Category Archives: Free Speech

How about a date?

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In my last posting I covered how the Wildrose Party needs to earn the trust of Albertans and how the party could make great strides in that regard if they acted more openly and trustworthy with their own affairs.

That posting was inspired by the growing controversy and discussion happening around an interview that Danielle Smith had a little while ago where it appeared that Smith may be taking some liberties in statements on policy positions and policies without prior member input.

Danielle Smith’s musings in that interview led to concerns being expressed from some socially conservative members within the party as well as those who (like myself) are very committed to maintaining a member driven and controlled means of policy formulation. Danielle is indeed most entitled to her views but when speaking for the party she  is indeed obligated to speak for the party, not herself.

Now what most people have agreed upon is that there certainly will be some rousing and important discussion at the Wildrose Party’s next AGM. It has been a pivotal election year and many things have been learned. Now it is time for the Wildrose Party to gather it’s membership and to discuss as a whole how we plan to move forward as a party that is both serving in official opposition and aspiring to form government down the road.

I like to think I am generally pretty tapped into many inside sources with the party and have heard multiple rumors about where the date and the venue of the party’s next AGM ranging from October 2012-April 2013 and at locations from Red Deer to Edmonton to even Canmore for crying out loud.

The Wildrose Party website is devoid of information and nobody is officially speaking up. This should be a simple thing should it not? You schedule a meeting and you hold the damn thing. The word “annual” in the name should ease the stress of wondering how often one should hold these sorts of things.

The date and location of an Annual General Meeting is hardly any sort of proprietary secret and there is no real good reason (on the surface) that such information should be withheld from members. It has been about 14 months since the last AGM as of this posting by the way.

This made me dig yet a little more deeply. According to the constitution of the Wildrose Party, despite being named an AGM, an annual general meeting needs only to be held every two years.  Unfortunately this leads to quite a conundrum as technically the Wildrose Party is a society bound by the rules of the Alberta Societies Act which states that an Annual General Meeting is (wait for it…….) an annual obligation under section 25.  The constitution of the party is trumped by the societies act here.

Now some hair splitting may be done here and the meeting potentially can wait until the 18 month period. That does mean according to the Party Constitution that notice must be given to members 120 days before the date of the AGM if policies and constitutional changes are to be contemplated.  Now I know that I as a member have not gotten this notice nor have I heard of any other members getting it. The clock is ticking rather quickly on this one.

Another oddball clause with the Party AGMs covers the nominations for the executive. I will quote the whole thing below:

7.2 Not less than 90 days prior to any annual general meeting of the Party, the Executive Committee shall create the Nominating Committee consisting of three 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 be made by any member up to 65 days prior to the date of the annual general meeting and will be included in the notice of the Annual General Meeting.

That statement is quite a mouthful. Now what is really concerning here is that one can’t be nominated past 65 days before the meeting yet the notice of the Annual General Meeting can be as little as 60 days if there is not to be policy discussion. This sort of makes it difficult for people to know if, how or when people may consider nominations for the board. This complexity is no mistake.

It may be noted that no directions for the pursuit of executive positions are available on the website and I assure you not everybody reads the entire constitution of political parties. It is conceivable that a 60 day notice could be issued and nobody of course aside from those personally chosen or somehow discovered by the committee (no information on how to reach this hypothetical committee) will be able to run for executive spots.

At last year’s AGM, only one person from the prior executive ran for re-election. The rest including myself gave up on the party board and did not run again. That should ring alarm bells to many in itself. Why would none of the executive members want to run for the position again when the party was growing so strongly at the time? That issue in itself is worthy of another likely long blog posting soon as it is part of another problem within the Wildrose Party at the management level. Now this led to a pile of acclaimed and weakly contested positions for top executive positions within the party as nobody even knew how to even find the committee in charge. On top of it all; the few contested executive positions that there were actually had asterisks indicating party endorsement for certain people next to their names!! The party committee actually took sides and made endorsements for the executive positions. This is reprehensible and completely contrary to grassroots principles. Still sadly, we let it slide. Nobody wanted to rock the boat on the way to a potential election.

Now with all of the above issues, what the Wildrose Party gained in the last AGM was an executive board that was handpicked and proved itself to be ineffective and neutered. No longer did the powers that be have to contend with an uppity board as the prior one was which gave up and did not run again. Executive meetings since the last election have been rare and essentially pointless as the party executive has allowed (or been built) to marginalize itself.

We have less than four years here people and if the Wildrose Party is going to get it’s crap together it needs to start now. People have been engaged by the populist appearance and apparent principles of the party. For the most part those principles and goals exist among the membership. The main means of empowerment for the membership is the election of the party executive. This is how the members may participate and retain control of the party and policy direction even if some staffers and the odd MLA feel that the membership is a hindrance.

The constitution empowers the members of the Wildrose Party and for good reason.

In order for the members to participate though, we need a mandate and a date for a general meeting at the least.

Should it be this hard to find out when an AGM is and what will be on the agenda? It has been over a year since the last one and months have passed since the election.

If the members of the Wildrose Party can’t control the direction of the party, then the party is indeed no better than the PCs. The Wildrose will simply be another facade of populism with an autocratic reality.

The Wildrose Party has stridently demanded fixed election dates in Alberta. Pretty sad that the party can’t set even it’s own AGM dates.

I’m sorry!

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Did my blog heading make you feel better? Sure, I haven’t stated what I am apologizing for but the words alone should make a person feel better upon receiving them right? The reason for the apology means nothing and the sincerity of the apology really doesn’t matter if one is to believe those chronically aggrieved people who’s thin-skin gets ruptured at the slightest hint of being exposed to something offensive. Those aforementioned people will invariably howl and yelp whenever they feel that their feelings (or the feelings of somebody else) have been hurt and will demand that the offender be forced to apologize.

