Category Archives: Free Speech

Calgary’s Petulant Purple Peacock is pouting.

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Naheed Nenshi and peacock

Last week Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi took great umbrage when Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Doug Griffiths implied that with an election looming that Nenshi would be prone to puffing up like a peacock on issues. It appears that Griffiths’ statement was quite prophetic as Mayor Nenshi is indeed puffed up and posturing at the Calgary Home Builders Association in what can really only be considered a temper tantrum on the part of the Mayor.

Naheed Nenshi took Calgary’s mayoral throne in the 2010 municipal elections thanks to a vote-split by the center-right and an impressive galvanization of the normally electorally apathetic hipster population of Calgary. Nenshi has since enjoyed something of a love-in from national left-leaning media outlets such as the CBC and Toronto Star since then but the realities of his role as the mayor of a major city are beginning to cut through the limelight for Nenshi and they are clearly getting on his nerves.

The thin veneer of Nenshi’s support of free enterprise and citizen choice really faded away when notable planning extremist; Rollin Stanley was sought and hired to pursue an extremely questionable and ideologically driven obsession with increasing city density in Calgary despite the wishes of citizens who are increasingly moving out to the suburbs. Taxpayers have already seen the cost as settlements have been paid to planners displaced by the new density driven specialists.

Nenshi is now discovering that despite his density agenda, citizens and businesses are simply moving to the suburbs or even out of the city to escape the urban congestion of his creation. Nenshi wants to increase taxation powers, set up a charter and drag neighboring municipalities into His municipal fifedom. Finding himself halted by provincially elected officials, mobile citizens and those developers that Nenshi so clearly despises, Mayor Nenshi is now beginning to lash out in a way that can only be described as childish.

Nenshi has called new developments “crap” and has been unapologetic in using city bureaucracy to hinder legitimate city expansion that does not fall within his personal utopian visions. When developers dared to speak up and address this at a dinner, Nenshi went off the handle and is now trying to ban developers from city planning activity.

The tone and condescending arrogance in the letter sent from Nenshi’s office to Calgary developers is simply stunning. From the Sun:

The letter demands “a written apology, satisfactory to our office, be sent to each of your members” and posted on its website, the CHBA must also acknowledge they have been an active and supportive participant in City initiatives and they must “commit to working with the City and other industry partners in a constructive and
respectful manner.”

Honestly Nenshi just who the hell do you think you are? You differ with the views expressed at a dinner and pull this sort of stunt? These are Calgary business leaders who represent the interests of the hundreds of thousands of Calgarians who have utterly no interest in living in your crowded downtown dream. As other Councilors are pointing out, you probably don’t even have the authority to ban these important people from city committees anyway.

Nenshi had better learn quickly that not everybody shares his vision and business indeed does have the right to vocalize that view. While it is unlikely that Nenshi will be unseated in this fall’s election, he still indeed is only one vote on council and may find himself regularly defeated in votes if he does not lose this growing thin-skinned Messiah complex.

The Mayor is supposed to bring leadership and vision to City Hall. Right now all we are seeing is petulant arrogance and an antagonistic approach to Calgary business leaders and provincial Ministers. This is not going to lead to any kind of “smart growth” and I do hope our Mayor smartens up and grows up himself soon.

Appeasement no more!

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It seems lately that we can hardly make it a week without seeing some illegal protesters costing taxpayers and workers untold dollars due to the growing Canadian cowardice in handling them. This week, we are watching the ongoing illegal blockade of a road to a DeBeers mine in Northern Ontario by some members of the grossly dysfunctional and likely totally corrupted Attawapiskat native band.  

Never mind that the road being blockaded does not even enter the Attawapiskat reserve. Never mind that DeBeers has hired hundreds of members of the Attawapiskat reserve over the years. Never mind the many many millions of dollars that DeBeers has paid to Attawapiskat in good faith to operate 90 kilometers away from the reserve. Never mind the free housing DeBeers donated to the reserve (which they trashed). A handful of natives feel that they have not extorted enough from a legitimate enterprise and dammit they are determined to block a road to the mine until they get more money for having drawn oxygen within extortion range of the enterprise!

With this clearly illegal extortion effort happening, what have we seen in response from Canadian authorities? Sadly and predictably pretty much nothing. After weeks of this a Sheriff has been flown out to present the illegal blockaders with a piece of paper which they promptly disposed of. In the meantime, untold dollars are being lost by a legitimate company. Authorities are essentially in collusion with the extortionists in their hopes that DeBeers will simply pay them off before any real law enforcement is required and will hide behind paper and sit on their cowardly hands in hopes that this becomes somebody else’s problem.

Few things make the collective testicles of authorities shrivel faster in all Canadian jurisdictions than having to deal with protesters. The knackers of officials suck totally into their figurative abdomens when it turns out that the protesters are natives.

Years of cowardly appeasement have put segments of people above the law as long as they are claiming to be protesting something. Never mind that there is no Charter right to illegal demonstrations. How many times do we need to cave to parasitic lawyers and waste the court’s time (and our money) to prove this? Does a police officer need to get an injunction for you or me should we say block the door to a 7-11? Of course not.

Despite what should be an almost self-evident reality in the limitations of legal demonstration, authorities use this fictional charter right to dodge doing their job and protesters and extortionists have figured this out quickly.

