How long before we see these pop up all across Alberta?

Ed Stelmach: Miss me yet?

An Alberta Sales Tax: The final nail.

Alberta Finance Minister Ron Liepert says it’s time to consider implementation of a new provincial sales tax.

Still think that there is anything even remotely conservative about Alberta's PCAA government?

Updated: Sun story: Sales tax cometh. 

Karl Heinz Schreiber's revenge!

Now: Lawyer says a government committee could be violating the Constitution if they force the CBC to turn over documents.

Then: The Liberal run ethics committee demanded that private citizens Karl Heinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney hand over personal private documents, including tax and bank records (both domestic and foreign) to the committee. Nothing was off limits, as it was the will of parliament. The committee also believed that they had the right to release that info, no matter how sensitive.

If these things could be demanded by a government committee of a private citizen, which if I remember correctly was cheered on by many at the CBC at the time, then there is no possible reason why the same could not be demanded of the CBC, a crown corporation owned and funded by the government.
 
Sorry CBC but when you claim to have more rights than a Canadian citizen, you lose.




Optional title: Those that defended the Liberal run ethics committee when they ran the Karl Heinz Schreiber / Brian Mulroney circus have the "will of Parliament" bite them on the ass.

Update: Video: Ezra on the hypocrisy of the CBC. Oh, and their 728 cars.

11/11/11 We Remember.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month an armistice was  signed to end the war to end all wars. 

Lt Col John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



We Remember.

The state of the Canadian news media.

Summed up in a single tweet.
 
Jane Taber:  "Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo on @ctvqp about XL pipeline with @KevinNewmanCTV! Good get"

Meanwhile, in boardrooms all across the land, network executives huddle and wonder why they are not only losing viewers/readers but also why they are rapidly losing credibility and the respect of the general public.


Related: Some interesting background on pipeline expert Mark Ruffalo.

And from CTV comes this description of a video:

"CTV's Question Period: Breakdown of pipeline: Despite the debate that the Keystone XL pipeline will create jobs, actors and regular citizens are coming together to fight the project saying it isn't needed." (Because actors are so much better than the rest of us)

Next week on CTV's Question Period: Lindsay Lohan talks peace in the Mideast and Kim Kardashian discusses her plan to solve the European debt crisis.

Hey look at me. The latest Liberal strategy.

It is hard to be the third party and even harder when you believe that you are 'the natural governing party' of Canada. A disinterested public doesn't really seem to care and the media all but ignore you in favour of covering the governing party and the official opposition.

So what do you do?

Easy; you stage some sort of event that will garner attention from the press and try to get some media time to yell look at me into the cameras so that you can appear relevant.

Not a bad idea in theory but it is important to pick the right issue and personally I don't believe that a uni-lingual AG is that issue. You know that this will eventually come back to bite them in the ass at some point in the future and I think that most Canadians would rather see these things awarded on merit rather than on fluency in both official languages, which makes the Liberals move appear self-serving.

However it appears that the Liberals do not share my thinking on this as earlier today under interim leader Bob Rae they staged their little attention grabbing walkout. While we don't know how well it will go over with the public, who seem to have issues when Liberals don't show up to work, according to Bob Rae the media bought into it big time.

Bob Rae: Well I think actually in this case it is more effective, your talking to me today so are many other reporters. (CTV video clip approx 4:30)

Update: Kelly McParland on how out of touch the Liberals are on this. 

Civil servant and Ignatieff donor walks away from his job.  (Pure coincidence that he uses the same lame tactic as the Liberals I assume.) Further update:  Dorais quit the committee to select a new AG after a new AG had been chosen and there is no longer a need for the committee.  Wow, what courage.

Your daily Redford Government screw up

Earlier this evening Infrastructure Minister Jeff Johnson (link now dead*) held a press conference where he announced that the proposed new Royal Alberta Museum in downtown Edmonton was indefinitely put on hold Wednesday after Ottawa pulled $92 million in funding.