Really people, what is a forced apology worth to you? The muttered “I’m sorry” dropped out by a person who clearly is not sorry in the least really means absolutely nothing so people should quit demanding these damned apologies at the drop of a hat. When those kangaroo courts that we call “human rights commissions” add forced apologies to the other punishments that they have laid upon a person who they have deemed offensive, does the forced apology reverse the damage? Is the person who was made to say the words of apology under duress any less likely to harbor offensive feelings?

Here is a recent situation that is stupid on many many levels. While in California a couple members of the Australian Olympic swimming team dared to visit a gun shop and have pictures taken of themselves while holding some perfectly legal firearms in a non-threatening way. Now not only will these guys be forced to leave the Olympic games in London early and not only are they banned from social media use, the swimmers were forced to apologize. Do you really think for a second that those two young men are sorry that they somehow offended some pant-pissing fanatical anti-gun zealots by doing something totally legal and non-offensive to the sane world? Do you think that these guys really feel badly for the hypersenstive assholes who have managed to ruin the once in a lifetime Olympic appearance that the swimmers have been training for for years? These poor athletes are not sorry in the least and their having being forced to apologize is simply a last humiliating punitive action taken by an overly empowered group of the politically correct.

Australia has an Olympic shooting team by the way. Lets hope that none of their team members is photographed while training or something.

Here in Alberta, we still have the blessed CBC harping on about how Danielle Smith still refuses to apologize for a blog posting made by a former Wildrose Party candidate years ago. I think Hunpserger’s blog posting was offensive myself but I don’t think it is Smith’s job to apologize for it. Danielle Smith’s apology would not make Hunsperger’s blog posting any less offensive and we damn well know it would not sooth any of the feelings that Hunsperger hurt so why is the CBC still on this post electoral witchhunt anyway? The only one who should apologize for the views held by Alan Hunsperger is Alan Hunsperger and here is the part that is so important yet apparently lost on so many: Alan Hunsperger should only apologize if he sincerly is sorry for having held that view! There is simply no point in forcing Hunsperger to state words of apology if he doesn’t mean it.

Last year Ezra Levant dared to utter the Spanish expletive: “Chinga tu madre” on his show on the Sun News Network. Apparently this offended some people like English speaking, union-employed blogger David Climenhaga who sent a complaint to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. No Spanish speaking folks have been found prostrate and sobbing in offense to Ezra’s statement but the CBSC feels that a forced apology by Levant and the network is called for. Thankfully Ezra is not taking this quietly (as usual) and in his beligerant response to the CBSC he is proving excellently just how worthless forced apologies are. Would Levant’s actual uttering of the words “I’m sorry” make the hurt go away for anybody (assuming somebody was found to have been hurt)?

Apologies have merit and value in many situations. An apology will only be worth something though if the person making the apology is genuinely sorry. If anything, forced apologies cheapen sincere ones and bring the merit of them into question. Our society needs a thicker skin, an ability to change a channel and needs to lose this idiotic obsession of demanding apologies from people who simply are not sorry.

Perhaps down the road some pendejo is going to take offense to something I say or write. Perhaps that flake will actually manage to find some government body that could force an apology from me as HRCs often do in their kangaroo courts. Should that day come to pass, I do hope that the fool demanding my apology sees this blog post to truly understand just how heartfelt my hypothetical apology would be.

The dreaded robodial!!

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 The tone of this last provincial election was simply horrific. Serious discussion of issues and policy was completely lost as every party engaged in a shrill fear and smear campaign where demonizing their opponents appeared to be much more important than highlighting what they perceive as their own merits. I admit, I jumped into the noise and hysteria in the twitter realm for awhile and yes I was as nasty as any on there. Still, even I who likes a degree of rough and tumble debate lost all appetite for the vulgar scroll of attacks online and backed off on the twitter scroll of insanity hashtagged #abvote. Only the NDP and their supporters tended to stay clear of the fray as they stuck to targeting their concentrated union support and indeed won all the seats they could in Alberta.

 We now have four years to dwell on how to avoid having such a nasty election campaign again if avoidance or at least mitigation is even possible after a performance like this. I hope some new behaviour and ideas surface that can lead to the retention of some degree of rationallity in future elections. I look forward to those discussions.

 Right now I still want to look at some simple and smaller things such as the visual pollution created by public campaign sign placement that I discussed in my last posting. What I want to touch on now is automated dialing which has really become prolific in politics this last few years (ht to Jeremy Nixon for bringing it up). While not earth shattering issues, the autodials and signs added to the buildup of white noise that led to many people simply shutting out the election altogether rather than dwelling on ideas and choices as they should have been able to do.

 Technology has radically changed autodialing in the last ten years. I remember us setting up an autodialer unit in the old Wildrose office years ago. It was great. We only needed to tie up three lines in order to dial out a blistering 180 calls per hour. In only two days we could get a message out to our whole membership for only a couple hundred dollars in long-distance fees. It was a great tool for getting out information to a reasonably small number of people in relatively short time at a decent cost. Compared to mailouts this was a huge advancement for us in member communication. We never really abused it as it was still awkward and expensive to do large dials so it was only used at need. That all changed quickly with the advent of web based voip-style autodial technology.

 In a few short years the technology developed to the point where for a couple hundred bucks and with 1/2 hour online setting up an individual could send out a phone blast to tens of thousands of numbers simultaniously. Polls can be set up and run through these systems quickly, easily and inexpensively. Even worse, it has become very easy to do these sorts of calls anonymously which has led to apparent abuses both federally and provincially.