Let’s look at things from a protester’s point of view for a moment. Greenpeace is huge multinational corporation with tens of millions of dollars to spend annually. Despite that monstrous budget, Greenpeace would rather keep it’s professional fundraisers and protesters employed (not to mention highly paid management) than blow money on expensive advertising campaigns. At an economic summit in Calgary a couple weeks ago, for the price of a poorly made banner and a couple idiots holding it, Greenpeace managed to get free advertising throughout Canadian media as they illegally trespassed and disrupted a legitimate meeting. No charges were laid on the banner holders and they were escorted out at a cost to the local security and loss of the valuable time of legitimate meeting participants and viewers. At that cost, Greenpeace has been virtually invited to act illegally!

Why is it so hard to simply charge these people? Why so tough to issue fines?

Of course when somebody asks that the law be enforced on illegal protesters, some vapid clown will almost inevitably say: “Oh so you want police to just jump on in there and bust some heads!”.  No you figurative wanker! Heads need not be busted and nobody is proposing such.

In the fall of 2011, I set out to demonstrate the double standards of law enforcement when it comes to protesters when our callow authorities refused to remove illegal squatters from Calgary’s Olympic Plaza. As expected, I as a law abiding taxpayer was charged within hours of breaking the very bylaws that the illegal squatters were. Along with demonstrating the legal double standard though, I also (admittedly unintentionally) demonstrated how rationed law enforcement works.

Upon noticing that I was parked in such a way as to violate local bylaws, I was approached by bylaw officers and asked to move. No billyclubs, no teargas and no initial charges. I was simply and politely asked to move. I politely replied that I was not moving as I was exercising my right to express myself and like the squatters around me, I was above the law. The bylaw officers then called the police who arrived and politely asked me to move. I explained my position again and politely told them to pound sand. After much headscratching and many phone calls, the Calgary police decided to charge me with bylaw violation and to tow my truck. I was told of this and asked to leave my truck so that it may be towed. I asked what would happen if I refused to leave my truck. I was told that I would be forcefully removed and charged with criminal obstruction. At this point I decided I had made my point and left my truck voluntarily. Below one can see the collection of fines I acquired as my truck was towed away. Well worth a few bucks to make the point though.

tickets

 

Now was that all so hard? Did they have to beat my head? Did it cause a riot? There is utterly no reason that the same process can’t be used on other illegal activities.

As the “Idle No More” thing fell apart, their demonstrators felt they would hold one more earth shattering “day of action” last January. Roads from four directions were to be choked in Calgary during rush hour as masses of demonstrators illegally marched down them.

The reality was quite pathetic. Rather than thousands, the protesters numbered at best in the dozens. Police took the event very seriously (as they should) and had as many officers (if not more) on the ground as there were protesters along with a helicopter. Now with the dismal turnout, the protesters essentially narrowed their scope to coming from one direction rather than four and came up Macleod Trail.

As they numbered only in a few dozen, these demonstrators could very easily have simply walked along the sidewalk and made their point. Alas no, Calgary Police “negotiated” with them and not only allowed the illegal and un-permitted disruption of traffic in Calgary but facilitated it by blocking cars as can be seen below.

cowards

How much did it cost to appease this handful of directionless malcontents? How hard would it have been to simply tell them to stay on the damn sidewalk? This mess was brought about because cowardly authorities had let a handful of them block a bridge in the city only weeks earlier. Appeasement only leads to more lawbreaking.

The collective temper tantrum of Quebec students cost us $90,000,000 as taxpayers as authorities hid and kept trying to negotiate and appease this group of spoiled brats for months. The “occupy” joke caused likely millions of dollars in damages to parks across the country when combined along with millions in law enforcement costs.

Aside from the monetary costs, lets look at the resources. Personally, I would rather see police officers chasing down pedophiles or drunk drivers rather than babysitting screaming hipsters and whining natives. Our law enforcement resources are finite. When we dedicate time and people to these protesters, we lose law enforcement in other areas.

The tantrums and protests are getting more frequent and more destructive as while most of the participants are indeed idiots, they do understand that they can reap havoc with impunity in Canada. When will we hit a breaking point here? When will citizens staple some figurative cajones upon their elected officials and demand that our laws be enforced? I do think it will happen eventually, but can’t happen soon enough.

Appeasement is a policy of cowardice and failure. It has to stop.

Calgary police can’t claim to be surprised this time.

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Below is the event information for the “Idle No More” protest planned for Monday January 28.

It does appear that the times have changed and rush hour disruption may be avoided

 

From the South: March northbound on Macleod Trail (meet at Stampede parking lot) 1 pm

From the West: March eastbound on 9 ave (meet at Shaw Millenium park) 1 pm

From the North: March southbound on Centre st. (meet at top of centre st. park hill) 12:30 pm

From the East: March westbound on 9 ave (meet at the Deane House in Inglewood) 1pm

March will be lead by flags from the four directions, with drummers leading the way.

All will converge upon Olympic Plaza for 2pm

Yes, you read that right. Protesters plan to come down streets from all four directions as rush hour begins warming up and converge on Olympic Plaza on a weekday.

The event details can be found here.

Now it is getting clear that the attempted appeasement by Calgary Police on January 16th in allowing protesters to illegally close Calgary’s 14th Street bridge until late into the night was an utter and unsurprising failure. Appeasing lawbreakers simply emboldens them to go farther and now we see how they plan to do it.

 

The two white fellas pictured above during the illegal closure of the bridge were prime characters in last year’s “occupy” fiasco by the way.

