Hat tip to John Westerberg for sending me this gem. The mindset of your average dipper makes sense in light of this pic.
Aside from a short picture post, have added a few more updates to the list of Wildrose Party Executive Committee nomination candidates for the 2012y Annual General Meeting in Edmonton. Will keep filling out that list as updates and bios come in.
In this last little while we have seen an excellent local example of the importance and power of social-media in politics.
I had found a large and critical breach of the Wildrose Party constitution in a nominee application form for people choosing to run for the Provincial Executive of the party. This document had been approved by the Provincial Executive and had been posted on the Wildrose Party website. We will never know how many potentially great candidates may have turned away upon seeing that dictatorial pap posted as an apparent application for a democratic nomination.
Not only was this application a serious breach of the party constitution, the terms had been directly approved by the Executive Committee (confirmed in meeting minutes). The optics of an Executive Committee putting barriers up against people who may run against them for board positions are rather terrible to say the least. This sort of thing makes past actions by the party look questionable too. Was it this this sort of thing that led to the unusual acclamation of Paul Collins as Party President at the last Annual General Meeting? Typically in a party that is making waves and skyrocketing in growth as the Wildrose Party was in June 2011, there will be many people vying for a position such as Party President. Oddly, Paul Collins was apparently the only member in good standing who applied for the position that year. Who knows, could have been just an odd anomaly in member choice that year and nobody else happened to want to run. Sadly when the integrity of the nomination process has been breached, these sorts of questions and theories begin to surface and have much more appearance of merit.
In addressing this offense against the constitution, membership and simply principled behavior, I was greeted with silence and stonewalling in my inquiries. Nobody would address the issue. Fingers pointed to the nomination committee but nobody could or would name the members of that committee. Emails were ignored and my phone remained silent.
The clock was ticking. The deadline was approaching for applications for the executive committee and nobody with authority within the party would openly even address this breach, much less work to fix it. Jane then took it public and blogged her findings. If you have not read Jane’s posting yet, I strongly recommend that you do. Jane has excellently documented each step she took in her investigation and each conclusion and discovery that she found.
Jane’s article began to make rounds and finally we saw some movement. Jane made regular updates as now communications began to come in as a group of party officials having been found to have their pants around their ankles scrambled to fix the mess that they had created and now was blowing up in their faces.
Only ten years ago it would have been impossible to force such movement from a Party Executive Committee that has been losing sight of it’s mandate like this. Conventional media typically does not pay much attention to the internal machinations of political parties and trying to get members ignited through phone and mail while effective, simply takes too much time in circumstances like this. Between blogs and other forms of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, the grassroots members of the Wildrose Party stood up and put the Party Executive back in it’s place. Change was made and the process is now open, democratic and most importantly constitutionally sound.
Most people will have never heard about this whole fiasco, but it was a grassroots turning point. Future Party Executive Committees and possibly other other party executives will certainly think twice before trying to sneak around party constitutional protections.
Not everybody was too happy about this grassroots victory however. The Previously acclaimed (hopefully outgoing) Wildrose Party President, Paul Collins appears to have awakened from his slumber long enough to post an outright petulant little rant on Facebook and on Jane Morgan’s blog where he calls the grassroots members who stood up to him and his executive “clowns”. I will post the tantrum in full below.
Wildrose Party President Paul Collins September 11 2012:
I find it quite amusing that the social media today affords people to express views with partial truth and a ton of misinformation. What happened to the days when people ,who wanted to know the truth, would make a call to one who had an answer. I guess this practice of going to the source before going to the public would be too practical or ethical. What I have experienced on Facebook blogs in the last few days is the heights of immature behavior and I must remember to keep my sense of humor and smile at the clowns that spend their time producing such comedic content.
It is quite a sad irony that a Party President would post such a pouty reaction to a serious issue and then say that others are “immature”.
Comedic content? Partial truths? Misinformation? Please Paul, kindly cite those allegations. As can be seen on Jane Morgan’s blog, she cited and quoted all of her sources. If it was all a load of hooey, why did the party even change the form then?
What Paul Collins is angry about is that not only was he caught sleeping at the helm, but that those grassroots clowns in social media accomplished more in the development and defence of grassroots operations in a couple weeks than he has done in his entire presidency.
It must be kept in mind, Paul Collins is the Party President who could barely find it in himself to call a simple executive teleconference meeting even every two months in an election year. Clearly this man does not like the coasting in his flaccid presidency to be interrupted by eruptions and actions made by those darned uppity grassroots “clowns”.