 For anybody who has their number on the electors list it was an irritating election as our phones were simply barraged by calls from all parties and some unidentified groups. Campaigns with limited budgets found it hard to resist large broadcasts for small costs as was demonstrated by my local Liberal candidate who hit my phone a couple times on election day with what was clearly an untargeted (and ineffective) phone blast.

 The campaign that I worked on along with many others anticipated the pushback that autodialing abuse was causing and we utilized only live callers through volunteers and a paid live-dial service. Still, harried and tired voters while more appreciative of having a live voice call them were still tired of being contacted and it strongly reduced the efficacy of our GOTV campaigns. People stopped answering all calls from numbers that they didn’t recognize and responded with exhaustion and sometimes outright hostility to the volunteers making the calls. People had long stopped distinguishing between the parties when it came to the phone calls and simply lashed out at whoever called them next whether live or not. It didn’t matter if we used a live volunteer calling when the voters phone had been hammered by 8 autodials in the 24 hours prior to our live-dial. That voter was sick of it.

 Again I am not much on instituting more regulation but I think that the degree of abuse we have seen in autodialing calls for at least some examination of the issue. Perhaps allowing autodialing to people who have opted in or are already members of an organization is the best way to do it. Parties and groups simply will have to market to encourage people to opt in through doorknocking and other conventional forms of marketting. Stronger controls would also help in defending against unprincipled false autodials as we saw in the last provincial election.

 Banning or regulating are the options before us with public space signs and autodials. I think with open discussion and reasonable legislation we can take care of both of these annoying marketing techniques that have a very limited impact anyway. As long as rules are equally applied, no party would be disadvantaged.

 In an indealistic world, people should look forward to elections as they will see the discussion of ideas and options leading up to their casting a ballot in choice of their preferred candidate. In the realistic world, people are increasingly disconnecting as the campaign simply turns into unbearable noise and even if they still choose to cast a ballot they likely have not been exposed to good policy discussion.

Regulating/ending use of autodialers and public space campaign signs would not lead to a massive shift towards voter engagement or a sudden trend of civility among parties. Ending the abuse of those marketing tools would be steps in the right direction though.

How dare we consider empowering those uppity unwashed masses!!

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 Well I see that the latest fabricated issue to hit the political social media set has been the sudden apparent discovery of the Wildrose Party’s support of citizen’s initiated referenda and the accompanying hysteria following as a leftist minority tries to use that issue to convince people of an evil (exceedingly well) hidden agenda. Polls and my own work on the ground in this election show pretty clearly that Albertans are not paying any attention to the fearmongering and the Wildrose is continuing it’s steady march towards the legislature as the party is gaining the trust and support that Redford’s Progressives discarded.

 As with my last posting though, what strikes me is the disdain shown to Albertans by the small but vocal latte-left set. These people truly do see Albertans as unwashed rubes and feel that we must must have government reduce individual rights and increase nanny-government control ever further to protect us from ourselves and each other. I guess these people feel that we can be reprogrammed through social engineering into some fantastic progressive utopia down the road. Reality dictates that totalitarianism is hardly of benefit for people if history is any indicator.

 The shrill howlings against citizen’s initiated referenda take some very offensive assumptions. People are screaming that with referenda Alberta would make abortion illegal. OK folks, for one it is not even in our jurisdiction. For another thing, you are telling us that you feel that a majority of Albertans would like to illegalize this. I have even seen some people online claiming that a referendum would be held to illegalize homosexuality. Do you really think such a proposal would even reach a ballot? It sure as hell would not be approved by a majority of Albertans.

The anti-democratic fearmongers who are howling about citizen’s initiated referenda are claiming if we empower this province of bigotted hicks democratically that we would rush right out and use that legislation to infringe upon the rights of others. That patronizing attitude of loathing towards our province is tiresome and offensive in itself. If you really think this province has a strong majority of people who feel that way, why not simply move somewhere else before we hicks build a new iron-curtain?

 Others claim that referenda would be used wastefully and frivolously by people. Citizen’s initiatives are used responsibly and effectively all over the world. With good legislation it can be safely ensured that only issues worthy of a broad public debate and settlement will make it to a ballot. I know Mercer did a good spoof on referenda with the use of an internet petition and a joke. In reality, a true paper petition is very difficult to get filled out within a time limit. Anybody who is claiming that it would be easy to get 10s of thousands of official (name, address, phone number, witness) signatures on paper in a limited time period is either lying or has never actually tried real petitioning.

 There is no better way to address a large divisive independent issue than a referendum. It opens a targetted discussion of the issue and lets the electorate choose the best course of action. To oppose this democractic tool because you don’t trust the people with the power of choice is loathsome. What next? Shall we end general elections too in case those fools in Alberta pick what you determine to be the wrong government?

 The fearmongering is failing on the ground but the buzzing noise is getting irritating from the elitist set online.

Some recommended reading.

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There are many factors that went towards creating the charming, modest and somewhat opinionated person that I am today. Growing up and observing the fallout of the National Energy Program gave me a healthy dose of regionalism and watching Thatcher and Reagan work to try and save us from the consequences of policy based on the drug-addled attitudes of the  sixties certainly helped shape my opinions on the political world.

There was one outright turning point in my thought and growth that stands out though. While in junior high we were required to read the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.  The story is a futuristic portrayal of what may happen should we continue the pursuit of equality where it simply does not exist. It excellently displayed the futility of such pursuits and the damage to free society that will result. It began my course down political philosophy which is still of course evolving.

Kurt Vonnegut was not a right winger by any stretch of the imagination. He was an admirer of early socialist labor leaders and was always critical of Republican governments . Vonnegut did recognize one of the critical flaws in socialism though and wrote on it.

In the pursuit of equality, one finds that they can’t pull the non-productive up to the level of the productive thus socialists tend to turn to pulling down the productive to the lowest common denominator instead. This is referred to as “Crab mentality”  and it is one of the most destructive trends we have.

