Democracy in Alberta?
Author: admin | Date: March 18, 2008 | Please Comment!The provincial election is past and many of us are scratching our heads. It appears that we have lost our democracy. 41% of eligible voters actually voted. It’s true that the Conservatives got their supporters to the polls – but that was only 22% of elibible voters; and it translated into over 87% of the seats in the Legislature! Whatever else one wants to interpret, the electoral system is not working for Albertans and needs to be fixed – ASAP!
Two key issues need to be addressed by all politicians:Â
1. the need for a public review of the electoral system and consideration of a form of proportional representation (PR) where all votes count
2. the need to connect with grassroots people and groups to revive their trust and commitment to the political process.
We owe it to all Albertans to seriously review this most fundamental principle of civil society; how the people connect with and hold accountable their elected government.
I will be working hard in the weeks ahead to reach out to all my constituents and other Albertans to reinvigorate democracy in Alberta. Please let me know your thoughts on how we can be successful together in this endeavor.
Sincerely,
David
8:59 pm on March 20th, 2008
Hang in there pilgrim.
Unseating an incumbent government in booming economic times is difficult. It’s even harder in a province that exports many of its liberal activists and bloggers, artists, film-makers and musicians (Dan “Calgary Grit†Arnold, like him/hate him Warren Kinsella, Fiest, Tegan and Sara, James Keelaghan, etc.) and has them replaced 3 to 1 with newcomers who want to get rich quick, not pay taxes, nor put down roots. On top of that the Tories have a list of all the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people who voted in their recent leadership contest and the money to phone each and every one of them. (I know cause they called me three times and the voice on the other end sounded like a Yankee.)
So what do we do? Number 1: don’t panic. Number 2: don’t beat ourselves up. Number 3: I like the name “Liberal†It’s time we reclaimed it. The NEP was 25 years ago and was brought in by the Feds. Tories who complain about the NEP just sound old. Furthermore the NEP was the smallest of the four horsemen of the economic apocalypse that happened in the Eighties. A world recession; oil prices in the low teens; and interests rates in the mid-teens are what really did us in. In fact if you take the ratio of the price of a barrel of oil in US dollars against the prime rate in percent and compare it then (1 to 1) with now (1 to 20, at least) it’s little wonder that many Albertans lost their homes then.
We had many issues with which to confront the government in this latest election. Do I need to list them? The EUB spying on it’s own citizens; 7 billion dollars of uncollected resource revenue; the under-funding of public health care in Calgary… But ultimately the people decided this year was not the time to change. But there will be a time. About a decade ago there was hospital a few blocks from where I live. The Tories blew it up. Against all logic the very next election the Tory MLA from here was easily reelected. But the election after that he was soundly defeated by a political neophyte – a nobody. Why did it take 2 elections to punish the Tories in Mountain View? I guess we Liberals needed to learn patience.
10:19 am on April 29th, 2008
I think I know why nobody trusts the political process. It’s because Canadians are smarter than they make us look on CBC, and the process isn’t trustworthy! We can sense very major fundamental problems, whether or not we can put a finger on what exactly those problems may be.
The problem with our government is that it is still a constitutional monarchy. That is, it’s set up by the Queen FOR the Queen and she’s still technically in charge. Actually not just technically; she arbitrarily increased the number of seats in the house to ensure enough votes to pass the GST, then reduced the seats again: She can pass any law this way, circumnavigating the minimal restrictions on her Royal Prerogative. (If people don’t mind the Queen, wait until she passes on and Charles is our monarch…then, I expect, the people will revolt)
Many significant changes have been won by Canadians over the years, but the system remains, beneath its new trimmings, the system of the British Empire, and it is one still in place in 15 separate monarchies besides England. (The Commonwealth – what does that name mean, by the way?) Things have been added haphazardly to the political process to make our role appear more meaningful, such as voting, our own constitution, etc., but in reality the government always gets what it wants and the people are often swept aside.
We’re encouraged to participate in politics as long as our involvement is lackadaisical. Go out and vote, but don’t do any reading first. Go through the motions of running your life, but don’t get too involved.
People can see that if their interest in politics becomes too contrary to what the government has in mind, their voice will be quieted to the point of extinction in blunt and obvious ways, such as happened with the GST debacle. When it really comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what we want, and people can sense this in their hearts. The laws the rich men want pass, the ones they don’t rarely get off the ground. Don’t believe me? Try and start a union in Alberta. Try and start a wind power company.
(Assuming voters who stay home are the same as those who make it to the polls,) Higher voter turnout does not affect the election outcome, it simply affects people’s sense of involvement in government. Picture votes distributed on a graph; it might form a bell curve with the most popular candidate, David Swann (of course), in the center. More voters just means a bigger bell curve, not a different distribution. However, changing the way the votes are tallied, for example to a more representative method, has a major impact.
PS David Swann is not legally permitted to bring up this discussion of the monarchy, or anything affecting her interests, in parliament, without the prior permission from the Queen herself. So don’t bother demanding he raise the issue. He can’t.