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Originally Posted by Ford Prefect
Three more years of Stelmach's band of jolly ranchers before we can do anything about them. Alberta could be pretty screwed up by then.
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Actually, worse. we are not legally obligated to be subjected to an election until 2013.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Delgar
I'd be interested to hear Jane, how you think a WRA government could stick together and be a viable government if it didn't punish its members for straying from the party line...
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i think it depends on who wins the leadership race. if danielle smith wins, then we look at a change. we look at someone who respects her caucus and their points of view before it escalates into something of this scale. what has happened here isn't the fact that you can't disagree with stelmach, stelmach has simply become so insecure about his current positioning that he has no tolerance or strength to actually dialogue with the members of his party that were prominent players during the klein years. he is simply trying too hard to try and make people forget about ralph because he was wildly popular at one time, essentially being too blind to see that he shouldn't concern himself with it because klein's popularity was decreasing anyways. the only people he'll allow to dissent in caucus are those who are in his innermost circle.
think about it, sure boutilier went public, but probably because stelmach mishandled it in private caucus. you are right, caucus is the forum to disagree, but do you think other leaders who haven't had to remove members from caucus were never disagreed with? the problem is this government is out of touch. stelmach would also see less feedback in caucus if his member's believed publicly the party was acting properly, or if he did indeed listen to the majority of his caucus.
ie, i went to the pork producers of alberta pork lunch at the macdougall center a couple weeks ago. the lunch began at noon on the lawn, and the kicker was that there was a PC caucus meeting in the macdougall center that convened for lunch. only one PC mla attended. he made a speech that basically amounted to "we know there's a problem right now for pork producers. we don't know what we're going to do yet, but golly gee, we're going to do something." then two MLAs (including lindsay blackett, champion of bill 44) showed up once the actual program was over, took food as it was being taken down, and left immediately.
absolutely deplorable. agriculture, while clearly not as big as energy, is still a BIG part of alberta. truth is, not that i harken back to the days of ralph as our answer, that during the bse scare in 2003 that killed ranchers in alberta, ralph and a large member of PC mlas attended beef on a bun lunches everywhere.
or take bill 44 as an example, well over 50 members of PC caucus brought it to stelmach to extend positive rights and what people can and should be able to do, he and his inner circle didn't like it and flipped it around to protect negative rights and to restrict people's actions and beliefs.
stelmach doesn't want caucus dissention and apparently will not tolerate it with boutilier's ousting, but yet he doesn't want to get along with his caucus or their concensus. of course boutilier's mad, in a time of recession, a spending project that was economically prudent in his own riding that could have saved money was torched. he probably did try handling it properly in caucus and the 'no' he received from stelmach was probably rude and undiplomatic enough that it sent him to the moon.
good politicians can say no and still have people follow them and build concensus. having met danielle smith, she is incredibly capable of this, and that is the wild rose's only chance. if dyrholm wins the leadership. erm. well. let's just call him intolerant. his website proclaims that he's not "running on any hidden agenda". the fact he feels the need to go out of his way to point this out frightens me. last i checked, no party in alberta has ever had to hide an agenda from albertans, only when alberta based parties have tried to market themselves federally have they had to defend against "hidden agendas". so if he is feeling the need to defend himself against such things to albertans, that scares me.