The politics of envy run strong particularly when times are tough. We saw that in the vapid yelping of the “occupy” movement as they tried to separate and demonize a mythical 1% who they felt controlled the world. We see this as teacher’s unions fight every manner of testing of children and fight all forms of competition in schools. The every child gets a ribbon sentiment is nice but it damages children terribly when they encounter the real world and find out that we can’t always win.

Raj Sherman released his desperate provincial Liberal platform recently. In sprinting for low hanging fruit he has taken up the usual shallow stance of taxing the perceived rich. Despite numbers showing that people of higher income are already paying the vast majority of taxes in Canada, the lazy and envious want to drag these hard workers down even further.

The real outcome is secondary to the perception of equality.

Some years ago I was debating with a fellow on an internet forum about European health provision models. The discussion came to a point where it was proven that in some models by allowing people to pay out of pocket to jump the queue; the entire lineup gets shortened for all in the universal system. This fellow still was opposed to the possibility of utilizing these provision models. I doggedly kept on him and asked if he preferred that everybody waited and suffered longer as long as the suffering was equal. He floored me in his honestly when he said yes. This man’s envy could not let him abide by somebody getting faster treatment even if it meant faster treatment for everybody in the end. His attitude is shared by way too many people though many may not realize it or be as honest as this guy was about it.

The twisted ideals of equality and fairness when taken to extremes are incredibly destructive. The simplistic can be easily called out and led when a seductive case for dragging down the successful is made for the sake of political expediency.

It is a short story yet makes the point excellently. Again, I strongly suggest that folks take a moment to read Harrison Bergeron and more importantly think about the point it makes.

You know who is just like Hitler? Hitler!

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In the early years of internet discussion, a wise fellow named Mike Godwin coined “Godwin’s Law” which stated:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving
Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

I have seen the inevitability of such hyperbolic comparisons on every kind of discussion forum whether about cars, kittens or politics.  This occurs in political discussion outside of the internet as well as we see with recent foolishness from Conservative MP Larry Miller in Owen Sound.

The flippant use of comparisons of contemporary actions or figures to Hitler, Nazi’s, Fascists and the Holocaust is not only offensive, but it desensitizes us all to one of the most horrific periods of human history.

Below I will list pictures to indicate where the use of terms such as Hitler, Nazi, Fascist and Holocaust may be appropriate in discussion. Please review these before considering using any of the aforementioned terms.

Above is a picture of Adolf Hitler. There is no other Adolf Hitler, there has been no other Adolf Hitler and there will not be another Adolf Hitler. There are other dictators and nasty people out there but none of them are Adolf Hitler so don’t compare the two.

 

Above is a picture of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was a fascist leading a fascist party. There are currently no fascist parties nor fascist leaders in existence so do not try to compare such to current parties, their leaders or their supporters.

 

Above we see a picture of a bunch of Nazis. They are the only Nazis in human history. There are no Nazi parties or leaders in existence so don’t bother comparing current leaders, parties and supporters to such.

Yes, there are indeed some who identify as Nazi’s right now. They are neo-Nazis and really are loose collections of idiots that can’t be realistically compared to the true Nazi movement of the early 20th century.

Above is a picture from the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a large scale organized effort to eradicate an entire people based on their religion (as well as gays and Gypsies). That was genocide of which indeed there are unfortunately multiple examples of in human history.

Let’s get something straight however, poultry farms raising chickens for KFC are not committing a “holocaust” and any animal activist continuing to use that comparison should be soundly kicked in the reproductive organs. Ongoing land-claim settlements in Canada do not represent “genocide” of Canadian natives either and I am sick as hell of people using that term. There is not even a sniff of genocide in Canada right now and please tell people who claim such to GFT.

Political discussion can be and often is heated. Hyperbole and cheap shots are often utilized (I use those methods myself) to varying effect. The use of the above comparisons though is simply lazy debate and is offensive.

Save a link to this page and forward it to the next person who uses any of the above terms in discussion. Sadly the chances of your needing to use that link are pretty close to 100% if you participate in political (or many other kinds) debate.

I am a full supporter of free speech. People are certainly free to use the above terms without legal intervention and they should be. We should call them out for the fools they are when they do so though.

You have to earn your way to the big kids table.

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Every election we see the same thing, the fringe parties and their exiguous but dedicated and vocal supporters begin making noise and demanding that their party be represented in the televised debates. It is understandable why these fringe groups want to participate. Many people remain undecided until the debate and use that broadcast as almost their sole means of making up their mind as they have an opportunity to see the leaders of the main parties demonstrate their ability (or lack of) to lead our province. It is because of this importance of the debates that a bar must be set though and we can’t have an important event like this cluttered with the leader of every tiny party in the province participating.

 In 2004 it was the Alberta Alliance (now Wildrose) that was protesting and making noise demanding that Randy Thorsteinson be included in the debate. They even had some people waving signs outside of a TV station but to no avail. The broadcasters had set the bar by saying that a party needed an elected member in the legislature in order to participate in the debate. The Alberta Alliance had Edmonton MLA Gary Masyk who had recently crossed the floor to join the Alberta Alliance. The powers that be decided this was not good enough as Masyk had not been elected under the banner of the Alberta Alliance.

The Alberta Alliance was running candidates in all 83 constituencies in that election as well. That still was not enough to sway the broadcasters and the debate was held with only the PC, NDP and Liberal leaders in that election. Fair enough.

 Now we come to the latest vocal complainants; the Alberta Party. While their presence on twitter is notable due to them having a handful of prolific posters in their ranks, their impact or even recognition among the Alberta electorate is simply insignificant. The fringe Alberta Party barely registers 1% in Alberta polls, has no member elected under their banner in the legislature, will be lucky to nominate even 30 candidates in the election and as far as can be seen is totally broke. Why on earth should their leader be allowed to take up 20% of the time at the very important debate?