 

It will not just be a weekend blocking of a bridge this time. This is a group of people who plan to march from all directions towards the center of our city during a peak period in a working day.

Now I have to ask, do these people have a permit to parade on these routes? If they do, I have some serious questions as to why they would have been issued at such a busy time. If they do not, then I expect that fines and possible arrests should happen almost as soon as traffic is disrupted no?

Maybe these people will be staying on the sidewalks. OK fine. We know though that they will not stick to the sidewalk. Their intent is to harass and annoy working Calgarians. They will not achieve that if they stay on the walks. Will tickets be issued and people moved from the roads should they deviate?

Waiting until these fools go away won’t work. People tried the old canard: “if you ignore them, they will go away” for months as people illegally squatted in Olympic Plaza in Calgary. It was not until an injunction was filed and finally real law enforcement began that Calgary got her park back (damaged to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars).

Make no mistake, the prime movers of this “Idle No More” thing are the same clowns who pulled the “occupy” thing last year. Below is them with a banner they giddily prepared last weekend in preparation for next week’s event.

There is no need to try and hide behind a false Charter right for people to break the law while expressing themselves. We wasted enough court time proving that such a right does not exist with “occupy” and the injunctions served across the country. The provision of the Charter below makes it pretty clear:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Keeping people from blocking vital infrastructure and trade is a reasonable limit. People may legally demonstrate all they like as long as they do not impede upon others. So far “Idle No More” appears not to be interested in remaining legal and precedence has been set allowing them to break the law already unfortunately.

I very much expect Calgary’s Police Service to ensure that all laws are followed next week.

Otherwise citizens of Calgary may feel compelled to take things in hand ensure our laws are abided by. That would be a shame considering how much we spend on law enforcement.

 

Video captures the true essence of “Idle No More”

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Yesterday around a hundred hipsters and other assorted union-paid layabouts decided to march to the Sun Media building in Toronto to protest against free press in Canada. This unvarnished ten minute video really does show the “Idle No More” clearly for what it is from the gross idiocy, to the intimidation attempts on Ezra Levant as he tried unsuccessfully to get simple questions asked to the fact that natives among the group are actually a tiny minority.

“Idle No More” hasn’t been a native rights group almost since it’s inception. Many media outlets love showcasing the handful of actual natives at the front of demonstrations while neglecting to film the collection of white, urban-dwelling hipsters making up the bulk of the demonstration in the back rows. These union backed idiots with their baseless cause and vapid accusations are the same fools we had to kick out of Canadian parks at great expense last year. Now they are just hiding behind a few natives.

Don’t just take my word for it though, watch the video below and see for yourself.

 

At the 8:40 mark watch as a person almost criminally tries to physically intimidate Levant causing police to intervene and move Levant aside. At the 10:00 mark watch the gross and blatant anti-Semitism erupt from a nut. Watching the entire video really is a must though as it says so much about the entire “movement”.

The video above is what it is all about people. Directionless ire and rage being perpetuated by directionless fools.

There are some real native issues that Canada needs to address. This won’t happen through the fools with “Idle No More” and their bloated fake hunger striking Queen Theresa Spence however.

Credit and thanks to BlogWrath for heading out there to give us this video.

Adding a screen cap from the official “Idle No More” official page. The posting had been up for over an hour at the time of this posting.

Why is the anti-Semitism surfacing so strongly among a Native movement?

License to lie.

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While I am not terribly surprised that Speaker Zwozdesky gave up all pretense of impartiality when he ruled that Premier Alison Redford was not lying despite it being completely clear cut that she did, I still am aghast and disappointed with his behaviour today.

The abuse of the legislature by Zwozdesky was compounded by his holding on to his loathsome conclusion until after question period and then using that as an excuse to quell all opposition questioning on what is a current and pressing issue of importance to Albertans. According to standing order 13(2) Zwozdesky was obligated to at the least explain himself but he has tossed the rules into the dustbin as he clearly acts only to do the bidding of the Premier. The legislature has truly become a lawless place as far as the governing party is concerned.

I know that bias shown by a speaker is hardly unique here. It is rare when the facade of impartiality is stripped to bare as has been done now by Zwozdesky. We saw hints of this as he constantly chided opposition members while turning a blind eye on government members being abusive of the rules of order in the legislature. That is typical unfortunately but is still tolerable. Now though Zwozdesky has demonstrated himself as being nothing more than a tool for Premier Redford to use to bypass democratic checks and balances and to hide the gross corruption of her administration.

The role of speaker in a legislature is steeped in tradition and honor. The symbolic act of the Speaker being dragged to the chair by the party leaders reflects on how it is indeed a tough and thankless task for any speaker who means to be true to the posting. A principled speaker will make democratic order within the legislature a paramount priority to themselves even if that comes in conflict with their own party. Zwozdesky has proven himself to be utterly unprincipled and he should be ashamed of himself.

The government is now scrambling with their Pet Speaker and using closure to ram their flawed bills through so that they may be closed early. Public scrutiny has exposed the government as being corrupt so the government is now using their corruption of principles to hide from public scrutiny. It is truly revolting to watch.

The precedent set here is even more disconcerting. Redford’s denial of her lie was akin to her attesting that up is indeed down while having the speaker rule that she is correct and that nobody may question her on that assertion. Redford is now free to continue to fabricate whatever she likes with utter impunity given to her by Eunuch Zwozdesky. An already dishonest and corrupt government now can’t even be effectively questioned.