Well suck it up princess. I do hope and look forward to those grassroots clowns voting Paul Collins out as Party President at this year’s AGM as it has been made clear that he has utterly no respect for the will of the membership or the constitution that protects those member rights.
Thanks to social media and the grassroots clowns within it, parties can no longer sneak things past the member’s radar. This is a great thing.
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.
The evolution of the Wildrose Party has had many ups, downs and turning points. One of the most significant unifying and strengthening exercises that the party ever undertook though was the member driven election of Danielle Smith as our party leader. It is during that campaign when members were engaged by multiple candidates for months as a small but diverse slate pursued their support for the leadership. During that time the members could truly feel how important they were in guiding the direction of the party as every one of their votes mattered. In the end, the membership overwhelmingly elected Danielle Smith who has proven to be one of the most engaging and dynamic party leaders we have seen in Alberta in a long long time. With the collected engaged wisdom of the membership, a leader was chosen who would bring us from one seat at that time to the 17 seats and official opposition status in only a few years. Member driven politics do work and thousands of minds are better than one. It is very possible that the Wildrose Party may form the next government of Alberta if we keep things principled and together.
Between the selection of leaders, the membership is empowered in that they constitutionally are the sole authority in the selection of the party executive committee. The Executive Committee manages the operations and general direction of the party. Their role is to seek, reflect and act upon the combined will of the party membership. It is in nominating and electing the party executive committee that the membership ensures that the party reflects them and not any small our unaccountable groups.
The whole process for selecting the executive committee is very straightforward and simple. Any member in good standing may be nominated up to 65 days before the Annual General Meeting. Those members will then be listed and will campaign to the membership asking to be selected by secret ballot at the AGM by the collected membership. Very democratic, very grassroots and very effective when left alone.
Unfortunately and almost inevitably self-interested small groups will try and undermine the democratic means of running an organization. It really is sad to see how the Wildrose Party executive committee has behaved in this last 15 months since they took on their roles. As per this blog posting it can be seen that the executive committee only formally met five times in an election year. That is pretty sad for a group with such an important role. How can one do their job by only meeting once every couple months? The party President has not been calling meetings and has been all but invisible in general. The AGM notification is turning into an embarrassing fiasco and policy will not even be deliberated on.
Despite this terribly lacklustre performance, apparently many of these current executive members plan to keep their positions past this AGM. While there is nothing wrong with seeking re-election, it is getting very disturbing seeing what is apparently a move to limit the simple member choice system in the election of our executive committee as was documented in this blog posting. The current Executive Committee is directly responsible for this mess and one can really only assume that the only rationale for such a blatant breach in our party constitution was to try and limit who may or may not contest the current executive committee for board positions. Even the Progressive Conservative Party is more open in their board selection than this!
It is grassroots empowerment that is our strength as a party. It is the power of the membership that makes us feel like participants in a party rather than simply wallets for it. It will be through allowing the membership to guide the general direction of party operations through it’s election of the executive committee that our party will stabilize to the point where Danielle Smith can lead us to a full electoral victory without worrying about what is happening with the party board.
Despite this embarrassing and flagrant breach of the party constitution in trying to empower an appointed anonymous committee who can reject nominees “for any reason they see fit”, none of the current executive committee members have shown the courage to come forth and at least try to explain or justify this breach. That speaks volumes of how functional, democratic and freethinking our current executive committee is.
We will not let hidden groups block the democratic election of our executive committee! I know there will be some excellent candidates coming forward at this year’s AGM and I look forward to seeing the membership selecting them. I won’t say who to vote for but I will say that nobody should even consider voting for an executive committee member who remained silent in the face of a breach of our constitution by them. We need change.
The members chose a great leader, they will choose a great executive committee too when given the chance. We just had better ensure that the members maintain that right as clearly somebody is trying to take it away.
I was planning to put this game together sometime near the beginning of the legislative session. Alas, the Wildrose Party jumped the gun on me with their demanding the firing/resignation of Fred Horne in mid-summer so I decided I had better get on this as who knows how many stamps may be gained before the legislature even manages to sit for a full session.
There are few opposition tactics that are as shallow, abused, over-used and lazy as that of demanding the resignation of a government minister or member over an issue. Perhaps Horne’s firing is warranted but I tell you what; now that Smith has demanded he be fired there is practically no way that Horne will be shuffled or fired anytime soon. All the same, this is the first demand for a resignation/firing by the Wildrose since the election so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt in that this is just something of a one-off or that Horne really needs to go that badly.