 The Alberta Party scored a tiny coup when embittered former Liberal MLA Dave Taylor broke his promise to sit as an independent and crossed the floor to join them. Taylor never got over the Liberal Party’s rejection of him when he ran for the leadership and joining the Alberta Party was his final way of giving the finger to the party that got him elected in the first place. It must be noted, Taylor does not have the gumption or courage to actually run under the Alberta Party banner. He will be taking off with his severance package as soon as the writ drops presumably to try and find another job in broadcasting. At least Masyk was willing to run for the Alberta Alliance after he crossed the floor.

 It is pretty clearly established which parties are worth broadcasting to the province in a debate in the coming election. The PCs, Liberals, NDP and Wildrose parties all have members sitting in the legislature that were elected under their own party banner. They are all polling well above the statistical margin of error (no other parties are) and all are clearly in positions to be winning some seats at the least. Aside from the Liberals, all of them will be running significant numbers of candidates in the election. It will be important and interesting to see the leaders of these parties debate. That will not happen if every crackpot leader from the rest of the fringe parties takes part however.

A party can work it’s way from fringe status. What the Alberta Party supporters appear to overlook is that to do so takes years of very hard work. Paul Hinman was tireless as the leader of the Alberta Alliance party as well as many key supporters within the party. With countless meetings across the province, many policy revisions, news events and releases, recruitment of new and strong people and a receptive attitude to mergers and compromise, the party broke free from it’s fringe status and is the contender that we call the Wildrose today.

 Essentially what I am saying to the parties at the fringe is if we could do it (get mainstream sized support), you can do it. Until then though, you simply don’t rank a seat at the debates.

 Social media does provide for alternatives though. A community hall could be booked and a cage match debate could be held with the leaders of the Social Credit, Communist, Alberta, Evergreen and Separation parties that all want seats in the main debate. This circus could be live streamed and archived on YouTube. It could provide some welcome comic relief in what will doubtless be generally a serious election.

 The word that springs to mind when I see fanatical fringe party supporters demanding things is “entitlement”. Face it guys, private broadcasters owe you nothing nor should they. Quit complaining and put your nose to the grindstone. Complaining will never break you free from fringe status but hard work might.

 
 
 
 

Why do politicians lie to us? Because we ask them to.

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 I was out at some doors yesterday for a local candidate. People were very receptive and I do think that an atmosphere for change is finally building in Alberta. Still, at a few doors I hit some of those cynical types who boldly stated the old dodges “They are all the same” and “They are all liars”. Personally I think that most of these people use this as a simplistic excuse to avoid the personal responsibility of actually paying attention to politics and casting a ballot every few years. Politicians are not all the same nor are all of them liars. Still though, there is a grain of truth to those statements which allows people to hide behind them.

 The problem is twofold; politicians are prone to breaking promises because we ask them to make unreasonable promises and we reward them by re-electing them after they have broken promises.

People are prone to voting for whoever blows the most sunshine up their collective arses

I learned the above lesson in the first candidates forum I ever participated in. It was the 2001 election and in Canmore there were a few hundred people gathered at the Howard Johnson so see what we all had to say.

 Now as I said, it was my first forum so I was a little nervous and most unwisely chose to calm my nerves through having a few beers in the lounge before the forum. Consuming a diuretic like beer before having to sit for a few hours in front of a crowd is never a good idea but the foolishness of that idea escaped me that night.

 Getting towards the later part of the forum, I am getting increasingly uncomfortable due to excess bladder pressure and the hours of fluffy and predictable non-answers to questions from other candidates were getting on my nerves. My version of political Tourette’s syndrome was building and I was ready to go off. I was running in a fringe position in that election and was under no illusion that I was in a position to win the seat. That does bestow a certain kind of freedom that the other candidates did not have.

 The question to all candidates that set me off was “How much would you raise minimum wage in order to fight poverty in Alberta?” Such a shallow and loaded question in itself ticked me off and the predictable answers from the other candidates drove me right over the edge.

 The NDP promised a massive increase to minimum wage which would end all poverty in Alberta. The Liberal promised a moderate increase to minimum wage to end all poverty in Alberta. The PC promised to strike a committee to see how much we would need to raise minimum wage to end all poverty in Alberta.

 Finally it was my turn to answer. I began my statement by bluntly pointing out that raising minimum wage to fight poverty was about as stupid as printing money to pay off the debt. Well the intake of breath before utter silence in the room was evident. I then continued to rant and point out that simplistic, band-aid solutions will do nothing to ease a complex problem such as poverty. I said something along the lines of people perpetuating poverty through supporting placebo fixes such as minimum wage increases while ignoring the tougher realities that need to be faced if poverty is to be addressed.

 Well, needless to say I didn’t exactly win the room. What was most striking after the forum though was when I spoke to people one on one in the room (after a much needed washroom break). Many people fully agreed with me but said in hushed tones “you just can’t say that if you are running in an election.” Why the hell not? Through stating what I considered to be a hard reality I had committed an apparent form of blasphemy at the forum. I had burst the shallow trend of platitudes and rainbows with a cold wash of reality.

 I didn’t try to be all things to all people as the rest of the candidates did and many were appalled. People said things such as “I appreciate your honesty, but could never vote for you”. In that case folks, you don’t really appreciate honesty at all. I understand that there were many reasons why I was not elected that year aside from my lack of restraint when speaking. Still, I was shocked and annoyed how people saw sugarcoated answers to be the only acceptable ones out there.

