I thought I'd come to the party late and congratulate Kent Hehr for his win in Calgary Buffalo last night. He ran an amazing campaign, and made the word "Liberal" work in the heart of oil country. We won polls in the riding that we never win; and won by larger margins than Sheldon Chumir or Gary Dickson ever did! It was exciting, and made all of the sacrifices worthwhile!! Kent will be a phenomenal MLA, and the constituents of Calgary Buffalo are lucky to have such accessible and effective representation.
In other parts it was horrific to say the least. Unless you voted PC your votes are unaccounted for and voices are really not heard. I will be drafting a bill to push for electoral reform, or at the very least a citizens panel on electoral reform. PC's get 54% of the vote and 86% of the seats...not democracy at all, no matter how you define it!
I have to comment on the Liberal Party of Alberta vs. the Federal Liberals as well. Suffice it to say that the Liberals are not as well received as we would like in Alberta...but changing the name is grasping at straws. Fact is if the campaign was run properly this discussion wouldn't be taking place. The provincial Liberal campaign should've switched from a theme of "Its Time" to something more like "We're Ready" once the electorate was mobilized towards change (which by my estimation was at about Day 2). With this new theme the focus would go from saying "We need an alternative" to saying "Choose us as the alternative". Basically the message I wanted to see here was "Put us in and we won't screw up a good thing". Fact is that while a large percentage believed that an alternative was needed, no party was able to capture that force and implement it effectively.
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