What Happened, Alberta?

On Tuesday, May 5 2015 Alberta did the unthinkable - it elected an NDP majority government.

For most who grew up in the province, this was an almost unimaginable change in government.  Since the 1930s when the Social Credit party swept to power under "Bible Bill" Eberhart, Alberta has consistently voted right wing or centre-right under Lougheed.  Its political past has been one of apparent unity.  Certainly since the 1980s, the joke has been you could get a bale of hay elected in Alberta as long as it was running under a conservative banner.

Over at Evil Scientist, there is a decent analysis of the election and its outcome, but I think there's a bit more to the story that bears consideration.

Several factors had eroded public confidence in the governing PCs, a party which had held power since 1971.

Few people have acknowledged the party's inability to select a popular, or even capable, leader after Ralph Klein resigned.  First they selected Ed Stelmach, who promptly turned around and bungled a review of Alberta's royalty regime and in doing so upset a large chunk of the boardroom boys who like to think they are in control.

Then, when they pitched Stelmach out, they replaced him with Alison Redford.  Redford may not have been a bad premier had she been able to act on her own.  After the first few months in power, it became very clear that Redford was beholden to power brokers within the party.  After doing a few modest things which were socially progressive, her government turned around and tabled Bills 45 and 46 which were a gross attack on Alberta's labourers and in particular those who worked in the civil service.  Those bills all by themselves would have pushed an enormous number of voters away from the PCs in Edmonton.  This was followed by a series of scandals where Redford was painted as a selfish, entitled Premier who was grossly abusing taxpayer dollars with private flights, and a private apartment atop a government building.

By this point, public outrage against the PCs was building quite strongly.  Those on the political right decried the abuse of public dollars, those on the political left were appalled by the neoliberal assault on labour rights.  Further, a steady erosion of both health care and education services, resulting in increasing fees at the door for both, unacceptable waiting times for treatment and other problems resonated with Albertans as an unacceptable problem.

The PCs no doubt thought that they had won a great victory in 2012 when the progressive vote in the province collapsed to the benefit of the PCs following a series of bungled "bozo eruptions" from the WildRose Party's candidates and leaders.  The party brass failed to understand that much of that vote in 2012 was not solid "PC support", but rather a strategic vote to keep the WRP out of power.  So, when the PCs started implementing ever more neoliberal legislation and acting more and more like Harper's Conservatives federally, it naturally had a price.

In the run up to calling the election, and during the election campaign itself, Premier Jim Prentice bungled several things which cost his party a substantial amount of support.  First, there was the astonishingly arrogant "look in the mirror" comment, which no matter how he intended it to sound came across to most Albertans as arrogant, smug and paternalistic to say the least.  Then there was the budget, where he refused to address corporate taxes at all, which just resulted in a lot of people deciding that Prentice was just a puppet of the corporate boardrooms who clearly had far too much influence already.  In the debate, Prentice cooked his own goose with the wonderfully condescending "Math is Hard" comment, which Notley promptly turned back on him. (Few have noted the similarity between Prentice's comment and the 1990s uproar over a Barbie doll)

So, why didn't the seemingly right leaning Alberta voters run over to the WildRose Party?  First, I think that the NDP managed to plant the idea in voters minds that there was little difference between the PCs and the WRP philosophically.  The mass defection to the PCs led by Danielle Smith didn't help matters, and previous associations between WRP leader Brian Jean and Prentice would hardly have helped.  Jean not only worked alongside Prentice in Ottawa, but donated $10,000 to Prentice's leadership campaign.

A wooden performance at the debate where Jean seemed to be unable to answer questions directly, and stuck rigidly to a "no taxes" script echoed the tightly controlled approach to politics that Canadians have seen from Stephen Harper's Conservatives federally.  This could not have played well for the WRP.  A policy convention in the fall where social conservative elements in the WRP were able to defeat a motion that would have broadened the party's human rights position to include LGBT rights would also have been a deterrent to more socially moderate voters who might have otherwise considered the WildRose Party an acceptable option.  Jean did state that he was not willing to take on "controversial" topics, but his voting record in Ottawa didn't exactly lend socially progressive voters any confidence.  Also, voters had a difficult time squaring the party's lower taxes mantra with the costs of providing services that the public demands.  Simply saying you could save billions by cutting management was naive, and enough voters remember the chaos of Klein's cuts in the 90s to be wary.

Prentice didn't step into an easy position.  Oil prices had tanked when he took the reins of power, and over the coming months, Alberta's oil patch shed over 20,000 jobs.  This only accounts for a percentage of the actual losses, with contractors and smaller players having lost enormous amounts of business that never show up in the "jobs" numbers.  Voters weren't exactly buying the "low taxes = jobs" line out of the right wing - they had already figured out that "jobs" were inherently insecure.  What will remain a mystery is why Prentice triggered a snap election.  The timing made no sense.  An economic downturn, a public upset with Redford's leadership and with Prentice's seeming arrogance.  Calling an early election, even in the face of apparent disarray in the WRP, was a silly move.