 This attitude of dodging unpleasant answers and issues though is what leads more and more politicians to promise the world during campaigns whether they can deliver it or not.

 Sadly, a platform based on massive spending  increases along with debt reduction, along with tax reduction, along with an elimination of poverty, along with 100% highly paid employment, along with better tasting drinking water in rural areas is simply not feasible. Despite the complete fantasy nature of the above statement, that really is how many campaigns sound and it is what people are often drawn to voting for.

 When you elect politicians based on unreasonable mandates, don’t express shock when the promises are broken. When the electorate is prepared to vote for politicians with realistic mandates, we will see a reduction in broken promises.

 The other factor that encourages politicians to lie is our willingness to keep re-electing proven liars. Incumbents are practicing learned behavior here folks. They lie their faces off in order to win their seats, they break their promises after winning and then we as an electorate reward the behavior by forgiving them and falling for their lies yet again in the next election.

 Alison Redford blatantly and repeatedly lied in order to win the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives and on some pretty darned big promises. It is clear that Redford is willing to say anything to get elected and it is clear that she will not hesitate to go back on her word once elected. Despite this, Redford still leads the polls in Alberta. So many people claim that they are tired of politicians lying yet they refuse to stop supporting the liars.

 If we want to reduce the broken promises and lies of politicians, the first step is to toss out the incumbent liars. Some will say “the next ones will just lie too”. Perhaps that is true. In that case, toss them out in their butts after 4 years. If the next politician lies, toss that one out too. It may take 8 years, but if the electorate makes it clear that lying politicians tend to only retain their seats for four years we will see a big change in the attitude and behavior of politicians of all stripes.

 Is that just a dream though? The electorate needs to stop blaming the politicians and needs to look at itself. In the end, we who vote still hold the ultimate power should we choose to use it. I think that if and when times become hard enough that people will finally engage. I still hold hope that we do not have to crash to get there first.

 The PCs have been in power for 40 years. The lies told and promises broken over four decades are countless. Despite that we keep putting them back in power. Who is at fault here then?

Let’s hope that we see this trend end in a few months. I am a sour grouchy man at times, but I still have an element of optimism in me.

An effective demonstration. No tents, no lawbreaking and no poop required.

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Well, this morning I got up bright and early to make the long drive back to Calgary from the  Fort McMurray area for my Christmas break. A few weeks of raping dear Mother Earth can be nothing short of exhausting I tell you. I could almost hear her cries for mercy as we tracked the bitumen migrations of a steam injection project.

Being so fresh from working in a safe and environmentally responsible working environment, I am a little more sensitive to the hyperbole and outright BS that the anti-productive anti-prosperity crowd yelps out in their opposition to the ethical and clean example of profoundly successful capitalism in what we call the oilsands. I have written about the fabrications of that set before. The anti-oilsands gang rarely bothers to stay within reality as real science simply is not on their side.

 With facts working against them, the anti-industry zealots opposing the oilsands have been working on a campaign of coaxing gullible but large companies to practice greenwashing by speaking out against Alberta products. Bed Bath and Beyond fell for it and took a public relations sting. Next up has been Chiquita with their shallow and ill-conceived claim to be avoiding Alberta products.

 The backlash against Chiquita’s hypocritical greenwashing was fast, strong and effective as Chiquita has been exposed to be a much nastier world corporate citizen than any Alberta oilsands company has ever even come close to being. Chiquita has a long and shameful history of participating in corrupt regimes through the purposeful funding of terrorist groups along with a host of other practices from environmental devastation to union busting.

 While driving I heard on the radio that a group of concerned Albertans would be holding a demonstration outside of a Safeway in Edmonton around noon. That timed out perfectly with my drive so of course I had to pop by. Here is what I found:

 

 Well prepared demonstrators had stationed themselves outside of a Safeway store. They had dressed as can be seen in the picture in some Southern style wear in order to be eye catching and to make an impression. No shouting, hassling of clientele or illegal acts were required to gain the attention of shoppers. People were not hindered and a simple brochure was being handed out to those interested.

 Pictured on the one side of the lit is a banana with blood spots for eyes creating a frowning face. It is a great and simple way to point out that Chiquita’s product can indeed be labelled as “blood bananas”.

 On the other side of the piece was a short letter addressed to Safeway headquarters explaining how Chiquita had declared war on the very Alberta families that Safeway relies upon for it’s livelihood. Some basic background was given and it was asked that Safeway join us in standing up for Alberta’s ethical oil.

 The piece is addressed and leaves room for individuals to sign it and send it to the Safeway headquarters should they like.

 Clearly there had been a good press release as press from pretty much every major media outlet was in attendance.

 

 The fellow depicted above was haranguing the demonstrator trying to imply that some sort of conspiracy of oil funding was behind this or something. He failed as the demonstrator stayed on message and no such conspiracy existed. The media was addressed throughout with a concise and consistent message.

 This was a perfectly executed public demonstration complementing the online campaign standing up to the detractors of Alberta’s economic engine. It was reasoned, it had a good straightforward message and a goal. It was memorable yet did not rely on crazy, annoying or illegal stunts in order to make it be so.

 In other words, it was a demonstration modelled by rational working people as opposed to the anarchistic union backed rabble that we usually see ripping up our public spaces.

 The only people who were somewhat put out by this demonstration were the clearly stressed managers from within the store. The came out briefly as pictured below. They had no comment and went back inside to doubtless report to their superiors. And so the message of the demonstration climbs to those who need it. I feel for those managers but that is how it goes when one carrys a controversial product.

 

 Chiquita has already been backtracking and are realizing that they have stepped into a public relations nightmare. The demonstration was well targeted in that I am sure that Safeway does not want this sort of attention. The grocery market is very competitive. I am pretty sure that Safeway execs are at the least sending a letter or two to Chiquita demanding that they cut it the hell out if they want to keep doing business.

