Hey, federal political parties - this is how it's done.

In three days Albertans go to the polls. Here's how that's looking as of yesterday according to 308 :

May 5 Update : 308 has updated Vote and Seat Projections - now even higher for NDP.
    and the results :

As part of his election platform, Calgary-Klein Green Party candidate Noel Keough made a great case for raising corporate taxes in Alberta - the lowest in the country - by just 2% in order to raise $12-billion annually for Alberta's decimated public coffers : 



An environmental design prof at the University of Calgary, he also put forward solid policy on fossil fuels and advocates a PropRep voting system replacing first-past-the post - the better to more fairly represent Albertans.

But then he looked at the very close polling for his riding, and at an all-candidates debate in Calgary two days ago, Keough announced his decision to step out of the race and support his NDP rival rather than split the vote. Notable that he referred to this decision as a party decision. Keough : [bold:mine]

"So, with a heavy heart, but a firm conviction in my decision I am stepping out of the race immediately and putting my full support behind the New Democratic Party and their candidate Craig Coolihan. The policies of the NDP are not in perfect alignment with The Green Party but they are the most closely aligned. A win for the NDP in Calgary-Klein will advance Green principles and will make Alberta a better place to live."

Putting your constituency and province ahead of the party system - what a novel idea.
People have said the Greens couldn't have won the seat anyway. Not the point. Keough did the one thing he could within his power to help voters avoid splitting the vote by trying to guess how they should vote strategically.

Well, federal NDP, Libs, and Greens? We're waiting for a sign you plan to follow Keough's example here.

As Canadian Cynic observed : "forget strategic voting, here's strategic candidacy."

As for the rest of us, support for Prop Rep should be the line-in-the-sand litmus test for whether we support a local candidate.  Between election fraud and the Stephen Harper the Economist's disastrously incompetent corporate-driven fiscal policies, we just can't afford another unrestrained and poisonous first-past-the-post 24% minority misrule. 

FairVoteCanada is soliciting citizens in all ridings across Canada to get local candidates of all parties to sign a pledge to support PropRep so we'll know who we can afford to vote for before the next election. Go. Sign up to do it.

Meanwhile, a Globe and Mail editorial from the very paper which has endorsed Harper in every election since 2006 is now shilling for Prentice : For Alberta, Jim Prentice is the best choice.

I only mention this entirely unsurprising endorsement so you can enjoy the thorough shellacking they get for it in comments.

The Edmonton Journal editorial: 
In this election, we are picking a CEO for the province makes the same mistake and gets a similar shellacking.

And then there's the threat from five CEOs in the Edmonton Sun : Corporate business leaders warn of risks to Alberta NDP government : "We won't make donations to charities."
Think the commenters under that threat aren't pissed?

"In response, NDP leader Rachel Notley pointed out the donations of the five businessmen to the PCs in the past five years have topped $86,000 collectively."

ObligaTory shot of then Minister Jim Prentice with PMO fraudster and "special adviser to Minister Prentice" Bruce Carson above.

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Alberta : Freedom To Create Morons

Creationism seems to have made some legal inroads into Alberta.

CBC : Evolution classes optional under proposed Alberta law

"A controversial Alberta bill will enshrine into law the rights of parents to pull their children out of classes discussing the topics of evolution and homosexuality.

The new rules, which would require schools to notify parents in advance of "subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation," is buried in a bill that extends human rights to homosexuals.
Parents can ask for their child to be excluded from the discussion."

So what has evolution got to do with religion? you might reasonably ask, a mere month after Con MP Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, muddled them up himself.

"Stelmach has confirmed the bill will give parents the authority to exclude their kids from classes if the topic of evolution comes up."

A bill which deals with "religion, sexuality, or sexual orientation" does that?

