(Edit: for clarity--this post was a response to Senator Clay Davis' post at the top of this page)
Well, her WR opponents want to have it both ways: she's both responsible for the misdeeds of the PCs (some of which date back to the Klein years, such as the no-meet committee business) AND she's a radical-liberal-feminist out to tax you into oblivion and make you pay for universal daycare and cradle-to-grave entitlements.
Well, you can't have it both ways. She's one or she's the other. I have no intention of voting PC anyway, but even I can see that the WR critique of the PCs is utterly incoherent.
Which I guess means that it matches the remainder of their platform.
Here's my challenge to the Wild Rose: if you are truly a populist party, and not the re-incarnation of the old-guard Tories, then you should have no problem coming out strongly in favour of proportional representation.
It's the ideal grassroots form of democracy; it encourages widespread political participation across party affiliations and socio-economic backgrounds, and promotes governance that is truly connected with the foundational norms that are most important to people. It also forces governments to be more conciliatory and less ideological and may in that way discourage the "American-style" negative campaigning that we've seen from the two major parties in this election.
I'll even say this: if you will put forward a serious platform plank, advocating prop. rep., you will have my vote. Until then, my conclusion is that the "change" you represent is the change that you find convenient, not the change that our democracy needs. You're about to win a majority (in all likelihood) in spite of the fact that nearly 60% of Albertans will have voted for somebody else. If that strikes you as fair, then you're not populists at all, but establishment Tories running under a new banner, wrapping yourself in the flag of populism in a cynical ploy to get votes. You're no better than the old Tories, and you may (for all we know) be worse.
First Lady: what can you tell me about Wild Rose's opinions regarding proportional representation? (And don't tell me that I can start a citizen's referendum by collecting a bajillion signatures. I'm talking about meaningful electoral reform here.)
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