Lying as Redford did is called being in contempt of parliament and it is a huge offense just as perjury is in a courtroom and for the same reason. People speaking in legislatures need some degree of control to ensure honesty in their statements to the house. With Speaker Zwozdesky allowing blatant lying on the part of the Premier we no longer will have any assurances that Redford or any member of her government are being honest when they speak to citizens through the legislature. I fear for how the next three years will be with Redford totally out of control.

It truly has been a sad day for democracy in Alberta.

Wildrose Party 2012 Annual General Meeting Summary

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To begin with I have to say that the 2012 Wildrose Party AGM in Edmonton this year was nothing less than a smashing success. Those familiar with myself and or my blog know that I will not hesitate to be critical of my party when I feel they have strayed from a good course. I am happy to give a fully positive review of things today.

Turnout

To be frank I had been concerned about how turnout may be for this event. There were a few factors that I felt could have negatively impacted turnout this year; roads were a little wet and icy at times though not as bad as they could be at this time of year, Edmonton is not traditionally our most supportive part of Alberta (though that is changing), it is the Grey Cup weekend and Calgary is in the final game and the AGM had initially sort of been slapped together in a rush almost grudgingly as documented here.

Despite all of the above challenges, I am thrilled to report that nearly 700 members attended this year’s event. I found the Mayfield Inn quite full of folks for the informal social and hospitality suites on the Friday evening. On Saturday morning hundreds were already seated at breakfast and the room simply kept filling and filling through the course of the day as people arrived from all over the province. By the end of the day seats were at a premium as the very large room literally got to a  standing room only state.

There were a few reasons for this great turnout. To begin with, there is simply a great attitude of enthusiasm and optimism among the party membership. While some felt disappointment in our not forming government in last spring’s election, it was still a tremendous success as the Wildrose Party went from four seats in the legislature to what has turned out to be an incredibly effective 17 member opposition. With the talent being demonstrated by our caucus and with the clear lack of direction of the Redford government, members can indeed sense that we are on the way to forming Alberta’s next government. With that feeling of confidence in the future members can sense the importance of our party events opportunities to build and prepare for the future.

As opposed to the 2011 AGM, positions for the provincial executive were very well contested this year (candidates and outcomes can be found here). Having such hotly contested positions by so many people ensured that many teams were on the ground encouraging members to attend the AGM and vote. Being able to participate in something so important as executive elections engages members and adds a great element of satisfaction for members as they know and can feel how important their participation is in guiding the direction of the party. Flaccid lists of acclamations with endorsements from a party committee in 2011 did not add that element in that years underwhelming and poorly promoted elections.

The pricing for attendance at this year’s AGM made a great difference as well. For a two day event, an early-bird rate of $100 which capped out at a top cost of $150 was a great deal. At the 2011 AGM the rate to attend was $250 (there was a modest early-bird rate but it eludes me). We have many very dedicated members and had around 700 people attending in 2011 despite that high cost. Many members did stay home in 2011 though and word is that the party posted close to $100k in losses from that event as it had been hoped that well over 1000 people would be attend and space and supplies had been prepared for as much. Many members have bluntly expressed that the high cost of attendance is what kept them from coming out and that they did not feel such a high price to attend reflected grassroots well.

The venue this year was not as fancy as the Telus Convention Center had been last year. No giant audio/visual lightshow was prepared and presented and there were no long (clearly expensive to produce) video introductions. There was a giant Alberta flag as a backdrop along with screens on either side of the stage providing a magnification of the people speaking for those sitting near the back. The only complaint I could have is that we needed speakers near the back as it was hard to hear on occasion for people like myself who are somewhat hearing impaired. The food and refreshments were modest but adequate and were provided efficiently. I truly heard not a single soul bemoaning the lack of excess or luxury this year as there had been in the 2011 AGM. I hope that all of this has been noted by the powers that be this year (I will be sure to remind them of course).

The massive division, leadership questions and internal turmoil!

I think one ironic factor leading to such a good turnout this year was a mixture of curiosity/concern by some members over apparent division and a plot to overthrow the party leader. In a tiny way, I feel that my wife and I bear a little responsibility for this as we had both exposed some operational and attitude problems within the party in something of a public way. I think those planted the seeds for the more nefarious to take elements of what we had pointed out and craft it into a rather shabby conspiracy theory of a possible internal takeover by some members of the caucus. A video was displayed on the site of a rather non-credible blogger in Edmonton that tried to show a chain of events and personal links leading to a conspiracy. The video was quickly discredited and it being promoted by a person who has an obsessive opposition to the Wildrose in hopes of desperately gaining personal attention really didn’t add to it’s credibility.

An email from a fake caucus members account then went out to some members and began to be forwarded around that was implying essentially the same conspiracy theory as the one on the short lived aforementioned video. The email was no more credible than the video but it did bring some life to the conspiracy in a media that was hoping to find something more interesting to report on than a simple annual general meeting of a party.

Back to that irony, I think that many fence-sitters made up their minds to attend the AGM in hearing about the video and email. Some members were concerned that this smoke may have indicated a possible fire and decided to come and see for themselves.

With so many members coming, looking for possible division and finding none what happened is that we found ourselves more unified than ever before. The conspiracy led to many good jokes both from people speaking to people on the floor. I almost hope that such petty efforts continue.