Indeed breaking news but there are couple of small problems with what the Minister claimed: First the federal government only promised to commit 30 million to the RAM project, as can be seen here in this Alberta Government press release which reads: "The new museum is expected to cost a total of $340 million. Budget 2011 includes $180 million over the first three years for the project, which includes $30 million previously committed by the Government of Canada." and second, that 30 million dollar commitment has not been pulled. It still stands.

Another day, another screw up.


So what happened?

Paula Simons from the Edmonton Journal had these thoughts: It’s even possible, I suppose, that the Redford government, lacking, perhaps, in enthusiasm for Ed Stelmach’s legacy project, was looking for an excuse to mothball the project, and made federal funding a convenient scapegoat.

No doubt there will be lots more on this tomorrow.


* The dead link was from Alberta Premier Comms which stated that "Infrastructure Minister Danyluk" was holding the press conference even though Danyluk is not actually the Infrastructure Minister, Johnson is. I guess deleting tweets is just part of the change we can expect from this government.That and they don't even know who holds what portfolio within their own government. #fail

Well played Mr. Prime Minister. Well played.

Michael Den Tandt nails it with his latest in the Ottawa Citizen: "Harper proves his political marksmanship."

Here's the not-so-secret weapon underlying the Conservatives' incremental takeover of the mainstream of Canadian politics: they listen.
Not in Ottawa, where the Tories are hard of hearing to most voices but their own - but in the country proper. Through a combination of anecdotal reports from their MPs and relentless polling, the Conservatives appear to listen rather well, indeed.  Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Harper+proves+political+marksmanship/5606184/story.html#ixzz1bu6pyEBN

The base is happy. Very happy.

HT BC Blue.

After 40 years in power: This is business as usual in Alberta.

Hot on the heels of Friday's fiasco on transmission lines miscommunications comes news that certain energy firms in Alberta had the jump on everyone, including  PC cabinet ministers who had yet to the approve the deal, on an ethane incentive program worth $350-million.

From the Edmonton Journal: Energy companies learned of potentially lucrative changes to a $350-million incentive program before cabinet ministers approved it, documents obtained by the Alberta Liberals show.
Internal emails reveal that days before cabinet approved the program, aides to then-energy minister Ron Liepert were working with a Williams Energy lobbyist who was already preparing to announce the company's plan to take advantage of the incentives.
The records also show a former vice-president and lobbyist for Nova Chemicals helped redesign the program, aimed at boosting ethane production, which ultimately benefited his one-time employer.

 The timeline reveals a cozy relationship with the ministers office.
 
In an email dated March 17, Royer wrote to Liepert's executive assistant, Courtney Luimes: "As mentioned last week, Williams is preparing a draft ... for when the announcement is eventually made. You'll see there is a spot in there for a quote from the minister."


The request for a comment from the minister was passed to Liepert's communications director, Jay O'Neill, who is now communications director for Premier Alison Redford.


On March 21, one day before cabinet approved the changes, O'Neill drafted a quote and sent it to Luimes. Luimes responded: "He wants us to use this instead: 'I'm pleased to see that Williams is the first of what I believe will be many companies to benefit from the recent changes to our ethane policy.' " It is not clear from the exchange who "he" is.


The quote appears in the Williams news release, which also notes the company set aside money for the investment back in February - more than a month before the program was announced.

Call me old fashioned, but I like my governments to actually approve programs and the spending of $350-million before staff from a ministers office go around helping private business write their press releases by providing quotes from the minister.The rot is deep.

The documents used by the Journal for their story.

Is incompetent too strong a word?

Another day another flip flop or in this case a "miscommunication" from Alberta's ruling PC government.

Earlier today (approx 10:30am) it was announced a decision by the Alberta Utilities Commission on a controversial power line west of Sherwood Park is on hold after it received a letter from Energy Minister Ted Morton saying the the government was going to review the project. Link.

Big news, and rightly so as this seemed to be a complete reversal for the govt, and it swept across the news wires and twitter for most of the day. That is until Premier Redford announced 4 hours later (approx 2:30pm) that there was a "miscommunication" and that the AUC process on the Heartland transmission project will continue after all.