 This also sends a message to other large companies that jumping on the anti-Alberta greenwashing bandwagon may not be all that worth it. Not only is Alberta among one of the world’s top suppliers of clean, ethical energy; we are also a large and growing consumer market. One does not need to have a marketing degree to realize that pissing off large and growing consumer markets is something of a stupid business decision.

 We recently saw countless directionless layabouts polluting public spaces around the country while causing consternation and cost to taxpayers for almost two months. Those protests never even identified an issue much left worked towards resolving one.

 More recently now we have seen a small but determined group identify an issue and work effectively towards making a large multi-national company re-examine their shallow stance on Alberta. Great work. More can be found here, and here. Demonstrations can be effective and they can be so without all the mess that some insist on creating.

 The screaming anarchistic left could learn a few lessons here. Of course they would have to stop their entitled yelping long enough for the message to get in.

The squatting in Olympic Plaza has finally ended. Nothing was accomplished.

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 With nearly two months of illegal squatting in a downtown Calgary park, the “occupy” Calgary squatters have finally packed up and gone home. No message was ever defined much less conveyed to the public at large. The only accomplishments really have been to have Calgary more clearly define the strength of bylaws should the city choose to enforce them.

 Some squatter supporters have been trying to save face and claiming that the activity spurred discussion. Really? Discussion of what? There was never a solid issue and there has never been real discussion. There have been strange demands made by crazy squatters and vague statements. Nothing specific was ever addressed through this exercise and there certainly was nothing that was settled. Serious discussions of issues existed before the squatting and will continue after the squatting. The squatting never aided in any discussion aside from wondering whether there is a Charter right to squat in city parks at expense to taxpayers (it was clearly determined that no such right exists).

Now I put this out to the squatters who now find themselves with even less to do; do you really want to accomplish anything? Do you want to take a path that really does spur discussion and impact decision making? Are there issues that you really want to see seriously discussed by the public and decision makers?

If the answers to any of the above are yes, then please read on while I explain how people can influence discussion and opinion in electoral politics. It allows me to do one of my favorite activities in that I will be tooting my own horn in providing real examples on how small but determined groups can influence politics on every level.

When I was in my 20s, I found myself frustrated with politics in Alberta. Our Prime Minister of the time (Jean Chretien) had won a strong majority in an electoral campaign that blatantly demonized my province and in which he never once even so much as set foot in Alberta. Chretien openly made statements about how he did not like dealing with Westerners and I felt that attitude had been embraced as Ontario and Quebec had given the Liberals of that time a strong mandate. I looked to the existing political vehicles and did not see any party that I felt was standing up for Western Canadian interests in a strong enough manner. Since no such party existed, I formed my own.

The Alberta Independence Party was a soft nationalist party that existed for less than a year overall. We never even managed to get officially registered as a party and we fell in apart for a number of reasons (not the least of which was my inexperience in leading a party). Despite such a short existence, in it’s time the AIP brought about both national and local discussion regarding Alberta’s role within confederation. Heated debates were had in the House of Commons as multiple MPs and Senator elects attended our founding convention. Suddenly Western alienation was a worthwhile discussion in Ottawa.

Provincially, an election was called within weeks of our founding convention as a party. Despite our lack of registration as a party and only a few more than a dozen declared candidates, the throne speech that was held just before the dissolution of the legislature took multiple shots at our small party and set the tone for the beginning of the election. Candidates across the province were questioned on their stances vs federal incursions on provincial jurisdiction. National and provincial news pundits wrote countless pieces on Western alienation, the causes of it and potential solutions for it and alienation was a top coffee shop discussion around the province.

Despite this attention to the issue, as I said the party did not last long after the provincial election. We had made a mark though and had definitively had an impact on discussion and decision making.

My main point here is that in the partisan world, measurable accomplishments can be attained even without being in an electable position.

Now again to the squatters, one thing you do have is a common social group even if your specific goals are tough to define. You can turn something productive from this last couple months through keeping your group and moving into the realm of electoral politics if you choose to. All of the information required for founding a political party can be found at the Elections Alberta website.  I have always found Elections Alberta to be excellent and very helpful in guiding one through the process.

There are some attitudes and ideas that will need to be shed by you if you are going to go this route however. I will list them below.

Public Opinion Matters!

Had the occupy squatter movement gained even a measurable 15% of strong support within the city of Calgary I assure you guys that your encampment would still actually exist as our elected city officials would not dare alienate a group like that. 15% is well within electoral spoiler numbers and no politician wants to go out of their way to cause a bloc of people like that to take their support elsewhere.

 Along with a degree of support, the direction and momentum of the support is important. The Alberta Independence Party at it’s very best was probably only appealing to perhaps 15% in some selected constituencies. That number grew fast however and had potential to get larger. Any MLA who had won their seat with any less than a 20% lead had to at the very least pay attention to us. The best way to undercut us was to embrace at least some of our sentiment. Again, goals were being accomplished. They wanted to ensure that our numbers stopped growing.

 The “occupy” Calgary group clearly saw public support eroding pretty much essentially since it’s inception. Incident after episode caused people almost daily to turn against the movement even had they been sympathetic before. Instead of being concerned with this drop in public support, what we saw mostly from the group was an attitude of “FU, we don’t care what you think.”. Well you should have cared guys. As it became clear that the support trend was going downward, city officials felt more emboldened in taking action to end your demonstration.

 As I demonstrated, you can come from a small minority position in general support yet still have an impact on policies, discussion and decision makers. You will not be able to do so though until you realize and accept that a degree of dedicated public support is essential to your cause.

Find, define and promote a message!