This does drive home though another element of the importance of general and well attended meetings of the membership of the Wildrose Party (or any party for that matter). When meetings get too far apart as they had this time, complacency on the board can and did happen and small issues indeed began to fester into larger ones. Better communications can ease this problem and good meetings such as last weekend obliterate the problem. It must be borne in mind for the future that the “A” in AGM stands for Annual!

Policy and direction

Due to constitutional constraints and some disorganization on the part of the past Executive Committee, we could not do any formal changes to our party policy at this year’s AGM. Getting back into the realm of irony, this lack of formal policy work led to planning for a great deal of informal policy discussion which gave us much more clarity in our party stances and allowed our representatives to get much more direct member feedback on direction.

It has to be remembered, that the two issues that are most constantly attributed to the sudden drop in polls in the last election actually had utterly no basis in official party policy. The “lake of fire” garbage was based on the mental meanderings of a lone candidate on his personal blog. The weird caucasian blatherings by Leech were just the poorly phrased statements of one person. There is nothing referencing gay people or minorities in any of our policies so it must remembered that policy reforms alone will not do anything to counter these sorts of issues.

We do have some policy that is redundant, vague and out of date. We do need as a party to go through our policy set at our next gathering and fix this up.

What my poor photography demonstrates above is what our time was filled with due to the lack of formal policy work.

We had three sections of policy represented by groups of caucus and then two different breakout periods where people could have direct exchanges with MLAs on policy concerns. The discussion was incredibly frank and open and dialog went in both directions from members to caucus. This provided more clarity to policy direction than any policy book revisions ever could have. Caucus members got to hear directly from members and this will help them form their stances in the legislature. We can never have a policy for every issue so the best way that caucus members can represent party members is to engage them directly like this. One small but important critique here though, Joe Anglin needs the hook when speaking at such things as his long-windedness precluded many other questions. We do have many other caucus members and other questions Joe.

The other picture shows the open Q&A where Danielle Smith and Kerry Towle took completely open and unfiltered questions from members on the floor. Nothing was sugarcoated and while there were some softballs, the tough questions were asked too. Danielle was asked directly about the Hunsperger/Leech things and answered at length. Danielle Smith’s respect for free speech was evident but it was clear that she recognized the importance of taking care of these issues through better and more vigorous candidate selection processes and policy clarity. Both free speech and integrity of candidates can be maintained.

Some have already yelped that Danielle Smith did not condemn Hunsperger enough. Seriously folks, had Hunsperger been brought to the AGM, hung up, flogged by the entire membership and then personally fed his own recently severed testicles by Danielle Smith, there would still be some people saying she did not go far enough. It was one person, it did not and does not reflect the whole party, it is past and get over it already. Those who will never get over it are those who would never vote for a responsible option like the Wildrose Party in a million years anyway so it is past time to simply ignore them and move on.

True and real transparency

Some media and members alike expressed something akin to shock at how open everything was. Birds really should fall from the sky or something when Premier Redford dares to utter the word transparency considering how hard her government works to hide their actions from citizens and in light of the recent Progressive Conservative Party AGM where media was outright banned from the majority of activities, the open nature Wildrose Party AGM was indeed shocking in it’s contrast.

Even noted dipper Lou Arab took some time to pop in and put our open meeting to the test. He was only moderately abused 😉 .

Danielle Smith and the entire caucus was available throughout the entire two days. Even during the inebriated later hours of the hospitality suites Danielle could be found in the hallways being cornered with question after question directly from members. It must have been exhausting but it is incredibly appreciated and sends an incredible message.

Had a person wanted to speak one on one with every member of the entire caucus and provincial executive during the AGM it was easily possible with some effort over those two days. I expect it will be tougher in 2016 but only because there will be well over 65 caucus members as opposed to any lack of transparency.

While so many pay lip service to the whole concept of transparency, the Wildrose Party clearly practices it. It is through these practices and through member vigilance that we will maintain these high principles and that the Wildrose Party will usher in a whole new style of responsible government soon.

Hindsight and self-evaluation

Members and media alike were surprised by Tom Flanagan’s (party campaign co-chair) very frank and open summary of the past election. This sort of candid discussion of strategy and and personal humbling is never demonstrated by other parties. Flanagan spoke to our naivety in some elements of the campaign and he spoke to how some issues caught us off guard. Charts demonstrated how some of our policy initiatives during the campaign gained support while others (such as the energy rebates) actually cost us a fair degree of support. Flanagan spoke on how some of our policies are simply out of date and others just won’t sell.

It is through this unvarnished discussion that we ensure growth and evolution as a party. In being open, we must learn from our errors and successes. Contrasting these things openly before the entire membership brings us all into this learning and helps foster a sense of pragmatism and understanding of how we will have to always keep electability in mind when crafting our plans and policies.

Summary

The 2012 AGM was a great success and the Wildrose Party is much stronger today than it was just a week ago.

A new and invigorated Executive Committee was elected in a well contested race. In having to fight for their spots, these members will not be as inclined to fall into the complacency that crept into the last EC. I expect they will do a great job in guiding and managing the communications and operations of the party.

A deeper sense of enthusiasm and unity was gained by all in attendance and the importance of these gatherings was demonstrated (even to those who seem to try and avoid these things).

Danielle Smith’s keynote speech was excellent. I left it alone as myriad media and bloggers have covered it and it was live streamed.

We still have a mountain of work to do on our way to forming government in 2016. Major progress was made in creating that path to government this weekend. We need to keep this attitude and maintain momentum.