4 hours to correct a supposed 'miscommunication' on something this big that every major media org in the province was covering since it was announced? 

Something stinks, and it is not that it took 4 hrs to correct something that would have been done in minutes if it indeed had been just a simple miscommunication problem.

For the record here is Mortons letter to the AUC, written 2 days ago, that seems about as clear as it can be in what it says.


So far, and in spite of promises of change, we have had a broken promise on fixed election dates, a fall session which was cancelled one day then rescheduled the next and eventually shortened to 2 days next week and 6 days in November/December, the appointment of what looks more like a Gary Mar cabinet filed with good ol' boys, Gary Mar being appointed as Alberta's trade rep to Asia and being paid a salary greater than that of the premier, and a 'miscommunication' flip flop on power lines in just 4 hours. Meanwhile the smell of pork from 40 years of being in power still wafts through the air.



Is incompetent too strong a word to describe what is going on?

For what it's worth: The Government of Alberta still has this totally wrong information up on its website 1 full day after the heartland fiasco Friday.

Our Media: Move along. Nothing to see here.

 Update: It appears as though the government of Ontario lets anyone run licence plates for a fee. They don't give out address info ( the name and a phone book or google should do that easily enough) but the owners name is given out. As noted on the comments: They should call it the "stalker search" or better yet, the 'need to know the name of that hot blond' you saw driving the other day search.

And so with that I eat my words as there really is nothing to see here other than privacy laws that offer no privacy as long as the government gets their $18 bucks for the search.


Remember how Canadian media went nuts over the 'phone hacking' story that came from the UK?

Where are the multiple stories and live tweets over this?

From today's Toronto Star: "Leung would only give his first name, but the Star was able to find his full name by putting a trace on his licence plate."

"Over the past few weeks, the Star has tracked the makes and plates of dozens of cars in the neighbourhood."

The Star openly admits that it traced dozens of licence plates, which can only be done through Ontario Ministry of Transport computers, and we have almost complete silence from the Canadian media. I guess that phone hacking was much more important for our media to cover, and live tweet, than it is when a home grown media outfit like the Toronto Star uses private information protected under legislation and most likely illegally obtained through Ontario government sources. ( I can't see ANY way that it was done legally.)

If only there was some way to tie Rupert Murdoch to this; then I could guarantee you that our MSM would be all over it.

Update: My tweet to the author of the Star story Antonia Zerbisias:

. @AntoniaZ Who's your licence plate info source? Would be interesting to run some plates from around certain 'clinics'. #oops #cdnpoli

The Alberta PC's: Getting by with a little help from their friends.

With the PCAA being in power in Alberta for the last 40 years; is it any surprise that this type of crap routinely happens?

A top municipal official in St. Paul, Alta., used the city's email system to solicit votes during the Conservative leadership race in a bid to ensure a local MLA remained in cabinet, a CBC News investigation has found.
Ron Boisvert, the town's chief administrative officer, also helped organize a golf tournament in June to raise campaign funds for MLA Ray Danyluk. Boisvert participated in the tournament at the town's expense, along with the mayor and two councillors.

Another town (Cardston) gives the PCAA a sweetheart deal on a golf tournament.

(PDF)
Premier’s Golf Tournament:
Council discussed the request of Pat Shimbashi with the P.C. Party to have the Town of Cardston host their fund raising golf tournament in Cardston on September 15, 2009.Moved by Cou. Bengry to waive the green fees and cart fees for the P.C. Party GolfTournament on September 15, 2009.  Carried

Just business as usual in Quebec Alberta politics.

When nobody at the municipal or even at the provincial level see nothing wrong with this type of thing; it is seriously time for a change.