In honour of Alberta's bid to officially become Texas North by giving parents the right to raise its children to become morons, the controversial Alberta tourism ad showing children on a Northumberland beach next to the slogan "Alberta : Freedom to Create Spirit to Achieve" has been amended above accordingly.
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SPP and nukes in the tarsands : "a marriage made in heaven"

In 1957 the US Atomic Energy Commission was looking for peaceful uses for nuclear bombs. They began to explore the possibilities of using them in engineering projects and in '58 Project Ploughshares was announced to the world by Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. According to historian Dr. Michael Payne, "the cabinet of Alberta Premier Ernest Manning seriously considered allowing the underground detonation of a 9 kilotonne atomic bomb at Cheechum Crossing in northern Alberta in an experiment to determine if nuclear power might help remove oil from the oilsands."

They don't give up easy, do they?

On Friday the Alberta and US governments signed an agreement to jointly research the use of atomic power for oilsands development. The Alberta Research Council and the U.S. Energy Department’s main nuclear laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, announced they will collaborate on "the potential application of current and future nuclear energy technology".

But what I found illuminating was how differently the "partners" chose to announce it :

Mel Knight, Alberta’s Minister of Energy :
"Meeting our province’s electricity demands both now and in the future begins with reliable and clear information on all of the available energy options,” said Mel Knight, Alberta’s minister of energy. “We welcome collaborations such as the one announced between the Alberta Research Council and Idaho National Laboratories to provide the solid analysis and research on the options available to address Alberta’s unique needs."

So this is for Alberta's electricity demands, Alberta's "unique needs" then?
According to INL - not so much...

INL : "This is a marriage made in heaven," said Idaho laboratory associate director Bill Rogers.
Although no budget for the collaboration was announced, he said potentially all his operation’s 3,800 scientists can be drafted into the Alberta project. “The U.S. is dependent on Alberta for energy security,” Rogers said, pointing to the province’s "essential" role as the biggest source of increasing American oil and natural gas imports."

Not that we haven't had, you know, inklings :
Bruce Power buys assets of Energy Alberta Corp. in bid to build nuclear plant

Alberta doesn't yet have a written nuclear policy, according to Premier Stelmach .
I'm betting the US Energy Department can help them with that.

Non-proportional representation, Alberta -style

52.69% of the total vote gave the Cons 73 seats,
while 26.31% of everyone who voted garnered the Libs only 8 seats, and the NDP pulled 2 seats with 8.53%.

So half the vote equals 88% of the seats!

Then after factoring in Liberal Catnip's report on voter turnout -
Urban ~ 43% and Rural ~ 39%, it's really more like
21% of all eligible voters elected 88% of the seats.

And it looks like this :



I imagine Idealistic Pragmatist will have something to say about this.

Tuesday Update : Kuri at Thought Interrupted made us all pie!
Ok, Kuri actually made us pie charts, but they're really really good pie charts which include the vast all-powerful Alberta non-voting bloc.
Go see.

Steve and Sandra Get It Right, Alberta!

Reuters : "International oil producers will flee Alberta if the Western Canadian province's government implements a proposed hike to oil and natural gas royalties and taxes, according to Tristone Capital Inc, an investment bank that serves the oil and gas industry."

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA

Say, what ever did happen to PetroCanada, the peoples' oil and gas company?

1975 : "Trudeau wanted Canada to be less dependent on the United States. He lobbied for increased Canadian ownership and protection of the country's resources. Creating Petro-Canada in 1975 was part of that plan. The Crown-owned company would develop and control Canada's presence in the energy sector."

1991 - Mulroney begins process to privatize Petro-Canada

Oh yeah, right.

Reuters quote from Eugene : Alberta needs a Chavez

Daveberta does a link round-up.

Previous post on getitrightaberta.ca below

getitrightorelsealberta.ca

That's : GetItRightOrElseAlberta.ca

From Daveberta :
"Over the past week, a new website has popped up - getitrightalberta.ca - calling for Alberta's Tory Government to keep the resource royalty structure the way it is - even after the damning Alberta Royalty Review Report and Auditor General's Report slammed Ed Stelmach's Tory Government for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years."

Daveberta looked into who is behind getitrightalberta.ca and came up with Hill and Knowlton.
The H&K Calgary office, Dave informs us, is "led by none-other than Mr. Ken Boessenkool, a member of the infamous firewall six and former adviser to Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper."
Pretty slick site for a grass roots effort -
Get It Right Alberta! About this site :

"Concerned Albertans, including private citizens, small oil and gas companies and members of the investment community, have come together to launch this website."