::update::

Just wanted to add that the staff and volunteers did a great job. Things went smoothly from registration to scheduling.It all was very well organized. Couldn’t happen without them.

Say it like it is.

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In almost every type of addiction therapy whether 12 step based or not, the first thing that a recovering addict must do is admit and accept that they have a problem. Addiction and recovery have been issues for centuries and there is a good reason that treatment has evolved to begin with the simple principle of admitting a problem; nothing will ever get solved when you are mired in denial!

Human nature draws us to deny truths and things that we simply do not want to see or accept. We make excuses or look the other way when a loved one is doing something wrong. When pressed with financial challenges, we are prone to borrowing more money rather than cutting spending as needed (in both our homes and in government). We distract ourselves with television and internet games in our idle time rather than work on emotionally challenging things or thoughts. When W5 comes on TV with a sensitive expose, we change the channel to watch America’s Got Talent rather than watch something as challenging as a piece on child pornography rings and such.

Even people who try to be politically aware shy away from sensitive issues. It is much easier to discuss the merit/failure of a teacher’s stance on grading students with zeros (for zero work done) than it is to discuss the long-term sustainability of our socialized healthcare monopoly.  Better to fight over the need for bike-lanes in a city than have to dwell on the abject failure of the native reserve system. None of those issues that we put in second place will ever see improvement until we accept some reality in them.

Few issues will make a political sort who dodges uncomfortable issues testes migrate into their abdomens more quickly than any sort of discussion about radical Islam.

How many more murderous riots does the world need to see? How many undemocratic, theocratic countries practicing the most gross of human rights violations do we need as examples in the world? How long will we keep looking the other way when we see practices such as female genital mutilation, stoning for adultery, being gay or any other forms of apparent blasphemy practiced in so many countries?

There is a common thread in those savage nations and it is time more people said it; these nations are all predominantly Islamic!

Yeah yeah yeah, we can go on about the Christians in the Crusades. We can name a couple abortion clinic bombers. We can point out that Hitler wasn’t Islamic. So what? I am speaking of issues today and issues that are predominant.

Is there any non-Islamic state that is at risk of coming under control of the types who bomb abortion clinics? Have there been any widespread riots in any non-Islamic states lately due to a perceived affront to their religious texts? Nigerians even murderously rioted when a beauty pageant host dared mention Mohammad.

Yes I do know that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and do not condone the sort of activities practiced in the nations that I highlighted. That does not change the outright fact that there is a direct link between violence and intolerance and Islamic nations. We are simply full of crap and in denial to say otherwise.

I am going to link to an extremely offensive and blasphemous image published a couple days ago by the parody site: The Onion.

This image contains gross nudity and is purposely offensive to nearly all religions! Do not click if these kinds of images truly offend you! The point will be made without you needing to see it.

Below the purposely offensive image is a line that says it all:

Though some members of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths were reportedly offended by the image, sources confirmed that upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.

It is sad that it takes a comedic parody site to make the point to us all and we need to accept it. Despite there being many faiths in the world, only radical Islamic adherents so commonly go on murderous rampages at the slightest of provocation. We need to let ourselves point at the violent when they riot and kill rather than tie ourselves in knots trying to justify it.

I am not proposing any war on Islam, renewed Crusades or shunning of Muslim people. I do not know the solution to countries retaining stone-aged practices due to their interpretation of religious texts. I do know though, that we will never see a solution until we admit the source of the problem and start from there.

In a more sick twist of things, the world seems not to hesitate to condemn Israel for anything and everything they do. Israel is a tiny little island of democracy in an ocean of Islamic dictatorships and somehow instead of cultivating the freedoms in Israel so that they can spread and blossom in neighboring states, many in the world crap on Israel at every possible opportunity.

This is the sort of denial and cowardice that is harming us all. People recognize that the Middle-East is a mess but choose to blame the safest state that they can. One can spout whatever they like at Israel and need never fear Jews rampaging around the world burning embassies and KFCs. Israel is an easy target to blame without fear that they will slap back at you.

At the increasingly irrelevant United Nations, motions are passed condemning Israel constantly while idiotically giving Islamic theocrats a seat at the table in discussion of human rights in countries. The UN has truly become a sad joke.

So many howl indignantly when Israel ignores the garbage that comes from the UN. Those howlers usually are the same apologists who blame cartoonists for the stone-aged violence perpetuated by those offended by the cartoons.

Reality sucks, but it will only get better when we face it.

I will close this rant with a rant by Pat Condell who consistently can hit these issues right on the head.

It’s like pulling teeth.

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In the last little while the Wildrose Party Executive Committee has reminded me of nothing less than the Stelmach PC party in their inept reactionary way of dealing with issues within the party. With multiple blog postings on this site, it has been exposed that the Executive Committee barely met five times in an election year, missed the window to hold an Annual General Meeting where policy and constitution could be revised by the membership and now are bungling the process of nominations for the Executive Committee to the point of violating our very party constitution.

Every time these issues are brought to light, the Executive Committee or others in positions of responsibility within the party have grumblingly and grudgingly addressed the problem. It is sad that it takes such pressure and scrutiny from social media and outside individuals to keep our current Executive Committee even marginally functional.