But how does this translate into the massive swing to the NDP that we saw on Tuesday?  After all, Alberta had a number of other options to vote for which were closer to the Lougheed era PCs philosophically, including the Alberta Liberals, The Alberta Party and the Green Party.  Simply put, none of those parties had the electoral presence.  Both David Swann and Greg Clark are well liked and respected, but their parties have been struggling to be heard at all.  The fact that no other centre-left party had a full slate of candidates running didn't help those parties either.  Not to be overly dismissive, as both the Liberals and Alberta Party represent a very centrist vision that we should pay attention to, but the damage to the Liberal brand in Alberta has been so severe that the word itself is almost a swear word for many Albertans.

Ms. Notley delivered a solid campaign which responded to many of the expressed concerns of Albertans.  When candidates who seemingly didn't even campaign at all got elected, it was clear that the vote was primarily on the strength of Ms. Notley's presence and clarity.  As much as the right wing desperately tried to scare voters away from the NDP, most voters clearly were looking for change.  Was this a "protest" vote as some have claimed? Only in part, but saying it was a protest vote is to dismiss the votes of those who voted for the NDP because they represented a vision that they believe in.  I think that Albertans declared that there was a limit to how far into the unfeeling corporatism that has infested the right wing of politics they are willing to embrace.  

A Little Heresy - Alberta Style

So, according to Premier Prentice, the downturn in oil prices is going to create an $11 Billion hole in provincial revenues, and is now talking about putting the brakes on all kinds of infrastructure spending, including a new cancer hospital in Calgary.

Okay, that's a significant chunk of change.  Let's talk about this for a moment.

As the leader of the governing party, Mr. Prentice has a responsibility to all Albertans to ensure that the machinery of government continues to operate smoothly.  Over the last 25 years, we have seen the government make further tax cuts all over the place, in particular to the benefit of corporations, but also introducing a rather ridiculous 'flat tax' income tax scheme.

Every time, the government has tied itself even more so to the revenues from resource royalties to fund programs.

Mr. Prentice, you want to balance the books?  Here's how you do it.  Take a long look at all of the possible revenue sources the government has access to.  Not just tar sands royalties (which are, a pittance because your predecessors cut them to almost nothing).

First, Mr. Prentice, you need to take a long, hard look at the taxation system.  Are the corporations who do business in Alberta paying their fair share?  No?  Then we need to design a taxation system that ensures that they do, especially since so many of the corporations are basically funnelling monies out of Alberta and Canada as quickly as they can.

Second, we need to look at what the individual income tax system does.  Is a 10% flat tax ensuring that we are taxing incomes fairly across the board?  Or do we need to return to the graduated system that was developed in the 1950s?  (Hint:  probably)

Third, and here's where I commit heresy, you need to take a longer range view and determine the means to stabilize provincial revenues so that we are insulated from the vagaries of the resource markets.  This may mean, *gasp*, implementing a sales tax (like damn near every other jurisdiction in the world) that sits in line with the GST, but is not harmonized with it - we don't want to hand control over those revenues over to Ottawa either.

Oh yes, and you need to shed this fetish that conservatives have developed lately with "Public Private Partnerships" and start thinking about long term debt financing instruments like bond funds again.  PPPs just hang the taxpayer with long term operating costs and leases.  One thing that Redford had done (although clumsily) was to structure our finances with a distinction between long term infrastructure costs and operating costs.  That's a distinction that matters, and we need to shed this silly "debt is bad" mantra - yesterday.  Long term debt that is used for purchasing infrastructure is not a bad thing.  It never was.

Alberta needs to funnel every dime it gets in resource revenues into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Now.  In a couple of decades we can use the investment income off that fund to sustain the entirety of the government (hint:  take a long look at Norway).  In the meantime, let's use all of the instruments of revenue collection available to the government so that we can actually have a reasonable standard of living for the PEOPLE of this province.  

On The WRP Collapse

Much has been made of the WRP's collapse in Alberta this past week.  Everything from speculation about the role of various people, to Ms. Smith more or less admitting that she was being undermined by the Social Conservative rump of the party.  