You're shitting me! No big oil and gas companies? No uncollected royalty money going towards this endeavor?
You mean this little grass roots effort can afford Hill and Knowlton all on its own?

Among the petitions and letters you can send to the editor or your MLA begging them to hold off on collecting those BILLIONS in resource revenues that are owned by the people of Alberta and not the oil companies, is a vid clip of Jim McCormick being interviewed on a TV breakfast program. McCormick is able to evade the interviewer's questions as to who is actually backing Get It Right Alberta but does offer this valuable insight :

"I don't believe that any society has ever taxed itself into prosperity."

Really? What exactly is your model for no-tax prosperity here, Jim? Chad? Nigeria?

The website manages to maintain a fairly neutral tone in its quest to convince Albertans they really don't want the money that they should have already received.
The endorsement from the Alberta Alliance party? Not so much :

"..catastrophic consequences for all Albertans
To suggest that costs can be controlled by good management in a booming economy is an absolute lack of understanding of the current state of the oil and gas industry.
To scare away additional capital could result in layoffs tenfold higher than currently being experienced.
The Alliance Party suggests that we should be what Albertans want us to be and that is deal-keepers.
Albertans want Alberta to be known as trustworthy.

The key is to not kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs for Albertans."

I would respectfully suggest that "the key" here is to avoid having your head so far up the goose's ass that you are mistaken for paté foie gras.

As unlikely as it sounds, if their past track record is anything to go on, H&K could very well prove successful in their bid to convince Albertans that they don't want their own money.

Previously Hill and Knowlton sold the American people on the first Gulf War using imaginary babies being thrown out of imaginary incubators.
Remember Nayirah, the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family who was coached by Hill and Knowlton to pose for the cameras as the poor traumatized hospital volunteer who witnessed the baby-throwing and whose life was now consequently in danger?

Grass roots "advocacy" at its finest. Only the oil was real. The oil is always what is real.

H/T Holly Stick for the links.
Previous post on recent Alberta fiascos here.

Alberta : Treading water at a fire sale

50,000 dollars a year on gifts of golfballs and fridge magnets?
A part-time constituency aide who earned $18,000 a year but received a bonus of $21,500?

Gosh, that sounds familiar, but this time it's the Alberta Con Adscam.

Rusty Idols and Calgary Grit have posts up about the veritable cavalcade of government scandals in Alberta, topped off by yesterday's release of Alberta Auditor General Fred Dunn's annual report :

"The report, released Monday, paints a damning picture of lax accounting and accountability in the province's energy ministry, years before the release of a royalty review panel report last month that concluded Albertans are not getting their "fair share" from oil and gas development, and should be
collecting another $2 billion annually in royalties.
"The principles of transparency and accountability, I believe, were not followed," Dunn said. "I'm
not impressed."
Dunn said the province has had all the information it needed to harvest another $1 billion in royalties for years without harming the oil industry, but kept that information to itself.
Meanwhile, the report also said the provincial government's poor planning has left it with a maintenance backlog of roughly $6.1 billion, raising the prospect of unsafe roads and public buildings if the problem isn't addressed."

Not to mention the little matter of the gifts and bonuses.
Go read Rusty Idols and Calgary Grit - they actually live there.

Then contrast their posts with the Parkland Institute/AFL Conference from this past weekend : Treading Water: Workers, Wages and the Boom :
From Canadian Business Online:

"Corporations are benefiting from the boom : In current dollars, Alberta corporate profits rose from $12 billion in 1998 to $54 billion in 2006.
Average Albertans are not benefiting from the boom : The average hourly wage in Alberta in 2006 was $19.30. In 2001 it was $19.37. Wages in construction dropped two dollars per hour.
Alberta has become the province with the highest percentage of employed clients visiting food banks."

All so a few Cons and carpetbaggers can make money selling off Alberta crude at firesale prices .
Meanwhile : Why Canada has no mandaTory GHG caps.