Update: More Municipal Councillors use taxpayer dollars to attend a PCAA fund raising golf tournament.
(PDF)
May 30, 2008 Battle River - Wainwright Progressive Conservative AssociationGolf Tournament is being held.632 /08 MOVED by Councilor Fossum THAT up to 4 Councilors be allowed to attend the Battle River - Wainwright Progressive Conservative Association golf tournament.

CBC video: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/Edmonton/1305516385/ID=2153249329

Alison Redford: Alberta's 14th Premier.

Early this morning Alison Redford was elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and will become Alberta's 14th Premier.

I know that this makes at least a couple of federal Liberal candidates very happy, along with an assortment of other loons, but considering the total number of PC party members who voted yesterday is down by a whopping 66,000 voters from the 2006 second ballot vote, I have to wonder how many longtime rank and file PC members are even happy with the result and the PCAA itself.  The funny thing with 'instamembers' is that once they have voted, they don't stick around to do the work needed (at all levels) for a party to be successful.

Congratulations on your win Alison, but considering the dwindling number of party faithful who voted and the fact that 48 PC MLAs endorsed Gary Mar believing that he was better to lead the party than you were, you do have your work cut out for you. ( But not as much as Raj Sherman, you have more Liberal support than he does.)

Gary Mar unrepentant on improper membership sales.

Gary Mar is above the rules, but he isn't doing it for himself, he is doing it for the good of democracy.

What a guy.

PCAA leadership candidate Gary Mar said his campaign volunteers did nothing wrong by selling party memberships within 50 metres of an Edmonton polling station. Adding that his supporters were only trying to help people who can't speak English. "Within the polling station, the advance polling station, you could buy a membership from the party," Mar said. "Except that there's no one at the party table that speaks three different dialects of Chinese."


So there you go. Even though selling memberships within 50 meters of a polling location is totally against PCAA rules, Gary doesn't care and claims that his volunteers did nothing wrong. Rules and ethics are for others I guess (which might just explain how this happened back in 2001-2004 while Mar was the Minister of Health)  

When he entered the race for leader Mar signed an agreement with the PCAA to follow the rules of the leadership contest, not just the rules he liked or agreed with, but all of the rules. I guess a signature on an agreement doesn't mean as much as it used to.(ud)

Honestly, is this the type of person that you want to lead our province? If this type of stuff happens during a leadership campaign can you imagine how a Mar led government would operate.

Pathetic.

On the bright side at least no volunteers were blamed or scapegoated today; although campaign spokesman Mark Kastner might not feel that way as it was yesterday when Kastner blamed the improper membership sales on "overzealous supporters" only to have his boss say today that nothing was wrong with those very same sales. Ouch.

Update: A scrutineer from the advanced vote says that she "spoke with at least 3 volunteers who were acting as interpreters and always available."

Why does this not surprise me.

Another bad day for Team Gary Mar.

"If you can't run the campaign with integrity, then how can you promise integrity after?" PCAA leadership candidate Doug Griffiths.

Yesterday was advanced voting day for the PCAA leadership race here in Alberta, and as it turns out, it was also another bad day for team Gary Mar.



Representatives from Gary Mar's leadership campaign were seen breaking party rules Tuesday by selling Progressive Conservative memberships outside an Edmonton advance polling station.
Mar membership sellers were also shooed away from the Calgary polling station on Tuesday.

Team Mar's response, which seems to be the norm of late, was to blame volunteers: "Mar campaign spokesman Mark Kastner blamed the membership sales on "overzealous supporters"

You might think that after the free membership fiasco where Team Mar also laid blame on a hapless volunteer that they would have tried to be a bit more careful and made sure that ALL of their people were properly trained and following the rules to the letter. But after yesterday it appears that neither of these were that high on their priority list, making me wonder how this bunch would ever run a government if they can't even properly train their volunteers in a leadership campaign on the basic rules.