Now my far prettier and more sane half, Jane Morgan has gotten to work with her keyboard and phone to expose even more detail on the inept actions of the Wildrose Executive Committee under President Paul Collins and has excellently detailed her findings on her blog. While some slight effort was made by some to lay blame for the mess on the nominations committee, Jane exposed that the committee had not even met before and had no idea that the Wildrose Party had posted a constitutionally illegal application form for executive nomination forms on the party website. I of course invite you to click through above and read the details and updates from Jane yourself.

Again responsibility lies directly with the current executive committee. Did the whole committee approve of that document being drafted and put on the website? Who drafted it anyway? Did the VP communications approve that release? Did the President approve it?

Jane’s latest update has been that she is informed that a meeting will be held to discuss this issue and that she will be updated on it’s outcome soon.

I do hope that those at this apparent meeting realize that there is very little to discuss. The Wildrose Party Executive Committee either chooses to act within the Party constitution or it does not. There is no gray area here. You can’t act just a little outside of the rules you are bound by in this game.

With the waffling and the profound nature of this oversight (if indeed that is what this is), I strongly suggest that the membership of the Wildrose Party strongly consider voting to replace the entire current Executive Committee at this year’s Annual General Meeting in Edmonton. While I do know that many of the member’s of the Executive Committee are excellent individuals and while I know that a few have been privately communicating with myself and others to try and fix this mess, not a single one has been willing to break ranks openly and condemn this breach of the party constitution. Not a one will call out and demand that the party President publically fix this sooner rather than later as embarassment and even rumors of corruption spread.

The Executive Committee needs to be made up of a diverse group of committed individuals who will follow through with their assigned roles and who will speak up when things are wrong. Our currently Executive Committee is lacking on all of those fronts.

The party constitution is not a document full of suggestions for the Executive Committee to abide by. It is a document drafted by the members and controlled by the members for the protection of the rights of the members. Only through 2/3 of the collected members at a general meeting can that document be changed and this has not happened. The Executive Committee is bound by the party constitution no ifs ands or buts about it and they had better damn well realize that quick.

Good news and bad news.

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The good news is that the Wildrose Party finally openly announced the location and time of the 2012 AGM.

Information may be found here and there is a great early-bird rate that I strongly suggest people take advantage of.

The bad news is that the powers that be seem to still have utterly no understanding of what is a grassroots based party or even what the constitutional obligations are as a party. The “application” form for executive nominations in the party is almost offensive in it’s tone and nature and in my view is in total conflict with the very constitution of the party.

I guess it is time to walk down the constitutional road and explain to some party staffers just how it bloody works.

Here is a link to the party constitution. I strongly recommend that it be read and even more strongly recommmend that it be abided by.

The constitution of a party is critical and while dry the importance of the constitution simply can’t be understated. The constitution is what ensures that the party exists to serve the members and Albertans as opposed to the self-interest of small groups. That is why self-interested small groups constantly try to whittle away at member-empowering constitutions by the way.

To begin with the constitution clearly states where the authority of the party lies in section 5.1:

“5.1 The governance of the Party shall reflect the following principles:

5.1.1 Authority within the Party resides in its members.

5.1.2 The Leader and Executive Committee are accountable to members of the Party and the Caucus.

5.1.3 The Caucus is accountable to the Party and to their constituents.”

 Now it is clearly established that authority within the party resides in it’s members.

The way the members can exercise that authority is through the direct nomination and election of the Executive Committee of the party. That is why AGMs are so important and it is why top-down sorts put off AGMs as much as possible.

The qualifications for running for an executive position within the Wildrose Party are very basic as the party has a grassroots constitution and wants to keep the positions open to as many applicants (to the membership) as possible. They are as such:

”

“7.2 Not less than ninety (90) days prior to any Annual General Meeting of the Party, the Executive Committee shall create the Nominating Committee, consisting of three (3) members. It shall be the duty of this committee to nominate candidates for the officer positions to be filled at the Annual General Meeting. Candidates for officer positions and all officers must be members in good standing of the Party. The Nominating Committee shall report to the Executive Committee prior to the notice of the Annual General Meeting being sent to all members, and such report shall be included in the notice of the Annual General Meeting. Nominations may also be made by any member up to sixty-five (65) days prior to the date of the Annual General Meeting, and such nominations shall also be included in the notice of the Annual General Meeting.”

The only limitation on running for an executive position within the Wildrose Party is that a candidate be a member in good standing with the party. Nothing more nor should there be. Aside from that it is up to the collected membership to decide who best will serve in those roles.

Now here is where the horsecrap from the party begins. On the party website is a link to an application form for executive positions.  This is a very deep and intensive application form and it demands right in the beginning that it be filled out completely. Sorry folks, the party is in no place to make such demands. As per the constitution the applicant only needs to demonstrate that they are a member in good standing of the party.

Now at the bottom of the form it demands that applicants sign off their party rights to the nominating committee (whoever they are) who may refuse the application for any reason that they may see fit. Sorry folks but that is simply horseshit on many levels.

“1. Acknowledge and agree that the AGM Nominating Committee has the authority to disallow my candidacy on any grounds it sees fit, and whose decision shall be final and binding and not further appealed or challenged.”

So candidates are expected to sign off authority to an un-named and appointed committee who may reject their application for any reason that fits their fancy. Think about that.

If this application is to be believed, authority within the party rests with an appointed committee as opposed to the membership as the constitution states.

This is utterly unacceptable and in my view possibly even actionable.

Look, I understand that grassroots politics can and will be messy. I know that some wingnuts will apply for executive positions. Trust has to be placed in the collected membership to choose the best person at the AGM!