It can be argued that one of Canada’s most fiscally conservative governments in recent memory was under Jean Chretien with a Reform Party opposition. A strong and responsible opposition can have a great influence upon a sitting government. The only way an opposition party can wield power though is to truly threaten the sitting government’s position in power. That position will not be attained if the opposition simply consists of demanding the resignation of ministers every time something happens under their watch.
Once an opposition party demands the resignation/firing of a government member, unless that member has done something huge, possibly criminal and totally unforgivable, that member will become even more deeply entrenched in government. Pride and political points come into play once a resignation is demanded. If a member is performing terribly and the opposition keeps hammering on and exposing those actions, that member may indeed eventually step down or be shuffled soon. Once a resignation/firing is demanded however, the chance of getting rid of that member goes from being simply unlikely to that of an icecube’s hope in hell.
Public cynicism with politics in general is growing. The indignant howlings by parties on all sides in legislatures both federally and provincially are adding to that growing disconnection between citizens and elected officials. Few actions can aid in that better than a frivolous call for a resignation/firing of a member. I am not suggesting that the legislature try to emulate the rainbow and lollipop approach to debate that the Alberta Party proposed (leading to their utter electoral slaughter). A heated and emotional debate in the legislature can be engaging and productive. That debate needs to be carefully crafted though and opposition will have to work carefully to guide that.
In coming to this legislative session the Wildrose Party can choose between two potential roles; it can accept that it has replaced the Alberta Liberals in a position of permanent opposition, or it can act as a true government in waiting that is currently serving in opposition. The second option will not be achieved if frivolous calls for the resignation of government members remain common.
I am looking forward to what I hope is one of the best legislative sessions that we have seen in a decade.
The card I modelled has the current cabinet along with a few backbench wildcards. I will continue to update and mark it as calls for firings/resignations from opposition members add up. The color of the stamp will represent which opposition party demanded the firing/resignation.
Lets hope that the card does not fill up with stamps quickly. I don’t really want this bingo card to be a blackout winner.
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.
With some less than gentle prodding on this blog, it has been finally (almost grudgingly) confirmed that the Wildrose Party will be holding it’s AGM on November 23-24 in Edmonton at the Mayfair Inn. While this information is still not on the Wildrose Party website, a tweet from Danielle Smith has confirmed this.
A tweet from Wildrose Party VP Policy (Rob Ladouceur) has confirmed that policy and the party constitution will not be on the agenda at this year’s Annual General Meeting. It is unfortunate that getting answers for what should be simple questions is like pulling teeth these days and the best information comes from twitter rather than party releases or even the Wildrose Party website.
The bottom line is that the party is between a rock and a hard place. When it was discovered that an Annual General Meeting was a legal obligation, one was hastily slapped together for late November in Edmonton. The Wildrose Party constitution states that 120 days of notice must be given to members if policy or constitutional changes are to be considered. The deadline is past so it is impossible for policy and constitutional issues of the party to be addressed at the upcoming meeting. This is most unfortunate as so many have been saying that the Wildrose Party needs some robust policy debates soon.
There is one important matter that can and will be addressed at this fall’s AGM and that is the election of the Wildrose Party’s executive committee. Now according to section 5.1.1 of the Wildrose Party constitution: “Authority within the Party resides in it’s members”. That is a huge and critical principle and it is the foundation of the entire party.
The only real way the members can exercise that authority is through the direct election of the party executive committee. An active party executive ensures that the members concerns are addressed and should communicate between the membership and other elements within the party.
The Wildrose Party’s current executive committee apparently only held five meetings between June 2011 and June 2012!
What kind of party oversight is being provided when the Executive Committee only meets on average once every 73 days (in an election year no less)? In those few meetings apparently time was usually not set aside for reports from provincial directors so to those candidates and constituency volunteers who felt that their voices were not being heard by the powers that be in the party; you were absolutely right. While some PDs did want to raise issues and concerns to the board, they simply did not have the means or authority to call meetings.
Party President Paul Collins (who was unsurprisingly somehow acclaimed at the last AGM) while enjoying wearing the hat of Party President has been quite derelict in his duties. The responsibility to call board meetings is upon the Party President and it appears that Paul had little interest in going to that trouble. Outside of the board, has anybody really seen much of Paul Collins? I recall past presidents popping in to Constituency Association meetings and helping out greatly on the ground. Our current president has been largely invisible. This is indeed what happens when a party Executive has been stacked and given an unwritten mandate to marginalize itself. This allowed a certain element of staffers and the like to run and operate the party unencumbered by such things as member guidance and oversight.