Team Mar wasn't done yet as they went old school by busing in elderly supporters to the advanced poll. (Something that I oddly happened to write about yesterday morning. See 2nd last paragraph)

Gary Mar bus parked within 50 meters of polling place.    Photo Credit: P. Pilarski 

Now busing in supporters is not against the rules per se as Team Mar were quick to point out: Mar campaign spokesman Mark Kastner said the busing is allowed under party rules, and Gary Mar said "I'm not going to apologize because we are better organized than other campaigns", but it is definitely bad optics and reeks of good ol' boy politics that have turned so many away from politics in the past.

How Team Mar managed to find 100's of elderly supporters in both Edmonton and Calgary who all just happened to not be able to vote in the regular poll this coming Saturday (rules state the voters must sign a form saying that they are unable to vote in the regular polls to be able to vote in the advance poll) remains a mystery, but being the ethical bunch they are I am sure that there is a very logical explanation for this mathematical odds defying event.

More on Team Mar's bad day can be found here at Global Edmonton.


"I'm disappointed to hear this today because that sort of conduct, I think, speaks to a pretty cynical approach to politics," PCAA leadership candidate Alison Redford.

Free memberships and the PCAA. The real elephant in the room.

My first post on Team Mar giving away free memberships can be read here.  My second post which contains an audio clip of a volunteer stating "a donor is paying for student memberships" can be found here.

Both of those posts caused quite a stir and I must admit that it was entertaining watching Team Mar try to spin their way out of a 'problem', although having myself accused of fabricating the entire thing or being a partisan hack was not, but here is the rub; there are absolutely NO rules ( according to the PCAA who I called to clarify before Fridays blog post and now also verified by the Edmonton Sun) as to anyone, including the candidates, buying or paying for the memberships of others!

Yes it is true. Giving away 'free memberships' breaks absolutely no rules what so ever within the PCAA and if a donor paying for student memberships the PCAA has no problem what so ever with them doing so as long as they get their 5 bucks. Honestly I was shocked to hear this, as I am sure most of you are as well, and that is why I never wrote or made the accusation that Team Mar was breaking the rules as some have claimed, because the sad reality is that they had not.

It makes more sense now as to why my emails to some of the other candidates campaigns on this subject went unanswered. It makes you wonder just how wide spread a practice this is. ( BTW: For the record only the Doug Griffiths campaign responded to my questions and condemned the practice)

The reasons that this practice is wrong are numerous. First off the optics are terrible. Not only does it lead people to believe that the entire process is corrupt, it brings back visions of the 'old days' when some good ol' boys would load up buses with people they found on the street, handing them $5 to buy a membership to vote for their guy.  More serious than the optics is the very real possibility of someone just buying the leadership (and the Premiers office!). In theory with 250k of donated money someone could buy 50,000 memberships and pass them out to people, and 50,000 votes would have been more than enough to win the PCAA leadership on the first ballot in 2006. Sure it would not be an easy task to do for the average candidate but what about if that candidate had the backing of a large union/s (for example) where finding 50,000 people might not be that difficult of a task. The PCAA, and the Premiers job could be bought for a relatively small amount of cash and NOBODY could stop them!

This type of crap is not allowed in the Conservative Party at the federal level for good reason and looking towards Alberta, the Wildrose Alliance Party's constitution is very clear on this:

3.1.2 indicate their intention to join the Party by personally authorizing an application for membership in the Party...
3.2.1 have paid the prescribed membership fee, personally or through an immediate family member;  (PDF)

So why is it allowed in the PCAA?

You know this entire thing stinks; it is absolute nonsense on so many levels but it is something that I have come to expect as of late from the PCAA. Antiquated rules for an antiquated party.

What happens now?

I guess the candidates have a couple of options. Call out this unethical practice for what it is and promise to make changes to the rules so this embarrassment never happens again, or go grab the cheque book, pass out memberships, and rent the buses for Saturday.

Now that the elephant in the room has been revealed and everyone now knows that paying for memberships is not against the rules, your guess is as good as mine as to what will happen.

Team Mar volunteer: " ...a donor is paying for student memberships"

We get letters (and emails), lot and lots of letters...  And look what showed up in one of them.

  " a donor is paying for student memberships"      

Spin that.