Back when the WRP was just getting itself going, and Ms. Smith was a mere candidate for the leadership, I had thought that the WRP was going to follow the same trajectory that Preston Manning's Reform party had back in the 80s.  Start off with some reasonable, if unrealistic dreams about a more open, democratic government; fall into the intellectual trap of libertarianism and get subverted by the far right religious nuts.  (... and yes, that's still visible today in Harper's CPC, just look across his front bench and the policies they have implemented - religious privilege and the associated discrimination, bigotry and racism are there)

In the 2012 election, the initial response of Ms. Smith to the "bozo eruptions", in particular the "Lake of Fire" nonsense, was naively libertarian.  "Oh, it's just an opinion.  He's entitled to that" - I've heard that before.  It is the chink in the libertarian armour that the religious right leverages every time.  It almost sounds reasonable: "Oh, but they're infringing upon our right to express an opinion".  As far as I was concerned, Ms. Smith was done as party leader at that point, the question was more one of time.

Even though Ms. Smith might be a (relative) moderate, the fact is that the religious right simply is not capable or interested in "moderate" anything.  They are sold on a particular worldview that includes imposing their theology on the country.

However, the point of this post is not to go on another rant about the impact of the religious right in Alberta politics.

Floor crossings happen in our political system.  I'm not going to make declarations about whether they are "good" or "bad".  I think in the big picture, we have to look at the consequences of the events which have transpired.

A total of 9 MLAs crossed the floor, following 3 other defections from the WRP in the last few months, giving the governing PCs control over 72 of the seats in the legislature, and leaving a total of about 16 MLAs sitting in the opposition benches.

Alberta has a long, troubling history of electing overwhelming majority governments, going back to the Lougheed era.  Under Ralph Klein, things got even uglier, with the majorities seemingly larger and larger and the legislature sitting for even fewer days each year.  Often just long enough to ram whatever legislation was on the agenda through the procedural hoops.  Few people in Alberta are aware of how much legislation gets pushed through without any kind of meaningful debate, although the rushed processing of Bill 10 last month might have finally opened a few eyes to the reality.

The nearly 30 seat opposition elected in 2012 was the first time in decades that this province has had any effective opposition at all.  Most of the time, the opposition benches have been occupied by an intrepid dozen or so MLAs and that's it.  Their voices muffled by the sheer volume that the PCAA has been able to push into the media.

What we should be concerned about in Alberta is the rise of "single party" politics and how it has stifled debate in this province.  People don't talk about politics.  It's almost considered subversive just to criticize the governing PCs in conversation.  Why?  Because until Stelmach, everybody "liked" Ralph Klein.  "Oh, he's not that bad, he seems like such a nice guy" would be the response to criticism.  Fortunately, neither Stelmach nor Redford were terribly likeable, and Prentice comes across as a bit too corporate, so hopefully this will start to thaw the chill on political debate in this province.

In our system of government, an active and vocal opposition is essential.  Prentice would have railroaded Bill 10 through if it hadn't been for a very loud public outcry against it, not just in the legislature, but on Twitter and in just about every other form of media.  The only thing that stands between a Premier with a majority and despotism is an active, informed and engaged opposition.  The Premier should feel uncomfortable at all times.  Every bill should be subject to amendment and improvement in the process.  Not just pushed through with whipped votes.

When the 9 WRP MLAs crossed the floor to sit with the governing PCs, they damaged their own party, but more seriously, they gave Prentice such overwhelming control over the legislature that he can effectively ignore public outcry over anything.  He knows full well that in a year's time, most people will have forgotten about today's outrage anyhow.

This is not good for our democracy.  We've seen that with how Harper has done things in Ottawa in recent years.  While he had a minority, Harper had to tread very carefully.  Now that he doesn't, there's precious little anyone can do to stop him.  Even the relatively sizeable opposition in Parliament is limited in what it can do.  In Alberta it's even worse.

It is my opinion that Alberta would have been far better served by all involved had the 9 WRP MLAs decided to sit as independents.  We are heading into an economic downturn the likes of which may make the 1980 crash look mild.  Having an overwhelming government majority will do us no favours in dealing with the resulting issues.

Prentice's Bill 10: A Legislative Trojan Horse

There is little doubt that the Prentice government is getting its ass handed to it on the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada with respect to its hastily written Bill 10 counter response to Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman's Bill 202.

After looking at Bill 10 for a little while, I have come to the conclusion that this is far worse than being a simple ham-fisted counter-response to Bill 202, it is in fact a legislative Trojan Horse which will create enormous problems in Alberta for years to come ... at least until someone has the political spine to remove S11.1 and a couple of other clauses that are being slipped in.

Let's take a closer look at how Bill 10 will change Alberta's Bill of Rights, shall we?

Off the top, the government wishes to amend S1 of the act.  Before Bill 10, S1 reads as follows:

Recognition and declaration of rights and freedoms
1 It is hereby recognized and declared that in Alberta there exist

without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely:


(a) the right of the individual to liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;

(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;

(c) freedom of religion;

(d) freedom of speech; 

(e) freedom of assembly and association;

(f) freedom of the press.