If the Wildrose Party is going to stay true to it’s grassroots basis, the members must elect active members of their own choosing to the Provincial Executive this fall. It is simply inexcusable that a group of people tasked to such important duties could barely meet every second month. Executive meetings are easy to call and hold. The vast majority of them are through teleconference and last a couple hours. We used to hold them at least monthly.
Some may claim that the board did not need to meet much as committees actually took care of much of the party business. That is simply bunk. The committees of note are formed by the Executive Committee and report to the Executive Committee. How can that be effectively be happening if the Executive Committee barely ever meets?
I know that many members of the Executive Committee have worked very hard volunteering in all sorts of roles within the party. That does not compensate for the lack of meetings where important issues and party direction should be discussed. The board is not there to micromanage the affairs of the party, but it does (or should) provide a critical form of oversight and guidance in party affairs.
The Wildrose Party has a little less than four years to prepare for the next election. One crucial step in becoming the party that a majority of Albertans can trust and embrace will be having the membership of the party resoundingly reclaiming control of the party at this year’s AGM. We need to prepare now and gather the right group of people to take part in the provincial board. If we do not speak up and act, the Wildrose Party will simply get another token “no meet” executive committee and accountability to the membership will be lost for another year.
One final note, I am not seeking a position on the next provincial board. Been there, done that. I just want to speak up and ensure that we get a proper and functional board at this coming AGM. Nothing else is on the agenda there anyway.
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.
People can point to all sorts of individual things in the last provincial election and blame them for the Wildrose Party’s failure to convince Albertans to elect them to government. The conscience rights policy made many people uncomfortable and Edmonton candidate Alan Hunsperger’s candid thoughts from an old blog post were outright offensive to most people upon hearing them. Any party that has 87 candidates, tens of thousands of members and hundreds of policies will have some questionable people speaking up now and then and will have some policies that simply stink. If a party has gained the trust of the electorate in general that party can withstand hiccups caused by some individuals within it and from poor policies.
With enough digging, we can rest assured that every major party has some crackpots within it’s ranks and some policies on their books that simply do not do them any favors. The PCs had a Calgary candidate who’s comments on ethnic issues paled in comparison to Leech’s awkward musings. The NDP had a candidate who was one of the main organizers of the Olympic Plaza illegal squatting last fall. The Liberals had to rush to fill candidate vacancies and it is a safe bet that a few of those names they used on ballots were less than rational. The reason that these things did not damage the other parties as they did the Wildrose Party is that Albertans know the other parties and can feel comfortable in writing off the actions of a few individuals and ignoring some outlying policies.
People in Alberta were clearly ready for change in the last election and it showed in the first three weeks of the campaign. Albertan’s can and will embrace grassroots populism as we saw with Reform throughout the 90s. Still though, the Wildrose Party was a relative unknown to the majority of Albertans and this made the popular support from the electorate very fragile. When the oddball people and policies popped up, voters got uncomfortable and retreated back to the devil they knew in the final days of the election. Polls can’t measure floating trust and comfort levels thus they completely dropped the ball in the last election.
Unfortunately the temptation is strong to further centralize actions and decision making within a party when things like this happen. Some people feel that the nominations should be more tightly controlled by the central party and candidates gagged even further. The Wildrose Party shamelessly messed with many nominations prior to the election. That offensive meddling with constituency choice caused great strain between constituency associations and the central party. When there is mistrust between the members themselves and the central party, you can rest assured that this discomfort spreads to the electorate at campaign time.
The Wildrose needs to strengthen it’s constituency associations and empower them further rather than meddle further with their choices of candidates. Will the constituencies make some poor choices in candidates at times? Yes they sure will. We can rest assured though that the central party can pick some dogs too. If they constituencies truly choose their candidates though in an open process, it makes it clear that each candidate is simply one of 87. It is much more difficult to label the entire party based on the actions of individuals when it is clear that the individual only represents one portion. When the central party takes direct part in candidate selection, than the party indeed will wear the actions of those candidates as a whole. In building trust we need people working in communities on the ground, not further centralization.