The application form states that this information will aid the committee in vetting candidates. Lets be clear here, the committee has utterly no authority to vett candidates aside from ensuring that they are members in good standing of the party!

At the last AGM the committee not only vetted, it openly endorsed candidates!

I have documented at length on how the last provincial executive could barely even meet by teleconference five times in an election year. Considering that many on that board were acclaimed by the committee and endorsed by them, I would say they do a pretty piss poor job of vetting and endorsing anyway.

The purpose of the nominating committee is simply to ensure that all roles have applicants and that all are members in good standing. Nothing more!

Wildrose members! Speak up! Call the office at: 1.888.262.1888 (though while there is an army of staff they rarely answer).

Call your CA President and call Danielle Smith. Call Paul Collins if you can find him.

If we let go of control as members, than the whole exercise as a grassroots party has been pointless.

 

 

Cory what the hell are you doing?

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I figured that blog heading best captures the content and tone of many communications that I have gotten through phone and email in this last week or so. I may as well get to the point here.

I have been involved with the Wildrose Party since it’s inception as well as rather strongly involved with the Alberta Alliance Party before it. I have acted in many roles from different positions on the provincial executive to candidate in the 2008 election to moderating the last leadership debates to hosting the party’s headquarters in my office space for a couple years. No by the way, I am not trying to claim that the party owes me something, it does not. I do want to make it clear that I am a dedicated longtime supporter and member of the Wildrose Party. I did not come out of nowhere to raise a stink and I certainly am not a plant from the PCs as one idiot has already implied.

I am not giving up on the Wildrose Party nor am I recommending that anybody else does so. The Wildrose Party is the potentially the best government in waiting in the wings in Alberta and I do hope it forms government down the road.

The above being said, the Wildrose Party has slipped rather badly in it’s grassroots based governance in the last few years as I have been demonstrating in some critical blog postings here, here and here.  I likely will have a few more postings that may make some uncomfortable in the next little while.

I am an unapologetic partisan and have written on that.

I fully understand the need for people to work as a cohesive group for a common cause in politics if anything is going to be done. I understand how loyalty to one’s party obligates one to have to accept some practices, people and actions that may not be what one feels are ideal. Compromise is part of working in a team environment even when the team is made up of stubborn individualists.

Something I have learned though is being loyal to one’s party does not mean that one should stay silent when they see wrongdoing. On the contrary, when things are going in the wrong direction a person should feel obligated to speak up.

The drift has been incremental with the party. I am as responsible as many as I sat silently as we saw one more undercutting of the grassroots after another. Just one more nomination meddled with here and there or just one more principle set aside.

I stayed silent. When speaking up from within (as some are counselling me to do now), I hit the same old rationales from people. “Just let it go, now isn’t the time to deal with that.” or “This is how all the heavyweight parties do it.” or “It’s just the way it is with parties. Learn to look the other way.” or “Just hang on until the election.”

In answering all of those:

If not now, when?

I don’t care how the other parties do things, we are supposed to be different.

The election is past and I can’t think of a better time than now to dig into some of the issues with the party.

As I pointed out in a past posting, only one of the elected 2010 board ran for re-election in 2011 which is more than a little telling of problems. I don’t want to simply walk away. I have put too much into the party these last years to do so and the potential is still all there (I am not going back on the board though).

The vast majority of the members and supporters of the Wildrose Party share the same solid grassroots principles of members being the final authority in party governance. Our party constitution strongly supports this and an active principled provincial executive can address and solve pretty much any issue with the party. They are very empowered constitutionally and have a mandate of being elected by the membership.

As I have posted earlier, some odd business happened with the nominations and elections of the last board in 2011. Very few people applied for the jobs (surprising in such a growing party but unsurprising considering how hidden the process was) and we ended up with a dysfunctional board that only held five meetings in an election year as I posted. As I implied before, I do not feel that this marginalized board was a mistake and do feel that it was purposely set aside to allow others to govern the party unencumbered by executive questions. Even if it was just somehow a sheer fluke of luck that the board happened to be so invisible and unmotivated as opposed to being purposely constructed that way, it is clear that the board needs to be replaced.

As pointed out in earlier postings as well, it has been incredibly difficult finding out even when and where the Wildrose Party AGM was to be held and it took some pressure to get that out. There are many great potential party executive members out there but how will they apply and get elected if the party won’t aid with information as to when where and how to run for those positions? The cutoff for running is 65 days before the event and the cutoff for event notification is 60 days. Since the party won’t put out the call for grassroots executive nominees, I will. As I said, I will not sit back silently any longer.

Despite some blaming the last election loss on policy, the party’s policy will not be on the table at the coming AGM. I would think policy discussion would be something of a priority right now. Perhaps if we had an effective executive such oversights would not happen.

The foundation of the Wildrose Party is excellent. Our leader is exceptional and there are some great members of caucus who I don’t doubt will impress in opposition in these next four years. The Wildrose Party can (and I hope it does) turn itself into the party that Albertans are ready to embrace as their next government. This will only happen if the party stays true to it’s founding principles though and if members and supporters stay silent when things go the wrong way, that will never happen.

So in answering the question at the beginning: I am taking the tough but necessary steps required for the membership to regain control of the Wildrose Party in speaking up about what has been happening. I have pointed out some of the problems and have pointed out the solution. Nothing will be solved if we stay silent and we won’t fix anything in Alberta by turning ourselves into the party that we want to replace in government.