After Bill 10, this will read as follows (emphasis added to changes):

Recognition and declaration of rights and freedoms
1 It is hereby recognized and declared that in Alberta there exist

without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely:


(a) the right of the individual to liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;

(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;

(c) freedom of religion;

(d) freedom of speech; 

(e) freedom of assembly and association;

(f) freedom of the press.

(g) the right of parents to make informed decisions respecting the education of their children. 

Please note, this is not the Alberta Human Rights Act, but the more foundational BILL OF RIGHTS. Section 2 of the Bill of Rights legislation clearly states that all other legislation in Alberta is assumed to operate in compliance with this act unless specifically stated to do so.  In other words, the Bill of Rights is one step removed from the Constitution in terms of legal hierarchy.

Whose bright idea was it to slide in clause (g)?  A clause like this will be used by the religious wingnut factions to object to everything from sex ed in schools to teaching evolution in biology classes.  This is a broadening of the effect of Section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act (a different piece of legislation that Minister Blackett amended in 2009.  This will open the door to lawsuits the likes of which we usually hear about coming out of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Section 11.1 exits the Alberta Human Rights Act, but it is far from dead and gone.  Instead it resurfaces in the Education Act as Section 58.

Section 58 exists under the rubric that there is some kind of "parental right" not to have their kids learn about sexuality.  This is nonsense.  It was nonsense in 2009, and it's nonsense today.  As a parent you have an obligation to your children to ensure that they are educated and literate.  There is no "right" to keep your children ignorant about their own bodies and sexualities.

By adding clause (g) to the Alberta Bill of Rights, the Prentice Government has not only reinforced S58, but in fact has opened up every aspect of Alberta's education system to being challenged by anyone who "objects" to some aspect of the curriculum for one reason or another.

It will also place a chill on teachers as a whole, who will find themselves basically threatened with rights challenges at every turn.

Bill 10 does precious little to protect LGBT youth in our schools, as its provisions for the creation of GSAs (and other student led bodies) is such that the obstacles to appeal are far greater than most students would have the ability to effectively enact an appeal of their school's decision, much less taking said appeal up to the level of the provincial courts.

Instead, it further reinforces the worst aspects of what the Stelmach government did to the Alberta Human Rights Act in 2009, and deepens a set of legislative clauses which are a sop to the narrow-mindedness of a small group of Albertans who seem to think that their religious beliefs have something to say about how children should learn.

Revisions:

3/12/14 11:24   Corrected link to Alberta Bill of Rights instead of Alberta Human Rights Act

An Open Letter To Jim Prentice

Dear Mr. Prentice,

In responding to MLA Laurie Blakeman's Bill 202 as you did, you have just thrown LGBT students under the political bus AGAIN.

Let me be abundantly clear here.  Clause 11.1 one of the Alberta Human Rights legislation does not "protect" the rights of anyone.  It creates an environment where teachers are afraid to talk freely about sexuality that isn't straight "missionary position heterosexual".

By allowing for a "conscience exemption", you force teachers to go running to parents for "permission" to  talk about these topics.  Guess what?  That sends a message to students that being LGBT is somehow "bad" or "illicit" - something to be ashamed of.  Surely in today's world we know better than that.

Parents who wail and moan about their right to "protect" their innocent little child from these "evils" are doing nothing more than propagating their own ignorance and discomfort with matters of sexuality.  They aren't going to have an honest discussion with their children about sexuality, they're going to repeat the very narrow viewpoint that they have, which is often informed not by facts and rational evidence but by religious doctrine.  Remember, the vast majority of the discrimination and hate that is aimed at LGBT people in our society has its roots in religious dogma.

Yes, as parents they are free to teach their children whatever religious dogma they wish at home.  They are not free to deny their children free and open access to objective, evidence-based knowledge.  Schools which object to students giving each other moral support through mechanisms like Gay-Straight Alliances do so not because they have a religious objection with any validity.  They do it out of fear that their particular little narrow viewpoint of the world is somehow threatened by treating all of society's citizens as equals.

The rights and safety of LGBT Albertans are no less rights than the religious freedoms of Albertans or those of parents.  A child growing up gay in a religious home has the same right to a safe place at school that acknowledges their sexual identity as real and valid as a straight child.

It isn't hard to guess the political calculation that went into this decision.  You looked, smelled blood in the water from the Wild Rose party's recent disasters and decided to throw LGBT students under the political bus in hopes of securing a little more the religious vote that had gone over the WRP in the last several years.

Using students as a political football is appalling enough.  Doing so with students who are part of a tiny minority population is reprehensible, Mr. Prentice.

I urge you to pass Bill 202 in its full form as it stands today.  Man up, and do the right thing by LGBT students in this province, and take steps that remove discrimination from the system.

Sincerely,