Audio clip taken from a video taken Sept 7, 2011 at that very same Gary Mar table at the U of A where this picture was taken.  I decided to use audio only and not full video because the identity of this hard working volunteer is not important and I am not here to toss her under a bus. Team Mar seems to be doing a good enough job of that already.


Background: Last Friday I posted a picture of the Team Gary Mar table at the University of Alberta where it was quite obvious that they were giving away free memberships.

The response was quick from Mar spinners and supporters: "Complete fabrication guys." was the first, but seeing that the free membership sign was so prominently displayed in the photo, that line was going to go nowhere. Next up came what would become the main spin from Team Mar: "it was a mistake by a volunteer, nobody was instructed to do this. Problem was corrected right away."  Which was to be repeated, almost word for word many more times throughout the day. They were in the 'nothing to see here' mode and were only too happy to blame one poor volunteer ( there were at least 3 volunteers there, all of which could see the sign on the table and NONE doing anything about it )  hoping it would all go away. Honestly I have lost more respect for Team Mar over how they tried to spin their way out than I did about some 'free memberships' that were given out.


So what do you think?

An improperly trained volunteer, who knew enough about the memberships to say that they normally cost $5, who on the spur of the moment just happened to come up with this 'donor paying for student memberships' idea on her own, or perhaps is there is more to the story than what Team Mar is telling us? Personally I think that there is more to the story*, but given what we have already seen from Team Mar, I don't expect that we will really ever find out the full story and all I expect to see is more spin and damage control.


As I said in my original post: I guess ethics left the PCAA a long time ago.




*There may indeed be much more to the story but in the end it really doesn't matter; which is the real elephant in the room that nobody is yet talking about.

More on that elephant tomorrow.  (BTW and it isn't the 'donor'.)

UPDATE: More spin from Team Mar: 'campaign advisor Mark Kastner said the incident was a mistake.
“A new volunteer did put the sign down. It was corrected quickly and we don’t think any memberships were given away,” said Kastner in an email.'   To put it simply, BS!  Memberships WERE given away and in case there is doubt about this, there is a certain video...

Team Gary Mar gets caught giving away party memberships.

Can it really get any more blatant than this?  The following photo was taken September 7th on campus at the University of Alberta. In it you can clearly see members of Team Gary Mar openly offering anyone willing to fill out the paperwork a 'Free membership' in the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta; allowing them the opportunity to cast a vote for the next leader of the PCAA who will also be the next Premier of the Province of Alberta.

Now just get that demon dialer set up, give away* 20,000 memberships, and hope those free membership members all show up and vote.

*Not really a give away. Each membership does cost $5 and that must be paid to the PCAA, but all you need is just 1 big fat $100,000 donation to buy it pay for it and you get a great shot at the Premiers Office and all that goes with the job of leading the Province of Alberta.


A bargain at twice the price!


I guess ethics left the PCAA a long time ago.


Update Sept 10: Major update coming soon! Monday morning. 
  
And here is that update in a new post.

Incompetence at Edmonton City Hall.

It seems that the City Manager and the Transportation Department jumped the gun by not only ordering the new seasonal parking ban signs but by having city crews install them before City Council had made the decision to do so.

I wonder how many dollars that move will cost us?

Update: Councilor Bryan Anderson said it could be a waste of $600,000. If that number is accurate, transportation boss Bob Boutilier must be fired immediately and to use Boutilier's own words: "All I can say is, 'tough! I got no other way of saying it..." you cost the taxpayer $600,000, and you did so without the approval of the elected representatives of the citizens of Edmonton; you have to go. This is an embarrassment.


City Council has yet to make a final decision on the matter but according to news reports (and Councilor Don Iveson), as of right now the seasonal ban is on hold and all of those expensive installed signs are to be ignored.

Like a runaway train. Team Libby can't be stopped.

Okay; it may be a solar powered train at dusk but there is no denying that the ranks of Team Libby are growing!



Come join us won't you. You will be glad that you did.*






*Jack would have wanted it that way.