The shotgun approach to issues was a great part of the occupy undoing. Constantly people pointed out that when one asks 10 “occupiers” what the issue is they get 11 answers. That is laughed off and it is often pointed out in an almost arrogant manner that this consensus model is what it is all about and only fools should be asking for or expecting specifics.

 Well kids, you need to get over that concept. Months have been wasted and still nobody knows what you even stood for. You can’t claim that discussion was inspired when you can’t even define the issue.

 Part of why myself and others have been able to so consistently beat the hell out of you guys in discussion is that you have allowed us to frame the entire debate. When you refuse to define yourselves, rest assured somebody will do it on your behalf and as you know, folks like me were not kind in making our definitions.

 Think of it this way kids. You had been squatting for a couple weeks and nobody could figure out what point you were trying to make. I parked my truck there in counterprotest, made the point that a double standard existed in law enforcement and set the entire discussion of the whole thing for the rest of the movement on being about the “right” to squat in a park illegally. One man did that in one afternoon with a plan and a solid message.

 The Alberta Independence Party had what I still think to be a very good and comprehensive policy book. Despite that, the reality was that at best we were only considered an authority on issues of provincial alienation. We accepted and worked with that. Nobody came to us to hear what we thought of healthcare provision, but we found our way into the discussion when we pointed out the federal shortcomings in funding transfers to healthcare (particularly when compared with federal funding for Quebec). We were single issue in many ways but we found ways to apply our views and make ourselves a group worthy of consideration on more diverse views.

 While literally hundreds of issues exist, voters realistically are only closely watching perhaps a half-dozen issues and they base their electoral decisions on those views. Fight it out guys and find your common ground. Identify five solid issues and stake your ground on them. Become experts on those issues and make yourselves the authority on them. Learn to apply those five issues to broader issues as I did with provincial alienation. Then people will come to you and if you do it right, they will stay with you.

You need the media!

Yes the media is often biased. The media can be fickle and they can be nasty. You don’t need to even like the media but you had better damn well learn that they are essential to you if you want to influence public opinion and decision making whether in electoral politics or in any other form of activism. The majority of people on all ends of the political spectrum get their information from the “corporate media” and they base their views on that information. To shun this is nothing shy of idiocy.

 I saw and documented many forms of idiocy from the “occupy” Calgary crowd. One that definitely made the top 5 though was yesterday’s stupid press conference stunt. To get media together for an event and then walk away refusing to comment was petty, pointless and to be blunt just bloody stupid. You don’t have to pursue the media or kiss their butts, but to go out of your way to piss them off is just dumb. Believe it or not, those reporters do have better things to do. What few may have been even a tiny bit sympathetic to you disappeared yesterday morning after that stunt. When you already know that they can be biased, why purposely turn that bias against yourself?

 I led a soft-nationalist party. I was attacked and abused from editorialists from across the country. I was mocked by some and outright attacked by others. The CBC was particularly skilled in their patronizing and belittling coverage of us. I did not let this stop me from doing interviews. I certainly did not lash back. It was pointless.

 As I said, the CBC was terribly rough on me.  I recall doing a Newsworld interview where the host just pummelled me for the entire thing. I felt out right lashed and exhausted after that loaded interview. After the interview, our phone rang off the hook and memberships poured in. Don’t underestimate the public’s ability of seeing through the bias. The interview got our message out to a whole new group of people and we gained support despite the bias.

I remember one Globe and Mail piece that began with “Cory the Kid and his pipsqueak party held a convention in Red Deer last weekend.” After that opening sentence, the editorial began to get rough and patronizing with me. After our founding convention the Globe dedicated three days of editorials explaining to Canada why our party didn’t matter. We never could have bought such advertising. While rarely was there ever a favorable article about us, the support through contributions, volunteers and memberships continued to grow as people got familiar with us.

 I am not of the view of any press being good press. If they are reporting on something idiotic that has been done by you, then you simply will look more the idiot for the coverage. Bias however is not always all that harmful even if it irritates. As long as you are somewhat solid in your message, you can and will withstand the slant.

 Don’t forget, the media needs you too. Put yourself in the shoes of a reporter. You have a deadline and you need something interesting to write about. You need quotes and interviews to make your piece stand out and be unique in presenting information to people. Rest assured, reporters don’t get far by figuratively beating the piss out of everybody they interview. They will not get further quotes and information from people for long with that approach. Set aside the paranoia and address them guys. You need each other.

Get a leader!

Every movement/party needs a leader/spokesperson. I know the “occupy” thing was supposed to be leaderless. Well it showed. Along with a consistent message, you need a consistent voice/face presenting it or it will be forgotten and lost.

One of the reasons that the Alberta Independence Party took off for the period that it did was because they had a dashing and well spoken young man who people could comfortably approach and get statements from. It was tougher to stereotype us as old white Christian men as people often did with Reform when the leader was a twenty-something, outspoken social liberal and agnostic who was of mixed ancestry. No leaderless group can dodge such pidgeonholing without having a leader to counter it.

 People and press need a consistent face representing the movement as much as they need a consistent message. The leader need not be a dynamo or saint. The leader simply needs to be consistent, know the issues and be at least a bit sane (may be tough for the last part).

 Is the goal change? Do you really want to see serious discussion? Do you want to impact decision making? Again I strongly suggest that you take the tips above to heart. A small group can have a large impact if things are done right.

 Even if your goals are simple selfish bragging rights. Lets look at a comparisons of outcomes.

One day I will be able to tell my grandkids that I formed and led a political party that caused national discussion of Alberta’s role within confederation and set the tone for an entire provincial election.

One day our “occupy” Calgary squatters will be able to tell their grandkids that they alienated the entire city of Calgary and will be forever be remembered for pooping in a park.

 Which outcome do you prefer?