Some quotes and attitudes that came from Danielle in that interview are somewhat disturbing. It is clear as day that the Wildrose needs to revisit and reform some of it’s policies and of course there is nothing wrong with a leader saying that. It is the tone of Smith speaking as if these policy changes are a done deal and she will essentially tell us as members what we will be choosing as a stance or policy in the future with statements like: “Now that the decision has been made I’ll leave it at that,” and then following with “I’ll indicate that to my party as well.” (in regards to the funding of elective procedures such as gender reassignment in the public health system).
Ms. Smith, I do hope that you understand that the party indicates their policy wishes to you and not the other way around. I understand that a leader has to make some tough stances on issues and can’t consult with the membership every time an issue surfaces. The tone and attitude here though suggests that some areas are simply closed to member discussion and her word is final. I do hope that I am mistaken in this.
Year after year we have seen our party AGMs focus more on video and light displays with less attention being paid to policy. At our last AGM the video screens were fantastic but only a scant few hours were dedicated to member policy discussion over the entire weekend. That AGM lost nearly $90,000 as the $250 per ticket cost discouraged grassroots members from attending something that was more akin to a rock concert than a political party deliberating on important issues such as policy. Turnout was embarrassingly dismal for a party that was seen as a growing force. Perhaps has a couple more hours been dedicated to policy discussion, the membership may have taken more time to consider whether conscience rights were a viable policy option. As it was, policy discussions were rushed through with little meditation on the part of the collected membership.
Effort has been made to centralize control within the Wildrose Party in the last few years and this has led to a growing sense of discomfort and distrust within the party membership. I saw that mistrust starkly in the campaign that I worked with as the candidate did not even want to share his polling results with the party for fear that the list would be abused for central fundraising. It is tough to build a sense of unity and optimism among a campaign team in that atmosphere and even tougher for that team to spread that to the electorate in 28 days.
Leading and managing a grassroots party is damn tough. The headaches are endless as CAs go rogue, infighting happens and mixed messages get out. Despite those challenges, the way to earn that precious trust that the party so dearly needs will be by opening up rather than introverting. We need well attended public policy meetings that are open and take time in their deliberations. We need early nominations so candidates can get to know their constituents personally in years leading to an election. We essentially need to stick to our party bylaws which clearly lay all that out anyway and speak out every time somebody wants to try and bypass the will of the members.
Leading also means standing up for the party policies when they come under fire. When a leader begins to sound like they will say or do anything for a vote and is willing to throw their founding principles to the wind, trust is lost. The Wildrose lost a great deal of trust that way in the election when the party promoted the vapid and ill-conceived royalty rebate plan. It wasn’t that voters did not like the idea of a few bucks in their pockets, it was that the policy was a clear vote-buy that was in total contradiction of a party that claims fiscal responsibility. It felt disingenous
With 17 great MLAs in opposition and a little less than four years to work on it, the Wildrose Party is very well placed to earn that much needed trust among the electorate before the next election. If the party continues to ignore and sideline the membership however, the Wildrose could turn into a flash in the pan. Alison Redford is already presenting Alberta with a top-down centralized party. Why should that be replicated?
OK what do all of the songs below have in common?
Well for one, they are all Alberta political campaign songs, they all have likely had utterly no impact in encouraging people to vote for their person/party and they all make me want to stab myself in the ear with a pencil.
I understand that the production of these songs was likely fun and they helped in some small way to bond existing supporters. Come on though, they typically sound as low-budget as they indeed are and only really serve to irritate.
It took talent and work to create these songs and I can appreciate that. At this time though, I think that talent and effort may better be utilized on doorsteps than in low budget recording scenarios.
When it comes to these songs too, it should be kept in mind that musical genre crosses political lines. I understand that many in Alberta love country music. While I am a born and bred Albertan, I despise country music. I have tried to learn to like it but alas like brussels sprouts I just can’t make myself enjoy that stuff. I would rather listen to a choir composed of Helen Keller clones trying to sing Handel’s Messiah than listen to country music. Does that mean that Wildrose or other parties should then model campaign songs playing classic rock to appeal to folks like me? No! Then the country crowd won’t want to listen. Just stick to platforms.
Not the end of the world I guess. Many people are complaining about being called too much, too many flyers in their mail and too many ads. Well I want to complain about the rotten songs composed and recorded during campaigns.
Should you want to torture yourself, by all means listen to the songs below. I won’t try to rate which one is less bad than another. I will post more as they surface if they do. With any luck these will be all I find. 😉
