balance of power to urban areas? Will we see any change? I'd be interested to hear peoples' views on this in comments!